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Steele dossier: politically motivated blackmail created by Obama/Brennan "Trumpo Task Force"

FBI Mayberry Machiavellians went va bank and lost. Dossier was a part of a covert operation (Intelgate) to fuel anti-Russian hysteria to exonerate Hillary (and  deprive Sanders of a chance to represent Dems) and later get FISA warrant to spy on Trump team during elections and appoint the Special Prosecutor after the elections.  Professor Stephen Cohen thinks that Brennan played the key role: it was an alliance of CIA and FBI. Fusion GPS was the tools and Steele looks just a patsy who was fed the information by Sidney Blumenthal

Hat tip to The Last Refuge

News Russiagate -- a color revolution against Trump by neocons and DemoRats Recommended Links Brennan's  "Trump Task Force" and its elections machinations Strzokgate Does Great Britain attempts to rig the US elections? Coordinated set of leaks as a color revolution tool Special Prosecutor Mueller and his fishing expedition FBI contractor Fusion GPS
Final report of Special procecutor Mueller is a failed hatchet job: disingenuous and dishonest Andrew McCabe -- the brain behind the color Revolution against Trump FBI Mayberry Machiavellians Stephan Halper and attempts to entrap members of Trump team Joseph Misfud and MI6 connection to Russiagate Deripaska and Steele connection Carter Page Fake tale about Smolenkov as "Kremlin spy" who provided info for Steele dossier Attempts to entrap Trump
CIA hacking and false flag cyber operations American intelligence services putsch against Trump "Seventeen agencies" memo about Russian influence on elections Appointment of a Special Prosecutor gambit Wiretaps of Trump and his associates during Presidential elections DNC and Podesta emails leak: blaming Vladimir Putin Clapper role in putsch Do the US intelligence agencies  influence the US Presidential elections ? Is national security state in the USA gone rogue
Anti-Russian hysteria in connection emailgate and DNC leak FBI and CIA contractor Crowdstrike and DNC leak saga Amorality and criminality of neoliberal elite  Audacious Oligarchy and "Democracy for Winners" Control of the MSM during color revolution is like air superiority in the war MSM as fake news industry NeoMcCartyism Infiltration of Trump campaign Rosenstein role in the appointment of special Prosecutor gambit
Anti Trump Hysteria Trump vs. Deep State   NGOs as braintrust of color revolutions The Real War on Reality Media as a weapon of mass deception Inside "democracy promotion" hypocrisy fair Two Party System as polyarchy History of American False Flag Operations
Luke Harding: a pathetic author of rehash of Steele Dossier book Hillary Clinton email scandal US and British media are servants of security apparatus Neocon foreign policy is a disaster for the USA Media-Military-Industrial Complex New American Militarism Neoliberalism as a New Form of Corporatism Bernie Sanders betrayal of his supporters Elite Theory And the Revolt of the Elite
MSM as an attack dogs of color revolution The Deep State The Iron Law of Oligarchy National Security State Color revolutions Militarism and reckless jingoism of the US neoliberal elite Skeptic Quotations Politically Incorrect Humor Hypocrisy and Pseudo-democracy

Introduction

Fusion GPS eventually produced the trash, a lurid account written by the former British MI6 intelligence agent Christopher Steele, based on hearsay purchased from anonymous Russian sources. Amid prostitutes and golden showers, a story emerged: the Russian government had been blackmailing and bribing Donald Trump for years, on the assumption that he would become president some day and serve the Kremlin’s interests. In this fantastic tale, Putin becomes a preternaturally prescient schemer.

Like other accusations of collusion, this one has become vaguer over time, adding to the murky atmosphere without ever providing any evidence.... Yet the FBI apparently took the Steele dossier seriously enough to include a summary of it in a secret appendix to the Intelligence Community Assessment.

Jackson Lears, What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking, Jan 4, 2018, LRB

The motive within the FBI/DOJ surveillance of the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump is simple. However, to understand how they did it – the story becomes more complex

The Last Refuge

The Steele dossier is not a single document  but a series of memos which were ordered by Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS (currently under investigation by House intelligence committee) and by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele (born 1964) for enumeration of around $160K.  Steele delivered a total of 16 reports to Fusion GPS between June and early November 2016. All of them found way to FBI almost immediately. That raises several questions about the role of FBI in Steele dossier creation and propagation, as well as the question: was Steele an FBI operative? The latter question is still actively discussed after the release of Nunes memo. See Nunes FISA Memo scandal

As of August 2018 there is a strong suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.

Steele dossier is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they were  way out of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and , on British side, Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate measures to cover their backsides after Trump election and use "insurance" in the form of Mueller appointment to keep Trump in check until the moment he can be deposed.  In other way Steele dossier became one of the central issues of the color revolution against Trump launched by the Deep state immediately after the election.   In this sense intelligence agencies now operate as forth branch of government

Also various parts of the dossier probably were authored by different authors, including probably some turncoats from Russian intelligence now residing in the USA and/or UK. In this sense Skripal affair looks like MI6 attempt to silence one of the possible sources.

Steele dossier and Skripalmania are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised and not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time. They put all bets of Hillary and miscalculated that Trump might be the winner. 

Steele was used by FBI for discreditation operations
long before Steele dossier (in case of FIFA scandal)

Steele is not some unknown to FBI player. He was a member of old McCabe squad and it is possible that it was McCabe at the request of Brennan  who ordered this hit job to Steele and try to mask it via Fusion GPS (via Bruce Ohr or other channels). So McCabe might well be in the center of this scandal (Trump Dossier Author Christopher Steele Worked With FBI's McCabe & DOJ's Ohr on Russian Organized Crime Long Before 2016 Election):

...Steele was well known by the Bureau and CIA long before that and shared Intel with both agencies on cases with British links, especially dealing with MI6's interest in Russian Organized crime, federal law enforcement sources said. It is little wonder the Justice Department and the FBI refuse to release any documents dealing with Steele. Or the payments from government coffers -- including the FBI -- to Steele or Fusion GPS.

We are getting definitive Intel from FBI and federal law enforcement sources that Christopher Steele worked with the FBI when he was a MI6 Agent working Russian Organized Crime. Before his retirement from the British spy agency. That's the same desk and the exact same time frame FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe worked before coming the Washington, D.C., heading up the FBI Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force in Manhattan, along with NYPD Intel sources and resources. And on the Justice Department side, also in New York at the very same time, Bruce Ohr was working organized crime for the DOJ in the Southern District of New York, beginning in the 1990s through the identical timeline of Steele and McCabe. That's the same Bruce Ohr who was just demoted at DOJ for conducting secret meetings with Fusion GPS, who hired Steele to write the Trump Dossier. And Fusion GPS also hired Ohr's wife, a former CIA employee.

"You're finding that they all worked together," one FBI source said. "That's huge." If you wonder how Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson met Steele, look no further than Ohr. Or Ohr's wife. Or McCabe. Ohr ran the DOJ's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section from 1999 to 2011, mostly out of New York City. McCabe ran the FBI Eurasian Task Force up until 2006. Ohr's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section and the FBI were debriefed by Steele in London in 2010 on the FIFA corruption crime scheme, a major case for the DOJ. According to the Guardian, Steele trekked to Rome in 2010 to also swap Intel on FIFA with a FBI contact from its Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force. That was McCabe's old squad.

Christopher Steele is facing trial in the London High Court, charged with libels he and Simpson published in their dossier. Together with Simpson (co-owner of FBI contractor a private intelligence firm, Fusion GPS) they are material witnesses in two federal US court trials for defamation, one in Miami and one in New York. In both cases they face Catch22 situation:

But how petty American ex-journalist and an ex-British intelligence agent can get access to Russian undercover operations outside Russia in general and talks between highly placed Russian officials? The most probably answer is that this was not an "information" but  wild and unsubstantiated rumors from émigré community (and first of all from Russian intelligence turncoats living in the USA and GB), neocon Russophobes, Ukrainian sources (which might be really cheap those days).

Probably Steele  enjoyed some help from their friends and contacts in MI6, so here we clearly have the case of foreign interference in the US elections.  A false flag operations against Soviets and, lately, Russians are commonplace. CIA actually has a long history of fabricating accusations against Soviets ("bombs shaped as toys" in Afghanistan, etc). Two recent cases such as Litvinenko death, Magnitsky affair (According to Nekrasov's film Browder was a financial shark stealing Russian assets during Yeltsin periodmand might be involved in killing account (whom he disingeniously presented as a lawyer) Sergey Magnistky to cover the tracks; Browder was most probably connected to MI6 as now new information surfaced about his involvement with promoting Navalny during 2011-2012 color revolution in Russia; no respectable businessman would play such a dangerous political game). Skripal poisoning also raise a lot of questions.

Here is the summary of Christopher Steele biography

From his biography, especially FIFA story,  Steele emerged as a political hitman, master of blackmail and disinformation disguised as intelligence.  

Steele dossier was instrumental in unleashing neo-McCarthyism campaign in the USA.  The initial purpose was probably creating a pretext for establishing  surveillance on  the members of Trump team (as "insurance" for blackmail in case of Trump victory; McCabe  after all came from the unit which was fighting Russian organized crime in NYC (which is ethnically is by-and-large Jewish and Caucasian) and as such clearly knows the methods really well. But later it acquired its own momentum and became the way to whitewash Hillary Clinton political fiasco and blame it on Putin like some  kind of "Deus Ex Machina" that can save the power of the corrupt to the core Clinton wing of Democratic Party from the anger of voters, switching this anger on Russians. At some point a color revolution against Trump was launched using Russiagate charges instead of typical voting fraud. This information is one search "McCabe and MI6" away, but you will never read about this in Neoliberal MSM like WaPo, or NYT ;-)

In New York Andrew McCabe has close contacts with MI6 (Steele) and Justice Department (Bruce Ohr).  Among their joint achievements was retribution on FIFA for not voting for the USA to host World Football Championship, which let to resignation of FIFA President and several convictions in National football associations in Latin America.  In which Steele played an important role. Like in saying "For friends everything, for enemies the law". We now see all those players in Steele dossier saga, and this is probably not accidental. Christopher Steele, Andrew McCabe and Bruce Ohr probably know each other for years.

Generally the plot concentrates on FBI and MI6 agents involved with Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force. Some ask a legitimate question: whether McCabe was the real initiator of involving Steele in digging dirt on Trump, because he knew him form his previous work and recommended him to Fusion GPS (for example via Ohr). In other words, did McCabe use his contacts in the Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force to facilitate the direct intervention of FBI into the US Presidential elections?

Christopher Steele looks more and  more like a patsy of more powerful forces, not an independent investigator. Judging from his FIFA activities his specialty is closer to bulling  and blackmail extended to sport venues than intelligence (although blackmail is a specialty of intelligence agencies).  He also might be compromised by being on FBI payroll which is big no-no for any British citizen and, especially, for former MI6 agent.  

He did served in Moscow in 1990th for three years (which is not sufficient for in-depth understanding of Russia -- this requires at least a decade of physical presence in the country) So his  experience with Russian was experience with corrupt Yeltsin regime and happened more then 20 years ago. He left Russia before Putin came to power. Steele does not know Russian language so as his value as a Russian expert is very limited. For obvious reasons he can't travel to Moscow. Any MI6 person is  a "persona non grata" and any contacts with him would be avoided as plague by any current of former Russian official including Putin opposition.  So the only independent of intelligence  source channel via which he can get some current information were rumors overhead from Russian emigrant community in London. Any hypothesis this his about his ability to talk to former highly placed FSB officers of Russian government officials are just a smoke screen to hide his complete dependence on other agencies for information. He essentially was a co-founder of rumor spreading mill/blackmailing  agency for some hidden player,  not so much a intelligence research firm.  He has no friends in Russia and even a phone call from him or anybody from his firm is a "poisoned ivy" to any Russian for obvious reasons: talking to him might well be a "career limiting move".   I think that any suggestion that he has  his own contacts (or even network of contacts) in Moscow is ridiculously stupid and is a blatant lie, unless we are talking about a bunch of alcoholics in London pubs.

Also he does not have enough money to conduct investigation on his own (but still might get some info via Ukraine as those sources are really cheap)  so most probably he served as a patsy of more powerful and more sinister forces (including probably his former employee). That why he went into hiding from January till March 2017 and it is unclear whom he fear more (as in "Moor did his duty, Moor has to go"). He understood quite well the elimination of him would dramatically boost the dossier credibility.  Or that was just a PR move to increase status of his "dossier" (should not it be more properly called "intelligence community rumors sewer" ? )

So the second  question arise: who supplied his with all this dirt and played him like a patsy (or more correctly as hired gun --  he got at least $170K for the job)? One very interesting fact is that the dossier instantly found its way to FBI and probably was used by FBI in their attempts to derail Trump.  But it reached higher levels of the US government too which is pretty suspicious for such a crude hatchet job. That suggests Brennan or Clapper sponsorships as well.  They probably used it to create the famous 17 intelligence agencies memo -- another hit job against Trump and attempt to blackmail Russians. This "memo" created by handpicked by Brennan analysis's (which most probably included Peter Strzok)   was used for unleashing really McCarthyism style campaign in neoliberal and neocon parts of US MSM (which mean in the lion share of US MSMs).

Moreover, in early January 2017 a two-page summary of the Trump dossier was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in meetings with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. On Jan 10, BuzzFeed, a fiercely pro-Clinton outlet,  pushed the full document (with minor redactions).  Even before that  Obama fueled anti-Russian hysteria expelling Russian diplomats. That suggests that Obama was the player in this whole "matter" (to use the term which  Loretta Lynch suggested to Comey as for Hillary emailgate scandal)

In November 2017 Luke Harding, a former Guardian correspondent in Moscow published a book Collusion Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win, which represents a rehash of the dossier with some details that contradict Steele testimonies in court (see  Luke Harding: a pathetic author of rehash of Steele Dossier book). 

The Steele dossier contains series of unproven and salacious allegations of  Donald Trump and try to implicate Trump with the "collision" the Russian government during the 2016 US presidential election (which was dirty Clinton strategy at the time designed switch attention from emailgate, DNC scandal, including killing of Seth Rich and Hillary health problems). This strategy was aided and abetted by certain elements in FBI, Justice Department and CIA. The contents of the one variant of the dossier was published BuzzFeed on January 10, 2017 just before Trump inauguration and was just one of a series of well coordinated and damaging leaks that hamper Trump administration the first six month of its existence and led to the appointment of special prosecutor in May, 2017.  For some  lies in the dossier BuzzFeed and Steele was already sued by Russian tech entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev (spelling??), who was mentioned in the dossier and well as owners of Alfa Bank: 

The Steele dossier saga is closely connected with the activities of the "gang of three" in FBI (Comey, McCabe and Strzok).  This part of the story is often is referred to as Strzokgate (the term introduced by Alexander Mercouris in his article Strzok-gate and the Mueller cover-up  written Dec 10, 2017). There are at five issues that are encompassed by this term, as used on this site:

  1. Corruption in performing private email server investigation by pro-Clinton wing of FBI.  Look like "the gang of three" has been not only hell-bent on "saving the country from Trump" but also saving the country from Sanders.  That's the most important part of Strzok-gate where  "the gang of three" really influenced the US Presidential election, because indictment of Hillary would result in Sanders becoming the candidate from Democratic Party.
  2. Using Steele dossier as a ram to spy on Trump and his associates to get dirt on them as "insurance".
  3. Using Steele dossier to fuel "Russia-gate" witch hunt (in close cooperation with CIA Brennan and Clapper)
  4. Trying the witch hunt resulting  from Russiagate" to blackmail some former Trump associates (Flynn removal) and implicate Trump in Russian ties.
  5. Participating is the "appointment of the special Prosecutor"  gambit. That includes criminal "Comey leaks".

Was Christopher Steele a paid asset of FBI? Will Christopher Steele Be Charged in the UK as a Spy?

We all remember that Christopher  Steele went into hiding after the release of the memo and then after just three months suddenly reemerged. So he has concerns about his life. Such behaviour suggest that there might be something is wrong with his loyalties to his native country. And it might be that during those three month some high level negotiation between Brits and FBI were held. 

The blog Sic Semper Tyrannis provided an interesting analysis of the fact that FBI was adamantly against the release of the memo and an interesting phase in the Nunes memo "Steele was suspended and then TERMINATED AS AN FBI SOURCE.":

Do you want to know why the FBI continued to insist that the Nunes' memo not be declassified and released to the public? The answer is right there on page 2, (see 1b) in the discussion about what was excluded from the application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court:

The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of-and paid by-the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.

I believe that the part in bold is what the FBI wanted out of the memo because it exposes the uncomfortable fact that Christopher Steele was (and had been for some time) a paid asset of the FBI. That is huge news. In other words, Steele was not a mere consultant or sub-contractor for the FBI. He was being paid to provide information/intelligence to the FBI. There are two classes of FBI "informants." One is serving as a "criminal informant" and the other is as an "intelligence asset." Information from "criminal informants" can be used in a U.S. judicial proceeding and the informant called as a witness. Getting money under that circumstance can be problematic because the source's credibility can be impeached by defense counsel, who can argue that the testimony is purloined.

You do not have to worry about that with an "intelligence asset." In that case the priority is protecting the identity of the source. The fact that Steele had been on the FBI payroll for a while sheds new light on Glen Simpson's testimony (which was leaked by Senator Feinstein) to the U.S. Senate. Simpson testified that Steele told him in late September 2016 that the FBI wanted to meet him in Rome to discuss the dossier.  That struck me initially as quite odd. If Steele was just acting as an average "foreign" citizen who was trying to help the FBI then he could easily have met with the Bureau in London. That city hosts the largest number of FBI agents in the world outside of the U.S. But Steele was asked to go meet in Rome. That's what you do when you are meeting an intelligence asset that the Brits do not know about.

Also

The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of-and paid by-the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.

I believe that the part in bold is what the FBI wanted out of the memo because it exposes the uncomfortable fact that Christopher Steele was (and had been for some time) a paid asset of the FBI. That is huge news. In other words, Steele was not a mere consultant or sub-contractor for the FBI. He was being paid to provide information/intelligence to the FBI. There are two classes of FBI "informants." One is serving as a "criminal informant" and the other is as an "intelligence asset." Information from "criminal informants" can be used in a U.S. judicial proceeding and the informant called as a witness. Getting money under that circumstance can be problematic because the source's credibility can be impeached by defense counsel, who can argue that the testimony is purloined.

You do not have to worry about that with an "intelligence asset." In that case the priority is protecting the identity of the source. The fact that Steele had been on the FBI payroll for a while sheds new light on Glen Simpson's testimony (which was leaked by Senator Feinstein) to the U.S. Senate. Simpson testified that Steele told him in late September 2016 that the FBI wanted to meet him in Rome to discuss the dossier. That struck me initially as quite odd. If Steele was just acting as an average "foreign" citizen who was trying to help the FBI then he could easily have met with the Bureau in London. That city hosts the largest number of FBI agents in the world outside of the U.S. But Steele was asked to go meet in Rome. That's what you do when you are meeting an intelligence asset that the Brits do not know about.

That is the problem.

The United States and Great Britain have had a long standing "understanding" or informal agreement to not recruit each others intelligence and law enforcement personnel as intelligence assets. I chatted yesterday with an old intelligence hand (a U.S. person) who was approached by British MI 6 during a TDY to London. My friend rejected the come on and reported the approach to the CIA Chief of Station (aka COS). The COS was angry with the Brits. They were not supposed to do that, nor are we. But sometimes a target is so attractive that very high level permissions to break the agreements are given.

The real irony here is that the Schiff memo is likely to compound the problem for Steele because it is likely to highlight Steele's prior activities on behalf of the Bureau that predate the 2016 election cycle (remember, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016). This is the issue that had FBI Director Wray's panties in a knot. When you sign up a foreign source you vow to protect them. When you expose such a source you make it more difficult to recruit new sources.

There may be another twist to this. Was Steele actually operating as an FBI intel asset with the secret knowledge of the Brits? In other words, was he a double agent or an agent of influence? One way to tell will be watching the reaction of the U.K. authorities now that they know that Steele was a paid FBI informant. Imagine the outrage here if one of the former CIA or FBI talking heads that are appearing on punditry circuit was exposed as someone getting paid by the Russian version of the FBI or CIA. It would be ugly.

Several commenters offered additional thought on this complex issue:

Sylvia 1 said...

This is from an interview in Politico with Victoria Nuland. It seems Mr. Steele was accustomed to dropping by the State Department--and did so in the Summer of 2016 with news of "Russian interference" Since he was already a paid asset of the FBI wouldn't hey have also known of his "work" by then. This may be relevant to the issue of what caused the FBI to open a counter intelligence investigation in July 2016 -- Mr. Steele/Fusion GPS or a drunken Papadopolus?

"In the interview, Nuland said she was familiar with Steele’s work through regular reports he had passed on to her office over the previous several years dealing with political maneuverings in Russia and Ukraine. When presented by an intermediary with the startling information about “linkages” between Trump and Russia that summer, “what I did was say that this is about U.S. politics,” Nuland recounted, “and not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics. So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate whether they thought it was credible.”"

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/05/global-politico-victoria-nuland-obama-216937

wisedupearly Ceo said...

If Steele has been spying on the Brits on behalf of the FBI then he's gone. If he was working his old contacts for non-Brit intel after retiring is that a crime? Hopefully Steele would not approach active assets. Not sure how the spook world sees it.

To make the dossier watertight Steele would have to select believable contacts that could have supplied the information supposedly fed to him by Clinton. Or to put it the other way round, Clinton would have to know what contacts Steele had to generate the "dirt" to match the contacts. Feasible? Likely?

Still waiting for Gowdy to state that the warrant was issued illegally.

robt willmann , 06 February 2018 at 03:33 PM
Well, the House Intel Committee memo, Republican version, says on page 2, lines 7-8:

"Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign [etc.]..."

That is pretty clear: "Steele was a longtime FBI source ...." How long, one might wonder?

Joe100,

Carter Page does appear to be a little odd. He enthusiastically shows up for multiple television interviews grinning quite a bit and seemingly without a care in the world.

The memo has obviously been edited down. The first neon sign I saw was on page 1: "The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC". A FISA order must be renewed every 90 days. Four times 90 is 360 days. Day one was 21 October 2016, the memo tells us. Donald Trump was elected president on 8 November 2016. He was sworn in on 20 January 2017. Carter Page was under surveillance until October 2017, a little over three months ago. On what grounds? Who was he talking to or communicating with, other than the hosts of television shows?

The memo creates the impression that the Steele paper was used in each of the four FISA applications, but that is not completely clear.

Furthermore, the memo clearly says that James Comey signed three FISA applications in question and Andrew McCabe signed one. But when it comes to the Justice Department lawyers, the language gets vague: Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein "each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ". Why not say the exact number each one signed? Is the memo talking only about the four Carter Page applications or other additional applications with respect to the DOJ lawyers?

State Department role in creation of the dossier

[Feb 11, 2018] Confirmed Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal helped spread Russia collusion fever before the election by William A. Jacobson

So State Department took part is creation and dissimilation of Steele dossier
Feb 11, 2018 | legalinsurrection.com

The Clintons created a media and law enforcement echo chamber of Russia collusion.     Earlier this week we wrote about the possible involvement of Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal in feeding information to Christoper Steele, author of the infamous Clinton/DNC funded dossier. That dossier formed a key part of the FBI's presentation to the FISA court to obtain a warrant to surveil Carter Page.

One of the key links in the Blumenthal-Steele stories was former State Department employee Jonathan Winer :

Devin Nunes has a new target: Jonathan Winer, the Obama State Department's special envoy to Libya, and longtime Senate aide to John Kerry. Winer received a memorandum written by political activist Cody Shearer and passed it along to Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence official who had compiled his own dossier on Donald Trump.

The release of last week's House Intelligence Committee memo accusing the FBI of surveillance abuses marked the end of the first phase of Nunes's investigation into the probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now, the committee chair told Fox News on Friday, the probe is moving into "phase two," which involves the State Department. His focus is on the dossier compiled by Shearer, and passed along by Winer, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

That Blumenthal was the source of the information passed on to Winer appeared to be confirmed by Trey Gowdy in an interview with Martha McCallum, Trey Gowdy suggests Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal fed info to Steele weeks before election:

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., strongly implied to Fox News Tuesday night that Clinton family confidant Sidney Blumenthal was a key link in a chain of information that helped create the controversial Trump-Russia dossier.

Gowdy told Fox News' "The Story" that "when you hear who one of the sources of that information is, you're going to think, 'Oh my gosh, I've heard that name somewhere before.'"

When host Martha MacCallum asked if he was referring to Blumenthal, Gowdy answered, "That'd be really warm. You're warm, yeah."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TX3-G39GjiE?start=563&feature=oembed

Winer has published an Op-Ed at WaPo in which he confirms his involvement with Blumenthal, though he downplays its significance, Devin Nunes is investigating me. Here's the truth.

In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.

In late September, I spoke with an old friend, Sidney Blumenthal, whom I met 30 years ago when I was investigating the Iran-contra affair for then-Sen. Kerry and Blumenthal was a reporter at The Post. At the time, Russian hacking was at the front and center in the 2016 presidential campaign. The emails of Blumenthal, who had a long association with Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been hacked in 2013 through a Russian server.

While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele's reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature.

What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele's but appeared to involve different sources.

On my own, I shared a copy of these notes with Steele, to ask for his professional reaction. He told me it was potentially "collateral" information. I asked him what that meant. He said that it was similar but separate from the information he had gathered from his sources. I agreed to let him keep a copy of the Shearer notes.

Given that I had not worked with Shearer and knew that he was not a professional intelligence officer, I did not mention or share his notes with anyone at the State Department. I did not expect them to be shared with anyone in the U.S. government.

But I learned later that Steele did share them -- with the FBI, after the FBI asked him to provide everything he had on allegations relating to Trump, his campaign and Russian interference in U.S. elections.

The Clintons created a media and law enforcement echo chamber of Russia collusion.

Hillary's campaign and the DNC paid for the Steele dossier. Other Clinton operatives, such as Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer, were spreading similar accusations and sharing information with Steele. Steele was also feeding accusations to the media. Employees of the FBI and possibly other agencies who hated Trump used that information both before and after the election.

In assessing the threats that Hillary and Trump posed to our liberty, respectively, in October 2016 I wrote that Hillary represented the greater threat because Hillary was "a systemic threat."

I was right.

Sidney Blumenthal role in creation of the dossier

Sidney Blumenthal is the original author of so called "birther" meme, which was an instant hit as Obama  was "a person without biography":  some parts of his biography are just "clean sheets". His period connected with Columbia university is one (there are almost no people who were studying at this time who knew  Obama. His trip to Pakistan is another.  Was his mother a CIA operative is yet another. 

In any case  Sidney Blumenthal is very skilled and nasty creator of political disinformation and dirty hits on Clinton rivals.

During Bill Clinton’s impeachment crisis, as one of Clinton’s special advisers, he spread rumors that one of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s prosecutors abused young boys at a Christian summer camp and that Monica Lewinsky was stalking the president, according to the Observer. He also spread rumors that Colin Powell’s wife suffered from clinical depression and was unfit to be a first lady, according to publication.

The writing was outsourced to Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer, who gave it to Jonathan Winer, the Obama State Department's special envoy to Libya, who routed it to Christopher Steele.

According to the referral, Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. In a convoluted scheme outlined in the referral, the foreign source gave the information to an unnamed associate of Hillary and Bill Clinton, who then gave the information to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, who then gave the information to Steele. Steele wrote a report based on the information, but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.

Published accounts in the Guardian and the Washington Post have indicated that Clinton associate Cody Shearer was in contact with Steele about anti-Trump research, and Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer was a connection between Steele and the State Department during the 2016 campaign. – Washington Examiner

Shearer's brother served as an ambassador during the Clinton administration, and his late sister was married to Strobe Talbott, the chief authority on Russia in President Bill Clinton's State Department, according to ProPublica. They played fast and loose convinced that Hillary win will allow to swipe all the dirt under the carpet.

Recalling that the dossier was published by Buzzfeed after the election, we're sure that much like the rest of the swamp; Clinton, Obama, Comey, McCabe, Mueller, Rosenstein, Strzok, Page, and the rest of the gang – Christopher Steele thought Hillary would win, and none of this would have ever come to light – Zerohedge

Sidney Blumenthal also has some connections to iether USA of foreign intelligence  agencies as was revealed by Gussifer hack of his email account.  Some of his emails to her about Libya events looks like disguised intelligence reports (from Mossad or other intelligence  agency)

All-in-all Blumenthal, Shearer and Winer  are thee new figured that emerged in February 2018 and who likely played important role in creation of Steele dossier feeding Steele with his disinformation via Winer, who was a State Department official:

Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal’s name is cropping up again, but this time, as a potential key figure involved with the Trump dossier and the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.
Republican congressional investigators appear to be zeroing in on Blumenthal, and the role he may have played in feeding information that Trump dossier author Christopher Steele later presented to the FBI in its investigation of the Trump campaign.

The prospect of Blumenthal — a long-time Clinton operative — feeding information for an FBI investigation on the Trump campaign has caused alarm among Republican lawmakers in charge of oversight of the FBI and the Justice Department.

The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that Steele gave the FBI a report in October 2016 that he received from a State Department employee about Trump and Russia.

According to the Post, the report was written by Cody Shearer, a former journalist with close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, who gave it to Blumenthal, who gave it to State Department official Jonathan Winer, who gave it to Steele, who then gave it to the FBI.

Shearer’s report claimed a source inside the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) spy agency alleged that Trump had financial ties to influential Russians and that the FSB had evidence of him engaging in compromising personal behavior.

A lawyer for Winer, Lee Wolosky, told the Post his client told the Post his client’s actions were “grounded” in concerns that a candidate for the presidency may have been compromised by a hostile foreign power. Wolosky did not say why Winer gave the report to Steele instead of the FBI.

The Guardian, which has ties to ex-British spy Steele, also reported recently that Shearer wrote a report that was given to Steele. Shearer had also shared his report with “select media organizations before the election,” according to the British paper.

Blumenthal and Shearer’s names were first tied to the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign in a letter sent last month by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to the Democratic National Committee.

Grassley and Graham wanted the DNC to disclose any communications with Blumenthal and Shearer from March 2016 to January 2017. Earlier this week, the two GOP senators released a redacted memo that described the transmission of a report from a Clinton friend to Steele:

“One memorandum by Mr. Steele that was not published by Buzzfeed is dated October 19, 2016. The report alleges [redacted], as well as [redacted]. Mr. Steele’s memorandum states that his company “received this report from [redacted] U.S. State Department,” that the report was the second in a series, and that the report was information that came from a foreign sub-source who ‘is in touch with [redacted], a contact of [redacted], a friend of the Clintons, who passed it to [redacted].”

They added, “It is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility.”

Since the names are redacted by the FBI, they cannot be disclosed publicly by those who have seen them. Lawmakers who have seen the unredacted versions have danced around who they are.

When asked on FOX News’s The Story, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told anchor Martha MacCallum that she was “really warm” if she believed that Blumenthal was part of the chain of information to Steele described by Grassley and Graham.

“I’m trying to think how Secretary Clinton defined him. I think she said he was an old friend who emailed her from time to time,” he said on Tuesday.

MacCallum then asked, “Sidney Blumenthal?” Gowdy responded, “That’d be really warm. You’re warm. Yeah.”

House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) also mentioned Blumenthal and Shearer’s role on Fox & Friends on Tuesday.

“What it looks like is, they paid Steele to put together the dossier and told him what to put in,” he said.

Micah Morin, chief investigative reporter at Judicial Watch, questioned whether Shearer and Blumenthal were also behind the dossier’s sources. He wrote:

According to the Guardian, Steele provided ‘a copy [of the Shearer report] because it corresponded with what he had separately heard from his own independent sources.’ If the reporting here is accurate, that’s quite a coincidence—that Cody Shearer and Christopher Steele were hearing the same things from different sources at pretty much the same time. A closer look at timelines and sources might be revealing. If Sid and Cody are behind the original Russian dossier sources, that would be big news indeed.

“It’s an astonishing, convoluted and somewhat circular chain of custody in which a Clinton source, that is Shearer and Blumenthal, gives it to the former, to the State Department where she used to be Secretary of State, who gives it to Christopher Steele, who’s being paid by the Clinton campaign, who then gives it to the FBI,” the Washington Examiner‘s Chief Political Correspondent Byron York said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show Wednesday.

Blumenthal has a known history of smearing opponents of the Clintons.

During Bill Clinton’s impeachment crisis, as one of Clinton’s special advisers, he spread rumors that one of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s prosecutors abused young boys at a Christian summer camp and that Monica Lewinsky was stalking the president, according to the Observer. He also spread rumors that Colin Powell’s wife suffered from clinical depression and was unfit to be a first lady, according to publication.

As a former journalist, Blumenthal also used his media contacts to give the Clintons a heads up about forthcoming stories, and advised the Clinton campaign in 2008 to target then-candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) ties to Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.

After Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel refused to allow Blumenthal to join the Clinton State Department, he became a Clinton Foundation consultant, earning at least $120,000 a year. He continued to advise her in a number of areas, according to emails released by the State Department.

Less is known about Shearer. According to a recent article in the Washington Times, he was dubbed “Mr. Fixer” for Bill and Hillary Clinton and was a “workmate” of Blumenthal.

Shearer went from a journalist decades ago to foreign policy freelancer – once trying to broker some sort of peace deal in Bosnia, although he was not a U.S. official, – and working with Blumenthal to supply intelligence on Libya to Clinton when she was secretary of state. According to investigative journalist Sara Carter, Shearer worked in the 1990s for President Bill Clinton.

Nonprofit investigative journalism outlet ProPublica described Shearer as “a longtime Clinton family operative — his brother was an ambassador under Bill Clinton and his now-deceased sister was married to Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott — who was in close contact with Blumenthal.”

According to Judicial Watch’s Morin, Shearer “has a long history of dirty tricks.” “He’s been linked to Whitewater-era efforts to dirty up Bill Clinton critics; to shakedown politics involving the Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian tribe; and to fronting for Bosnian Serb butcher Radovan Karadzic,” he wrote.

As the Times has noted, for whom Shearer produced his anti-Trump report is unclear.

Even less known about Jonathan Winer. Winer served as the State Department’s Special Envoy for Libya and Senior Advisor for MEK resettlement, according to the State Department website. According to CNN, Winer worked with Steele from 2014 through 2016. Steele reportedly provided Winer with reports related to the conflict in Ukraine and Russia as a courtesy.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who led efforts to show that senior FBI and DOJ officials relied on the dossier to get a surveillance warrant on a former Trump campaign adviser, has said there will be a forthcoming memo on the State Department’s role in the FBI’s investigation of Trump, but has not said when that might be released.

 

 

This is a classic Machiavellian trick

First let's put Steele dossier (see  Trump Intelligence Allegations_ into historical perspective. This is a classic Machiavellian trick:

"The casual way in which Machiavelli discusses the need to kill opponents was necessary to those who wished to be princes 500 years ago. Today, of course, "killing" is translated as rendering less powerful, or taking an opponent out of the game."

In him Amazon review of Prince Wayne A. Smith wrote:

There are two good reasons to read Machiavelli's classic, "The Prince."

First, so you'll know what everyone is referring to when you come across the adjective "Machiavellian" in news stories or other media. This adjective has become so commonplace (and overused) it is almost a cliché. Also, most who use it have never read this letter from Machiavelli, a Renaissance courtier to his Prince (written from prison), but they insist on peppering writings with this noun turned adjective so much that as a matter of clearly understanding what is meant by the term, famiality with this brief treatise is helpful.

Second, this book does describe most (not all) power situations very well. From politics to corporations to most settings where advancement, influence and control exist, Machiavelli's observations and rules apply.

You will also discover that Machiavelli was not as evil as he is understood to be in popular thought. What he was doing was describing the rules of the game that have existed and always will exist for many situations involving selfish humans in competition. Machiavelli's rules are neither good nor bad in themselves -- they describe a process. What is good or bad is how those who master Machiavelli's rules use their power and position, in a society that tempers actions according to law and basic Judeo-Christian principals. When those [Christian] principles are abandoned (as in Nazi Germany, the Middle Ages or under Communism, or by those who refuse to live by these constraints), Machiavelli's rules take on their demonic and evil cloak; usually because they serve demonic and evil ends. In societies where positive constraints exist, for example the U.S. political system, Machiavellian behavior can produce excellent results.

A good example involves Abraham Lincoln, whose ambition led him to use every legitimate trick and strategy to master (and remove) political opponents. His mastery of Machiavellian behavior constrained by the US political system allowed him to save the Union and end slavery.

To fully appreciate the modern lessons that can be taken from this writing, one must translate Medieval sensibilities to their contemporary counterparts. The casual way in which Machiavelli discusses the need to kill opponents was necessary to those who wished to be princes 500 years ago. Today, of course, "killing" is translated as rendering less powerful, or taking an opponent out of the game.

From Mayberry Machiavellians point of view, limitation of the power of intelligence  agencies is bad, tolerance a luxury, fairness is another word for weakness, and the rule of law is unnecessary.

The "putsch" that intelligence agencies organized after Trump election as well as gambit to appointed the special prosecutor were not unprecedented (JFK assassination is probably one close instance, Nixon removal is another).  We have several signs typical for color revolution here:

I realize that Clinton wing of Democratic Party (soft neoliberals) and their supporters which include a part of Wall Street, large part of Silicon valley and most MSM progressives hate Donald Trump so much that they believe that any pretext is justified in taking him down. So they joined efforts with the neoconservatives. That's why war-mongering against Russia is now OK for them and Democratic party now is just another War Party (as was evident from Hillary campaign).

Many people who detest Trump view Russiagate as the most effective path to achieve Trump’s impeachment, so this desirable end justifies whatever means. that makes them very similar to supported of Ukrainian Maydan, which removed Yanukovich and installed far right junta with a lot of unsavory characters. But to me it look like Trump surrendered after just 100 of anti-Russian smear campaign launched by neocons. So why they still  want to finish him?  So it must be more  to it; there might be some skeletons in the closet revealing of which previous administration and their factions in intelligence  services the are afraid to death . Because their action is as close to sedition as one  can get. In other words they went va bank  by unleashing on Trump Steele dossier (va bank is a common expression among Russian and German speakers. which means to put everything at risk in order to win.

In any case now two third of US population now is brainwashed into adamantly anti-Russian mindset, increasing the risk of the major war

The key in understanding Stele dossier is to view it as in integral part of Russiagate plot to remove trump, the  part of "American Maydan" story.  Ukrainian Maydan  was about  Yanukovich removal. Yanukovich  who was a neoliberal wanted to bargain more before signing EU memorandum and postponed its signing despite pressure.  At this point EU and the USA decided that he crosses the line  and decided to remove him by force.

Similarly Trump wanted to reach some level of detente  with Russia rightly considering the level of hostility achieved under Obama dangerous and counterproductive (to the extent that Obama might be controlled by Brennan it might be not Obama personal decision).  In this sense Trump also crossed the line (with the only difference that he did it during he election campaign) and at this point all power of neocons and neolib including their factions in intelligence agencies was unleashed for his removal. That's why Steele dossier was created and advertized: as part of anti-Trump coup d'état by the neocons, Clinton neoliberals and parts of the US intelligence services.  In both case the interests of the USA and national security suffers. In a way both neocons and neoliberals  are elements of foreign influence that do not care much about ordinary Americans.

Among the players that promoted Steele dossier and used it for "color revolution" against Trump Davis Stockman mentioned (The Russiagate Witch-Hunt Stockman Names Names In The Deep State's Insurance Policy )

One of best summaries of Steele dossier can be found  in Business Insider  article Mueller interviewed Steele Dossier on Trump comes into focus . It is clear from the text that Steele could not write such a document all by himself. Even if it is completely fake he would need some help from MI6 or CIA. And it does  contain a lot of juicy staff.

As of December 2017 we know that Peter Strzok played a very important role in using Steele dossier as a ram against Trump and his team. It was deployed in dual role: 

James Rosen suggests Peter Strzok has strong CIA connections. That's actually natural taking into account his position description and I would be surprised if he has none. Probably he has connection to the highest levels officials in CIA including Brennan.

Brennan is a very interesting figure (the person that looks like Muslim Brotherhood lobbyist within the USA government) activities of whom came in a new lights during Strzok-gate:

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Wray exactly about possibility that Strzok was essentially doing Brennan bidding at FBI  (House committee grills FBI director Did Trump–Russia dossier back a FISA warrant — RT US News)

FBI Director Christopher Wray has declined to tell the House Judiciary Committee if he was prohibited from sharing documents that would show whether the notorious Steele dossier was used to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Wray about the FBI’s possible use of the Trump–Russia dossier, also known as the Steele dossier, named after its author ex-British spy Christopher Steele. It was a document paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton campaign to be used as opposition research against Trump in 2016. It contained allegations that Trump colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 US presidential election and engaged in lewd acts. The veracity of the salacious claims in the dossier were further undermined by the revelation that Steele paid Russian sources for information pointing to collusion.

... ... ...

Jordan alleged that Strzok used the Steele dossier to obtain a FISA warrant for spying on members of the Trump team.

“My hunch is it has something to do with the dossier,” Jordan said. “Did Peter Strzok help produce and present the application to the FISA court to secure a warrant to spy on Americans associated with the Trump campaign?”

... ... ...

Jordan then made his case that the FISA warrant was obtained based on false information contained in the Steele dossier, calling it “fake news National Enquirer garbage.”

“I think Peter Strzok, head of counterintelligence at the FBI... Peter Strzok, the guy who ran the FBI's Clinton investigation, did all the interviews... Peter Strzok, the guy who was running the Russia investigation at the FBI... Peter Strzok, Mr. Super Agent at the FBI, I think he is the guy that took the application to the FISA court.

“And if this happened, if you have the FBI working with the Democrats' campaign, to take opposition research, dress it all up and turning it into an intelligence document to take it to a FISA court so they can spy on another campaign, if that happened, that is as wrong as it gets...

“You could clear it all up, we sent you a letter two days ago. Just release the application, tell us what was in it. Tell us if I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. I think that is exactly what happened, and people who did that need to be held accountable.”

Most probable he was just a hired gun who received certain "recommendations" as this was part of the efforts of Obama administration to find dirt on Trump and derail his election campaign ( see also Did Obama order wiretaps of Trump conversations? ):

Chronology

The basic chronology might be as following (partially based on Stefan Molyneux YouTube  presentation):

  1. [Aug 01, 2014]:  Brennan caught spying on Senate torture probe. John Brennan Faces Calls to Resign After CIA Admits to Spying on Senate Torture Probe - Democracy Now!
  2. [Mar 02, 2015]: Hillary Clinton emailgate scandal broke lose. NYT reports that "Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Mrs. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act"
  3. [Jun 13, 2015]: CrowdStrike was financed to the tune of $100 million by Google Capital. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor to the Democratic Party. (Stefan Molyneux)
  4. [Oct ?? 2015]: Fusion GPS became key anti-Trump player -- the dirt digger.  During the Republican primary campaign, The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer, hired the American research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.[1] Please note that  Christopher Steele at this time is not yet in the picture. This will happen six months later when the investigation became funded by Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC. For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee on May 3, 2016, The Free Beacon stopped funding research on him.[21][22][23]
  5. [Mar ??, 2016]: Fusion GPS supposedly approached the Hillary Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the law firm Perkins Coie offering to continue their opposition research into Donald Trump in return for payment.[Wikipedia]
  6. [Apr ??, 2016]: The Hillary Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee used lawyer Marc E. Elias to retain and fund Fusion GPS. At this time Christopher Steele came into picture, may be via his ties with McCabe and FBI activities to derail Trump.   In April 2016, the investigation contract and funding were taken over by Marc Elias, a partner in the large Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie and head of its Political Law practice. Elias was the attorney of record for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton presidential campaign.[6] In total, Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS $1.02 million in fees and expenses, $168,000 of which was paid to Orbis Business Intelligence, a private British intelligence firm, and used by them to produce the dossier.[24] Glenn R. Simpson of Fusion GPS has stated that Steele did not pay to any of his sources.[25][Wikipedia]
  7. [Apr-Jun, 2016]: Wikileaks obtains something like 53,000 [DNC] emails and 17,000 attachments
  8. [Jun ??, 2016]:  After Wikileaks possession of leaked emails became known, a cover-up operation was started by DNC and Clinton campaign. The decision was made to used Russia as a scapegoat for the leak accusing  them in hacking. False flag operation using Crowdstrike was staged to make this plausible.  Dirty former MI6 officer Christopher Steele (who was expelled from Moscow for espionage more then 20 years ago and as such is a "person non grata" in Moscow) and his company Orbis Business Intelligence are hired by Fusion GPS to investigate Trump’s possible connections to Russia. This company previously was used to Statement from Christopher Steele: “Between June and early November 2016 Orbis was engaged by Fusion to prepare a series of confidential memoranda based on intelligence concerning Russian efforts to influence the US Presidential election process and links between Russia and Donald Trump.”
  9. [Jun 9, 2016]: Entrapment plot against Trump Jr. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort attended a meeting arranged by publicist Rob Goldstone with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (the client of Fusion FPS) supposedly for opposition research on Hillary Clinton, but Veselnitskaya instead focused on the opposition to the Magnitsky Act. President Trump's Outside Counsel Mark Corallo later remarked “Specifically, we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with Fusion GPS, a firm which according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the president and which commissioned the phony Steele dossier.”
  10. Crowdstrike investigates DNC leaks and promptly attributes it to Russians.  FBI is deprived of any access to factual information and uses Crowdstrike findings. After very damaging for Hillary DNC leak (iether  by Seth Rich or some other disgruntled DNC staffer) which proved corruption of DNC and the plot to deny Sanders any changed to become Democratic Party candidate, as well as the level of control of DNC by Clintons,  the decision was made to blame Russia for the lean (using Crowdstrike which has connections both with CIA and FBI as well as Clinton team) and use Trump connection with Russia to undermine the prospect of his election. The CrowdStrike attribution are not independently verified as the DNC refused to turn over its equipment to the FBI. . The connection between CrowdStrike and Perkins Coie should raise additional questions. (Stefan Molyneux)
  11. [Jun 14, 2016]: Russiagate smear campaign against Trump was launched in by major US MSM. The Washington Post published an article entitled “Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump" which reported: “DNC leaders were tipped to the hack in late April. Chief executive Amy Dacey got a call from her operations chief saying that their information technology team had noticed some unusual network activity.” “That evening, she spoke with Michael Sussmann, a DNC lawyer who is a partner with Perkins Coie in Washington. Soon after, Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who handled computer crime cases, called [CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry], whom he has known for many years. "Within 24 hours, Crowdstrike had installed software on the DNC’s computers so that it could analyze data that could indicate who had gained access, when and how. " Charging good money after the horse has left the barn; it's funny that clearly political action of  "attribution" (qualified cyber adversary like CIA leaves zero traces in such cases or deliberately leaves false traces ) is hidden under tech jargon -- my God, a "super sophisticated" system was installed that now, when intruders are long gone will truck them ;-). From presentations available on YouTube Crowdstrike are typical security snake oil salesmen promising  a lot but delivering very little (much like ISS in the past).   It is impossible fully compensate for architectural flaws of Windows without imposing "military base" regime which is unacceptable for organizations like DNC. Moreover good adversary would use Crowdstrike software for perpetration much like CIA used Kaspersky software in the past. 
  12. [Jun 15, 2016]: Crowdstike  published its finding on thier site. Dmitry Alpherovidh blames Russians in his article Bears in the Midst Intrusion into the Democratic National Committee »
  13. [Jun 15, 2016]: A blog post to a WordPress site authored by an individual using the moniker Guccifer 2.0 claimed credit for breaching the Democratic National Committee. This blog post presents documents alleged to have originated from the DNC.
  14. [Jun 26, 2016] Bill Clinton has a 30 min meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport. The encounter took place ahead of the public release Tuesday morning of the House Benghazi Committee's report on the 2012 attack on a US consulate in Libya.  the meeting looks like a quid pro quo of "protect Hillary and you'll get a new great job Loretta under Hillary administration"...
  15. [Jun 30, 2016] The new about the meeting reached MSM. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said on The Mike Gallagher Show that the meeting was “so terrible” and “one of the big stories of this week, of this month, of this year.” Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas tweeted: “Lynch & Clinton: Conflict of interest? An attorney, cannot represent two parties in a dispute and must avoid even the appearance of conflict.” LA Times. Later it became known that Loretta Lunch instructed Comey to call Hillary email scandal "a matter".  During May 2017 testimony  James Comey, that it marking the moment he decided that the Department of Justice was not capable of an independent investigation into Hillary Clinton. The moment Comey lost faith in DOJ's Clinton probe - CNNPolitics
  16. [Jul 02, 2016]:  Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Peter Strzok, who gave her special "HQ treatment". The interview lasted approximately three and a half hours and was not conducted under oath. No transcripts of the  meeting exist.  Later Hillary Clinton claimed that she gave a "voluntary interview" to the FBI today regarding her email arrangements while she was secretary of state. James Comey admitted: Loretta Lynch's tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton was the turning point in the email investigation.  Business Insider Director Comey claimed that she did not lied to FBI during this interview. Director Comey admitted that he did not participate himself in the FBI’s interview of Hillary Clinton, nor did he talk to all of the agents who were present at the interview. While there was no recording or full transcript of the interview, there is an analysis which may or may not be provided to Congress.
  17. [Jul 05, 2016]: Comey hijacks the role of Justice Department role and exonerate Hillary. At this point  email scandal was swiped under the carpet. No criminal changes were filed. Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System
  18. [Jul 06, 2016]: Attorney General Loretta Lynch closed the case based on the FBI’s recommendation. Justice Department formally closes Clinton email investigation with no charges - LA Times. Atty. Gen Loretta Lynch said she had met late Wednesday with Comey and career prosecutors and agents who conducted the investigation.
  19. [Jul 10, 2016]: Seth Rich was killed.
  20. [Jul 22, 2016]: Wikipeak published leaks emails and  attachments. A cache of more than 19,000 e-mails was leaked on July 22, 2016.
  21. [Jul 22, 2016]: Another false flag operation to implicate Russians ? Major MSM report about previous unknown hacker going by the moniker "Guccifer 2.0" who claimed on a WordPress-hosted blog to have been acting alone in hacking the DNC. Might be a false flag operation by rogue elements of the US intelligence services, a part of effort to implicate Russians in DNC leak. 
  22. [Jul 24, 2016]: It became clear the DNC has thrown Sanders under the bus, but the role of FBI is depriving him from being Democratic Party candidate still remains hidden. Sanders urged Wasserman Schultz to resign following the leaks and stated that he was "disappointed" by the DNC email leaks, but said that he was "not shocked. In reality he was robbed in daylight. But not only by  Wasserman Schultz but also by the "gang of three at FBI who essentially prevented his nomination by swiping the dirt about Hillary Clinton handing of classified emails on the private email server under the carpet. Peter Strzok supposedly played outside role in this fateful decision. But that became known only in December 2017.
  23. [Jul 25, 2016]: Democratic Convention 2016 opens in at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia  Hillary became the  Democratic  party nominee. Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to reside due to her role in derailing Sanders candidacy. Sanders switched  camps and endorsed Hillary Clinton instead of fighting her nomination.  As Trump sarcastically commented  about Sanders endorsement of Hillary: 'Bernie is now officially part of the rigged system': Trump unloads on Sanders for 'selling out,' says it's like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs  Donald Trump unloads on Bernie Sanders for 'selling out' Daily Mail Online
  24. [Jul 25, 2016]: The FBI announced that it would investigate the DNC hack.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The same day, the DNC issued a formal apology to Bernie Sanders and his supporters, stating, "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email," and that the emails did not reflect the DNC's "steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process."[12] (Wikipedia aka Ciapedia ;-)
  25. [Jul ??, 2016] Steele dossier reaches FBI. Steele, on his own initiative, supplied a report he had written to an FBI agent in Rome.[23] His contact at the FBI was the same senior agent with whom he had worked when investigating the FIFA scandal.[11] By early October 2016, he had grown frustrated at the slow rate of progress by the FBI investigation, and cut off further contact with the FBI.[21]  At this point Steele dossier got to the desk of Peter Strzok, adamantly anti-Trump FBI official with strong links to CIA and probably personally Brennan. 
  26. [July ??, 2016] Crowdstrike attribution is used for increasing the scope of vicious anti-Russian campaign was launched in the media with the full support and encouragement of Obama administration to swipe the dirt about DNC pushing Sanders under the bus and Clinton emailgate scandal as well as the problem with Hillary health.
  27. [Aug 25, 2016]: Brennan  makes the "all in" move adopting a highly political role and endorsing Steele dossier: according to NYT reports, CIA Director John Brennan briefed Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on , and alleged that “unnamed advisers to Mr. Trump might be working with the Russians to interfere in the election.” (Stefan Molyneux)
  28. [Aug ??, 2016]: Reid had written to Comey and demanded an investigation of the “connections between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” and in that letter he indirectly referred to Carter Page, an American businessman cited by Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers, who had financial ties to Russia and had recently visited Moscow. 
  29. [Sep ??, 2016]: Steele, following instructions from Fusion GPs briefed several MSM. On Sep 23, 2016 Yahoo News published an article about possibilities of ties between Carter Page and Kremlin.
  30. [Sep ??, 2016] Following a report from the Daily Mail in September 2016, Weiner was investigated by the FBI for sexting with a 15-year-old girl. His laptop was seized and emails related to the Hillary Clinton email scandal were found on it, causing a controversy late in the presidential election. On May 19, 2017, Weiner pled guilty to one count of transferring obscene material to a minor. His wife, Huma Abedin, filed for divorce prior to Weiner's guilty plea. In September, he was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. On November 6, 2017, Weiner began his sentence. (Wikipedia)
  31. [Sep ?? 2016]: FBI applied to FISA court to establish  surveillance on unknown number of members of Trump team (at least Carter Page) possibly using Steele dossier as a pretext.  Looks like rogue elements in FBI used "Steele Dossier" to obtain court order for wiretapping  some members of Trump team such as Carter Page (Strzokgate). With the dirt explicitly planned to be used as "insurance" in case of Trump victory.
  32. [Sep ??, 2016]: FISA warrant was authorized against Page, just after he left the Trump campaign (WaPo).
  33. [Oct 7, 2016]: Damaging for Trump "17 agencies memo" surfaced. This "17 agencies memo" was cooked by Brennan (with possible support of Clapper) by using small pre-selected team of "analysts" (in which probably Peter Strzok played the leading role) and presented as the view of the whole US intelligence community. On October 7, 2016 . On Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The USIC is made up of 16 agencies, in addition to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (Yes, 17 intelligence agencies really did say Russia was behind hacking )
  34. The 17 agencies memo was used for amplification of the anti-Russian campaign in MSM. Neo-McCarthyism campaign in the USA reached high pitch.
  35. [Oct ??, 2016]: The FBI reached an agreement with Steele to pay him to continue his work. Looks like  the agreement never materialized as Steele was unable to provide the necessary verification for his claims.
  36. [Oct ?? 2016]: [Wikipedia propagates questionable info about how David Corn got the dossier, in view of role of Top FBI Lawyer Who Was Demoted Now Linked To Leaking Bogus Trump Dossier to MSM] On instructions from Fusion PGS Steele personally compiled 33 pages and passed on what he discovered so far to the anti-Trump reporter David Corn from Mother Jones magazine.[26][Wikipedia].  On Dec 22, 2017 it became known that another possible source was not Steele but FBI Lawyer  James Baker  who communicated with David Corn at this time and was demoted later for the leak.
  37. [Oct 28, 2016]: Due to the pressure from NYC FBI office who uncovered Comey announced that the investigation into Hillary "bathroom" email server is resumed based on new emails uncovered in probe into Anthony Wiener sexing scandal (which actually were available to FBI since September, so "why now"? ). FBI reopening investigation into Hillary private email server - Business Insider.  Strzok was assigned to conduct the investigation with predictable results. But the problem with this announcement is that it was made just a 10 days before the elections and violates the notion of "quite period" before election where such news should not be released.  Looks like Comey has second thoughts after throwing Sanders  under the bus.
  38. [Oct 31, 2016]: In the clear attempt to prevent election on Trump rabid Hillary Clinton supported David Corn, a Mother Jones reporter, leaked the existence of the Steele dossier A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump – Mother Jones. This leak can be viewed as a countermove on the Comey announcement, which damaged Clinton campaign:

    Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, noted, “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.” It maintained that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” It claimed that Russian intelligence had “compromised” Trump during his visits to Moscow and could “blackmail him.” It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on “bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls.”

    The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was “shock and horror.” The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump’s inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. “It’s quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on,” he says.

    “This is something of huge significance, way above party politics,” the former intelligence officer comments. “I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well.”

    The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding the memos. In the past, Trump has declared, “I have nothing to do with Russia.”

  39. [Nov 06, 2016]: WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection.[13] (Wikipedia), This was another deliberate attempt to influence an election as this should be a "quite" period" for such things.
  40. [Nov 06, 2016]:  FBI closes the investigation of "Wiener's laptop copy of Hillary Clinton emails". FBI chief James Comey told leaders in Congress hours earlier that a review of 650,000 emails discovered on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner had reinforced his July 5 decision to let her off the hook. FBI will not change decision regarding Hillary Clinton's emails Daily Mail Online
  41. [Nov 09, 2016]: Trump was elected in a surprise victory over Hillary Clinton in a stunning repudiation of the establishemnt .  United States elections, 2016 - Wikipedia
  42. [Nov 10, 2017]: After Trump election massive NeoMcCartyism was launched. Any contact with Russian officials were deemed criminal and the betrayal of the country.  
  43. [Nov 17, 2016]:  Retired general Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was appointed as the national security adviser. Trump appoints Michael Flynn as national security adviser report - NY Daily News.

    Like Trump, Flynn sees a military ally in controversial Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he was seated next to at a banquet in Moscow last year. Flynn has also appeared several times on the state-owned TV station, Russia Today, which the U.S. State Department has accused of being a mouthpiece for Putin.

    ... ... ...

    Flynn's convention appearance puzzled many generals he had served with, as it broke their unofficial code of not picking sides in presidential races.

    Flynn gained further notoriety when he retweeted an anti-Semitic tweet that said, "Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore." He later apologized for the retweet, claiming it was a "mistake."

  44. Obama administration engaged in fierce campaign of "unmasking" the result of surveillance of Trump team in which several members of its administration participated (Susan Rice in primary role).  With the goal of discrediting Trump team and specifically removal of Flynn from the team.

    However, there are 20 high-ranking officials within the U.S. government who have to power to approve requests to reveal those identities if they deem that information is necessary to understanding the value of the intelligence. That process is called "unmasking," and Rice had the authority to do so while serving as national security adviser.

  45. [Nov 18, 2016]:  Sir Andrew Wood, British ambassador to Moscow from 1995 to 2000, met with U.S. Senator John McCain at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, and told McCain about the existence of the collected materials about Trump.[28] Wood vouched for Steele’s professionalism and integrity.[29] In early December, McCain obtained a copy of the dossier from David J. Kramer, a former U.S. State Department official working at Arizona State University.[27] On 9 December 2016 McCain met personally with FBI Director James Comey to pass on the information.[28]
  46. [Nov ??, 2016]: McCain got the dossier and spread it within Washington circles. 
  47. [Dec 09, 2016]: President Obama ordered the entire United States Intelligence Community to conduct an investigation into Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election — and provide a report before he leaves office on January 20, 2017
  48. [Dec 29, 2016]: Obama makes his last New Year present to Russia a fuels Russiagate hysteria. He expelled 35 Russian diplomats and seized Russian property in the USA under the pretext of Russia  influencing the US Presidential elections. Along with 17 agencies memo that fueled further neo-McCarthyism campaign again Russia and damaged Trump team. [46][47][48] (Wikipedia)
  49. Another entrapment plot -- this  time against Flynn: Attempt of Flynn to limit the damage of the this move later were used for Flynn removal from the Trump team.  All his conversation were wiretapped and later leaked. In a way this was entrapment  as the conversations were recorded. later the recoding were used first to oust Flynn from Trump team and later by Mueller to  indict  him on technical charge of lying to FBI to get additional dirt of Trump.
  50. [Early January 2017]: a two-page summary of the Trump dossier was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in meetings with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. Christopher Steele - Wikipedia
  51. [Jan 10, 2017]: Steele goes into hiding.
  52. [Jan 10, 2017]: Just  before inauguration, Steele dossier was published by Buzzfeed.  Clinton claimed to be unaware and unconnected to the event.  [Wikipedia]

    On January 10, 2017, CNN reported that classified documents presented to Obama and Trump the previous week included allegations that Russian operatives possess "compromising personal and financial information" about Trump. CNN stated that it would not publish specific details on the memos because it had not "independently corroborated the specific allegations".[32][33] Following the CNN report,[34] BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier that it said was the basis of the briefing, including unverified claims that Russian operatives had collected "embarrassing material" involving Trump that could be used to blackmail him.[35][36][33][37] NBC reported that a senior U.S. intelligence official said that Trump had not been previously briefed on the contents of the memos,[38] although a CNN report said that a statement released by James Clapper in early January confirmed that the synopsis existed and had been compiled for Trump.[39]

  53. [Jan 12, 2017]: Obama's EO12333 expansion made sure that whatever anti-Trump information got picked up by the intelligence community could be spread widely, and would be hard to trace it back to an individual source .  See also Obama Expands Surveillance Powers on His Way Out Electronic Frontier Foundation
  54. [Jan 20, 2017]: Trump inauguration was accompanied some protests like is common in color revolution scenarios, but is atypical for the US inauguration. They did failed to achieve the necessary scale in order to serve as a "trigger for further disturbances" nessesary to trigger further color revolution protests. There were no charges of policy brutality.  Only 217 protesters were arrested.  Trump inauguration protest damages parts of downtown Washington - CBS News

    The bulk of the criminal acts happened at 10:30 a.m. when 400 to 500 people on 13th Street destroyed property, Interim Police Chief Peter Newsham said. The protesters were armed with crowbars and threw objects at people and businesses, destroying storefronts and damaging vehicles. Police used pepper spray to diffuse the situation.

  55. [Jan 21, 2017]: Campaign for Flynn removal from Trump team started. After inauguration dirt of several member  of Trump team was surfaced  and first of all on general Flynn (who was important link to intelligence agencies in Trump administration) General Flynn served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from July 2012 to his retirement from the military in August 2014. The fact the Flynn lobbied Russians to take more consolatory stance on Israel actions and not to retaliate for expulsion of 35 diplomats will become known much later. At this time his meetings are presented by MSM as a clear collision with the direct goal to discredit him and remove him from the team.
  56. [Jan 23, 2017]: Was this connected with Trump team wiretapping? Robert Hannigan, the director of GCHQ, has resigned from his job as head of one of the three Government intelligence agencies after just two years. GCHQ would only say that Mr Hannigan had left his post for "personal reasons" and that he was not sacked or subject to disciplinary proceedings. He had been director general of defense and intelligence at the Foreign Office before that. At the time he took on the job, GCHQ had been forced onto the defensive following the leak of information about mass surveillance by Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee. GCHQ boss Robert Hannigan quits for 'personal reasons' after just two years
  57. [Feb 13, 2017]: The first victim of Russiagate -- former general Flynn was forced to resign from Trump administration.
  58. [Mar 04, 2017]: Trump complains  about British MI6 surveillance on him and members of his team. White House does not know if alleged surveillance of Trump was by wiretap US news The Guardian
  59. [Mar 07, 2017]: Steele suddenly and unexpectedly emerged form hiding. Former MI6 agent behind Trump dossier returns to work UK news The Guardian
  60. [Mar 22, 2017]: Politico published an article entitled "Nunes claims some Trump transition messages were intercepted" reporting: "House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes declared Wednesday that members of Donald Trump’s transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under inadvertent surveillance following November’s presidential election." Immediately Nunes get under fire and gets investigated.
  61. [Apr 2, 2017]: Mike Cernovich claimed that Susan Rice was identified as the person who unmasked members of Trump transition team.
  62. [Apr 5, 2017]: Susan Rice unmasking frenzy was confirmed. What you need to know about Susan Rice and the unmasking controversy - ABC News
  63. [May 8, 2017]: Comey was fired by Trump.  Mr. Trump explained the firing by citing Mr. Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, even though the president was widely seen to have benefited politically from that inquiry and had once praised Mr. Comey for his “guts” in his pursuit of Mrs. Clinton during the campaign
  64. [May 9-May 17, 2017]: The "appointment  of the special prosecutor" gambit was launched.   After the success with the removal of Flynn (who might still have good connections with Military intelligence as as such  was especially dangerous for plotters appointment of the special prosecutor gambit was engineered. The included usage of Comey as sacrificed pawn and was supported by the atmosphere of  NeoMcCartyism already created in the country and rogue elements in the  Department of justice.
  65. [May 16, 2017]: Comey leaks information was published by NYT. Which was a deliberate criminal act on his part as such memos belong to the government. the idea was to trigger the appointment of the Special prosecutor and it worked. Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation - The New York Times

    Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. It was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

  66. [May 17, 2017]: Rosenstein appoints Mueller as the Special Prosecutor to investigate Trump-Russia connections and possible Russia influence on the elections.  With the indirect goal for force Trump resignation: shortly before Mueller was interviews by  Trump for the position of the director of FBI and was rejected.  Now Comey destiny as a leaker of government information hinged on the results on Mueller investigation. And they are long  time friends.  Mr. Comey revealed for the first time that he turned over memos about his conversations with Mr. Trump to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
  67. [May ??, 2017]: Mueller took his task to provide a pretext to depose Trump seriously  and hired rabid anti-Trump prosecutors including Peter Strzok and Andrew Weissmann  (whom NYT called Mueller’s Legal Pit Bull) creating witch-hunt that paralyzed Trump administration.  As if it is difficult to find less biased competent  prosecutors in this country. In other words Mueller cards were revealed. 
  68. [Jun 8, 2017]: During his testimony Comey before before the Senate Intelligence Committee Comey admitted to be the source of leaks to media which triggered the appointment of the Special Prosecutor by Rosenstein, but  refused to answer question about FBI role in propagating and financing Steele dossier. Mr. Comey acknowledged for the first time that the FBI. was investigating Trump team but personally Mr. Trump. .    Comey Testimony The 8 Big Questions James Comey Refused to Answer
  69. [July ??, 2017]: Arrest of Imran Awan and possible role of Debbie Wasserman Schultz in organizing private spying on the members of Congress for the benefits of DNC and Democratic Party. 
  70. [July 20, 2017] FBI finally produced text messages from Strzok to Lisa Page that Horowitz office requested. Those texts uncovered by Inspector General provided ample information about the level of his bias against Trump
  71. [July ?? 2017]: Peter Strzok his illicit lover, FBI lawyer Lisa Page leaves Mueller team
  72. [July 27, 2017]: Mueller and Rosenstein were informed about Peter Strzok text messages to Lisa Page
  73. [Aug ??, 2017]: Peter Strzok was quietly removed from the Mueller investigation and demoted in FBI.  Neither Rosenstein, no Congress were informed.
  74. [Oct 18, 2017]: Three Fusion GPS partners plead the Fifth in response to subpoenas to testify before the House Intelligence Committee dailycaller.com

     "In August, Simpson, the point-man on the dossier project, met with the Senate Judiciary Committee for 10 hours. That meeting was held after Simpson and Fusion threatened to plead the Fifth in response to a subpoena threat from the Judiciary panel."

  75. [Oct 21, 2017]:  Fusion GPS that financed Steele dossier asks court to stop lawmakers from seeing financial records
  76. [Oct 25, 2017]: It was revealed that Steele dossier was funded by Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC via Fusion GPS. Hillary Camp Paid For Fusion GPS Steele Dossier – FBI Covered Steele’s Travel Expenses, The WaPo article claims the 2016 presidential campaign of Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee paid for the Fusion GPS dossier alleging Russian ties with the presidential campaign of Republican Donald Trump and sordid phony personal smears of Trump. The Post reported that Clinton campaign and DNC lawyer Marc Elias and his law firm Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS $168K to continue researching Trump after a Republican donor who originally funded the research pulled out in April 2016.The Clinton campaign and the DNC continued to fund Steele’s research through the end of October. The Dirty Truth About the Steele Dossier Vanity Fair
  77. [Nov 6, 2017]: Flynn was indicted by Mueller team along with another hapless staffer. Business Insider  The indictment of Michael Flynn seems to have been partly intended to shield Mueller from dismissal and to keep his Russiagate investigation alive.
  78. [Dec 1, 2017]: Michael Flynn pleads guilty to lying to FBI. He was previously entrapeed by Peter Strzok and charged with lying to FBI. This move by-and-large was viewed as a desperate attempt of Mueller to survive under the barrage of revelations about Peter Strzok. And it suceccededed. Mueller probe survives althouth he personally from this point was discredited as a partisan hack (which he was since 9/11). 
  79. [Dec 2, 2017]: Information about Peter Strzok removal comes to light and the texts between him and Lisa Page were disclosed. FBI Agent Kicked-Off Mueller Team for Anti-Trump Messages - Breitbart
  80. [Dec 7, 2017]: Bruce Ohr, Top DOJ Official, Demoted for Ties to Fusion GPS, Trump Dossier. Information that Steele was also directly in touch with high level Obama’s Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and that brse Ohr wife worked for Fusion GPs in anti-Trump research comes to light.
  81. [Dec 10, 2017]: Suspicions about the anti-trump plot within Justice Department and several intelligence agencies including FBI were openly voiced during Congressional hearings. The "insurance policy" email suggested the existence of a conspiracy within the FBI to rig the Presidential Election. During the exchanges between Wray and Jordan at the hearing in the House Judiciary Committee Jordan also had this to say:

    Here’s what I think — I think Peter Strozk (sic)… Mr. Super Agent at the FBI, I think he’s the guy who took the application to the FISA court and if that happened, if this happened, if you have the FBI working with a campaign, the Democrats’ campaign, taking opposition research, dressing it all up and turning it into an intelligence document so they can take it to the FISA court so they can spy on the other campaign, if that happened, that is as wrong as it gets

  82. [Dec 11, 2017]: During his interview Michael Morell  admitted the existence of the plot to remove Trump within intelligence agencies. Conservative Daily Post
  83. [Dec 17, 2017]: BBC became really alarmed at the perspective of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate FBI and/or reopening the probe about Hillary Clinton email server which can expose the role of British government in Steele dossier saga (Trump-Russia inquiry- Why attacks on Robert Mueller are mounting by Anthony Zurcher ) :

    All of it could be setting the ground for new investigations into the FBI or Democrat Hillary Clinton's actions while secretary of state - something Mr Trump himself has suggested - or perhaps even for the president to order the end of Mr Mueller's probe.

    Such an action would provoke a major political crisis and could have unpredictable consequences. For Mr Trump's defenders, it may be enough simply to mire Mr Mueller's investigation in a partisan morass. Here are some are some of the ways they're trying to do that.

  84. [Dec 19, 2017]: One of the central figures in "anti-Trump putsch" within Justice Department and intelligence agencies Andrew McCabe was  grilled for seven and a half hours by House Republicans in Russia meddling probe - Washington Times “I’ll be a little bit surprised if [Mr. McCabe‘s] still an employee of the FBI this time next week,” Mr. Gowdy told Fox News in a separate interview. Washington Times. Now it looks like there is investigation of Mueller collision with the "FBI gang of three" along with Mueller investigation of Trump. this became rteally convoluted but the  degrees of freedom for Mueller were severy cut now.
  85. [Dec 20, 2017]: Several other key figures connected with "insurance policy" email  are expected to testify under oath to House intelligence committee.  The list include Ohr, his wide, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.
  86. [Dec 22, 2017] More than 170 House Democrats signed a letter supporting Mueller this week, and Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, took to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday to warn that ousting the special counsel could spark a constitutional crisis.
  87. [Dec 22, 2017]: Top FBI Lawyer James Baker who was recently demoted was linked to leaking bogus Steele Dossier to MSM. The GOP sources said the documents — made available recently to lawmakers by the Department of Justice — revealed that James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel, communicated with Mother Jones reporter David Corn in the weeks leading up to the November 2016 election. Corn was the first to report the existence of the dossier on Oct. 31. Top FBI Lawyer Who Was Demoted Now Linked To Leaking Bogus Trump Dossier to MSM – True PunditTrue Pundit
  88. [Dec 23, 2017]:  Andrew McCabe announced his intention to resign from FBI in 90 days (when he can get full pension). Trump sarcastically commented on this decision in a twit.
  89. [Dec 26, 2017]: Damage control efforts and attempt to regroup and save Mueller skin in view of Peter Strzok role in the Hillary email server investigation and pushing Steele dossier started. NYT tried to lower the expectations about year and half "Russiagate" investigation by rabidly anti-Trump team does not provide enough information to change President with "collision" (BTW there is no such rime in Us criminal codex). Now NYT pleads "give me  dirt, any dirt on Trump" The End of Trump and the End of Days - The New York Times:

    Fury isn’t strategy, and there’s no need to extrapolate beyond the facts already in our possession. Take the inquiries into the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia. They could screech to a halt tomorrow and we’d be left with more than enough evidence of corrupt business dealings, conflicts of interest, shady back channels, awful judgment and outright lies among Trump’s intimates to present voters with a powerful case against his fitness for office.

    But by obsessing over clear “collusion” and insisting on visible puppet strings by which Vladimir Putin controlled Trump, we have set the bar dangerously high. Mueller’s ultimate findings could be plenty ugly and still be deemed underwhelming.

Strzok role in Steele dossier saga and placing Trump team under surveillance

  I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that there's no way he gets elected - but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40...

Peter Strzok, AUG 15,2016

Recent hearings does not inspire any confidence in John Brennan and methods that he used. Looks like he might be at the center of events connected to Steele dossier (including, but not  limited to  "Seventeen agencies" memo about Russian influence on elections ) and, especially, to Strzok role in FBI in opening  investigation about Trump Russian connections (John Brennan, Obama loyalist and CIA director, drove FBI to investigate Trump associates - Washington Times): 

It was then-CIA Director John O. Brennan, a close confidant of Mr. Obama’s, who provided the information — what he termed the “basis” — for the FBI to start the counterintelligence investigation last summer. Mr. Brennan served on the former president’s 2008 presidential campaign and in his White House.

Mr. Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee on May 23 that the intelligence community was picking up tidbits on Trump associates making contacts with Russians. Mr. Brennan did not name either the Russians or the Trump people. He indicated he did not know what was said.

... ... ...

Mr. Brennan, who has not hidden his dislike for Mr. Trump, testified he briefed the investigation’s progress to Mr. Obama, who at the time was trying to aid Hillary Clinton in her campaign against the Republican nominee.

... ... ...

But Mr. Brennan’s May 23 testimony shows that it was his actions that drove the FBI probe.

The dossier was financed by a Clinton backer and written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele. He was hired by Democratic-tied Fusion GPS in Washington.

Mr. Steele’s 35 pages of memos were first circulated in late June. In mid-July Fusion passed around another memo that made the most sensational charges. “Further Indications of Extensive Conspiracy Between Trump’s Campaign and the Kremlin” was the headline.

Strzok played important role in using Steele dossier as a pretext to wiretapping of Trump team during the elections.  James Rosen suggests he has CIA connections as well. Which would be  natural for anybody in his position.  So here there might be a link to Brennan's efforts to derail Trump. 

Most probable he was just a hired gun who received certain "recommendations" as this was part of the efforts of Obama administration to find dirt on Trump and derail his election bid.  Now we know that :

And likely there were others. It is unclear who performed wiretapping. It can be well "outsourced" to MI6 as Trump alleged in March 2017. 

Steele dossier which was created by former MI6 agent probably with the approval and support of MI6. It was a hatchet job to discredit  Trump and ensure Hillary Clinton victory (in which GB government was very interested).  When the dossier was created it found its way to Strzok desk:

As deputy FBI director for counterintelligence, Strzok also enjoyed liaison with various agencies in the intelligence community, including the CIA, then led by Director John Brennan.

House investigators told Fox News they have long regarded Strzok as a key figure in the chain of events when the bureau, in 2016, received the infamous anti-Trump "dossier" and launched a counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the election that ultimately came to encompass FISA surveillance of a Trump campaign associate.

The "dossier" was a compendium of salacious and largely unverified allegations about then-candidate Trump and others around him that was compiled by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The firm's bank records, obtained by House investigators, revealed that the project was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, D-Calif., has sought documents and witnesses from the Department of Justice and FBI to determine what role, if any, the dossier played in the move to place a Trump campaign associate under foreign surveillance.

Strzok himself briefed the committee on Dec. 5, 2016, the sources said, but within months of that session House Intelligence Committee investigators were contacted by an informant suggesting that there was "documentary evidence" that Strzok was purportedly obstructing the House probe into the dossier.

In early October, Nunes personally asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – who has overseen the Trump-Russia probe since the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions – to make Strzok available to the committee for questioning, sources said.

While Strzok's removal from the Mueller team had been publicly reported in August, the Justice Department never disclosed the anti-Trump texts to the House investigators. The denial of access to Strzok was instead predicated, sources said, on broad "personnel" grounds.

When a month had elapsed, House investigators – having issued three subpoenas for various witnesses and documents – formally recommended to Nunes that DOJ and FBI be held in contempt of Congress. Nunes continued pressing DOJ, including a conversation with Rosenstein as recently as last Wednesday.

Did FBI paid Steele additional money for the dossier is currently unclear.  But negotiations about such payments were under way.

Cui Bono?

Clearly both pro-Clinton and neocon/imperial factions in the US intelligence agencies were most to benefit from the election of Clinton. They also have skeletons  in the closet to hide. For them Hillary Clinton was the only suitable candidate,  and both Trump and Sanders -- a mortal danger.  Previous history of agencies influencing the USA election, such as Herbert Hoover collection dirt on politicians (which saved his from dismissal during Kennedy administration),  Allen Dulles machinations and  the whole JFK assassination sage (which up to this day remain unresolved with Warren commission seen as an instrument of swiping the dirt under the carpet),  as well as CIA role in Nixon Watergate operation suggest that any large US intelligence  agency but especially FBI and CIA have means, motive and opportunity. 

It might be a time for the news Church commission investigating their role in 2016 Presidential election.

Civic control of large intelligence agencies is exceedingly difficult, if impossible, so at some point tail tried to wag the dog.  Both Rockefeller Commission (United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States - Wikipedia) and Church committee provide ample evidence that once the process of polarization of agencies started it difficult or impossible to stop. The boost given to intelligence  agencies after 9/11 (Patriot Act) also played an important role. 

The behavior of Brennan, Clapper and Morell after elections does not inspire any confidence that they stayed  politically neutral in such important for them political fight.

It might be  helpful to see who is defending the dossier to answer the Cui Bob question Some "former CIA agents" jumped in with attempt to increase the credibility of Stele dossier. among  them:

And now there were a couple of former British diplomatic services officials and "journalists" closely connected with MI6 who also tried to defend  the dossier:  

People closely connected to Clinton campaign including Hillary Clinton herself (suppose, surprise) were also quite loud in defending the dossier as were close to Clinton campaign NYT and CNN.

Why Steele was assigned to do this hit job: possible collision between CIA and MI6

According  to Washington Times  it was Brennan who provide FBI information necessary to start the  "Russiagate" and put Trump team under surveillance:

It was then-CIA Director John O. Brennan, a close confidant of Mr. Obama’s, who provided the information — what he termed the “basis” — for the FBI to start the counterintelligence investigation last summer. Mr. Brennan served on the former president’s 2008 presidential campaign and in his White House.

BTW Strzok, the person  instrumental in swiping the Hillary "emailgate" dirt under the carpet,  probably has  multiple and close contacts with CIA due to the nature of his position at FBI. Strzok was the Chief of the Counterespionage Section during the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server.[4][5] (Wikipedia).

As of December 2017 it looks plausible that the dirt included into Steele dossier was at least tacitly approved by MI6 (as this influences British-Russia relations, which were already at a very low point at this time).  It is also difficult to assume that all those lurid details were the product of Steele imagination. And Steele does not have money to pay his sources and he was a "persona non grata" in Russia so he can't travel to the country; he does not know the language. Typically such  thing are projection: they just attribute to Trump incident  that occurred or rumored to be occurred with a different person. So his  sources might be tales within Russian emigrant community in London, not in Russia. 

The primary hypothesis is that he was just was patsy in a bigger game and can pay for this role a high price being undesired witness of machinations of powerful intelligence agencies.  After he realized that he was scared to death (and probably not only about Russians). That's why after his identity was revealed, he fled his home and went into hiding. Interestingly enough he did it before the publication, not after. Another possibility was that this was a shrewd PR move that implicitly increase plausibility of his "findings" and allow is to avoid unpleasant questions unless the noise around the dossier subside.  

Another the secondary factor might be that Steele services were cheap and he was pretty malleable character who quickly understood what is needed from him (his FIFA work). He also hold a grudge against Russians as Steele career was ruined by Russians who caught him and expelled from the country for espionage in 1993. As you can expect no Russian with any significant standing in government or business would talk to him and/or take bribes from such a person (to begin with the fact that to bribe a Russian official without British Government financial help  he simply is incapable ;-). This simply would be viewed as a setup.  Money he was paid for dossier are too small, really tiny,  to bribe even a couple of Russian university professors who are poor as church rats in comparison with government officials, or businessman. Moreover he is ostracized in Russia and lost all his contacts.  He definitely could bribe Ukrainians instead to provide some real or fake information from their channels for cheap.

According to the Telegraph he specialized on commercializing his knowledge of Russia, but in rather small, pedestrian areas, such as "soccer officials corruption" and similar efforts to derail Moscow bid for world championship (Former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, who produced Donald Trump Russian dossier, 'terrified for his safety' and went to ground): 

Christopher Steele, who wrote reports on compromising material Russian operatives allegedly had collected on US President-elect Donald Trump, is a former officer in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, according to people familiar with his career.

Former British intelligence officials said Steele spent years under diplomatic cover working for the agency, also known as MI6, in Russia and Paris and at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.

After he left the spy service, Steele supplied the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with information on corruption at FIFA, international soccer’s governing body.

It was his work on corruption in international soccer that lent credence to his reporting on Trump’s entanglements in Russia, US officials said on Wednesday.

Emails seen by Reuters indicate that, in the summer of 2010, members of a New York-based FBI squad assigned to investigate “Eurasian Organized Crime” met Steele in London to discuss allegations of possible corruption in FIFA, the Swiss-based body that also organizes the World Cup tournament.

People familiar with Steele’s activities said his British-based company, Orbis Business Intelligence, was hired by the Football Association, Britain’s domestic soccer governing body, to investigate FIFA. At the time, the Football Association was hoping to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cups. British corporate records show that Orbis was formed in March 2009.

Amid a swirl of corruption allegations, the 2018 World Cup was awarded to Moscow and Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 competition.

The FBI squad whose members met Steele subsequently opened a major investigation into alleged soccer corruption that led to dozens of US indictments, including those of prominent international soccer officials.

Senior FIFA officials, including long-time president Sepp Blatter, were forced to resign.

Steele was initially hired by FusionGPS, a Washington, DC-based political research firm, to investigate Trump on behalf of unidentified Republicans who wanted to stop Trump's bid for the GOP nomination. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that Steele was initially hired by Jeb Bush, one of Trump’s 16 opponents in the 2016 Republican primary. It was not immediately possible to verify the BBC’s report.

He was kept on assignment by FusionGPS after Trump won the nomination and his information was circulated to Democratic Party figures and members of the media.

Steele’s dealings with the FBI on Trump, initially with the senior agent who had started the FIFA probe and then moved to a post in Europe, began in July. However, Steele cut off contact with the FBI about a month before the Nov. 8 election because he was frustrated by the bureau’s slow progress.

The FBI opened preliminary investigations into Trump and his entourage’s dealings with Russians that were based in part on Steele’s reports, according to people familiar with the inquiries.

However, they said the Bureau shifted into low gear in the weeks before the election to avoid interfering in the vote. They said Steele grew frustrated and stopped dealing with the FBI after concluding it was not seriously investigating the material he had provided.

Steele’s reports circulated for months among major media outlets, including Reuters, but neither the news organizations nor US law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been able to corroborate them.

BuzzFeed published some of Steele’s reports about Trump on its website on Tuesday but the President-elect and his aides later said the reports were false. Russian authorities also dismissed them.

Associates of Steele said on Wednesday he was unavailable for comment. Christopher Burrows, a director and co-founder of Orbis with Steele, told The Wall Street Journal, which first published Steele’s name, that he could not confirm or deny that Steele’s company had produced the reports on Trump.

The Guardian, being is 100% neoliberal publication (which means strongly pro-Clinton) of course tried to present him not as a sleazy patsy, who worked for money,  but as a person meeting some higher moral standards ;-). See for example  Christopher Steele believes his dossier on Trump-Russia is 70-90% accurate US news The Guardian

Between 2014 and 2016, he authored more than a hundred reports on Russia and Ukraine, which were commissioned by private clients but shared widely within the state department and passed across the desks of the secretary of state, John Kerry, and the assistant secretary Victoria Nuland, who led the US response to the annexation of Crimea and the covert invasion of eastern Ukraine.

I like this range (70-90%). Lower bound means that one out of three allegation is provably  false and two other can't be verified ;-)

Now we know that it was DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign who financed the creation of dossier. (MSN, Oct 25,2017)

Yes, the dossier was funded by Democrats

Some of the pushback on the left has focused on the fact that a still-unidentified Republican client retained Fusion GPS to do research on Trump before the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Thus, they argue, it's wrong to say the dossier was just funded by Democrats.

But the dossier's author, Steele, wasn't brought into the mix until after Democrats retained Fusion GPS. So while both sides paid Fusion GPS, Steele was only funded by Democrats.

A Tory MP said last night the fresh outbreak of Cold War hostilities comes at a time when relations between Britain and Russia were the ‘worst they could get in peace-time’.

Russians blame MI6 for Steele dossier

Russians claimed they knew of ‘an impending official anti-Russian witch-hunt, involving the British special services’.

After publication of the dossier, Russia's London embassy posted the dark message addressing former MI6 officer Steele as the diplomatic crisis deepened. The post, headed 'Christopher Steele story', also claimed that British spies had been 'briefing both ways' against both Moscow and the US. In a tweet from its official account the Russian embassy said "MI6 officers are never ex". It was posted on the Russian embassy's official Twitter feed, and was published after the first picture emerged of former British spy Christopher Steele  went into hiding.

Theresa May rejected Russian claim MI6 was behind 'dirty dossier' about President elect Donald Trump  The Independent

Theresa May has rejected Russian allegations that MI6 was to blame for the ‘dirty dossier’ of explosive claims about Donald Trump. Former British spy Christopher Steele – the dossier's alleged author – has not worked for British intelligence “for years”, the Prime Minister said.

The Russian embassy in London had alleged that Mr. Steele was still working for MI6 and “briefing both ways” against Mr. Trump and Moscow, in a Twitter post.

... ... ...

Ms May spoke for the first time about the controversy at a press conference following talks with her New Zealand counterpart in Downing Street. She was asked whether the UK Government had any involvement in the creation of the dossier, a summary of which was handed to the FBI and to President Obama.

“It's a long-standing position that we don't comment on such matters, but I think from everything that you will have seen it is absolutely clear that the individual who produced this dossier has not worked for the UK Government for years,” the Prime Minister replied.

The late-night allegation by the Russian embassy appeared to signal another worsening of Anglo-Russian relations, after many frosty years. An embassy spokesman said the tweet – which said “MI6 officers are never ex” – “reflected the mood in Russia”, prompting talk of a fresh Cold War. American newspapers named Mr. Steele as the author of the 35-page dossier, thought to have been commissioned by a wealthy Republican donor who opposed Mr. Trump's bid for the White House. It alleged Mr. Trump had been cozying up to Vladimir Putin and cavorting with Russian prostitutes. The President-elect has dismissed it as “fake news”, “phoney stuff” and “crap”.

Why Steele went into hiding in January 2017 and then emerged from hiding in March

  Part of the document, allegedly compiled by former British intelligence agent Mr. Steele, is seen above. Click here to see the full document first published by BuzzFeed

All signs are that Steele was not an independent player. He was iether a fraud happy to make a buck, but a patsy of more powerful and sinister forces including parts of MI6 and CIA.  while I think that  'disappearance" was a PR move, Steele probably has reasons  to fear for his life. And it is fair to say that his elimination would be very useful for PR purposes for his handlers. there might be also other  reasons: "One must wonder what's happened to MI6, now that one it's former agents is advertising his former employer. Couldn't they kill him, or something ? ;-)" As one commenter to Daily Caller suggested:

It is so obvious that these idiots had NO IDEA that Trump might actually win the election. They believed their own rigged polls! If they even suspected that Trump might win, and get the keys to the kingdom, they never would have been so bold or at least they would have used what they had sooner to steal it. Once Trump won, they had to go "all in" and try to discredit him quick, but Trump doesn't fold. Once Sessions took over DOJ, the jig was up.

Daily Mail Online  in the article Christopher Steele in hiding over Trump dirty dossier made Ł1m in two years Daily Mail Online published on Jan 12, 2017 suggested that both Russian government and Trump assumed that this was a MI6 operation against them and that means British government was involved. The relation between Russia and Great Britain slide to the  such a low level that one Tory MP  called them "worst they could get in peace-time."

Christopher Steele in hiding over Trump dirty dossier made Ł1m in two years

Russia's relations with Britain went into the deep freeze last night as Moscow blamed MI6 for the dossier of sordid claims about Donald Trump.

In an alarming Twitter post, the Russian embassy in London suggested the dossier’s alleged author, former British spy Christopher Steele, was still working for MI6 and ‘briefing both ways’ against Mr. Trump and Moscow.

Mr. Steele, who spied in Moscow in the 1990s, was last night in hiding after vanishing shortly before the damning dossier made headlines around the world. Neighbours said he had asked them to look after his three cats, and there were claims last night he was in an MI6 safe house.

A Russian embassy spokesman said the tweet – which said ‘MI6 officers are never ex’ – ‘reflected the mood in Russia’.

A Tory MP said last night the fresh outbreak of Cold War hostilities comes at a time when relations between Britain and Russia were the ‘worst they could get in peace-time’.

Just days ago the Russians claimed they knew of ‘an impending official anti-Russian witch-hunt, involving the British special services’.

Russia's London embassy posted the dark message addressing former MI6 officer Steele as the diplomatic crisis deepened. The post, headed 'Christopher Steele story', also claimed that British spies had been 'briefing both ways' against both Moscow and the US. It was posted on the Russian embassy's official Twitter feed, and was published after the first picture emerged of former British spy Christopher Steele  -- who has fled his Ł1.5million Surrey mansion in fear.

When approached for a comment by MailOnline, a spokesman for the Russian embassy said: 'We have obvious questions". 'We don't raise them with HM Government given the frozen state of our official relationship. The tweet reflects the mood in Russia and speaks for itself.'

Following the tweet, Tory MP Crispin Blunt, who is conducting an inquiry into Russia, said it was a sign UK-Russian relations were the 'worst they could get in peace time'. Mr. Blunt, an ex-army officer and foreign affairs select committee chair, said: 'For a peace time political relationship, it is about as bad as it could get.'

Steele, 52, described as a 'confirmed socialist' as a Cambridge student, apparently packed his bags and fled his home in fear yesterday telling his neighbour: 'Look after my cats.'  Steele, a father-of-three and widower, may have gone abroad after being sensationally revealed as the author of a dossier on Donald Trump’s alleged outlandish sexual perversions with prostitutes in a Russian presidential suite.

... ... ...

Mr. Trump called the dossier 'fake' and 'phony', even suggesting that US secret services had leaked it to damage his reputation before his inauguration.  He debunked the 'golden shower' claim by saying: 'Does anyone believe that? I'm a germophobe'.

Senator John McCain was allegedly handed the incendiary Trump file by a former British Ambassador to Moscow, who has not yet been named.

Yesterday it was revealed Sir Tim Barrow, a former British Ambassador to Moscow who is now the UK's top EU diplomat in charge of Brexit regotiations, worked in the same office as Steele when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Sir Tim is understood to have told bosses he had 'nothing to do with' leaking Steele's Trump memos, a Foreign Office source told MailOnline.

Sir Andrew Wood - British ambassador to Moscow between 1995 and 2000 - has confirmed he met McCain, an outspoken critic of the President Elect, at a security conference in Canada in November.

The two discussed Trump's vulnerability to blackmail amid allegations contained in the discredited dossier. But he denied being the source of the document, which McCain was handed by an unnamed diplomat. Sir Andrew told The Independent he knew the alleged author of the dossier, former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, describing him as 'professional and thorough'.

He suddenly emerged from hiding on March 7, 2017 Just in  time as the buzz around the dossier subsided. (Trump Dossier Author Comes Out Of Hiding The Daily Caller ):

But the ex-spy declined to comment on his work on the 35-page Trump dossier, which was published by BuzzFeed in January. “I’m really pleased to be back here working again at the Orbis’s offices in London today,” he said in a video statement outside of Orbis’ offices in London.

He thanked supporters but said “I won’t be making any further statements or comments at this time.”

... ... ...

The retired spook began his work on the dossier in June after being hired by Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C.-based opposition research firm. Fusion GPS had been hired by a pro-Clinton group to dig up dirt on Trump.

Steele produced a series of memos dated between June 20 and Dec. 13. The memos, which were gleaned from a variety of sources, alleged that the Kremlin has blackmail material on Trump. Another Steele source claimed that the Trump campaign and Kremlin were in secret talks to help Trump win the election.

Was British government involved in color revolution against Trump?

On Jan 23, 2017 the head of British GCHQ spy agency resigned for "family reasons." That might  be connected with British government wiretapping of Trump team to which Trump alleged later the same year:

British spy chief Robert Hannigan said on Monday he was stepping down as head of Britain’s intelligence eavesdropping service GCHQ for family reasons. Hannigan, GCHQ director since 2014, said the job had demanded “a great deal” from his family.

In   NYT published an article Trump Offers No Apology for Claim on British Spying  which now sounds pretty funny in view of subsequent events and discoveries and now can be viewed as a part of whitewashing efforts:

The angry response from Britain stemmed from Mr. Trump’s persistence in accusing Mr. Obama of tapping his phones last year despite the lack of evidence and across-the-board denials. At a briefing on Thursday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, read from a sheaf of news clippings that he suggested bolstered the president’s claim.

Among them was an assertion by Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News commentator, that Mr. Obama had used Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, the agency known as the GCHQ, to spy on Mr. Trump. In response to Mr. Spicer, the agency quickly denied it as “nonsense” and “utterly ridiculous,” while British officials contacted American counterparts to complain.

Also British government staunchly supported Hillary Clinton after former PM David Cameron reached an agreement with her about Brexit. Those facts were not yet reflected in Wikipedia article. Among journalists, Bob Woodward called the dossier a "garbage document". A devastating assessment of this "unconvincing forgery" was done by  Craig Murray  in his article  Unconvincing Forgery, The Alleged Donald Trump “Manchurian Candidate” The Steele Dossier or the Hitler Diaries Mark II  Fusion GPS threatening to plead the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination also raised eyebrows last week. The Clinton campaign has also, notably, denied working with the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Trump.

Looking on treatment of Steele dossier in Guardian a strong suspicion arise that a part of British establishment  was involved in this dirty peace of work too.

Did FBI or Justice Department pay Steele?

There were also information of FBI payment to Steele, but so far it is unverified.  If true that implicates Comey in criminal activity ( FBI Dir. James Comey testified on Russian 'The Steel Dossier' - YouTube, his testimony  30:00 ). After Hillary Clinton "emailgate" case was reopened James Comey asked for immunity.  See also Trey Gowdy’s STUNNING Move Left Robert Mueller & James Comey SPEECHLESS! - YouTube

The Daily Caller article suggest that the deal fall apart when Steele was unable to verify allegations:

It emerged last week that the FBI made an informal agreement with Steele in October to pay the retired spook for his services. According to The Washington Post, the FBI never paid Steele, though it is unclear why their deal fell apart. (RELATED: FBI Pressed On Agreement With Trump Dossier Author)

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley is now asking the FBI to provide details of that agreement and other correspondence with Steele.

“The idea that the FBI and associates of the Clinton campaign would pay Mr. Steele to investigate the Republican nominee for President in the run-up to the election raises further questions about the FBI’s independence from politics,” Grassley wrote in the letter to Comey.

Steele has also been sued over his work on the dossier. A Russian tech executive named in the dossier as a Kremlin asset who was helping wage the email hacking campaign is suing Steele and BuzzFeed for defamation. BuzzFeed redacted the executive’s name and apologized for not doing so when it first published Steele’s memos.

As NPR reported Andrew McCabe, FBI Deputy Director, Faces Closed-Door Grilling From Lawmakers NPR

Lawmakers on Tuesday also likely grilled McCabe on the so-called Trump dossier, which was compiled by a former British intelligence officer at the behest of a Washington-based strategic research firm called Fusion GPS. Hillary Clinton's campaign helped pay for the dossier as opposition research on Trump.

Republicans want to know whether the FBI used the dossier to launch its investigation into Russian interference in last year's election. Mueller took over that probe when he was named special counsel in May.

Republicans allege that if the Russia investigation is founded upon a Democratic-funded dossier, then the whole inquiry is politically motivated.

Then-FBI Director James Comey told Congress earlier this year that the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into the Trump camp began in July of 2016, but he did not detail what spurred it.

Comey also was a supporter of McCabe, who began his career at the FBI in 1996 in the New York Field Office, where he investigated organized crime. He later shifted to counterterrorism and held senior positions in the FBI's National Security Branch and Washington Field Office. In January 2016, Comey named McCabe as the bureau's deputy director, which gave him an oversight role in all of the FBI's domestic and international investigations and intelligence operations. McCabe briefly served as acting director after Trump fired Comey in May.

After Andrew McCabe who was involved in those negotiations was grilled by House Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election he rushed to retire (announced Dec 23, 2017) Andrew McCabe, F.B.I.’s Embattled Deputy, Is Expected to Retire - The New York Times

What was in the dossier?

Donald Trump–Russia dossier - Wikipedia (please note that Wikipedia clearly takes pro-Steele stance, which is not surprising taking into account that one nickname of Wikipedia is CIApedia)

The Donald Trump–Russia dossier is a private intelligence dossier that was written by Christopher Steele, a former British MI6 intelligence officer. It contains unverified allegations of misconduct and collusion between Donald Trump and his campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the period preceding the election. The contents of the dossier were published in full by BuzzFeed on January 10, 2017.[1] BuzzFeed's decision to publish the dossier was met with criticism from some mainstream media outlets.[2][3][4]

The dossier primarily discusses possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The media and the intelligence community have stressed that accusations in the dossier have not been verified. Most experts have treated the dossier with caution, but in February, it was reported that some details related to conversations between foreign nationals had been independently corroborated, giving U.S. intelligence and law enforcement greater confidence in some aspects of the dossier as investigations continued. Trump himself has denounced the report, calling it "fake news" and "phony".

The dossier was produced as part of opposition research during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The research was initially funded by an unnamed Republican during the Republican Party presidential primaries. After Trump won the primaries, the Democratic lawyer Marc Elias took over the funding on behalf of the DNC and Clinton presidential campaign,[5] and, following Trump's election, Steele continued working on the report, with financing from Glenn R. Simpson of Fusion GPS,[6] and passed on the information to British and American intelligence services.

The 35-page dossier claims that Russia is in possession of damaging or embarrassing information about Trump which could be used for purposes of blackmail to get Trump to cooperate with the Russian government.[7] The material includes allegations about Trump's sexual and financial dealings in Russia.[8] The dossier further alleges that Trump has been cultivated and supported by Russia for at least five years, with Putin's endorsement, with the overall aim of creating divisions between Western alliances; that Trump has extensive ties to Russia; and that there had been multiple contacts between Russian officials and people working for Trump during the campaign.[7][9]

The report alleged that the Russian government had cultivated Trump for years:

The "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance". It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals". It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him".

— Mother Jones, October 31, 2016[10]

The report further alleged that there were multiple in-person meetings between Russian government officials and individuals established as working for Trump.[11][12] The former intelligence officer continued to share information with the FBI, and said in October 2016 that "there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on".[10]

... ... ...

Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov insisted in an interview that the document is a fraud, saying "I can assure you that the allegations in this funny paper, in this so-called report, they are untrue. They are all fake."[70] The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, called the people who leaked the document "worse than prostitutes"[71] and referred to the dossier itself as "rubbish".[72] Putin went on to state he believed that the dossier was "clearly fake",[73] fabricated as a plot against the legitimacy of President-elect Donald Trump.[74]

...Among journalists, Bob Woodward called the dossier a "garbage document,"

...Aleksej Gubarev, chief of technology company XBT and a figure mentioned in the dossier, sued BuzzFeed for defamation on February 3, 2017. The suit, filed in a Broward County, Florida court,[80] centers on allegations from the dossier that XBT had been "using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct 'altering operations' against the Democratic Party leadership".[81] In the High Court of Justice, Steele's lawyers said that their client did not intend for the memos to be released, and that one of the memos "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified".[82]

On March 2, 2017, media began reporting that the Senate may call Steele to testify about the Trump dossier.[83]

On March 27, 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley asked the Department of Justice to initiate an inquiry into Fusion GPS, who initially retained Steele to write the dossier.[84] Fusion GPS was previously associated with pro-Russia lobbying activities due to sanctions imposed by the Magnitsky Act.[85]

On August 22, 2017, media reported that Christopher Steele had met with the FBI and had provided them with the names of his sources for the allegations made in the dossier.[86]

 HLet's here consideration of of the opposite party: The Russia Explainer. The main point is that "If the dossier were true, it means Steele’s contacts are not only supernaturally well-connected, having access to unreported information from various parts of the Russian state apparatus (and from inside the Trump campaign) on intelligence matters and criminal conspiracies, but are willing to take incredible risks in order to help Steele prepare his reports.". The most typical punishment in Russia for treason is life sensence without parole. Even for extremely greedy and unscuplious person, that exclude possibility of taking such  a risk for small amount of money that  Steele might be to pay, if any. 

These are the general impressions a Russia-knowledgeable person gets from the dossier (I’ll expand on these as we go through the points of the dossier):
  • With about 10 minutes of Googling in Russian (which I then confirmed with English-language sources linked to below) I was able to debunk one of the allegations in this supposedly “unverifiable” dossier: that longtime Kremlin insider Oleg Govorun supposedly was a “bag carrier” for Alfa Group in the early ’90s who delivered cash to Vladimir Putin while he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. I was able to establish that Govorun didn’t go to work for Alfa until 1997, leaving Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s holding Rosprom together with Vladislav Surkov (who joined Alfa in March 1997), 8 months after Putin had moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow to work for Yeltsin after Putin’s boss, St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, had lost the 1996 election. At the time Putin left office (his boss having been voted out), Govorun was working for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a rival of Alfa’s owners. And no, he didn’t work for Alfa before that. I was also able to see how Steele’s sources made this mistake: Govorun’s Wikipedia page leaves out his time working for Khodorkovsky, and makes it look like Govorun worked at Alfa-Bank from 1993 to 2000. Ah, the perils of doing your research on Wikipedia!
  • The person who actually organized the reports in the dossier (as opposed to the sources) is not very familiar with Russian business or politics (particularly the personalities involved) in 2016, probably doesn’t speak Russian or know what’s being reported in the Russian media, and there are a number of clear or easily checkable errors.
  • If the dossier were true, it means Steele’s contacts are not only supernaturally well-connected, having access to unreported information from various parts of the Russian state apparatus (and from inside the Trump campaign) on intelligence matters and criminal conspiracies, but are willing to take incredible risks in order to help Steele prepare his reports.
  • Some of the information that Steele’s contacts provide would only make sense if (1) the Russian government works completely different from how even Russians close to the government believe it works, (2) the personalities involved are completely different from how they appear to close observers, and (3) all of the prevailing wisdom about how the Putin team works behind-the-scenes is wrong.
  • There’s a strange juxtaposition of on the one hand, information that, if true, would be ultra-insider, completely surprising, mind-blowing revelations about the inner workings of the Russian ruling clique, and on the other hand, basically cut-and-paste jobs from whatever was in the headlines in the weeks before any given report in the dossier. Steele does not seem to be concerned that his client will simply Google the names and incidents in his reports and find out that this information had already been in the news for days, or sometimes weeks or months – in the case of Steele’s “scoop” about the relationship between Aras Agalarov and Trump, the “intel” had been in Donald Trump’s own Twitter feed for almost 3 years.
  • The dossier doesn’t seem to have had much intelligence value: if you go by the dates on the individual reports that make up the dossier, all of the verifiable information refers to things that had already been reported or speculated on in the Russian and/or Western media by that time. The unverifiable information is presented in the form of unfounded allegations. There isn’t any “actionable” intelligence – accurate predictions of future events and people’s plans, or “dirt” for which there is at least some evidence.
  • There are also glaring omissions given later developments in the Trump/Russia story. Why no mention of Cozy Bear, Fancy Bear or the GRU? Why no mention of internet troll armies or fake news? Why no mention of the role of RT or Sputnik in the overall influence operation? The most logical explanation is that Steele’s sources were riffing off of media reports, and the omitted narratives didn’t get traction in the press until the US intelligence community issued its declassified report on Russia’s election interference in January 2017, after the dossier was already out in the wild. But if the dossier was really based on knowledgable insiders’ reports and not on a bunch of rumors peddled in response to the news of the day, you’d expect it would have foreshadowed many of the revelations in that report (assuming the intel agencies’ report has merit).

 

Frantic efforts to spread lies after the election to fuel neo-McCarthyism campaign

Neo-McCarthyism campaign launched after the election has multiple purposes. It allow to shift blame for Hillary Clinton fiasco, which was important for neoliberal wing of Democratic Party. And specifically swipe under that carpet the dirty game DNC played against Sanders.

It also distracts public from the fundamental problem -- the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. The crisis that led to the Trump election.

John McCain played some role in this effort, or may was used as a patsy by exploiting his pre-existent anti-Russian bias to further goals of other players.  During this period US MSM throw away any pretence in objectivity and lied and distort information with impunity.  Paradoxically this restored some  trust in fox News which was only partially infected by this neo-McCarthyism witch-hunt. But NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC and other  neoliberal channels fall into such depth of depravity that they even Soviet media looks like a paragon of objectivity in comparison with them.

It could well be that the role of Steele dossier might be create a pretext of using total surveillance on Trump team on the part of FBI. Which was a pretty devious plot, indeed.  And they are real specialists in this area due to their track record of implementing color revolutions in various parts of the globe, and, especially, in former Soviet Union and its former satellites. 

It was also an opening move in the  appointment of the Special Prosecutor gambit, which culminated in May 2017 with the appointment of Mueller. 

 

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[Jul 24, 2021] Steele Dossier Peddlers Confirm Its Substance With New Forgeries

Jul 16, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Today the Guardian published another fake 'Russiagate' story:

Kremlin papers appear to show Putin's plot to put Trump in White House

Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a "mentally unstable" Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia's national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
...
Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.

Yaawwwnn ...

We know, without reading it, that the story is fake because its main author is Luke Harding. Harding also authored the story which claimed that Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manaford met Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. That story was proven to be false but the Guardian , to its shame, still has it up on its website .

In 2017 Luke Harding abruptly ended an interview with Aaron Maté after Harding was challenged over false claims he had made in his book about 'Russiagate'. The last five minutes of that video are quite amusing .

The Guardian story claims that the 'leaked' nonsense paper was discussed in high level Kremlin meeting in January 2016. It was then decided, it alleges, to support Trump. But in January 2016 there was no one, not even Donald Trump himself, who thought that he would win the Republican primary or even the presidency. But the Kremlin is supposed to have discussed him at the highest level well before anyone thought he could win?

Various people make interesting remarks about the new Guardian fakery:

Tara McCormack @McCormack_Tara - 12:13 UTC · Jul 15, 2021

I am seriously coming to the conclusion that Luke Harding is a Russian operative who has been put in place as part of a long term dastardly plan to make British journalism appear ridiculous.

---
Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg - 12:02 UTC · 15 Jul 2021

The next Luke Harding MI6 hoax.
Passing off forged Kremlin minutes saying things like "It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump's] election to the post of US president."
Hilarious
theguardian.com/world/2021/jul"¦

---
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald - 12:07 UTC · 15 Jul 2021

The part of the media that feigns anger at misinformation is uncritically promoting a story today by Luke Harding that Russia was blackmailing Trump -- the same Harding who has published many false stories, championed the Steele Dossier and claimed Trump was long a Russian agent.
...
Now suddenly, Harding claims he obtained leaked, highly sensitive Kremlin documents that just so happen to prove all the lies he's been peddling for years, that not even Mueller's huge team found. Because it advances liberals' interests, journalists are uncritically spreading it.
...
I will once use this shabby behavior to against highlight 2 points:

1) The contempt and loss of trust people harbor for the corporate media is completely justified and well-earned.

2) These outlets are by far the most prolific and destructive disseminators of disinformation.

Even people who are typically inclined to promote all kinds of anti-Russian nonsense are cautious on this item.

Thomas Rid @RidT - 12:38 UTC · 15 Jul 2021

This Guardian story is likely to make big waves. I would remain somewhat cautious for now, however. For a "leak" of this magnitude, we need at least some details on the chain of custody. Also note the Guardian's own hedging ("papers appear to show") theguardian.com/world/2021/jul"¦

---
Pwn All The Things @pwnallthethings - 14:40 UTC · 15 Jul 2021

Also, just putting this out there, if the US had this and thought it was real, how likely is it that it would have survived the waterfall of leaks of the past few years? And yet, here we are, with this as exclusive by the UK's Guardian, and conspicuously not, say, WaPo or NYT.

Christopher Steele, the 'former' British intelligence officer who peddle the fake dossier about alleged Russian Trump kompromat on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign, worked and still works for Orbis Intelligence, a British private outlet run by 'former' British spies.

They are still at it ...

Orbis Business Intelligence @OrbisBIOfficial - 10:48 UTC · Jul 15, 2021

Great reporting on an important story.

Luke Harding @lukeharding1968 - 10:02 UTC · Jul 15, 2021

Exclusive: Leaked Putin papers appear to show #Russia's plot to put a "mentally unstable" Donald Trump into the White House "" my story with @julianborger in Washington and @dansabbagh in London
Kremlin papers appear to show Putin's plot to put Trump in White House

"Great reporting.. " "..important story"

Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

Posted by b on July 15, 2021 at 15:20 UTC | Permalink

Bemildred , Jul 15 2021 15:31 utc | 1


They embarass us all with this sort of stupidity. And being British, of course, they double down on it.

" REVEALED: Iran plotted to kidnap Iranian-American journalist from Brooklyn, transport her by speedboat to Venezuela and then fly her to the Islamic republic because she criticized regime, FBI say"

You just cannot get much more ludicrous than that.

Bemildred , Jul 15 2021 15:33 utc | 2
And lots of projection too, we all know who lies and indulges in all sorts of chicanery to silence critics (like Assange, say).
james , Jul 15 2021 15:50 utc | 3
damn you gottlieb! look what you started, lol...

thanks b... these intel agencies running the "free press" sure are getting boring really fast....

james , Jul 15 2021 15:52 utc | 4
@ 1 bemildred.... i knew it was a lie when i heard it on the cbc radio yesterday... if the cbc is running with it - it is an outright made up lie... accept everything on the surface and never question anything!!! be a good citizen, lol...
Bigben , Jul 15 2021 16:00 utc | 5
The articles from The Guardian and all don't prove anything about Russia's plans. The cite the January 26 meeting of the Security Council as Proof of Putin's plans. If I were in Putin's place, I would also have been happy with Trump's election and its likely socioeconomic impact on the US society.
Tuyzentfloot , Jul 15 2021 16:12 utc | 6
Harding strikes me as someone who's completely into the business of selling stories. He senses where the money is , looks at his sales numbers and concludes he's doing great because that is how he measures things. No concept of 'truth' other than financial success in the market of ideas. I suspect he makes a lot of money.
the pair , Jul 15 2021 16:18 utc | 7
damn, i wish i had it in me to be a cult leader...i'd make a beeline to the guardian office and have an army of kool-aid drinking simps at my disposal. when they aren't harrassing and firing women writers for calling out "female identifying" sex offenders in dresses or stirring up imaginary "anti-semitism" they're peddling this delusional nonsense and LARPing as MI6 spooks. truly in their own little world. i'll guess some LSD in the water cooler and a decent powerpoint presentation is all it would take to be the limey jim jones.
Ð"жММ , Jul 15 2021 16:35 utc | 8
The chunks of the supposed document that the Guardian included with its article really give it away. The text - supposedly from an internal Kremlin communication - reads as no more or less than a chunk of English passed through Google Translate. Idiomatically, it is chock full of awkwardness and simple ridiculous phrasings. There are even grammatical errors! "..во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ±Ñ‹Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÐµÐ³Ð¾..." is simply incorrect. In Russian, the last two words are reversed in order.

It recalls the recent Putin's Palace story, with the "комната грÑзи".

It's just shameful how little pride the propagandists take in their work. I understand that they hold their audience in only the lowest of regard (not without cause, to be fair), but it's not like there is any shortage of Russian-speakers in the west they could go to for proofreading, if not copy writing.

vk , Jul 15 2021 16:55 utc | 9
Kremlin's response came out:

Peskov called the article by The Guardian about the authorities of Russia and Trump a fiction

"Of course, this is such a continuation of absolutely low-quality publications. Either the newspaper is trying to somehow increase its popularity, or the newspaper continues such a frenzied Russophobic line. Of course, all this does not and cannot correspond to the truth. This, in fact, is not true ... This is a continuation of the exercises on total demonization of Russia and Putin, which The Guardian sometimes likes to do, or is it a desperate attempt to attract some new readers by publishing such tales, "Peskov said.
Stonebird , Jul 15 2021 17:18 utc | 10
"REVEALED: Iran plotted to kidnap Iranian-American journalist from Brooklyn, transport her by speedboat to Venezuela and then fly her to the Islamic republic because she criticized regime, FBI say", Bemildred | Jul 15 2021 15:31 utc | 1

I TOLD you all that the FBI needed new script writers. Either that or they have so little imagination that they have to use up all the scripts from a couple of years back, as they cannot afford new ones.

******

Don't underestimate stupidity

pnyx , Jul 15 2021 17:18 utc | 11
Luke 'Skywalker' Harding defeats the evil empire. Part 13.
Citizen621 , Jul 15 2021 17:58 utc | 12
Doesn't matter - the MSNBC watchers will never accept this. I still try to punch through the armor of confirmation bias now and then. My last jab was: "I think Russiagate is every bit as much evidence-free bullshit as Quanon!". No effect whatsoever. Willing to agree with half of what I said - just like Fox watchers.

Unfortunately, I don't think my fellow citizens here in the heart of Pindostan will pay attention until things get bad enough that they know actual hunger - and then they will serve the elites by fighting each other.

Sorry for the pessimism, the one positive thing I do think I can do is tend my vegetable garden!

jo6pac , Jul 15 2021 18:07 utc | 13
Amerikan intel agrees it fake but they will walk it back soon I'm sure

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/trump-and-kremlin/

QA , Jul 15 2021 18:53 utc | 14
Ð"жММ:

"во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ±Ñ‹Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÐµÐ³Ð¾", maybe awkward but semikosher, many examples can be found Googling it ---like during stay of his vs. during his stay (e.g. kamchatka.mid.ru can be found to say: "ÑвÑÐ·Ð°Ð½Ð½Ñ‹Ñ Ñ Ð´ÐµÐ¹ÑтвиÑми и поÑтупками пригÐ"ашаемого во Ð²Ñ€ÐµÐ¼Ñ Ð¿Ñ€ÐµÐ±Ñ‹Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ñ ÐµÐ³Ð¾ в РФ, в том чиÑÐ"е, в ÑÐ"учае депортации").

Thomas , Jul 15 2021 20:22 utc | 15
Jeez, it just gets worse-as soon as I saw the name Luke harding, I knew it was a pile of trash; really, who in the hell reads this without a sense to vomit.

Well, there there is Orbis: "great reporting."

MI6 and prob cia has this clown on the payroll; I tried to watch the last 5 minutes of the video but could not get past the first minute; the guy is absolutely repulsive and they continue to double down on this garbage.

Cadence calls , Jul 15 2021 20:28 utc | 16
Headlines on Democratic Underground and Daily KOS:
"Explosive evidence that Putin supported a Trump Presidency"

Commenters: "I knew it!"

Thomas , Jul 15 2021 20:30 utc | 17
Ð"жММ-8

I think you really nailed it; we see it every day, with this latest pail of s___, that these purveyors absolutely have no shame or embarrassment, but believe their audience, the sheeple, are complete idiots or stupid. The question is who is stupid as this level of stupidity cannot be fixed or underestimated.

librul , Jul 15 2021 21:41 utc | 18
I remember the scene in the movie "The Big Short" where Steve Carell
was saying, "they knew all along!".

Goldman Sachs, et al, had over-leveraged the housing mortgages and "they knew all along"
if and when it all crumbled the government would cover Wall Street's bad bets with taxpayer debt.

They knew all along it was bs but they did it anyway.

The MSM is a different arena but has the same arrogant attitude towards average joe citizen.

The MSM knows it is selling bs but they don't care.

What I see is they are counting on the "Reiteration Effect" (look it up, it is a real thing).
"Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad", "Russia bad".

There have been a steady stream of "Russia bad" stories and "Russia helped Trump" stories, and over time
the fact that these stories are one by one debunked does not matter. The "Reiteration Effect" is what matters.
"Say something a million times and it becomes true" is not a mere cynical phrase, it actually works - the "Reiteration Effect".

Keep putting out these "Russia bad" stories and "Russia helped Trump" stories and over time people will accept the basic message as true.

The MSM has known all along they were selling bs, but they don't care.

vk , Jul 15 2021 22:11 utc | 19
@ Posted by: librul | Jul 15 2021 21:41 utc | 18

They definitely didn't know 2008 would happen. On the contrary: they thought they had discovered the elixir of immortality for capitalism.

The USA was caught completely off-guard in September 2008. You have to search with a magnifying glass to find the ten people who predicted the crisis would happen in its nature and more or less its timing - but even then, most of them were Marxists, i.e. outside the commanding heights of the USG.

librul , Jul 15 2021 22:23 utc | 20
@Posted by: vk | Jul 15 2021 22:11 utc | 19

Goldman Sachs began to short mortgage bonds and like instruments before the crash of 2008.

Regardless, they *knew* their bets were covered by the government.

---

Were you aware that Henry Paulson began to ready a coup in 2008?

Tuyzentfloot , Jul 15 2021 22:41 utc | 21
I like the idea of the makers of this thing deciding that it's a shoddy job which only Harding will take. Also Harding gets all the attention but let's not forget the honourable mentions in this story: Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh.
librul , Jul 15 2021 22:49 utc | 22
@Posted by: librul | Jul 15 2021 22:23 utc | 20 ....continued

I saved this from somewhere (?) years ago. Doesn't matter, you can read Paulson's coup document for yourself.
The WSJ link still works but you hit a pay wall. You can put the following url at http://web.archive.org/
and read the original WSJ publication and Paulson's coup document dated Sept 20, 2008 at the WSJ.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/20/treasurys-financial-bailout-proposal-to-congress/


**** "shall not be subject to judicial review" ****

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/20/treasurys-financial-bailout-proposal-to-congress/

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Did you catch that? Paulson went further. Not just the courts are cut out but "any adminstrative agency" as well.

Paulson also was giving to Himself the authority to APPROPRIATE any funds He wished.

"Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed appropriated at the time of such expenditure."

HE could pass ANY legislation He wanted to:

"(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act."

The word "term" has a duel meaning. It also refers to TIME, as in length of a term.

Give powers to anyone and hire anyone He wished to:

"(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;"

What miscellaneous authorities did G-d Paulson give Himself? Answer: Authority over the police and the military.

"In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for""

(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and

"providing stability OR". That OR makes for confusion (intentional confusion). Stability is a word used often in the context of economics but it is also used in the context of police action. Get it? He wants to create his own SS. See the very next word: "protecting", as in "We Serve and Protect".

(2) protecting the taxpayer."

The last one is my favorite. Who is a *taxpayer*? Hmmm, is not everyone, even candy purchasing kids liable to pay tax? Corporations are also taxpayers...

G-d Paulson covered all his bases.

Even the one about being G-d Forever:

"Sec. 9. Termination of Authority.

The authorities under this Act, with the exception of authorities granted in sections 2(b)(5), 5 and 7, shall terminate two years from the date of enactment of this Act."

Paulson wants you to believe this terminates in two years. However, 2(b)(5) does NOT terminate and that one says he can just place the crown back on His own head:

"(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act."

Cheers

A coup! A massive scandal that has been totally missed.

Michael888 , Jul 15 2021 23:01 utc | 23
@Posted by: librul | Jul 15 2021 21:41 utc | 18

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."-- Joseph Goebbels (Luke Harding's Father?)

corvo , Jul 15 2021 23:16 utc | 24
@ Cadence calls | Jul 15 2021 20:28 utc | 16:

We can take some comfort in the fact that Daily Kos readership has fallen precipitously over the last few years. Nobody takes it seriously anymore.

Dim sim , Jul 15 2021 23:31 utc | 25
In 2017 Luke Harding abruptly ended an interview with Aaron Maté after Harding was challenged over false claims he had made in his book about 'Russiagate'. The last five minutes of that video are quite amusing.

I'm not normally a follower of this topic even though one of our sleazers, Downer, was involved but needing something to smile at while in our CV lockdown I watched the link.

What an understatement! It's a hilarious 28m:51s train wreck interview with a complete dick. Thanks b for sharing it.

mismatch , Jul 15 2021 23:49 utc | 26
@Vk, I'm sorry to contradict you but if you pick up a copy of the Financial Times in 2008 before the crash, everyone was predicting it. I checked recently, and sure enough, it was all over the paper.
TEP , Jul 16 2021 0:18 utc | 27
Luke Harding. Nuff said.
TEP.
Erelis , Jul 16 2021 0:22 utc | 28
Once again super duper evil genius ex-KGB spy cannot keep state secrets secret.
Christian J. Chuba , Jul 16 2021 0:24 utc | 29
Painful video to watch. Harding is using the Hitler argument.

'My evidence that Trump colluded with Putin (Saddam has WMD) is that Putin is Hitler. If you don't believe me, you are supporting Adolf Hitler'.

Harding is Satan's minion, and Jesus said, 'Satan is a liar and a murderer, when he lies, he speaks his native language'

Lies kill.

vk , Jul 16 2021 0:39 utc | 30
@ Posted by: mismatch | Jul 15 2021 23:49 utc | 26

By 2007, the financial elite already knew something would happen - but not a structural crisis. In fact, they predicted nothing: the chain of bankruptcies started at the end of 2006; September 2008 was just the date it "leaked" to the "real economy".

Not every crisis is bad for capitalism. Cyclical crisis are natural and beneficial to capitalism. The crisis of 2008 was not a cyclical crisis, but a structural one. They probably thought it was either a cyclical crisis (a la Dotcom crisis of 2000) or, if something more serious, something the free market would easily be able to "self-regulate" out of.

[Jun 03, 2021] Too Many Journalists Need to Raise Their Ethical Bar - WSJ

Jun 03, 2021 | www.wsj.com

Holman Jenkins aptly describes the journalists involved in the Steele affair as "lazy" ( "Two Grifters and a Dossier," Business World, May 26). Of course, they are intellectually lazy -- it's absurdly in their interest. When it comes to public figures, knowing less is a better defense than actually doing their job. The 1964 Supreme Court case Sullivan v. New York Times requiring "actual malice" has given the news business a perverse incentive. The less journalists actually know about the veracity of a story, the more defensible their legal position. Justice Clarence Thomas recently described the malice standard as "almost impossible" to prove, and without a reporter unearthing counterfactual accounts, proving malice is properly impossible. So reporters find a story they love with suspect, but well-placed, sourcing and run it without corroboration.

The wholesale use of single, anonymous sourcing to print defamatory stories about public figures is now commonplace. Rep. Adam Schiff and his staff continually leaked falsities about the Russia investigation, and reporters dutifully printed every word of it. Let's overturn Sullivan and watch how fast the 24-hour news cycle changes under the threat of the plaintiffs bar.

Conan M. Ward

[May 28, 2021] Accused Russiagate Spy Kilimnik Speaks -- and Evidence Backs His No Collusion Account

Highly recommended!
Money quite from comments: " more importantly it is devastating information about the dishonesty of our government. What have we come to? What recourse is available?"
May 24, 2021 | www.realclearinvestigations.com
By Aaron Maté , RealClearInvestigations
May 19, 2021

The man cast as a linchpin of debunked Trump-Russia collusion theories is breaking his silence to vigorously dispute the U.S. government's effort to brand him a Russian spy and put him behind bars.

In an exclusive interview with RealClearInvestigations, Konstantin Kilimnik stated, "I have no relationship whatsoever to any intelligence services, be they Russian or Ukrainian or American, or anyone else."

Konstantin Kilimnik: Decries the U.S. government's "senseless and false accusations." AP Photo

Kilimnik, a longtime employee of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, spoke out in response to an explosive Treasury Department statement declaring that he had "provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" during the 2016 election. That press release, which announced an array of sanctions on Russian nationals last month, also alleged that Kilimnik is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf."

Treasury 's claim came shortly after two other accusatory U.S. government statements about the dual Ukrainian-Russian national. In March, a U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment accused Kilimnik of being a "Russian influence agent" who meddled in the 2020 campaign to assist Trump's reelection. A month earlier, an FBI alert offered $250,000 for information leading to his arrest over a 2018 witness tampering charge in Manafort's shuttered Ukraine lobbying case, which was unrelated to Russia, collusion, or any elections.

Treasury provided no evidence for its claims, which go beyond the findings of the two most extensive Russiagate investigations: the 448-page report issued in 2019 by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the 966-page report issued in August 2020 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Treasury has declined all media requests for elaboration on how it reached conclusions that those probes did not. Two unidentified officials told NBC News that U.S. intelligence "has developed new information" about Kilimnik "that leads them to believe " (emphasis added) that he passed on the polling data to Russia. But these sources "did not identify the source or type of intelligence that had been developed," nor "when or how" it was received.

"Nobody has seen any evidence to support these claims about Kilimnik," a congressional source familiar with the House and Senate's multiple Russia-related investigations told RCI.

Adam Schiff: Treated the Treasury claim about Kilimnik as the Trump-Russia smoking gun. "That's what most people would call collusion," he said. (Al Drago/Pool via AP)

Despite the absence of evidence, the Treasury press release's one-sentence claim about Kilimnik has been widely greeted as the Trump-Russia smoking gun. Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC that Treasury's assertion about Kilimnik proved that Russian intelligence was "involved in trying to help Trump win in that [2016] election. That's what most people would call collusion."

Speaking to RCI in fluent English from his home in Moscow, Kilimnik, 51, described these U.S. government assertions as "senseless and false accusations."

His comments are backed up by documents, some previously unreported, as well as by Rick Gates, a longtime Manafort associate and key Mueller probe cooperating witness. (Gates pleaded guilty to making a false statement and to failing to register as a foreign agent in connection to his lobbying work in Ukraine.) The evidence raises doubts about new efforts to revive the Trump-Kremlin collusion narrative by casting Kilimnik as a central Russian figure.

"They needed a Russian to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," Kilimnik said.

Highlights from the interview and RCI's related reporting:

  • Kilimnik denies passing 2016 polling data to Russian intelligence, or any Russian for that matter. Instead, Kilimnik says he shared publicly available, general information about the 2016 American presidential race to Ukrainian clients of Manafort's in a bid to recover old debts and drum up new business. Gates told RCI that the Mueller team "cherry-picked" his testimony about Kilimnik to spread a misleading, collusion-favorable narrative. The U.S. government has never publicly produced the polling data at issue, nor any evidence that it was shared with Russia.
  • Despite his centrality to the Trump-Russia saga, Kilimnik says no U.S. government official has ever tried get in touch with him. "I never had a single contact with [the] FBI or any government official," Kilimnik says.
  • Kilimnik shared documents that contradict the Special Counsel's effort to prove that he has Russian intelligence "ties." Photos and video of his Russian passport and a U.S. visa in his name, shared with RCI , undermine the Mueller report's claim that Kilimnik visited the United States on a Russian "diplomatic passport" in 1997. To judge from the images, he travelled on a civilian passport and obtained a regular U.S. visa. The Mueller team has never produced the "diplomatic passport."
  • Kilimnik denies traveling to Spain to meet Manafort in 2017. If true, this would undercut the Mueller team's claim that Manafort lied in denying such a meeting. That denial was used to help secure a 2019 court ruling that Manafort breached a cooperation agreement. The Special Counsel never furnished evidence for the alleged Madrid encounter.
  • While the Treasury Department and Senate Intelligence Committee claim that Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer, no U.S. security or intelligence agency has adopted this characterization.
  • Kilimnik has never been charged with anything related to espionage, Russia, collusion, or the 2016 election. Instead, the Mueller team indicted Kilimnik on witness-tampering charges in a case pertaining to Manafort's lobbying work in Ukraine.
  • Meanwhile, t he FBI's $250,000 bounty for Kilimnik is larger than most rewards it offers for the capture of violent fugitives, including those accused of child murder .
Reviving the Polling Data Conspiracy Theory

Kilminik has provided an inviting target for proponents of Trump-Russia conspiracy theories. He was born in 1970 in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, and later worked for Paul Manafort as a translator and aide there. This background makes him one of the few people in the broad Trump 2016 campaign orbit to possess a Russian passport.

To this Mueller and others have added a series of ambiguous and disputed allegations to say that the FBI "assesses" him to "have ties to Russian intelligence." This characterization, first made in a 2017 court filing, quickly transmogrified into a presumed fact of the collusion narrative.

Rather than prosecute Manafort for any crime related to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the Mueller team instead pursued him on financial and lobbying charges involving his pre-Trump stint as a political consultant in Ukraine. In 2018, it accused Kilimnik of seeking to pressure two "potential witnesses" by sending them text messages about Manafort's Ukraine lobbying work.

As the Russia probe came to a close without a single indictment related to a Trump-Kremlin conspiracy, the Mueller team used Kilimnik to suggest collusion without formally alleging it.

In January 2019, the Mueller team accused Manafort of breaching their cooperation agreement by lying about his interactions with his Russian employee. Topping the list were alleged false statements about sharing election polling data with Kilimnik in 2016.

Andrew Weissmann: Despite this lead Mueller prosecutor's suggestion otherwise, the Mueller report "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," as the report itself stated. NYU Law

"This goes to the larger view of what we think is going on, and what we think is the motive here," lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. "This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel's office is investigating."

Weissmann's musings became collusion fodder. Media pundits and influential Democrats, namely Congressional intelligence leaders Schiff and Mark Warner, speculated that Kilimnik shared Trump campaign polling data with Russian intelligence officers as they allegedly worked to turn the election in Trump's favor. "This appears as the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion," Warner told CNN . "Clearly, Manafort was trying to collude with Russian agents."

But soon after, the Mueller team quietly undercut Weissmann's "larger view" and the conspiratorial innuendo that it had fueled. One month after igniting the frenzy about the polling data, Weissmann submitted a heavily redacted court filing that walked back some of his claims. The following month, the Special Counsel's final report acknowledged that its musings and speculations about Kilimnik could not be corroborated. The Mueller team not only "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," as the report stated, but also "could not assess what Kilimnik (or others he may have given it to) did with it."

Rick Gates: Ex-Manafort aide says the Mueller team "cherry-picked" his testimony about Kilimnik to spread a misleading, collusion-favorable narrative. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

"I have no idea who made up the lies about 'detailed' or 'sensitive' polling data, or why they did it," Kilimnik says. "They were mostly quotes of the polls from the media, such as LA Times and others. They would be 'Clinton "" 43, Trump "" 42.' Never anything more detailed. I never got even a page printed out with either polling data or any other info."

This public data was shared, Kilimnik says, with Ukrainian clients of Manafort's as part of both regular political chatter and an effort to encourage future business. "I shared this info with a lot of our clients in Ukraine, who were closely following the race and who were excited about Paul working for [Trump]," Kilimnik says.

If any government official did receive his polling data, Kilimnik adds, they were not Russian but rather from Ukraine or even the United States. "I would share it with our political contacts in Ukraine, basically to keep their interest to Paul and our Ukrainian business alive. Also I shared it with the U.S. and other embassies, basically offering the opinion that the election is not over."

Kilimnik's account is corroborated by Gates, the ex-Manafort associate and Trump campaign official whose testimony was used by the Mueller team "" deceptively, he says "" to suggest a connection between the polling data and possible Trump-Russia collusion. The Special Counsel's office "relied heavily on Mr. Gates for evidence" about the polling data, the New York Times noted in February 2019.

According to Gates, that reliance entailed significant creative license by Mueller's prosecutors, particularly Weissmann. Gates says he told the Special Counsel's Office that the polling data was not sensitive information, but rather publicly available figures taken from media outlets.

"I explained to them, over the course of many interviews, what the polling data was about, and why it was being shared," Gates told RCI. "All that was exchanged was old, topline data from public polls and from some internal polls, but all dated, nothing in real time. So for example, Trump 48, Clinton 46. It was not massive binders full of demographics or deep research. No documents were ever shared or disclosed. And this is part of what Mueller left out of the report. They cherry-picked and built a narrative that really was not true, because they had pre-determined the conclusion."

Happier times: Manafort and colleagues, with Kilimnik far left and the boss seated in white shirt, red tie. AP Photo

Asked why Manafort shared any polling data with clients in Ukraine, Kilimnik and Gates stressed the same reason: money. "The were some outstanding debts, which we were working to get repaid, which never happened," Kilimnik says. "And there was also Paul's reputation. He was very well known to a lot of people in Kiev, and he hoped [he] could generate some new business" by showcasing his work for Trump's campaign.

"This was a way that Paul was using to let people in Ukraine know that he was doing very well in the United States running the election of Donald Trump, and that he was trying to collect the remaining fees that he was owed," for prior work in Ukraine, Gates says. "He was trying to position himself. This is not unlike any other political operative, Republican or Democrat, in politics. They all do it."

The Mueller report itself quietly bolsters Gates' and Kilimnik's converging recollections. "Gates' account about polling data is consistent [redacted]," it states, ""¦ with multiple emails that Kilimnik sent to U.S. associates and press contacts" in the summer of 2016. "Those emails referenced 'internal polling,' described the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's role in it, and assessed Trump' s prospects for victory." The corresponding footnote cites eight emails from Kilimnik to these "U.S. associates and press contacts." This indicates that the Mueller team obtained direct evidence of the polling data that was shared; how it was discussed; and with whom it was shared.

Rather than highlight the Kilimnik emails that it obtained, and Gates' account that the polling data was shared for financial reasons, the Mueller report mentioned this information only in passing and ultimately concluded that it "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing" the information.

Weissmann did not respond to a request for comment.

The Kilimnik Passport Kilimnik's passport from the time in question "" to judge from photos and a video he shared with RCI "" was issued in the standard red ... Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations ... not in the green of the diplomatic corps. Mueller cited a Kilimnik "diplomatic passport" as evidence of "ties to Russian intelligence." Government of Russia/Wikimedia

Although the Mueller report walked back Weissman's innuendo regarding polling data, its assertion that Kilimnik has "ties to Russian intelligence" remains a foundation of the Russia collusion narrative.

Putting aside the fact that the government has never produced any evidence that Kilimnik communicated with Russian intelligence or the Kremlin, RCI has obtained documents that undercut the government's basis for assuming those unspecified "ties."

In Mueller's own telling, Kilimnik's only direct link to the Russian government was his enrollment in a Soviet military academy from 1987 to 1992, where he trained as a linguist. "It's a language school, similar to what you guys have in Fort Monterey," Kilimnik said, referring to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, in Monterey, California. "It's a university that trains military translators, mostly for the army, not for the intelligence services. Basically it was a military training, for five years, focusing on English and Swedish. In normal circumstances, I would actually go and serve in the army, but because Soviet Union was falling apart, I was able to get a job as the instructor of Swedish at the university. I never served in the real army. If teaching Swedish counts as spying "" that will be very surprising."

To substantiate Kilimnik's alleged Russian intelligence "ties," the Mueller team wrote that Kilimnik "obtained a visa to travel to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport in 1997." (Intelligence operatives often travel to foreign countries under diplomatic cover.)

Kilimnik's U.S. visa shows an "R" for "regular." (The typo in his last name was corrected on a later visa.) Konstantin Kilimnik via RealClearInvestigations

But Kilimnik's passport from that period "" to judge from the images he shared with RCI via a messaging app "" was issued in the standard red color, not in the green color of the diplomatic corps. The document also contains a regular U.S. visa issued on October 28, 1997 "" the same date the Mueller report claims he traveled to the U.S. "with a Russian diplomatic passport." The U.S. visa to Kilimnik is issued under the category of "R" "" which stands for Regular "" and "B1/B2," the designation for a temporary visa for business and tourism.

The Mueller team's claim that he possessed and travelled on a diplomatic passport is "a blatant lie," Kilimnik told RCI. "I never had a diplomatic passport in my life. It's one of many very sloppy things in the Muller report, which don't make sense."

The Mueller report cites Kilimnik's "travel to the United States with a Russian diplomatic passport." Mueller report, Page 133

Told of the Mueller report's apparent error concerning Kilimnik's passport, a Justice Department spokesperson declined comment. Former Special Counsel Mueller and former lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond to emailed queries.

Ironically, at the time when Mueller team claims that he visited the U.S. on behalf of the Russian government, Kilimnik was in fact working for the U.S. government at the U.S. Congress-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) in Moscow. As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported , Kilimnik's 10-year IRI tenure is among several substantial Western government connections that have been ignored in amid efforts to accuse him of ties to the Russian government. "I gave IRI my CV which clearly said which school I graduated from, and gave my detailed background," Kilimnik recalls. "I never concealed anything."

Kilimnik: No Madrid Meeting With Manafort

When it comes to his travel history, Kilimnik says that the Special Counsel's Office made another significant error: falsely claiming that he and Manafort held a meeting in Spain .

"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says. Wikimedia

When Manafort denied that he and Kilimnik met in Madrid in 2017, the Mueller team accused him of lying and cited this as one of several alleged breaches of their cooperation agreement. The Mueller report claims that the two met in the Spanish capital on Feb. 26, 2017, "where Kilimnik had flown from Moscow."

It also states that Manafort initially denied the Madrid meeting in his first two interviews with the Special Counsel's office, but then relented "after being confronted with documentary evidence that Kilimnik was in Madrid at the same time as him."

But Kilimnik tells RCI that no such meeting occurred, and that he believes that Manafort was coerced into changing his story.

"I have never been to Madrid in my life," Kilimnik says. The "documentary evidence" referenced in the Mueller report was, he speculates, a flight booking that was ultimately cancelled. "I was thinking about going to Madrid, and I discussed it with Paul," he says. "But it made no sense. And ultimately, it was too expensive. So I didn't go."

Had he actually visited Madrid, Kilimnik says, the Mueller team would have "easily found proof "" tickets, boarding passes, border crossings "" all that stuff. It's not rocket science to get it. The European Union is a pretty disciplined place. There would be at least be a record of me crossing the border somewhere in the EU."

Kilimnik told RCI that the last time he saw Manafort was one month before the alleged Madrid trip, around the time of Trump's inauguration in Janaury 2017. "I did not attend any of the inauguration events myself," he recalls. "But I spent some time to meet with Paul, and to catch up. That was our last meeting in-person, in Alexandria [Virginia]."

Asked why Manafort would have admitted to a Madrid meeting that did not in fact take place, Kilimnik said that his former boss faced heavy pressure while locked up by the Mueller team, which included a long stint in solitary confinement. "I don't know why he said that. I have difficulties to imagine Paul's psychological state when he was jailed. A guy who [had] a very high-level life. Jail is a tough place. I still get the shudders to think what he had to go through."

The allegation that Manafort lied to the Mueller team proved consequential. In February 2019, U.S. District Judge Jackson sided with the Special Counsel and voided Manafort's plea deal. No longer bound to give him a reduced sentence for cooperating, Jackson nearly doubled Manafort's prison term on top of his earlier conviction and excoriated him for telling "lies." President Trump pardoned in Manafort in December 2020.

Told that Kilimnik denies ever visiting Madrid, and asked whether the Special Counsel's office collected concrete evidence to the contrary, both former Special Counsel Mueller and lead prosecutor Weissmann did not respond. A Justice Department spokesperson declined comment.

FBI Alert Contradicts Senate-Treasury Spy Claim

Over one year after Mueller closed up shop, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) unilaterally upgraded Kilimnik's alleged Russian intelligence status. The panel's August 2020 report declared that Kilimnik, far from merely having "ties" to the GRU as Mueller had claimed, is in fact a full-fledged "Russian intelligence officer."

The Senate made the leap despite offering no new public evidence to support its explosive "assessment", and even acknowledging that its "power to investigate" "" as well as "its staffing, resources, and technical capabilities" -- ultimately "falls short of the FBI's."

Richard Burr and Mark Warner, Republican chair and Democratic co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The FBI and Justice Department do not endorse their panel's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer." AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The Senate also labelled Kilimnik a Russian spy despite simultaneously presenting new evidence that he was, in the Committee's own words, a "valuable resource" for officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, with whom he was "in regular contact."

In September 2020, RCI asked the FBI and Justice Department whether it shares the SSCI's judgment that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence officer." A DOJ spokesperson replied that "the Mueller report speaks for itself," and advised that the public "defer" to how Kilimnik was characterized in the Mueller report and the Special Counsel Office's indictments. This strongly suggested, RCI reported, that the FBI has not adopted the SSCI's view that Kilimnik is a Russian spy.

The FBI's February "alert" offering $250,000 for information leading to Kilimnik's arrest bolsters this reporting. It once again states that Kilimnik is "assessed by the FBI to have ties to Russian intelligence" "" shunning the SSCI's spy language and reverting to Mueller's original, ambiguous characterization.

The wording of the FBI alert underscores that while the Senate Intelligence Committee and Treasury Department have declared that Kilimnik is a Russian spy, the nation's top law enforcement agency has never adopted that assessment. When Manafort's legal team asked the Special Counsel's Office for any communication between Manafort and "Russian intelligence officials," they were told that "there are no materials responsive to [those] requests." In unsealed notes from early 2017, Peter Strzok "" the top FBI counterintelligence agent who opened the Trump-Russia investigation "" wrote : "We are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials."

Asked whether the FBI has altered its characterization of Kilimnik in light of Treasury's claim that he is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent", an FBI spokesperson declined comment.

The FBI's alert was also remarkable for the size of the Kilimnik bounty, which is more than double the amount of most members of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. While the bureau is offering $100,000 each for information regarding six alleged murderers, and $200,000 for another, the FBI is offering $250,000 for help nabbing Kilimnik on a lone witness tampering charge in Manafort's Ukraine lobbying case.

The Mueller team accused Kilimnik of sending text messages to two individuals with whom Manafort had worked during his Ukraine lobbying days. Kilimnik's aim, the Special Counsel's Office alleged, was to pressure the pair to attest that their prior work was focused on lobbying officials in Europe, not in the United States. These individuals "" identified in court documents as "Person D1" and "Person D2" "" were not active witnesses for the Mueller probe, but instead, according to the Special Counsel's Office, "potential witnesses."

The 13 Kilimnik messages to these "potential witnesses" cited by Mueller include the following:

  • [Person D2], hi! How are you? Hope you are doing fine. ;))
  • My friend P [Manafort] is trying to reach [Person D1] to brief him on what's going on.
  • If you have a chance to mention this to [Person D1] - would be great.
  • Basically P wants to give him a quick summary that he says to everybody (which is true) that our friends never lobbied in the U.S., and the purpose of the program was EU.
  • Hi. This is [Kilimnik]. My friend P is looking for ways to connect to you to pass you several messages. Can we arrange that.

Kilimnik says that he was not trying to tamper with anyone. "I do not understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as 'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice,'" he says.

Whether or not Kilimnik sought to tamper with "potential witnesses" in Manafort's Ukraine lobbying case, the alleged 2018 infraction has nothing to do with 2016 Trump-Russia collusion.

The FBI alert from February raises questions about the bombshell Treasury Department claims released two months later. If the U.S. government stands by Treasury's claims about Kilimnik, why is he wanted only on a minor, non-Russia related witness-tampering charge, and not for taking part in alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election? If Kilimnik indeed passed on "sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy" to Russian intelligence while working as a spy, why has he not been indicted alongside the Russian social media company charged by Mueller in February 2018, or the Russian intelligence officers charged by Mueller in July 2018?

To Kilimnik, the answer is found on that same Russian passport that Mueller mischaracterized. "It is clear to me that the indictment of 2018 was pulled out of the thin air, simply to have a Russian face in the mix," he says. "I understand that they needed a Russian to investigate 'Russia collusion,' and I happened to be that Russian," he says.

"The funny thing is that I'm not hiding. And I would have explained the same thing to the FBI or anyone who never reached out to me. They don't because they don't want the truth."

From Russian Spy to "Influence Agent"

In Kilimnik's eyes, his utility as a Russian national for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative also explains his prominent inclusion in the recent U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment , released in March one month after the FBI alert for his arrest.

In yet another new iteration of how Kilimnik is described by the U.S. government, the ICA does not call him a Russian intelligence officer, but instead a "Russian influence agent."

The ICA does not define the term "Russian influence agent," or explain how it reached that new assessment about Kilimnik. Nor does it put forth any evidence for the alleged Russian influence activities ascribed to him .

The report alleges that Kilimnik was part of a "network of Ukraine-linked individuals "¦ connected to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)" who "took steps throughout the [2020] election cycle to damage U.S. ties to Ukraine, denigrate President Biden and his candidacy, and benefit former President Trump's prospects for reelection."

Andriy Derkach: "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says of this Ukrainian lawmaker with reputed Kremlin ties. Petro Zhuravel/Wikimedia

As part of this alleged meddling network, the ICA asserts that Kilimnik tried to influence U.S. officials; helped produce a documentary that aired on U.S. television in January 2020; and worked with Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker alleged to have Kremlin ties. "Derkach, Kilimnik, and their associates sought to use prominent U.S. persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to U.S. officials and audiences," the ICA states.

Kilimnik says the U.S. intelligence officials who wrote those words are using their anonymity and power to launder their false narratives about him.

"I have no idea what they're talking about," he says. "I would really love to see at least one confirmation of the things they allege. Pulling me into this report with zero evidence really shows that [U.S. intelligence] people high up do not give a damn about the truth, facts, or anything."

As for Derkach, "I have never met him in my life," Kilimnik says. "I don't know why, or on what basis, they're making claims that he has any relationship to me."

"I had zero meetings with anybody related to the Trump campaign. In fact, I have tried to do my best "" understanding how I've gotten into this mess "" to stay as far as possible from any U.S. politics." If he had held such meetings, Kilimnik adds, "this should be easy to prove."

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to requests for comment.

No Effort to Contact Russiagate's Top Russian

Even though Kilimnik's name fills dozens of pages of the Mueller and Senate Intelligence reports after years of federal scrutiny and he is the target of a $250,000 FBI reward, this seemingly critical Russiagate figure has never been contacted by a single U.S. government official, to judge from the public record as well as Kilimnik's account.

The lack of contact is similar to the way FBI, Mueller, and Senate investigators treated other supposedly central Russiagate figures. When Joseph Mifsud, whose conversations with George Papadopoulos triggered the FBI's Trump-Russia probe, visited the U.S. in early 2017, the FBI subjected him to a light round of questioning and then let him leave the country. The Mueller team later claimed in its final report that Mifsud had lied to FBI agents, yet inexplicably did not indict him. Despite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's central role in publishing the stolen Democratic Party emails supposedly hacked and supplied by Russia, the Mueller team never contacted him and the Senate Intelligence Committee shunned an offer to interview him .

Kilimnik believes that this avoidance is deliberate. "The FBI and others could have had the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv or Moscow, or have any of my numerous contacts in the U.S., reach out and start a conversation, if they wanted info," he says. "But they do not really need it. All they is need is a scarecrow. And as one of the few people within reach of the Trump campaign who has a Russian passport, they picked me."

"They never reached out to me," he adds. "I never had a single contact with FBI or any government official, basically since charges were brought [on] Paul. Nobody ever tried to talk to me because they know the truth. They understood damn well that I will tell them what I'm telling you."

Kilimnik says that he has had only minimal contact with Manafort since the former Trump campaign chairman was released to home confinement in March 2020 and subsequently pardoned by Trump in late December. "We had one short contact after he got out of jail, basically catching up about family and kids and everything," Kilimnik recalls. "I want to give him time to just basically get his life back to normal. We have not spoken on the telephone."

After years in Ukraine working with Manafort, Kilimnik now lives full-time in Moscow with his wife and two children. "I have been pretty open all my life, and have not been hiding from anyone," Kilimnik says. "I would have been happy to answer any questions from the FBI, or whoever. But I refuse to be a toy in bizarre political games and have my life ruined more than it has been because of the senseless and false accusations."

Despite being labeled a Russian spy who meddled in the 2016 election, Kilimnik has no plans to return to the U.S. and try to clear his name. "I am not going to the U.S. on my own dime, with no visa in COVID times only to be crucified by the media, having zero chance of justice," he says. "This is a sad continuation of a deeply wrong story. I thought it would be over with Trump gone and the need to create lies about his 'ties to Russia.' But obviously, I was wrong."

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  • roc993 19 May, 2021 Did the Democrats and the media ever apologize for spending 2 years claiming the election was stolen by Trump? The drumbeat was continuous - ratcheting up day by day - "Walls closing in" - right up to the point Mueller threw cold water on the entire thing. Then they slinked away without another word. And no censorship of those entities and individuals by FaceBook and Twitter? Fascinating. Reply 40 11 2 reply
  • N notenough 19 May, 2021 What are the odds that the FBI/Treasury Dept, CIA, etc are lying to the public about this whole mess THEY created....100%. These are all political organizations, tasked with protecting the status quo, the status quo being the protection of Empire. Reply 30 7 1 reply
  • A AJMG 19 May, 2021 "In his speech before a joint session of Congress last week, President Biden complained about "Russia's interference in our elections," even though his intelligence czar had released a report the previous month formally dismissing the idea Moscow had interfered in the 2020 election or the 2016 election." Reply 23 7 1 reply
  • D daniel155 19 May, 2021 No one, even those on the other side, believes there was Russian collusion though they will never admit it. Hillary still says the Russia stole the election from her. I guess she uses that to cope with the fact that she blew a very winnable election. Reply 28 7
  • A AJMG 19 May, 2021 Trump opposed Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, & today we learn that Biden has accepted it. If Putin favored Trump, it was a bad miscalculation since Trump was way more tough on Russia than any Democrat. Reply 36 6 1 reply
  • DH Derrick Hand 19 May, 2021 Hate to tell you guys but the Russia collusion discussion is over, no matter who is right. The Media has succeeded in mudding the water and destroying any trust in finding the truth with respect to anything political, including any election and that includes the coming one in 2022. This is like an argument at a table for four in a raucous high school cafeteria. You should be more concerned where this total loss of trust is going to lead us and that is not a good place. Reply 16 6 3 reply
  • W Wisewerds 19 May, 2021 A wholly partisan, politically biased prosecutor lied and cherry-picked information to support a pre-determined conclusion in an effort to savage an opponent and jail his supporters? I would put on my shocked face, but its currently at the cleaners. Instead, I will just suggest that this is now standard operating procedure for our left-fascist oppressors. Reply 21 4 1 reply
  • C Crutch 19 May, 2021 I can't wait for 2022 House win by Republicans. The first thing they should do is haul Adam Schiff in under oath to discuss his every utterance, then expel him from the House. Reply 40 9 5 reply
  • A archon27 19 May, 2021 It not sedition if the democrats try to oust a legally elected president on a falsified premise... because THEIR "evidence" was believable... This is literally the mantra of the left. Reply 27 6 3 reply
  • Mark H 19 May, 2021 If the wider media do not pick this up then the matter of Trump campaign's collusion with Russia can never be cleared up, and will continue to serve the intention of the establishment. VAPOR 19 May, 2021 The media portrayed both Obama and Biden as uninvolved. But now we know they both actively followed the investigation. According to former acting attorney general Sally Yates, she was surprised that Obama knew about the investigation and knew more than she did at the time. Obama called upon former FBI director James Comey to stay after a meeting to discuss the investigation. Comey had mentioned using the Logan Act to charge Flynn, even though the unconstitutional law has never been used successfully in a prosecution since the country was founded. Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge of the investigation. Just a day before the latest disclosure, George Stephanopoulos asked Biden in an interview what he knew of the Flynn investigation. Biden was adamant that he knew nothing about "those moves" and he called it a diversion. But that is not true if he took the relatively uncommon action for a vice president of demanding the unmasking of Flynn information.
    Justis 20 May, 2021 Thank you for your continued work. This is all hidden from Americans in this age of media coverage. But more importantly it is devastating information about the dishonesty of our government. What have we come to? What recourse is available?
  • VAPOR 19 May, 2021 Carter Page Sues FBI, Comey, McCabe for Millions Nov 28, 2020" Former Trump campaign aide Carter Page filed a $75 million lawsuit against the FBI and several former high-ranking bureau officials ... Reply 6 1 1 reply
  • V VAPOR 19 May, 2021 Just a reminder that Obama and his minions committed the greatest political crime in US history when they weaponized government agencies to influence and discredit a presidential election and frame Trump. Reply 7 3 1 reply
  • V VAPOR 19 May, 2021 Obama needs to answer questions about his involvement with the Fake Russian Dossier and the weaponization of government agencies to get Trump. He basically planted evidence and then said prosecute Trump by the book.
futbolfan 19 May, 2021 I respect all the dogged investigators who root out the truth of the crimes and corruption of our "justice department", and FBI. I hope they keep up the good work. Personally I have no more faith in anything which was soaked in the hate and insanity of the Obama thug regime...
  • Jerubbesheth xx 19 May, 2021 Give it up already. The Russia Trump Collusion was already disapproved by Mueller. Americans are tired of the disinformation and propaganda. Bolshevik Schiff is a pathological liar. If anyone colluded with Russia it was certainly Liberal Commie Democrat Clinton. The reason Bolshevik Schiff doesn't investigate Clinton? Schiff and Clinton are part of the swamp. Clinton bought and paid for colluded with an ex-British Spy on a false dossier on Trump. Clinton was already in Putin's pocket. Clinton approved the sale of Uranium one to the Russians, and then Clinton receives $145 Million from Russian Oligarchs for her Corrupt Clinton Foundation. Mueller was FBI director at the time. So now who is colluding with the Russians. I guess Clinton's colluding with the Russians is the good kind for the liberal commie Democrats, while the Liberal commie Democrats deflect the bad colluding onto to Trump. Colluding is colluding anyway you cut it. Hillary's colluding wasn't disapproved. Reply 10 3 3 reply
  • C chuckstephens06 19 May, 2021 While the Special prosecutor office was capable of any transgression or corruption, one needs to realize that it wouldn't have been possible without the assistance of corrupt lefty operative Judge, Amy Berman Jackson... Jackson's non legal, political approach to decision making, has been the example that all corrupt lefty judges follow... Plus her questionable relationship with Weissman outside of the Courtroom... Reply 6 2
  • K kochcomics 20 May, 2021 Lets see what we have here: 1)Kilimnik says he has no ties to the Russian government. OK. Do you really believe that no one in the Putin's government has directly or indirectly debriefed him. Really? Do you think he would have a choice in the matter? Do you know anything about Putin at all? Does he believe in democracy,. You clearly know little about Trump. We've had Trump here for 40 years - from the NY Post page six to Howard Stern. Its a joke. Hey, he was proposing running with Oprah as his VP in 2002. Then he tricked into the birther stuff. Lets check out the apologies from the Donald and the push back from Republicans (apart from McCain) 2) There were enough sympathetic Russians around (Putin included) to raise concerns. As the Donald himself made clear, he would have no problem with outside foreign help. The investigation took place. It was damning, but not pretty clear that no . The collusion was possible but speculative, but as Jared himself said, the campaign was too chaotic for any collusion to really get off the ground (though you are still stuck with Manafort as a conflicted party). But in Donald world, everything is a bout big pronouncements... See more Reply 2 2
  • F futbolfan 19 May, 2021 For years, we on the right knew who had done what, and who should be arrested, Comey, Rosenstein, Strzok, Mueller, etc. But I am not a lawyer, and I am not sure what crimes, exactly, these evil and sick creeps would be charged with, if they ever were arrested. For me, the key question now is, if they WERE charged with whatever the appropriate offence would be, what is the statute of limitations on those types of crimes? There is NO statue on treason, as far as I know. But what about conspiracy? Obstruction of justice? Betrayal of oath of office? Sedition? The reason these questions are still alive is, obviously there are people still patiently digging into the twisting trails of the conspirators, and eventually they may reel in some live prospects for prosecution. Maybe even including "the big guy with black skin" Obama himself. Nothing would make me happier than to see that African nightmare in handcuffs. Reply 4 4 2 reply
  • DC dana crow 20 May, 2021 Can't blame them for running with lies, innuendo and conspiracy theories when all Trump and Republicans could ever muster in response was nuh-uh or let-mueller-finish-his-work. "Ties to [insert boogeyman]" is always a tell. It literally means NOT the boogeyman. And since the "ties" are conveniently redacted, he probably ordered borscht from someone whose second cousin gave a talk at a charity event hosted by a retired russian intel gofer. The election interference/russia collusion business was always a cynical ploy to isolate Trump from his friends and bog down his administration. And it was wildly successful.

will.ganness 20 May, 2021 Who is calling the January 6th Protests the biggest threat the the country since the Civil war? The Democratic Party, the MSM, The FBI.... Who produced and directed Russiagate? The same three!! If progressives think they should get on board with Insurrectiongate, they should have more sense! VAPOR 19 May, 2021 The Fake Russian Dossier do it by the book Crossfire Hurricane insurance policy to overturn a presidential election and frame Trump. Where is Professor Misfud and why won't Steele talk to Durham? Call in Mary Jacoby and ask her what she discussed with Obama at the white house.
  • spinbag48 1 day ago Adam Schiff is a fool who told us he had the goods on Trump, but it turns out he is a liar. I do have a question... The FBI spent 2 years and $35 million dollars investigating Trump only to find out they didn't have a case. But when the pipeline got hacked Biden said the FBI told him that the Kremlin wasn't involved within a day of two. How is it they got that good so quick? Same with the election within a couple of days they knew that the election was fair and square. Even though I saw many people of TV say they saw corruption right in front of them. But the shooting of Andrew Brown took a month when they had numerous videos that they couldn't release until the investigation was complete. I have lost all faith in the FBI, and the press. They don't even pretend they are fair or truthful. Reply 1 1
  • CA Clear 4 All 19 May, 2021 The USIC and media has destroyed their own name. Nothing that the Russia collusion purveyors say now has value on any topic. Russia didn't do that.

Justis 20 May, 2021 Why did Horowitz not discover this in his investigation? Was that investigation another coverup, finding just enough to look authentic? Is he too, untrustworthy?

[May 20, 2021] Peddlers Of Russiagate Won t Take Truth For An Answer

Notable quotes:
"... What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies. ..."
"... And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends. ..."
May 20, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

The Biden administration is vigorously pursuing key figures from the phony Trump/Russia collusion scandal that roiled the nation for four years. But instead of trying to punish the liars who perpetrated that fraud, it is targeting the truth-tellers who challenged and exposed the conspiracy to negate the 2016 election.

Working from the same playbook used to smear dozens of Trump associates, the administration and its allies are planting stories based on blind quotes in friendly media outlets to seek revenge.

On April 16, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported that the Justice Department is investigating Kash Patel – who had worked with Rep. Devin Nunes and later the Trump administration to reveal the Russiagate hoax – for the "possible improper disclosure of classified information." Ignatius said he received the tip from "two knowledgeable sources" who "wouldn't provide additional details."

Violating the bedrock principles of American justice and journalism, this article is an exercise in thuggery as the government uses a powerful media outlet to intimidate and besmirch a citizen without evidence. With nothing to respond to, how can Patel defend himself? If Patel is lucky, the federal government has only placed a sharp sword over his head that may not fall. If not, he might be dragged into a lengthy court battle that could drain his finances and also cost him his freedom.

We don't know if Patel broke the law, but note that the administration has shown no interest in pursuing former FBI leaders such as James Comey and Andrew McCabe , who improperly disclosed information regarding Russiagate.

Trump's former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani is also in the "cross hairs of a federal criminal investigation," according to an April 29 article in New York Times that relied on "people with knowledge of the matter."

At issue, those anonymous sources say, is whether Giuliani was serving two masters when he counseled Trump to remove Marie L. Yovanovitch as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019. "Did Mr. Giuliani go after Ms. Yovanovitch solely on behalf of Mr. Trump, who was his client at the time?" the Times reports. "Or was he also doing so on behalf of the Ukrainian officials, who wanted her removed for their own reasons?"

I'll leave it to the lawyers to determine the wisdom of bringing a case based on the parsing of tangled motives. What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations , just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies.

And note, the FBI's zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president's son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, "failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials." It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends.

The targeting of Giuliani looks especially suspect and politically motivated after three main news outlets that have driven much of the false Russiagate coverage – the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News – were forced to correct a recent story , once again based on anonymous sources, claiming the FBI had warned Giuliani in 2019 "that he was a target of a Russian disinformation campaign during his efforts to dig up unflattering information about then-candidate Joe Biden in 2019." Giuliani was never given such a briefing.

Considering the numerous instances in which the press published bogus information from "informed sources" during Russiagate, one has to ask why they continue to serve as vehicles for falsehoods. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a dozen times and you're not fooling me – we're acting in concert. As RCI editor Tom Kuntz has argued, journalistic integrity demands, at the very least, that these organizations tell their audience who exactly had misled them. Confidentiality agreements should not protect liars.

A third example of the Biden administration's effort to punish Russiagate figures is its renewed effort to put former Manafort associate Konstantin V. Kilimnik behind bars. In an extensive new article for RCI, Aaron Maté reports that the Treasury Department provided no evidence to support its recent claim that Kilimnik is a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf." It also refuses to explain how it was able to discover the truth of Kilimnik's identity, which the two most extensive Russiagate investigations – the 448-page Muller report and the 966-page Senate Intelligence report – failed to uncover.

This absence of evidence has not stopped the peddlers of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory from claiming vindication. Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff casts Treasury's unsubstantiated claim as smoking-gun evidence of collusion. The New York Times reports that the claim demonstrates that "there had been numerous interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the year before the [2016] election."

Who needs proof when the government says it's so?

The FBI is also putting the screws to Kilimnik, offering $250,000 for information leading to his arrest on witness-tampering charges involving text messages he sent in 2018 to two people who have only been identified as "potential witnesses" involving Manafort's lobbying work for Ukraine, not Russiagate.

In an exclusive interview, Kilimnik told Maté, "I don't understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out the message about Ukraine's integration aspirations in [the] EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as 'intimidation' or 'obstruction of justice.'"

Maté also reports that the $250,000 bounty on Kilimnik is more than double the amount the FBI is offering for information leading to the arrest of murder suspects.

The Biden administration's campaigns against Patel, Giuliani and Kilimnik suggest how the winners of the 2020 election are attempting to rewrite the history of Russiagate. Having been debunked and rebuked by their own investigators, the conspiracists are taking a second bite at the poisoned apple. Using anonymous sources to make unsubstantiated charges in the nation's most influential news outlets, they are seeking to punish people for the crime of exposing their malfeasance.

[May 09, 2021] Abolish The FBI by Dinesh D'Souza

Notable quotes:
"... They have looted businesses, burned churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in restaurants or going about their normal lives "and all with impunity." No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of "Wanted" images on social media. ..."
"... Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo . Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. ..."
"... Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography, money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain. ..."
"... Giuliani seems warranted in concluding that the agency's conduct is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard": "One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden" and quite another for "Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President Trump." ..."
May 03, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Dinesh D'Souza, op-ed via The Epoch Times

For a long time, the FBI has stood as the admirable symbol of a police agency of government, implacably going after the bad guys and neutrally enforcing the laws. This is the FBI of the movie "The Untouchables," in which special agent Eliot Ness leads his devoted crew of armed agents in a heroic battle against the forces of organized crime.

Well, forget about the Untouchables. Today's FBI has quite obviously been corrupted from the top. This is a process that seems to have begun under President Barack Obama, endured during the Donald Trump years, and has now reached its unfortunate nadir under President Joe Biden. It's time for conservatives and Republicans to start thinking about getting rid of the FBI.

I want to highlight two sets of contrasting episodes that give us a window into how biased and partisan this once-respected agency has now become.

Contrast the treatment the FBI has given to Jan. 6 activists with that it has afforded to Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters.

The FBI has unrelentingly hunted down Jan. 6 protesters, in many cases confronting Trump supporters who were merely in Washington at the time, or at the mall rally but not involved in entering the Capitol. Those who have been arrested have been treated like domestic terrorists, captured in raids involving drawn weapons, even though the charges against most of them amount to little more than trespassing or entering a government facility without proper permission. Nonviolent offenders have been given the same brutal treatment as violent ones. And to this day the FBI promulgates images "a grandma here, a teenager there" asking the public to help them track down still-at-large individuals who had something, anything, to do with the events of Jan. 6.

Contrast this concentrated effort with the lackadaisical, even disinterested, approach of the FBI to the Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists. Over a period of many months, those activists have proven far more violent. They have killed a number of people, in contrast to the Trump activists who killed nobody. (The only person killed on Jan. 6 was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot in the neck by a Capitol police officer.) They have looted businesses, burned churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in restaurants or going about their normal lives "and all with impunity." No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of "Wanted" images on social media.

Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo . Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Giuliani pointed out in a statement released by his lawyer, however, that he offered to sit down with the FBI and the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) and show them to their satisfaction that there had been no violation of law. Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography, money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain.

Both the FBI and the DOJ showed no interest in any of that. Consequently, Giuliani seems warranted in concluding that the agency's conduct is a "clear example of a corrupt double standard": "One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden" and quite another for "Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President Trump."

Giuliani further revealed that the FBI and DOJ had in late 2019 obtained access to his email database without notifying him. This means that while Giuliani was advising his client Donald Trump during the impeachment process""a relationship fully protected by attorney""client privilege""the FBI violated the law while supposedly investigating Giuliani and Trump's possible violations of law.

Here, again, the FBI's extreme diligence in going after Giuliani can be contrasted with the FBI's failure to act in the case of Gov. Cuomo. Cuomo is currently involved in two separate scandals, one involving multiple women who have accused him of sexual harassment, and another involving his direct involvement in a cover-up scheme to hide the magnitude of nursing home deaths caused by his own policies.

According to the New York Times , the Cuomo administration was far more culpable than previously known in deliberately undercounting nursing home deaths over a period of five months. Let's recall that these deaths need not have occurred. At the direction of the Trump administration, the U.S. Navy dispatched a hospital ship Comfort to New York to accept non-coronavirus patients and thus lessen the burden on New York hospitals.

Gov. Cuomo, however, turned the ship away to spite the Trump administration and instead ordered New York nursing homes to accept the overflow of COVID-19 patients, helping the virus to spread among vulnerable nursing home populations and thus causing thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Then, when the Trump administration inquired about the nursing home data in New York, Cuomo instructed his state health officials, including the health commissioner Howard Zucker, not to release the true death toll to the federal government, state officials, or the general public. Cuomo also suppressed a research paper that revealed the data and blocked two letters by Zucker's department from being sent to state legislators.

While Giuliani's offense remains unclear, Cuomo is guilty of obvious abuses of power ""actions that have not only put people in their graves but also amounted, in a statistical sense, to "hiding the bodies." Again, the FBI is nowhere to be found, and the reason for its absence appears to be that Cuomo is a Democratic governor who seemingly enjoys immunity as far as today's FBI and Biden's DOJ are concerned.

Enough is enough! When justice no longer involves the neutral or equal application of the laws, it ceases to be justice. I realize, of course, that there will be no FBI reform under Biden. Therefore, I strongly urge the Republican Party to make abolition of the FBI""shutting down the agency and then reconstructing it from the ground up""key provisions of its campaigns both in 2022 and 2024.

* * *

Dinesh D'Souza is an author, filmmaker, and daily host of the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.

[May 03, 2021] FISA And The Still Too Secret Police

With PRISM in place FICA court is redundant...
Notable quotes:
"... All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court. ..."
"... Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud! ..."
"... Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end ..."
May 03, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by James Bovard,

The FBI continues to lawlessly use counterintelligence powers against American citizens...

The Deep State Referee just admitted that the FBI continues to commit uncounted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).

If you sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered for the FBI "Citizens Academy" program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.

But the latest FBI offenses, like almost all prior FBI violations, are not a real problem, according to James Boasberg, presiding judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court, among other purposes, is supposed to safeguard Americans' constitutional right to privacy under FISA. FISA was originally enacted to create a narrow niche for foreign intelligence investigations that could be conducted without a warrant from a regular federal court. But as time passed, FISA morphed into an uncontrolled yet officially sanctioned privacy-trampling monster. FISA judges unleash the nuclear bomb of searches, authorizing the FBI "to conduct, simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S. person target's home, workplace and vehicles," as well as "physical searches of the target's residence, office, vehicles, computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails."

In 2008, after the George W. Bush administration's pervasive illegal warrantless wiretaps were exposed, Congress responded by enacting FISA amendments that formally entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up mass amounts of emails and other communication, a swath of which is provided to the FBI. In 2018, the FISA court slammed the FBI for abusing that database with warrantless searches that violated Americans' rights. In lieu of obeying FISA, the FBI created a new Office of Internal Audit. Deja vu! Back in 2007, FBI agents were caught massively violating the Patriot Act by using National Security Letters to conduct thousands of illegal searches on Americans' personal data. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) declared that an Inspector General report on the abusive searches "confirms the American people's worst fears about the Patriot Act." FBI chief Robert Mueller responded by creating a new Office of Integrity and Compliance as "another important step toward ensuring we fulfill our mission with an unswerving commitment to the rule of law." Be still my beating heart!

The FBI's promise to repent after the 2018 report sufficed for the FISA court to permit the FBI to continue plowing through the personal data it received from NSA. Monday's disclosure "a delayed release of a report by the court last November "revealed that the FBI has conducted warrantless searches of the data trove for "domestic terrorism," "public corruption and bribery," "health care fraud," and other targets "including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. As Spencer Ackerman wrote in the Daily Beast , "The FBI continues to perform warrantless searches through the NSA's most sensitive databases for routine criminal investigations." That type of search "potentially jeopardizes an accused person's ability to have a fair trial since warrantlessly acquired information is supposed to be inadmissible. The FBI claimed to the court that none of the warrantlessly queried material "˜was used in a criminal or civil proceeding,' but such usage at trial has happened before," Ackerman noted. Some illicit FBI searches involve vast dragnets. As the New York Times reported , an FBI agent in 2019 conducted a database search "using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them had connections to an investigation."

In the report released Monday, Judge Boasberg lamented "apparent widespread violations" of the legal restrictions for FBI searches. Regardless, Boasberg kept the illicit search party going: "The Court is willing to again conclude that the . . . [FBI's] procedures meet statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements." "Willing to again conclude" sounds better than "close enough for constitutional."

At this point, Americans know only the abuses that the FBI chose to disclose to FISA judges. We have no idea how many other perhaps worse abuses may have occurred. For a hundred years, the FBI has buttressed its power by keeping a lid on its crimes. Unfortunately, the FISA Court has become nothing but Deep State window dressing "a facade giving the illusion that government is under the law. Consider Boasberg's recent ruling in the most brazen FISA abuse yet exposed. In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector General reported that the FBI made "fundamental errors " and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Trump presidential campaign official. The I.G. report said the FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a "well-developed conspiracy" between Russians and the Trump campaign even though it was "unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page" in that dossier, which was later debunked.

A former FBI assistant general counsel, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. As a Wall Street Journal editorial noted , Clinesmith "changed an email confirming Mr. Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words "˜not a source' before he forwarded it." A federal prosecutor declared that the "resulting harm is immeasurable" from Clinesmith's action. But at the sentencing hearing, Boasberg gushed with sympathy, noting that Clinesmith "went from being an obscure government lawyer to standing in the eye of a media hurricane"¦ Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in government service"what has given his life much of its meaning." Scorning the federal prosecutor's recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist slap"400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.

The FBI FISA frauds profoundly disrupted American politics for years and the din of belatedly debunked accusations of Trump colluding with Russia swayed plenty of votes in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But for the chief FISA judge, nothing matters except the plight of an FBI employee who lost his job after gross misconduct. This is the stark baseline Americans should remember when politicians, political appointees, and judges promise to protect them from future FBI abuses. The FISA court has been craven, almost beyond ridicule, perennially. Perhaps Boasberg was simply codifying a prerogative the FISA court previously awarded upon FBI officials. In 2005, after a deluge of false FBI claims in FISA warrants, FISA Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented. That never happened because it could have "slowed such investigations drastically," the Washington Post reported . So, FBI agents continue to lie with impunity to the judges.

The FISA court has gone from pretending that FBI violations don't occur to pretending that violations don't matter. Practically the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy . But if a sweeping new domestic terrorism law is passed, perhaps even that formal acknowledgement will be unnecessary. Beginning in 2006, the court rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans were "relevant" to a terrorism investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling NSA data seizures later denounced by a federal judge as "almost Orwellian." FISA could become a peril to far more Americans if Congress formally creates a new domestic terrorism offense and a new category for expanding FISA searches.

The backlash from Democrats after the January 6 clash at the Capitol showcased the demand for federal crackdowns on extremists who doubted Biden's election, disparaged federal prerogatives, or otherwise earned congressional ire. If a domestic terrorism law is passed, the FBI will feel as little constrained by the details of the statute as it does about FISA's technicalities. Will FBI agents conducting warrantless searches rely on the same harebrained standard the NSA used to target Americans: "someone searching the web for suspicious stuff"? Unfortunately, unless an FBI whistleblower with the same courage as former NSA analyst Edward Snowden steps forward, we may never know the extent of FBI abuses

ebworthen 39 minutes ago

"You want to harass a political opponent? Sure, we can do that...

JaxPavan 42 minutes ago

All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court.

Joe Bribem 32 minutes ago

It's almost like we did this to Trump. But it'll never come to light. Oops it did. Not that anything will happen to us because we own the corrupt DOJ and FBI.

Obama's own personal private army.

You_Cant_Quit_Me 7 minutes ago

A lot of tips come in from overseas. For example, the US spies on citizens of another country and then sends that country tips, in exchange that country does the same by spying on US citizens and sending the FBI tips. Then it starts, "we are just following up on a tip"

wee-weed up 36 minutes ago (Edited)

Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud!

You_Cant_Quit_Me 37 minutes ago

Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end

takeaction 58 minutes ago (Edited)

If you own a smart phone...everything you do is recorded...and logged. "They" have been listening to you for a long time if they want to.

If you own any smart device...they can listen and watch. They are monitoring what I am typing and this site. There really is no way to hide.

[May 03, 2021] FISA And The Still Too Secret Police

With PRISM in place FICA court is redundant...
Notable quotes:
"... All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court. ..."
"... Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud! ..."
"... Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end ..."
May 03, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by James Bovard,

The FBI continues to lawlessly use counterintelligence powers against American citizens...

The Deep State Referee just admitted that the FBI continues to commit uncounted violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).

If you sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered for the FBI "Citizens Academy" program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity.

But the latest FBI offenses, like almost all prior FBI violations, are not a real problem, according to James Boasberg, presiding judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court, among other purposes, is supposed to safeguard Americans' constitutional right to privacy under FISA. FISA was originally enacted to create a narrow niche for foreign intelligence investigations that could be conducted without a warrant from a regular federal court. But as time passed, FISA morphed into an uncontrolled yet officially sanctioned privacy-trampling monster. FISA judges unleash the nuclear bomb of searches, authorizing the FBI "to conduct, simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S. person target's home, workplace and vehicles," as well as "physical searches of the target's residence, office, vehicles, computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails."

In 2008, after the George W. Bush administration's pervasive illegal warrantless wiretaps were exposed, Congress responded by enacting FISA amendments that formally entitled the National Security Agency to vacuum up mass amounts of emails and other communication, a swath of which is provided to the FBI. In 2018, the FISA court slammed the FBI for abusing that database with warrantless searches that violated Americans' rights. In lieu of obeying FISA, the FBI created a new Office of Internal Audit. Deja vu! Back in 2007, FBI agents were caught massively violating the Patriot Act by using National Security Letters to conduct thousands of illegal searches on Americans' personal data. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) declared that an Inspector General report on the abusive searches "confirms the American people's worst fears about the Patriot Act." FBI chief Robert Mueller responded by creating a new Office of Integrity and Compliance as "another important step toward ensuring we fulfill our mission with an unswerving commitment to the rule of law." Be still my beating heart!

The FBI's promise to repent after the 2018 report sufficed for the FISA court to permit the FBI to continue plowing through the personal data it received from NSA. Monday's disclosure "a delayed release of a report by the court last November "revealed that the FBI has conducted warrantless searches of the data trove for "domestic terrorism," "public corruption and bribery," "health care fraud," and other targets "including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. As Spencer Ackerman wrote in the Daily Beast , "The FBI continues to perform warrantless searches through the NSA's most sensitive databases for routine criminal investigations." That type of search "potentially jeopardizes an accused person's ability to have a fair trial since warrantlessly acquired information is supposed to be inadmissible. The FBI claimed to the court that none of the warrantlessly queried material "˜was used in a criminal or civil proceeding,' but such usage at trial has happened before," Ackerman noted. Some illicit FBI searches involve vast dragnets. As the New York Times reported , an FBI agent in 2019 conducted a database search "using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them had connections to an investigation."

In the report released Monday, Judge Boasberg lamented "apparent widespread violations" of the legal restrictions for FBI searches. Regardless, Boasberg kept the illicit search party going: "The Court is willing to again conclude that the . . . [FBI's] procedures meet statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements." "Willing to again conclude" sounds better than "close enough for constitutional."

At this point, Americans know only the abuses that the FBI chose to disclose to FISA judges. We have no idea how many other perhaps worse abuses may have occurred. For a hundred years, the FBI has buttressed its power by keeping a lid on its crimes. Unfortunately, the FISA Court has become nothing but Deep State window dressing "a facade giving the illusion that government is under the law. Consider Boasberg's recent ruling in the most brazen FISA abuse yet exposed. In December 2019, the Justice Department Inspector General reported that the FBI made "fundamental errors " and persistently deceived the FISA court to authorize surveilling a 2016 Trump presidential campaign official. The I.G. report said the FBI "drew almost entirely" from the Steele dossier to prove a "well-developed conspiracy" between Russians and the Trump campaign even though it was "unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page" in that dossier, which was later debunked.

A former FBI assistant general counsel, Kevin Clinesmith, admitted to falsifying key evidence to secure the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. As a Wall Street Journal editorial noted , Clinesmith "changed an email confirming Mr. Page had been a CIA source to one that said the exact opposite, explicitly adding the words "˜not a source' before he forwarded it." A federal prosecutor declared that the "resulting harm is immeasurable" from Clinesmith's action. But at the sentencing hearing, Boasberg gushed with sympathy, noting that Clinesmith "went from being an obscure government lawyer to standing in the eye of a media hurricane"¦ Mr. Clinesmith has lost his job in government service"what has given his life much of its meaning." Scorning the federal prosecutor's recommendation for jail time, Boasberg gave Clinesmith a wrist slap"400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.

The FBI FISA frauds profoundly disrupted American politics for years and the din of belatedly debunked accusations of Trump colluding with Russia swayed plenty of votes in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But for the chief FISA judge, nothing matters except the plight of an FBI employee who lost his job after gross misconduct. This is the stark baseline Americans should remember when politicians, political appointees, and judges promise to protect them from future FBI abuses. The FISA court has been craven, almost beyond ridicule, perennially. Perhaps Boasberg was simply codifying a prerogative the FISA court previously awarded upon FBI officials. In 2005, after a deluge of false FBI claims in FISA warrants, FISA Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented. That never happened because it could have "slowed such investigations drastically," the Washington Post reported . So, FBI agents continue to lie with impunity to the judges.

The FISA court has gone from pretending that FBI violations don't occur to pretending that violations don't matter. Practically the only remaining task is for the FISA court to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy . But if a sweeping new domestic terrorism law is passed, perhaps even that formal acknowledgement will be unnecessary. Beginning in 2006, the court rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans were "relevant" to a terrorism investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling NSA data seizures later denounced by a federal judge as "almost Orwellian." FISA could become a peril to far more Americans if Congress formally creates a new domestic terrorism offense and a new category for expanding FISA searches.

The backlash from Democrats after the January 6 clash at the Capitol showcased the demand for federal crackdowns on extremists who doubted Biden's election, disparaged federal prerogatives, or otherwise earned congressional ire. If a domestic terrorism law is passed, the FBI will feel as little constrained by the details of the statute as it does about FISA's technicalities. Will FBI agents conducting warrantless searches rely on the same harebrained standard the NSA used to target Americans: "someone searching the web for suspicious stuff"? Unfortunately, unless an FBI whistleblower with the same courage as former NSA analyst Edward Snowden steps forward, we may never know the extent of FBI abuses

ebworthen 39 minutes ago

"You want to harass a political opponent? Sure, we can do that...

JaxPavan 42 minutes ago

All an FBI supervisor has to do to get a FISA warrant on you is have one agent get a crooked snitch in a foreign country to send you a weird text message, and then have another bright eyed and bushy tailed agent who doesn't know the crook is a snitch write up a search warrant application affidavit and submit it to the FISA court.

Joe Bribem 32 minutes ago

It's almost like we did this to Trump. But it'll never come to light. Oops it did. Not that anything will happen to us because we own the corrupt DOJ and FBI.

Obama's own personal private army.

You_Cant_Quit_Me 7 minutes ago

A lot of tips come in from overseas. For example, the US spies on citizens of another country and then sends that country tips, in exchange that country does the same by spying on US citizens and sending the FBI tips. Then it starts, "we are just following up on a tip"

wee-weed up 36 minutes ago (Edited)

Nothing says "Unconstitutional (illegal) Deep State" like FISA. Hitler's Gestapo would be proud!

You_Cant_Quit_Me 37 minutes ago

Lisa and Peter removed any credibility the FBI had with the public. If they solved real crime they would go after the massive fraud and stolen ID criminals. Of course that takes real work and someone wanting get off their lazy rear end

takeaction 58 minutes ago (Edited)

If you own a smart phone...everything you do is recorded...and logged. "They" have been listening to you for a long time if they want to.

If you own any smart device...they can listen and watch. They are monitoring what I am typing and this site. There really is no way to hide.

[Jan 20, 2021] Russiagate now will be swiped under the rug

Jan 20, 2021 | www.thegatewaypundit.com

Feds Quietly Close Flynn Leak Investigation, Find No Wrongdoing By Crooked Obama Officials

frozeninbemidji-INA sec.212(f) • 4 hours ago

Everything will be swept under the rug now.

They have an all too willing media and a bureaucracy loaded with 99% like minded scumbags.

Commie-Crusher dlovely • 3 hours ago ,

Barr is Deep State

flash dlovely • 3 hours ago ,

We begged Trump to get rid of him many months ago. Same with Wray. Without justice you have no society and no Constitution. Halper came into the CIA by Brennan. Should have gotten rid of her many months ago. These are Trumps biggest mistakes.

Donald J Tromp flash • 3 hours ago ,

Sessions, Barr, Wray, Haspel, Coates, Krebs... Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett... even his SC Justice picks are suspect at this point. Honestly, it's pathetic!

[Jan 17, 2021] It seems political appointees have transformed Hoover's FBI into an operation engaged in the manufacture of "boogeyman" groups to sustain budgets and political narritaves.

Jan 17, 2021 | www.unz.com

Anon [156] Disclaimer , says: January 16, 2021 at 12:19 pm GMT • 15.9 hours ago

It seems political appointees have transformed Hoover's FBI into an operation engaged in the manufacture of "boogeyman" groups to sustain budgets and political narritaves.

Meanwhile BLM and Antifa did hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage this summer, COVID-19 gets released (by whom?), and presidential elections get millions of fraudulent votes in plain sight. But dont worry, the fibs have two drunken, meth-addled hillbillys at a trailer park under surveillance and might get a collar if they can get the pair to illegally obtain a used swiss army knife or something similar.

Dumbo , says: January 16, 2021 at 1:25 pm GMT • 14.8 hours ago

Well, it's like they say, in the Internet, if you're sex chatting with a man, it's probably a man. If if you're sex chatting with a woman, it's probably also a man. And if you're sex chatting with a child or teen, it's probably the FBI.

Well, here it's the same thing. If you're chatting with a "Nazi" or a "terrorist", it's probably the FBI.

Old and Grumpy , says: January 16, 2021 at 2:42 pm GMT • 13.5 hours ago

Federal Bureau of Instigation. That's all it is. The modern KKK is their thing, and I often thought the Nazis is as well.. Adding the Satanic to the recipe is probably an inside joke since they think we are all stupid.

edward manfredonia , says: January 16, 2021 at 3:32 pm GMT • 12.7 hours ago

In my personal experience, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will protect an individual, who livestreams child pornography from a Third World Country in order to protect Wall Street millionaires.

Do you honestly believe that Jeffrey Epstein was not protected by the FBI?

Edward Manfredonia

[Jan 10, 2021] Trump's Last Stand, by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!
Trump run his election complain of 2016 as champion of common Americans. After he won the office the betrayed them all and governed like Bush III with his own cabal of neocons and neoliberals. \
He betrayed his followed again on Dec 6, when he first incited them for the action but did not provide organization, security and the plan needed to press Congress to appoint the commission for investigation of election "irregularities" for then days before Biden inauguration. He is now completely spent politically and his enemies and first of all, Ms Pelosi, are after him. Moreover he gave a shot in the arm for the gang of Russiagaters who were pursuing him since his inauguration.
The fact that Trump leaves the political scene is good. While useful as a wrecking ball for the neoliberal empire and neoliberal establishment he proved to be completely inept as a politician and lack courage necessary for the national leader. Which he proved again on Dec 6. Famous quote from Friedrich Schiller's play Fiesco "The Moor has done his duty. The Moor can go." is probably applicable. What is interesting is that Zionists betrayed Trump.
But the fact hat he will be replaced by neocon warmonger and staunch neoliberal Biden means that there is no light at the and of tunnel for the common people.
Like Trump, Biden was never Presidential material. He a a mediocre politician, by all accounts. And extremely corrupt in addition to that.
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. ..."
"... The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. ..."
"... On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. ..."
"... The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings. ..."
"... For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain. ..."
"... White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. ..."
"... Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland. ..."
"... researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest. ..."
"... There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way. ..."
"... The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results. ..."
"... Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb. ..."
"... There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. ..."
"... Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action. ..."
"... He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would. ..."
"... His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried. ..."
"... Israel Shamir can be reached at ..."
"... The Unz Review ..."
Jan 10, 2021 | www.unz.com

President Trump was decisively beaten, if not fair and square. The hopes of millions of American voters were squashed and extinguished. The saga of the Orange Man is over. The victors used a gambit: they sacrificed the sanctity and security of the Capitol, allowed intruders in, permitted them to take selfies in the Speaker's office, and then faked horror and outrage. The attempted calls for electoral transparency were deflated in real time as huge crowds were dispersed, electors were confirmed, and the ascendancy of Biden was assured, while Trump followers were branded 'domestic terrorists'.

Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. Within hours, or even minutes, this ruler of the world admired by millions became a non-person. Like a boy who posted an obscenity, he was banned by Twitter and Facebook. Time will tell whether he will go to prison, as so many Dems pray for, but his political life seems to have ended, even if his cause may live.

The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. He was blocked even by Fox News. Dem-run states adjusted their laws to assure the elections' result. Trump was a lame duck from the very beginning of his presidency to its bitter end. He was kept on a short leash by the almighty Deep State, and when he tried to free himself, they pulled the leash.

On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. Some of the protesters managed to break into the Capitol, or were let in by the police. This peaceful Occupy Capitol action, the exercise of a natural right to protest, was met with lethal fire, and a young female protester from San Diego, Ashli Babbitt, was murdered by the plainclothes police. The Republican representatives were cowed and surrendered; Biden was confirmed to take office.

The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings.

"Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King Street entrance to the Capitol, chanting "Break down the door!" and "General strike!" Moments later, police ceded control of the State Street doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside, joining thousands who had already gathered in the Capitol to protest the votes. The area outside the Assembly, which is scheduled to take the bill up at 11 a.m. today, was crowded with protesters who chanted, "We're not leaving. Not this time."

Department of Administration spokesman Tim Donovan said although protesters were being encouraged to leave, no one would be forcibly removed. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said he had instructed Police Chief Noble Wray not to allow his officers to participate in removing demonstrators from the building."

This was what happened in Madison, Wisconsin in March 2011, as Steve Sailer reminded us. Indeed, this is what the protesters expected; some were dressed in flamboyant carnival attire; they behaved well and peacefully, within acceptable limits. It was not an insurrection; they didn't try to take over the Congress in any meaningful sense. For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain.

White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. Being a foreigner, I do not understand why the Americans want to keep their guns if they never use them, but that's the way they are.

Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland.

Russian social networks were comparing the Washington DC events with those nearer to home and complained of 'double standards'. The US media expressed no indignation when their appointee Boris Yeltsin shelled the Russian Parliament in 1993. The New York Times and the State Department had encouraged the nationalist mob to storm Ukrainian government offices in 2014. They cheered on the opposition in Minsk in taking over their parliament after failing to win elections. The Belarus protesters claimed their country's election results were rigged, just like Trump supporters did for the US elections, but Biden didn't call them "domestic terrorists". (Actually, neither did President Lukashenko: he called them 'protesters', and their violent demos were dispersed without a single shot fired.) In such cases, Jews respond with "How can you compare?!"

The Russians compared the Capitol 'coup attempt' with their own semi-staged 'coup' of 1991, a partly pre-planned provocation. In 1991, the feeble coup organisers could not detain Yeltsin and surrendered as if on cue; the wave of indignation removed Gorbachev and the Communist party from power. In the Capitol, too, police waved the 'invaders' in, as you can see on this video forwarded by the BBC. More videos suggesting Capitol police involvement in the ostensible provocation are presented here . The orchestrated indignation allowed the victors to censor and purge the defeated Trump and his followers. Just as the USSR went down in August 1991, Trump's America went down in January 2021, and the liberal elites representing the big corporations came to power. It was achieved by a provocation, but ordinary Trump followers were really angry with the Election Steal. Likewise, 1991 was a provocation, but ordinary Russian citizens were angry at Gorbachev's perestroika, while the liberal elites used it to dismantle the Soviet state and transfer all assets to their oligarchs.

People with a good knowledge of history refer to the Reichstag Fire of February 1933, the arson contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to turn public opinion against its opponents and to assume emergency powers. Alternatively, other researchers have contended that there was no proof of Nazi complicity in the crime, but that Hitler merely capitalised on the Dutch Communist van der Lubbe's independent act. The fire is the subject of continued debate and research, says the Encycopaedia Britannica . Probably the same will be said about the Capitol "invasion", and researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest.

There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way.

Detroit Dems outsourced ballot harvesting to local drug lords, offering them as a prize – recreational marijuana business licenses. These licences are the best thing since a licence to print money . Having such licenses is like having your own ATM. Here you can read about their profitability and the lengths criminals will go to obtain them. Detroit Dems had changed local laws allowing the sale of marijuana in their fine city (it was forbidden until November 2020). They changed local laws prescribing the issuing of marijuana licences to drug dealers with previous convictions for drug dealing. They let drug lords out of jail . They changed local laws to allow ballot harvesting; that is, collecting postal votes and assisting with the filling in of ballots. After that, the drug dealers went around collecting postal ballots and filling them in immediately, if they were conscientious, or just filling them in at their leisure, if feeling lazy. They had a judge at their disposal, Cynthia Stephens , who single-handedly changed Michigan election laws, and then rejected Trump's claims of fraud.

Yes, Virginia, there was election fraud in many American states. They are used to gambling; they aren't surprised by a beautiful hand of four aces, as Mark Twain suggested. Usually the two parties deal in turns, and cheat in turns. Only this time, Trump convinced many people that it is different; that this is their last chance.

The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results.

Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb.

There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. Shortly after the breach, he released a video instructing his followers not to take Senators hostage or imprison Mike Pence, but to "go home." No factions of the federal government joined the mob on Trump's orders, because he didn't bother issuing any. The whole episode never stood the remotest chance of preventing the certification of Joe Biden, much less overthrowing the government. It was just another goofball charade, and in that sense, a fitting end to the Trump presidency."

Conspiracy theories played their disappointing part in the debacle. Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action.

Still, I do not want to finish this piece on such a sad and disappointing note. President Trump was a great leader. He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would.

His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried.

The day of his defeat, January 6, was the Epiphany, or Adoration of the Magi, of the Three Wise Men who came to worship Jesus in his cave. It was also Christmas Eve for the Eastern Church. It is the darkest time of the year; from now on, the day will increase and so will our hopes.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review .

[Jan 02, 2021] Russiagate has dual purpose: depose Trumpvia color revolution and to initiate a new McCarthyism. Both goals were evnetually achieved

So neoliberals managed to take revenge for their 2016 fiasco...
May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , May 10 2020 16:52 utc | 14

Norwegian @ May10 14:22
Russiagate has been an obvious coup attempt from the beginning

jinn @ May 10 15:20

That is not at all obvious... you have to be extremely gullible to believe any of it is real.

IMO Russiagate was about initiating a new McCarthyism.

And Trump's Deep State selection was about re-igniting nationalism in response to the Russia-China alliance which was recognized as a threat to the Empire in 2013-2014 with Russia's blocking of US action in Syria and Ukraine.

I've been saying this for years.

!!

jinn , May 10 2020 16:54 utc | 15
There was nothing mysterious about "Russiagate." It was a transparently false narrative designed, by the most incompetent election campaign team in history, to excuse their shocking inability to defeat one of the weakest and most discredited Presidential candidates there has ever been.
_________________________________________________

Yeah that is what we are asked to believe, but the problem is how did this incompetent election campaign keep the ball in the air for more than 2 years?

They did not invent the Flynn lied to FBI story and they did not invent the Trump obstructed justice stories. And they did not create any of the silly stories about contacts with Russians. There is no doubt the Hillary supporters sat on the sidelines and cheered all the nonsense that was unfolding in the Russiagate narrative but the storyline that they were cheering for was all created by Trump and his lackeys.


[Dec 29, 2020] Surprising uniformity of opinions about Steele dossier following by surprising uniformity of actions

Highly recommended!
Nov 28, 2020 | twitter.com

Commodore Allen Retweeted

C3
@C_3C_3
FBI knew the Dossier was FAKE
CIA knew the Dossier was FAKE
DOJ knew the Dossier was FAKE
ODNI knew the Dossier was FAKE
Media knew the Dossier was FAKE
Mueller knew the Dossier was FAKE
Congress knew the Dossier was FAKE
BO Admin knew the Dossier was FAKE

They were all in on it

[Dec 27, 2020] The comical and impotent figures of Comey, Mueller, Clapper, Rosenstein, Barr, Schiff, Nader, and such filled the stage during a production of the Russiagate farce.

Dec 27, 2020 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: December 26, 2020 at 8:41 pm GMT • 4.2 hours ago

@Supply and Demand 'progressive' MeToo had disappeared. The MeToo activists love Bill Clinton and his various acquaintances, such as the badly aged idiots of Russian Pussy Riot and the Maxwells family. This is so progressive! See also the "progressive" Google/FaceBook/YouTube blanket censorship over anything that can be qualified as 'antisemitic' by the ADL (created in memory of a rapist and murderer Leo Frank). The 'progressives' have been taken for a ride by zionists.

The 'deplorables,' unlike Clintons, have a sense of dignity. As for the half-wit 'progressives,' they will undoubtedly have their chance to learn more about their most important tutors, the Trotskyists.

[Nov 25, 2020] Biden NSA Pick Called Steele Dossier 'Perfectly Appropriate' - Newsmax.com

Nov 25, 2020 | www.newsmax.com

Joe Biden's national security adviser pick defended the anti-Trump dossier in 2018 as "perfectly appropriate."

Many news outlets have declared Biden the president-elect. Newsmax has yet to project a winner, citing legal challenges in several key battleground states.

Jake Sullivan, who worked for Biden when he served as vice president in the Obama administration and as a senior foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton during her presidential race in 2016, made the comments on a podcast interview with David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Obama's presidential campaigns.

"I mean, I believe that it is perfectly appropriate and responsible if we get wind, or if people associated with the campaign get wind, that there may be real questions about the connections between Donald Trump, his organization, his campaign and Russia that that be explored fully," he said at the time, The Daily Caller reported.

https://274b4c66c3248245933d19a14f4d7121.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

Sullivan worked for Clinton when a law firm representing her campaign hired an opposition research firm to investigate Trump's possible ties to Russia. The firm hired Christopher Steele, the author behind the dossier alleging a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian government."

Special counsel Robert Mueller later found those claims to be unfounded during his probe into Russian interference in the election, writing in his report "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

Related Stories:

[Nov 19, 2020] Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence suggests the way to deal with US illusion of democracy once and for all by adopting Iranian model

This is quite similar to Iran's Guardian Council which has 12 members. The Guardian Council approves candidates for president and majlis (Congress).
Oct 02, 2020 | www.rt.com

Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, says a President Trump "can't happen again," so a "bipartisan committee," rather than voters, should "vet" and approve future candidates. Figliuzzi, who worked under Robert Mueller at the FBI, made it clear during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC he buys into conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being influenced by the Russian government, calling him Figliuzzi, who worked under Robert Mueller at the FBI, made it clear during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC he buys into conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being influenced by the Russian government, calling him "the most vulnerable president in history."

Figliuzzi's suggestion of giving a vague "committee" more power over the selection of presidential candidates than actual voters has earned criticism from both liberals and conservatives on social media, with many seeing the idea as "scary" and a step in the direction of countries where people have little power in who is put in power.

"Reminds me of Iran's Guardian Council, which has 12 members. The Guardian Council approves candidates for president and majlis (Congress)," Huffington Post journalist Yashar Ali tweeted, adding, "Great idea, let's become like Iran that's going to turn out well, I'm sure."

[Nov 12, 2020] WSJ- Vengeful Russian Was Source Of Outlandish Dossier Claims

Nov 12, 2020 | thefederalist.com

WSJ: Vengeful Russian PR Exec Was Source Of Outlandish Dossier Claims OCTOBER 29, 2020 By Mollie Hemingway

The "most important contributor" to the Russia collusion hoax dossier has been identified by the Wall Street Journal as a disgruntled Russian public relations executive with a reported drinking problem. The 40-year-old Olga Galkina had already been suspected as the woman who provided "the most critical allegations" of unverified and uncorroborated gossip to an old school friend digging for dirt on Donald Trump.

According to the Journal, Galkina was the source of the completely debunked claim that Trump attorney Michael Cohen had conspired with high-level Russian officials in a secret meeting in Prague. Shortly after getting fired from her job at a web-services company known for its Webzilla internet hosting unit, she claimed that its owner, Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, had been recruited by Russian security services. Also shortly after her firing from the company, Galkina blamed Webzilla for the hack of emails from the Democratic National Committee.

https://0a7a31e9314db9b2b8e0a509c26489ce.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

None of the dramatic stories that Galkina shared with her friend Igor Danchenko, who is also a Russian national and was suspected by the U.S. government of being a Russian agent, have been corroborated. The Russia collusion hoax operation was secretly funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. This summer it was revealed that Danchenko was hired by Christopher Steele, a man falsely described by major media as a James Bond-like master spy , to get dirt on Trump.

Galkina was reportedly fired for frequently showing up late to work, appearing drunk. A manager reportedly went to authorities because an acquaintance of Galkina told him "he would face deep trouble, including possible death, unless he paid €10,000 ($11,740) in compensation," according to a statement that was confirmed by a Cypriot official and another person who confirmed it, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Danchenko also had a history of public drunkenness , and he described another source for his dossier work as a "drinking buddy."

The dossier mixed publicly available information with outlandish gossip, smears, rumors, and innuendo. The FBI used the smears to help secure warrants to spy on a Trump campaign affiliate, despite having many reasons to believe they were false. Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI official who worked for Robert Mueller's special counsel probe, was convicted of falsifying a document that was used to help continue spying on Carter Page, the Trump affiliate.

Despite the complete lack of corroboration for the non-public information, Danchenko told the Journal he trusted Galkina and his other sources. "I have no reason to believe that any of them fabricated information that was given to me," Danchenko told the Journal. "More importantly, I have yet to see anything credible that indicates that the raw intelligence I collected was inaccurate."

An investigation into the Russia collusion hoax is purportedly being conducted by the Department of Justice, although Clinesmith is the only government official to be held accountable for his participation in the operation. Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham to head a probe into the Russia collusion investigation and its origins. Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court . Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway

[Oct 30, 2020] Why Are These Anti-Russian And Anti-Chinese Narratives So Similar-

Notable quotes:
"... I hope you don't mind me opining that the story as written is most likely to be a complete fiction, designed to hide the real source of the fantasy story book that is the Steele dossier. The main mission here being to admit that the dossier was indeed a pack of lies but with the important corollary that J Steele did indeed do some sort of research to dig up the dirt on Trump. Heaven forbid that it ever was discovered that himself, Pablo Miller and Sergei Skripal made the whole thing up over a meal of Zizzi's garlic bread and risotto, washed down with white wine and a bottle of Vodka over at the Mill. ..."
Oct 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Caliman , Oct 29 2020 16:04 utc | 6

After more than four years of Russiagate we finally learn (paywalled original ) where the Steele dossier allegations about nefarious relations between Trump and Russia came from:

A Wall Street Journal investigation provides an answer: a 40-year-old Russian public-relations executive named Olga Galkina fed notes to a friend and former schoolmate who worked for Mr. Steele.​ The Journal relied on interviews, law-enforcement records, declassified documents and the identification of Ms. Galkina by a former top U.S. national security official.

In 2016, Ms. Galkina was working in Cyprus at an affiliate of XBT Holding SA, a web-services company best known for its Webzilla internet hosting unit. XBT is owned by Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev.

That summer, she received a request from an employee of Mr. Steele to help unearth potentially compromising information on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump 's links to Russia, according to people familiar with the matter. Ms. Galkina was friends with the employee, Igor Danchenko, since their school days in Perm, a Russian provincial city near the Ural mountains.

Ms. Galkina often came drunk to work and eventually got fired by her company. She took revenge by alleging that the company and its owner Gubarev were involved in the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee. A bunch of other false allegations in the dossier were equally based on Ms. Galkina's fantasies.

Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled - 18:39 UTC · Oct 28, 2020

So the Steele Dossier that kicked off 4 years of Russiagate hysteria among the US ruling class was cooked up by two Russian alcoholics from Perm. "Gogolesque" does not begin to describe the grotesque credulity & stupidity of the American elites.

The tales in the dossier were real disinformation from Russians but not ' Russian disinformation ' of the American Newspeak variant.

The FBI, and others involved, knew very early on that the Steele dossier was a bunch of lies. But the issue was kept in the public eyes by continues leaks of additional nonsense. All this was to press Trump to take more and more anti-Russian measures which he did with unprecedented generosity . The accusations about a Trump-Russia connection were the 'Russia bad' narrative that pressed and allowed Trump to continue the anti-Russian policies of the Obama/Biden administration.

A similar string of continuous policies from the Obama/Biden administration's 'Pivot to Asia' and throughout the four years of Trump is the anti-China campaign.

We now hear a lot about Hunter and Joe Biden's corrupt deals with Chinese entities. These accusations come with more evidence and are far more plausible than the stupid Steele dossier claims. Their importance is again twofold. They will be used to press a potential President Joe Biden to act against China but they will primarily be used to intensify a public anti-China narrative that creates public support for such policies.

As Caitlin Johnstone points out :

I don't know how or at what level, but we are being played. A narrative is being aggressively rammed down our throats about China in exactly the same way it was being aggressively rammed down our throats about Russia four years ago; two unabsorbed nations the US government has long had plans to attack and undermine .
Russiagate was never really about Trump. It was never about his campaign staff meeting with Russians, it was never about a pee tape, it was never about an investigation into any kind of hidden loyalties to the Kremlin. Russiagate was about narrative managing the United States into a new cold war with Russia with the ultimate target being its far more powerful ally China, and ensuring that Trump played along with that agenda.
...
If Biden gets in we can expect the same thing: a president who advances escalations against both Russia and China while being accused of the other party of being soft on China. Both parties will have their foot on the gas toward brinkmanship with a nuclear-armed nation, with no one's foot anywhere near the brakes.

It is thus assured that the verbal attacks on China , the search for new anti-China allies like the Hindu-fascist India and the dangerous weaponizing of Taiwan will all continue under a Biden administration.

""Gogolesque" does not begin to describe the grotesque credulity & stupidity of the American elites."

Not at all. The "elites" know what's going on; it's being done for their benefit, after all. It's the "normals" who are being sheared of the little wool left on our backs. Just one more true grand larceny before the whole thing falls apart. And for this we need a real enemy. From the great Antiwar.com:

https://news.antiwar.com/2020/10/28/raytheon-ceo-the-idea-that-biden-would-cut-defense-spending-is-ridiculous/

Bemildred , Oct 29 2020 16:10 utc | 7

It's like living in a "B" movie. Probably many of the same sorts of people behind it too. The lack of imagination and knowledge in these propaganda narratives tells you a lot about the mediocrities behind them. In considering these US foreign policy excesses, real and imagined, I keep thinking at some point reality is going to raise its ugly head and Washington will collapse in a puddle of spite. I expect the next adminstration to be overwhelmed by its domestic problems, along with quite a few other countries. I look at what is going on in Western societies today and I think of the movie Brazil.

ptb , Oct 29 2020 16:17 utc | 8
I think this stuff will matter more if Trump wins than if Biden wins. (I'm thinking 3:2 odds in favor of Biden, by the way).

If Biden wins, Republicans will make a lot of noise, but that's about it. Without a huge majority of Congress, they can't do even what little token effects Democrats had to "stop Trump". Then, whenever Harris takes over, she can just distance herself from the whole thing.

If Trump wins, however, the flag humpers in the administration will have the ammunition they need in the fight over Russiagate. Not to shut it down, but to take control of it for their own political ends, and perhaps take down someone famous in the media and intimidate the rest - in a replay of the post-9/11 Bush era (not that it ever stopped). So you can thank Democrats for handing them the setup to do all that, not to mention for nominating Biden, if that is the path we take.

More realistically, Trump still loses, but Dems might fail to get an effective majority in the Senate (something like a 51-49 majority might not be enough in practice, because the most conservative Democrats in the Senate vote Republican half the time.). Again it makes no difference for foreign policy, but it could really change how the country responds to economic hardship, now baked in due to the virus.

Down South , Oct 29 2020 16:28 utc | 9
The MIC needs a Cold War to boost military expenditure. The bigger the boogeyman the more money will be spent the more profits will be generated.

They don't want a hot war as all those profits are meaningless if you are reduced to ashes.

The last thing the MIC can afford is for peace and goodwill amongst nations to break out. There is absolutely no profit in that.

Eisenhower warned against the rise of the MIC for this very reason. If war is profitable then to keep generating more profits you need to keep on generating more wars.

Noirette , Oct 29 2020 17:11 utc | 13

Trump proposed to ally with Russia against China. MAGA clearly implies the US was, is weakening, one way out (classical) is to ally (perhaps only lightly) with one of the other two strong powers. This was total anathema to part of the PTB, mostly represented (officially) by Dems. An all-out attack on Trump thus took place (before he was elected, because all was known) as a stooge for Russia, etc. Russia 3x, Russiagate, all of it clumsily made-up rubbish.

Surely now with Hunter's lap-top and the exposé of Biden-China ties (pay to play at the highest level, potentially billions, not minor corruption chicken-sh*t..) it is possible to grasp that one faction of what some call the Deep State is more pro-China i.e. the aspirations towards that type of society (I leave that aspect aside ..) and the opportunities for money extraction / deals - see tech etc. / also sales (MIC, etc.) favor China. The noise about Chinese incursions (Tibet, sea.. etc.), Chinese human-rights violations (Uighurs, etc.), and the OBOR initiative have always been somewhat glancing more pro-forma than anything else..

It was the 'Dem' faction of the duopoly, Obiman + Biden who 'did' Ukraine, an anti-Russian move (on the face of it. Perhaps it was just an extraction scheme, Mafia style. Of course they had the keen involvement of Germany and support from France.)

I have boiled down complex issues to just one "narrative arc", a simplification if you will, I am aware there is much more to it all

Question. There is a well-know board on which sit, amongst many others:

Mary T. Barra (CEO Gen. Mot.)
Carlos Ghosn (Renault etc.)
H. Kruger (BMW)
Elon Musk

Henry Paulson
Lloyd Blankfein
Laurence Fink (Blackrock)
M. L. Corbat (Citigroup)

Tim Cook
Michael Dell (Dell co.)
S. Nadella (Microsoft)

answer:

https://www.sem.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/aboutsem/advMem.html

Here is the Board of Trustees of Moscow University, Lavrov in first place:

https://english.mgimo.ru/basic-facts/board-of-trustees

I believe such minor examples are quite telling.

Yes the elites know what is going on. (Caliman 6)

karlof1 , Oct 29 2020 17:16 utc | 14
IMO, the current Imperial policy goals of the Outlaw US Empire will continue regardless who wins. IMO, the ultimate question is if the Empire has enough power to continue on its current track. As most know, I see a drowning empire trying to disrupt the rapid rise of two strategically bound nations and those allied with them. China just finished planning and publishing its 14th 5-year plan. This Global Times editorial is supremely confidant for good reason:

"The fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee is leading the country forward. China has the capital and ability to do so. In this turbulent world, the meeting has provided a practical and significant guide for our direction, goal and tactics. Despite the many problems, China's political philosophy can constantly generate positive energy to solve the problems, instead of letting the problems crush positive energy.

"At the moment, China is facing the most problems and challenges. However, the country is also the most confident now. Other countries have posed many difficulties, but they provide reference and proof that we are doing better . As the world suffers from shrinking demand and negative growth, we are demanding real and comprehensive growth to realize new achievements in six areas. The country is self-driven ." [My Emphasis]

It's been announced that "The 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will hold a press conference Friday to introduce the guiding principles of its fifth plenary session."

Here are two important articles related to China's next phase that demand reading, "China sets 'pragmatic' targets through 2035 ; and "CPC vows to grasp opportunities amid major strategic [development] period" . I intend to use these and other items in a follow up to the article I wrote in anticipation of China's new phase while recapping the one just concluded.

As for Russia's direction, that was very clearly mapped out by Putin and Lavrov's recent Valdai Club speeches and Q & A sessions and other interviews over the past ten days or so. Compared to the drowning Outlaw US Empire, China and Russia combine to offer the world two not so different examples that are clearly superior to Neoliberal Parasitism. And the longstanding Imperial edict of the Outlaw US Empire saying no threat of a better example can be allowed to exist forms the basis for the confrontation. However, it's no longer just China and Russia that provide such threats as a majority of the world's nations want to join Win-Win and scupper Zero-sum. So the already joined contest between two differing ideological blocs will escalate until the drowning Outlaw US Empire finds it no longer possess the power to dominate outside its borders, but will still have its domestic populace to exploit until they too revolt.

Ilya G Poimandres , Oct 29 2020 17:27 utc | 15
The similarities are there, except that Trump's investigation had not one document of compromat even after 3 years, whilst Biden's already has many from day 1.

Yes, the deepstate attacks Russia from the left, and China from the right, but this does not imply that members of the body politic are not subservient to either side, ever.

Only that Trump was never a Russian stooge, nor did they ever hold compromising documents over him, whilst Biden seems the Cleon of the modern age, that his business partners say he is. Is this compromat? Maybe, but at the very least this is graft. And that should be enough to send him into the gutter.

Babyl-on , Oct 29 2020 17:32 utc | 16
This is a good report as is usually the case here at MoA. Yet, there is nothing really new in this at all other than the details of how the Western empire goes about enforcing its will on the world.
Sense August 6, 1945 the Imperial policy has been "Global full spectrum domination." and to that end it was determined that Russia and China were to be considered one enemy and must be attacked simultaneously.
In the 75 years sense that date when the Western empire declared the world belonged to it and it alone to rule the Western empire has slaughtered innocent people across the globe tens of millions of them, additionally in the last 20 years alone the Western empire has displaced over 37 million people, kicked them out of their homes destroyed their towns and communities. For 75 years non stop slaughter of innocent people.
Western Liberal Democracy and indeed Western civilization itself is an utter and contemptible failure irredeemable in any form which we might recognize as "democracy'
wagelaborer , Oct 29 2020 18:22 utc | 24

Why do media corporations put out remake after remake of popular movies? Is it because they lack imagination, or is it that audiences prefer the familiar.
They use the same war propaganda time after time because the audience falls for it more easily if they've heard it before.
I agree with Michael, however, that we are in dire planetary straits at this point.
Apparently, our ruling overlords are putting in a Hail Mary plan to slow down the destruction of the ecosystem. I don't believe that it is the virus that made them screech the brakes on the global economy back in March. They have a plan to reset and scale back consumption.
We all knew it couldn't last forever, anyway, right?

Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 29 2020 18:23 utc | 25

I'm not so sure about the overall conclusions, instead I'm sidetracked by the attempt to whitewash Russiagate. I guess they finally figured out they had to come up with some kind of lame excuse to brush it off.

"It wasn't me! It was some crazy drunk Russian woman from Perm! She was angry!"

Well that explains everything. They must have been so scared :D

Because that's what people do when they get fired isn't it? Instead of getting a new job (or drinking a bit more, or sliding down the slippery slope of society) they make up and tell stories about politicians in other countries. Not to blackmail anyone, oh no, only to try to tarnish the reputation of the old boss to get revenge. Stuff like this is why watching soap operas (including "Friends") is bad for you :)

"We need a scapegoat but we don't have any good ones available right now, however someone we know has an aunt in Perm who will do anything for money"

It still doesn't make sense but now instead of a problem that doesn't make sense they have a solution that doesn't make sense. They probably threw a party to celebrate how smart they were.

Roger , Oct 29 2020 18:25 utc | 26

"A narrative is being aggressively rammed down our throats about China": I usually respect Caitlin's work a lot but how does this jive with the MSM and Techno-platforms desperate attempts to block all circulation of anything to do with the Biden corruption scandals? Digging deeper into these issues is toxic not just for Biden, but for a significant segment of the neoliberal elite.

The economic elites need time to decouple their profits from China before any real head-to-head battle commences, Biden (or Kamala) will bark a lot but bite much less given the probable wealth-vaporization of increased hostilities with China.

P.S. the number of COVID cases in Sweden is exploding, so to quote one of my favourite movie reviewers (The Critical Drinker) can the Sweden trolls please "just go away now".

Abe , Oct 29 2020 18:39 utc | 31

Jackrabbit @ 22

I don't argue popularity, but strength. Trump is a weakling, both as a person and as a president IMO.

US presidential system won't allow true leaders but puppets (or easily manipulated persons), it is all I'm saying. Do we need more than last 4 years of Trump's reign as a proof?

Christian J. Chuba , Oct 29 2020 18:48 utc | 34

Because the U.S. public is close to brain dead We can't detect obvious lies no matter how brazen.

Let's suppose I told you something was absolutely true and I literally started out by saying, 'Once upon a time there was an evil stepmother ...'. Or I told you about about a villainous neighbor while literally playing a sad song on a violin.

I do not consider myself a genius, in fact I was a neocon but good God, I could just tell I was being lied to just by the pattern of the stories. I didn't know what the truth was but I knew they were lying.

A doozy with FOX promoting genocide against Iran

FOX news does a story about the terrorist attack in France and in the very next segment without any commercial breaks they interview a Congressman about Iran. Now they did not say Iran was responsible but clearly this was a puppet show to make just that association. In addition to the standard blood libel, the Congressman talked about a tweet the Ayatollah made in 2014, so it was not as if there even was any newsworthy item to discuss about Iran. It was just to frame them for something they did not do.

donkeytale , Oct 29 2020 21:47 utc | 54

Correction: I outed the Bytedance board of directors. Bytedance is the parent company of tik tok.

Jen , Oct 29 2020 22:57 utc | 55

S Brennan @ 3, Bevin @ 17, James @ 38:

China and Russia signed a friendship treaty in 2001 pledging co-operation and assistance in diplomacy and across several areas including economic and military assistance and in environmental technology (green or environmental science) and energy issues as well. In Article 6 of the treaty, both nations agreed to respect one another's borders and to preserve the status quo where there were unresolved issues.

On top of the 2001 Sino-Russian Friendship Treaty, both nations also signed an agreement in 2008 officially ending all territorial disputes between the two countries. With no exceptions, the border between Russia and China is fixed.

In addition northeast China (or that area historically known as Manchuria) is now a rustbelt area and is deindustrialising. People especially young people are moving away from this part of the country and into the cities farther south to find more job opportunities. According to this Mercatornet.com article , fertility rates in this part of Northeast Asia across all ethnic groups are the lowest in the world and this part of China is heading for demographic collapse.

Probably the only people in China and Russia who still have fantasies about seizing one another's territories in Northeast China and the Russian Far East are gameboys who spend too much time playing computer games or nattering with one another on their blogsites and who would suffer cardiac arrest the moment they step away from the screen (or who would suffer cardiac arrest anyway from playing games two or three days straight).

oldhippie , Oct 29 2020 23:13 utc | 56

US economy and US life in general is wholly dependent on China. Face masks or pharmaceuticals, car parts or building materials, it comes from China. No, we cannot resume making these things in US, we do not know how. When 3M was told to get busy and make masks under Defence Procurement authority all they could do was refer to Chinese subsidiary. Clear enough it is the "subsidiary" that has the whip hand. What do we have for them? Treasury bonds? Or we can start handing over real estate. Maybe if we give them the West Coast they will supply us for a time.

One of the big stalls with the Foxconn-Racine plant has been there are no American engineers to hire. Just none. All Chinese staff would be easier. Or Chinese lords supervising American coolies.

US basically does not trade with Russia. They have unloaded US paper securities. All we get from them is service as a bogeyman. If we needed another bogey we could get that easy, make up some shit as always.

Russia and China are different.

donkeytale , Oct 29 2020 23:36 utc | 57

Old hippie

Mostly true but it's not because the US cant make these products it's because the shareholder class decided long ago their portfolios would be better enhanced by cheaper labor costs outside the US.

And just as important, the US consumer prefers a "bargain price" and wants cheap goods more than a living wage, especially those consumers who own some stocks (52% of Amerikkkans own at least some shares, usually in a 401k plan) and believe they too are participating in the global wealth machine.

BTW, nearly as much stuff is made in Mexico and exported into the US as is made in China and products from both countries are made by multinational corporations whose ownership consists largely Amerikkkan/western elites.

The problem isn't national-based, it is class based and international .

They are only trying to trick us into believing the problem is we are lazier than the Chinese.

uncle tungsten , Oct 29 2020 23:43 utc | 59

The Chinese authorities have been prosecuting corrupt officials for many years. The prospect of certain USAi officials like the Biden family carpetbaggers and their Chinese associates being prosecuted in public courts in China with no plea bargaining and all those other niceties would be a delight for eyes and ears.

Be careful with those threats USAi, it could come back to haunt you.

uncle tungsten , Oct 30 2020 0:59 utc | 63

Corkie # 49

I hope you don't mind me opining that the story as written is most likely to be a complete fiction, designed to hide the real source of the fantasy story book that is the Steele dossier. The main mission here being to admit that the dossier was indeed a pack of lies but with the important corollary that J Steele did indeed do some sort of research to dig up the dirt on Trump. Heaven forbid that it ever was discovered that himself, Pablo Miller and Sergei Skripal made the whole thing up over a meal of Zizzi's garlic bread and risotto, washed down with white wine and a bottle of Vodka over at the Mill.

I am with you Corkie. That is about the strength of it. The WSJ is BS from front page to last.

[Oct 28, 2020] Disinformation By Popular Demand- How The Authenticity Of Hunter's Laptop Became Immaterial -

Oct 28, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal involving Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of that claim by the FBI .

No mainstream reporter bothered to ask the simple question of whether this was his son's laptop and emails , including emails clearly engaging in an influence peddling scheme and referring to Joe Biden's knowledge. Instead, media has maintained a consistent and narrow focus. Indeed, in her interview, Leslie Stahl immediately dismissed any "scandal" involving Hunter in an interview with the President on 60 Minutes. It was an open example of what I previously noted in a column: " After all, an allegation is a scandal only if it is damaging. No coverage, no damage, no scandal ."

In her interview with Joe Biden, CBS anchor Norah O'Donnell did not push Biden to simply confirm that the emails were fake or whether he did in fact meet with Hunter's associates (despite his prior denials). Instead O'Donnell asked: "Do you believe the recent leak of material allegedly from Hunter's computer is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?"

Biden responded with the same answer that has gone unchallenged dozens of times:

"From what I've read and know the intelligence community warned the president that Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians. And we also know that Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden. And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it's just what it is. It's a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. What is he running on? What is he running on?"

It did not matter that the answer omitted the key assertion that this was not Hunter's laptop or emails or that he did not leave the computer with this store.

Recently, Washington Post columnist Thomas Rid wrote said the quiet part out loud by telling the media:

"We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation -- even if they probably aren't."

about:blank

about:blank

me title=

Let that sink in for a second. It does not matter if these are real emails and not Russian disinformation. They probably are real but should be treated as disinformation even though American intelligence has repeatedly r ebutted that claim. It does not even matter that the computer has seized the computer as evidence in a criminal fraud investigation or that a Biden confidant is now giving his allegations to the FBI under threat of criminal charges if he lies to investigators.

NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST

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Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.

It simply does not matter. It is disinformation because it is simply inconvenient to treat it as real information.

Bastiat , 3 hours ago

I should have lost the capacity for shock in reaction to this Mockingbird crap but the sheer naked audacity of it still gets me.

Carbon Skidmark , 3 hours ago

I don't know what is worse. The concept that hiding crimes is no longer that important or the lack of response to the crimes by so many.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

I don't know what's worse. The fact that our supposed news networks do this, or the fact that in spite of the vast majority of Americans saying they distrust them, they still let them get away with it. They still watch, and read, and listen. TBH, I don't think the lack of MSM coverage is an issue with this particular story. I think the average Democrats and RINOs are just covering their eyes and ears with this one. They want Trump to lose so bad, they don't care if day one of the Biden administration is him handing suitcases of military hardware blueprints to the Chinese. Anyone with a (D), never Trump, keep the swamp churning. That's all they care about.

Four chan , 25 minutes ago

the laptop and its contents are 100% verified with clean chain of control.

UndergroundPost , 3 hours ago

It's now clear the Democrat Party under the Biden / Clinton Dynasties is nothing more than a fully compromised, corrupt and criminal extension of the Communist Party of China

SDShack , 3 hours ago

Absolutely! The timelines of everything line up perfect. These laptops were dropped off at the computer shop in early 2019. Work was done, but not paid for. The owner tried to get paid and have the laptops picked up for 3 months. No go, so abandoned property now belongs to the computer shop. All perfectly legal. It's now fall 2019 and the Impeachment Sham related to Ukraine is starting. Computer shop realizes that laptops belonged to Demorat VP son being caught up in the entire Impeachment Sham. Computer shop guy realizes he is holding dynamite with lit fuse so he contacts FBI. FBI does nothing, then gets involved, then sits on the story. This is all end of 2019.

Meanwhile, demorat primaries are starting and Bernie is the leader. DNC can't have Bernie win, so they try to game the system to stop him just like 2016. But no one early on can do it. Senile Joe fails first. Then Kamalho, who was the favorite, flames out. Then all the others. It's now early 2020 and the DNC is hemorrhaging money and in disarray. Then look what happens, the DNC miraculously unities around Senile Joe to stop the Angry Berd, with Kamalho being the fallback position as VP. It is clear that the CCP ordered the DNC to do this because they had the goods on Corrupt Joe, and the DNC needs the Chicom money. They all figured they had it all covered up. They never figured on the crazy cokehead son blowing it all up. The timelines all line up, and explain why Senile Joe rose from the dead in the primaries to be the anointed one, along with Kamalho. The CCP got the candidates they bought and paid for.

GoldmanSax , 1 hour ago

100% true but the republican government refuses to prosecute their buddies. The US has 1 party and we ain't invited.

Robert De Zero , 3 hours ago

It isn't real, we hope it isn't real, you can't prove it's real, 50 experts said it isn't real, Russia planted it, Russian disinformation, Rudy is compromised, Rudy might be a Russian agent, Rudy almost banged a 24 YO and he can't be trusted, It's not about Joe we don't care, Hunter isn't running, Bobulinski has a funny name so he can't be trusted...NOT ONCE ASKING IF THIS IS a MAJOR PHUCKING PROBLEM.

The problem isn't RUSSIA, it's you bastards in the Big Lies Media!

GoldmanSax , 1 hour ago

Why hasn't the patriotic republicans arrested the evil democrats? Whats the hold up?

tonye , 3 hours ago

At some point we are going to have to break up the corporate media conglomerates.

All of them.

And start racketeering prosecutions.

Salsa Verde , 3 hours ago

Facts mean nothing in a country where emotional outbursts are now considered gospel.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

I think we need to bring back the death penalty in every state and not keep housing these criminals for lifetimes.

Zorch , 2 hours ago

Wait! What does Gretta say?

VisceralFat1 , 3 hours ago

so... the hunter laptop is fake

and global warming is real

got it

jin187 , 3 hours ago

You just summed up the only thing 90% of students actually learn from 12 years of public school.

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

correct on both points

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

duh...

the Feds have plenty of laptops that have incriminating evidence of our elected leaders (Wasserman Schultz, Iman Brothers, Weiner, DNC Servers, etc...), Dems and Repubs

at issue is if we REALLY knew the depths of treason from said leaders, we'd run out of rope and tall trees...

so...anyone who votes Democrat, is complicit in my eyes (and they don't need to vote Republican) and deserve the heat of the truth, strong enough to melt all the snowflake-SJW's

Carbon Skidmark , 3 hours ago

ban laptops...it's so simple...no laptops and bad things stop happening

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

/sarc

banned public schools first...they're indoctrination centers of controlled deception

NO critical thinking...NO innovative strategies

ONLY State sponsors 'information' filtered by the snowflakes anti-social media platforms and e-encyclopedia (Schmoogle)

11b40 , 3 hours ago

Ban email & instant messages. Life would be immediately better.

CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago

Dorsey looks like a fvcking homeless person. What a clown. I'd love to rip that ring right out of his nose.

sunhu , 2 hours ago

losers anger is always fun to watch

chubbar , 3 hours ago

The media is acting against the best interests of the USA. Think about it, "IF" the allegations are true, we need to find out BEFORE we elect someone who is selling out our country for personal gain, not after. WHY would the media think differently unless they don't care whether the allegations are true or not? Are they working for China? Is the DNC? These are appropriate lines of inquiry given the wholesale censoring the media has levied on the Biden corruption story. The FBI sat on this for months and it has Child ****, which means children remain at risk until the FBI goes in and stops it. WTF is wrong with Wray that he allows this to go on?

somewhere_north , 3 hours ago

Dude, if it was for real Hunter Biden would have been arrested by now. You can't seriously believe they're just holding back their damning evidence. The obvious conclusion is they don't have it.

Mr. Universe , 2 hours ago

...except those pictures of a naked Hunter with his niece and the emails of the family trying to keep a lid on Mom's protestations.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/breaking-exclusive-hunter-biden-pictures-half-naked-exposed-certain-minor-joe-biden-lying/

somewhere_north , 2 hours ago

You see lots of pics of Hunter Biden with a blacked out bitch. No way of knowing who he's actually with.

hugin-o-munin , 2 hours ago

Yeah like duh really man, I mean come on man. Stop thinking so much man, hang ten and chill bruh.

8-(

Im4truth4all , 2 hours ago

Has Comey, Clapper, Strozk and the list goes on ad infinitum, been arrested? No.

ebear , 1 hour ago

"The obvious conclusion is they don't have it."

An inference, by itself, is not a conclusion.

Soloamber , 2 hours ago

Wray inherited a completely screwed up Comey FBI .

He is not a culture changer .

glasshour , 3 hours ago

Stop calling these people mainstream. There is nothing mainstream about them because nobody watches their crap.

Joe Rogan's show last night got more views than all of them combined.

WhatDoYouFightFor , 3 hours ago

Hunter is still walking around free, system is F'd. Nothing will right the United States at this point.

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

it's the Hillary conundrum, right?

IF they get Hunter, it's 'election interference'...

deceitful godless individuals...

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

But but but Her Emails

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

he will always be free on these items as the evidence was all acquired illegally and likely doctored to all hell.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

This is why I said the day Trump got elected that these people just need to disappear to a blacksite in Yemen. The best way to drain the swamp is waterboarding all the ones we know to find the ones we don't know.

Ghost of Porky , 3 hours ago

If Trump rescued 30 drowning children with his helicopter the CNN headline would read "Trump Increases Carbon Footprint to Risk Superspreader Event.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

Exactly - so tired of MSM and their opinionated lies

pstpetrov , 3 hours ago

Yes Liberals are all about disinformation and Trump has the moral high ground.

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

Best joke I've heard in October. Well played, sir!

otschelnik , 3 hours ago

How would the MSM react if Don Jr. flew into China on AF1 with his father, met with Chinese central committee members and intelligence officials, formed a Joint Venture with them and then got a 5 million dollar no interest loan from the head of a private oil company, who's chairman used to work in intelligence?

Imagine that. How would ABC MSNBC CNN NPR WaPo NYT PBS broadcast that?

glasshour , 3 hours ago

Better question, who cares. Nobody watches that junk anymore.

fanbeav , 3 hours ago

Liberal sheeple still do.

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

Let's get the case in a court of law so allegations and wild claims can be proven or disproven. But wait, this was timed so court isn't an option. So all we are left with is the sniff test. Smells like baby diaper needs changed.

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

How did they react when it was Kushner doing the traveling and getting the money for his business?

Iconoclast422 , 3 hours ago

the computer has seized the computer as evidence

Why does every article have these little tidbits that make me think every writer has stroked out in 2020?

11b40 , 3 hours ago

You see that, too? Something is wrong in the editing process. Sloppy, I guess, or foreign.

Santiago de Mago , 3 hours ago

I noticed that in several articles today... almost like they are being written by AI bots.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

It was written by this guy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UYC1ASU

JasperEllings , 2 hours ago

You've found the treasure trove, my friend.

"My Macaroni And Cheese Is A Lesbian Also She Is My Lawyer"

balz , 3 hours ago

Every time you see someone saying they are a "journalist" at a MSM, don't forget to tell them they are wrong and their job-title is "propagandist".

Shut. It. Down. , 2 hours ago

Some of the emails have already been verified by the outside recipient or sender.

Next you'll tell me all the sex videos were photoshopped by Putin.

KayaCreate , 1 hour ago

I lost 5 mins of my life watching Hunters **** getting kicked around by a probable minor while smoking crack. You could tell it was him as his fake teeth glowed in the dark.

Cephisus , 3 hours ago

The media are scum.

Bill of Rights , 3 hours ago

Funny isn't it, every time the Globalist are exposed its " Disinformation " ..Hows that Russian Collusion evidence coming along? its only been four years.....

American2 , 2 hours ago

The only question remaining to ask is simply this: Who is more enfeebled, Joe Biden; or the networks and ABC, NBC, CBS, NY Times, WaPo, LA Times?

CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago

I have been out of f*cks to give when it comes to the MSM for a decade now. What is so comical is that when the MSM so overtly covers for candidates, it backfires horribly. You can't hyperventilate over an anonymously sourced Trump tax return story and yet ignore the Biden laptop. People see right through that.

randocalrissian , 3 hours ago

Trump's taxes were made public. Nobody knows where Biden's (or whoever's) laptop came from. Giuliani is already very late with the promised salacious details. How many people do you think are really changing their vote to the Domestic Terrorist in the WH?

IndicaTive , 3 hours ago

I know of one person

Invert This MM , 3 hours ago

You are a freaking Share Blue Clown. Nobody buys your monkey dung

IndicaTive , 3 hours ago

You know me so well, after 3 months of trolling here.

Invert This MM , 2 hours ago

You really are one stupid fuuk. You just outed one of your sockpuppets and I was purged in the Google crack down. I have been posting here for 12 years. You monkeys are really stupid.

Invert This MM , 2 hours ago

Hey Monkey, I was purged during the Google shake dawn. Been here 14 years. Like a complete moron, you just outed one of your sockpuppets. Dumbass

replaceme , 3 hours ago

No serious Dem thinks the laptop isn't Hunter's - your supposed to ignore it, or pretend it has nothing to do with Joe. The Russians, booga boogah

invention13 , 3 hours ago

No, his taxes weren't made public. Claims about his taxes were made public - there is a difference which you seem happy to elide.

CosmoJoe , 3 hours ago

Trump's taxes as reported by the NY Times were NOT made public, what gives you that idea. The info was leaked to the Times.

jin187 , 3 hours ago

This is what I want to know. How is it that the NYP is still banned from Twitter based on them obtaining information "illegally or illicitly", when we know for a fact now that they didn't? At the same time, I'm pretty sure that the NYT and their followers are still happily linking and chatting away about the story on how they illegally obtained Trump's tax returns.

wearef_ckedwithnohope , 3 hours ago

Matt Taibbi has written a series of articles bemoaning the current state of journalism.

replaceme , 3 hours ago

What's journalism?

invention13 , 3 hours ago

I'm beginning to think it is something that never really existed - just an ideal in some people's minds.

Shillelagh Pog , 2 hours ago

Journalism is putting down on paper your, or someone you like, or is paying you for, feelings, duh.

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

He has the same issues with his journalism.

starcraft22 , 1 hour ago

The laptop is real. The media is the foreign disinformation.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

Just shocking how MSM is so quick to dismiss this shocking evidence. We know it's not part of their brainwashing echo chamber of lies for their low IQ and low informed voters but had this been one of Trump's sons laptops - this would be MAJOR HEADLINES for the next 12 months.

Remember the 4 year Russiangate investigation, 40 million to Robert Mueller all based on a bought and paid dossier paid for by the DNC/Clinton foundation, corrupt FBI, FISA warrants all to spy and setup Trump to incriminate him for the VERY same crimes they were in FACT committing.

Ar15ak47rpg7 , 2 hours ago

Note to all Zero HEDGERS....there seems to be no difference between the scrubbing of comments on Twitter and Facebook and ZH. The free flow of ideas on ZH no longer exist. Just like the Drudge Report the Deep Stater's have gotten to the Tylers. Beware

One of these is not like the others.. , 2 hours ago

I concur, the more thoughtful the post, the more likely it seems to vanish.

ebear , 1 hour ago

I must be an idiot then. As much as I'd like to add that badge to my collection, my stuff never seems to get scrubbed. Damn!

Urfa Man , 3 minutes ago

Gulag and the shrews that run it are putting big financial pressure on ZH to censor us. This month I've twice tried to post a URL for the news article that details the censorship here, but go figure, those posts get scrubbed.

It's all because of you and me. The Bolsheviks at Gulag say this comment section hurts feelings and therefore must be dominated and controlled with an iron fist.

Gulag Bans ZeroHedge From Ad Platform

If you replace "Gulag" with the name of a major search engine and conduct a search using the words in italics above - via a search engine like duckduckgo - the results will probably point you to the news article that gives the details of this ZH censorship and why your comments disappear.

lacortenews com is the domain that carries the news report

Good luck. There's not much left of free speech or the original freedom of the internet.

unionbroker , 3 hours ago

A business associate of mine told me with a straight face that he didn't trust Bobulinski because he had a Russian sounding name. He is on Twitter a lot so maybe that explains it.

slightlyskeptical , 3 hours ago

I don't trust him either. He has already changed his story. he requested to meet Joe Biden and then later he didn't request it. . And he met him, but he didn't have a meeting with him. He confirmed that on Fox last night.

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

I trust him 100% #imwithhim

remember Dr Christine Ford and her fake as story against Kavanaugh - this is much more realistic than her fake as

Republicans can play dirty too

jin187 , 2 hours ago

Yeah, this is what it's come to, so **** it. I hope Rudy is out there right now handing out suitcases of cash to anyone willing to come forward with any lies about Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, just like our side's Gloria Steinem.

Zerogenous_Zone , 3 hours ago

bring him in under oath and actually investigate...

BUT that would be 'election interference' (you know, the whole Hillary conundrum, right?)

rule of law is now changed to morality of feelings...if it makes me feel insignificant, it CAN'T be TRUE!!

WAAAHHHHHH

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

he will testify under oath watch - and he won't be like pencil neck Schiff and those other cowards and plea the 5th

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

???

you could watch the Tucker Carlson show interview instead of your imagined one.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/10/27/tucker_carlson_interviews_hunter_biden_business_partner_tony_bobulinski_about_joe_biden_involvement.html

somewhere_north , 3 hours ago

Uh... did watch it. And yes, the story he tells there about meeting Biden is not the same as the one he told before. Riddle me this: if this is real, why would they hopelessly compromise their chain of evidence by dribbling it to the public like this?

Stable-Genius , 3 hours ago

because no one in the MSM would dummy - they are all in DEEP ****

somewhere_north , 3 hours ago

They don't have to use the MSM, or any media. They simply arrest Hunter Biden, then drop all the info at once instead of tantalizingly holding the smoking guns out of our view. All they are doing here, if they actually have anything, is risking the lives of their witnesses and giving the perps a lot of warning. That's to say nothing about compromising the evidence to the point of inadmissability. It's running a risk for no gain whatsoever.

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

stuff is only out of your view if your eyes are closed

rwe2late , 3 hours ago

"not the same" ?

missed your weblink (not that you could be making stuff up, cough, cough.)

also, how that would have any significant bearing on the whole matter,

including most MSM news censorship and Russia nonsense ?

RedNeckMother , 3 hours ago

Who told you that bulls hit?

calculator , 2 hours ago

It's entirely possible he is military intelligence and was sent undercover to infiltrate the Bidens and discover their treachery. The CIA and FBI sure as hell don't appear to be doing it. Since we may very well be in a shooting war with the CCP at some point in the near future, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the military is actually doing their jobs to ensure we are not compromised.

SDShack , 3 hours ago

We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation -- even if they probably aren't."

Cmon Turley, parse these words> Why does the WaPo say 'WE MUST' treat these leaks this way? This implies that the WaPo is BEING ORDERED to treat these leaks this way! So WHO has power over the WaPo? Is that power direct, or financial, or BOTH? Also the assumption the WaPo is trying to propagate is that the Foreign Intelligence Operation is...THE RUSSIANS...but could it not actually be the CCP that is pulling the WaPo strings? Doesn't the CCP revelation go to the central heart of the entire Corrupt Joe matter, as well as the financial angle for the Bezo's Amazon WaPo? Even in their lies, the nuggets of hidden truth are exposed.

Amel , 3 hours ago

Asking yourself why the CIA control of the MSM favors a Manchurian candidate over Trump ? Because the CIA's own survival is valued above national security.

invention13 , 3 hours ago

For they same reason they had to treat the Russian collusion allegations as though they were real.

LetThemEatRand , 3 hours ago

Same reason there was no outrage at the Obama child cages at the Mexico border. Or outrage at all of the wars Obama started. Or outrage at all of the drone killing under Obama.

Most Blue Team members are satisfied getting their news from MSM, leaving MSM able to shape the narrative almost completely. There are a handful of guys like Jimmy Dore on the left who call out the rest of the left on this. Pretty scary, actually.

factorypreset , 3 hours ago

It sure seems like the press is helping to squash this whole thing by asking any questions in such a way that Joe doesn't perjure himself.

mtl4 , 3 hours ago

Yesterday, former Vice President Joe Biden was again insisting that the scandal involving Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation despite the direct refutation of that claim by the FBI.

All makes perfect sense in a time when you chose your gender in the morning while getting dressed, you only need to be accused of anything to completely ruin your reputation (unless your a politician in which case there are no laws). So why would anyone deal with reality at a time when we've gotten so good at simply ignoring it.

[Oct 25, 2020] RNC Spox Liz Harrington- Everything Democrats Accuse Us Of Doing Is What They Did With The Steele Dossier - Video - RealClearPolitics

Oct 25, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com

RNC Spox Liz Harrington: Everything Democrats Accuse Us Of Doing Is What They Did With The Steele Dossier Posted By Tim Hains
On Date October 23, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1319351107253141504&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com%2Fvideo%2F2020%2F10%2F23%2Fgop_spox_elizabeth_harrington_everything_democrats_accuse_us_of_doing_is_what_they_did_with_steele_dossier.html&siteScreenName=rcpvideo&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

RNC's national spokesperson Liz Harrington battled CNN's Christiane Amanpour for refusing to engage with allegations of corruption against Joe Biden and his family after years of hyping unverified Trump-Russia allegations.

"Why don't you want to report this? This is one of the most powerful families in Washington," she asked. "And you're okay with our interests being sold out to profit Joe Biden and his family, while we're suffering during a pandemic from communist China?"

me title=

https://c5x8i7c7.ssl.hwcdn.net/vplayer-parallel/20200902_2348/ima_html5/index.html

https://c5x8i7c7.ssl.hwcdn.net/vplayer-parallel/20200902_2348/videojs/show.html?controls=1&loop=60&autoplay=0&tracker=a71d2729-c152-42a5-b839-e31cfd08bff8&height=227&width=402&vurl=%2F%2Fd14c63magvk61v.cloudfront.net%2Fvideos%2Fdgv_rcp%2F20201024150810_5f9441771320b%2Fdgv_rcp_trending_articles_20201024150810_5f9441771320b_new.mp4&poster=%2F%2Fd14c63magvk61v.cloudfront.net%2Fvideos%2Fdgv_rcp%2F20201024150810_5f9441771320b%2Fdgv_rcp_trending_articles_20201024150810_5f9441771320b_new.jpg

  • Trump Closing Statement: "Success Is What Will Bring Us Together"
  • Joe Biden: "You Know His Character," "Our Character Is On The Ballot, Look At Us Closely"
  • Hunter's Ex-Business Partner Says Joe Biden Lied About Business Deals In China, FBI Has Proof

"Absolutely, absolutely," CNN's Amanpour replied. Related Topics: Liz Harrington , Hunter Biden

[Oct 23, 2020] Russia are mixed with Iran in a new wave of election hacking hysteria

Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The sustained tosh from the good old boys at state, cia, fbi & nsa isn't worthy of comment, given that it is 100% evidence-free accusations which surprise surprise 'just happens' to align with these provenly corrupt organisations' most prioritsed foreign policy goals. ..."
Oct 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Silly Season

Washington Post , November 19, 2017

Justice Department pushing Iran-connected charges in HBO hack, other cases

Last month, national security prosecutors at the Justice Department were told to look at any ongoing investigations involving Iran or Iranian nationals with an eye toward making them public.

The push to announce Iran-related cases has caused internal alarm, these people said, with some law enforcement officials fearing that senior Justice Department officials want to reveal the cases because the Trump administration would like Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran.

Washington Post , October 22, 2020

U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats

U.S. officials on Wednesday night accused Iran of targeting American voters with faked but menacing emails and warned that both Iran and Russia had obtained voter data that could be used to endanger the upcoming election.

The disclosure by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe at a hastily called news conference marked the first time this election cycle that a foreign adversary has been accused of targeting specific voters in a bid to undermine democratic confidence -- just four years after Russian online operations marred the 2016 presidential vote.

The claim that Iran was behind the email operation, which came into view on Tuesday as Democrats in several states reported receiving emails demanding they vote for President Trump, was leveled without specific evidence .
...
Metadata gathered from dozens of the emails pointed to the use of servers in Saudi Arabia, Estonia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, according to numerous analysts.

Reuters , October 22, 2020

U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran, Russia have tried to interfere in 2020 election

The emails are under investigation, and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who was behind them.
...
... the evidence remains inconclusive.

The claims that Iran is behind this are as stupid as the people who believe them.

I for one trust (not) those 50 former intelligence officials who say that all emails are Russian disinformation. They are intended to 'sow discord' which is something the U.S. has otherwise never ever had throughout its history.

Politico , October 19, 2020

Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say

More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
...
While the letter's signatories presented no new evidence, they said their national security experience had made them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.

"If we are right," they added, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."

No, this doesn't make any sense. It is not supposed to do that.

Posted by b on October 22, 2020 at 7:21 UTC | Permalink

Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 8:11 utc | 1


The sustained tosh from the good old boys at state, cia, fbi & nsa isn't worthy of comment, given that it is 100% evidence-free accusations which surprise surprise 'just happens' to align with these provenly corrupt organisations' most prioritsed foreign policy goals.

We know that these yarns align in syncopation with what the amerikan empire most wants to promulgate, yet bereft of even a a cunt hair's worth of evidence, the only truth which can be inferred from this foggy bottom tosh is the obvious one - that is that the empire is becoming so desperate they will happily toss their credibility with the many to the winds if they can, please sir, just convince a few of the few.

Tuyzentfloot , Oct 22 2020 8:14 utc | 3
Stuff like this is a suitable test of how the media are supposed to represent our interests and help us in not getting fooled. You report, and afterwards you test what your readers believe.

Independently of questionable bias issues serious newspapers will defend news like this with formal justifications of journalistic code
- neutrality and objectivity: we just report but don't judge.
- null hypothesis of trustworthiness: official sources are to be trusted unless proven otherwise. At least, proven otherwise by someone we consider trustworthy.
The propaganda is already embedded in the lofty ethics codes journalists will proudly adhere to.

Antonym , Oct 22 2020 8:42 utc | 4
"Other documents that have emerged include FBI paper work that reveals the bureau's interactions with the shop's owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who reported the laptop's contents to authorities. The document shows that Isaac received a subpoena to testify before the U.S. District Court in Delaware on Dec. 9, 2019 . One page appears to show the serial number for a MacBook Pro laptop and a hard drive that were seized by the agency." https://www.ibtimes.sg/signed-receipt-hunter-bidens-name-delaware-laptop-repair-store-surfaces-52672

So the FBI kept Hunter Biden's bomb shell HDDs under wraps for almost a year. Enough time to figure out they where not filled with Russian kompromat.

Down South , Oct 22 2020 8:46 utc | 5
hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo

Hunter's attorneys emailed the repair shop owner asking for the hard drives back.

Giuliani has handed over pictures of underage girls found in the laptop to Delaware police so we will know soon enough if they are fake.

Rutherford82 , Oct 22 2020 8:46 utc | 6
If you needed a leaked email to understand why it was corrupt for Hunter Biden to be getting 50k a month to be on the board of a Ukranian energy company, then you are likely already so propagandized that you will vote for Joe Biden no matter what gets printed.

Really this propaganda is a brilliant move for those who control what is in print. They have a clear circle of blame in Russia, Iran, or China, who are to blame for everything, and this allows the media to limit the scope of discussion greatly by suppressing real criticisms towards actual problems (the Bidens being corrupt across multiple generations) and deflecting that energy into hating Russia, China, and Iran, which are the main targets for imperialism. It is also a crude and vague lie to use anonymous sources to blame foreign entities for these types of things, which actually makes it an elegant argument for a simpleton as it is difficult if not impossible to disprove.

Because the media is really owned and operated by so few people who all have a hive-mind about money and power, the messages are consistent, even though ridiculous, and they resonate with many of the readers who really ought to know better, but have become inured to the damaging effects of the lies they have consumed for decades. Stories like these will keep working for a long time. If one of the sources in the article reported 'Up is Down, Left is Right!', there would be a wave of car accidents until they issued a retraction.

kiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 9:05 utc | 7
The Russians ( Putin / Lavrov) say ever so politely that the US is not agreement-capable.

I add that the US ( politicians, Wall Streeters, MSM, think tanks ) are:
-- not truth-capable;
-- not ethics-capable;
-- not shame-capable;
-- not honour-capable.

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?
He turns into a ghoul without a soul, says I, a devil without human-ness!
How dare they call us deplorables when they are the despicables?

Et Tu , Oct 22 2020 9:35 utc | 10
In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and World Peace is a threat to National Security.
Miranda , Oct 22 2020 10:21 utc | 12
More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails ... "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

Do American journalists actually believe it's still in Russia interest to re-elect Trump? Washington-Kremlin relations have deteriorated rapidly under Trump.

S.O. , Oct 22 2020 10:32 utc | 13
@11 Miranda

It's quite doubtful many of them ever did. It's simply a useful control function.

kiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 10:49 utc | 14
Posted by: Et Tu | Oct 22 2020 9:35 utc | 9 -- "In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and World Peace is a threat to National Security."

Nice one... Meet Mr Truth, un-registered foreign agent !!! and Mr World Peace, national security threat !!!

American leadership would not be so despicable IF they do not pretend to be "spreading freedom / democracy" when they wreak their global malice.

They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.

Circe , Oct 22 2020 10:50 utc | 15
To address the 2nd part of your post:

Here's a part of a comment I posted back in February 2020 that none of you took seriously.

Posted by: Circe | Feb 28 2020 20:29 utc | 124:

The planet of extremely bad karma SATURN is moving into Bloomberg's sign, Aquarius, right after mid-March and forming a square to Biden's sign, Scorpio. This is a very malefic aspect.

People under these two signs, Aquarius and Scorpio ie Bloomberg and Biden will experience obstacles, setbacks and challenges, create hidden enemies , and aging will be accelerated and serious health issues could emerge.

So I was criticized for injecting astrology into that election thread, mostly by AntiSpin.

Turns out as usual I hit the mark.

Bloomberg lost close to a BILLION dollars and failed badly in the primaries. That's what I call a major setback. However, as of December after a 6-month retrograde into Capricorn, Saturn is returning to Aquarius, so it ain't over for Bloomberg and things will get complicated for Biden , for the U.S. and the rest of the world.

I also stated back then that nominating Joe Biden would be a greater risk for Dems than nominating Bernie Sanders because Joe Biden was heading for serious astrological head winds relating to something unseen at the time involving a serious family issue.

While I was certain that whatever the issue was would come to light and could affect him in the Presidential campaign, I couldn't figure out the family aspect at the time, since he appears to have a solid marriage and tragedy is in the rear view now.

Last night however it all suddenly became clear and I've come to the realization that I was 100% right when I wrote that comment back in February 2020. Tonight I realized that the family issue...is Hunter Biden!

I was sounding the alarm that something bad would come to light because Saturn was headed into Aquarius, Biden's Home and Family sector squaring Biden's sign.

However, to make matters worse, it turns out that Hunter Biden is an Aquarian and Saturn the karmic taskmaster is headed on a collision course to upend his life.

At the time I wrote the comment I obviously couldn't predict exactly what would unfold, how or the precise timing, only that it would be bad and that's why I warned back then that Democrats should have chosen Bernie. I believed Bernie could beat Trump and I was right, because Trump is in total mental meltdown and self-destructing with his handling of the pandemic.

Now even if Saturn will square Biden's Scorpio that's not to say that Biden won't still win, but we are approaching a very bad full moon on October 31st. There is massive tension building, subterfuge lurking and the situation is going to get ugly. A battle royal is brewing. This is a powder keg moment.

Trump will not behave at the debate today. Must see t.v. With Obama's scorching speech yesterday seething in Trump's brain, and his Iran stunt unravelling and ineffective at distracting from the spotlight from Obama and the laptop bone clenched between his teeth; he's a rabid dog fit to be tied. Give him a padded cell, already.

As for the U.S. and the world: The pandemic started with Saturn crossing Pluto's path in Capricorn and entering full force into Aquarius in March when the world shut down.

So what will happen when karmic Saturn crosses Pluto again on it's way out of Capricorn and enters Aquarius for the next 3 years?

Fasten your seat belts everyone...we're heading into major turbulence. There's so much karmic tension gathering steam; it's very scary.

How much does it cost to get a trip to the moon?

I'll get back to sleazy Giuliani and his Pandora's box. There's too much to unpack there than meets the eye. Just know that when circumstances appear too convenient-it's because they are.

Trump's dirty play is a day late and a dollar short plus he's not playing with a full deck. Must be one of those Covid long-term effects.

It's time...to get these scum-sucking, misery mongers out of the damn White House already!

Jen , Oct 22 2020 10:56 utc | 16
You know the US government is suffering from severe Alzheimer's disease when it claims that Iran (of all nations) sent threatening emails to Democrat voters demanding that they vote for a President who authorised the murder of a popular Iranian military general back in early January this year.
Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 11:11 utc | 17
Kabuki theater on FOX

Brian Kilmeade and morning crew run the fake Iranian emails story by former CIA station Chief Daniel Hoffman.

Kabuki Actor Hoffman:
'[Uses opportunity to say Iranian Mantra] Iran has been attacking us for years, they have attacked our shipping in the Gulf (???, that's a new one) blah-blah-blah.
'Iran and Russia are attacking our democracy because that is what they fear most about America. Democracy would be the end of both regimes (Iran has no other motive to dislike the U.S. such as us killing their top General, the Stuxnet virus, murderous sanctions, ...)'
So they hate us because of our freedoms, a classic.

Kabuki Actor Kilmeade:
'Can't we do something about this?' [note, the U.S. is the perpetual victim, never the bully]
'Can't we pushback?' [The aggrieved victim, the U.S. is defending itself]
'Iran is doing this, Russia is sending bombers, can't we blow up an oil well?'

Kabuki Actor Kilmeade represents the entire degenerate U.S. public, unable to process information that views another country as having rational motives or our Intel agencies of being deceptive.

God, if you exist, You must hate this more than I do. How long?

Abe , Oct 22 2020 11:14 utc | 18
Guys.

All that rubbish is distraction. Discussing it is just playing to Borg's music.

They come up with so outlandish and jaw dropping crap that half he people thinks "it is so outlandish it gotta be true, who would lie so much?" and other half that knows better is in such a shock and disbelief that it needs some time to come to its senses and start tearing apart the lie piece by piece BUT.... Time is lost, distraction worked and MSM/Borg come up with next outrageous lie for next round. Russia, China, Navalny etc. etc.

And while marry go round Borg is doing it's deeds in dark while people is obsessing with Trump's knickers.

Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 11:21 utc | 19
Barack oblamblam held off until as long as he possibly could, a move most likely connected to two realities, (1) not wanting to contradict what he, oblamblam said back in march "do not underestimate Joe's ability to screw anything up" and (2) Oblamblam's desire not to be found to be associated with sleepy joe's blatant corruption. Mud sticks n all that. Oblamblam was much more subtle in lining up wedges to be trousered. eg. Try as people might they have yet to uncover how a community worker turned prez found the dough to purchase a 45 acre Martha's vineyard estate off a notorious billionaire and Oblambam is reluctant to do anything which could prompt those questions,

Hence it wasn't until the 2020 election was mostly over that some DNC extortionists managed to convince oblam to say a few words, or else, to the Philadelphia african american males who chose to stay home on election day 2016.

Barack can claim 'he paid his dues' whilst keeping as much space as he can organise between himself and crooked joe, who has already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute with the shameless & ugly ukraine rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted.

There we mentioned the philly speech oh rabid, irrationally superstitious dembot.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 12:28 utc | 20
Here's my prediction
Trump re-elected I fortell will mean more racist murdering thugs on the street. an guess what they'l be In uniform and directly or indirectly trained by Israel.
And then there's the military presence on your streets -- you ain't seen nothing yet.
Wake the f up your gunna be massively oppressed by a fascist govenment ya skin couloir won't matter, nore who you voted for. You already live in a one party dictatorship.
ie the elite. Face it your redundant as a human being replaced by a micro-chip.
Revolt I tell you revolt !!
Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 12:37 utc | 21
The greater American public are about to become the next oppressed Palistinians ! oppressed devalued and slowly distroyed. Like a frog in a heated pan.
You won't notice till it's to late will you ?
No really, will you ?
librul , Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22
Everything use to be blamed on witches. If your cow died - witches! If a tree fell on your fence - witches! If the reverend's wife died - witches!

Now it is, I lost the election - Russians, some ducks died in a park in Salisbury - Russians, someone fell sick - Russians.

When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rMsgmaBV8g

Witches must feel left out these days.

oldhippie , Oct 22 2020 13:14 utc | 23
So far Circe has Obama's speech described as fiery, blistering, and scorching.

Everyone else on this planet listens to Obama and falls asleep.

Jpc , Oct 22 2020 13:25 utc | 24
@ Tuyzentfloot 3

Journalism love's that high minded nonsense.
They write what they are paid to write.
Looking at the guardian wrt Assange
these clowns are beneath contempt.
Don't know if you are familiar with the box populi blog.
There a very good set of chapters from a book about journalist ethics.

pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:29 utc | 25
i'm just surprised they haven't brought in venezuela and bolivia yet. that's supposed to be sarcasm, but reality keeps outstripping sarcasm. i am actually worried they are ramping up for a war in biden's first 100 days, either against iran or some serious provocation of russia like provoking some incident in azerbaijan and blaming armenia. they're f/n batshit.
pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:32 utc | 26
mark2 i think you're correct about more jackbooted government thugs on the street, but that's gonna happen under either trump or crime bill joe/copmala. you're right about the israeli training too, they trained cops in that kneeling on the throat technique. field tested on palestinians.
pretzelattack , Oct 22 2020 13:42 utc | 27
iirc no ducks died, it's a miracle, the deadliest nerve poison ever invented is helpless against ducks. and house pets.
augusto , Oct 22 2020 13:45 utc | 28
Idiotic.
The united States was once a nest of excellence in nearly everything. Now it s a hub of naked idiocy.
The Russians have nothing to fear from the US or Nato, except in the economy but they can fix it. The Iranians have enough of what it takes to keep the Zio anglos away and at bay: thousands of missiles to target Israel, Saudiland, a 25 year economic alliance program with Beijing.
And clearly the time and opportunity where it was possible to still erase in a single coup the Iranian military might is over.
Josh , Oct 22 2020 13:46 utc | 29
Looks like they are imagineering again...
arby , Oct 22 2020 14:01 utc | 30
"Breaking WaPo: The U.S. government has concluded that Iran is behind a series of threatening emails arriving this week in the inboxes of Democratic voters, according to two U.S. officials. https://washingtonpost.com/technology/202"
Richard Steven Hack , Oct 22 2020 14:08 utc | 31
Posted by: librul | Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22 When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.

Absolutely correct. You win the thread.

Neither Iran nor Russia nor China give a rat's ass about the US election. There may be literally thousands of private enterprise hackers who want to breach US election servers precisely to get the Personal Identifying Information which is coin of the realm on the Dark Web, but they couldn't care less about the election itself. It's physically impossible for any country outside of the US to significantly influence the election in a country of 300 million people - and every country knows that. The only country that *doesn't* know that is the US, which is why it spends scores and hundreds of millions of dollars - up to five billion in Ukraine, allegedly - to influence foreign elections. That's the level of effort needed to influence a foreign election more than the influence of the actual inhabitants of that nation. But every time some private group in Russia launches an ad campaign for a couple hundred thousand bucks tops, with zero effect on the US election, Putin gets blamed for some plan to mastermind the overthrow of "democracy."

It's a crock.

Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 14:21 utc | 32
I rather liked Obama's speech If for no other reason than the tone was completely different from the two candidates.

1. I'm tired of Trump's narcissism .

2. Can't stand Biden's fake 'I'm one of you'. He is corrupt, feels guilty about it, and has to reassure us that he's Lunch Box Joe .

I've noticed this about Biden for a while, he conjures up these fake memories ...

'You know what I'm talking about because I've been on that park bench at noon when you only have 20 minutes to eat your lunch because that whistle going to blow and you have to run back to your Tuna canning station or lose your job and with that your health insurance, car, and home.'

Okay this is not a literal quotation but it is a pattern and you know what I'm talking about :-)

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 14:45 utc | 33
Pretzelatack @ 26
Yes to all you say their.
Re-reading my above comments they sound pretty harsh !
I am sorry, and do apologise !
It was part desperation and part morbid humour in the spirit of b's post.
Comparing Americans to a frog in pan may be a bit much !
I am in the U.K. we had a gen election one year ago !
I WAS THAT FROG IN A PAN.
Now I live in a pox ridden bankrupt banana republic run by a bunch of Israel bootlickers.
I don't go down well at party's.
Circe , Oct 22 2020 15:01 utc | 34
@19 Debsisdead

Barack can claim 'he paid his dues'

Hate to break it to ya all-knowing one...

obama-to-visit-miami-on-saturday-to-campaign-for-biden

And it's not superstition when the facts start to align with planetary motion.

How do you explain the Moon's effect on nature?

You think it's the only celestial body in the Solar System that influences life on Earth? That cosmic order is inescapable. Astrology is thousands of years old dating back to the Babylonians and has evolved through centuries of study and cannot, should not be dismissed as mere superstition.

I'm not an expert at all, but I recognize order and higher authority when I see it and believe me those planets are there for a reason and they rule everything. They're like carrots and sticks (IMHO mostly sticks). Now who put them there and to what ultimate purpose besides order and evolution is another matter.

I don't often bring it into a discussion, especially not to throw a discussion off topic, except when I intuitively feel fate present in important events both personally and on a universal scale.

This is a time of fated/karmic events, the pandemic being the most important (lesson) of these.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 15:05 utc | 35
Two hours delay and counting, Valday Club waiting for Vlad, something hearty must be getting cooked back stage...
Paul , Oct 22 2020 15:09 utc | 36
It's time for Grunter Biden to discover his inner Khazar and convert to judaism, why not it worked for both the Clintons and the Trumps.
Perimetr , Oct 22 2020 15:14 utc | 37
I think a more appropriate title would be "Fascist Season" . . . Fascism has come of age here in the land of the fee. The "intelligence agencies" create disinformation campaigns to overthrow the elected President while the "justice department" et al withhold evidence and fail to prosecute all the oligarchs and crooks who are busy censoring information and preparing to rig and disrupt the impending presidential election.

There are No Consequences for Anything when the Deep State and Central Banks run the show.

Of course, US corporate fascism has been developing for a very long time (see The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It ) . . . maybe more accurate to go back to the takeover of the US currency by the Federal Reserve in 1913 and the first Banker World War (see All Wars are Bankers' Wars! )

But technology and the "progressive" (pun intended) destruction of the US Constitution has led the dumbed-down US masses (don't forget Canada and Australia lol) into a whole new world of Orwellian lock-downs and wholesale economic destruction aimed at finishing off what was left of the US middle class. Soon we will have our cash taken away and replaced with a digital currency that can always be taken away or tailored for limited use, subject to negative interest rates that it cannot escape, etc. And all this is ushered in via hyperinflation leading to a collapse of the bond and equities markets, and finally the collapse of the US dollar (and all other Western fiat currencies).

Nothing like freedumb and democracy

Virgile , Oct 22 2020 15:27 utc | 38
The USA is so naive. They have been interfering in so many elections using money, blackmail,CIA operations. There was no way for other countries with less means to do the same to the USA. Now with social media they can, and they are absolutely right to take their revenge for all the troubles they got into with the USA plotting to promote a pro-US leader.
Now the battle is equal and the USA does not have the monopoly of interfering in other countries election!
Tit for tat...
Noirette , Oct 22 2020 15:32 utc | 39
All these stories are risible. Note the struggle to clarify who these 'malign' Régimes are attacking the US, and why.

Russia-R-R for Trump, but Iran-Ir-Ir for Trump doesn't quite hit the spot so now Iran is trying to damage Pres. Trump (from one of the articles..) .. is Iran trying to promote the election of Kamala Harris? What? Russia is for Trump and Iran against ?

The fall-back is a blanket, these evil leaders are trying to 'undermine democracy', influence 'US voters', meddle in 'our freedom-loving' politics, etc.

The attempt to stir up the spectre of threatening enemies far off is a hackneyed ploy. In the case of the USA, it is now melded with the promotion and control of planned internal strife, with internal enemies being natives (not islamist terrorists who sneak in and are under cover before erupting in murderous madness..) - Color Revolution Style.

-- BLM + Antifa haven't been active recently (or not in MSM top stories) as the election is approaching. Such would be upping the Trump vote for "law-and-order."

(imho from far off..) Many in the US don't take any of this seriously, it is just game-playing, false alarm, pretend concern.

"Oh wow, Iran is targetting Trump, did you know, real serious, did you hear, tell me is Zoe-chick divorcing that creep Edmond, I want to know, did you have that interview with Gov. X for the job? Is she hot? How much "

The credentialised class and the movers and shakers just roll their eyeballs, and the poor are in any case stuck in a desperado cycle of struggle against misery, what is going on with Putin / Iran / Xi is off the radar.

observer today , Oct 22 2020 15:39 utc | 40
Look! Look! A Squirrel!

Vilification of China (hate hate hate); claimed by the media and the pundits and our "Fearless Covid Conquering Leader" and all the good little parrots, to be the source of evil itself... Scapegoat extraordinaire... Hacking and Cheating and Aggressing and exercising Brutality towards its own citizens... The worst of the worst per our "intelligence" apparatus (and blind ideologues). Existential threat numero uno.

But wait!

The US is being attacked! Attacked they say; by all of the "bad" guys simultaneously.

The forces of evil out there are broad and out to get us. They hate our (imagined) freedoms.


Evidence (not):


Justice Department pushing Iran-connected charges in HBO hack, other cases

U.S. government concludes Iran was behind threatening emails sent to Democrats

U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran, Russia have tried to interfere in 2020 election

Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say


Invariably in all cases, The Voice of "Intelligence" (not bloody likely from ANY of this crew) deeply intoned to impart the "certainty", neatly encapsulated in the words "highly likely", delivered without a scrap of proof but loud, prominent, regular, mind numbing pontification.

Trust me! We lie, We cheat, We steal; and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The US, all on its own, engenders distrust within the population because the US and all its political and Executive, and Legislative and Judicial and "intelligence" bureaucracies are corrupt to the core... Worse, they make no bones about it if you pay attention. And Partisanship is nothing but distraction because they are ALL corrupt and morally bankrupt; without empathy, remorse, sense of guilt or shame.

It was the US itself that thought it could subjugate the world through its faux "democratic" business practices and its claim of natural superiority... Its self declared Rules of Order instead of adhering to and supporting consensus established International LAW... Hegemon pompously declaring it has a RIGHT to Full Spectrum Dominance and slavish obedience.

Not the Iranians, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the CCP, not the North Koreans, not the Venezuelans; none of them are disrupting, threatening or meddling in the US elections.

If you believe what the morons are smearing across the public consciousness through every communication medium possible you are a sucker... Totally disconnected any critical thinking faculties that may have been present. The very definition of sheeple... baaaa! (the sound drowns out reason and thought).

The rest of the World beyond NATO and Five Eyes isn't attacking the US or its institutions. They have all been attacked every which way from Sunday BY the US and its Satraps (targets of, victims of, and willing accomplices to our sophisticated excessively funded and supported global protection racquet).

The US, our Government, always blames our designated and non-compliant, non-obeisant existential threats for all the things we do to them.


And all this cacophony of alleged evil "attacks" from outside right now?

Look!!! Look!!! Over here!

Don't pay any attention to who and what decided to put us in the position we find ourselves in and what we have done to vast swaths of the world's populations "over there".

Now go vote for one of two degenerate teams, both of which are headed by supremely unqualified psychopaths.

Dissonance of cognition anyone? Orwell???

gottlieb , Oct 22 2020 15:43 utc | 41

The CIA really needs a new playbook. The Russia/Iran thing is laughable to the rest of the world, and to many 'Americans' as well. Unfortunately Partisans run the country, and those folks are addicted to the Kool Aid of MAGA – just different versions.

This October is like an Advent Calendar of October Surprises with plenty of time still on the clock for some great Golden Shower or Democratic child orgy deep fakes. Who the hell knows at this point – the acceleration of events this year makes Future Shock look like an Ambien commercial.

Trump is toast and good riddance. And sure Biden et al are war criminals and corrupt creatures of the Swamp. The Establishment is a much easier target to resist vis a vis policy than a crazy cretin without any policy but his own self-aggrandizement.

Lawrence Miller , Oct 22 2020 15:44 utc | 42
@15

[***]

"Astrology believers tend to selectively remember predictions that turn out to be true, and do not remember those that turn out false. Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity.[6]:85;[11] The study, published in Nature in 1985, found that predictions based on natal astrology were no better than chance, and that the testing "...clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis."[10] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology

Erelis , Oct 22 2020 15:50 utc | 43
As for getting voter US state voter databases, most states allow people to purchase part of a voter's information. Other parts like birth dates remain private. But the publicly available list is probably enough as it identifies party affiliation, voting history as when dates they voted (not how they voted). All the other private information is more useful to identity thieves and Indian scam centers. And as one poster noted, those databases like gold on dark web.

As for email addresses that implies those must be acquired through party officials and candidates off donor lists. Off hand I do not know that an email address is required to register to vote--I seriously doubt it. I know that Bernie famously refused to give his donor database to Hillary. The emails imply some sort of inside job or some false flag.

james , Oct 22 2020 15:54 utc | 44
@ librul | Oct 22 2020 12:52 utc | 22 When you hear, "Russians", just substitute in your mind "witches", the weight of evidence is the same.

ditto that...

vinnieoh , Oct 22 2020 16:04 utc | 45
Just read the story on Truthout of voters in Alaska & Florida, and possibly Pennsylvania and Arizona receiving threatening messages if they should vote against Trump. "We know you're a Democrat and we have access to your voting records..." Metadata indicates servers located in the kingdoms of Israel's new friends...

Well, I just went to the Board of Elections website for my county here in Ohio and I can, with a few clicks, generate a report from their site of a county listing of voters filtered in over a half-dozen ways - i.e. by Party affiliation and including addresses. Comes under the heading of "Voter and Candidate Tools."

So some concoct a tale which blames Iran, Russia, etc. for information freely available from your State's BOE? This information has always been available, but not exploited before in this way by US neo Nazis.

So, even though your ballot is secret, intimidation is easy to engage in based solely on Party affiliation of record. If Trump loses, should some people expect bricks through their windows, or perhaps fire-bombings? Trump and his supporters are certainly ratcheting up the apocalyptic messaging, working themselves into a frenzy - that is obvious and not even debatable.

I never read Dante; which circle of hell are we entering now?

Circe , Oct 22 2020 16:05 utc | 46
Everyone here knows I was 100% behind Bernie Sanders for the Presidency because I felt he was the right person for these times, but the mass is dumb and blind. I agree with the comment I read on the previous thread I think by someone called Horseman that portrays Bernie's goal as moving the Dem Party to the Left and not sheepdogging, but recognizing the stakes involved superceded Left purity.

At the same time I was totally against Biden because he is much more Zionist than Bernie, therefore more corrupt, as Zionism is counter-evolutionary being inherently supremacist, entitled, and undemocratic.

However, Trump is exponentially worse! He is a fascist Zionist and totally depraved. There is a choice here of monumental significance. Short term loss for greater future gain.

Biden is very flawed, but I'm inclined to view a man who suffered multiple life-altering tragedies to reach this point and who is grappling with embracing a son, Hunter, who probably was destroying his life, than a narcissistic less than evolved baby-man pig with a god complex who squandered life and daddy's money on material and artificial pursuit and has no notion of humanity, as the only sane choice.

Yes, Joe Biden should face his flaws and answer for whatever corruption exists in him, but that laptop issue should not be a reason to stop people from getting Trump, the most corrupt President in my lifetime next to Bush OUT. That goal is paramount. This is 2nd to the pandemic in fated events. If people do not make the right choices and learn something from these events then let this planet devolve into hell because that will be what is deserved! The stakes right now are astronomical and super-fated!

Don't blow a singular opportunity to get rid of that Fascist pig Trump over a laptop that's really a Pandora's box being used by Shmeagol Gollum Giuliani as a trap to unleash misery for years to come.

William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 16:08 utc | 47
This is clearly the Deep State and imperial establishment spouting obvious nonsense in order to discredit themselves and therefore to help in Trump's reelection bid! Henry Kissinger told me so! What incredibly subtle and intricate plans they have!

Or... maybe it is just a bunch of incompetent baboons in the Deep State control room randomly flipping switches and pulling levers in the desperate hopes that something, anything, works.

Nah! This is all part of the Great Plan! It just seems like abject stupidity because we cannot grasp its intricate complexities.

NemesisCalling , Oct 22 2020 16:20 utc | 48
All these new threads are defaulting to election threads. Sorry, b.

But I'll bite.

In the case of a Biden victory, which do you think will happen first?:

1) Renewed hostilities w/ Assad in Syria leading to his violent ousting and thrusting the west into violent confrontation w/ Russia...

Or...

2) Forcible entry into the Armenian/Azerbaijan conflict and establishing a no-fly zone...

Or...

3) a combination of both and would throw us into a direct confrontation with either Russia or Iran or both?

It looks like the demonizing of Iran is ramping up with the mail-threats telling dims to vote Trump or else. Dims don't like hostile, foreign powers helping the Don and swaying elections. It's a nice tip-off as to what Biden and the dim establishment might consent to once Obama-era sycophants and technocrats move back in to the White House.

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 16:30 utc | 49
Seems to be the year of anniversaries; another's being celebrated today but not by the Outlaw US Empire. China & North Korea Celebrate 70th Anniversary of China's intervention in Outlaw US Empire's invasion of Korea , which is how it's being portrayed, "China, N. Korea stand together 'for self-protection against US hegemony' like 70 years ago" reads the headline at the link. To mark the anniversary, China has published an official history , explaining its decision "To resist US aggression and aid Korea, China had no choice but to fight a war;" the 3-volume work is The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea . From China's perspective, it defeated Outlaw US Empire forces; so, it's not "forgotten" at all. Xi's using the occasion to give a major speech, the subject of which hasn't been disclosed.

Just 12 days to go until the refusals to abide by the outcome day arrives. If one wants to look, there's lots of illegal foreign influence happening but from sources that go unmentioned: Corporations that have foreign owners, which most do, who provided campaign contributions in any form to any entity associated with the election.

arby , Oct 22 2020 16:31 utc | 50
Gruffy said

"Nah! This is all part of the Great Plan! It just seems like abject stupidity because we cannot grasp its intricate complexities."

Perfect,))

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51
HeHeHe!!! The first bits of Putin's appearance at the Valdai Club today are being published . In a jab back at those accusing Russia of interfering in elections and such Putin said:

"Strengthening our country and looking at what is happening in the world, in other countries, I want to say to those who are still waiting for the gradual demise of Russia: in this case, we are only worried about one thing -- how not to catch a cold at your funeral."

There's more, although a transcript has yet to be published.

Circe , Oct 22 2020 16:47 utc | 52
@48NemesisCalling

There's a thread right before this one on International Events. Why don't you go spew your poisonous Trump Kool-Aid there instead of polluting with Trumpian-laced propaganda here?

I know-I know, Election threads raise the common sense factor further and that leads to Trump's demise, so you can't help but rush in to correct that dangerous shift. Why don't you do something equally meaningless like pounding sand down a rat hole?

vk , Oct 22 2020 16:53 utc | 53
After the Russiagate fiasco I thought the Americans had learned their lesson, but it seems I was wrong.

Honestly, this may be the beginning of an irreversible process of ideological polarization of the American Empire.

The thing is it's one thing to wage propaganda warfare against a foreign enemy to your domestic audience: the foreign enemy will be destroyed either way, so they will never be able to tell their version of the story, plus the domestic audience can give itself the luxury of living the lie indefinitely as it doesn't affect their daily lives. Plus they'll directly benefit from the conquest of a foreign enemy, e.g. cheaper gas to your car after the destruction and conquest of Iraq; the abundance in the shelves of Walmarts after the subjugation of China, and so on.

It's a completely different story when you wage propaganda warfare against yourself: the Trump voter knows he/she didn't vote for Trump because of Russian influence, while the Hilary Clinton/Joe Biden voter knows he/she didn't vote in either of them because of Chinese influence. But each part will believe the half of the lie that benefits them against the other, creating a vicious cycle of mistrust between the two halves.

Meanwhile, the American economy (capitalism) continues to decline. Time is running up:

US economy looks to be on indefinite life support from government, Professor Wolff tells Boom Bust

At the same time, there's excess money in the USA:

The Fed's $4 Trillion Lifeline Never Materialized: The Fed was meant to take $454 billion and drastically expand it. So far, it has lent $20 billion.

It was a shock-and-awe moment when lawmakers gave the package a thumbs up. Yet in the months since, the planned punch has not materialized.

The Treasury has allocated $195 billion to back Fed lending programs, less than half of the allotted sum. The programs supported by that insurance have made just $20 billion in loans, far less than the suggested trillions.

The programs have partly fallen victim to their own success: Markets calmed as the Fed vowed to intervene, making the facilities less necessary as credit began to flow again.

So, the very announcement of the Fed it would lend indefinitely and unconditionally made such loans unnecessary!

I didn't like it at the beginning, but the term "Late Capitalism" is growing on me.

mk , Oct 22 2020 17:16 utc | 54
This "Circe" chick is mentally retarded and should not be allowed to roam free outside a looney bin.

Oh boy is she not deranged.

elkern , Oct 22 2020 17:16 utc | 55
MSM pushing the the Iran angle shows that they are more anti-Iran than anti-Trump.

What effect would Iran intend by sending fake threatening emails from right-wing guns nuts to Democrats? I doubt it would discourage those Democrats from voting (for Biden), and I doubt Iran would think it would. The only effect it would have is to increase the fear, distrust, and disgust Democrats already have for those groups - which is "sowing discord", not "meddling with elections".

The Trump regime pushes this because it makes Trump look good & makes Iran look bad (at least the way it's been framed). MSM generally doesn't like Trump, but prints this because hyping fear & loathing toward Iran matters more to them than dumping Trump.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:17 utc | 56
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51

Great that they are working on it, I was taking notes but kind of lousy its not easy to listen and write at the same time. Started kind of nervous, but right now it is Putin at his most relaxed and eloquent.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:22 utc | 57
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 16:38 utc | 51

It is interesting to see how Putin is way more at ease when answering journalist's questions than when exposing his part of the event. Right now they asked him about his image, punk, criminal etc etc. Answer: my function is the main thing, and I do not take it personally, now the chinese will ask.

Circe , Oct 22 2020 17:36 utc | 58
@47 William Gruff

In case the truth gets lost in your purposely misleading translation. This hare-brained scheme was cooked up by Trump and his newly-appointed right-hand bootlicker RATcliffe, at DNI and delivered to the American people by the latter as a desperate distraction minutes after Obama smacked down Trump on every air wave.

It immediately gave off an offensive odor, as I stated previously, of Trump turd floating in golden toilet.

And that's why Chris Wray looked so awkward and uneasy behind that RAT.

Tuyzentfloot , Oct 22 2020 17:45 utc | 59
@
Paco , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 60
Three hours of serious talking about any and all world problems. I wonder how long Lunch Box Joe could hold on his own. The orange man probably could do it, but just talking about himself. The US need someone like VVP.
Circe , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 61
@54 mk

Projecting much?

@57 Paco

I knew Paco was a strange name for a Russiabot!

Russia is now averaging 13,000 to 15,000 infections and close to 300 hundred deaths daily. I wouldn't laugh first if I were Putin.

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 62
Paco @56&57--

I ought to listen while also reading the Russian close-captioning so I can rebuild my Russian language facility and catch the body language messages, but I still need to read/hear it all in English. As for his response to questions, IMO Putin knows what to expect from media reporters but not from other experts in the audience whose questions are usually more complex. Then there's the need to remain tactful, although there are times when he does need to get indignant, as with the issue of illegal sanctions that harm nations's abilities to deal with the pandemic--the utter immorality and inhumanity of the Outlaw US Empire that never gets the attention it deserves.

Haven't seen this nickname for Biden--Lieden.

Christian J. Chuba , Oct 22 2020 17:56 utc | 63
Fake emails: cui bono

What would Iran gain by scaring lower end of the spectrum Democrats into voting for Trump, is that desirable for Iran?

Ah ... but it was a pump fake, Iran thought that people would think that the emails were genuine, arrest a few of the Proud Boys and this would hurt Trump by associating him with a domestic terror group. Not only is this scenario convoluted but it is extremely risky because it might scare a handful of impressionable Democrats into voting for Trump and any investigation would uncover hacking of some kind.

Most likely suspect, Israel. They have the means to hack and the contacts in the U.S. to suggest Iranian origin.

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 17:58 utc | 64
As Putin said, Russia was able to find "balance" in its reaction to COVID; and as with China but unlike the Outlaw US Empire, it put the safety of the Russian people first and foremost. The Empire is experiencing yet another big outbreak nationwide and has yet to put the interests of its citizenry first.
Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 17:59 utc | 65
Is Circe deranged?
I don't know but I doubt if she spends trillions of dollars each year on murdering inocent men women and children.
Mmmmm
Perhaps to people living in a ''loony bin'' (America) people outside must seem quite strange !
I live near Glastonbury finest bunch of people you'd ever meet. Not known for genocidel tendency's.
Any ways Iran, Russia interfering in America's elections -- -- - pure paranoid delusion (weaponised)
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 17:59 utc | 66
The Mighty Wurlitzer has begun to sound more like the New York Philharmonic tuning up while riding the Empire State Express as it crashes endlessly into Grand Central Station.

Symbolism not unintentional.

Paco , Oct 22 2020 18:06 utc | 67
Posted by: Circe | Oct 22 2020 17:53 utc | 61

Dear Circe, each language is a world view, I wish I had the resources available today when I was younger, I would speak as many as possible, I consider that with the means available today speaking half a dozen would be no problem at all. You have the blessing and the curse of speaking english, so no need for anything else, but that is your problem, you are so relaxed about it that you're not able to spell correctly the name of one of your best known cities, San Francisco, with a c before the s.
Again, come up with something else, the bot label is as primitive as your knowledge of your own language and geography.

William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 18:06 utc | 68
"I doubt if she spends trillions of dollars each year on murdering inocent men women and children."

She votes for it, though.

Oriental Voice , Oct 22 2020 18:19 utc | 69
kiwiklown@14:
They do not even care for their own people (covid19 fiasco, anyone?), but pretend to care for the Chinese people so much they would regime-change the CCP; they pretend to care for the Russian people so much they would sooner shoot Putin's plane from the sky; they pretend to care for the Iranian people so much they block their access to covid19 medicines.

Well said, although rather sad! The last pretension reveals exactly the mentality that was behind the genocide upon the Native American centuries ago, resorting to tactics such as passing out smallpox infected blankets, dispensation of whisky, as well as outright slaughters of course.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 18:22 utc | 70
Gruffy @ 68
Maybe but she martches to a different drum beat. Not the trump drum beat of war that you follow, and will lead you all over the cliff.
Don't get me wrong ! You'd have to squeeze my nuts pretty dam hard (tears in my eyes) before I'd vote for Biden.
But you must know two things -- -
A. Trump is bat shit crazy and has his finger on the button whilst the Dems are money mad and there is know profit in Armageddon.
And
B. I'm antifa my hobby is smashing the filthy fascists !!
Who's streets ? Our streets !!
karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 18:43 utc | 71
Without mentioning its name, Putin in his speech pinned the tail on the donkey regarding TrumpCo's pandemic failure:

"The values of mutual assistance, service and self-sacrifice proved to be most important. This also applies to the responsibility, composure and honesty of the authorities, their readiness to meet the demand of society and at the same time provide a clear-cut and well-substantiated explanation of the logic and consistency of the adopted measures so as not to allow fear to subdue and divide society but, on the contrary, to imbue it with confidence that together we will overcome all trials no matter how difficult they may be.

"The struggle against the coronavirus threat has shown that only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis ..." [My Emphasis]

Yes, it didn't begin with Trump, but he sure did accelerate the process of making the domestic part of the Outlaw US Empire dysfunctional, which for me makes this "silly season" even worse than usual.

Sakineh Bagoom , Oct 22 2020 18:47 utc | 72
I view this as shit-against-the-wall policy. You throw it up there. Sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't.
This is how lowly vermin do foreign policy nowadays.
Remember the story -- first reported as Russians, then Iranians -- paying bounty to the Talibs to kill (as if they needed motivation) American soldiers?
Well, in that case, I guess neither story really stuck, but you see where I'm going with this. It's all shite
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 18:53 utc | 73
And silly season continues with self-proclaimed anti-fascists who don't know what fascists are.

Fascism doesn't necessarily have anything to do with race or religion. Is there any racial difference between Ukropians and Russians? Fascism is simply a tool that capitalists use to smash class consciousness. Literally any differences can be used by the capitalists to direct the violent mobs at their victims, even differences that are completely imaginary and don't really exist except in the group mind of the mob.

Now I wonder... who is it that will attack someone for saying "But ALL lives matter!" ? Who is smashing class consciousness?

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 18:59 utc | 74
71 Cont'd--

And this is why the USA is turning into a failed state and Russia isn't:

"Nevertheless, I am confident that what makes a state strong, primarily, is the confidence its citizens have in it . That is the strength of a state. People are the source of power , we all know that. And this recipe doesn't just involve going to the polling station and voting, it implies people's willingness to delegate broad authority to their elected government, to see the state, its bodies, civil servants, as their representatives – those who are entrusted to make decisions, but who also bear full responsibility for the performance of their duties .

"This kind of state can be set up any way you like. When I say 'any way,' I mean that what you call your political system is immaterial. Each country has its own political culture, traditions, and its own vision of their development. Trying to blindly imitate someone else's agenda is pointless and harmful. The main thing is for the state and society to be in harmony .

"And of course, confidence is the most solid foundation for the creative work of the state and society. Only together will they be able to find an optimal balance of freedom and security guarantees ." [My Emphasis]

What a brilliant collection of words emphasizing the absolute requirement for the state to do its utmost to support and develop its human capital--its citizens--while also saying citizens have their own duty to ensure the quality of the state, which means installing representatives that will work for them and promote their interests first and foremost since they are the backbone of the state. Don't feed and care for the citizenry as in the USA and you'll have a corrupt, feeble state when it comes to keeping itself strong. And IMO the primary difference that's making Russia stronger while the USA atrophies is that Russia listens to its people and genuinely cares for and acts in their interests while in the USA the demands of the citizenry have fallen on deaf ears for decades, regardless the political party running the government.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 19:14 utc | 75
Gruffy is trying to conflate perpetrator as opposed to the victim/ victems !
Classic -- -
US geo-politics.
Blame shifting fascist tactic.
Learned far right tactic.
Or
Psychopathic projection.
Example -- --
US attacks Iran &Russia but blames them for attacking The US.
Also Gruffy I note how you side step a point well made by
Asking a deliberately distracting question. Yawn
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 19:23 utc | 76
"Blame shifting" absolutely is part of smashing class consciousness. Shift the blame for people's difficulties from capitalism to various parts of the working class. Those who participate violently in this process are fascists and perpetrators. Of course, they are also victims because they are destroying their own class consciousness. Class consciousness is necessary if they are ever to be able to address the real issues causing them hardship.
Paco , Oct 22 2020 19:26 utc | 77
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 18:59 utc | 74

When the question and answers segment comes online it is worth reading his opinion about the Karabakh conflict and how it is a very difficult situation for Russia since both countries involved, Armenia and Azerbaijan are part of a common family. The question implied that Russia would unequivocally side with Armenia based on religion, to which Putin answered that 15% of Russia population professes the islamic faith and that he considers Azerbaijan a country as close to Russia as Armenia, with over two million nationals from each of the warring countries living in Russia and as part of a very influential and productive community.

Interesting too his take on Turkey, admitting that there are a lot of disagreements Putin had good words for Erdogan admitting that he is independent and that he is someone able to uphold his word, the Turk Stream project, it was agreed upon and completed, compared to the europeans to whom he did not spare in his almost contemptuous words insinuating their lack of sovereignty.

Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 19:38 utc | 78
Gruffy error !!
In this context the 'mob'
Is trump followers.
The thugs in uniform.
The proud boys.
The US forces abroad and at home.
Gruffy 'you' ARE the mob.
I feel you watched to many cowboy films portraying native Americans as the bad guys! It shows.
I won't be replying more. as I see your very shabby diversionary tactic. Nice try though. We see you !! What you are and what you do.
karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 19:46 utc | 79
Paco @77--

Thanks for your reply! Even before the Q&A Putin skewers both the Empire and EU in this paragraph:

"Genuine democracy and civil society cannot be imported.' I have said so many times. They cannot be a product of the activities of foreign 'well-wishers,' even if they 'want the best for us.' In theory, this is probably possible. But, frankly, I have not yet seen such a thing and do not believe much in it. We see how such imported democracy models function. They are nothing more than a shell or a front with nothing behind them, even a semblance of sovereignty. People in the countries where such schemes have been implemented were never asked for their opinion, and their respective leaders are mere vassals. As is known, the overlord decides everything for the vassal . To reiterate, only the citizens of a particular country can determine their public interest." [My Emphasis]

And that "particular country" is one where both the citizens and the government share "confidence" in each other such that they work in "harmony." Thus the #1 goal of the Outlaw US Empire to sow chaos within nations so such confidence and harmony can't be established; and if they are, then destroyed.

Kooshy , Oct 22 2020 19:50 utc | 80
No one has ever lied to American people more than the American regime and her terrorizing intelligence community organization, Snowden is the living proof of this . Anyone still alive and living on this planet if it ever believed a word on anything coming out of the USG not only is a fool and a total idiot but his/her head must be seriously checked. Regardless of their party affiliations they have no shame of lying cheating steeling those United oligarchy' Secretary of State is the proof that.
William Gruff , Oct 22 2020 19:58 utc | 81
This poster is on neither "side" . More like Putin looking in pain over Azerbaijan and Armenia killing each other at the prompting of some third party that doesn't care about either of them. This poster is neither faux left nor right wing; however, this poster's grandmother was Cherokee. There is no anger directed your way for your failure to understand, though.
Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 20:11 utc | 82
If Americans had any backbone they would be on the streets protesting about this sham election prior to the election, of false choice no choice.
You earn your democracy or you loose your democracy.
Iran, Russia bashing ! Just how low have you people sunk.
No hind sight, no insight and no foresight !
No hope. Spineless.
Jams O'Donnell , Oct 22 2020 20:36 utc | 83
Totally weird! You all, please get behind re-electing Trump. He is doing such a good job of destroying the US empire and its pretensions. If you are really a leftist, this is a GOO:-D thing!

The alternative is to vote Independent or Green but they don't have a chance right now.

Tom , Oct 22 2020 20:41 utc | 84
Posted by: Circe | Oct 22 2020 10:50 utc | 15

My horrorscope has Biden circling Uranus.

Kooshy , Oct 22 2020 20:42 utc | 85
Walking only 3 miles on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles , going west I have counted 47 homeless (male,females,wht,black,Asian)asking for handouts. These lost soles are the ones who have paid the price for the for ever wars to secure the Israel' realm,
The propose of yesterday's security show at FBI was to convince the public that all negative comments and cretics coming their way by internet blogs, email , media etc. is not really from disfranchised Americans public, but rather foreign countries operation that they do not like our democracy and way of life, It was solely meant to make people not to subscribe and believe what negativity they hear or read on US( non existing)democracy ,
This is a cheap standard operation by totalitarian regimes.


Mark2 , Oct 22 2020 21:07 utc | 86
Thanks kooshy for that and all your comments !
A true voice of sanity with heart and soul.
I hear you.
winston2 , Oct 22 2020 21:24 utc | 87
53
That money went to the ESF,what else do you think is levitating stocks and bonds ?
You assumed wrongly, but Kudlow let slip they(ESF) were broke and actually stated the money was going to them in a presser.
Debsisdead , Oct 22 2020 21:29 utc | 88
I dunno why I'm bothering to do this because astrology is such a lame easily disproven superstition that gets by because there are just so many con artists making predictions that occasionally some must be correct - the stopped clock effect, but here goes.
The moon's effect on our planet's oceans is proven to be caused by a known phenomenon, gravity. These stars whose positions we are told influence our human lives (just another anthrocentric load of bulldust what about beings on other planets?) are thousands of light years away from earth, meaning when the con-artists draw up their star charts or WTF they call 'em, they are looking at formations that happened thousands of years ago - all different depending on a particular star's distance from earth.
Claiming to be able to predict anything rational from such a mish mash of incorrect data is risible, sad really and goes much to explain the house dembot's mania.

As for oblammer in Miami? I guess the dnc know where quite a few oblammer bodies are buried.
My view is changing, Biden is so crooked that even though if he wins, the corporate media will try hard to leave him alone, but he's just too clumsy, so that some dems are going to side with the rethugs to impeach him and fast, however that may be what the oligarchy is counting on, as that brings bad karmala harris to the fore, a women so unpopular with dem rank and file she withdrew from the primary before any votes were cast, how's that for 'democracy'.

This is the real issue, both dem & rethug prez candidates are crooks through and through, if the dems win, then the spotlight the corporate media shone on orangeutan will be turned off. At least some of trump's worst rorts were stopped by a fear of being found out, but if the dems win dopey joe will have no such constraint - until he does something so over the top eg kick off nuclear war, that the media finally wakes up. too late but at least now they're awake.

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 22 2020 21:39 utc | 89
Posted by: vinnieoh | Oct 22 2020 16:04 utc | 45 If Trump loses, should some people expect bricks through their windows, or perhaps fire-bombings?

That is the threat. If either side loses, there will be massive civil unrest - at least it's very likely that is (part of) "the plan" - whatever the plan actually is. In any event, plan or not, it's predictable. Most of the preppers I follow on Youtube are urging everyone to stock up on food and water because there's a good chance that everyone will be back on movement restrictions of some sort, if not full-on martial law, within the next couple months. As I said before, this country is going to start looking like Turkey or Italy in the 70's when the Grey Wolves and the Red Brigades were terrorizing those countries. It may not be "civil war", but it's likely to be uglier than what happened this summer.

NemesisCalling , Oct 22 2020 23:01 utc | 90
@89 rsh

Massive civil unrest if Trump loses?

Wtf? You...smoking? Man!

Lol.

There will be cries of joy in the streets and maybe some celebratory looting, all from the urban left.

Trump's supporters might assemble peacefully in a very sparse manner, but I would bet most would simply take the newly alotted time from the Biden-victory to prep and ready a little more before the real fireworks begin. Violence would only erupt from the urban left attacking those demonstrations.

Real men are lying in wait. The city is not their playground any longer.

kiwiklown , Oct 23 2020 0:23 utc | 91
Posted by: Debsisdead | Oct 22 2020 11:21 utc | 19 -- "Barack can claim 'he paid his dues' whilst keeping as much space as he can organise between himself and crooked joe, who has already brought oblamblam's prezdency into disrepute with the shameless & ugly ukraine rort that he and his bagman hunter had concocted."

Thanks for your astute observations. Am learning much.

A compromised man never escapes blackmail: he is but a tool in the hands of his owners. It is not IF, but WHEN he will be used / abused. Over and over again, like a banker's boot stomping on his arrogant face.

But then, who is to say that Obanger Obummer was unaware of his VP, that Basement-Biding Bidet Biden's 'arrangements' for wealth accretion? And more (there is always more), who is to say that Obanging Ohumming gets NO share therefrom at some 'convenient' time?

Evil thinks himself clever to hide in the dark, yet lives in daily fear of the light. Thusly Obanging Ohummer's calculations that you noted above, and his dark demeanour these days. He knows he is walking on a knife edge, with a sword hanging over his head, and a safety net (those 17 intelligence agencies?) that can turn into a fowler's snare (sorry, mixed metaphors!)

Yet, looking at the happier demeanour (she used to scowl all through 2017/2018) on that shallow face called Michelle Ohummer, we can guess that she thinks they have escaped clean with their 'rewards of office'.

Christian J. Chuba @17 asked, "How long?" I ask, how does an immoral leadership ever going to turn moral? When does America get the leadership that she deserves?

Smith , Oct 23 2020 0:39 utc | 92
I doubt there will be much protests if Biden wins, the "right" in America is basically toothless.

There will be much violence when Trump wins though, much money will be spent to rile things up, just like when he won the first time.

Grieved , Oct 23 2020 1:00 utc | 93
@71 karlof1 - "only a viable state can act effectively in a crisis" - Putin

What a brilliant equation from Putin. Even more penetrating and useful than the formerly existing observation that socialist-style societies have performed best in response to the virus. Putin's criterion cuts exactly to the essence of the thing.

What the US has demonstrated from the virus response is that it is not a viable state. The benchmark now exists. Thanks for bringing it over.

Grieved , Oct 23 2020 1:03 utc | 94
@81 William Gruff

I have a friend of Cherokee ancestry. She told me how once she was speaking with an elder woman of the tribe, and described herself as "one-eighth Cherokee".

The old woman shook her head and said, "The Cherokee spirit cannot be diluted."

Yeah, Right , Oct 23 2020 1:18 utc | 95
Reuters: "The emails are under investigation, and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who was behind them."

No, it's perfectly clear who was behind them: Hunter Biden.

Honestly, the lies are now so brazen that they are no longer credible, they are just insulting.

Those are Biden Hunter's emails. QED the person "behind them" is Hunter Biden

Q: How do you know?
A: F**k me, dumbass: he wrote them, ergo, he is responsible for them.

Rob , Oct 23 2020 3:26 utc | 96
This comments thread reads like a collection of D-minus essays from a creative writing class.
Formerly T-Bear , Oct 23 2020 10:15 utc | 97
Should any here be interested, Wikipedia has aa extensive listing of governmental scandals for the 20th and 21st century administrations. Note the number of executive, legislative and judicial scandals for each administration. Note also the volume of scandals as administrations go from Franklin D. Roosevelt through to D.J. Trump for both executive and legislative branches. The political parties of the malfeasant are of interest as well - trending can be discerned, maybe, for the observant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College

Formerly T-Bear , Oct 23 2020 10:25 utc | 98
@ 97

That link should be:

List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States

[Oct 21, 2020] Like rise of the Praetorian Guard in Rome, the rise of political role of US intelligence agencies and an ominous sign by cynthia chung

Notable quotes:
"... When the matter of truth is depicted as a possible threat to those that govern a country, you no longer have a democratic state. True, not everything can be disclosed to the public in real time, but we are sitting on a mountain of classified intelligence material that goes back more than 60 years. ..."
"... From this recognition, the whole matter of declassifying material around the Russigate scandal in real time, and not highly redacted 50 years from now, is essential to addressing this festering putrefaction that has been bubbling over since the heinous assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22nd, 1963 and to which we are still waiting for full disclosure of classified papers 57 years later. ..."
"... These intelligence bureaus need to be reviewed for what kind of method and standard they are upholding in collecting their "intelligence," that has supposedly justified the Mueller investigation and the never-ending Flynn investigation which have provided zero conclusive evidence to back up their allegations and which have massively infringed on the elected government's ability to make the changes that they had committed to the American people. ..."
"... Just like the Iraq and Libya war that was based off of cooked British intelligence (refer here and here ), Russiagate appears to have also had its impetus from our friends over at MI6 as well. It is no surprise that Sir Richard Dearlove, who was then MI6 chief (1999-2004) and who oversaw and stood by the fraudulent intelligence on Iraq stating they bought uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon, is the very same Sir Richard Dearlove who promoted the Christopher Steele dossier as something "credible" to American intelligence. ..."
"... In other words, the same man who is largely responsible for encouraging the illegal invasion of Iraq, which set off the never-ending wars on "terror," that was justified with cooked British intelligence is also responsible for encouraging the Russian spook witch-hunt that has been occurring within the US for the last four years over more cooked British intelligence, and the FBI and CIA are knowingly complicit in this. ..."
"... "The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s." [emphasis added] ..."
"... On Dec. 22, 1974, The New York Times published an article by Seymour Hersh exposing illegal operations conducted by the CIA, dubbed the "family jewels". This included, covert action programs involving assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments, which were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens. ..."
"... Largely as a reaction to Hersh's findings, the creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate. ..."
"... In addition, the Church Committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on Chile was released, titled " Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973 ". The rest were kept secret at the CIA's request. ..."
"... Among the most shocking revelation of the Church Committee was the discovery of Operation SHAMROCK , in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the NSA Watch List. It was found out during the committee investigations that Senator Frank Church, who was overseeing the committee, was among the prominent names under surveillance on this NSA Watch List. ..."
"... According to Garrison's team findings, there was reason to believe that the CIA was involved in the orchestrations of President Kennedy's assassination but access to classified material (which was nearly everything concerning the case) was necessary to continue such an investigation. ..."
"... Though Garrison's team lacked direct evidence, they were able to collect an immense amount of circumstantial evidence, which should have given the justification for access to classified material for further investigation. Instead the case was thrown out of court prematurely and is now treated as if it were a circus. [Refer to Garrison's book for further details and Oliver Stone's excellently researched movie JFK ] ..."
"... On Oct. 6th, 2020, President Trump ordered the declassification of the Russia Probe documents along with the classified documents on the findings concerning the Hillary Clinton emails. The release of these documents threatens to expose the entrapment of the Trump campaign by the Clinton campaign with help of the US intelligence agencies. ..."
"... Trey Gowdy, who was Chair of the House Oversight Committee from June 13th, 2017 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has stated in an interview on Oct. 7th, 2020 that he has never seen these documents. Devin Nunes, who was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from Jan. 3rd, 2015 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has also said in a recent interview that he has never seen these documents. ..."
"... Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation . ..."
Oct 20, 2020 | ronpaulinstitute.org

"Treason doth never prosper; what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason." – Sir John Harrington.

As Shakespeare would state in his play Hamlet, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," like a fish that rots from head to tail, so do corrupt government systems rot from top to bottom.

This is a reference to the ruling system of Denmark and not just the foul murder that King Claudius has committed against his brother, Hamlet's father. This is showcased in the play by reference to the economy of Denmark being in a state of shambles and that the Danish people are ready to revolt since they are on the verge of starving. King Claudius has only been king for a couple of months, and thus this state of affairs, though he inflames, did not originate with him.

Thus, during our time of great upheaval we should ask ourselves; what constitutes the persisting "ruling system," of the United States, and where do the injustices in its state of affairs truly originate from?

The tragedy of Hamlet does not just lie in the action (or lack of action) of one man, but rather, it is contained in the choices and actions of all its main characters. Each character fails to see the longer term consequences of their own actions, which leads not only to their ruin but towards the ultimate collapse of Denmark. The characters are so caught up in their antagonism against one another that they fail to foresee that their very own destruction is intertwined with the other.

This is a reflection of a failing system.

A system that, though it believes itself to be fighting tooth and nail for its very survival, is only digging a deeper grave. A system that is incapable of generating any real solutions to the problems it faces.

The only way out of this is to address that very fact. The most important issue that will decide the fate of the country is what sort of changes are going to occur in the political and intelligence apparatus, such that a continuation of this tyrannical treason is finally stopped in its tracks and unable to sow further discord and chaos.

When the Matter of "Truth" Becomes a Threat to "National Security"

When the matter of truth is depicted as a possible threat to those that govern a country, you no longer have a democratic state. True, not everything can be disclosed to the public in real time, but we are sitting on a mountain of classified intelligence material that goes back more than 60 years.

How much time needs to elapse before the American people have the right to know the truth behind what their government agencies have been doing within their own country and abroad in the name of the "free" world?

From this recognition, the whole matter of declassifying material around the Russigate scandal in real time, and not highly redacted 50 years from now, is essential to addressing this festering putrefaction that has been bubbling over since the heinous assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22nd, 1963 and to which we are still waiting for full disclosure of classified papers 57 years later.

If the American people really want to finally see who is standing behind that curtain in Oz, now is the time.

These intelligence bureaus need to be reviewed for what kind of method and standard they are upholding in collecting their "intelligence," that has supposedly justified the Mueller investigation and the never-ending Flynn investigation which have provided zero conclusive evidence to back up their allegations and which have massively infringed on the elected government's ability to make the changes that they had committed to the American people.

Just like the Iraq and Libya war that was based off of cooked British intelligence (refer here and here ), Russiagate appears to have also had its impetus from our friends over at MI6 as well. It is no surprise that Sir Richard Dearlove, who was then MI6 chief (1999-2004) and who oversaw and stood by the fraudulent intelligence on Iraq stating they bought uranium from Niger to build a nuclear weapon, is the very same Sir Richard Dearlove who promoted the Christopher Steele dossier as something "credible" to American intelligence.

In other words, the same man who is largely responsible for encouraging the illegal invasion of Iraq, which set off the never-ending wars on "terror," that was justified with cooked British intelligence is also responsible for encouraging the Russian spook witch-hunt that has been occurring within the US for the last four years over more cooked British intelligence, and the FBI and CIA are knowingly complicit in this.

Neither the American people, nor the world as a whole, can afford to suffer any more of the so-called "mistaken" intelligence bumblings. It is time that these intelligence bureaus are held accountable for at best criminal negligence, at worst, treason against their own country.

When Great Figures of Hope Are Targeted as Threats to "National Security"

The Family Jewels report , which was an investigation conducted by the CIA to investigate itself, was spurred by the Watergate Scandal and the CIA's unconstitutional role in the whole affair. This investigation by the CIA reviewed its own conduct from the 1950s to mid-1970s.

The Family Jewels report was only partially declassified in June 25, 2007 (30 years later). Along with the release of the redacted report included a six-page summary with the following introduction:

"The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s." [emphasis added]

Despite this acknowledged violation of its charter for 25 years, which is pretty much since its inception, the details of this information were kept classified for 30 years from not just the public but major governmental bodies and it was left to the agency itself to judge how best to "reform" its ways.

On Dec. 22, 1974, The New York Times published an article by Seymour Hersh exposing illegal operations conducted by the CIA, dubbed the "family jewels". This included, covert action programs involving assassination attempts on foreign leaders and covert attempts to subvert foreign governments, which were reported for the first time. In addition, the article discussed efforts by intelligence agencies to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.

Largely as a reaction to Hersh's findings, the creation of the Church Committee was approved on January 27, 1975, by a vote of 82 to 4 in the Senate.

The Church Committee's final report was published in April 1976, including seven volumes of Church Committee hearings in the Senate.

The Church Committee also published an interim report titled "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders", which investigated alleged attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of Zaire, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and Fidel Castro of Cuba. President Ford attempted to withhold the report from the public, but failed and reluctantly issued Executive Order 11905 after pressure from the public and the Church Committee.

Executive Order 11905 is a United States Presidential Executive Order signed on February 18, 1976, by a very reluctant President Ford in an attempt to reform the United States Intelligence Community, improve oversight on foreign intelligence activities, and ban political assassination.

The attempt is now regarded as a failure and was largely undone by President Reagan who issued Executive Order 12333 , which extended the powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies and directed leaders of the US federal agencies to co-operate fully with the CIA, which was the original arrangement that CIA have full authority over clandestine operations (for more information on this refer to my papers here and here ).

In addition, the Church Committee produced seven case studies on covert operations, but only the one on Chile was released, titled " Covert Action in Chile: 1963–1973 ". The rest were kept secret at the CIA's request.

Among the most shocking revelation of the Church Committee was the discovery of Operation SHAMROCK , in which the major telecommunications companies shared their traffic with the NSA from 1945 to the early 1970s. The information gathered in this operation fed directly into the NSA Watch List. It was found out during the committee investigations that Senator Frank Church, who was overseeing the committee, was among the prominent names under surveillance on this NSA Watch List.

In 1975, the Church Committee decided to unilaterally declassify the particulars of this operation, against the objections of President Ford's administration (refer here and here for more information).

The Church Committee's reports constitute the most extensive review of intelligence activities ever made available to the public. Much of the contents were classified, but over 50,000 pages were declassified under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22nd, 1963. Two days before his assassination a hate-Kennedy handbill (see picture) was circulated in Dallas accusing the president of treasonous activities including being a communist sympathizer.

On March 1st, 1967 New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of David Ferrie and others. After a little over a one month long trial, Shaw was found not guilty on March 1st, 1969.

David Ferrie, a controller of Lee Harvey Oswald, was going to be a key witness and would have provided the "smoking gun" evidence linking himself to Clay Shaw, was likely murdered on Feb. 22nd, 1967, less than a week after news of Garrison's investigation broke in the media.

According to Garrison's team findings, there was reason to believe that the CIA was involved in the orchestrations of President Kennedy's assassination but access to classified material (which was nearly everything concerning the case) was necessary to continue such an investigation.

Though Garrison's team lacked direct evidence, they were able to collect an immense amount of circumstantial evidence, which should have given the justification for access to classified material for further investigation. Instead the case was thrown out of court prematurely and is now treated as if it were a circus. [Refer to Garrison's book for further details and Oliver Stone's excellently researched movie JFK ]

To date, it is the only trial to be brought forward concerning the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) was created in 1994 by the Congress enacted President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection within the National Archives and Records Administration. In July 1998, a staff report released by the ARRB emphasized shortcomings in the original autopsy.

The ARRB wrote , "One of the many tragedies of the assassination of President Kennedy has been the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the suspicion caused by the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the records that do exist." [emphasis added]

The staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records are not of Kennedy's brain and show much less damage than Kennedy sustained.

The Washington Post reported :

Asked about the lunchroom episode [where he was overheard stating his notes of the autopsy went missing] in a May 1996 deposition, Finck said he did not remember it. He was also vague about how many notes he took during the autopsy but confirmed that 'after the autopsy I also wrote notes' and that he turned over whatever notes he had to the chief autopsy physician, James J. Humes.

It has long been known that Humes destroyed some original autopsy papers in a fireplace at his home on Nov. 24, 1963. He told the Warren Commission that what he burned was an original draft of his autopsy report. Under persistent questioning at a February 1996 deposition by the Review Board, Humes said he destroyed the draft and his 'original notes.'

Shown official autopsy photographs of Kennedy from the National Archives, [Saundra K.] Spencer [who worked in 'the White House lab'] said they were not the ones she helped process and were printed on different paper. She said 'there was no blood or opening cavities' and the wounds were much smaller in the pictures [than what she had] worked on

John T. Stringer, who said he was the only one to take photos during the autopsy itself, said some of those were missing as well. He said that pictures he took of Kennedy's brain at a 'supplementary autopsy' were different from the official set that was shown to him. [emphasis added]

This not only shows that evidence tampering did indeed occur, as even the Warren Commission acknowledges, but this puts into question the reliability of the entire assassination record of John F. Kennedy and to what degree evidence tampering and forgery have occurred in these records.

We would also do well to remember the numerous crimes that the FBI and CIA have been guilty of committing upon the American people such as during the period of McCarthyism. That the FBI's COINTELPRO has been implicated in covert operations against members of the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960s. That FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made no secret of his hostility towards Dr. King and his ludicrous belief that King was influenced by communists, despite having no evidence to that effect.

King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 and the civil rights movement took a major blow.

In November 1975, as the Church Committee was completing its investigation, the Department of Justice formed a Task Force to examine the FBI's program of harassment directed at Dr. King, including the FBI's security investigations of him, his assassination and the FBI conducted criminal investigation that followed. One aspect of the Task force study was to determine "whether any action taken in relation to Dr. King by the FBI before the assassination had, or might have had, an effect, direct or indirect, on that event."

In its report , the Task Force criticized the FBI not for the opening, but for the protracted continuation of, its security investigation of Dr. King:

"We think the security investigation which included both physical and technical surveillance, should have been terminated in 1963. That it was intensified and augmented by a COINTELPRO type campaign against Dr. King was unwarranted; the COINTELPRO type campaign, moreover, was ultra vires and very probably felonious."

In 1999, King Family v. Jowers civil suit in Memphis, Tennessee occurred, the full transcript of the trial can be found here . The jury found that Lloyd Jowers and unnamed others, including those in high ranking positions within government agencies, participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King.

During the four week trial, it was pointed out that the rifle allegedly used to assassinate King did not have a scope that was sighted, which meant you could not have hit the broad side of a barn with that rifle, thus it could not have been the murder weapon.

This was only remarked on over 30 years after King was murdered and showed the level of incompetence, or more likely, evidence tampering that was committed from previous investigations conducted by the FBI.

The case of JFK and MLK are among the highest profile assassination cases in American history, and it has been shown in both cases that evidence tampering has indeed occurred, despite being in the center of the public eye. What are we then to expect as the standard of investigation for all the other cases of malfeasance? What expectation can we have that justice is ever upheld?

With a history of such blatant misconduct, it is clear that the present demand to declassify the Russiagate papers now, and not 50 years later, needs to occur if we are to address the level of criminality that is going on behind the scenes and which will determine the fate of the country.

The American People Deserve to Know

Today we see the continuation of the over seven decades' long ruse, the targeting of individuals as Russian agents without any basis, in order to remove them from the political arena. The present effort to declassify the Russiagate papers and exonerate Michael Flynn, so that he may freely speak of the intelligence he knows, is not a threat to national security, it is a threat to those who have committed treason against their country.

On Oct. 6th, 2020, President Trump ordered the declassification of the Russia Probe documents along with the classified documents on the findings concerning the Hillary Clinton emails. The release of these documents threatens to expose the entrapment of the Trump campaign by the Clinton campaign with help of the US intelligence agencies.

The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released some of these documents recently, including former CIA Director John Brennan's handwritten notes for a meeting with former President Obama, the notes revealing that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to "vilify Donald Trump by stirring up scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service."

Trey Gowdy, who was Chair of the House Oversight Committee from June 13th, 2017 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has stated in an interview on Oct. 7th, 2020 that he has never seen these documents. Devin Nunes, who was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee from Jan. 3rd, 2015 – Jan. 3rd, 2019, has also said in a recent interview that he has never seen these documents.

And yet, both the FBI and CIA were aware and had access to these documents and sat on them for four years, withholding their release from several government-led investigations that were looking into the Russiagate scandal and who were requesting relevant material that was in the possession of both intelligence bureaus. Do these intelligence bureaus sound like they are working for the "national security" of the American people?

The truth must finally be brought to light, or the country will rot from its head to tail.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .

[Oct 21, 2020] A Bidengate summary from the Daily Mail - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... I always thought the Steele Dossier was poor trade craft; way too over the top. An example being jumping around on a bed and urinating on multiple prostitutes. It puzzled me why they would tell such far out stories. Why stretch credulity?. SWMBO's response was that such behavior is so ubiquitous and frequent among democrat elites that they just assume everyone is doing it. To them it's not far out in the least, it's just a typical Saturday night. I begin to think that she is on to something. ..."
Oct 21, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

A Bidengate summary from the Daily Mail "Documents appear to show Hunter Biden's signature on $85 receipt for repair of laptops left at Delaware store at center of email scandal - while other paperwork reveals FBI's contact with owner

  • A receipt from The Mac Shop in Wilmington, Delaware appears to show Hunter Biden's signature for work on three laptops for $85
  • It has not been verified yet if that signature is actually Biden's
  • FBI paperwork also shows that shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac received a subpoena to testify before the US District Court in Delaware in December 2019
  • Last week the New York Post published a report saying e-mails obtained from the laptop show Joe Biden allegedly was in on his son Hunter's business deals
  • House Intel chair Adam Schiff said the 'smear' on Biden 'comes from the Kremlin'
  • DNI John Ratcliffe said the laptop is not a Russian disinformation campaign
  • Biden's campaign says the Democratic nominee engaged in no wrongdoing "

-------------

Well, pilgrims, he sure looks comfy in the tub. I still wonder who took the pictures. Was it the gal in California who later sued him over paternity of her child/fetus, whatever.

Did he take the pictures himself? Interestingly, the Bidens have not denied the implicit charge of corruption, bribery, etc., etc. that is the mass of incriminating e-mail traffic on the hard drive. And then, there are the disgusting sex videos. Does anyone think that these were faked?

SWMBO says that the Bidens have set a new standard for depraved and addled stupidity. As usual, she is right. pl

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8857893/Documents-Hunter-Bidens-signature-Delaware-computer-repair-shop-receipt.html

Eric Newhill , 20 October 2020 at 12:17 PM

It's interesting that Bidens, Epsteins, Clintons, Hollywood types, Weiners, et al engage in all of the sordid behaviors that they accused Trump of in the "Steele Dossier" (and then some).

I always thought the Steele Dossier was poor trade craft; way too over the top. An example being jumping around on a bed and urinating on multiple prostitutes. It puzzled me why they would tell such far out stories. Why stretch credulity?. SWMBO's response was that such behavior is so ubiquitous and frequent among democrat elites that they just assume everyone is doing it. To them it's not far out in the least, it's just a typical Saturday night. I begin to think that she is on to something.

Deap , 20 October 2020 at 12:20 PM

Borgs for Biden - 50 former intel agents sign statement claiming this Hunter Biden thing is a Russian disinformation racket: https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/10/20/50-former-intel-agents-flush-their-credibility-and-show-why-their-agency-should-be-blown-up/

Any familiar names here, any traps the unwary?

turcopolier , 20 October 2020 at 12:24 PM

Deap Brennan, Clapper, McLaughlin are all properly described as intelligence bureaucrats, not "agents."

BillWade , 20 October 2020 at 01:42 PM

Rudy Guiliani and Steve Bannon stated this morning that more information will be forthcoming within 24-48 hours. The Q folks are thinking that it will be released on Thurs morning for maximum effect at the later in the evening debate. The Admiral who oversaw the Bin Laden raid has endorsed Joe Biden in spite of being a pro life and 2nd amendment advocate. Things are getting interesting to say the least.

TV , 20 October 2020 at 02:31 PM

Another oxymoron, like "government worker" - "intelligence" officials.
Self important parasites....oh wait....selfless patriots who "risk their lives every day" for America.

NancyK , 20 October 2020 at 02:51 PM

The Bidens are not involved, one Biden is. Joe Biden is not responsible for his son's idiocy. I do believe he has massive addiction issues but I need a lot more proof that he took all 3 of his computers in for work and the bill was only $85.00. I need the name of that repair shop it is much more expensive where I live.

Keith Harbaugh , 20 October 2020 at 02:57 PM

Here is an account from the MSM documenting Biden Inc.'s practice of graft.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/02/joe-biden-investigation-hunter-brother-hedge-fund-money-2020-campaign-227407

Quote:

"Don't worry about investors," [James Biden] said, according to the executive,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation.
"We've got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden."

End quote

Anybody claiming Politico is a Russian disinformation operation?

Thanks to Andrew McCarthy for the link.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewCMcCarthy/status/1318595953893494785

ancientarcher , 20 October 2020 at 03:40 PM

Colonel,

While I hope and pray for a Trump victory, I am not so sure that he will be able to overcome systematic rigging. What is your opinion on the level of rigging that is going on?

All sorts of worms from all over the place are crawling up and endorsing the slime ridden corrupt Bidens. Who knows what sort of pressure must have been put on them to do that. And if that is so, can you imagine the level of pressure the democrat machine must have put on those who are in charge of conducting the election? Look at the commission on presidential debates for God's sake. Absolutely, no hint of neutrality there!

The media is pulling the wool over everyone's eyes just like in the last election. The polls are all for democrats, again, just like the last election. Methinks the difference this time might just be the magnitude of vote rigging that the democrats will do. How much more will that be versus the last time? Enough to swing the election?

TV , 20 October 2020 at 04:10 PM

BillWade:
That's the same (Obama) Admiral who said that Trump should be gone:
"......then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office -- Republican, Democrat or independent -- the sooner, the better."
Like the other retired brass and "intelligence" officials, just more swamp creatures wailing about an "outsider" disturbing their little world of endless losing wars and a foreign policy of bending over.

BillWade , 20 October 2020 at 04:56 PM

NancyK, Which is worse, voting for someone with dementia or voting for someone pretending to have dementia?

I haven't heard anything about Joe's brother or sister-in-law having a drug problem, have you? Maybe they just have a pay to play problem, any thoughts?

Hillary certainly looked wonderful in her Chinese cut clothing in the 2016 debates. Joe's got those nice 3 Red Flags going for him on his campaign poster, maybe he should wear a rice farmer's hat to the upcoming debate, no?

I decided to vote today instead of Nov 5th as you had recommended. Did I do the right thing?

ancientarcher , 20 October 2020 at 05:00 PM

NancyK,

You think Joe is innocent of all that has been done by his family? You think druggy Hunter deserved to get a senior vice president position at MBNA straight after graduating from college at $100k a year or that seat at Burisma at $50k a month? Do you think he deserved all of that not because of his dad's influence but because he was so smart and because he graduated from yale? If you believe all of that, you must be smoking some strong stuff.

Here is something you can read to improve your knowledge. This is not how a normal cv looks like, for sure.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/10/16/joe_bidens_boosters_wrote_his_prodigal_sons_entire_resume_125616.html


Brats like Hunter don't get these amazing deals because they are smart or create value for their employers because of their work. He got these deals because it is a way of paying off his father, the guy who then bats for these employers in the senate or the white house.

james , 20 October 2020 at 05:56 PM

@ NancyK.. true - biden senior is not responsible for biden junior... however it seems junior got the gig thanks daddys connections and willingness to fire the prosecutor so that junior could continue to have the job! that is the part you appear to be turning a blind eye to.... senior has major dirt on him due all this.. either you think it is a made up russian propaganda set up, or you think it isn't... there is enough info at present to show that it isn't a set up, but that daddy was using his position as vp unscrupulously or criminal depending on how you want to filter it.. the fact the media want to push it under the carpet with whatever excuse they provide, doesn't change any of it..

Deap , 20 October 2020 at 06:01 PM

Vote rigging?

14 House seats in California GOP districts flipped a few weeks after the GOP "won" on election night. It took that long for all the third party "harvested votes" to go through the government employee union dominated election office verification procedures.

This election when the GOP turned tables and did their own "vote-harvesting" the Democrat AG and Secy of State cried foul, sent the GOP a cease and desist letter to stop or face fines and punishment. GOP said go pound sand. And the Dems had to back down since the law was too vague to even be enforced.

Unfortunately this means the Democrats in this state will only double down on their "vote harvesting". As if winning or losing California matters - except in the House. One guesses, after the 2020 census California will lose a few House seats anyway, due to the state's outflow of population and the reluctance of illegals to participate in the census in the first place.

Don't forget, it was "term limits" that led to this one-party, one agenda domination of this state. Never ever think "term limits" is an answer for anything.

Term limits only created a huge power vacuum, and in swooped the Democrat back public sector unions running a steady string of revolving door talking head flunkies out of the public sector union world, who immediately passed super-majority legislation that only solidified their permanent domination. It happened so fast since 2000, few in the state knew what hit them.

In 2016, they added "vote- harvesting" - allowing third parties to help fill out and collect mail-in ballots and drop them off by the car loads, which technically must be checked and verified, but in such volumes as to overwhelm the election offices - Cloward-Pivens on steroids- a favorite technique of Barry Soetoro.

turcopolier , 20 October 2020 at 06:52 PM

james

You are mistaken. Under US law they, IMO, are a conspiracy under RICO.

[Oct 21, 2020] This Is Not A Russian Hoax 'Nonpublic Information' Debunks Letter From '50 Former Intel Officials'

Highly recommended!
Is this 50 former Intel officials or 50 former national security parasites? Real Intel officials should keep quite after retirement. National security parasites go to politics and lobbying. One telling sign that a particular parson is a "national security parasite" is his desire to play "Russian card"
From comments: "Did the 50 former intelligence officials find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction yet?"
Oct 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
"This Is Not A Russian Hoax": 'Nonpublic Information' Debunks Letter From '50 Former Intel Officials'

by Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2020 - 08:45 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Hours before Politico reported the existence of a letter signed by '50 former senior intelligence officials' who say the Hunter Biden laptop scandal "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation" - providing "no new evidence," while they remain "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case," Tucker Carlson obliterated their (literal) conspiracy theory .

According to the Fox News host, he's seen 'nonpublic information that proves it was Hunter's laptop ,' adding " No one but Hunter could've known about or replicated this information ."

" This is not a Russian hoax. We are not speculating ."

Watch:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1317255675320348673&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fnot-russian-hoax-tucker-carlson-has-seen-nonpublic-information-proving-laptop-was-hunter&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

TUCKER: "This afternoon, we received nonpublic information that proves it was Hunter's laptop. No one but Hunter could've known about or replicated this information. This is not a Russian hoax. We are not speculating." pic.twitter.com/cl2ktdmdVc

-- August Takala (@AugustTakala) October 17, 2020

Meanwhile, the Delaware computer repair shop owner who believes Hunter dropped off three MacBook Pros for data recovery has a signed work order bearing Hunter's signature . When compared to the signature on a document in his paternity suit, while one looks more formal than the other, they are a match.

Going back to the '50 former senior intelligence officials' and their latest Russia fixation, one has to wonder - do they think Putin was able to compromise Biden's former business associate , Bevan Cooney, who gave investigative journalist Peter Schweizer his gmail password - revealing that Hunter and his partners were engaged in an influence-peddling operation for rich Chinese who wanted access to the Obama administration?

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Did Putin further hack Joe Biden in 2011 to make him take a meeting with a Chinese delegation with ties to the CCP - arranged by Hunter's group, two years they secured a massive investment of Chinese money?

The implications boggle the mind.

Here's the clarifying sentences from the '50 former senior intelligence officials' that exposes the utter farce of it all:

While the letter's signatories presented no new evidence , they said their national security experience had made them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.

"If we are right," they added, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this."

It would appear these former intel officials are not aware of the current intel official views, confirmed by DNI Ratcliffe yesterday that:

"Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign."

And then there's the fact that no one from the Biden campaign has yet to deny any of the 'facts' in the emails. lay_arrow jin187 , 2 hours ago

Totally ridiculous. This ******** beating around the bush for both sides pisses me off. Dump all the laptop contents on Wikileaks if it's real. Let the people sort it out. If you say it's not real, prove it. If Biden wants me to believe it's not real, then stand behind a podium, and say clear as day into a pile of cameras that's it's all a forgery, and that you've done nothing wrong.

Instead we have Giuliani swearing he has a smoking gun, but as far as I can tell he's just pointing his finger underneath his shirt. Biden on the other hand, keep using weasel words to imply it's fake, but never denies it outright. It's almost like he's trying to hedge his bet that no one will manage to prove it's real before he gets into office, and makes it disappear.

Roacheforque , 7 hours ago

To play the "Russian Card" yet again should be beyond embarrassing. An insult to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ over 80. And so it's harmful to the left wingnut derangeables. Like Assad's chemical weapons and Saddam's WMDs, it is now code for pure ********. Not even code, just more like a signal.

A signal that say's "guilty as charged - we got nothin' but lies and BS over here".

East Indian , 4 hours ago

An insult to the intelligence of anyone with an IQ over 80.

They know their supporters wont find this insulting.

Kayman , 4 hours ago

@vulvishka.

538 ? North Korea has better propaganda.

Don't forget to go all in, like you did with Hillary.

Antedeluvian , 2 hours ago

Unfortunately, some very bright people are sucked into the conspiracy theory. I know one. Very bright lawyer. She says, "I still think there is substantive evidence of Russian collusion." I can point to a sky criss-crossed with chemtrails (when you see these "contrails" crossing at the same altitude, this is one sure clue these are not from regular passenger jet traffic) and she refuses to look up. She KNOWS I am an idiot (a PhD scientist idiot at that) because I get news and analysis on the web from sites that just want to sell me tee shirts and coffee mugs (well, she is partly right there!) whereas she gets her news from MSNBC, a venerable and trustworthy news source.

4DegreesOfSeparation , 6 hours ago

More Than 50 Former Intel Officials Say Hunter Biden Smear Smells Like Russia

"If we are right," the group wrote in a letter, "this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote."

DescendantofthePatriots , 7 hours ago

That ****, James Clapper, signed his name at the top of this list.

Known liar, saboteur, and sneak.

The cognitive dissonance in our country is astounding. The fact that they would take these people's opinion over hard fact is astounding.

No wonder why we're sliding down the steep, slippery slope.

strych10 , 8 hours ago

So... let me get this straight.

50, that's 10 times five, fifty former intelligence officials are going with a convoluted narrative about a ludicrously complicated Russian Intelligence disinformation campaign involving planted laptops and at least half a dozen patsies when the two words "crack cocaine" explain the entire thing?

I'm not sure what's more terrifying; That these people think everyone else is dumb enough to believe this or that they're actually retired intelligence officials ​​​​​​.

Who the actual **** is running this ****show? The bastard child of Barney Fife and Inspector Clouseau?

Seriously, "Pink Panther Disinformation Operation" is more believable at this point.

Someone Else , 9 hours ago

This needs to get out, because a FAVORITE method of the Deep State, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) is to parade some sort of a stupid letter with a bunch of signature hoping to look impressive but that really don't mean a damn thing.

Notre Dame graduates against the Supreme Court nominee, Intelligence agents alleging collusion, former State Department operatives against Trump. Its grandstanding that has been overdone.

moneybots , 8 hours ago

The letter by 50 former intelligence officials is itself, disinformation.

otschelnik , 8 hours ago

Remember when Weiner's attorney turned over Huma's home laptop to SDNY/FBI with all of Shillary's emails, and the FBI sat on it for a month and then Comey deep sixed them without even looking at them?

So now the FBI subpeona'd Hunter's laptop and burried it? Deja vu all over again.

enough of this , 8 hours ago

The FBI and DOJ constantly hide behind self-serving excuses to refuse the release of documents and, when forced to do so, they release heavily redacted files. They offer up the usual pretexts to fend off public disclosure such as: the information you seek cannot be disclosed because it involves an ongoing investigation, or the information you seek involves national security, or our methods and sources will be jeopardized if the information you seek is divulged to the public. But it seems the ones who would be most harmed by public disclosure are the corrupt FBI and DOJ officials themselves

Cobra Commander , 7 hours ago

A short 4 years ago the FBI and CIA were all concerned about "Kompromat" the Ruskies might have on Candidate Trump; concerned enough to spy on his campaign and open a counter-intelligence operation.

There are troves of Kompromat material, actual emails and video, on Joe, Hunter, and the whole Biden family; not made-up DNC-funded dossiers claiming a Russian consulate in Miami.

Now when it's Candidate Biden, everyone be all like, "Meh."

Cobra!

The Fonz...before shark jump , 5 hours ago

we gotta listen to the 50 former intelligence agents...you know the ones that had lone superpower status in the early 90s and then pissed it all away with 9/11 and infinity wars in middle east hahahahah ok buddy lol... histories D students....

Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 7 hours ago

Signed by James Clapper and John Brennan;

You mean, the 2 Bozos who under the threat of perjury said there was NO evidence of Russian Collusion and the Trump campaign................. and 2 hours later called Trump 'Putin's puppet' on CNN.............

[Oct 20, 2020] Glenn Greenwald- Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People - Video - RealClearPolitics

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "The whole point of the Intelligence Community since the end of World War II was that whatever propaganda the CIA produces, whatever disinformation campaigns they engaged were never supposed to be directed domestically," he said. "That was the point of the NSA, the CIA, and all those intelligence communities." ..."
"... "What we have seen since 2016 going back to the 2016 campaign is incessant involvement in U.S. domestic politics. Working with journalists to disseminate purely for partisan ends. If you want to talk about things like violating norms, and dangers to democracy, what's more dangerous than allowing the CIA constantly to be manipulating our politics by making cover for the Biden campaign by claiming anonymously that the Russians are behind the story and therefore you disregard it. Even if the Russians why does that alleviate the responsibility of journalists to evaluate the emails and to examine whether or not Joe Biden actually engaged in misconduct?" Greenwald asked. ..."
Oct 20, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com

Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date October 19, 2020

Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.417.2_en.html#goog_590212220

Glenn Greenwald appeared on Tucker Carlson's FOX News show Monday night to criticize the media for its lack of response to the Hunter Biden laptop story. Greenwald also criticized intel community activity in domestic elections and posed the question that even if Russians are behind the story it just requires journalistic investigation in case Biden is compromised.

"Adam Schiff is seriously the most pathological liar in all of American politics that I've seen in all of my time covering politics and journalism," Greenwald said on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.' "He just fabricates accusations at the drop of the hat at the other people change underwear. He's simply lying when he just asserts over and over that the Russians or the Kremlin are behind the story. He has no idea whether or not that is true. There is no evidence to support it."

"And what makes it so much worse is that the reason that the Bidens aren't answering basic questions about the story," Greenwald said. "Basic questions like did Hunter Biden drop that laptop off of the repair shop? Are the emails authentic? Do you know denied that they are. Do you claim that any have been altered or are any of them fabricated? Did you in fact meet with Barisma executives? The reason they don't answer the questions is because the media has signaled that they don't have to. That journalists will be attacked and vilified simply for asking."

  • Victor Davis Hanson: Will Our Next Revolution Be French, Russian, Maoist, Or American?
  • Glenn Greenwald: Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People
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"The whole point of the Intelligence Community since the end of World War II was that whatever propaganda the CIA produces, whatever disinformation campaigns they engaged were never supposed to be directed domestically," he said. "That was the point of the NSA, the CIA, and all those intelligence communities."

"What we have seen since 2016 going back to the 2016 campaign is incessant involvement in U.S. domestic politics. Working with journalists to disseminate purely for partisan ends. If you want to talk about things like violating norms, and dangers to democracy, what's more dangerous than allowing the CIA constantly to be manipulating our politics by making cover for the Biden campaign by claiming anonymously that the Russians are behind the story and therefore you disregard it. Even if the Russians why does that alleviate the responsibility of journalists to evaluate the emails and to examine whether or not Joe Biden actually engaged in misconduct?" Greenwald asked.

"The much bigger point is the way that the information is being disseminated," he said. "It is a union of journalists who have decided that their only goal is to defend Joe Biden and election him president of the United States working with the FBI, CIA, NSA not to manipulate our adversaries or foreign governments, but to manipulate the American people for their own ends. It's been going on for four straight years now and there's no sign of it stopping anytime soon." Related Videos

[Oct 19, 2020] MI6 outgoing chief: the perceived threat posed by Russia and China against the UK is overstated and distract from addressing the UK's domestic problems

And that's by design. False flags like Scripal Novichok saga are just a smoke screen over UK problems, the ciursi of neoliberalism in the country, delegitimization of neoliberal elites and its subservience to the USA global neoliberal empire, which wants to devour Russia like it plundered the USSR in the past.
But why outgoing MI6 chief decided to tell us the truth? This is not in the traditions of the agency.
Oct 19, 2020 | www.rt.com

After years of focusing on combating terrorism, US Special Forces are preparing to turn their attention to the possibility of future conflict with adversaries Russia and China. The outgoing head of MI6, the UK's clandestine intelligence service, says that the perceived threat posed by Russia and China against the UK is overstated and distract from addressing the UK's domestic problems. Meanwhile, his replacement insists that the threat posed by Russia and China is real and is growing in complexity. Rick Sanchez explains. Then former US diplomat Jim Jatras and "Going Underground" host Afshin Rattansi share their insights.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting for a for a final day of deliberations before the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's controversial pick for the US Supreme Court. RT America's Faran Fronczak reports. RT America's Trinity Chavez reports on the skyrocketing poverty across the US as coronavirus relief funds dry up and the White House stalls on additional stimulus. RT America's John Huddy reports on the backlash against Facebook and Twitter for their suppression of an incendiary new report about Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his foreign entanglements.

[Oct 01, 2020] 'Clueless' former FBI Director James Comey admits the agency's Trump-Russia probe was a ball of bungled confusion by David Haggith

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Senate hearings in Washington have laid bare the failures of the FBI investigation, showing there was never any evidence of 'collusion', and it was all a campaign to 'get Trump'. ..."
"... Wednesday's hearing focused particularly on court warrants obtained by the FBI under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which Committee Chair Lindsey Graham characterized as "a stunning failure of the system." ..."
"... Comey appeared to dodge many of the questions, using a tactic made familiar to the American public during Watergate, responding with a standard "I don't recall." ..."
"... In testimony last week, FBI agent William Barnett, who headed Robert Mueller's investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, revealed that, from his perspective, there was never any evidence to justify an investigation into Flynn's ties to Russia. ..."
"... Barnett claimed that Comey exhibited clear bias in pursuing such alleged ties between Trump and Russia, stating that his superiors in the FBI were simply motivated by a desire to "get Trump." He believed there was nothing there to be found, and the Mueller investigation ultimately did come up with no evidence of collusion between President Trump and Russia. ..."
"... Graham accused the Clinton campaign of "basically trying to create a distraction, accusing Trump of being a Russian agent to distract from her email server problems." ..."
"... Graham pointed out to Comey that a primary document used to attain the FISA warrant "was absolutely full of misinformation and complete lies. Did you know there is no Russian consulate in Miami, and the dossier mentions there was one?" ..."
"... "Do you also know that Michael Cohen's adventures in Prague never happened? The dossier asserts that Michael Cohen went to Prague on some venture for Trump and Russia, and it never happened! And they know it never happened!" ..."
"... "The attorney general went on to say, 'The law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.'" ..."
"... US Senator Ben Sasse eventually got Comey to own up. He prefaced his questioning by saying the many wrongs cataloged in the Horowitz Report were "not just saddening and infuriating," but "also really embarrassing." ..."
"... Comey is doing what criminals who are well-educated attorneys do, and that is to avoid saying anything that could be used in his prosecution and claiming to either be unaware of or to not recall key events and proceedings. ..."
"... Looks like it was compartmentalized so much because it was a scam that the ones who actually didn't know what was going on would've blew the whistle. ..."
Oct 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

Senate hearings in Washington have laid bare the failures of the FBI investigation, showing there was never any evidence of 'collusion', and it was all a campaign to 'get Trump'.

The US Senate Judiciary Committee questioned former FBI Director James Comey during a hearing this week over the recent Horowitz report. That report on the FBI's Trump-Russia probe laid out significant omissions in how the FBI handled its investigation.

Wednesday's hearing focused particularly on court warrants obtained by the FBI under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which Committee Chair Lindsey Graham characterized as "a stunning failure of the system."

'They were trying to take down the president'

Graham began the proceedings by noting that the goal of the Senate's investigative hearing "is to understand how our system got off the rails. ... What kind of system is it that the FBI director has no clue about the most important investigation maybe in the history of the FBI?"

Russiagate, televised: 'The Comey Rule' miniseries shows it's always 2016 for the American establishment

"When does it become obvious," Graham asked, "that the people in charge had a deep-seated bias against Trump?" He took that question further by asserting the appearance of a deep-state soft coup against the president, noting that the omissions in the FBI's process "weren't random; they were politically oriented against the president they were trying to take down!"

And, for the record, Graham noted, "The FBI ignored exculpatory evidence, altered documents from the CIA, had interviews where the sub-source disavowed the accuracy of the document, and never submitted any of that information to the court!"

Comey appeared to dodge many of the questions, using a tactic made familiar to the American public during Watergate, responding with a standard "I don't recall." (During the Nixon Watergate hearings many witnesses prefaced their vague answers with "to the best of my recollection" to avoid the possibility of later being convicted of perjury. After all, who can prove the witnesses' memory wasn't clear? They didn't say something didn't happen, just that, to the best they could remember, it didn't happen.)

Graham began to lose patience with Comey's persistent vaguery and stated at one point,

"Everybody's responsible, but nobody is responsible. Somebody needs to be responsible for misleading the court . What astounds me the most is that the director of the FBI, in charge of this investigation and involving a sitting president, is completely clueless about any of the information obtained by his agency."

Pounding his fist, Graham noted that the information to the courts that Comey had characterized as merely "inadequate" was "criminally inadequate!""How could the system ignore all that?" Graham asked, "How could the director of the FBI not know all of this?"

Trump wants Christopher Steele, UK spy behind 'Russiagate' dossier 'tried and thrown into jail'

Pouring fuel on the fire

Recent declassification of FBI documents related to the Mueller report provided Senate Republicans with new fuel to light under Comey's feet. Graham used the declassified documents to point out that Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe summarized the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton as using "fabrications" , as Graham put it, to "link Trump to Russia and the mob."

Comey could only respond, "I can't answer that. I've read Mr. Ratcliffe's letter, which I have trouble understanding."

In testimony last week, FBI agent William Barnett, who headed Robert Mueller's investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, revealed that, from his perspective, there was never any evidence to justify an investigation into Flynn's ties to Russia.

Barnett claimed that Comey exhibited clear bias in pursuing such alleged ties between Trump and Russia, stating that his superiors in the FBI were simply motivated by a desire to "get Trump." He believed there was nothing there to be found, and the Mueller investigation ultimately did come up with no evidence of collusion between President Trump and Russia.

'Russiagate' case against ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn effectively OVER, as DC appeals court orders to close it

At Wednesday's hearing, Graham summarized the end result of the Mueller investigation, saying,

"After two-and-a-half years, and $25 million, and 60 FBI agents, that job is done, and not one person has been charged with colluding with the Russians in the Trump world. Not one. ... How are we supposed to trust this system without fundamentally changing it?"

Graham accused the Clinton campaign of "basically trying to create a distraction, accusing Trump of being a Russian agent to distract from her email server problems."

Graham pointed out to Comey that a primary document used to attain the FISA warrant "was absolutely full of misinformation and complete lies. Did you know there is no Russian consulate in Miami, and the dossier mentions there was one?"

Graham became more emphatic when asking,

"Do you also know that Michael Cohen's adventures in Prague never happened? The dossier asserts that Michael Cohen went to Prague on some venture for Trump and Russia, and it never happened! And they know it never happened!"

Democrats at the hearing tried to shore up Comey's defense and turn the case against Trump by claiming he had sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding US intelligence agencies. They implied that Trump had defamed US intelligence by saying the various agencies' work was "concerning."

As if to establish this was all demonization of the FBI by the Trump administration, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin quoted US Attorney General William Barr, the ultimate head of the FBI, as stating the FBI's Russia investigation was "abhorrent." Durbin noted,

"The attorney general went on to say, 'The law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.'"

(It was AG William Barr who assigned Horowitz the role of investigating and reporting on the Mueller investigation.)

To that Comey responded, "He says that a lot. I have no idea what on earth he's talking about."

Exhibiting some apparent mental fog, Comey said, "The notion that the attorney general believes that was an illegitimate endeavor to investigate -- that mystifies me."

COMEY urged probe into Flynn by misrepresenting Russian contacts, declassified memo shows

Comey admits: 'It's embarrassing'

Even CNN summarizedComey 's testimony on Wednesday as a "mea culpa."

US Senator Ben Sasse eventually got Comey to own up. He prefaced his questioning by saying the many wrongs cataloged in the Horowitz Report were "not just saddening and infuriating," but "also really embarrassing."

Comey responded,

"I think I share your reaction, Senator Sasse. The collection of omissions, failures to consider updates It's embarrassing. It's sloppy. I run out of words. There's no indication that people were doing bad things on purpose, but that doesn't mean it's not embarrassing."

Sasse next asked Comey, "Doesn't that point at you? ... You were the leader!" to which Comey responded, "This reflects on me entirely, and it's my responsibility . I'm not looking to shirk responsibility."

Sasse further pointed out, "Horowitz's report talks about a FISA [warrant application] process that was riddled with errors. Every single place they looked, it was crap! ... Where were you?"

At that point, Comey reverted to diffusing personal responsibility by saying the whole agency was too relaxed about how the process worked, acknowledging that, as a result, Inspector General Horowitz had "found problems in every FISA application."

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

David Haggith is an author published by Putnam and HarperCollins. He is publisher of The Great Recession Blog and writes for over 50 economic news websites. His Twitter page of economic humor is @EconomicRecess .

Dachaguy 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:34 AM

Comey's actions speak to an effort to stage a coup. As Lindsey Graham pointed out at Brett Kavenaugh's confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court appointment a year or so ago, attempts to remove a sitting President in a time of war can amount to treason and possible death sentence by a military court. America has been in a state of war since Sept. 14, 2001, 3 days after 9-11.
FreedomRain Dachaguy 7 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 01:15 PM
"It was all a mistake. Actually, it was a joke. Nobody got hurt..." - Comey
Richard Coleman Dachaguy 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:41 AM
No, Einstein. A "state of war" exists when Congress in joint session votes a Declaration of War such as happended after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Odinsson 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:40 AM
Jim Comey portrays himself these days to be a cross between Col. Klink and Sgt. Shultz from Hogan's Heroes - an incompetent leader who knows nothing.

Comey is doing what criminals who are well-educated attorneys do, and that is to avoid saying anything that could be used in his prosecution and claiming to either be unaware of or to not recall key events and proceedings.

By taking this approach Comey makes his guilt readily apparent regardless of the smirk on his face which reveals his opinion of himself to be mentally superior to those interviewing him and to have outwitted them.

In order to convict Comey for his crimes it will be necessary for prosecutors to prove his misdeeds by presentation of communications, working papers, and the testimony of others involved.

If Joe Biden is elected, then Jim Comey will get a pass for he would most likely testify against Obama, Biden, and other administration officials in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Cyaxares_425bc 7 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 01:23 PM
If Trump is NOT re-elected in 2020 these investigations of sedition & Federal election interference by the FBI will be dropped by the Harris/Biden administration. (Did I say Harris/Biden? Yes, I did).

Comey, McCabe, Steele, and others will be let off the hook, and probably lauded by the left wing Democrats. This election is much more than appointments to the Supreme Court & left wing ANTIFA mobs. Comey & McCabe need to be humiliated & jailed, with Felony conviction records.

shadow1369 9 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 12:01 PM
We have known the whole thing was a fraud from day one, evidence that we were right has been in the public domain for years, and still none of these weasels are in jail. Unbelievable.
Reilly 6 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 02:36 PM
The silent almost four year coup continues unabated by the remnants of the Obama and Clintonite administration and life long deep state actors in the US government. The only thing that will stop their prosecution is for the democrats to win the election. All the main coup actors are democrats or life long deep state actors, only an election loss will scuttle their long term goals for the USA.
YouLost 9 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 11:32 AM
Just One reason they need Biden to win at any cost or else [some actors of ] the deep state are going down.
UnableSemen 6 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 02:37 PM
Comey was trying to ingratiate himself to Hillary because he thought she would win. I'm sure the pay code for Attorney General is higher than that for FBI Director.
ddeg 8 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 12:26 PM
Amazing stuff, Comey, Clinton and Crew, etc. They are all "sure" when they make their allegations but when it comes they are to answer for their allegations it becomes "I can't recall". The American people fooled by these people are truly dumb.
RedRaindrop 10 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 10:22 AM
What I want to know is... what was Alexander Downers role in it. The FSB could probably tell me, but I'll wait for the official version from Canberra.
Rabidsmurf01 8 hours ago 1 Oct, 2020 12:14 PM
Looks like it was compartmentalized so much because it was a scam that the ones who actually didn't know what was going on would've blew the whistle.

[Sep 30, 2020] DNI Letter Supports Allegation That Hillary Clinton Created 'Russiagate' by b

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... In the infamous Steele dossier , prepared for the Clinton campaign by a 'former' British spy, the first entry that is tying the Trump campaign to the 'Russian DNC hack' was allegedly written on July 28 2016. ..."
"... The president of Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company which investigated the DNC leak, later said that his company never found any proof that Russia had hacked the DNC. ..."
"... The claims made in the Ratcliffe letter fit the timeline of the scandal as it developed. They supports the assertion that the Clinton campaign made up 'Russiagate' from whole cloth. It was supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of high level anti-Trump activists in the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... "There was no transition because they came after me trying to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won and even before I won. From the day I came down the escalator with our First Lady. They were a disaster. They were a disgrace to our country. And we've caught 'em. We've caught 'em all. We've got it all on tape. We've caught 'em all." ..."
"... The need to then cover for murder added to the urgency to propagate the whole "Russiagate" fiction. The US' misnamed "intelligence community" and mass media both were complicit in the murder of Rich, so they had additional motivation to lead the public off the scent with an entirely fabricated false narrative. ..."
"... I doubt that it was solely a Clinton operation. After all, CIA director Mike Morrell kicked it off with his piece in the NY Times, which signaled some significant level of support at least parts of the intelligence community. ..."
"... The whole Russiagate affaire was very reminiscent of the Ken Starr inquisition, which yielded nothing until Bubba cavalierly incriminated himself with Monica. Trump has yet to prove himself that stupid. ..."
"... Remember when Tulsi Gabbard called out Hillary Clinton about getting the media to support her Russiagating of her? ..."
"... "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly." ..."
"... Seriously, Mr. President? You have been given a personal intelligence briefing from your CIA Director that one of the candidates to succeed you in the Presidency is an actual, bought and paid-for agent of Russia? And you don't go public because Ole Meanie Mitch won't let you ? ..."
"... This said to me that Obama knew it was all BS from the beginning. Of course, there have been gobs of disclosures and evidence since that it was fake and BS, and none whatsoever that it was real. ..."
"... Thanks to Wikileaks, we have a copy of an email exchange between Hillary's Campaign Manager, John Podesta and longtime Democratic operative Brent Budowsky talking about how Hillary should take on The Donald. Budowski tells Podesta: "Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria."" ..."
"... The Russiagate fabrication was a political convenience for the Dems, but it allowed Trump and his NATO/EU agents to sanction, pressurise, interfere with Russia in every dimension, because Trump 'had to' to show they he was not Russia's sock puppets! ..."
"... The video I just watched and linked to on the Week in Review thread makes this observation: The Ds burned the US-Russia relationship while the Rs made no real protest; now we have the Rs burning the US-China relationship while the Ds make no real protest. ..."
"... Assange announced on June 12, 2016 that a new tranche of DNC emails had been leaked to Wikileaks and was being prepared for publication. The effort to manufacture the false narrative about Russian hacking began immediately after that, likely within minutes of the announcement. ..."
"... A "populist outsider" will NEVER be allowed to win the Presidency. It was claimed that Obama was also a "populist outsider" yet he served the Deep State/Empire and the US establishment very well. ..."
"... Russiagate was primarily a means of initiating a new McCarthyism as part of a plan to counter Russia and China. ..."
Sep 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Where the allegations that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential elections made up by the Clinton campaign?

A letter sent by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe seems to suggest so :

On Tuesday, Ratcliffe, a loyalist whom Trump placed atop U.S. intelligence in the spring, sent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) a letter claiming that in late July 2016, U.S. intelligence acquired "insight" into a Russian intelligence analysis. That analysis, Ratcliffe summarized in his letter, claimed that Clinton had a plan to attack Trump by tying him to the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee.
...
Ratcliffe stated that the intelligence community "does not know the accuracy of this allegation or to the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication."
bigger

The letter says that then CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on the intelligence. He reported that the Russians believed that Clinton approved the campaign plan on July 26 2016.

So U.S. intelligence spying on Russian intelligence analysts found that the Russians believed that Clinton started a 'Trump is supported by the Russian hacking of the DNC' campaign. The Russian's surely had reason to think that.

Emails from the Democratic National Committee were published by Wikileaks on July 22 2016, shortly before the Democratic National Convention. They proved that during the primaries the DNC had actively worked against candidate Bernie Sanders.

On July 24 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook went on CNN and made, to my knowledge, the very first allegations (video) that Russia had 'hacked' the DNC in support of Donald Trump.

It is likely that the Russian analysts had seen that.

Mook's TV appearance was probably a test balloon raised to see if such claims would stick.

Two days later Clinton allegedly approved campaign plans to emphasize such claims.

In the infamous Steele dossier , prepared for the Clinton campaign by a 'former' British spy, the first entry that is tying the Trump campaign to the 'Russian DNC hack' was allegedly written on July 28 2016.

The president of Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company which investigated the DNC leak, later said that his company never found any proof that Russia had hacked the DNC.

There are suspicions that Seth Rich, an IT administrator for the DNC and Bernie Sanders supporter, has leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks . Rich was murdered on July 10 2016 in Washington DC in an alleged 'robbery' during which nothing was stolen.

The claims made in the Ratcliffe letter fit the timeline of the scandal as it developed. They supports the assertion that the Clinton campaign made up 'Russiagate' from whole cloth. It was supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of high level anti-Trump activists in the FBI and CIA.

Posted by b on September 30, 2020 at 16:04 UTC | Permalink

psychohistorian , Sep 30 2020 16:30 utc | 1

Are you trying to tell me b that "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton is suspected of wrongdoing?/snark

I am all for bringing down the whole house of corrupt cards that fronts for the private finance cult. The Clintons are just examples of semi-recent to recent corruption. Obama is in that boat as is Biden and others.

But just remember that Trump was already entirely corrupt before (s)elected into power. Trump is just another front for global private finance evil that humanity must face.

annie , Sep 30 2020 16:36 utc | 2
i've always suspected (assumed) russiagate came from the clinton campaign.
LXV , Sep 30 2020 16:37 utc | 3
Another "conspiracy theory" turned into conspiracy fact.

With regards to Killary being "supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of anti-Trump activists...", well, it's a pay-to-play world and CGI was the piggybank at that particular time...

james , Sep 30 2020 16:38 utc | 4
thanks b... the timeline certainly fits and is consistent here.... larry johnson at sst has an article up on the same topic... how much of this is coming out now due the election and how much of it is coming out now, just because it happens to be coming out now??
Et Tu , Sep 30 2020 16:41 utc | 5
It's hard to tell when Trump is ever being truthful, but in last night's debate he clearly stated:

"There was no transition because they came after me trying to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won and even before I won. From the day I came down the escalator with our First Lady. They were a disaster. They were a disgrace to our country. And we've caught 'em. We've caught 'em all. We've got it all on tape. We've caught 'em all."

Whether that is indicative of an imminent substantial October surprise i guess we will all have to wait and see.

William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 16:50 utc | 6
The murder/robbery of Seth Rich has frequently been described as "botched" , which I have always felt was a strange way to describe a murder. It is as if the mass media were trying to exculpate the murderer even though we are supposed to not know who the murderer actually is.

So nothing was taken from Rich, but perhaps that is because the murderer couldn't find what he was looking for? The USB thumb drive with the purloined emails, maybe? Of course, by the time Rich was murdered the emails had already been passed along to Wikileaks, but I suppose the murderer might not have known that at the time. That would make an effort to retrieve the emails "botched" , wouldn't it? This suggested to me from the moment that I heard it that those in the mass media who seeded the story of a robbery being "botched" in fact were knowingly covering for the effort to control the leak which was what was "botched" .

The need to then cover for murder added to the urgency to propagate the whole "Russiagate" fiction. The US' misnamed "intelligence community" and mass media both were complicit in the murder of Rich, so they had additional motivation to lead the public off the scent with an entirely fabricated false narrative.

Cousin Jack , Sep 30 2020 16:59 utc | 7
With no evidence at all my suspicion is that Rich was killed as a crime of passion committed by a hotheaded member of his own family, which would explain both the family's reticence and the somewhat muted investigation.
vk , Sep 30 2020 17:05 utc | 8
There are suspicions that Seth Rich, an IT administrator for the DNC and Bernie Sanders supporter, has leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Rich was murdered on July 10 2016 in Washington DC in an alleged 'robbery' during which nothing was stolen.

That explains why Bernie Sanders suddenly became the "sheep dog". He flat out doesn't want to be assassinated and doesn't want his family to be also assassinated.

Bemildred , Sep 30 2020 17:19 utc | 9
Gee, and it isn't even October yet.
karlof1 , Sep 30 2020 17:26 utc | 10
While it would be a boon for the nation, I rather doubt Trump will have Barr indict the Clintons for their crimes or go after the daily fraud committed at the Fed or on Wall Street. I doubt Trump has any inkling that in order to truly make America Great Again he must first destroy the Financial Parasites who caused America's downfall in the first place. Thirty-four days to go.
annie , Sep 30 2020 17:37 utc | 11
Assange repeatedly stated russia didn't leak the emails. i saw no compelling reason to think he would lie about it. then when the steel dossier came out it was so over the top and reeked of fabrication. the whole thing was so far fetched and then ratcheted up 1000 fold after she lost the election as an excuse. she never took any responsibility for her loss.

i think what amazes me most is how the media, and everyone following along, believed this story that drove the narrative for years. this ridiculous obsession with russia was all part of a coverup to distract the public from how rotten to the core the dnc is.

Hoarsewhisperer , Sep 30 2020 18:06 utc | 12
Thanks b.

The mention of Seth Rich in connection with Russiagate prompted a hazy recollection of an article over at SST by Larry C Johnson (LCJ), who has been exposing flaws in the Russiagate fiasco for several years. LCJ deduced from the publicly-available Wikileaks/DNC files that they couldn't have been hacked over the WWW because the timestamp for each file indicated that those files came from a portable device, a thumb drive. From that info, and Assange being very upset about the murder of Seth Rich, LCJ concluded that Rich sent the DNC files to Wikileaks.

I looked up SST's "Russiagate" files and found the relevant article dated August 28, 2019 from which the following brief extract is the section mentioning file-types which LCJ found so compelling...
...
An examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23 and 25 May and 26 August respectively. The fact that they appear in a FAT system format indicates the data was transfered to a storage device, such as a thumb drive.

How can you prove this? The truth lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. Every single one of these time stamps end in even numbers. If you are not familiar with the FAT file system, you need to understand that when a date is stored under this system the data rounds the time to the nearest even numbered second.

Bill examined 500 DNC email files stored on Wikileaks and found that all 500 files ended in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If a system other than FAT had been used, there would have been an equal probability of the time stamp ending with an odd number. But that is not the case with the data stored on the Wikileaks site. All end with an even number.
...

Tuyzentfloot , Sep 30 2020 18:06 utc | 13
Maybe the Russians had read this article from july 26th : http://patricklawrence.us/shades-cold-war-dnc-fabricated-russian-hacker-conspiracy-deflect-blame-email-scandal/.
JohnH , Sep 30 2020 18:13 utc | 14
I doubt that it was solely a Clinton operation. After all, CIA director Mike Morrell kicked it off with his piece in the NY Times, which signaled some significant level of support at least parts of the intelligence community.

The whole Russiagate affaire was very reminiscent of the Ken Starr inquisition, which yielded nothing until Bubba cavalierly incriminated himself with Monica. Trump has yet to prove himself that stupid.

I suspect that Hillary was delighted at the prospect of revenge for all she and Bubba had gone through in the 1990s...except that she totally blew it...

Kali , Sep 30 2020 18:20 utc | 15
Remember when Tulsi Gabbard called out Hillary Clinton about getting the media to support her Russiagating of her? Here it is, you can see she blames Hillary as the source of the story:

"Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly."

The Ballad of Tulsi and Hillary shows us how much the US and the world lost by the media supporting Hillary in her plan to Russiagate the world.

Prairie Bear , Sep 30 2020 18:23 utc | 16
The letter says that then CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on the intelligence. He reported that the Russians believed that Clinton approved the campaign plan on July 26 2016.

I was one of those who thought that the whole Russia conspiracy was dubious from day one, although I might have been kind of, "Well, maybe " for a day or so.

But that line from your post I quoted above points to one of the earliest and most convincing pieces of evidence to me that the whole thing was fake. It was reported early on that Obama had been briefed on the Russian interference and he wanted to go public to the American people about what was going on, but Senator Mitch McConnell wouldn't agree to it!

Seriously, Mr. President? You have been given a personal intelligence briefing from your CIA Director that one of the candidates to succeed you in the Presidency is an actual, bought and paid-for agent of Russia? And you don't go public because Ole Meanie Mitch won't let you ?

This said to me that Obama knew it was all BS from the beginning. Of course, there have been gobs of disclosures and evidence since that it was fake and BS, and none whatsoever that it was real.

Erelis , Sep 30 2020 18:26 utc | 17
Even with all the revelations debunking the whole Russiagate narrative, the Deep State has been successful in instilling in the news media, Hollywood, political elites of both parties, and the overwhelming base of the democratic party that Russia somehow "installed" Trump, that he is a Putin "puppet/puppy" (your choice), and any resistance to establishment democratic party power is due to Russian manipulation of social media, and in general Russia (etc.) is fundamental to causing social and political problems. It took America about seven years to get over McCarthyism. Russiagate will stay in American discourse for a long time.

The dangerous part of Russiagate is that it has reached the level of hysteria that it can be used by American Deep State to justify direct and dangerous confrontations with Russia up to and including war. Russiagate pales the propaganda about Saddam and WNDs. Let us remember that two days into the US invasion of Iraq, the invasion had a 72% approval rating according to Gallup. Any conflict with Russia will probably have even higher approval levels.

Between Trump and Biden, it is Biden who will be the most likely to start the final conflagration.

Tuyzentfloot , Sep 30 2020 18:30 utc | 18
Also nice, a list of journalists, commentators etc & media organizations who never succumbed to Russiagate :

https://medium.com/@codecodekoen/list-of-vindicated-russiagate-skeptics-3f6fc0e55812

spudski , Sep 30 2020 18:50 utc | 21
@19

The probability of all 500 files having even numbers as a random outcome starts with a decimal point followed by 150 zeroes and then a three.

Tuyzentfloot , Sep 30 2020 19:05 utc | 22
@hoarsewhisperer I trust that the time stamps indicates that a FAT format was used at a certain stage. What I don't recall is that how this would exclude workflows which involve an USB stick at any later stage after a hack. I think this technical proof is not as decisive as it seems and calculating huge statistical odds does not change that. The fact that the NSA has not come up with proof, now that does mean something. Something Baskervillish.
Rae , Sep 30 2020 19:25 utc | 23
Who cares.

Found it interesting that in the very mainstream 'Friends' sitcom it was already a joke in the 90s that "gi joe looks after american foreign oil interests".

Except for a few conflict sitreps there really hasn't been much of note posted here this year.

spudski , Sep 30 2020 19:27 utc | 24
Former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney has also argued that the data could not have been hacked because internet speeds at the time were not sufficient for the transfer of the data when it was extracted. He claims that the speed was consistent with saving to a thumb drive.
Bart Hansen , Sep 30 2020 19:35 utc | 25
The word "botched" could have been invented to explain why nothing was stolen, in order to put off those who questioned the motive. No witness came forward but it could be that someone saw the shooting from a distance and yelled at the perp.
Per/Norway , Sep 30 2020 19:46 utc | 26
"Ratcliffe's letter, which is based on information obtained by the CIA, states that Hillary decided on 26 July 2016 to launch the Russia/Trump strategem. But the CIA was mistaken. The Clinton effort started in 2015--December 2015 to be precise.

Thanks to Wikileaks, we have a copy of an email exchange between Hillary's Campaign Manager, John Podesta and longtime Democratic operative Brent Budowsky talking about how Hillary should take on The Donald. Budowski tells Podesta: "Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.""

Larry Johnson wrote today in his article "I Told You Long Ago, Hillary's Team Helped Fabricate the Trump Russia Collusion Lie by Larry C Johnson"

TrixiefromDixie , Sep 30 2020 19:55 utc | 27
If I remember correctly Obummer signed legislation making it ok for the press to openly lie to everyone in the us! HR4310, legalized propaganda for US consumption. He gave us fake news!
powerandpeople , Sep 30 2020 20:11 utc | 28
The constant stream of US, UK, NATO, EU fabrications framing Russia, from MH17, Skripal, 'interfering in elections' garbage, the Navalry poisoning, coupled with endless provocations like interfering in the Syrian settlement, twisting the OPCW work, attempting to destroy the Iran nuclear agreement and so much more appear to -finally - running out Russia's strategic patience with the Trump administration.

1. 24 September Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:

"...the incumbent US administration has lost its diplomatic skills almost for good."

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4350105

2. 30 September FM Lavrov:

"we have come to realise that in terms of Germany and its EU and NATO allies' conduct, ...it is impossible to deal with the West until it stops using provocations and fraud and starts behaving honestly and responsibly."

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4350105

The Russiagate fabrication was a political convenience for the Dems, but it allowed Trump and his NATO/EU agents to sanction, pressurise, interfere with Russia in every dimension, because Trump 'had to' to show they he was not Russia's sock puppets!

Looks like Russia might be shifting strategy from strictly going through the defined and agreed processes in relation to problems with the West to perhaps not engaging so meticulously.

After all, what's the point when the agreed processes are ignored by the other party?

So, does "impossible to deal with" mean "will not deal with"?

We'll see.

karlof1 , Sep 30 2020 20:43 utc | 29
The video I just watched and linked to on the Week in Review thread makes this observation: The Ds burned the US-Russia relationship while the Rs made no real protest; now we have the Rs burning the US-China relationship while the Ds make no real protest.

Many other nations are watching, some already having joined the China-Russia bloc while others get ready as they watch what little remains of US soft power go down the tubes thanks to Imperial tactics being deployed onto US streets. Meanwhile, lurking not too far away is the coming escalation of the financial crisis which Trump's Trade War has exacerbated. Those running this show are myopic to the max--in order to post an economic recovery, the markets existing in those nations now being alienated will be essential since the domestic market will be far too weak to fuel a recovery by itself, even with enlightened leadership.

Eric Zuesse , Sep 30 2020 20:53 utc | 30
Regarding the allegation by "b" that:

"On July 24 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook went on CNN and made, to my knowledge, the very first allegations (video) that Russia had 'hacked' the DNC in support of Donald Trump."

It is not the case that it was the first such allegation. To my knowledge, the first such allegation that was published was published on 14 June 2016 in the Washington Post, headlining "Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump" and I provide here an archived link to it instead of that newspaper's link, so that no paywall will block a reader from seeing that article:
https://archive.is/T4C2G

William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 21:09 utc | 31
powerandpeople @28: "So, does "impossible to deal with" mean "will not deal with"?"

Highly unlikely. The Russians will continue to pursue reason even after the war on Russia goes hot. If the Russians give up on diplomacy then that means Lavrov is out of a job. The Russians are capable of walking and chewing gum, or shooting and talking as the case may be, at the same time.

By the way, I think the same is true for the Chinese, even if they have not done much shooting lately. When America's war against them goes hot they will keep the door to diplomacy open throughout the conflict. Neither of these countries wants a war and it is the US that is pushing for one. They will be happy to stop the killing as soon as the US does.

Personally I think that may be a mistake because when the war goes hot and the US suffers some military defeats and sues for peace, if America still has the capability to wage war then the peace will just be temporary. The US will use any cessation of hostilities to rearm and try to catch its imagined enemies off guard.

Whether or not the US will be able to rearm after significant military defeats in its current de-industrialized condition is another matter.

David , Sep 30 2020 21:28 utc | 32
How can the US possibly contemplate a war with China? The US cannot function without China's production. To cite just one example; eighty percent of US pharmaceuticals are produced in China. The US needs China far more than China needs the US. A war with China is a war the US cannot win.
William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 21:37 utc | 33
Eric Zuesse @30

Assange announced on June 12, 2016 that a new tranche of DNC emails had been leaked to Wikileaks and was being prepared for publication. The effort to manufacture the false narrative about Russian hacking began immediately after that, likely within minutes of the announcement.

Jackrabbit , Sep 30 2020 21:43 utc | 34
We already knew that Hillary had engaged Steele in Spring 2016 as what was termed an "insurance policy". This "insurance" angle makes no sense: 1) Hillary was the overwhelming favorite when she engaged Steele and had virtually unlimited resources that she could call upon. And, 2) the bogus findings in Steele's dossier could easily be debunked by any competent intelligence agency so it wasn't any sort of "insurance" at all.

<> <> <> <> <>

That Hillary started Russiagate is not surprising. This limited hangout, which is so titillating to some, is meant to cover for a far greater conspiracy than Hillary's vindictiveness.

We should first recognize a few things:

  • the Empire is a bi-partisan affair;
  • the Presidency is the lynch-pin of the Empire;
  • it became apparent in 2013-14 that the Empire (aka "World Order") was at grave risk as Russia's newfound militancy showed that her alliance with China had teeth.
  • the 2016 race was KNOWN to be rigged via Hillary's collusion with DNC and Sanders' sheepdogging (Note: After the collusion became know, Hillary gave disgraced Debra Wasserman-Shultz a high-level position within Hillary's campaign - further angering progressives). Why does it surprise anyone that the General Election was also rigged?
These facts lead to the following conclusions:
  1. A "populist outsider" will NEVER be allowed to win the Presidency. It was claimed that Obama was also a "populist outsider" yet he served the Deep State/Empire and the US establishment very well.
  2. Hillary's 2016 "campaign mistakes" were likely deliberate/calculated to allow Trump to win. MAGA Nationalist Trump was the Deep State's favorite. This explains why Trump announced that he would not investigate the Clintons within days of his being elected and why Trump picked close associates of all his 'Never Trump' Deep State enemies to fill key posts in his Administration such as: John Brennan's gal Gina Haspel for CIA Director; John McCain's guy Mike Pence as VP; the Bush's guy William Barr for Attorney General; and the neocon's John Bolton for NSA.
  3. Russiagate was primarily a means of initiating a new McCarthyism as part of a plan to counter Russia and China.

!!
William Gruff , Sep 30 2020 21:46 utc | 35
David @32: "How can the US possibly contemplate a war with China?"

Sadly, the United States is suffering from delusions of exceptionality. Mass psychosis. The importance of industrial capacity is radically underestimated by the top economic theorists (and thus advisors) in the West, and except for some of the deplorable working people in America and perhaps about five or six Marxists in the country, the rest of the American population is equally delusional. "Well, if we can't get it from China then we will just order it from Amazon!

No, really, it's that bad.

[Sep 23, 2020] Another sign of the crisis of legitimacy of neoliberal elite: FBI Agent Who Discovered Hillary's Emails On Weiner Laptop Claims He Was Told To Erase Computer

Highly recommended!
It would be interesting if Durham prove result revealed in October, not matter how whitewashed they are.
From comments below it is lear that for this particular subset neoliberal elite lost all legitimacy
Notable quotes:
"... Told to Erase Laptop Containing Investigation of Anthony Weiner Laptop ..."
"... Robertson alleges that the FBI did nothing for a month after discovering Clinton's emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop. It was only after he spoke with the U.S. Attorney's office overseeing the case, he claims, that the agency took action. ..."
"... Robertson's assertions match up with a Wall Street Journal report from 2018 . In that report, text messages between agent Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, lawyer Lisa Page, indicated the former had been called to discuss the newly discovered emails on September 28th. Those emails wouldn't be revealed until former Director James Comey notified Congress about them on October 28th. ..."
"... A book written by James B . Stewart in 2019 asserts that FBI agents had referred to the discovery of Hillary Clinton's emails as an "oh s***" moment." One agent admitted there were "ten times" as many emails as Comey admitted to publicly. ..."
"... These allegations make it difficult to say Comey did not lie to the public – if not Congress . ..."
"... Recently released documents from the DOJ show multiple FBI officials had "accidentally wiped" their phones after the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) requested them . ..."
"... Erasing evidence is a consistent theme for the Obama-era FBI. Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has voted to authorize over three dozen subpoenas and depositions of some of these officials, including Comey. ..."
"... The difficulty is not just that Comey and his underlings were obstructing justice to benefit Clinton, and made a total **** show of it. It is that Sessions was, "to protect the DOJ"... and Barr, also, clearly, as long he continues to run interference for Comey, Clinton, et al, is also obstructing justice. Barr has crafted a veneer, it seems... in the Durham probe... to provide himself plausible deniability. That veneer can remain plausible only as long as Durham does nothing, and fails to make the files public. ..."
"... It was the NYPD. And, that cadre of NYPD officers recognized what was likely to happen when they did turn it over to the FBI. So they made copies. And, the copies got distributed to the cloud. ..."
"... The emails are in the stellarwind database , according to William Binney. So are all the texts that the Mueller crew "erased." IntercoursetheEU is correct - every email and text ever sent is archived in that database. ..."
"... Where is that slimy, former CIA Director who wouldn't shut-up on national TV from late 2016 to early 2020? Hhmm, not a freaking peep nor have I seen any recent images. How about the dirtball, prior FBI Dir? His Twitter acct has only had "quotes" posted for about a month now. ..."
"... Clapper? Another Trump trasher on constant TV the last few years.....where is he? NOT A PEEP. Why wouldn't he keep trashing to diminish DJT's election chances? ..."
"... Brennan was on an MSNBC panel last week pale, sweating, moving around in his seat at the mere mention of John Durham. Not his usual cocky self that's for sure. ..."
Sep 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Rusty Weiss via The Political Insider blog,

FBI agent John Robertson, the man who found Hillary Clinton's emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, claims he was advised by bosses to erase his own computer.

Former FBI Director James Comey, you may recall, announced days before the 2016 presidential election that he had "learned of the existence" of the emails on Weiner's laptop .

Weiner is the disgraced husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Robertson alleges that the manner in which his higher-ups in the FBI handled the case was "not ethically or morally right."

His startling claims are made in a book titled, "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election," an excerpt of which has been published by the Washington Post .

Told to Erase Laptop Containing Investigation of Anthony Weiner Laptop

Robertson alleges that the FBI did nothing for a month after discovering Clinton's emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop. It was only after he spoke with the U.S. Attorney's office overseeing the case, he claims, that the agency took action.

"He had told his bosses about the Clinton emails weeks ago," the book contends . "Nothing had happened."

"Or rather, the only thing that had happened was his boss had instructed Robertson to erase his computer work station."

This, according to the Post report, was to "ensure there was no classified material on it," but also would eliminate any trail of his actions taken during the investigation.

FBI Did Nothing About Hillary Clinton's Emails For Months?

Robertson's assertions match up with a Wall Street Journal report from 2018 . In that report, text messages between agent Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, lawyer Lisa Page, indicated the former had been called to discuss the newly discovered emails on September 28th. Those emails wouldn't be revealed until former Director James Comey notified Congress about them on October 28th.

A book written by James B . Stewart in 2019 asserts that FBI agents had referred to the discovery of Hillary Clinton's emails as an "oh s***" moment." One agent admitted there were "ten times" as many emails as Comey admitted to publicly.

These allegations make it difficult to say Comey did not lie to the public – if not Congress .

Robertson's story is being revealed as U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the FBI's role in the origins of the Russia probe into President Trump's campaign.

Recently released documents from the DOJ show multiple FBI officials had "accidentally wiped" their phones after the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) requested them .

Erasing evidence is a consistent theme for the Obama-era FBI. Meanwhile, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has voted to authorize over three dozen subpoenas and depositions of some of these officials, including Comey.

Democrats seem skittish about what Durham is uncovering .

Four House committee chairs last week asked for an "emergency" review of Attorney General William Barr's handling of Durham's probe.

"We are concerned by indications that Attorney General Barr might depart from longstanding DOJ principles," a letter to the IG reads .

They contend Barr may "take public action related to U.S. Attorney Durham's investigation that could impact the presidential election." Top Democrats have also been threatening to impeach Barr over the investigation.

Kevin Clinesmith, one of the FBI officials involved in gathering evidence in the Russia investigation, pled guilty last month to making a false statement. He was accused by the Inspector General of altering an email about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

President Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, said in July that he expects further indictments and jail time to come out of Durham's probe. Democrats, Comey, and others at the FBI might be a little nervous.

DaiRR , 12 hours ago

DemoRat operatives still pervade the DOJ and to a lesser extent the FBI. Treasonous F's all of them. Andrew Weissmann is an evil a Rat as any of them and he should be tried, disbarred and punished for all his lying and despicable crimes while at the DOJ. Of course MSNBC now loves paying him to be their "legal analyst".

MissCellany , 13 hours ago

What, like with a cloth or something?

RoadKill4Supper , 12 hours ago

"What difference, at this point, does it make?"

FBGnome , 3 hours ago

The current election would be at stake.

Unknown User , 14 hours ago

Unless the Swamp does it. Not just a post or a website disappear, people disappear.

Sense , 13 hours ago

The difficulty is not just that Comey and his underlings were obstructing justice to benefit Clinton, and made a total **** show of it. It is that Sessions was, "to protect the DOJ"... and Barr, also, clearly, as long he continues to run interference for Comey, Clinton, et al, is also obstructing justice. Barr has crafted a veneer, it seems... in the Durham probe... to provide himself plausible deniability. That veneer can remain plausible only as long as Durham does nothing, and fails to make the files public.

Only if Durham proceeds to use the files, and/or makes the files public, will we find out if we get prosecutions, or if we get more obstruction under Barr's watch. So, Barr is carrying a pretty big hammer. It isn't at all clear what he intends to do with that hammer, or how he intends to use it if he does.

A wild card, perhaps, in the potential for an Senate or House investigation including Barr's forced participation... in response to which he might be compelled to answer the unasked question ? Makes it kind of hard to see how "investigating Barr"... poses a threat to Barr, or Trump... rather than a threat to those investigating him ? The fact they're even twittering about it suggests more than awareness about the content of that information... and thus maybe complicity in the effort to cover it up ?

That would explain most of the events of the last four years.

And, as a note, it wasn't "the FBI" that "found the e-mails" (and other files) on the Weiner laptop.

It was the NYPD. And, that cadre of NYPD officers recognized what was likely to happen when they did turn it over to the FBI. So they made copies. And, the copies got distributed to the cloud.

It is not possible, I'd think, that Julian Assange didn't get a copy... in case you wonder why Barr's DOJ is still prosecuting journalism. I doubt they're doing that because of past publication... rather than in an effort to prevent future publication. Because Assange... in all likelihood... might be the only journalist left in the world... who will not be coerced into withholding publication.

ElmerTwitch , 12 hours ago

The emails are in the stellarwind database , according to William Binney. So are all the texts that the Mueller crew "erased." IntercoursetheEU is correct - every email and text ever sent is archived in that database.

The DOJ is indeed protecting Obama, Hillary, Comey, Brennan, Clapper et al. by claiming "the emails are gone! The texts are gone, too!"

sparky139 , 12 hours ago

What is the stellarwind database

TheReplacement's Replacement , 1 hour ago

Look up NSA.

takeaction , 15 hours ago

As all of us here on ZH understand. NOTHING WILL EVER HAPPEN... And Trump Team....if you are reading this... THIS IS THE BIGGEST LET DOWN OF YOUR ENTIRE PRESIDENCY...

No_Pretzel_Logic , 14 hours ago

takeaction - I disagree. I think things are happening right now....out of the country.

TRIALS.....

Where is that slimy, former CIA Director who wouldn't shut-up on national TV from late 2016 to early 2020? Hhmm, not a freaking peep nor have I seen any recent images. How about the dirtball, prior FBI Dir? His Twitter acct has only had "quotes" posted for about a month now.

Clapper? Another Trump trasher on constant TV the last few years.....where is he? NOT A PEEP. Why wouldn't he keep trashing to diminish DJT's election chances?

I'm telling ya, I think they are on a certain Caribbean Island. And my wager is that Trump is going to toss a wild curveball into this election about the 3rd week of Oct.

Treason convictions announced, is my bet.

maggie2now , 13 hours ago

Brennan was on an MSNBC panel last week pale, sweating, moving around in his seat at the mere mention of John Durham. Not his usual cocky self that's for sure. HRC was online flapping her yap with Jennifer Palmieri not too long ago trying to convince the Biden campaign not to concede the 2020 election under any circumstances. As for Clapper, I don't know - maybe hiding in a remote location ****ting himself?

MoreFreedom , 12 hours ago

They've shut up because their actions betray them. Publicly they say Trump is a Russian spy or puppet, while under oath, in a closed room, representing their former government position and top secret clearance, they've no information to support it. That shows an anti-Trump political motivation, regarding their prior actions in government. It's also defrauding the public and government.

YouJustCouldnt , 2 hours ago

Couldn't agree more. How many times have we been here before!

20 years on from 9/11 - From the thousands of experts on the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth , the latest news is that The National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST ) is now more than a week late in issuing its "initial decision" on the pending "request for correction" to its 2008 report on the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. Big Whoop - and just another nothing burger.

Ms No , 15 hours ago

Uhhhh.....yeah.

We have seen this type of thing since JFK. If you hadn't long ago figured this out then you are either an amateur or a paid internet herd-moving troll/anti-human.

Some of us aren't part of the herd.

(((Anthony Weiner))), just like (((Mossad Epstein honeypot))) and (((lucky Larry Silverstein))), countless other examples that blow statistical likelihood way beyond coincidence.

Not rocket science. Its a mob and these are their puppets and fronts. They dont just own the FBI. They own all branches of your government and all the alphabets.

Enjoying the covid hysteria and run-up to WWIII?

Unknown User , 14 hours ago

If by (((they))) you mean the British who created the OSA and then the CIA. They also created all the think-tanks, like the CFR. They own the Fed and run the worldwide banking cartel. The British Crown owns all the countries of the Commonwealth. And they started the COVID-19 delusion. Yes. Make no mistake. It is (((THEY))).

VWAndy , 15 hours ago

An he didnt go public with it either.

occams razor. they are all corrupt.

Stackers , 15 hours ago

Anyone who thinks that anybody beyond this low level flunky, Kliensmith, is going to get any kind of prosecution is dreaming. None of these people will face any consequences to their outright sedition and they know it. Disgusting.

radical-extremist , 15 hours ago

She created a private personal server to purposely circumvent the FOIA system and any other prying eyes. Her staff was warned not to do it, but they refused to confront her about it. They were so technically inept that they didn't understand emails are copied on to servers everywhere...including the pentagon and the state department. And Huma's laptop that her perv husband used to sext girls.

She maintained and exchanged Top Secret information on a personal/private/unsecured server in her house. That is a crime punishable with prison time...and yet she skates.

High Vigilante , 15 hours ago

This guy should avoid walking out in dark.

His name was Seth!

Bay of Pigs , 13 hours ago

We have to face reality. If Durham doesn't indict some of these people before the election, nothing is going to happen. It's the end of the line. Time has run out.

"We bullsh#tted some folks...."

dogfish , 13 hours ago

Trump is a charlatan and a fraud. The only winners with Trump are the Zionist they are Trumps top priority.

play_arrow
OCnStiggs , 13 hours ago

Good thing NYPD copied the HD on that laptop for just this occurrence. There reportedly at least two copies in safes in NYC. Criminality of the highest order that eclipses by 100,000,000 whatever happened in Watergate. These FBI people need to hang.

Sparehead , 13 hours ago

Safe in NYC? Like all the evidence of criminal banking activity that was lost in World Trade Center 7?

4Y_LURKER , 12 hours ago

Oh look! We found passports even though steel and gold was vaporized by jet fuel!!

NIST is a cornspiracy theory!

you're cornfused

[Sep 09, 2020] Proof of collusion at last! - IRRUSSIANALITY

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Guardian ..."
"... BNE Intellinews ..."
"... bne IntelliNews ..."
"... The idea, therefore, that Paul Manafort was an agent of influence for the Russian government flies against everything we know about what he actually did. As for Kilimnik, maybe he is a Russian intelligence agent – I'm not in a position to say. But if he is, he's a very weird one, who spent years actively pushing the Ukrainian government to pursue a policy which directly contradicted Russian interests. ..."
"... None of this, needless to say, appears in the US Senate report. Instead, the report chooses to focus on the apparently shocking revelation that Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, as if this sharing of private information was in some ways a massive threat to national security and proof that Manafort was working for the Russians. The fact that both Manafort and Kilimnik spent years doing their damnedest to undermine Russia is simply ignored. Go figure! ..."
Sep 09, 2020 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

PROOF OF COLLUSION AT LAST! SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 PAULR 18 COMMENTS

Despite the secondary roles played some bit part actors in the Russiagate drama, the central figure in allegations that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to be elected as president of the United States has always been Trumps' onetime campaign manager Paul Manafort. The recent US Senate report on Russian 'interference' in the 2016 presidential election thus started off its analysis with a long exposé of Manafort's comings and goings.

Simply put, the thesis is as follows: while working in Ukraine as an advisor to 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich, Manafort was in effect working on behalf of the Russian state via 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian oligarchs as well as Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska (a man with 'close ties' to the Kremlin). Also suspicious was Manafort's close relationship with one Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the US Senate claims is a Russia intelligence agent. All these connections meant that while in Ukraine, Manafort was helping the Russian Federation spread its malign influence. On returning to the USA and joining the Trump campaign, he then continued to fulfill the same role.

The fundamental flaw in this thesis has always been the well-known fact that while advising Yanukovich, Manafort took anything but a 'pro-Russian' position, but instead pressed him to sign an association agreement with the European Union (EU). Since gaining independence, Ukraine had avoided being sucked either into the Western or the Russian camp. But the rise of two competing geopolitical projects – the EU and the Russia-backed Eurasian Union – was making this stance increasingly impossible, and Ukraine was being put in a position where it would be forced to choose. This was because the two Unions are incompatible – one can't be in two customs unions simultaneously, when they levy different tariffs and have different rules. Association with the EU meant an end to the prospect of Ukraine joining the Eurasian Union. It was therefore a goal which was entirely incompatible with Russian interests, which required that Ukraine turn instead towards Eurasia.

Manafort's position on this matter therefore worked against Russia. Even The Guardian journalist Luke Harding had to concede this in his book Collusion , citing a former Ukrainian official Oleg Voloshin that, 'Manafort was an advocate for US interests. So much so that the joke inside [Yanunkovich's] Party of Regions was that he actually worked for the USA.'

If anyone had any doubts about this, they can now put them aside. On Monday, the news agency BNE Intellinews announced that it had received a leak of hundreds of Kilimnik's emails detailing his relationship with Manafort and Yanukovich. The story they tell is not at all what the US Senate and other proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion fantasy would have you believe. As BNE reports:

Today the Yanukovych narrative is that he was a stool pigeon for Russian President Vladimir Putin from the start, but after winning the presidency he actually worked very hard to take Ukraine into the European family. As bne IntelliNews has already reported, Manafort's flight records also show how he crisscrossed Europe in an effort to build support in Brussels for Yanukovych in the run up to the EU Vilnius summit.

On March 1, his first foreign trip as newly minted president was to the EU capital of Brussels. The leaked emails show that Manafort influenced Yanukovych's decision to visit Brussels as first stop, working in concert with his assistant Konstantin Kilimnik In a memorandum entitled 'Purpose of President Yanukovych Trip to Brussels,' Manafort argued that the decision to visit Brussels first would underscore Yanukovych's mission to "bring European values to Ukraine," and kick start negotiations on the Association Agreement.

The memorandum on the Brussels visit was the first of many from Manafort and Kilimnik to Yanukovych, in which they pushed Yanukovych to signal a clear pro-EU line and to carry out reforms to back this up.

To handle Yanukovych's off-message antics, Manafort and Kilimnik created a back channel to Yanukovych for Western politicians – in particular those known to appreciate Ukraine's geopolitical significance vis-à-vis Russia. In Europe, these were Sweden's then foreign minister Carl Bildt, Poland's then foreign minister Radosław Sikorski and European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule, and in the US, Vice President Joe Biden.

"We need to launch a 'Friends of Ukraine' programme to help us use informal channels in talks on the free trade zone and modernisation of the gas transport system," Manafort and Kilimnik wrote to Yanukovych in September 2010. "Carl Bildt is the foundation of this informal group and has sufficient weight with his colleagues in questions connected to Ukraine and the Eastern Partnership. ( ) but he needs to be able to say that he has a direct channel to the President, and he knows that President Yanukovych remains committed to European integration."

Beyond this, the emails show that Manafort and Kilimnik also tried hard to arrange a meeting between Yanukovich and US President Barack Obama, and urged Yanukovich to show leniency to former Prime Minister Yuliia Timoshenko (who was imprisoned for fraud).

It is noticeable that the members of the 'back channel' Manafort and Kilimnik created to lobby on behalf of Ukraine in the EU included some of the most notably Russophobic European politicians of the time, such as Carl Bildt and Radek Sikorski. Moreover, nowhere in any of what they did can you find anything that could remotely be described as 'pro-Russian'. Indeed, the opposite is true. As previously noted, Ukraine's bid for an EU agreement directly challenged a key Russian interest – the expansion of the Eurasian Union to include Ukraine. Manafort and Kilimnik were therefore very much working against Russia, not for it.

The idea, therefore, that Paul Manafort was an agent of influence for the Russian government flies against everything we know about what he actually did. As for Kilimnik, maybe he is a Russian intelligence agent – I'm not in a position to say. But if he is, he's a very weird one, who spent years actively pushing the Ukrainian government to pursue a policy which directly contradicted Russian interests.

None of this, needless to say, appears in the US Senate report. Instead, the report chooses to focus on the apparently shocking revelation that Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, as if this sharing of private information was in some ways a massive threat to national security and proof that Manafort was working for the Russians. The fact that both Manafort and Kilimnik spent years doing their damnedest to undermine Russia is simply ignored. Go figure!

[Aug 16, 2020] CIA Behind Guccifer Russiagate A Plausible Scenario

Highly recommended!
Aug 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

If Zerohedge comment reflect general population sentiments this is clear sign of the crisis of legitimacy of neoliberal élite.

Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

William Binney is the former technical director of the U.S. National Security Agency who worked at the agency for 30 years. He is a respected independent critic of how American intelligence services abuse their powers to illegally spy on private communications of U.S. citizens and around the globe.

Given his expert inside knowledge, it is worth paying attention to what Binney says.

In a media interview this week, he dismissed the so-called Russiagate scandal as a "fabrication" orchestrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency. Many other observers have come to the same conclusion about allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections with the objective of helping Donald Trump get elected.

But what is particularly valuable about Binney's judgment is that he cites technical analysis disproving the Russiagate narrative. That narrative remains dominant among U.S. intelligence officials, politicians and pundits, especially those affiliated with the Democrat party, as well as large sections of Western media. The premise of the narrative is the allegation that a Russian state-backed cyber operation hacked into the database and emails of the Democrat party back in 2016. The information perceived as damaging to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was subsequently disseminated to the Wikileaks whistleblower site and other U.S. media outlets.

A mysterious cyber persona known as "Guccifer 2.0" claimed to be the alleged hacker. U.S. intelligence and news media have attributed Guccifer as a front for Russian cyber operations.

Notably, however, the Russian government has always categorically denied any involvement in alleged hacking or other interference in the 2016 U.S. election, or elections thereafter.

William Binney and other independent former U.S. intelligence experts say they can prove the Russiagate narrative is bogus. The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. These independent experts conclude that the data from the Democrat party could not have been hacked, as Guccifer and Russiagaters claim. It could only have been obtained by a leak from inside the party, perhaps by a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. That means the "Russian hacker" claims are baseless.

Wikileaks, whose founder Julian Assange is currently imprisoned in Britain pending an extradition trial to the U.S. to face espionage charges, has consistently maintained that their source of files was not a hacker, nor did they collude with Russian intelligence. As a matter of principle, Wikileaks does not disclose the identity of its sources, but the organization has indicated it was an insider leak which provided the information on senior Democrat party corruption.

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William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources. It is known from information later disclosed by former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the CIA has a secretive program – Vault 7 – which is dedicated to false incrimination of cyber attacks to other actors. It seems that the purpose of Guccifer was to create the perception of a connection between Wikileaks and Russian intelligence in order to beef up the Russiagate narrative.

"So that suggested [to] us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA I'm pointing to that group as the group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the entire story of Russiagate," concludes Binney in his interview with Sputnik news outlet.

This is not the first time that the Russiagate yarn has been debunked . But it is crucially important to make Binney's expert views more widely appreciated especially as the U.S. presidential election looms on November 3. As that date approaches, U.S. intelligence and media seem to be intensifying claims about Russian interference and cyber operations. Such wild and unsubstantiated "reports" always refer to the alleged 2016 "hack" of the Democrat party by "Guccifer 2.0" as if it were indisputable evidence of Russian interference and the "original sin" of supposed Kremlin malign activity. The unsubstantiated 2016 "hack" is continually cited as the "precedent" and "provenance" of more recent "reports" that purport to claim Russian interference.

Given the torrent of Russiagate derivatives expected in this U.S. election cycle, which is damaging U.S.-Russia bilateral relations and recklessly winding up geopolitical tensions, it is thus of paramount importance to listen to the conclusions of honorable experts like William Binney.

The American public are being played by their own intelligence agencies and corporate media with covert agendas that are deeply anti-democratic.

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lay_arrow desertboy , 13 hours ago

Well - who set up them up, converted from the OSS? The banksters.

"Wild Bill" Donovan worked for JP Morgan immediately after WWII.

"our" US intelligence agencies were set up by, and serve, the masters of high finance. Is this in dispute?

meditate_vigorously , 11 hours ago

They have seeded enough misinformation that apparently it is. But, you are correct. It is the Banksters.

Isisraelquaeda , 2 hours ago

Israel. The CIA was infiltrated by the Mossad long ago.

SurfingUSA , 15 hours ago

JFK was on to that truth, and would have been wise to mini-nuke Langley before his ill-fated journey to Dallas.

Andrew G , 11 hours ago

Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman

vova.2018 , 7 hours ago

Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman

The CIA & MOSSAD work hand in hand in all their clandestine operations. There is not doubt the CIA/MOSSAD are behind the creation, evolution, training, supplying weapons, logistic-planning & financing of the terrorists & the destruction of the Middle East. Anybody that believes the contrary has brain problems & need to have his head examined.

CIA/MOSAD has been running illegal activities in Colombia: drug, arms, organs & human (child-sex) trafficking. CIA/MOSAD is also giving training, logistic & arms to Colombia paramilitary for clandestine operation against Venezuela. After Bolsonaro became president, MOSSAD started running similar operation in Brazil. Israel & Brazil also recognizes Guaido as the legit president of Venezuela.

​​​​​​CIA/MOSSAD have a long time policy of assassinating & taking out pep who are a problem to the revisionist-zionist agenda, not just in the M-East but in the world. The CIA/MOSSAD organizations have many connections in other countries like the M-East, Saudi Arabia, UAE, et al but also to the UK-MI5.

The Israelis infiltrated the US to the highest levels a long time ago - Proof

  • Israel has & collects information (a database) of US citizens in coordination with the CIA & the 5 eyes.
  • Israel works with the NSA in the liaison-loophole operations
  • Mossad undercover operations in WDC & all over the world
  • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC
  • People with 2 citizenships (US/Israel) in WDC/NYC (the real Power)
  • From Steve Bannon a christian-zionist: Collusion between the Trump administration and Israel .
  • D-Trump, Ivanka Trump & husband Kushner (orthodox Juus)
  • Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell, members of the MOSSAD ran their entire pedo-honey-pot operation for the CIA/Mossad
  • CIA/MOSSA want to punish Iran for its role in Syria's victory over ISIS (created by CIA/Mossad) - PROOF: McCain Armed ISIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziNlUuc167E

New book details Israel's secret history of assassinations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge-mnC2wGss

CIA Assassination Manual Revealed (CIA = Cover action agency)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3gQfoFCpPs

GreatUncle , 6 hours ago

Well I never expected anything different.

They have a hand in everything and probably the murder of JFK.

Hell the CIA have even had their own president.

They are supposed to be commanded by the president but personally I think they are a rogue operation controlled by somebody else.

Lyman54 , 16 hours ago

Millie Weavers documentary explains everything quite well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFxVvrXjCg

sborovay07 , 15 hours ago

Funny how a number of the right wing conspiracy stories according to the MSM from a couple years back were true from the get go. 1 indictment over 4 years in the greatest attempted coup in this country's history. So sad that Binney and Assange were never listened to. They can try to silence us who know of the truth, but as Winston Churchill once said, 'Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.' KDP still censors my book on their advertising platform as it promotes conspiratorial theories (about the Obama led coup) and calls out BLM and Antifa for what they are (marxists) . Yet the same platform still recommends BLM books stating there is a pandemic of cops killing innocent blacks. F them!!!! #RIPSeth #FreeJulian #FreeMillie

smacker , 11 hours ago

Yes, and we all know the name of the DNC leaker who downloaded and provided WikiLeaks
with evidence of CIA and DNC corruption.
He was assassinated to prevent him from naming who Guccifer 2.0 was and where he is located.

The Russia-gate farce itself provides solid evidence that the CIA and others are in bed with DNC
and went to extraordinary lengths to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed, they instigated
a program of x-gates to get him out of office any way they could. This continues to this day.

This is treason at the highest level.

ACMeCorporations , 12 hours ago

Hacking? What Russian hacking?

In recently released testimony, the CEO of CrowdStrike admitted in congressional testimony, under oath, that it actually has no direct evidence Russia stole the DNC emails.

Nelbev , 9 hours ago

"The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. ... a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. ... William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources. ... "

Any computer file is a bunch of 1s and 0s. Anyone can change anything with a hex editor. E.g. I had wrong dates on some photographs once, downloaded as opposed to when taken, just edited the time stamp. You cannot claim any time stamp is original. If true time stamps, then the DNC files were downloaded to a thumb drive at a computer on location and not to the internet via a phone line. However anyone can change the time stamps. Stating a "mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital [Russian] 'fingerprints' " is a joke if denying the file time stamps were not tampered with. The real thing is where the narrative came from, political spin doctors, Perkins Coie law firm hired by DNC and Hillary campaign who hired Crowdstrike [and also hired Fusion GPS before for pissgate dossier propaganda and FISC warrants to spy on political opponents] and Perkins Coie edited Crowdstrike report with Russian narrative. FBI never looked at DNC servers. This is like your house was broken into. You deny police the ability to enter and look at evidence like DNC computers. You hire a private investigator to say your neighbor you do not like did it and publicise accusations. Take word of political consultants hired, spin doctor propaganda, Crowdstrike narrative , no police investigation. Atlantic Council?

Vivekwhu , 8 hours ago

The Atlantic Council is another NATO fart. Nuff said!

The_American , 15 hours ago

God Damn traitor Obama!

Yen Cross , 14 hours ago

TOTUS

For the youngsters.

Teleprompter Of The United States.

Leguran , 6 hours ago

The CIA has gotten away with so much criminal behavior and crimes against the American public that this is totally believable. Congress just lets this stuff happen and does nothing. Which is worse - Congress or the CIA?

Congress set up the system. It is mandated to perform oversight. And it just sits on its thumbs and wallows in it privileges.

This time Congress went further than ever before. It was behind and engaged in an attempted coup d'état.

Know thy enemy , 10 hours ago

Link to ShadowGate (ShadowNet) documentary - which answers the question, what is the keystone,,,,,

https://www.pscp.tv/Tore_says/1RDGlrYynRgxL

"Comey here, and Holder, while I get a rope for Lynch, and don't forget Brennan."

Kudo's to Millie

DontHateMeBecauseImABureaucrat , 9 hours ago

Neither google nor Apple will open the link. Or it's not there.

bringonthebigone , 8 hours ago

currently it is up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFxVvrXjCg

I Claudius , 5 hours ago

It's time for Assange and Wikileaks to name the person who they rec'd the info from. By hiding behind the "we don't name names" Mantra they are helping destroy America by polarizing its citizens. Name the damn person, get it all out there so the left can see that they've been played by their leaders. Let's cut this crap.

freedommusic , 7 hours ago

...all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0.

Yep, I knew since day one. I remember seeing Hillary Clinton talking about Guccifer . As soon as uttered the name, I KNEW she with the CIA were the brainchild of this bogus decoy.

They copy. They mimic. These are NOT creative individuals.

Perhaps hell is too good a place for them.

on target , 4 hours ago

This is old news but worth bringing up again. The CIA never wanted Trump in, and of course, they want him out. Their fingerprints were all over Russiagate, The Kavanaugh hearings, Ukrainegate, and on and on. They are just trying to cover their asses for a string of illegal "irregularities" in their operations for years. Trump should never have tried to be a get along type of guy. He should have purged the entire leadership of the CIA on day one and the FBI on day 2. They can not be trusted with an "America First" agenda. They are all New World Order types who know whats best for everyone.

fersur , 7 hours ago

Boom, Boom, Boom !

Three Reseachable Tweets thru Facebook, I cut all at once, Unedited !

"#SusanRice has as much trouble with her memory as #HillaryClinton. Rice testified in writing that she 'does not recall' who gave her key #Benghazi talking points she used on TV, 'does not recall' being in any meetings regarding Benghazi in five days following the attack, and 'does not recall' communicating with anyone in Clinton's office about Benghazi," Tom Fitton in Breitbart.

"Adam Schiff secretly subpoenaed, without court authorization, the phone records of Rudy Giuliani and then published the phone records of innocent Americans, including @realDonaldTrump 's lawyers, a member of Congress, and a journalist," @TomFitton .

BREAKING: Judicial Watch announced today that former #Obama National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, admitted in written responses given under oath that she emailed with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Clinton's non-government email account and that she received emails related to government business on her own personal email account.

STONEHILLADY , 7 hours ago

It's not just the Democrats, the warmongering neocons of the Republican party are also in on it, the Bush/Romney McCain/McConnell/Cheney and many more. It's called "Kick Backs" Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up working for all these spying companies that span the 5eyes to Israel. It seems our POTUS has got his hands full swimming up stream to get this stopped and actually get rid of the CIA. It's the number 1 reason he doesn't trust these people, they all try to tell him stuff that is mis-directed.

Liars, leakers, and thieves are running not only our nation but the world, as George Carlin said, "It's a Big Club, and we ain't in it." If you fall for this false narrative of mail in voting and not actually go and vote on election day, you better start learning Chinese for surely Peelosi and Schumer will have their way and mess up this election so they can drag Trump out of office and possible do him and his family some serious harm, all because so many of you listen to the MSM and don't research their phony claims.

Max21c , 7 hours ago

It's called "Kick Backs" Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up working for all these spying companies that span the 5eyes to Israel.

American Generals & Admirals are a lot more corrupt today than they were a few generations back. Many of them are outright evil people in today's times. Many of these people are just criminals that will steal anything they can get their banana republic klepto-paws on. They're nothing but common criminals and thieves. No different than the Waffen SS or any other group of brigands, bandits, and criminal gangsters.

Max21c , 7 hours ago

The CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, Pentagon Gestapo, defense contractors are mixed up in a lot of crimes and criminal activities on American soil against American citizens and American civilians. They do not recognize borders or laws or rights of liberty or property rights or ownership or intellectual property. They're all thieves and criminals in the military secret police and secret police gangsters cabal.

BandGap , 7 hours ago

I have seen Binney's input. He is correct in my view because he scientifically/mathematically proves his point.

The blinded masses do not care about this approach, just like wearing masks.

The truth is too difficult for many to fit into their understanding of the world.

So they repeat what they have been told, never stopping to consider the facts or how circumstances have been manipulated.

It is frustrating to watch, difficult to navigate at times for me. Good people who will not stop and think of what the facts show them.

otschelnik , 8 hours ago

It could have been the CIA or it could have been one of the cut-outs for plausible deniability, and of all the usual suspects it was probably CrowdStrike.

- CGI / Global Strategy Group / Analysis Corp. - John Brennan (former CEO)

- Dynology, Wikistrat - General James L. Jones (former chairman of Atlantic Council, NSA under Obama)

- CrowdStrike - Dmitri Alperovich and Shawn Henry (former chief of cyber forensics FBI)

- Clearforce - Michael Hayden (former dir. NSA under Clinton, CIA under Bush) and Jim Jones Jr. (son Gnrl James Jones)

- McChrystal Group - Stanley McChrystal (former chief of special operations DOD)

fersur , 8 hours ago

Unedited !

The Brookings Institute – a Deep State Hub Connected to the Fake Russia Collusion and Ukraine Scandals Is Now Also Connected to China Spying In the US

The Brookings Institute was heavily involved in the Democrat and Deep State Russia collusion hoax and Ukraine impeachment fraud. These actions against President Trump were criminal.

This institute is influenced from foreign donations from entities who don't have an America first agenda. New reports connect the Institute to Chinese spying.

As we reported previously, Julie Kelly at American Greatness released a report where she addresses the connections between the Brookings Institute, Democrats and foreign entities. She summarized her report as follows: Accepting millions from a state sponsor of terrorism, foisting one of the biggest frauds in history on the American people, and acting as a laundering agent of sorts for Democratic political contributions disguised as policy grants isn't a good look for such an esteemed institution. One would be hard-pressed to name a more influential think tank than the Brookings Institution. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit routinely ranks at the top of the list of the best think tanks in the world; Brookings scholars produce a steady flow of reports, symposiums, and news releases that sway the conversation on any number of issues ranging from domestic and economic policy to foreign affairs.

​​ Brookings is home to lots of Beltway power players: Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, former chairmen of the Federal Reserve, are Brookings fellows. Top officials from both Republican and Democrat presidential administrations lend political heft to the organization. From 2002 until 2017, the organization's president was Strobe Talbott. He's a longtime BFF of Bill Clinton; they met in the 1970s at Oxford University and have been tight ever since. Talbott was a top aide to both President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Kelly continued:

Brookings-based fellows working at Lawfare were the media's go-to legal "experts" to legitimize the concocted crime; the outlet manipulated much of the news coverage on collusion by pumping out primers and guidance on how to report collusion events from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment to his final report.

Now, testimony related to a defamation lawsuit against Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous "dossier" on Donald Trump, has exposed his direct ties to Talbott in 2016 when he was still head of Brookings. Talbott and Steele were in communication before and after the presidential election; Steele wanted Talbott to circulate the dossier to his pals in John Kerry's State Department, which reportedly is what Talbott did . Steele also briefed top state department officials in October 2016 about his work.

But this isn't the only connection between the Brookings Institute and the Russia collusion and Ukrainian scandals. We were the first to report that the Primary Sub-Source (PSS) in the Steele report, the main individual who supplied Steele with bogus information in his report was Igor Danchenko.

In November 2019, the star witness for the Democrat Representative Adam Schiff's impeachment show trial was announced. Her name was Fiona Hill.

Today we've uncovered that Hill is a close associate of the Primary Sub-Source (PSS) for the Steele dossier – Igor Danchenko – the individual behind most all the lies in the Steele dossier. No wonder Hill saw the Steele dossier before it was released. Her associate created it.

Both Fiona Hill and Igor Danchenko are connected to the Brookings Institute.

They gave a presentation together as Brookings Institute representatives:

Kelly writes about the foreign funding the Brookings Institute partakes:

So who and what have been funding the anti-Trump political operation at Brookings over the past few years? The think tank's top benefactors are a predictable mix of family foundations, Fortune 100 corporations, and Big Tech billionaires. But one of the biggest contributors to Brookings' $100 million-plus annual budget is the Embassy of Qatar. According to financial reports, Qatar has donated more than $22 million to the think tank since 2004. In fact, Brookings operates a satellite center in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The wealthy Middle Eastern oil producer spends billions on American institutions such as universities and other think tanks.

Qatar also is a top state sponsor of terrorism, pouring billions into Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood, to name a few. "The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level," President Trump said in 2017. "We have to stop the funding of terrorism."

An email from a Qatari official, obtained by WikiLeaks, said the Brookings Institution was as important to the country as "an aircraft carrier."

Yesterday the Brookings Institute was connected to spying by Communist China in a post at the Washington Free Beacon :

Part 1 of 2

fersur , 8 hours ago

Part 2 of 2 !

The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China's intelligence and spy recruitment operations, according to public records and federal court documents.

The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank's hub in Qatar, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in January 2018, the institution said . The academy is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal government that has raised flags within the FBI.

The partnership raises questions about potential Chinese espionage activities at the think tank, which employs numerous former government officials and nearly two dozen current foreign policy advisers to Joe Biden's presidential campaign.

It is really frightening that one of two major political parties in the US is tied so closely with the Brookings Institute. It is even more frightening that foreign enemies of the United States are connected to this entity as well.

Let it Go , 8 hours ago

One thing for sure is these guys have far to much of our money to spend promoting their own good.

fersur , 7 hours ago

Unedited !

Mueller Indictments Tied To "ShadowNet," Former Obama National Security Advisor and Obama's CIA Director – Not Trump

By Patrick Bergy, Cyber-Security, Veteran & Former DoD Contractor

December 18th, 2018

According to a report in the Daily Beast, which cited the Wall Street Journal's reporting of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into two companies, Wikistrat and Psy Group, "The firm's advisory council lists former CIA and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser James L. Jones."

According to numerous reporting from major news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Daily Beast, both Wikistrat and Psy Group represent themselves as being social media analysts and black PSYOP organizations. Both Wikistrat and Psy Group have foreign ownership mixed between Israeli, Saudi (Middle East) and Russian. Here is what the Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast and pretty much everyone else out there doesn't know (or won't tell you).

The fact Obama's former National Security Advisor, General James Jones, and former Obama CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, are both on Wikistrat's advisory board may not seem suspicious, but both of these general's have another thing in common, and that is the ShadowNet. The ShadowNet, and its optional companion relational database, iPsy, were both originally developed by the small, family owned defense contracting company, Dynology. The family that owns Dynology; Gen. James Jones. I would add Paul Manafort and Rick Davis was Dynology's partner at the time we were making the ShadowNet and iPsy commercially available.

After obtaining the contract in Iraq to develop social media psychological warfare capabilities, known in military nomenclature as Interactive Internet Activities, or IIA, Gen. Jones kept the taxpayer funded application we developed in Iraq for the 4th Psychological Operation Group, and made it commercially available under the trademark of the "ShadowNet" and the optional black PSYOP component, "iPsy." If you think it is interesting that one of the companies under Mueller's indictment is named, "Psy" Group, I did as well. In fact, literally everything both publicly described in news reports, and even their websites, are exactly the same as the ShadowNet and iPsy I helped build, and literally named.

The only thing different I saw as far as services offered by Wikistrat, and that of Dynology and the ShadowNet, was described by The Daily Beast as, "It also engaged in intelligence collection." Although iPsy was a relational database that allowed for the dissemination of whatever the required narrative was, "intelligence collection" struck another bell with me, and that's a company named ClearForce.

ClearForce was developed as a solution to stopping classified leaks following the Edward Snowden debacle in 2013. Changes in NISPOM compliance requirements forced companies and government agencies that had employees with government clearances to take preventive measure to mitigate the potential of leaking. Although the NISPOM compliance requirement almost certainly would have been influenced by either Hayden, Jones or both, they once again sought to profit from it.

Using components of the ShadowNet and iPsy, the ClearForce application (which the company, ClearForce, was named after,) was developed to provide compliance to a regulation I strongly suspect you will find Jones and Hayden had a hand in creating. In fact, I strongly suspect you will find General Jones had some influence in the original requirement for our Iraq contract Dynology won to build the ShadowNet – at taxpayer expense! Dynology worked for several years incorporating other collection sources, such as financial, law enforcement and foreign travel, and ties them all into your social media activity. Their relationship with Facebook and other social media giants would have been nice questions for congress to have asked them when they testified.

Part 1 of 2 !

fersur , 7 hours ago

Part 2 of 2 !

The ClearForce application combines all of these sources together in real-time and uses artificial intelligence to predictively determine if you are likely to steal or leak based on the behavioral profile ClearForce creates of you. It can be used to determine if you get a job, and even if you lose a job because a computer read your social media, credit and other sources to determine you were likely to commit a crime. It's important for you to stop for a moment and think about the fact it is privately controlled by the former CIA director and Obama's National Security Advisor/NATO Supreme Allied Commander, should scare the heck out of you.

When the ClearForce application was complete, Dynology handed it off to ClearForce, the new company, and Michael Hayden joined the board of directors along with Gen. Jones and his son, Jim, as the president of ClearForce. Doesn't that kind of sound like "intelligence collection" described by the Daily Beast in Wikistrat's services?

To wrap this all up, Paul Manafort, Rick Davis, George Nader, Wikistrat and Psy Group are all directly connected to Mueller's social media influence and election interreference in the 2016 presidential election. In fact, I believe all are under indictment, computers seized, some already sentenced. All of these people under indictment by Mueller have one key thing in common, General James Jones's and Michael Hayden's social media black PSYOP tools; the ShadowNet, iPsy and ClearForce.

A recent meeting I had with Congressman Gus Bilirakis' chief of staff, Elizabeth Hittos, is confirmation that they are reviewing my DoD memorandum stating the work I did on the IIA information operation in Iraq, the Dynology marketing slicks for the ShadowNet and iPsy, along with a screenshot of Goggle's Way-Back Machine showing Paul Manafort's partnership with Dynology in 2007 and later. After presenting to her these facts and making clear I have much more information that requires the highest classification SCIF to discuss and requires being read-on to the program, Elizabeth contacted the office of Congressman Devin Nunez to request that I brief the intelligence committee on this critical information pertaining directly to the 2010 Ukrainian elections, Michael Brown riots, 2016 election interference and the "Russia collusion" hoax. All of that is on top of numerous questionable ethical and potentially illegal profits from DoD contracts while servings as NATO Commander and Obama's National Security Advisor.

We also need to know if the ShadowNet and iPsy were allowed to fall into foreign hands, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel. I'm pretty sure South America is going to have a few questions for Jones and Obama as well? Stay tuned!

Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago

Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially 'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.

Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will always be the Americans themselves.

Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago

Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially 'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.

Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will always be the Americans themselves.

Paralentor , 5 hours ago

A lot more detail can be found here:

https://banned.video/watch?id=5f37fcc2df77c4044ee2eb03

SHADOW GATE – FULL FILM

462,864 views

yerfej , 8 hours ago

The neoliberals own the media, courts, academia, and BUREAUCRACY (including CIA) and they will do anything to make sure they retain power over everyone. These control freaks work hard to create all sorts of enemies to justify their existence.

LaugherNYC , 15 hours ago

It is sad that this information has to be repeatedly published, over and over and over, by SCI and other Russian. outlets.

Because no legit AMERICAN news outlet will give Binney or Assange the time of day or any credence, this all becomes Kremlin-sponsored disinformation and denials. People roll their eyes and say "Oh God, not the whole 'Seth Rich was murdered by the CIA' crap again!! You know, his FAMILY has asked that people stop spreading these conspiracy theories and lies."

SCI is a garbage bin, nothing more than a dizinformatz machine for Putin, but in this case, they are likely right. It seems preposterous that the "best hackers in the world" would forget to use a VPN or leave a signature behind, and it makes far more sense that the emails were leaked by someone irate at the abuses of the DNC - the squashing of Bernie, the cheating for Hillary in the debates - behavior we saw repeated in 2020 with Bernie shoved aside again for the pathetic Biden.

Would that SOMEONE in the US who is not on the Kremlin payroll would pick up this thread. But all the "investigative journalists" now work indirectly for the DNC, and those that don't are cancelled by the left.

Stone_d_agehurler , 15 hours ago

I am Guccifer and I approve this message.

Sarc/

But i do share your opinion. They are likely right this time and most of the pundits and media in the U. S. know it. That's what makes this a sad story about how rotten the U. S. system has become.

Democrats will sacrifice the Union for getting Trump out of office.

If elections in Nov won't go their way, Civil War II might become a real thing in 2021.

PeterLong , 4 hours ago

If " digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources" were inserted in the leak by "Guccifer", and if the leak to wikileaks came from Seth Rich, via whatever avenue, then the "Guccifer" release came after the wikileaks release, or after wikileaks had the files, and was a reaction to same attempting to diminish their importance/accuracy and cast doubt on Trump. Could CIA and/or DNC have known the files were obtained by wikileaks before wikileaks actually released them? In any case collusion of CIA with DNC seems to be a given.

RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago

Because Seth had already given it to Wikileaks. There is no 'Fancy Bear'. There is no 'Cozy Bear'. Those were made up by CrowdStrike, and they tried the same crap on Ukraine, and Ukraine told them to pound sand. When push came to shove, and CrowdStrike was forced to say what they really had under oath, they said: "We have nothing."

novictim , 4 hours ago

You are leaving out Crowd Strike. Seth Rich was tasked by people at the DNC to copy data off the servers. He made a backup copy and gave a copy to people who then got it to Wiki leaks. He used highspeed file transfers to local drives to do his task.

Meanwhile, it was the Ukrainian company Crowd Strike that claimed the data was stolen over the internet and that the thieves were in Russia. That 'proof" was never verified by US Intelligence but was taken on its word as being true despite crowd strike falsifying Russian hacks and being caught for it in the past.

Joebloinvestor , 5 hours ago

The "five eyes" are convinced they run the world and try to.

That is what Brennan counted on for these agencies to help get President Trump.

As I said, it is time for the UK and the US to have a serious conversation about their current and ex-spies being involved in US elections.

Southern_Boy , 5 hours ago

It wasn't the CIA. It was John Brennan and Clapper. The CIA, NSA FBI, DOJ and the Ukrainian Intelligence Service just went along working together and followed orders from Brennan who got them from Hillary and Obama.

Oh, and don't forget the GOP Globalist RINOs who also participated in the coup attempt: McCain, Romney, Kasich, Boehner, Lee and Richard Burr.

With Kasich now performing as a puppy dog for Biden at the Democrat Convention as a Democrat DNC executive, the re-alignment is almost complete: Globalist Nationalist Socialist Bolshevism versus American Populism, i.e. Elites versus Deplorables or Academics versus Smelly Wal-Mart people.

on target , 5 hours ago

No way. CIA up to their eyeballs in this as well as the State Department. Impossible for Russiagate or Ukrainegate without direct CIA and State involvement.

RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago

Following Orders? How did that argument go at Nuremberg? (hint: not very well)

LeadPipeDreams , 6 hours ago

LOL - the CIA's main mission - despite their "official" charter, has always been to destabilize the US and its citizens via psyops, false flags, etc.

Covid-1984 is their latest and it appears most successful project yet.

Iconoclast27 , 5 hours ago

The CIA received a $200 million initial investment from the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations when it was first established, that should tell you everything you need to know how who they truly work for.

A_Huxley , 6 hours ago

CIA, MI6, 5 eye nations.

All wanted to sway the USA their own way.

Let it Go , 8 hours ago

Almost as frightening as the concentrated power held by companies such as Facebook and Google is the fact Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the world's richest man, is the person who owns and controls the Washington Post. It is silly to think Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2013 because he expected newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence.

It is more likely he purchased the long-trusted U.S. newspaper for the power it would ensure him in Washington when wielded as a propaganda mouthpiece to extend his ability to both shape and control public opinion. More on this subject in the article below.

https://Amazon, Jeff Bezos, And The Influential Washington Post_31.html

avoiceofliberty , 16 hours ago

The amazing thing about Binney's forensic analysis is that it has been around since 2018 .

It's also been clear since 2017 the hack of the DNC computers didn't hold up under scrutiny .

How it is the Democrats, the Deep State, and the legacy media are still able to cling to the remnants of these long discredited narratives is a mystery.

avoiceofliberty , 6 hours ago

At the official level, you have a point.

However, even before Mueller was appointed, a review of the materials in the extant public record of both the DNC "hack" and the history of Crowdstrike showed the narrative simply did not make sense. A detailed investigation of materials not made public was not necessary to shoot down the entire narrative.

Indeed, one of the great scandals of the Mueller probe is the way it did not bring prudential skepticism to the question of the DNC "hack". When building a case, either for public debate or for public trial, a dose of skepticism is healthy; it leads to a careful vetting of facts and reasoning.

Alice-the-dog , 6 hours ago

The CIA has been an agency wholly independent of the US government almost since its inception. It is not under any significant control by the government, and has its own agenda which may occasionally coincide with that of the government, but only coincidentally. It has its own view of how the world should look, and will not balk at any means necessary to achieve such. Including the murder of dis-favorable members of government.

snodgrass , 6 hours ago

It's the CIA and the FBI, Obama and people in his administration who cooked up Russiagate.

Floki_Ragnarsson , 7 hours ago

The CIA whacked JFK because he was going to slow the roll to Vietnam AND disband the CIA and reform it.

It is broken and needs to be disbanded and reformed along lines that actually WORK! The CIA missed the fall of the USSR, 9/11, etc. HTF does THAT happen?

DeportThemAll , 6 hours ago

The CIA didn't "miss" 9/11... they participated in it.

Let it Go , 8 hours ago

The CIA is a tool that when improperly used can do great damage.

Anyone who doesn't believe that countries use psychological warfare and propaganda to sway the opinions of people both in and outside of their country should be considered naive. Too many people America is more than a little hypocritical when they criticize other countries for trying to gain influence considering our history of meddling in the affairs of other countries.

Americans have every reason to be concerned and worried considering revelations of just how big the government intelligence agencies have grown since 9-11 and how unlimited their spying and surveillance operations have become. The article below explores this growth and questions whether we have lost control.

http://Psychological Warfare And Propaganda Out Of Control.html

tion , 16 hours ago

The idea of Binney and Jason Sullivan privately working to 'secure the vote' is something that I actually consider to be very eyebrow raising and alarming.

Son of Captain Nemo , 8 hours ago

Bill Binney under "B" in the only "yellow pages" that show a conscience and a soul!...

https://www.ae911truth.org/signatures/#/General/B/williambinneysevernMDUS

fliebinite , 9 hours ago

This is the dumbest article ever. Russiagate is a total fabrication of the FBI as per Clinesmith, CIA provided information that would have nipped it at the bud. Read the real news.

bringonthebigone , 9 hours ago

Wrong. this article is one small piece of the puzzle. Clinesmith is one small piece of the puzzle. The Flynn entrapment is one small piece of the puzzle. The Halper entrapment was one small piece of the puzzle.

Because Clinesmith at the FBI covered up the information saying Page was a CIA source does not mean it was a total FBI fabrication and does not mean the CIA was not involved and does not mean the DNC server hack is irrelevant.

Milley Weaver gets close in her recent video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HFxVvrXjCg

Sundance does a better job pulling it all together.

PKKA , 14 hours ago

Relations have already soured between Russia and the United States, and sanctions have been announced. Tensions have grown on the NATO-Russia border. The meat has already been rolled into the minced meat and it will not be possible to roll the minced meat back into the meat. The CIA got it. But the Russian people now absolutely understand that the United States will always be the enemy of Russia, no matter whether socialist or capitalist. But I like it even more than the feigned hypocritical "friendship". Russia has never reached such heights as during the good old Cold War. All Russians have a huge incentive, long live the new Cold War!

smacker , 12 hours ago

More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to world peace.

It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.

Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never accept that.

Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will be.

smacker , 12 hours ago

More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to world peace.

It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.

Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never accept that.

Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will be.

hang_the_banksters , 31 minutes ago

the best proof thAt Guccifer 2 was CIA hacking themselves to frame Wikileaks is this:

Guccifer has not yet been identified, indicted and arrested.

you'd think CIAFBINSA would be turning over every stone to the ends of the earth to bust Guccifer. we just had to endure 4 years of hysterical propaganda that Russia had hacked our election and that Trump was their secret agent. so Guccifer should be the Most Wanted Man on the planet. meanwhile, it's crickets from FBI. they arent even looking for him. because Guccifer is over at Langley. maybe someone outta ask Brennan where G2 is now.

remember when DOJ indicted all those GRU cybersoldiers? the evidence listed in the indictment was so stunning that i dont believe it. NSA so thoroughly hacked back into GRU that NSA was watching GRU through their own webcams and recording them doing Google searches to translate words which were written in Guccifer's blog posts about the DNC email leaks. NSA and DOJ must think we are all stupid, that we will believe NSA is so powerful to do that, yet they cant identify Guccifer.

i say i dont believe that for a second because no way Russian GRU are so stupid to even have webcams on the computers they use to hack, and it is absurd to think GRU soldiers on a Russian military base would be using Google instead of Yandex to translate words into English.

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ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 hour ago

As a confirmed conspiracy theorist since I came back from 'Nam, here's mine: The European nobility recognized with the American and French revolutions that they needed a better approach. They borrowed from the Tudors (who had to deal with Parliament) and began to rule by controlling the facade of representative government. This was enhanced by funding banks to control through currency, as well as blackmail and murder, and morphed into a complete propaganda machine like no other in history. The CIA, MI6 and Mossad, the mainstream media, deep plants in bureaucracy and "democratic" bodies all obey their dictates to create narratives that control our minds. Trump seems to offer hope, but remember, he could be their latest narrative.

greatdisconformity , 1 hour ago

A Democracy cannot function on a higher level than the general electorate.

The intelligence and education of the general electorate has been sliding for generations, because both political parties can play this to their advantage.

It is no accident that most of the messages coming from politicians are targeted to imbeciles.

[Aug 08, 2020] Russia Hoax- Are We All Being Played- Put Up Or Shut Up! - Zero Hedge

Highly recommended!
Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden Fri, 08/07/2020 - 21:05 Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print

Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

Many people have asked me why I haven't written a book since the start of my reporting on the FBI's debunked investigation into whether President Donald Trump's campaign conspired with Russia.

I haven't done so because I don't believe the most important part of the story has been told: indictments and accountability. I also don't believe we actually know what really happened on a fundamental level and how dangerous it is to our democratic republic. That will require a deeper investigation that answers the fundamental questions of the role played by former senior Obama officials, including the former President and his aides.

We're getting closer but we're still not there.

Still, the extent of what happened during the last presidential election is much clearer now than it was years ago when trickles of evidence led to years of what Fox News host Sean Hannity and I would say was peeling back the layers of an onion. We now know that the U.S. intelligence and federal law enforcement was weaponized against President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and administration by a political opponent. We now know how many officials involved in the false investigation into the president trampled the Constitution.

I never realized how terrible the deterioration inside the system had become until four years ago when I stumbled onto what was happening inside the FBI. Those concerns were brought to my attention by former and current FBI agents, as well as numerous U.S. intelligence officials aware of the failures inside their own agencies. But it never occurred to me when I first started looking into fired FBI Director James Comey and his former side kick Deputy Director A ndrew McCabe that the cultural corruption of these once trusted American institutions was so vast.

I've watched as Washington D.C. elites make promises to get to the bottom of it and bring people to justice. They appear to make promises to the American people they never intended to keep. Who will be held accountable for one of the most egregious abuses of power by bureaucrats in modern American political history? Now I fear those who perpetuated this culture of corruption won't ever really be held accountable.

These elite bureaucrats will, however, throw the American people a bone. It's how they operate.

They expect us to accept it and then move on.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

One example is the most recent decision by the Justice Department to ask that charges be dropped on former national security advisor Michael Flynn. It's just a bone because we know now these charges should have never been brought against the three-star general but will anyone on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team have to answer for ruining a man's life. No, they won't. In fact, Flynn is still fighting for his freedom.

Think about what has already happened? From former Attorney General Jeff Session's appointment of Utah Prosecutor John Huber to the current decision by Attorney General William Barr to appoint Connecticut prosecutor John Durham to investigate the malfeasance what has been done? Really, nothing at all. No one has been indicted.

The investigation by the FBI against Trump was never predicated on any real evidence but instead, it was a set-up to usurp the American voters will. It doesn't matter that the establishment didn't like Trump, in 2016 the Americans did. Isn't that a big enough reason to bring charges against those involved?

His election was an anomaly for the Washington elite. They were stunned when Trump won and went into full gear to save their own asses from discovery and target anyone who supported him. The truth is they couldn't stand the Trump and American disruptors who elected him to office.

Now they will work hand in fist to ensure that this November election is not a repeat win of 2016. We're already seeing that play out everyday on the news.

But Barr and Durham are now up against a behemoth political machine that seems to be operating more like a steam roller the closer we get to the November presidential elections.

Barr told Fox News in June that he expects Durham's report to come before the end of summer but like always, it's August and we're still waiting.

Little is known about the progress of Durham's investigation but it's curious as to why nothing has been done as of yet and the Democrats are sure to raise significant questions or concerns if action is taken before the election. They will charge that Durham's investigation is politically motivated. That is, unless the charges are just brought against subordinates and not senior officials from the former administration.

I sound cynical because I am right now. It doesn't mean I won't trying to get to the truth or fighting for justice.

But how can you explain the failure of Durham and Barr to actually interview key players such as Comey, or former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, or former CIA Director John Brennan. That is what we're hearing from them.

If I am going to believe my sources, Durham has interviewed former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, along with FBI Special agent Joe Pientka, among some others. Still, nothing has really been done or maybe once again they will throw us bone.

If there are charges to be brought they will come in the form of taking down the subordinates, like Strzok, Pientka and the former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith , who altered the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application against short term 2016 campaign advisor Carter Page.

Remember DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report in December, 2019: It showed that a critical piece of evidence used to obtain a warrant to spy on Page in 2016 was falsified by Clinesmith.

But Clinesmith didn't act alone. He would have had to have been ordered to do such a egregious act and that could only come from the top. Let's see if Durham ever hold those Obama government officials accountable.

I don't believe he will.

Why? Mainly because of how those senior former Obama officials have behaved since the troves of information have been discovered. They have written books, like Comey, McCabe, Brennan and others, who have published Opinion Editorials and have taken lucrative jobs at cable news channels as experts.

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It's frankly disgusting and should anger every American. We would never get away with what these former Obama officials have done. More disturbing is that the power they wield through their contacts in the media and their political connections allows these political 'oligarchs' unchallenged power like never before.

Here's one of the latest examples.

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann just went after Barr in a New York Times editorial on Wednesday. He went so far as to ask the Justice Department employees to ignore any direction by Barr or Durham in the Russia investigations. From Weissmann's New York Times Opinion Editorial:

Today, Wednesday, marks 90 days before the presidential election, a date in the calendar that is supposed to be of special note to the Justice Department. That's because of two department guidelines, one a written policy that no action be influenced in any way by politics. Another, unwritten norm urges officials to defer publicly charging or taking any other overt investigative steps or disclosures that could affect a coming election.

Attorney General William Barr appears poised to trample on both. At least two developing investigations could be fodder for pre-election political machinations. The first is an apparently sprawling investigation by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, that began as an examination of the origins of the F.B.I. investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The other , led by John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, is about the so-called unmasking of Trump associates by Obama administration officials. Mr. Barr personally unleashed both investigations and handpicked the attorneys to run them.

But Justice Department employees, in meeting their ethical and legal obligations , should be well advised not to participate in any such effort.

I think Barr and Durham need to move fast if they are ever going to do anything and if they are going to prove me wrong. We know now that laws were broken and our Constitution was torched by these rogue government officials.

We shouldn't give the swamp the time-of-day to accuse the Trump administration of playing politics or interfering with this election. If the DOJ has evidence and is ready to indict they need to do it now.

If our Justice Department officials haven't done their job to expose the corruption, clean out our institutions and hold people accountable then it will be a tragedy for our nation and the American people. I'm frankly tired of the back and forth. I'm tired of being toyed with and lied to. I believe they should either put up or shut up.

  • 192
    Revolution_starts_now , 4 hours ago

    Oh Please, JFK, MLK,RFK and MX were all just a few.

    50 Years after JFK, still cannot release info?

    Just who the hell are we kidding?

    lay_arrow
    Westcoaster , 4 hours ago

    You're absolutely right. And don't get me started on 9/11. The country needs an old fashion PURGE.


    play_arrow
    ebworthen , 4 hours ago

    This is how empires collapse.

    Cognitive Dissonance , 4 hours ago

    There are two things a sociopath acquires on the way up the socioeconomic ladder.

    1) Power

    2) Knowledge of where all the dead bodies are.....especially the ones he or she personally buried.

    lay_arrow 1
    NeitherStirredNorShaken , 4 hours ago

    Sara must have missed my detailed facts and evidence over the last five years or so proving the entire government guilty of sedition, treason, complete failure of fiduciary duty and seemingly endless more crimes. Waiting for the hierarchy to prosecute itself is a waste of time.

    Instead of a book start putting together something like Citizens Arrest teams.

    Gold Banit , 4 hours ago

    Nobody has been charged and nobody has gone to jail and nobody will be charged or go to jail cause DemoRats and Republicans are best of friends....Fact

    I have a question for all of the American posters here!

    How did you all get so dumb naive brainwashed and FN Stupid?

    Is Hillary in jail ?V


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    LEEPERMAX , 3 hours ago

    It's called " Running out the Clock " by almost every criminal on the planet.

    WE'VE ALL BEEN PLAYED FROM THE GET GO .

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    yerfej , 3 hours ago

    Its interesting that there are people out there who actually think this progressive push can be stopped, it is now impossible. Sixty or seventy years ago there might have been enough people with morals to fight but not anymore, the majority of people in the media, courts, academia, and bureaucracy are immoral thieves who are only interested in lining their pockets. They are HAPPY to see as many people as necessary sacrificed so they can get theirs, everyone else be damned. Not sure what the exact turning point was but its long ago.

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    sborovay07 , 3 hours ago

    Love Sarah and John. She's 100% right as unless the top treasonists pay for their crimes it was nothing more of a shame investigation by Durnham. The victory laps taken by Hannity and others is nothing more than hot air. Easy to bring down the little guys, but the Comey's, Brennan's and Clapper's have to pay. Trump's trust in Barr is waning as we get closer to the election. Most who have followed all of this the past 4 years know the criminals are still within the bureaucracies that attempted to overthrow a sitting President. Only if Assange would have been granted immunity to testify. Now we are dependent on career government officials to bring justice. #RIPSeth.

    Farmer Tink , 2 hours ago

    Weissmann's oped in the NYT strikes me as a threat against any DOJ attorney who dares work on any of Durham's cases. The Obama people would not have any compunctions against trying to ruin the lives of any attorney there who doesn't defy Barr. I wouldn't expect to be hired by any private firm ever again, I'd look for an attorney to represent me before the disciplinary committee off my bar association and I would assume that I'd be harassed and forced out by the next Dem AG if I did stay at DOJ.

    Rather than see this as a symptom of strength, I see this as panic. If Durham has nothing or will do nothing, then why threaten junior lawyers? Weissmann's an unethical snake, but I think that he's rather nervous.


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    geo_w , 17 minutes ago

    My respect for the FBI is gone.

    Soloamber , 20 minutes ago

    I would like to see what Weissmann's $haul was from the "Mueller " investigation .

    Sessions was a joke and the Mueller financed fraud should never have taken place .

    Trump has been blind sided over and over by intel at the FBI and DOJ .

    They take care of themselves .

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    InTheLandOfTheBlind , 4 hours ago

    Justice dept doesnt hold people accountable. They have to prove the opposite and let a jury or judicial, not administrative, employee impose judgements.

    Sara,

    Dont overplay your hand.

    4Y_LURKER , 3 hours ago

    What if it's a High Royal Flush?

[Jul 21, 2020] This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier.

Highly recommended!
Apr 20, 2019 | theduran.com
Marcus April 20, 2019

There is something rotten in the state .. of England.

This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier. He was getting homesick (perhaps his mother getting older is part of this) for Russia and he thought that to get back to Russia he needed something big to get back in Putin's good graces. He would have needed something really big because Putin really has no use for traitors. Skripal put out some feelers (perhaps through his daughter though that may be dicey). The two couriers were sent to seal or move the deal forward. The Brits (and perhaps the CIA) found out about this and decided to make an example of Sergei. Perhaps because they found out about this late, the deep state/intelligence people had to move very quickly. The deep state story was was extremely shaky (to put it mildly) as a result. Or they were just incompetent and full of hubris.

Then they were stuck with the story and bullshit coverup was layered on bullshit coverup. 7 Reply FlorianGeyer Reply to Marcus April 20, 2019

@ Marcus.

To hope to get away with lies, one must have perfect memory and a superior intellect that can create a lie with some semblance of reality in real life, as opposed to the digital 'reality' in a Video game. And a rather corny video game at that.

MI5/6 failed on all parts of Lie creation 2 Reply Mistaron April 21, 2019

If Trump was so furious about being conned by Haspel, how come he then went on to promote her to becoming the head of the CIA? It's quite perplexing.

[Jun 12, 2020] Flynn Case 85 Lies, Contradictions, Oddities, Unusual Occurrences by Petr Svab

Highly recommended!
Jun 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times,

The case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is inevitably heading toward its conclusion. While the presiding district judge, Emmet Sullivan , is trying to keep it going, there's only so much he can do, chiefly because there's nobody left to prosecute the case after the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped it last month .

In the latest developments, the District of Columbia appeals court set a hearing in the case for tomorrow (June 12), while the DOJ's solicitor general himself, as well as five of his deputies, urged the court to order the lower-court judge to accept the case dismissal.

"I cannot overstate how big of a deal this is," commented appellate attorney John Reeves, former assistant Missouri attorney general, in a series of tweets on June 1 .

Personal involvement of the solicitor general "is highly unusual and rare," he said .

" Unusual " seems a fitting euphemism for the Flynn case, which has been filled with contradictions, falsehoods, apparent blunders, extraordinary moves, and strange coincidences.

The Epoch Times has so far counted 85 such instances.

Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration and former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to one count of lying to FBI agents during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview.

The FBI officially opened an investigation on Flynn on Aug. 16, 2016, based on a suspicion that he "may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security."

What activity? The case was opened under a broader investigation into whether the Trump 2016 presidential campaign conspired with Russia to steal emails from the Democratic National Committee and release them through Wikileaks.

Flynn was an adviser to the campaign at the time.

By its own admission, the FBI had little reason to suspect the campaign.

The bureau learned from the Australian government that its then-ambassador to the UK, Alexander Downer, spoke with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who "suggested" that the campaign received "some kind of suggestion" that Russia could help it by anonymously releasing some information damaging to Trump's opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The FBI didn't know what Papadopoulos actually said or what he was talking about.

Officially, this information was used by the FBI to comb through its databases for information on people associated with the Trump campaign and open investigations on four individuals supposedly linked to Russia.

Because Flynn's paid speaking engagements in years past included some for Russian companies -- one for Kaspersky Lab and one for RT television in Moscow -- the FBI decided to open a counterintelligence investigation on the retired three-star general.

But the FBI seemed to have trouble getting its story straight.

1. Comey Contradiction

The FBI officially opened the four individual cases in mid-August 2016.

But former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress that he was briefed already "at the end of July that the FBI had opened counterintelligence investigations of four individuals to see if there was a connection between any of those four and the Russian effort."

2. Unlikely Target

Suspecting a man with patriotic bona fides of Flynn's caliber of having colluded with Russia based on two speaking engagements seemed particularly unusual.

Flynn's command of military intelligence to aid American troops in combat has earned him great praise.

"Mike Flynn's impact on the nation's War on Terror probably trumps any other single person," wrote then-Brig. Gen. John Mulholland in Flynn's 2007 performance review .

Mulholland went as far as calling Flynn "easily the best intelligence professional of any service serving today."

Flynn was driven out of his post in 2014 after he repeatedly embarrassed President Barack Obama by insisting, contrary to the administration's official stance, that a resurgence of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East was imminent.

Two months after his resignation, the rise of ISIS proved him right.

3. A Name for the Spotlight

The Russia probe was titled "Crossfire Hurricane" (CH), and Flynn was given the code name "Crossfire Razor."

This was unusual, according to Marc Ruskin, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and an Epoch Times contributor.

Rank-and-file agents would never pick a name like this, he told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.

"They would mock it as being overly dramatic," he said.

4. Snooping During Briefing

The day after opening the Flynn case, the FBI participated in a strategic intelligence briefing given to Donald Trump and two of his advisers by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Because Flynn was to be present, the FBI took the extraordinary step of sending in supervisory special agent Joe Pientka to collect intel on Flynn for the investigation. Pientka was to assess Flynn's "overall mannerisms" and listen for "any kind of admission" that could be used by the bureau, the DOJ's inspector general (IG) said in a Dec. 9 report on the CH investigation ( pdf ).

The IG raised the question of whether snooping on officials the FBI is supposed to brief could have a "chilling effect" on any such intelligence briefings in the future.

5. Dossier Coincidence

The FBI directly targeted four Trump campaign aides, opening cases on three of them -- Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort -- on Aug. 10, 2016. The IG never received an explanation for why the Flynn case was opened later. Incidentally, Page and Manafort had already been mentioned in the infamous Steele dossier since July 28, 2016. Flynn's name, however, was only mentioned in the dossier report dated Aug. 10, 2016.

The dossier, which drummed up unsubstantiated allegations of a Trump–Russia conspiracy, was being spread to the media, the FBI, the State Department, the DOJ, and Congress by operatives funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

The CH investigation team members at the FBI told the IG they only received the dossier in September 2016, but there are indications they may have been aware of it earlier .

6. Halper Coincidence

One of the CH case agents, Stephen Somma, happened to have a longstanding relationship with Stephan Halper, a Cambridge professor who was also a longtime political operative and FBI informant.

Somma and another agent met with Halper on Aug. 11, 2016, and learned that, in a stunning coincidence, Halper was already in contact with Page, had known Manafort for years, and "had been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn," the IG report said

The CH team "couldn't believe [their] luck," Somma told the IG.

7. Halper's Story

Halper was accused of spreading rumors, starting in late 2016, that Flynn had an affair with a Russian woman while visiting the UK in 2014 for a dinner hosted by the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar co-convened at the time by Halper.

An "established" FBI informant told the CH team that the woman jumped in a cab with Flynn after the dinner and joined him for a train ride to London ( pdf ).

The woman in question was Svetlana Lokhova, a Cambridge historian of Russian descent. She has denied the rumor, saying that she was picked up after the dinner by her husband .

She said Halper was the one spreading the rumor to the media and the FBI, even though he didn't actually attend the event. She unsuccessfully sued Halper for defamation in May 2019.

Somehow, Steele also became privy to the rumor and shared it with Adam Kramer , an aide to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Kramer testified to Congress that he was in regular contact with Steele between Nov. 28, 2016, and early March 2017.

8. Unmasking

The names of Americans are normally masked -- that is, replaced with generic names -- in foreign intelligence reports. Many senior government officials have the authority to ask for names to be unmasked for various reasons, such as to understand the intelligence. There were dozens of unmasking requests for reports related to Flynn, between Nov. 8, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2017 ( pdf ). The number of unmasking requests has been described as alarming by some commentators, while others described it as routine.

9. Non-masking

There are also indications that Flynn's name was never masked in summaries or transcripts of his calls with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, and in the following days. FBI leaders were distributing the documents to top Obama officials. Even President Barack Obama himself was briefed on them on or before Jan. 5, 2017.

10. Who Briefed Obama?

Comey testified to Congress that it was then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who briefed Obama on the Flynn–Kislyak calls ( pdf ). Clapper, however, denied this to Congress.

11. 'Unusual'

Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, memorialized a Jan. 5, 2017, meeting with Obama, Comey, and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates . Rice wrote in an email to herself that Obama asked Comey whether he should withhold any Russia-related information from the incoming administration and from Flynn in particular.

"Potentially," Comey replied, adding that "the level of communication" between Flynn and Kislyak was "unusual," she wrote . There's no indication Flynn was talking to Kislyak unusually often. He was at the time responsible for laying the groundwork for Trump's foreign relations as president and was frequently on the phone with foreign dignitaries.

12. Late Memo

Rice's memo itself is unusual. She emailed it to herself more than two weeks after the meeting took place, on the day of Trump's inauguration.

13. Strzok Intervention

On Jan. 4, the FBI was already in the process of closing Flynn's case. But the bureau's counterintelligence operations head at the time, Peter Strzok, scrambled to keep it open , noting that the "7th floor," meaning the FBI's top leadership, was involved.

14. McCabe–Comey Contradiction

Comey testified that he authorized the Flynn case "to be closed at the end of December, beginning of January."

But his then-deputy, Andrew McCabe, told Congress that they weren't in "the closing planning phase" at the time.

"I don't think a closure would have been soon," he said.

15. Shaky Theory

FBI documents and Comey's testimony indicate that the bureau kept the Flynn case open solely based on a legal theory that he may have violated the Logan Act, even though the DOJ made clear that such charges wouldn't pass muster in court -- nobody has ever been successfully prosecuted for a Logan Act violation and the government last tried in 1852.

The law prohibits private citizens from engaging in diplomacy on their own with countries the United States is in dispute with. Not only have questions been raised as to whether the law would pass today's constitutional scrutiny, which places greater emphasis on First Amendment protections, but also there's no indication the law was conceived to apply to a president-elect's incoming top adviser.

16. Call Leaks

In early January, information about Flynn's calls with Kislyak was leaked to then-Washington Post reporter Adam Entous. He said there was a discussion at the paper about what to do with the information, as it would have been expected of Flynn, given his position, to talk to Kislyak ( pdf ). In the end, the paper ran a column on Jan. 12 by David Ignatius speculating that Flynn may have violated the Logan Act if he discussed fresh sanctions imposed on Russia during the calls.

Obama imposed the sanctions on Russian entities, including its intelligence services, on Dec. 29, 2016. At the same time, he also expelled 35 Russian intelligence officers.

17. Denial

The calls "had nothing whatsoever to do with the sanctions," incoming Vice President Mike Pence told CBS News on Jan. 15, 2017, in an interview the network almost wholly dedicated to questions about Russia.

This wasn't completely true.

Kislyak did bring up the issue of sanctions during the call, though Flynn didn't engage him in a conversation on the topic.

Flynn raised the issue of the expulsions, which is technically a separate issue from sanctions, though both were announced at the same time. He asked for "cool heads to prevail" and for Russia to only respond reciprocally, as further escalation into a "tit for tat" could lead to the countries shutting down each other's embassies, complicating future diplomacy.

18. 'Blackmailable'

Yates said she wanted to inform Trump's White House about the Kislyak calls as Russia would know that what Pence said wasn't true and could thus blackmail Flynn with the information, according to an Aug. 15, 2017, FBI report from her interview with the Mueller team.

According to Ruskin, this was hardly a blackmail situation, which ordinarily involves serious compromising information, such as evidence of bribery or sexual misconduct.

Comey acknowledged to Congress in March 2017 that the idea that Flynn was compromised struck him "as a bit of a reach."

19. Comey Blocked Information

Despite issues with Yates's argument, informing the White House may have indeed cleared up the situation. However, Comey blocked it, saying it could have interfered with the investigation of Flynn -- despite that it appears there was nothing for the bureau to investigate. At that point, the DOJ already had disapproved of the Logan Act idea. In any case, the probe was supposed to be about Russian collusion. The bureau could have closed it and opened a new one on the Logan Act, if it indeed had had sufficient predication. But it never opened such an investigation, the DOJ noted in its motion to dismiss Flynn's case.

20. Another Comey–McCabe Contradiction

In the days before Jan. 24, 2017, top FBI officials were discussing plans to interview Flynn. Comey said the point of the interview was to find out why Flynn didn't tell Pence that sanctions were discussed during the call (even though Flynn wasn't actually the one talking about sanctions).

"My judgment was we could not close the investigation of Mr. Flynn without asking him what is the deal here. That was the purpose," Comey testified.

McCabe, however, told a different story when then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) asked him, "Was [Flynn] interviewed because the Vice President relied upon information from him in a national interview?"

"No. I don't remember that being a motivating factor behind the interview," McCabe said.

21. No Mention of Pence

During the interview, the agents didn't ask Flynn about what he did or didn't tell Pence -- an unusual approach if the point, as Comey said, was to find out why Flynn hadn't "been candid" with Pence. The FBI, in fact, had no idea what Flynn did or didn't tell Pence.

22. Slipped-In Warning

Agents regularly warn interviewees that lying to federal officers is a crime. Before the Flynn interview, however, McCabe's special counsel Lisa Page emailed another FBI lawyer asking how the warning should be given and whether there was a way "to just casually slip that in."

23. No Warning

In the end, the agents never gave Flynn any such warning.

24. 'Get Him to Lie Get Him Fired?'

The FBI officials agreed that the agents wouldn't show Flynn the transcripts of the calls. If he said something that diverged from them, they would ask again, slipping in some words from the transcript. If that didn't jog his memory, they were not to confront him about it.

On the day of the interview, then-FBI head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap wrote a note saying he told other officials to "rethink" the approach.

"What's our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" he wrote, noting, "We regularly show subjects evidence."

Apparently, his concerns were ignored.

25. Discouraging Having a Lawyer Present

On the day of the interview, McCabe spoke with Flynn on the phone to ask him for the interview. McCabe said he told Flynn he wanted the interview done "as quickly, quietly, and discreetly as possible." If Flynn wanted anybody to sit in, such as one of the White House lawyers, the DOJ would have to be involved, McCabe told him.

According to Ruskin, that was "egregious" behavior akin to discouraging a subject of an investigation from having a lawyer present for an interview.

26. No White House Notice

An FBI interview of a president's national security adviser is a big deal. Normally, it would warrant a back-and-forth between the White House and the bureau on the scope, content, purpose, and other parameters. Most likely, multiple White House lawyers would sit in.

Comey, however, said in a public forum that he just sent the agents in, taking advantage of the fact that it was "early enough" -- only four days after the inauguration.

27. No Notice Given to DOJ

According to Yates, Comey didn't consult the DOJ about his intention to interview Flynn, even though the department would usually be involved in such decisions.

28. Not Quite a Denial From Flynn

After the interview, in which Strzok and supervisory special agent Pientka extensively questioned Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak, Comey said that Flynn denied talking to the ambassador about the sanctions. But the agents' notes indicate that though Flynn denied it at first, he seemed unsure when the agents asked again.

"Not really. I don't remember. It wasn't, 'Don't do anything,'" he said, according to the notes.

Flynn said in a Jan. 29 declaration to the court that he still doesn't remember talking to Kislyak about sanctions.

"I told the agents that 'tit-for-tat' is a phrase I use, which suggests that the topic of sanctions could have been raised," he said .

29. UN Vote Denial

Based on the agent's notes, Flynn did deny asking for Russia to delay a U.N. vote in Israeli settlements. One of the call transcripts indicates he in fact made such a request.

Flynn told the agents he was calling multiple countries regarding the vote, but it was more an exercise of how quickly he could get foreign officials on the phone since there was no way the transition team could convince enough countries to actually change the outcome. Indeed, the vote passed with only the United States abstaining.

30. No Indication of Deception

The agents came back with the impression "that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying," according to Strzok.

Comey seemed on the fence.

"I don't know. I think there is an argument to be made that he lied. It is a close one," he testified.

31. Flynn Knew They Knew

According to McCabe, Flynn expressed awareness before the interview that the FBI knew exactly what he said during the Kislyak calls.

"You listen to everything they [Russian representatives] say," Flynn told him, according to McCabe's notes from that day.

32. Belated Report

The FBI interview summary, form FD-302, is required to be completed within five days of the interview. Flynn's, however, took more than two weeks.

33. Rewritten 302

Strzok texted Page on Feb. 10, 2017, he was "trying to not completely rewrite" the 302 "so as to save [redacted] voice." The redacted name was most likely Pientka's.

34. Missing Original

Flynn was ultimately provided two draft versions of the 302 -- one from Feb. 10, 2016, and one from the day after. But based on Strzok's texts, there should have been at least two draft versions produced on Feb. 10, 2016, or before.

In fact, Judge Sullivan said in a Dec. 17, 2018, minute order that the 302 "was drafted immediately after Mr. Flynn's FBI interview." It's not clear what the judge was basing this assertion on or what happened to the early draft.

Flynn's current attorney, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , later said she'd found a witness who saw an earlier draft and that it said "that Flynn was honest with the agents and did not lie."

35. No Reinterview

It is common that when the FBI has questions after an interview about the candor of the subject, it would question the person again. But in this case, the FBI showed no interest in doing so.

36. Still Investigating What?

After the interview, Comey promptly agreed to Yates informing the White House about the call transcripts. Flynn was fired two weeks later. But, somehow, the investigation was still not over.

Comey said in his March 2, 2017, testimony that the bureau wasn't investigating any possible Logan Act violation by Flynn and wouldn't do so unless the DOJ directed it.

But he said the investigation was "obviously" still ongoing and "criminal in nature."

McCabe said that "even following the interview on the 24th, we had a lot of work left to do in that investigation."

By mid-February, the status of the probe wouldn't have "changed materially" in his belief, he said.

"Like we were pursuing phone records and toll records at that time," he said. "There were all kinds of really very basic foundational investigative activity that had to take place and we were committed to getting that done."

It's unclear what the point of the investigation was.

37. FARA Papers

Around Christmas 2016, Flynn found in the office of his defunct consultancy, Flynn Intel Group (FIG), a letter from the DOJ telling him he may need to file foreign lobbying disclosures under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The DOJ's National Security Division (NSD) wanted to know about a job FIG did earlier that year for Turkish businessman Kamil Ekim Alptekin.

It should have been a routine procedure. Washington lobbyists commonly flunk FARA rules and the NSD usually just asks them to register retrospectively because FARA cases are difficult to prosecute. Flynn hired a team from Covington and Burling led by Robert Kelner, a "never-Trumper" and an expert on FARA, to prepare the paperwork.

This time, the NSD was unusually eager. Heather Hunt, then-FARA unit chief herself, was repeatedly prompting the lawyers to expeditiously file the papers.

"We've never seen her this engaged in any matter (ever)," Kelner noted in an email to his colleagues .

Even the DOJ's then-counterintelligence chief, David Laufman, got involved and personally questioned Covington on the FARA filings.

38. Comey Memo

Comey wrote in a personal memo that Trump told him in private in February 2017 that he hoped Comey could "let Flynn go." Trump denied saying that. Trump's lawyers have argued that the president didn't know at the time that Flynn was still under investigation .

Comey's leaking the content of this and other memos to the media served as a catalyst for then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing former FBI head Robert Mueller as a special counsel to take over the CH probe.

39. Rosenstein's Scope Memo Still Alludes to Logan Act

Even though Comey said in March 2017 that the FBI wasn't investigating Flynn for a Logan Act violation, Mueller received in August 2017 a mandate from Rosenstein ( pdf ) to probe whether Flynn "committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian government officials during the period of the Trump transition." That appears to be an allusion to the Logan Act.

Rosenstein testified to Congress that he simply put in the scope of Mueller's mandate whatever the CH team was investigating at the time.

The scope memo also tasked Mueller with probing whether Flynn lied to the FBI during the interview, whether he failed to report foreign contacts or income on his national security disclosure forms, and whether the Turkey job by his firm meant that he "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent for the government of Turkey."

40. Lawyers Delay Informing Flynn?

By mid-August 2017, Covington learned that prosecutors were looking at Flynn's FARA filings. But the lawyers didn't inform Flynn until weeks later, according to his current lawyer, Powell.

41. Conflict of Interest

Convington faced a conflict of interest in Flynn's case, because it was in their interest to say any problems with the FARA papers were Flynn's fault, while it was in Flynn's interest to say the lawyers were responsible.

Covington and the Mueller team agreed the firm can continue to represent Flynn if they tell him about the conflict and he consents to it. Powell said the conflict was so serious bar rules required the lawyers to withdraw.

42. Lawyers Don't Take Responsibility

In Flynn's situation, it would have been the ethical thing to do for the lawyers to take responsibility for any problems with the FARA papers, according to Powell. But they didn't do that.

43. Lawyers Express Apprehension About Being Targeted Themselves

The Covington lawyers on several occasions expressed concern that Mueller may target them with a crime-fraud order, a measure that allows prosecutors to break through the attorney-client privilege if they get a judge to agree that the client was conferring with lawyers to further a crime or some misconduct. The lawyers were aware Mueller's team had already used the order against Manafort.

Facing a crime-fraud order would cause bad publicity for Covington, Powell noted. Leading Flynn into the plea allowed the firm to avoid it.

44. Perilous Interviews

In early November 2016, Mueller prosecutors, led by Brandon Van Grack, told Covington that Flynn was facing charges for lying to the FBI and lying on the FARA papers. They asked for Flynn's cooperation with the broader Russia probe, particularly regarding any communications he or other Trump people had with foreign officials.

Van Grack wanted Flynn to sit down for a series of interviews. He offered Flynn limited immunity, but acknowledged that Flynn could still be charged for lying during the interviews.

The lawyers noted that this could have been dangerous for Flynn, even if he was completely honest.

"To ask someone about meetings and calls during an incredibly busy period of his life as an evaluation of candor is not a particularly attractive option," Kelner told the prosecutors during a conference call ( pdf ).

Yet ultimately the Covington lawyers agreed to make Flynn available for the questioning.

45. Belated Consent

Covington only asked Flynn for consent with their conflict of interest in writing on Nov. 19, 2017, after Flynn had already been through two days of interviews with the prosecutors.

46. Wrong Standard

The consent request, sent via email, cited the wrong bar rule for handling of conflicts. The correct rule "creates a much lower threshold at which a lawyer must bow out," Powell said in a court filing.

47. Innocent but Guilty

The Covington lawyers repeatedly told the prosecutors that they didn't think Flynn was guilty of a felony. They were also told that Strzok and Pientka "saw no indication of deception" on Flynn's part and had the impression after the interview that he wasn't lying or didn't think he was lying. But the lawyers still convinced Flynn that he should plead guilty to the felony charge.

48. Threat to Son

According to Flynn's declaration, the Covington lawyers told him that if he didn't plead, the prosecutors would charge his son (who had a four-month-old baby at the time) with a FARA violation, because the son worked for Flynn's firm and was involved in the Turkey project. If he did plead, however, his son "would be left in peace," Flynn said.

The pressure campaign, it seems, was also reflected in media leaks.

"If the elder Flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son it could also change his own fate, potentially limiting any legal consequences," NBC News reported on Nov. 5, 2017, referring to "sources familiar with the investigation."

"To twist the father's arm with regard to his child is a pretty low thing to do," Ruskin commented.

49. 302 Not Shared

The prosecutors refused to share with Flynn the 302 from his January interview until shortly before he agreed to plead. Also, they only shared the final version of the report, which was significantly different from its previous drafts, Flynn later learned.

50. Strzok Texts Understatement

Shortly before Flynn signed his plea, the prosecutors disclosed to his lawyers that one of the agents who interviewed Flynn (Strzok) was being investigated by the IG for potential misconduct. They also disclosed that the agent expressed in electronic communications "a preference for one of the candidates for President."

This was far from covering the bombshell the Strzok texts actually were, Powell noted.

Strzok not only voiced preference for Clinton, but cursed at and repeatedly derided Trump. In one 2016 text, he argued that the FBI needed to take action akin to an "insurance policy" in case Trump won. Strzok later said he was referring to proceeding in the CH probe more aggressively out of a worry that Trump may interfere with it if elected.

51. Lawyers Never Told Flynn?

Flynn said the Convington lawyers never told him that the FBI agents didn't think he lied. Even after he specifically asked about the agents' impression, the lawyers didn't disclose the information and instead told him that "the agents stood by their statement."

"I then understood them to be telling me that the FBI agents believed that I had lied," Flynn said, explaining that had he known, he wouldn't have signed the plea.

52. Statement of Offense Inaccurate

As part of his statement of offense, Flynn affirmed that FIG's FARA papers contained three false statements and one omission. Yet, on all four points the statement of offense was inaccurate, Powell demonstrated ( pdf ).

"The prosecutors concocted the alleged 'false statements' by their own misrepresentations, deceit, and omissions," she said in a court filing ( pdf ).

The FARA papers were "substantially correct" and any deficiencies were the fault of Covington, she said.

53. Lawyers Knew

In an internal email three days before Flynn signed his plea, one of the Covington lawyers pointed out that some of the "false statements" attributed to Flynn in the statement of offense regarding the FARA filings were "contradicted by the caveats or qualifications in the filing."

It seems the lawyers failed to correct the issue, since the statement of offense remained inaccurate. They also never informed Flynn of the issue, according to Powell.

54. Judge Recusal

Flynn entered his plea on Dec. 1, 2017. Shortly after, the judge who accepted the plea, Rudolph Contreras, recused himself from the case. The apparent but undisclosed reason was likely his personal relationship with Strzok.

55. Strzok Texts Media Coincidence

While the IG had found Strzok's texts already in June 2017, their first disclosure in the media came from The Washington Post the day after Flynn entered his guilty plea. Powell noted how convenient the timing was for the prosecutors.

56. Side Deal

The prosecutors conveyed to Covington an "unofficial understanding" that they were "unlikely" to charge Flynn's son in light of Flynn's agreement to continue to cooperate with the Mueller probe, one of the lawyers said in an internal email.

Such an under-the-table deal is "unethical," Ruskin said.

57. Avoiding Giglio Disclosure

Another internal Covington email suggests the prosecutors intentionally kept the deal regarding Flynn's son unofficial to make future prosecutions easier.

"The government took pains not to give a promise to MTF [Michael T. Flynn] regarding Michael [Flynn] Jr., so as to limit how much of a 'benefit' it would have to disclose as part of its Giglio disclosures to any defendant against whom MTF may one day testify," the email reads.

"Giglio" refers to a 1972 Supreme Court opinion that requires prosecutors to disclose to the defense that a witness used by the prosecutors has been promised an escape from prosecution in exchange for cooperation.

58. Questionable Disclosures

After the case was assigned to Judge Sullivan, he entered an order for the DOJ to give Flynn all exculpatory information it had, as the judge does in all cases.

The prosecutors, however, weren't prompt in revealing the information. The Strzok texts, for instance, were only provided to Flynn after they were released publicly.

59. Business Partner Coincidence

One day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, was charged with a failure to register as a foreign agent in relation to FIG's Turkey job.

Powell called it a "shot across the bow" which the Mueller team wanted to "leverage" against Flynn.

"Mr. Van Grack used the possibility of indicting Flynn in the Rafiekian case at the sentencing hearing to raise the specter of all the threats he had made to secure the plea a year earlier -- including the indictment of Mr. Flynn's son," she said in a court filing ( pdf ).

60. Judge Makes False Accusations, Backtracks

During a Dec. 18, 2018, sentencing hearing, Sullivan questioned the prosecutors about whether they considered charging Flynn with treason.

"Arguably, you sold your country out," he told Flynn, saying that he acted as an agent of Turkey while in the White House.

That was wrong on multiple levels. Not only does treason not apply to unregistered lobbying, but the Turkey job had virtually no impact on American interests. It prepared a plan to lobby for the extradition of an Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in the United States, and whom Ankara blamed for instigating a coup attempt in 2016. Almost none of the plan materialized. Most importantly, Flynn shuttered his firm shortly after the election to comply with Trump's promise of no lobbyists in his administration.

Sullivan corrected himself later in the hearing, but many media outlets still put his original remarks in headlines.

61. MSNBC Coincidence

While Sullivan's question about treason and his gaffe about the Turkey job seemed to come out of left field, they mirrored MSNBC talking points from days prior.

The day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow claimed Flynn and Rafiekian "disguised" the origins of payments for the Turkey job so they could "secretly work in the interest of a foreign country without anybody knowing it while they were also working high-level jobs in intelligence inside the U.S. government."

"Flynn really thought he could be a national security adviser, the national security adviser in the White House, and a secret foreign agent at the same time," Maddow said .

Three days before Flynn's sentencing hearing, Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism commentator, said on MSNBC that Flynn "may have been one step away from treason" and "pulled back by cooperating" with Mueller.

62. Judge Fails to Satisfy Plea Rules

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure state in Rule 11 that "before entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea."

As such, Sullivan was required to check that Flynn's alleged lies to the FBI were "material," meaning relevant enough to potentially affect an FBI investigation.

But the judge acknowledged during the sentencing hearing that he hadn't done so.

"It probably won't surprise you that I had many, many, many more questions. such as, you know, how the government's investigation was impeded? What was the material impact of the criminality? Things like that," he said at the conclusion of the hearing.

There's no indication Sullivan has asked those questions since.

63. Unacceptable Plea

Not only could Sullivan not have accepted Flynn's plea before determining materiality, there's evidence he was in fact required to refuse it.

Rule 11 requires the court to "determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement)."

In Flynn's case, there actually was a threat and a promise left out of the deal -- the "unofficial understanding" that his son was "unlikely" to be charged if Flynn cooperated.

64. Lawyers Insisted Flynn 'Stay on the Path'

Before the sentencing hearing, the Covington lawyers told Flynn to "stay on the path" and to refuse if Sullivan offered him to take his plea back, Flynn said in his court declaration.

"If the judge offers you a chance to withdraw your plea, he is giving you the rope to hang yourself. Don't do it," the lawyers said, according to Powell.

65. Unprepared

Flynn said the lawyers only prepared him for a "simple hearing" and not for the extended questioning Sullivan engaged in.

"I was not prepared for this court's plea colloquy, much less to decide, on the spot, whether I should withdraw my plea, consult with independent counsel, or continue to follow my existing lawyers' advice," he said.

In the end, he affirmed his plea during the hearing.

66. Prosecutors Asked for False Testimony?

Flynn was expected to testify against Rafiekian in 2019, but when the moment was to come, prosecutors asked him to say that he signed FIG's FARA papers knowing there were lies in them. Flynn, who had already fired Convington and hired Powell by that point, refused. He said he only acknowledged in hindsight that the FARA papers were inaccurate, but didn't know it at the time.

67. Prosecutors Knew?

Powell has argued that the prosecutors knew they were asking for a false testimony. She filed with the court a draft of Flynn's statement of offense, which shows that the words "FLYNN then and there knew" (pertaining to the FARA registration) were cut from the final version.

Moreover, Powell submitted emails that indicate the words were cut by the prosecutors themselves after the Covington lawyers raised some objections to the draft.

68. Retaliation?

Flynn's refusal to say what prosecutors wanted angered Van Grack, contemporaneous notes show ( pdf ). Shortly after, prosecutors tried to label Flynn as a co-conspirator in the Rafiekian case and put Flynn's son on the list of witnesses for the prosecution. According to Powell, this was retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie.

69. Rafiekian Case Collapses

Prosecutors in the Rafiekian case tried to argue that anybody who does something political at the request of a foreign official and fails to disclose it to the DOJ is an "agent of a foreign government" and can be put in prison for up to 10 years.

The presiding judge, Anthony Trenga, rejected the theory, ruling that an "agent" -- as used in that context -- needs to have a tighter relationship with the foreign government, a relationship that includes "the power of the principal to give directions and the duty of the agent to obey those directions."

Trenga ultimately tossed the case for a lack of evidence .

70. No Exculpatory Evidence?

Starting in August, Powell started to bombard the prosecutors with demands for exculpatory evidence she was convinced the DOJ possessed. But the prosecutors repeatedly claimed the government already provided all it had and had no more.

The main issue was, Powell noted, that the DOJ had a very narrow view of what is exculpatory.

"If something appears on its face to be favorable to the defense the government will claim it was said 'with a wink and a nod,' and therefore it showed the defendant's guilt after all," she complained in an Aug. 30, 2019, filing ( pdf ).

As it later turned out, the FBI was sitting on a number of documents favorable to the defense.

71. Contradicting Notes

When Flynn finally obtained the hand-written notes Strzok and Pientka took during the interview, it turned out they didn't quite match the final 302.

The 302, for instance, says that Flynn remembered making four to five phone calls to Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016. Both sets of notes indicate that Flynn didn't remember that.

Also, the 302 says that Flynn denied that Kislyak got back to him with the Russian response a few days later. There's no mention of a Russian response in the notes.

72. Notes Mixup

It took the prosecutors until November 2019 to find out and tell Flynn that the notes they said belonged to Strzok were actually Pientka's and vice versa.

73. No Date, Name

The notes mixup wasn't that easy to spot because neither set of notes was signed or dated, even though they should have been, according to Powell.

74. Harsher Sentence

Since his sentencing hearing, Flynn was expected to receive a light sentence, possibly probation. In January 2020, however, the prosecutors indicated that Flynn should be treated more harshly because he reneged on his promise to cooperate on the Rafiekian case.

This was part of the retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie for the prosecutors, according to Powell.

Shortly after that, Flynn asked the court to let him withdraw his plea.

75. Hint at Perjury

In February 2020, prosecutors asked for Sullivan to give them access to Flynn's communications with Covington.

Any limitation the court puts on how the attorney-client information can be used shouldn't "preclude the government from prosecuting the defendant for perjury if any information that he provided to counsel were proof of perjury in this proceeding," they said.

It's not clear what specifically they were referring to.

76. Thousands More Documents

In April, Covington told Flynn they found thousands more documents related to his case that they failed to give to Powell due to "an unintentional miscommunication involving the firm's information technology personnel."

77. Van Grack Out

On May 7, 2020, Van Grack withdrew from Flynn's case as well as others. The reason is not clear.

The same day, the DOJ moved to withdraw the Flynn case.

78. Judge Delays

A government motion to withdraw a case usually marks the end of the case. The court still needs to accept the motion, but there's not much it can do, since there's nobody left to prosecute the case.

Sullivan, however, didn't accept it.

79. Appointing Amicus

On May 13, 2020, Sullivan appointed former federal Judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae (friend of court) "to present arguments in opposition to the government's Motion to Dismiss" as well as to "address" whether the court should make the defense explain why "Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury."

This was an unusual move. Amici are normally only appointed in civil or higher court cases. Powell has said Sullivan doesn't have authority to do so.

80. Another Washington Post Coincidence

Just two days earlier, Gleeson co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post where he accused the DOJ of "impropriety," "corruption," and "improper political influence" for dropping the Flynn case.

81. More Delays

On May 19, 2020, Sullivan issued a scheduling order that set an oral argument for July 16, when third parties invited by the judge would get a chance to voice their opinions. As such, the judge set to prolong the case for about two more months and possibly beyond.

Meanwhile, Flynn sent a petition to the District of Columbia appeals court, asking it to order Sullivan to accept the case dismissal .

82. Order for Response

In a rare move , the appeals court ordered Sullivan to respond to Flynn's petition within 10 days. Usually, the court would appoint an amicus curiae to argue the case on behalf of the judge. Sometimes, the court would invite the judge to respond. Ordering a response is "very rare," Reeves commented.

83. Sullivan Lawyers Up

In another unusual turn of events, Sullivan hired highly-connected D.C. attorney Beth Wilkinson to respond to the appeals court on his behalf.

Wilkinson has in the past represented major corporations such as Pfizer, Microsoft, and Phillip Morris, as well as Hillary Clinton aides during the FBI's investigation of Clinton's use of a private email server. She also assisted then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in preparing his 2018 defense against a sexual assault allegation.

Wilkinson is married to CNN analyst David Gregory, the former host of the NBC News' "Meet the Press."

84. DOJ Brings Big Guns

In another unusual move, the DOJ's Solicitor General and five of his deputies responded to the appeals court in support of Flynn's petition. The Solicitor General usually argues cases on behalf of the DOJ before the Supreme Court. His personal involvement in an appeals court petition "is highly unusual and rare," Reeves said.

85. Short Notice

On June 2, 2020, the appeals court set a hearing in the case on June 12 , giving unusually short notice, Reeves noted.

"For non-lawyers, a ten day notice for oral argument may seem like a long time, but it isn't. It's an increidibly [sic] short amount of time," he said, noting that a call for a hearing "shows that the DC Circuit is gravely concerned about this matter."

[Jun 03, 2020] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput

Highly recommended!
Jun 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

freedommusic , 23 minutes ago link

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?

FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?

AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.

DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?

AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.

DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where the server was examined?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?

AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.

DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in FBI laboratories?

AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.

(silence)

DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?

AGENT: Uh .. no.

DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?

AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually examined the computer hardware?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?

AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.

DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?

AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: What?

AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?

AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.

DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their servers?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?

AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.

DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?

AGENT: I don't know.

DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?

AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.

DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?

AGENT: No, I cannot.

DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?

AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Did you lose it?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?

AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?

AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.

DEF ATT: A draft copy?

AGENT: Yes.

DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?

AGENT: No.

DEF ATT: Why not?

AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.

DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is that correct?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?

AGENT: That is correct.

DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.

PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.

( source )

hooligan2009 , 14 minutes ago link

Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).

[May 24, 2020] Obamagate as the reaction of managerial class neoliberals on the crisis of neoliberalism

Highly recommended!
May 24, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , May 24, 2020 8:22 pm

While Flynn is a questionable figure with his Iran warmongering and the former tenure as a Turkey lobbyist, it is important to understand that in Kislyak call he mainly played the role of Israel lobbyist. This important fact was carefully swiped under the carpet by FBI honchos.

Only the second and less important part of the call (the request to Russia to postpone the reaction after the Obama expulsion of diplomats) was related to Russia. Not sure it was necessary: Russia probably understood that this was a provocation and would wait for the dust to settle in any case. Revenge is a dish that is better served cold. Later Russia used this as a pretext to equalize the number of US diplomats in Russia with the number of Russian diplomat in the USA which was a knockdown for any color revolution plans in this country: people with the knowledge of the country and connections to its neoliberal fifth column were sent packing.

But Russian neoliberal compradors were decimated earlier after EuroMaydan in Kiev, so this was actually a service to the USA allowing to save the USA same money (as Trump acknowledged)

Also strange how former chief of DIA fell victim of such a crude trap administered by a second, if nor third rate person -- Strzok. Looks like he was already on the hook and, as such, defenseless for his Turkey lobbing efforts. Which makes Comey-McCabe attempt to entrap him look like a shooing fish in the tank.

Note to managerial class neoliberals (PMC). Your Russiagate stance is to be expected and has nothing to do with virtue.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/22/why-russiagate-still-matters/

it was the urban and suburban PMC that gets its news from the establishment press -- the New York Times, Washington Post and NPR, that believed and supported the story.

[May 22, 2020] Time to Break up the FBI by William S. Smith

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... One could write a long history of FBI abuses and failures, from Latin America to Martin Luther King to Japanese internment. But just consider a handful of their more recent cases. ..."
"... But it was 9/11 that really sealed the FBI's ignominious track record. The lavishly funded agency charged with preventing terrorism somehow missed the attacks, despite their awareness of numerous Saudi nationals taking flying lessons around the country. Immediately after 9/11, the nation was gripped by the anthrax scare, and once again the FBI's inability to solve the case caused them to try to railroad an innocent man, Stephen Hatfill . ..."
"... With 9/11, the FBI also began targeting troubled Americans by handing them bomb materials, arresting them, and then holding a press conference to tell the country that they had prevented a major terrorist attack -- a fake attack that they themselves had planned. ..."
"... 9/11 also opened the floodgates to domestic surveillance and all the FISA abuses that most recently led to the prosecution of Michael Flynn. I am no fan of Flynn and his hawkish anti-Islamic views, but the way he was framed and then prosecuted really does shock the conscience. ..."
"... For the FBI, merely catching bad guys is too mundane. As one can tell from the sanctimonious James Comey, the culture at the Bureau holds grander aspirations. Comey's book is titled A Higher Loyalty , as if the FBI reports only to the Almighty. ..."
"... While the nation's elite colleges and tech companies are crawling with Chinese spies who are literally stealing our best ideas, the chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Section, Peter Strzok, spent his days trying to frame junior aides in the Trump campaign. ..."
"... Some conservatives have called for FBI Director Christopher Wray to be fired. This would accomplish nothing, as the problem is not one man but an entire culture. ..."
"... One of the most amusing yet disturbing tends of the Trump era has been the increasingly strong embrace of the "intelligence community" (how I hate that term) by left liberals. ..."
"... It's tempting to wonder how many of them have even heard of COINTELPRO, but I suspect that most of them would be just fine if the FBI intervened to disrupt and destabilize the Marxist left in the unlikely event that it seemed to be gaining a significant political foothold. Can't have any nasty class politics disrupting their bourgeois identitarian parlor game! ..."
"... J. Edgar Hoover wrecked a lot of the good the FBI could have been right from the beginning, there needs to be a major cultural change over there and they need to be put back on track so that they serve us instead of themselves. ..."
"... Making sure crooks like Hoover and showboats like Comey never get put in charge would be a good start. ..."
"... Remember in "Three Days of the Condor," when Robert Redford reacts scornfully to Cliff Robertson's use of the term "community"? ..."
"... Collaboratus: Basically, working together. BULL, the individual IC Agencies can't work together internally, much less across agency boundaries. ..."
"... Virtus: a specific virtue in Ancient Rome. It carried connotations of valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth, perceived as masculine strengths. Again, BULL. The Feminazis and lgbtqxyz crowd have, pretty much snipped any balls and put them in a jar. Yes, gay pride is big in the IC. ..."
"... Fides: was the goddess of trust and bona fides in Roman paganism. She was one of the original virtues to be considered an actual religious divinity. Fides is everything that is required for "honour and credibility, from fidelity in marriage, to contractual arrangements, and the obligation soldiers owed to Rome". With respect to the IC, that last bears repeating" "Obligations Soldiers Owed To Rome." In the IC (Rome), Leadership and Management (LM) have no obligations to the 'soldiers'; so, of course, the soldiers respond in kind. ..."
"... Real underline issue is FBI has been politicized. Rather than be neutral and independent, top FBI leaders have aligned with politicians. While nominate FBI officials, presidents also select their own than someone is independent. ..."
"... Absolutely nothing new or rare was done to Flynn. The FBI used perfectly standard dirty tricks on him. ..."
"... It isn't just the FBI that uses dirty tactics. most police departments also use dirty tactics. ..."
"... As I see it the agency that needs to be broken up is the CIA. What they do is shameful and not American. They are and have always been heavily involved in other countries internal affairs. They are an evil organization. ..."
"... Absolutely phenomenal that an entire essay abusing the FBI could be written without once mentioning the man who actually made the Federal Bureau of Investigation into what it is (whatever that might be). But J Edgar Hoover is still sufficiently iconic a figure to many Conservatives that it would be counterproductive to assault him. Better someone like Comey. ..."
"... I did not know the FBI had the power to go back in time, otherwise how did they get Flynn to lie to VP Pence on Jan 14 when they didn't interview him until 1/24? Amazing how powerful they are! ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Its constant abuses, of which Michael Flynn is only the latest, show what a failed Progressive Era institution it really is. Fittingly, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was founded by a grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, during the Progressive Era. Bonaparte was a Harvard-educated crusader. As the FBI's official history states, "Many progressives, including (Teddy) Roosevelt, believed that the federal government's guiding hand was necessary to foster justice in an industrial society."

Progressives viewed the Constitution as a malleable document, a take-it-or-leave-it kind of thing. The FBI inherited that mindset of civil liberties being optional. In their early years, with the passage of the Espionage and Sedition Acts during World War I, the FBI came into its own by launching a massive domestic surveillance campaign and prosecuting war dissenters. Thousands of Americans were arrested, prosecuted, and jailed simply for voicing opposition.

One could write a long history of FBI abuses and failures, from Latin America to Martin Luther King to Japanese internment. But just consider a handful of their more recent cases. The FBI needlessly killed women and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge. Anyone who has lived anywhere near Boston knows of the Bureau's staggering corruption during gangster Whitey Bulger's reign of terror. The abuses in Boston were so terrific that radio host Howie Carr declared that the FBI initials really stood for "Famous But Incompetent." And then there's Richard Jewell, the hero security guard who was almost railroaded by zealous FBI agents looking for a scalp after they failed to solve the Atlanta terrorist bombing.

But it was 9/11 that really sealed the FBI's ignominious track record. The lavishly funded agency charged with preventing terrorism somehow missed the attacks, despite their awareness of numerous Saudi nationals taking flying lessons around the country. Immediately after 9/11, the nation was gripped by the anthrax scare, and once again the FBI's inability to solve the case caused them to try to railroad an innocent man, Stephen Hatfill .

With 9/11, the FBI also began targeting troubled Americans by handing them bomb materials, arresting them, and then holding a press conference to tell the country that they had prevented a major terrorist attack -- a fake attack that they themselves had planned.

9/11 also opened the floodgates to domestic surveillance and all the FISA abuses that most recently led to the prosecution of Michael Flynn. I am no fan of Flynn and his hawkish anti-Islamic views, but the way he was framed and then prosecuted really does shock the conscience. After Jewell, Hatfill, Flynn, and so many others, it's time to ask whether the culture of the FBI has become similar to that of Stalin's secret police, i.e. "show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

I am no anti-law enforcement libertarian. In a previous career, I had the privilege to work with agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and they were some of the bravest people I have ever met. And while the DEA can be overly aggressive (just ask anyone who has been subjected to federal asset forfeiture), it is inconceivable that its agents would plot a coup d'état against the president of the United States. The DEA sees their job as catching drug criminals; they stay in their lane.

For the FBI, merely catching bad guys is too mundane. As one can tell from the sanctimonious James Comey, the culture at the Bureau holds grander aspirations. Comey's book is titled A Higher Loyalty , as if the FBI reports only to the Almighty.

They see themselves as progressive guardians of the American Way, intervening whenever and wherever they see democracy in danger. No healthy republic should have a national police force with this kind of culture. There are no doubt many brave and patriotic FBI agents, but there is also no doubt they have been very badly led.

This savior complex led them to aggressively pursue the Russiagate hoax. Their chasing of ghosts should make it clear that the FBI does not stay in their lane. While the nation's elite colleges and tech companies are crawling with Chinese spies who are literally stealing our best ideas, the chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Section, Peter Strzok, spent his days trying to frame junior aides in the Trump campaign.

Some conservatives have called for FBI Director Christopher Wray to be fired. This would accomplish nothing, as the problem is not one man but an entire culture. One possible solution is to break up the FBI into four or five agencies, with one responsible for counterintelligence, one for counterterrorism, one for complex white-collar crime, one for cybercrimes, and so on. Smaller agencies with more distinctive missions would not see themselves as national saviors and could be held accountable for their effectiveness at very specific jobs. It would also allow federal agents to develop genuine expertise rather than, as the FBI regularly does, shifting agents constantly from terrorism cases to the war on drugs to cybercrime to whatever the political class's latest crime du jour might be.

Such a reform would not end every abuse of federal law enforcement, and all these agencies would need to be kept on a short leash for the sake of civil liberties. It would, however, diminish the ostentatious pretension of the current FBI that they are the existential guardians of the republic. In a republic, the people and their elected leaders are the protectors of their liberties. No one else.

William S. Smith is senior research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America. His new book is Democracy and Imperialism: Irving Babbitt and Warlike Democracies (2019) .

Embarrassed • 11 hours ago

One of the most amusing yet disturbing tends of the Trump era has been the increasingly strong embrace of the "intelligence community" (how I hate that term) by left liberals.

It's hard to believe it was only a decade ago when they were (correctly) deriding these exact same people for their manifold failures relating to the War on Terror, but then again left liberals at that time had not yet abandoned the pretense that they were something other than a PMC social club.

It's tempting to wonder how many of them have even heard of COINTELPRO, but I suspect that most of them would be just fine if the FBI intervened to disrupt and destabilize the Marxist left in the unlikely event that it seemed to be gaining a significant political foothold. Can't have any nasty class politics disrupting their bourgeois identitarian parlor game!

Megan S Embarrassed • 6 hours ago
It's not the left liberals, it's the centrists and the neocons fleeing the Republican Party like rats. The left never liked the FBI, never trusted them, with good reason.

J. Edgar Hoover wrecked a lot of the good the FBI could have been right from the beginning, there needs to be a major cultural change over there and they need to be put back on track so that they serve us instead of themselves.

Making sure crooks like Hoover and showboats like Comey never get put in charge would be a good start.

FJR Atlanta Embarrassed • 3 hours ago
Or put another way... One of the most amusing yet disturbing tends of the Trump era has been the increasingly strong disdain of the "intelligence community" (how I hate that term) by far right conservatives.

Let's just be honest with ourselves - we really don't want intelligence, or science, or oversight, unless it supports our team.

Gary Keith Chesterton Embarrassed • 3 hours ago
Remember in "Three Days of the Condor," when Robert Redford reacts scornfully to Cliff Robertson's use of the term "community"?

Nowadays, it's actually an official or semi-official term. They even have their own logo, for crying out loud.

View Hide
TISO_AX2 Gary Keith Chesterton • an hour ago
It represents just one more bureaucrat in the line to go and tell lies before congressional oversight committees. Thanks Bushies.
Linux Pauling Gary Keith Chesterton • 29 minutes ago • edited
Some thoughts on the IC Motto:

1. Collaboratus: Basically, working together. BULL, the individual IC Agencies can't work together internally, much less across agency boundaries. This goes to guys like Mike Flynn (former director of DIA), his predecessors and successors, and their peers across the Intel(?) Community (that one kills me, too); the IC. Not to 'slight' anyone, but middle management is no better, and probably, worse; everyone has to protect their own 'little rice bowl' ya know.

2. Virtus: a specific virtue in Ancient Rome. It carried connotations of valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, and worth, perceived as masculine strengths. Again, BULL. The Feminazis and lgbtqxyz crowd have, pretty much snipped any balls and put them in a jar. Yes, gay pride is big in the IC.

3. Fides: was the goddess of trust and bona fides in Roman paganism. She was one of the original virtues to be considered an actual religious divinity. Fides is everything that is required for "honour and credibility, from fidelity in marriage, to contractual arrangements, and the obligation soldiers owed to Rome". With respect to the IC, that last bears repeating" "Obligations Soldiers Owed To Rome." In the IC (Rome), Leadership and Management (LM) have no obligations to the 'soldiers'; so, of course, the soldiers respond in kind.

The ICs are dog eat dog; LM are looking out for themselves...Period. Actually doing 'the job' is pretty far down the TODO List. The vast majority of people in the 'trenches' are just trying to get through the day; like LM, doing the 'right thing' is no longer the first thought.

To make matters worse (if possible), MANY of those people in the trenches have almost no clue WTF they are doing. This is because management involuntarily reassigns people (SURPRISE!) to jobs for which they were not hired, have no qualifications, and, often, no interest in becoming qualified. Of course, they hang on hoping that 'black swan' will land and make everything right again.

We've had two major incidents (at least), in the last 20 years (9/11 and the Kung Flu) that are specific failures of the IC (IMO). The IC failed (fails?) because Collaboratus, Virtus, and Fides are just some words on a plaque; not goals for which to strive; lip service is a poor substitute.

Yeah, these yahoos are overdue for a good house cleaning as well.

Gary Keith Chesterton Linux Pauling • 5 minutes ago
I work in Defense; and the problems there are identical.
Dodo • 10 hours ago
Real underline issue is FBI has been politicized. Rather than be neutral and independent, top FBI leaders have aligned with politicians. While nominate FBI officials, presidents also select their own than someone is independent.

In order their men can do their "works", they also increased their authorities. Supposedly, FBI directors, once confirmed, will not change with president. In reality, we saw presidents to replace old ones with their own.

It is not break up or whatever "reform". As long as presidents (regardless whom) can choose their own, how can you expect FBI does its jobs stated by laws?

Amicus Brevis • 8 hours ago • edited
It is amazing how far people will let their political hatreds take them. The FBI is actually more important for the services it provides police forces around America than it is for solving federal crimes.

The FBI have been using dirty practices on people for decades. Literally hundreds of people who are not criminals have written about this - several of them are former agents who left in good standing.

They practice some of them right out in the open, like leaking information about arrests to the press so that the press get to film their arrests - sometimes timing arrests to hit local primetime new. It even has a name - the prime time perp walk. Whether these people are convicted or not, those images follow them for the rest of their lives. Or announcing that a person is "a person of interest" to force cooperation, because they know that people hear "suspect" when they hear such announcements. They will then offer to announce that the person is no longer a person of interest in exchange for cooperation. It didn't deserve to be disbanded them.

Absolutely nothing new or rare was done to Flynn. The FBI used perfectly standard dirty tricks on him. But since he was a minion of Donald Trump, the FBI should have known that he was untouchable. That is their real wrongdoing here. But they didn't realize it, so they should be disbanded. It is just like some progressives call for the disbandment of ICE because it arrests illegal aliens.

This ignoramus reminds me of others of his kind who call for the disbandbandment of the UN because they don't like the behavior of its General Council, its human rights or the peace keeping agencies, completely oblivious of the critical services the dozens of non-political UN agencies provide to all countries, especially to very small or under developed ones. They call for the destruction of WHO because it kowtows to China no matter that a number of countries in the world would have access to zero advanced health services without it, and others who are less dependent, but find its services critical in maintaining healthy populations. They find it politically objectionable so get rid of it! I really hate how progressives throw around the words "entitled" and "privilege", but some people do behave that way.

jack Amicus Brevis • 5 hours ago
It isn't just the FBI that uses dirty tactics. most police departments also use dirty tactics.
IanDakar jack • an hour ago
You can't go without the police though and a lot of what goes there can be reformed. Stop treating them like an movie version of the military. Teach them to calm a situation instead of shooting first, and realize you can treat them like an important part of society without making them above the law.
jack • 5 hours ago
As I see it the agency that needs to be broken up is the CIA. What they do is shameful and not American. They are and have always been heavily involved in other countries internal affairs. They are an evil organization.
IanDakar jack • an hour ago
We don't have to pick one program to drop.

Add homeland security to it as well.

I'm a " good government beats a small badly run one" and not a friend to libertarian ideals but there's a lot of government that can get the heave ho.

Wally • 5 hours ago
If conservatives are coming around to the idea that police corruption is a real thing, that would be great. Somehow, I tend to doubt that it extends much beyond a way to protect white collar and political corruption. I hope this is a turning point. The investigations into Clinton emails didn't seem to warrant a mention here. Oh well.
IanDakar Wally • an hour ago
That whole email situation was worthless. Not to say whether there was or was not an issue but the investigation was nothing worthwhile and only resulted in complicating an already messy election. Whether you believe there was a crime or not there there was nothing good handled by that investigation.

Personally I'm more content with the Mueller investigation. Not the way everyone panicked over it on both sides but what Mueller actually did himself: came in, researched the situation, found out that while a good few people acted messy Trump himself wasn't doing more than Twitter talk (yes it's technically "not enough evidence to prosecute", but that is how we phrase "not guilty" technically: you prove guilt not innocence), stated that Trump keeps messing himself up (aka "why did you ask your staff to claim one reason for a firing then tell a different story on national TV idiot")..

Then ran for the hills as everyone screamed "impeach/witchhunt".

Though don't get me wrong: I'm not going to get on the way of any attempt to dismantle the FBI or any of those other systems. It's something I really wish "small government" actually meant.

FND • 3 hours ago
And lets not forget that Russia warned the FBI about the Tsarnaev brothers. The FBI did a perfunctory investigation and dismissed the threat. They probably thought they were a couple of poor Chechen boys persecuted by those evil Russians.
Brasidas • 3 hours ago
And while the DEA can be overly aggressive... it is inconceivable that its agents would plot a coup d'état against the president of the United States.

And it still is.

David Naas • an hour ago
Absolutely phenomenal that an entire essay abusing the FBI could be written without once mentioning the man who actually made the Federal Bureau of Investigation into what it is (whatever that might be). But J Edgar Hoover is still sufficiently iconic a figure to many Conservatives that it would be counterproductive to assault him. Better someone like Comey.

But, this is part of a pattern of Trump and his loyal followers (no Conservatives they) assault on the Institutions. The FBI is insufficiently tamed by Billy Barr, so it must go. (Part of the deep state swamp. /s).

Actually, there are very sound reasons for keeping the FBI, and even more for reforming it. But since it was engaged in checking out Trump's minion, Flynn, it is bad, very bad, incredibly bad, and must go. OTOH, if Comey had bent the knee to Trump, the FBI would be the most tremendous force for good the country has ever seen.

But this essay must be seen as part of the background of attempted legitimization for whatever Trump tweetstormed today. Perhaps the critics are right, and "conservatism is dead". If so, it would be the proper thing to give it a decent burial and go on.

Because there is nothing about Donald John Trump which is the least Conservative, and it is sickening to see people I once presumed to be "principled" line up at the altar of Trumpism. You know he will not be satisfied until the country is renamed The United States of Trump.

Now, all you Trumpublicans and Trumpservatives go downvote because I decline to abandon Conservatism for Trumpworship,

Jim Hohman • 9 minutes ago
I did not know the FBI had the power to go back in time, otherwise how did they get Flynn to lie to VP Pence on Jan 14 when they didn't interview him until 1/24? Amazing how powerful they are!

[May 20, 2020] Newly Revealed Texts Show Strzok, Page Altered Flynn Interview Notes

Highly recommended!
Yes it was a perjury trap. Typical fbi thug behavior
Apr 30, 2020 | www.newsmax.com

Yet another bombshell development emerged Thursday in the case of former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn: the release of additional exculpatory evidence FBI officials had withheld from the courts and the defense for three years.

Crucially, this includes evidence that the Bureau's official "302 report" filed by the lead agent who interviewed Flynn was edited multiple times, including by an official who never participated in the interview.

Thursday's revelations come on top of yesterday's disclosures indicating an apparent attempt by FBI officials to trap Flynn into committing a criminal offense during an interview.

The new revelation could prove even more significant: In addition to the apparently calculated effort to get Flynn to commit perjury or obstruction, top FBI figures, including FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, repeatedly altered the "302 report" that was filed after the Flynn interview.

That interview was conducted under highly unusual circumstances. Ordinarily, an FBI interview of a top West Wing official would be requested through the White House Counsel's office, and would be conducted in the presence of legal counsel representing the official being interviewed.

That did not occur in the case of the FBI's interview with Flynn, and Comey later stated that under "a more organized administration" he "probably wouldn't have gotten away with it."

Initially, when the lead FBI agent handling the case was asked whether Flynn lied during the interview, he stated that he did not believe so.

But over the coming days Strzok and Page would edit and revise the agent's 302 report repeatedly, according to a document providing text messages between FBI officials that the defense counsel finally received this week.

Prosecutors and investigators are required to turn over information that might tend to indicate a suspect's innocence to the defense counsel prior to trial and sentencing. Most legal analysts would consider the information withheld from Flynn's legal team potentially exculpatory.

An inside source familiar with efforts to defend Gen. Flynn tells Newsmax an unadulterated, original 302 document exists that was created by the lead agent from his notes of the interview with Flynn.

Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University law professor who testified before the House during President Trump's impeachment, wrote Thursday the decision to keep the case open occurred when "Special counsel Robert Mueller decided to bring the dubious charge."

In a column posted on TheHill.com on Thursday, Turley said the case against Flynn should be dismissed. "Justice demands a dismissal of his prosecution," he wrote.

At the time Flynn was being prosecuted, Mueller was seeking evidence the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign.

Critics say he was prosecuting Flynn to get him to turn state's witness against Trump, but the general never implicated him.

Mueller eventually determined there was no evidence of a Russian-collusion conspiracy. But by then Flynn, under intense financial pressure from the prosecution and buckling under the threat that his son could be drawn into a legal quagmire, had pled guilty to one count of lying to the FBI.

He has since requested to withdraw that plea, and he is awaiting sentencing.

President Trump weighed in on the controversial case Thursday morning tweeting, "What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!"

Later the president told reporters he believes Flynn is "in the process of being exonerated."

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik reacted strongly on Thursday to the news FBI officials to altered a 302 report and reopened the case when the initial analysis indicated no crime had been committed.

Kerik told Newsmax Thursday that if evidence or records had been unduly altered under his watch as police commissioner, he would have referred the matter to the district attorney for possible prosecution.

"They intentionally went back and doctored the original 302," he said. "That's because they were not looking for the truth.

"They were looking for a mechanism to trap Gen. Flynn, to prosecute him, to get him fired in order to go after the president. That was their motive, that was their agenda. It's absolutely clear at this point they were not looking for the truth."

Kerik added, "This was done at the highest levels of the FBI. At the most senior level of the FBI, they falsified records, they suppressed evidence.

"This is irresponsible, it's outrageous They used and abused their authority to deprive Gen. Flynn of his constitutional right to freedom," he said.

According to the source, as supported by text messages also obtained by Newsmax, Stzrok, who also participated in the Flynn interview, rewrote the 302 extensively -- although a text message from him stated he tried not to "completely re-write it so as to save [redacted] voice," presumably a reference to the lead agent who originally wrote it.

Stzrok then shared the document with a "pissed off" Page, who had not participated in the interview, and who revised it significantly again, according to the Newsmax source.

The objective of the interview was to probe whether Flynn had violated the Logan Act, an 18th-century statute that has never been used in any criminal conviction. The Act makes it a crime for a U.S. citizens to interfere with the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Many legal scholars find the law to be unconstitutional.

The documents received by Newsmax indicate the case had virtually been closed – suggesting the lead agent was satisfied no crime had been committed -- prior to it being reopened by the direct intervention of Strzok and Page.

The documents, for example, show the probe of Flynn was about to be put to bed when the lead agent received a text from Strzok stating, "Hey, if you haven't closed [the case], don't do so yet."

Apparently, Page was pleasantly surprised to find the matter had not yet been closed.

On Feb. 10, 2017, Page texted Strzok, "This document pisses me off. You didn't even attempt to make this cogent and readable? This is lazy work on your part."

Strzok replied, "Lisa you didn't see it before my edits that went into what I sent you. I was 1) trying to completely re-write the thing so as to save [the lead agent's] voice and 2) get it out to you for general review and comment in anticipation of needing it soon."

Wednesday's revelation included notes of a meeting conducted a short time after the 2016 election between FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The notes stated, "What is our goal? Truth and admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

The notes were written by then-FBI head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap.

[May 18, 2020] FBI under Comey as an uncontrolled political police operating without any oversight from Justice Department

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Did [ FBI Director James B. Comey] seek permission from you to do the formal opening of the counterintelligence investigation?" Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, asked the former attorney general. ..."
"... "No, and he ordinarily would not have had to do that," Ms. Lynch answered. "lt would not have come to the attorney general for that." ..."
"... Mr. Schiff, a fierce defender of the FBI in the Russia probe, seemed taken aback. "Even in the case where you're talking about a campaign for president?" he asked. ..."
"... "I can't recall if it was discussed or not," Ms. Lynch said. "I just don't have a recollection of that in the meetings that I had with him." ..."
"... "Yates was very frustrated in the call with Comey," said the FBI interview report, known as a 302. "She felt a decision to conduct an interview of Flynn should have been coordinated with [the Department of Justice ]." ..."
"... Ms. Yates told the FBI that the interview was "problematic" because the White House counsel should have been notified. ..."
"... During his book tour, Mr. Comey bragged that he sent the two agents without such notification by taking advantage of the White House's formative stage. He said he "wouldn't have gotten away with it" in a more seasoned White House. ..."
"... Other evidence of an FBI on autopilot: The Justice Department inspector general's report on how the bureau probed the Trump campaign revealed more than a dozen instances of FBI personnel submitting false information in wiretap applications and withholding exculpatory evidence. For example, agents evaded Justice Department scrutiny by not telling their warrant overseer that witnesses had cast doubt on the reliability of the Steele dossier. ..."
May 18, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

Newly released documents show FBI agents operated on autopilot in 2016 and 2017 while targeting President Trump and his campaign with little or no Justice Department guidance for such a momentous investigation.

Loretta E. Lynch, President Obama's attorney general, said she never knew the FBI was placing wiretaps on a Trump campaign volunteer or using the dossier claims of former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to put the entire Trump world under suspicion. Mr. Steele was handled by Fusion GPS and paid with funds from the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

"I don't have a recollection of briefings on Fusion GPS or Mr. Steele ," Ms. Lynch told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in October 2017. "I don't have any information on that, and I don't have a recollection being briefed on that."

Under pressure from acting Director of National Intelligence Richard A. Grenell, the committee last week released transcripts of her testimony and that of more than 50 other witnesses in 2017 and 2018, when Republicans controlled the Trump- Russia investigation.

Ms. Lynch also testified that she had no knowledge the FBI had taken the profound step of opening an investigation, led by agent Peter Strzok, into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.

"Did [ FBI Director James B. Comey] seek permission from you to do the formal opening of the counterintelligence investigation?" Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, asked the former attorney general.

"No, and he ordinarily would not have had to do that," Ms. Lynch answered. "lt would not have come to the attorney general for that."

Mr. Schiff, a fierce defender of the FBI in the Russia probe, seemed taken aback. "Even in the case where you're talking about a campaign for president?" he asked.

"I can't recall if it was discussed or not," Ms. Lynch said. "I just don't have a recollection of that in the meetings that I had with him."

Attorney General William P. Barr has changed the rules. He announced that the attorney general now must approve any FBI decision to investigate a presidential campaign.

Ms. Lynch's testimony adds to the picture of an insular, and sometimes misbehaving, FBI as its agents searched for evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election to damage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton .

In documents filed by the Justice Department last week, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates expressed dismay that Mr. Comey would dispatch two agents, including Mr. Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, to interview incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn at the White House.

Ms. Yates, interviewed by FBI agents assigned to the Robert Mueller special counsel probe, said Mr. Comey notified her only after the fact.

"Yates was very frustrated in the call with Comey," said the FBI interview report, known as a 302. "She felt a decision to conduct an interview of Flynn should have been coordinated with [the Department of Justice ]."

Ms. Yates told the FBI that the interview was "problematic" because the White House counsel should have been notified.

During his book tour, Mr. Comey bragged that he sent the two agents without such notification by taking advantage of the White House's formative stage. He said he "wouldn't have gotten away with it" in a more seasoned White House.

Mr. Barr filed court papers asking U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to dismiss the Flynn case and his guilty plea to lying to Mr. Strzok about phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Mr. Strzok and other FBI personnel planned the Flynn interview as a near ambush with a goal of prompting him to lie and getting fired, according to new court filings.

Other evidence of an FBI on autopilot: The Justice Department inspector general's report on how the bureau probed the Trump campaign revealed more than a dozen instances of FBI personnel submitting false information in wiretap applications and withholding exculpatory evidence. For example, agents evaded Justice Department scrutiny by not telling their warrant overseer that witnesses had cast doubt on the reliability of the Steele dossier.

The far-fetched dossier was the one essential piece of evidence required to obtain four surveillance warrants on campaign volunteer Carter Page, according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. The Mueller and Horowitz reports have discredited the dossier's dozen conspiracy claims against the president and his allies.

A who's who of Trump- Russia

Mr. Schiff, now chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence , had held on to the declassified transcripts for more than a year. Under pressure from Republicans and Mr. Grenell, he released the 6,000 pages on the hectic day Mr. Barr moved to end the Flynn prosecution.

The closed-door testimony included witnesses such as Mr. Obama's national security adviser, a United Nations ambassador, the nation's top spy and the FBI deputy director. There were also Clinton campaign chieftains and lawyers.

The transcripts' most often-produced headline: Obama investigators never saw evidence of Trump conspiracy between the time the probe was opened until they left office in mid-January 2017.

"I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election," former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper told the committee .

Mr. Clapper is a paid CNN analyst who has implied repeatedly and without evidence that Mr. Trump is a Russian spy and a traitor. The Mueller report contained no evidence that Mr. Trump is a Russian agent or election conspirator.

Mr. Schiff told the country repeatedly that he had seen evidence of Trump collusion that went beyond circumstantial. Mr. Mueller did not.

Mr. Schiff was a big public supporter of Mr. Steele 's dossier, which relied on a Moscow main source and was fed by deliberate Kremlin disinformation against Mr. Trump, according to the Horowitz report.

Trump Tower

One of Mr. Schiff's pieces of evidence of a conspiracy "in plain sight" is the meeting Donald Trump Jr. took with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9, 2016.

The connections are complicated but, simply put, a Russian friend of the Trumps' said she might have dirt on Mrs. Clinton . At the time, Ms. Veselnitskaya was in New York representing a rich Russian accused by the Justice Department of money laundering. To investigate, she hired Fusion GPS -- the same firm that retained Mr. Steele to damage the Trump campaign.

The meeting was brief and seemed to be a ruse to enable Ms. Veselnitskaya to pitch an end to Obama-era economic sanctions that hurt her client. Attending were campaign adviser Paul Manafort, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Anatoli Samochornov. Mr. Samochornov is a dual citizen of Russia and the U.S. who serves as an interpreter to several clients, including Ms. Veselnitskaya and the State Department.

Mr. Samochornov was the Russian lawyer's interpreter that day. His recitation of events basically backs the versions given by the Trump associates, according to a transcript of his November 2017 committee testimony.

The meeting lasted about 20 minutes. Ms. Veselnitskaya briefly talked about possible illegal campaign contributions to Mrs. Clinton . Manafort, busy on his cellphone, remarked that the contributions would not be illegal. Mr. Kushner left after a few minutes.

Then, Rinat Akhmetshin, a lobbyist, made the case for ditching sanctions. He linked that to a move by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end a ban on Americans adopting Russian children.

Mr. Trump Jr. said that issue would be addressed if his father was elected. In the end, the Trump administration put more sanctions on Moscow's political and business operators.

"I've never heard anything about the elections being mentioned at that meeting at all or in any subsequent discussions with Ms. Veselnitskaya," Mr. Samochornov testified.

No mask

One of the first things Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, did to earn the animus of Democrats and the liberal media was to visit the Trump White House to learn about "unmaskings" by Obama appointees.

The National Security Agency, by practice, obscures the names of any Americans caught up in the intercept of foreign communications. Flynn was unmasked in the top-secret transcript of his Kislyak call so officials reading it would know who was on the line.

In reading intelligence reports, if government officials want the identity of an "American person," they make a request to the intelligence community. The fear is that repeated requests could indicate political purposes.

That suspicion is how Samantha Power ended up at the House intelligence committee witness table. The former U.N. ambassador seemed to have broken records by requesting hundreds of unmaskings, though the transcript did not contain the identities of the people she exposed.

She explained to the committee why she needed to know.

"I am reading that intelligence with an eye to doing my job, right?" Ms. Power said. "Whatever my job is, whatever I am focused on on a given day, I'm taking in the intelligence to inform my judgment, to be able to advise the president on ISIL or on whatever, or to inform how I'm going to try to optimize my ability to advance U.S. interests in New York."

She continued: "I can't understand the intelligence . Can you go and ascertain who this is so I can figure out what it is I'm reading. You've made the judgement, intelligence professionals, that I need to read this piece of intelligence, I'm reading it, and it's just got this gap in it, and I didn't understand that. But I never discussed any name that I received when I did make a request and something came back or when it was annotated and came to me. I never discussed one of those names with any other individual."

Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, listened and then mentioned other officeholders, such as the White House national security adviser and the secretary of state.

"There are lots of people who need to understand intelligence products, but the number of requests they made, ambassador, don't approach yours," Mr. Gowdy said.

Ms. Power implied that members of her staff were requesting American identities and invoking her name without her knowledge.

The dossier

By mid- to late 2017, the full story on the Democrats' dossier -- that it was riddled with false claims of criminality that served, as Mr. Barr said, to sabotage the Trump White House -- was not known.

Mr. Steele claimed that there was a far-reaching Trump- Russia conspiracy, that Mr. Trump was a Russian spy, that Mr. Trump financed Kremlin computer hacking, that his attorney went to Prague to pay hush money to Putin operatives, and that Manafort and Carter Page worked as a conspiracy team.

Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn R. Simpson, a Clinton operative, spread the inaccuracies all over Washington: to the FBI , the Justice Department , Congress and the news media.

None of it proved true.

But to Clinton loyalists in 2017, the dossier was golden.

"I was mostly focused in that meeting on, you know, the guy standing behind this material is Christopher Steele ," campaign foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan said about a Fusion meeting. "He is the one who's judging its credibility and veracity. You know him. What do you think, based on your conversations with him? That's what I was really there to try and figure out. And Glenn was incredibly positive about Steele and felt he was really on to something and also felt that there was more out there to go find."

Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias vouched for the dossier, and its information spread to reporters. He met briefly with Mr. Steele during the election campaign.

"I thought that the information that he or they wished to convey was accurate and important," Mr. Elias testified.

"So the information that Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele wished to portray to the media in the fall of 2016 at that time, you thought, was accurate and important?" he was asked.

"As I understand it," he replied.

Mr. Elias rejected allegations that the Clinton campaign conspired with Russia by having its operatives spread the Moscow-sourced dirt.

"I don't have enough knowledge about when you say that Russians were involved in the dossier," he said to a questioner. "I mean that genuinely. I'm not privy to what information you all have.

"It sounds like the suggestion is that Russia somehow gave information to the Clinton campaign vis-a-vis one person to one person, to another person, to another person, to me, to the campaign. That strikes me as fanciful and unlikely, but perhaps as I said, I don't have a security clearance. You all have facts and information that is not available to me. But I certainly never had any hint or whiff."

[May 17, 2020] General Flynn investigation 'has tarnished Obama's legacy' - YouTube

Highly recommended!
May 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Missie , 22 hours ago

President Trump battled China for 3 1/2 years while Democrats tried to take him down. Like POTUS said, they're human scum.

Gusli Kokle , 22 hours ago

Obama is self-tarnishing.

Shane Brbich , 22 hours ago div tabindex="0" role="article"

> He will go down as The most corrupt president in history! Spied on an opponents campaign Authorised the intelligence agencies to spy Leaker Collided with Russia

Memey Memes , 22 hours ago

Tarnished its more than that its total evil.

Cinda Jenkins , 22 hours ago

I didn't think he had a legacy. A pretty bad one to say the least.

toycollector10 , 22 hours ago

Sky News Australia. How do you keep getting away with all of the truth telling? Watching from N.Z. Keep up the good work.

Missie , 22 hours ago

Our Fakenews networks conspired with Obama, Obama's previous Cabinet, Hillary, the CIA, FBI, NSA, DNC, and Democrats in Congress. They were all in on it together. #Sedition #Treason

jamee boss , 21 hours ago

The New World Order virus needs to be investigate immediately. This is the biggest crimes in the world history

Epifanio Esmero , 22 hours ago

By framing an innocent man, they have only entrapped themselves!! Karma!!

Ken Mulrooney , 22 hours ago

You can't tarnish that idiots legacy He doesn't need any help

Mark Shaw , 19 hours ago

As an outsider looking in, I find it hard to believe that the American people, would allow politicians of any party to get away with this behavior.

הדבר אדני יהוה לישועה , 20 hours ago

Obama framed Trump as a Russian spy to deflect public focus from the crimes of his Administration

chris campbell , 22 hours ago

He was tarnished a lllooonnnngggg time ago!His legacy is one of corruption!

John Inton , 21 hours ago

ex-president Obummer biggest legacy to the democratic world is allowing China to claim all of the South China Sea by turning a blind eye whilst China was dredging the sea beds and creating artificial islands all over the South China sea!!

mG , 19 hours ago

A shame nothing will actually happen to that trash.

Green Onions , 22 hours ago

Every move he made tarnished his reputation. The only thing propping him up was the media.

Jann , 20 hours ago

I hope Barak Hussein Obama goes down for this.

NOISLAMONAZIS DOTCOM , 22 hours ago (edited)

What legacy? Obama was just another NWO puppet and so performed as a puppet should. MSM is owned by the same people that are Obama's boss.

SandhoeFlyer , 19 hours ago

Obama will go down in history as a lier, a fraud, dishonourable and a lousy President .

I P , 20 hours ago

Obama was an America hater from day one, and committed many treasons public and private. His "legacy" is and was a fabrication of the MSM, who tolerated no end of abuses, including Obama suing a number of journalists.

But let's just look at one item, underplayed by the MSM: Obama did everything he could to stop the 9/11 victims bill, including a presidential veto, which was then overridden by a gigantic (97-1) senate vote.

McCain and Graham continued to fight the LAW, undoubtedly with Obama help, using Arab funded lawyers to the tune of 1.2 million dollars per month.

[May 17, 2020] Apparently, the FBI, and not the CIA, are the real government.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... According to these transcripts of congressional testimony by some of the participants, the FBI decided all by itself after Comey was fired to consider acting against Trump by pursuing him for suspicion of conspiracy with Russia to give the Russians the president of the US that they supposedly wanted. ..."
"... Following these seditious and IMO illegal discussions the FBI and Sessions/Rosenstein's Justice Department sought FISA Court warrants for surveillance against associates of Trump and members of his campaign for president. ..."
"... IMO this collection of actions when added to whatever Clapper, Brennan and "the lads" of the Deep State were doing with the British intelligence services amount to an attempted "soft coup" against the constitution and from the continued stonewalling of the FBI and DoJ the coup is ongoing ..."
Jan 15, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Just to review the situation:

  1. The president of the US was made head of the Executive Branch (EC) of the federal government by Article 2 of the present constitution of the US. He is also Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the federal government. As head of the EC, he is head of all the parts of the government excepting the Congress and the Federal courts which are co-equal branches of the federal government. The Department of Justice is just another Executive Branch Department subordinate in all things to the president. The FBI is a federal police force and counter-intelligence agency subordinate to the Department of Justice and DNI and therefore to the president in all things. The FBI actually IMO has no legal right whatever to investigate the president. He is the constitutionally elected commander of the FBI. Does one investigate one's commander? No. The procedures for legally and constitutionally removing a president from office for malfeasance are clear. He must be impeached by the House of Representatives for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" and then tried by the US Senate on the charges. Conviction results in removal from office.
  2. According to these transcripts of congressional testimony by some of the participants, the FBI decided all by itself after Comey was fired to consider acting against Trump by pursuing him for suspicion of conspiracy with Russia to give the Russians the president of the US that they supposedly wanted. Part of the discussions among senior FBI people had to do with whether or not the president had the legal authority to remove from office an FBI Director. Say what? Where have these dummies been all their careers? Do they not teach anything about this at the FBI Academy? The US Army lectures its officers at every level of schooling on the subject of the constitutional and legal basis and limits of their authority.
  3. Following these seditious and IMO illegal discussions the FBI and Sessions/Rosenstein's Justice Department sought FISA Court warrants for surveillance against associates of Trump and members of his campaign for president. Their application for warrants were largely based on unsubstantiated "opposition research" funded by the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. The judge who approved the warrants was not informed of the nature of the evidence. These warrants provided an authority for surveillance of the Trump campaign.
  4. IMO this collection of actions when added to whatever Clapper, Brennan and "the lads" of the Deep State were doing with the British intelligence services amount to an attempted "soft coup" against the constitution and from the continued stonewalling of the FBI and DoJ the coup is ongoing. pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/14/politics/trump-fbi-debate-investigation/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_4:_Receiving_foreign_representatives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation#Organization

[May 13, 2020] From RussiaGate To ObamaGate The End Of Boomerville by Tom Luongo

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... it's clear that Obama was always the vector through which the entire investigation into Donald Trump pointed. He's the only one with the power to have marshaled the forces arrayed against Trump for the past four years. ..."
"... What's clear now is the President Obama's administration was regularly engaged in illegally using NSA database access to spy on Americans and political opponents . This operation pre-dates Trump by a few years ..."
"... On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 "about"(17) and "to/from"(16) search queries were being done without authorization ..."
"... And that's when everything changed. Because at that point, having lost access Obama's spy team needed another way into the NSA database. Enter Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and the ridiculous dossier used to issue FISA warrants on Carter Page and all the rest of it. ..."
"... Obama is guilty of the highest crimes a President can be guilty of, utilizing Federal law enforcement and intelligence services to spy on a political opponent during an election. This is after eight years of ruinous wars, coups both successful and not, drone-striking U.S. citizens and generally carrying on like the vandal he is. ..."
"... Obama's people have been covering for him for nearly four years now. They have been exposed as bald-faced liars by the transcripts of their impeachment testimonies to Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee. ..."
"... Now that the heat is rising and the apparatus they used to control turns its attention to what they did, enough of them will roll over and give Attorney General William Barr what he wants. ..."
"... And here we are coming into the home stretch and the bitter end is staring these people in the face. They've lost all credibility, corrupted whole swaths of the Federal government beyond recognition and activated every resource they have in the media and the chattering classes to make manifest a bald-faced lie. And it didn't work. Now the desperation sets in. The exoneration of Gen. Michael Flynn, the release of the transcripts and conflicting stories told by John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and the rest all point to something beyond sinister. ..."
"... You can smell the fear now. From Bill Kristol to John Brennan they can see the end of their project, whether it was for a New American Neocon Century or just the cynical push for a transnational oligarchy based around the European Union, their Utopian dreams have run into the immovable object of a people refusing to believe their lies anymore. ..."
May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

From the beginning of the story RussiaGate was always about Barack Obama . I didn't always see it that way, certainly. My seething hatred for all things Hillary Clinton is a powerful blind spot I admit to freely.

But, it's clear that Obama was always the vector through which the entire investigation into Donald Trump pointed. He's the only one with the power to have marshaled the forces arrayed against Trump for the past four years.

We've known this for a couple of years now but there were a seemingly endless series of distractions put in place to obfuscate the truth...

Donald Trump was not a Russian agent.

What's clear now is the President Obama's administration was regularly engaged in illegally using NSA database access to spy on Americans and political opponents . This operation pre-dates Trump by a few years.

It was de rigeur by the time the election cycle ramped up in 2016. The timing of events is during that time period paints a very damning picture. This article from Zerohedge by way of Conservative Treehouse lays out the timing, the activities and the shifts in the narrative that implicate Obama beyond any doubt.

On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 "about"(17) and "to/from"(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.

And that's when everything changed. Because at that point, having lost access Obama's spy team needed another way into the NSA database. Enter Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and the ridiculous dossier used to issue FISA warrants on Carter Page and all the rest of it.

The details are all there for anyone with eyes willing to see, the question is whether anyone deep in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome will take their eyes off the shadow play in front of them long enough to look.

I'm not holding my breath.

Obama is guilty of the highest crimes a President can be guilty of, utilizing Federal law enforcement and intelligence services to spy on a political opponent during an election. This is after eight years of ruinous wars, coups both successful and not, drone-striking U.S. citizens and generally carrying on like the vandal he is.

OBAMAGATE! pic.twitter.com/pFbb6hgDhF

-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2020

... ... ...

These people obviously missed the key point about Goebbels' Big Lie theory of propaganda. For it to work there has to be a nugget of truth to wrap the lie in before you can repeat it endlessly to make it real. And that's why RussiaGate is dead. Long live ObamaGate.

Obama's people have been covering for him for nearly four years now. They have been exposed as bald-faced liars by the transcripts of their impeachment testimonies to Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee.

None of them were willing to testify under oath, and be guilty of perjury, to the effect that Trump was colluding with the Russians. But, they'd say it on TV, Twitter and anywhere else they could to attack Trump with patent nonsense.

Now that the heat is rising and the apparatus they used to control turns its attention to what they did, enough of them will roll over and give Attorney General William Barr what he wants. Some of them will fall on their sword for Obama.

But I don't think Trump will be satisfied with that. He has to know that Obama is the key to truly draining the Swamp if that is, in fact, his goal. Because if he doesn't attack Obama now, Obama will be formidable in October. Both men are fighting for their lives at this point.

Trump was supposed to roll over and play nice. But Pat Buchanan rightly had him pegged at the beginning of this back in January of 2017, saying that Trump wasn't like Nixon, he wouldn't walk away to protect the office of the Presidency. He would fight to the bitter end because that's who he is.

And here we are coming into the home stretch and the bitter end is staring these people in the face. They've lost all credibility, corrupted whole swaths of the Federal government beyond recognition and activated every resource they have in the media and the chattering classes to make manifest a bald-faced lie. And it didn't work. Now the desperation sets in. The exoneration of Gen. Michael Flynn, the release of the transcripts and conflicting stories told by John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and the rest all point to something beyond sinister.

You can smell the fear now. From Bill Kristol to John Brennan they can see the end of their project, whether it was for a New American Neocon Century or just the cynical push for a transnational oligarchy based around the European Union, their Utopian dreams have run into the immovable object of a people refusing to believe their lies anymore.

... ... ...

* * *

Join My Patreon if you no longer want to live in Boomerville. Install the Brave Browser if you want to help others escape it.

[May 11, 2020] Lee Zeldin Adam Schiff 'should resign today' for role in Russia investigation by Dominick Mastrangelo

Highly recommended!
Looks like Obama was the head of this gaslighing operation, not Schiff...
May 11, 2020 | www.washingtonexaminer.com
R ep. Lee Zeldin demanded that Rep. Adam Schiff be stripped of his post as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and resign because of his role in the Russia investigation.

"Adam Schiff should not be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. His gavel should be removed. He should be censured. He should resign," Zeldin said Monday on Fox News. "There's a lot that should happen, but Nancy Pelosi isn't going to punish Adam Schiff. In fact, that's the reason why he has the gavel in the first place."

Republicans have been critical of Schiff in recent weeks after reports suggested that Schiff was trying to block the release of some of the transcripts of the investigation's 53 witness interviews.

Some of the transcripts were eventually released and undercut claims used by Democrats to push for impeachment.

"He's the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, which became the House Impeachment Committee because of the way he writes these fairy-tale parodies," Zeldin said.

The Republican from New York suggested that Schiff and Democrats who impeached Trump and tried to remove him from office were aided by friends in the media.

"It's actually one that the Democrats reward. It's one that the media rewards," Zeldin said. "So, I'm not going to expect any repercussions even though he should resign today."

https://embed.air.tv/v1/iframe/oJNk_yRyQ5G9DqCdGyOLTQ?organization=MoTlAWfQQXyEPg6AYxEZSw

[May 11, 2020] Twin Pillars of Russiagate Crumble by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
So the RussiaGate was giant gaslighting of the US electorate by Clinton gang and intelligence agencies rogues.
Notable quotes:
"... For two and a half years the House Intelligence Committee knew CrowdStrike didn't have the goods on Russia. Now the public knows too. ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee documents released Thursday reveal that the committee was told two and half years ago that the FBI had no concrete evidence that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee computers to filch the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks ..."
"... Henry testifies that "it appears it [the theft of DNC emails] was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left." ..."
"... This, in VIPS view, suggests that someone with access to DNC computers "set up" selected emails for transfer to an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example. The Internet is not needed for such a transfer. Use of the Internet would have been detected, enabling Henry to pinpoint any "exfiltration" over that network. ..."
"... Bill Binney, a former NSA technical director and a VIPs member, filed a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. Binney said: "WikiLeaks did not receive stolen data from the Russian government. Intrinsic metadata in the publicly available files on WikiLeaks demonstrates that the files acquired by WikiLeaks were delivered in a medium such as a thumb drive." ..."
"... Both pillars of Russiagate–collusion and a Russian hack–have now fairly crumbled. ..."
"... Thursday's disclosure of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee shows Chairman Adam Schiff lied not only about Trump-Putin "collusion," [which the Mueller report failed to prove and whose allegations were based on DNC and Clinton-financed opposition research] but also about the even more basic issue of "Russian hacking" of the DNC. [See: "The Democratic Money Behind Russia-gate."] ..."
"... Fortunately, the cameras were still on when I approached Schiff during the Q&A: "You have every confidence but no evidence, is that right?" I asked him. His answer was a harbinger of things to come. This video clip may be worth the four minutes needed to watch it. ..."
"... Schiff and his partners in crime will be in for much tougher treatment if Trump allows Attorney General Barr and US Attorney John Durham to bring their investigation into the origins of Russia-gate to a timely conclusion. Barr's dismissal on Thursday of charges against Flynn, after released FBI documents revealed that a perjury trap was set for him to keep Russiagate going, may be a sign of things to come. ..."
May 11, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

For two and a half years the House Intelligence Committee knew CrowdStrike didn't have the goods on Russia. Now the public knows too.

House Intelligence Committee documents released Thursday reveal that the committee was told two and half years ago that the FBI had no concrete evidence that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee computers to filch the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks in July 2016.

The until-now-buried, closed-door testimony came on Dec. 5, 2017 from Shawn Henry, a protégé of former FBI Director Robert Mueller (from 2001 to 2012), for whom Henry served as head of the Bureau's cyber crime investigations unit.

Henry retired in 2012 and took a senior position at CrowdStrike, the cyber security firm hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to investigate the cyber intrusions that occurred before the 2016 presidential election.

The following excerpts from Henry's testimony speak for themselves. The dialogue is not a paragon of clarity; but if read carefully, even cyber neophytes can understand:

Ranking Member Mr. [Adam] Schiff: Do you know the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC? when would that have been?

Mr. Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have no indicators that it was exfiltrated (sic). There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left.

Mr. [Chris] Stewart of Utah: Okay. What about the emails that everyone is so, you know, knowledgeable of? Were there also indicators that they were prepared but not evidence that they actually were exfiltrated?

Mr. Henry: There's not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There's circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated.

Mr. Stewart: But you have a much lower degree of confidence that this data actually left than you do, for example, that the Russians were the ones who breached the security?

Mr. Henry: There is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network.

Mr. Stewart: And circumstantial is less sure than the other evidence you've indicated.

Mr. Henry: "We didn't have a sensor in place that saw data leave. We said that the data left based on the circumstantial evidence. That was the conclusion that we made.

In answer to a follow-up query on this line of questioning, Henry delivered this classic: "Sir, I was just trying to be factually accurate, that we didn't see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw."

Inadvertently highlighting the tenuous underpinning for CrowdStrike's "belief" that Russia hacked the DNC emails, Henry added: "There are other nation-states that collect this type of intelligence for sure, but the – what we would call the tactics and techniques were consistent with what we'd seen associated with the Russian state."

Interesting admission in Crowdstrike CEO Shaun Henry's testimony. Henry is asked when "the Russians" exfiltrated the data from DNC.

Henry: "We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated." ?? pic.twitter.com/TyePqd6b5P

-- Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) May 8, 2020

Not Transparent

Try as one may, some of the testimony remains opaque. Part of the problem is ambiguity in the word "exfiltration."

The word can denote (1) transferring data from a computer via the Internet (hacking) or (2) copying data physically to an external storage device with intent to leak it.

As the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has been reporting for more than three years, metadata and other hard forensic evidence indicate that the DNC emails were not hacked – by Russia or anyone else.

Rather, they were copied onto an external storage device (probably a thumb drive) by someone with access to DNC computers. Besides, any hack over the Internet would almost certainly have been discovered by the dragnet coverage of the National Security Agency and its cooperating foreign intelligence services.

Henry testifies that "it appears it [the theft of DNC emails] was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left."

This, in VIPS view, suggests that someone with access to DNC computers "set up" selected emails for transfer to an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example. The Internet is not needed for such a transfer. Use of the Internet would have been detected, enabling Henry to pinpoint any "exfiltration" over that network.

Bill Binney, a former NSA technical director and a VIPs member, filed a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. Binney said: "WikiLeaks did not receive stolen data from the Russian government. Intrinsic metadata in the publicly available files on WikiLeaks demonstrates that the files acquired by WikiLeaks were delivered in a medium such as a thumb drive."

The So-Called Intelligence Community Assessment

There is not much good to be said about the embarrassingly evidence-impoverished Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) of Jan. 6, 2017 accusing Russia of hacking the DNC.

But the ICA did include two passages that are highly relevant and demonstrably true:

(1) In introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution", the authors of the ICA made a highly germane point: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber operation – malicious or not – leaves a trail."

(2) "When analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' [these] are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong." [And one might add that they commonly ARE wrong when analysts succumb to political pressure, as was the case with the ICA.]

The intelligence-friendly corporate media, nonetheless, immediately awarded the status of Holy Writ to the misnomered "Intelligence Community Assessment" (it was a rump effort prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only CIA, FBI, and NSA), and chose to overlook the banal, full-disclosure-type caveats embedded in the assessment itself.

Then National Intelligence Director James Clapper and the directors of the CIA, FBI, and NSA briefed President Obama on the ICA on Jan. 5, 2017, the day before they gave it personally to President-elect Donald Trump.

On Jan. 18, 2017, at his final press conference, Obama saw fit to use lawyerly language on the key issue of how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks , in an apparent effort to cover his own derriere.

Obama: "The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked."

So we ended up with "inconclusive conclusions" on that admittedly crucial point. What Obama was saying is that U.S. intelligence did not know -- or professed not to know -- exactly how the alleged Russian transfer to WikiLeaks was supposedly made, whether through a third party, or cutout, and he muddied the waters by first saying it was a hack, and then a leak.

From the very outset, in the absence of any hard evidence, from NSA or from its foreign partners, of an Internet hack of the DNC emails, the claim that "the Russians gave the DNC emails to WikiLeaks " rested on thin gruel.

In November 2018 at a public forum, I asked Clapper to explain why President Obama still had serious doubts in late Jan. 2017, less than two weeks after Clapper and the other intelligence chiefs had thoroughly briefed the outgoing president about their "high-confidence" findings.

Clapper replied : "I cannot explain what he [Obama] said or why. But I can tell you we're, we're pretty sure we know, or knew at the time, how WikiLeaks got those emails." Pretty sure?

Preferring CrowdStrike; 'Splaining to Congress

CrowdStrike already had a tarnished reputation for credibility when the DNC and Clinton campaign chose it to do work the FBI should have been doing to investigate how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks . It had asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's struggle with separatists supported by Russia. A Voice of America report explained why CrowdStrike was forced to retract that claim.

Why did FBI Director James Comey not simply insist on access to the DNC computers? Surely he could have gotten the appropriate authorization. In early January 2017, reacting to media reports that the FBI never asked for access, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee there were "multiple requests at different levels" for access to the DNC servers.

"Ultimately what was agreed to is the private company would share with us what they saw," he said. Comey described CrowdStrike as a "highly respected" cybersecurity company.

Asked by committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) whether direct access to the servers and devices would have helped the FBI in their investigation, Comey said it would have. "Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that's involved, so it's the best evidence," he said.

Five months later, after Comey had been fired, Burr gave him a Mulligan in the form of a few kid-gloves, clearly well-rehearsed, questions:

BURR: And the FBI, in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate – did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected?

COMEY: In the case of the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct access.

BURR: But no content?

COMEY: Correct.

BURR: Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?

COMEY: It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks – the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016.

In June last year it was revealed that CrowdStrike never produced an un-redacted or final forensic report for the government because the FBI never required it to, according to the Justice Department.

By any normal standard, former FBI Director Comey would now be in serious legal trouble, as should Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, et al. Additional evidence of FBI misconduct under Comey seems to surface every week – whether the abuses of FISA, misconduct in the case against Gen. Michael Flynn, or misleading everyone about Russian hacking of the DNC. If I were attorney general, I would declare Comey a flight risk and take his passport. And I would do the same with Clapper and Brennan.

Schiff: Every Confidence, But No Evidence

Both pillars of Russiagate–collusion and a Russian hack–have now fairly crumbled.

Thursday's disclosure of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee shows Chairman Adam Schiff lied not only about Trump-Putin "collusion," [which the Mueller report failed to prove and whose allegations were based on DNC and Clinton-financed opposition research] but also about the even more basic issue of "Russian hacking" of the DNC. [See: "The Democratic Money Behind Russia-gate."]

Five days after Trump took office, I had an opportunity to confront Schiff personally about evidence that Russia "hacked" the DNC emails. He had repeatedly given that canard the patina of flat fact during an address at the old Hillary Clinton/John Podesta "think tank," The Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Fortunately, the cameras were still on when I approached Schiff during the Q&A: "You have every confidence but no evidence, is that right?" I asked him. His answer was a harbinger of things to come. This video clip may be worth the four minutes needed to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SdOy-l13FEg

Schiff and his partners in crime will be in for much tougher treatment if Trump allows Attorney General Barr and US Attorney John Durham to bring their investigation into the origins of Russia-gate to a timely conclusion. Barr's dismissal on Thursday of charges against Flynn, after released FBI documents revealed that a perjury trap was set for him to keep Russiagate going, may be a sign of things to come.

Given the timid way Trump has typically bowed to intelligence and law enforcement officials, including those who supposedly report to him, however, one might rather expect that, after a lot of bluster, he will let the too-big-to-imprison ones off the hook. The issues are now drawn; the evidence is copious; will the Deep State, nevertheless, be able to prevail this time?

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President's Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at Consortium News .

[May 10, 2020] Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security by Kevin R. Brock

Highly recommended!
This was a coup d'état and it has little to do with the protection of Oabama policies, but a lot with protection of Clinton clan to which Obama belongs.
FBI investigators were corrupt and acted as a political police
Notable quotes:
"... Heavily redacted FBI documents that have been released indicate Flynn was one of several Trump campaign members who merited their own subfile investigation under the larger, now infamous " Crossfire Hurricane " debacle. Flynn even got his own cool codename -- "Crossfire Razor." (No, the FBI isn't usually that absurd. But absurdity colored that entire period of time.) ..."
"... FBI documents show that a Foreign Agent Registration Act ( FARA ) case was opened against Flynn. The stated reasons, in rank order, for initiating the investigation were that he was a member of the Trump campaign; he had "ties" to various Russian state-affiliated entities; he traveled to Russia; and he had a high-level top-secret clearance -- for which, by the way, he was polygraphed regularly to determine if he was a spy. ..."
"... None of the listed reasons is unusual activity for the kind of positions he held. Overall it is pretty thin justification for investigating an American citizen. Yet, most chillingly, the Crossfire Hurricane team stated it was investigating Flynn "specifically" because he was "an adviser to then Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump for foreign policy issues." ..."
"... Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet Global Solutions , which consults with private companies and public safety agencies on strategic mission technologies. ..."
May 10, 2020 | thehill.com
investigation of Michael Flynn , the more it appears he was targeted precisely because, as the national security adviser to the incoming Trump administration, he signaled that the new administration might undo Obama administration policies -- which is kind of what the American people voted for in 2016.

Some will say that Gen. Flynn was investigated for legitimate criminal or national security reasons. Yet, the FBI's ultimate interview of Flynn addressed none of the grounds that the FBI used to open the original case against him. For those of us who have run FBI investigations, that is more than odd.

Heavily redacted FBI documents that have been released indicate Flynn was one of several Trump campaign members who merited their own subfile investigation under the larger, now infamous " Crossfire Hurricane " debacle. Flynn even got his own cool codename -- "Crossfire Razor." (No, the FBI isn't usually that absurd. But absurdity colored that entire period of time.)

For the record, Flynn clearly exercised poor judgment as a result of being interviewed by the FBI. The larger question is whether the team under then-Director James Comey had a legitimate basis to conduct the interview at all.

FBI documents show that a Foreign Agent Registration Act ( FARA ) case was opened against Flynn. The stated reasons, in rank order, for initiating the investigation were that he was a member of the Trump campaign; he had "ties" to various Russian state-affiliated entities; he traveled to Russia; and he had a high-level top-secret clearance -- for which, by the way, he was polygraphed regularly to determine if he was a spy.

None of the listed reasons is unusual activity for the kind of positions he held. Overall it is pretty thin justification for investigating an American citizen. Yet, most chillingly, the Crossfire Hurricane team stated it was investigating Flynn "specifically" because he was "an adviser to then Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump for foreign policy issues."

Let me be clear: That is not a legitimate justification to investigate an American citizen.

There is a theme that runs through the entire Crossfire Hurricane disaster, which has been publicly articulated by Comey and his deputy director, Andrew McCabe : They saw themselves as stalwarts in the breach defending America from a presidential candidate who they believed was an agent of Russia .

... ... ...

Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet Global Solutions , which consults with private companies and public safety agencies on strategic mission technologies.

[May 10, 2020] Does Obama now feels his potential liability for staging coup d' tat and gaslighting the whole nation?

Highly recommended!
All-in-all Obama was a CIA sponsored fraud: In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises."
Notable quotes:
"... Now why is Obama against General Flynn? Hmmm. Good question. Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security? LINK ..."
"... Gen. Flynn: Obama Administration made a "wilful decision" to support Sunni extremists (a Jihadi proxy army) against Assad . This directly contradicts the phony narrative of Obama as peace-loving black man (as certified by his Nobel Prize!). ..."
"... In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises." ..."
May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Prof K , May 10 2020 16:05 utc | 9

Posted by: Prof K | May 10 2020 16:05 utc | 9

Obama weighed in this week...on Flynn. Why?

What is he trying to preempt?

He only steps in at critical moments to stop something, as he did before SC to block Bernie.

Now this. How does it relate to Russiagate and his potential liability?

Likklemore , May 10 2020 17:08 utc | 18

@ ProfK 9

Whether or not General Flynn is loathed or liked, there is Supreme Court decisions setting precedence for dropping a case when found to be wrapped in prosecutorial misdeeds:

As for the first 'black' president out from the shadows;

Obama, the petit constitutional law scholar, signed the NDAA National Defence Authorization Act which allows imprisonment of Americans forever has no standing to claim the "rule of law is at risk" and he may want to call Eric Holder.

Certified Hypocrite.

Now why is Obama against General Flynn? Hmmm. Good question. Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security? LINK

Jackrabbit , May 10 2020 17:31 utc | 19
Likklemore @ May10 17:08
Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security?

Gen. Flynn: Obama Administration made a "wilful decision" to support Sunni extremists (a Jihadi proxy army) against Assad . This directly contradicts the phony narrative of Obama as peace-loving black man (as certified by his Nobel Prize!).

!!

Likklemore , May 10 2020 18:11 utc | 22
@ Jackrabbit 19

Thanks for that additional link. And that's why Obama could not standby with Flynn in the NSA role. Recall Hillary's on Trump- "if he is elected we'll hang" (paraphrased)

In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises."

Fast Forward to 2011 he signs NDAA. "How Obama disappointed the world." Der Spiegel had such an article 9 Aug.2011. But he was re-(S)-elected.

[May 07, 2020] There's No Question It's A Fraud Fmr Trump Attorney Says Mueller Badly Misled White House, Schiff Is Nancy's Liar Zero

Highly recommended!
May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Former Trump attorney John Dowd says it's "staggering" that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's "so-called Dream Team would put on such a fraud," after the Wednesday release of the investigation's "scope memo" revealed that Mueller was tasked with investigating accusations from Clinton-funded operative Christopher Steele which the DOJ already knew were debunked . "In the last few days, I have been going back through my files and we were badly misled by Mueller and his senior people , particularly in the meetings that we had," Dowd told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday.

The scope memo also revealed that Mueller's authority went significantly beyond what was previously known - including "allegations that Carter Page committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States, in violation of United States law," yet as John Solomon of Just The News noted on Wednesday - the FBI had already:

  • fired Steele as an informant for leaking;
  • interviewed Steele's sub-source, who disputed information attributed to him;
  • ascertained that allegations Steele had given the FBI specifically about Page were inaccurate and likely came from Russian intelligence sources as disinformation;
  • been informed repeatedly by the CIA that Page was not a Russian stooge but, rather, a cooperating intelligence asset for the United States government.

" There's no question it's a fraud I think the whole report is just nonsense and it's staggering that the so-called 'Dream Team' would put on such a fraud ," Dowd said, according to Fox News .

Dowd also discussed Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Russia probe , which is expected to be wrapped up by the end of the summer.

"Durham has really got a load on his hands tracking all this down," Dowd said.

Durham was appointed last year by Attorney General Bill Barr to review the events leading up to Trump's inauguration. However, Durham has since expanded his investigation to cover a post-election timeline spanning the spring of 2017, when Mueller was appointed as special counsel. - Fox News

"Nancy's Liar"

Dowd also circled back to a claim by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff that there was "direct evidence" that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, despite the fact that transcripts of House Intelligence Committee interviews proving otherwise .

"Schiff doesn't release these interviews because they're going to make him a liar," said Dowd, adding "They're going to expose him and he'll be run out of town."

"He lied for months in the impeachment inquiry. He's essentially Nancy [Pelosi]'s liar and he's now going to be exposed."

[May 05, 2020] Newly released FBI documents show Israel intervened in 2016 election to help Trump

Highly recommended!
Looks like Mueller barked to the wrong tree... And that was not accidental
Notable quotes:
"... The back story that's really significant here is that Mueller redacted evidence of Israeli interference in the U.S. election, and the Russiagate! scandal was a cover for that and other third-country meddling. Most of us here knew that a couple years ago ..."
"... @Blue Republic ..."
"... @leveymg ..."
"... @leveymg ..."
May 05, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 8:17am

Previously sealed FBI documents indicate close contacts between Israel and the Trump campaign and that the Mueller investigation found evidence of Israeli involvement, but largely redacted it.

May 04th, 2020
By Alison Weir @alisonweir
https://www.mintpressnews.com/fbi-documents-israel-collusion-2016-trump-...

Menifee, CA (IAK) -- Newly released FBI documents suggest that Israeli government officials were in contact with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and offered "critical intel."

In one of the extensively redacted documents, an official who appears to be an Israeli minister warns that Trump was "going to be defeated unless we intervene." He goes on to tell a Trump campaign official: "The key is in your hands."

The previously classified documents were released in response to a lawsuit brought by the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post. The unsealed documents suggest that rather than Russia, it was Israel that covertly interfered in the election.

While all these media companies except one seem to have ignored the apparent Israeli connection revealed in the FBI documents, Israeli media have been quick to jump on it.

Israel's i24 News reports:

Newly released documents from the FBI suggest that Roger Stone, a senior aide in the 2016 Trump campaign, had one or more high-ranking contacts in the Israeli government willing to help the then-Republican Party nominee win the presidential election."

Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reports:

Tantalizing hints" of "alleged clandestine contacts came to light in recent publication of redacted FBI documents."

The Times of Israel (TOI) the first to report on this, states:

The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs,' the PM, and the Prime Minister."

TOI points out: "Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister in 2016," and reports circumstantial evidence that the "PM" mentioned in the document refers to Netanyahu:

One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows: 'On or about June 28, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME.MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC.' Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016."

TOI also notes that "the Israeli government included a minister without portfolio, Tzachi Hanegbi, appointed in May with responsibility for defense and foreign affairs."

Ha'aretz also names Hanebi as the likely contact, and confirms that he "was in the United States on the dates mentioned, attending, among other things, a roll out of the first Israeli F-35 jet at a Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas."

The previously classified FBI affidavit says: "On or about August 12, 2016, [name redacted] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week."

Another section of the affidavit states: "On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they needed to meet with [name redacted] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct." (Corsi refers to Jerome Corsi, a pro-Israel commentator and author known for extremist statements.)

Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Trump who worked on the 2016 campaign, was convicted last year in the Robert Mueller investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Stone has denied wrongdoing, consistently criticizing the accusations against him as politically motivated. Numerous analysts have found the "Russiagate" theory unconvincing, and the American Bar Association reported that Mueller's investigation "did not find sufficient evidence that President Donald Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the United States' 2016 election."

There have been previous suggestions that it was Israel that had most worked to influence the election.

[MORE]

The back story that's really significant here is that Mueller redacted evidence of Israeli interference in the U.S. election, and the Russiagate! scandal was a cover for that and other third-country meddling. Most of us here knew that a couple years ago .

Comments

Blue Republic on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:07am
Thank for posting

Mint Press has also reported on Israeli intelligence involvement/infiltration into critical US defense networks as well as their strong presence in social media.

I'd be surprised if there was an election in recent decades that they weren't involved in.

If Trump campaign people were actually soliciting Israeli help, that would be newsworthy and probably criminal. But Mueller throwing the book at Stone and Corsi over BS and covering what could actually be serious? That's twisted.

leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:26am
Laura Rozen who covers these things, has posted the FBI docs

@Blue Republic and adds this:

Laura Rozen
@lrozen
Profile picture
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
Unroll available on Thread Reader

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
(One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

Mint Press has also reported on Israeli intelligence involvement/infiltration into critical US defense networks as well as their strong presence in social media.

I'd be surprised if there was an election in recent decades that they weren't involved in.

If Trump campaign people were actually soliciting Israeli help, that would be newsworthy and probably criminal. But Mueller throwing the book at Stone and Corsi over BS and covering what could actually be serious? That's twisted.

leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:38am
The entire Court filing and Order sealing the FBI warrant app

@leveymg is reposted below, for those who want to read for themselves:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
for the
District of Columbia
In the Matter of the Search of
(Briefly describe the property to be searched
or identify the person by name and address)
INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE
ACCOUNT ,
)
Case: 1:18-sc-01518
Assigned To : Howell, Beryl A.
Assign. Date: 5/4/2018
Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
SEARCH AND SEIZURE WARRANT
To: Any authorized law enforcement officer
An application by a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government requests the search
of the following person or property located in the Northern District of California
(identify the person or describe the property to be searched and give its location):
See Attachment A.
I find that the affidavit(s), or any recorded testimony, establish probable cause to search and seize the person or property
described above, and that such search will reveal (identify the person or describe the property to be seized):
See Attachment B.
YOU ARE COMMANDED to execute this warrant on or before May 18, 2018 (not to exceed 14 days)
';$ in the daytime 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. 0 at any time in the day or night because good cause has been established.
Unless delayed notice is authorized below, you must give a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken to the
person from whom, or from whose premises, the property was taken, or leave the copy and receipt at the place where the
property was taken.
The officer executing this warrant, or an officer present during the execution of the warrant, must prepare an inventory
as required by law and promptly return this warrant and inventory to Hon. Beryl A. Howell
(United States Magistrate Judge)
0 Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3103a(b), I find that immediate notification may have an adverse result listed in 18 U.S.C.
§ 2705 ( except for delay of trial), and authorize the officer executing this warrant to delay notice to the person who, or whose
property, will be searched or seized (check the awropriate box)
0 for __ days (not to exceed 30) 0 until, the facts justifying, the later specific date of
Date and time issued:
Judge 's signature
City and state: Washington, DC Hon. Beryl A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge
Printed name and title
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 1 of 35
AO 93 (Rev 11/13) Search and Seizure Warrant (Page 2)
Return
Case No.: Date and time warrant executed: Copy of warrant and inventory left with:
Inventory made in the presence of :
Inventory of the property taken and name of any person(s) seized:
Certification
I declare under penalty of pe1jury that this inventory is correct and was returned along with the original warrant to the
designated judge.
Date:
Executing officer's signature
Printed name and title
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 2 of 35
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Cf erk, U.S. District & Bankrupicy
Gourts for tirn District of Columbl&
IN THE MATTER OF THE SEARCH OF
INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH
THE GOOGLE ACCOUNT
ORDER
Case: 1: 18-sc-01518
Assigned To : Howell, Beryl A.
Assign. Date: 5/4/2018
Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
The United States has filed a motion to seal the above-captioned warrant and related
documents, including the application and affidavit in support thereof ( collectively the "Warrant"),
and to require Google LLC, an electronic communication and/or remote computing services with
headquarters in Mountain View, California, not to disclose the existence or contents of the Warrant
pursuant to !8 U.S.C. § 2705(b).
The Court finds that the United States has established that a compelling governmental
interest exists to justify the requested sealing, and that there is reason to believe that notification
of the existence of the Warrant will seriously jeopardize the investigation, including by giving the
targets an opportunity to flee from prosecution, destroy or tamper with evidence, and intimidate
witnesses. See 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b)(2)-(5).
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that the motion is hereby GRANTED, and that the
warrant, the application and affidavit in support thereof, all attachments thereto and other related
materials, the instant motion to seal, and this Order be SEALED until further order of the Court;
and
Page 1 of2
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 3 of 35
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b), Google and its
employees shall not disclose the existence or content of the Warrant to any other person ( except
attorneys for Google for the purpose of receiving legal advice) for a period of one year unless
otherwise ordered by the Court.
Date 41/Y>lf
THE HONORABLE BERYL A. HOWELL
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Page 2 of2
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 4 of 35
AO 106 (Rev. 04/10) Application for a Search Warrant
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
In the Matter of the Search of
(Briefly describe the property to be searched
or identify the person by name and address)
for the
District of Columbia
MA\t !,
•'II·\! • ·r 2018
,,t,c,rk, U.S. District & Bankruptcy
C . ,,gurt~ lar 1hli-•D1strlctof Gollf/nh]•
ase.1:18-sc-01518 ·'
Ass!gned To: Howell, Beryl A
INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE
ACCOUNT
)
)
)
)
)
)
Assign. Date: 5;412018 ·
Description: Search & Seizure Warrant
APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT
I, a federal law enforcement officer or an attorney for the government, request a search warrant and state under
penalty of perjury that I have reason to believe that on the following person or property (identify the person or describe the
property to be searched and give ifs location):
See Attachment A.
located in the Northern District of _____ C,-_a-,.l"'if.=o,..rn~ia.._ __ , there is now concealed (identijj, the
person or describe the property to be seized):
See Attachment B.
The basis for the search under Fed. R. Crim. P. 4 l(c) is (check one or more):
~ evidence of a crime;
ief contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed;
r'lf property designed for use, intended for use, or used in committing a crime;
D a person to be arrested or a person who is unlawfully restrained.
The search is related to a violation of:
Code Section
18 U.S.C. § 2
· et al.
The application is based on these facts:
See attached Affidavit.
r;/ Continued on the attached sheet.
Offense Description
aiding and abetting
see attached affidavit
D Delayed notice of __ days (give exact ending date if more than 30 days: ______ ) is requested
under 18 U.S.C. § 3103a, the basis of which is set forth on the attached sheet.
~44 Reviewed by AUSA/SAUSA: Appbcant's signature
•Aaron Zelinsky (Special Counsel's Office) Andrew Mitchell, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI
Printed name and title
Sworn to before me and signed in my presence.
Date:
City and state: Washington, D.C. Hon. Beryl A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge
Printed name and title
Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Page 5 of 35
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
MAY ·· ti 1018
Clerk, LLS. District & Bar1i

#1 and adds this:

Laura Rozen
@lrozen
Profile picture
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
Unroll available on Thread Reader

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
(One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

leveymg on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 9:54am
The entire FBI affidavit supporting the FBI seizure order and

@leveymg request for sealing of the record -- Case 1:19-mc-00029-CRC Document 29-7 Filed 04/28/20 Pages 3 to 35 for those who want to read for themselves:

Judge's signature
Hon. Bery[ A. Howell, Chief U.S. District Judge

Printed name and title

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Glcrk, LL$. District & Bar1kruptcy
Gourts tor tirn District of ColumtHa

IN THE MATTER OF THE SEARCH OF INFORMATION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GOOGLE ACCOUNT

Case: 1:18-sc-01518
Ass!gned To : Howell, BerylA Assign. Date : S/4/20 18
Description: Search & S izure Warrant

AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF AN APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT

I, Andrew Mitchell, having been first duly sworn, hereby depose and state as follows:

1. I make this affidavit in support of an application for a search warrant for

information associated with the following Google Account: (hereafter

the "Target Account 1"), that is stored at premises owned, maintained, controlled or operated by Google, Inc., a social networking company headquartered in Mountain View, California ("Google"). The information to be searched is described in the following paragraphs and in Attachments A and B. This affidavit is made in support of an application for a search warrant under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2703(a), 2703(b)(l)(A) and 2703(c)(l)(A)to require Google to disclose to the government copies of the information (including the content of communications) further described in Attachment A. Upon receipt of the information described. in Attachment A, government"authorized persons will review that information to locate the items described in Attachment B.
2. I am a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and have been since 2011. As a Special Agent of the FBI, I have received training and experience in investigating criminal and national security matters.
3. The facts in this affidavit come from my personal observations, my training and experience, and information obtained from other agents and witnesses. This affidavit is intended

to show merely that there is sufficient probable cause for the requested warrant and does not set fotth all of my knowledge about this matter.
4. Based on my training and experience and the facts as set forth in this affidavit, there is probable cause to believe that the Target Accounts contain communications relevant to violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2 (aiding and abetting), 18 U.S.C. § 3 (accessory after the fact), 18
U.S.C. § 4 (misprision of a felony), 18 U.S.C. § 371 (conspiracy), 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (making a

false statement); 18 U.S.C. §1651 (pe1jury); 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (unauthodzed access of a protected computer); 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1349 (attempt and conspiracy to commit wire fraud), , and 52 U.S.C. § 30121 (foreign contribution ban) (the "Subject
Offenses"). 1

5. As set forth below, in May 2016, Jerome CORSI provided contact information for
that there was an "OCTOBER SURPRISE COMING" and that Trump, ''[i]s going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intel." In that same time period, STONE communicated directly via Twitter with WikiLeaks, Julian ASSANGE, and Guccifer 2.0. On July 25, 2016, STONE emailed instructions to Jerome CORSI to "Get to Assange" in person at the Ecuadorian Embassy and "get pending WikiLeaks emails[.]" On August 2, 2016, CORSI emailed STONE back that,"Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I1m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging." On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they
needed to meet o determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct."

1 Federal law prohibits a foreign national from making, directly or indirectly, an expenditure or independent expenditure in connection with federal elections. 52 U.S.C. § 3012l(a)(l)(C); see also id. § 30101(9) & (17) (defining the terms "expenditure" and "independent expenditure").

(the Target Account) is le Account, which

sed to communicate with STONE and CORSI.

JURISDICTION

6. This Court has jurisdiction to issue the requested warrant because it is "a court of competent jurisdiction" as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2711. Id. §§ 2703(a), (b)(l)(A), & (c)(l)(A). Specifically, the Court is "a district court of the United State (including a magistrate judge of such a court) ... that has jurisqiction over the offense being investigated." 18 U.S.C.
§ 2711(3)(A)(i). The offense conduct included activities in Washington, D.C., as detailed below, including in paragraph 8.
PROBABLE CAUSE

A. U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) Assessment of Russian Government­ Backed Hacking Activity during the 2016 Presidential Election

7. On October 7, 2016, the U.S. Depa1tment of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a joint statement of an intelligence assessment of Russian activities and intentions during the 2016 presidential election. In the report, the USIC assessed the following, with emphasis added:
8. The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e mails frorri US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures

#1 and adds this:

Laura Rozen
@lrozen
Profile picture
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1255347751153434624.html
Apr 29th 2020, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Stone arranged for meeting, but said in later email that a "fiasco" ensued after the associate brought a foreign military officer along
Unroll available on Thread Reader

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1255344430443347969

On Aug.20, 2016, CORSI told STONE they
needed to meet w/[ ] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct"courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
huh courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
(One PM in Rome on June 27 2016 was Netanyahu) mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/

Copy of FBI docs, including this, are linked at: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWvp-fZWkAECFaN.jpg

[May 03, 2020] Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak. There was no reason to hide such a discussion

Highly recommended!
For any intelligence professional, especially for a person who was the head of DIA, Flynn behaviour is unexplainably naive. The idea that he did not understand that he is dealing with Clinton mafia, as well as that Clinton mafia will try to implicate him is just absurd. So his behaviour is mystery. As well as the fact that he allowed them to come bypassing regular channels in President administration.
As we do not have the whole picture we can only speculate. Probably he was already on the hook for his Turkish lobbing and that was exploited.
May 03, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"New Documents Show Strzok Countermanded Closure Of Flynn Case For Lack Of Crime" [ Jonathan Turley ]. "It was previously known that the investigators who interviewed Flynn did not believe that he intentionally lied. That made sense. Flynn did not deny the conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Moreover, Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak. There was no reason to hide such a discussion.

Trump had publicly stated an intent to reframe Russian relations and seek to develop a more positive posture with them. It now appears that, on January 4, 2017, the FBI's Washington Field Office issued a 'Closing Communication' indicating that the bureau was terminating "CROSSFIRE RAZOR" -- the newly disclosed codename for the investigation of Flynn. That is when Strzok intervened." • Read on for detail, which is ugly.

[Apr 17, 2020] Declassified Horowitz Footnotes Show Obama Officials Knew Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinfo Designed To Target Trump Zero He

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com, ..."
"... "Having reviewed the matter, and having consulted the heads of the relevant Intelligence Community elements, I have declassified the enclosed footnotes." ..."
"... , and that they were the product of RIS (Russian Intelligence Services) ..."
Apr 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,

Systemic FBI Effort To Legitimize Steele and Use His Information To Target POTUS

Newly declassified footnotes from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's December FBI report reveals that senior Obama officials, including members of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team knew the dossier compiled by a former British spy during the 2016 election was Russian disinformation to target President Donald Trump.

Further, the partially declassified footnotes reveal that those senior intelligence officials were aware of the disinformation when they included the dossier in the Obama administration's Intelligence Communities Assessment (ICA).

As important, the footnotes reveal that there had been a request to validate information collected by British spy Christopher Steele as far back as 2015, and that there was concern among members of the FBI and intelligence community about his reliability. Those concerns were brushed aside by members of the Crossfire Hurricane team in their pursuit against the Trump campaign officials, according to sources who spoke to this reporter and the footnotes.

The explosive footnotes were partially declassified and made public Wednesday, after a lengthy review by the Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell's office. Grenell sent the letter Wednesday releasing the documents to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa and Sen. Ron Johnson, R- Wisconsin, both who requested the declassification.

"Having reviewed the matter, and having consulted the heads of the relevant Intelligence Community elements, I have declassified the enclosed footnotes." Grenell consulted with DOJ Attorney General William Barr on the declassification of the documents.

Grassley and Johnson released a statement late Wednesday stating "as we can see from these now-declassified footnotes in the IG's report, Russian intelligence was aware of the dossier before the FBI even began its investigation and the FBI had reports in hand that their central piece of evidence was most likely tainted with Russian disinformation."

"Thanks to Attorney General Barr's and Acting Director Grenell's declassification of the footnotes, we know the FBI's justification to target an American Citizen was riddled with significant flaws," the Senator stated. "Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his team did what neither the FBI nor Special Counsel Mueller cared to do: examine and investigate corruption at the FBI, the sources of the Steele dossier, how it was disseminated, and reporting that it contained Russian disinformation."

The Footnotes

A U.S. Official familiar with the investigation into the FBI told this reporter that the footnotes "clearly show that the FBI team was or should have had been aware that the Russian Intelligence Services was trying to influence Steele's reporting in the summer of 2016, and that there were some preferences for Hillary; and that this RIS [Russian Intelligence Services] sourced information being fed to Steele was designed to hurt Trump."

The official noted these new revelations also "undermines the ICA on Russian Interference and the intent to help Trump. It undermines the FISA warrants and there should not have been a Mueller investigation."

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/456702034/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-FfQY6LojXtyOnkGw6OiJ

Russian's Appeared To Have Preferred Clinton

The footnotes also reveal a startling fact that go against Brennan's assessment that Russia was vying for Trump, when in fact, the Russians appeared to be hopeful of a Clinton presidency.

"The FBI received information in June, 2017 which revealed that, among other things, there were personal and business ties between the sub-source and Steele's Primary Sub-source, contacts between the sub-source and an individual in the Russian Presidential Administration in June/July 2016 [redacted] and the sub source voicing strong support for candidate Clinton in the 2016 U.S. election. The Supervisory Intel Analyst told us that the FBI did not have a Section 702 vicarage on any other Steele sub-source."

Steele's Lies

The complete four pages of the partially redacted footnotes paint a clear picture of the alleged malfeasance committed by former FBI Director James Comey, former DNI James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, who were all aware of the concerns regarding the information supplied by former British spy Christopher Steele in the dossier. Steele, who was hired by the private embattled research firm Fusion GPS, was paid for his work through the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. The FBI also paid for Steele's work before ending its confidential source relationship with him but then used Obama DOJ Official Bruce Ohr as a go between to continue obtaining information from the former spy.

In footnote 205, for instance, payment documents show that Steele lied about not being a Confidential Human Source.

"During his time as an FBI CHS, Steele received a total of $95,000 from the FBI," the footnote states. "We reviewed the FBI paperwork for those payments, each of which required Steele's Signed acknowledgement. On each document, of which there were eight, was the caption 'CHS payment' and 'CHS Payment Name.' A signature page was missing for one of the payments."

Footnote 350

In footnote 350, Horowitz describes the questionable Russian disinformation and the FBI's reliance on the information to target the Trump campaign as an attempt to build a narrative that campaign officials colluded with Russia. Further, the timeline reveals that Comey, Brennan and Clapper were aware of the disinformation by Russian intelligence when they briefed then President-elect Trump in January, 2017 on the Steele dossier.

"[redacted] In addition to the information in Steele's Delta file documenting Steele's frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from [redacted] indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele' election reporting," stated the partially declassified footnote 350. "A January 12, 2017 report relayed information from [redacted] outlining an inaccuracy in a limited subset of Steele's reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen. The [redacted] stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele's reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.

A second report from the same [redacted] five days later stated that a person named in the limited subset of Steele's reporting had denied representations in the reporting and the [redacted] assessed that the person's denials were truthful. A USIC report dated February 27, 2017, contained information about an individual with reported connections to Trump and Russia who claimed that the public reporting about the details of Trump's sexual activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false , and that they were the product of RIS (Russian Intelligence Services) 'infiltrate[ing] a source into the network' of a [redacted] who compiled a dossier of that individual on Trump's activities. The [redacted] noted that it had no information indicating that the individual had special access to RIS activities or information," according to the partially declassified footnote.

Looming Questions

Another concern regarding Steele's unusual activity is found in footnote 210, which states "as we discuss in Chapter Six, members of the Crossfire Hurricane Team were unaware of Steele's connections to Russian Oligarch 1."

The question remains that "Steele's unusual activity with 10 oligarch's led the FBI to seek a validation review in 2015 but one was not started until 2017," said the U.S. Official to this reporter. "Why not? Was Crossfire Hurricane aware of these concerns? Was the court made aware of these concerns? Didn't the numerous notes about sub sources and sources having links or close ties to Russian intelligence so why didn't this set off alarm bells?"

More alarming, it's clear, Supervisory Intelligence Agent Jonathan Moffa says in June 17, that he was not aware of reports that Russian Intelligence Services was aware of Steele's election reporting and influence efforts.

"However, he should have been given the reporting by UCIS" which the U.S. Official says, goes back to summer 2016.

Footnote 342 makes it clear that "in late January, 2017, a member of the Crossfire Hurricane team received information [redacted] that RIS [Russian Intelligence Services] may have targeted Orbis."

[Apr 17, 2020] Barr just said the Russia collusion probe was a travesty, had no basis and was intended to sabotage Trump.

Highly recommended!
Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. US Attorney General Barr just said the Russia collusion probe was a travesty, had no basis and was intended to sabotage Trump . All true of course. May we take this as a sign that at last (at last!) Durham is ready to go with indictments? Or will it prove to be another false alarm? There's certainly a lot to reveal: A recent investigation showed that every FISA application (warrant to spy on US citizens) examined had egregious deficiencies. It's not just Trump.

MEANINGLESSNESS. Remember the Steele dossier? Now it's being spun as Russian disinformation . So we're now supposed to believe that Putin smeared Trump because he really wanted Clinton to win? Gosh, that Putin guy is so clever that it's impossible to figure out what he's doing!

COVID BLAME I. Back in the day I read a certain amount of Soviet propaganda about the wicked West. And, while it was quite often over the top, pretty monotonous and probably – judging from what ex-Soviets have told me – not all that effective in the long run, it usually had, buried deep inside, a tiny kernel of reality. Western anti-Russia propaganda, on the other hand, is nothing but free-association nonsense. Take the NYT's latest: the headline alone tells you it's crap: " Putin's Long War Against American Science: A decade of health disinformation promoted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia has sown wide confusion, hurt major institutions and encouraged the spread of deadly illnesses ." Another difference was that Soviet propaganda at least ran on the assumption that the Soviet system was preferable: this, on the other hand, is a pitiful attempt to blame the US COVID failure on somebody else. Nonetheless, this is not rock-bottom for the NYT's anti-Russian fantasies: that target was hit a couple of years ago with " Trump and Putin: A Love Story ". (But, the goalposts keep moving: if you accuse a Dem of Trumpish grabbing, you're probably a Putinbot .) I guess it will only get more: " The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters ."

COVID BLAME II. Maybe it's not Putin or Xi who's to blame: maybe it's your own propaganda outlet: " VOA too often speaks for America's adversaries -- not its citizens... VOA has instead amplified Beijing's propaganda. "

[Feb 22, 2020] The Red Thread A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy by Diana West

Highly recommended!
She does not use the term neoliberalism but she provide interesting perspective about connection of neoliberalism and Trotskyism. It is amazing fact that most of them seriously studied communist ideology at universities.
Trotskyites are never constrained by morality and they are obsessed with raw power (especially political power) and forceful transformation of the society. They are for global dominance so they were early adherents of "Full spectrum Dominance" doctirne approporitated later be US neocons. Their Dream -- global run from Washington neoliberal empire is a mirror of the dream of Trotskyites of global communist empire run from Moscow (Trotsky "Permanent war" till the total victory of communism idea)
Inability to understand that neoliberal is undermines Diana West thinking, but still she is a good researcher and she managed to reveal some interesting facts and tendencies. She intuitively understand that both are globalist ideologies, but that about all she managed to understand. Bad for former DIA specialist on the USSR and former colleague of Colonel Lang (see Sic Semper Tyrannis)
It is funny that Sanders is being accused of being a 'self-identified' socialist, while neoliberal elite is shoulder-deep in socialism for the 1% and enjoy almost unlimited access to free Fed funds.
Feb 22, 2020 | www.amazon.com

Boston Bill , March 23, 2019

Programs, programs, get your program here.

I received my copy just a few days before the Mueller investigation closed shop. There is an old saying "You can't tell the players without a program." As the aftermath of the Mueller investigation begins, you need this book. Some pundits and observers of the political scene have observed that the Mueller investigation didn't come about because of any real concern about "Trump Russia collusion," it was manufactured to protect the deep state from a non-political interloper. That's the case Diana West makes and does it with her exceptional knowledge of the Cold War and the current jihad wars. Not to mention her deadly aim with her rhetorical darts.

Erving L. Briggs , April 2, 2019
History Repeats

The Red Thread by Diana West
Diana states, "the anti-Trump conspiracy is not about Democrats and Republicans. It is not about the ebb and flow of political power, lawfully and peacefully transferred. It is about globalists and nationalists, just as the president says. They are locked in the old and continuous Communist/anti-Communist struggle, and fighting to the end, whether We, the anti-Communists, recognize it or not."

Diana traces the Red Thread running through the swamp, she names names and relates the history of the Red players. She asks the questions, Why? Why so many Soviet-style acts of deception perpetrated from inside the federal government against the American electoral process? Why so many uncorroborated dossiers of Russian provenance influencing our politics? Why such a tangle of communist and socialist roots in the anti-Trump conspiracy?
In this book, these questions will be answered.

If you have read her book "American Betrayal," I'm sure you will have a good idea about what is going on. I did. I just didn't know the major players and the red history behind each of them.

The book is very interesting and short, only 104 pages, but it is not finished yet. Easy to read but very disturbing to know the length and width of the swamp, the depth, we may not know for a long time. I do feel better knowing that there are people like Diana uncovering and shining a light into the darkness. Get the book, we all need to know why this is happening and who the enemies are behind it. Our freedom depends on it.

[Feb 04, 2020] The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice the American Way"

Highly recommended!
Feb 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Jack_Garbo ,

OK, baby steps. The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice & the American Way". The "democratic" facade of the US politics is, in fact, close to the Greek original: A cabal of oligarchs who decide distribution of power without daggers, and naturally exclude slaves (workers), landless peons (minorities), women (grudgingly later included, once indoctrinated) to maintain the status quo.

The "vote" the oligarchs advertise as proof of their democratic credentials in allowing the hoi polloi to have a say is insultingly quaint and blatantly futile. All elections are rigged. Of course! The outcome is preordained. Would you let some naive do-gooder wreck your decades of building an empire? Never!

If a "ringer" sneaks through the gauntlet of oligarchic vetting and slips the leash, he (always HE) is put down and the Electoral College is invoked to re-establish the status quo with an acceptable front man.

Foreign policy? Long ago decided and continued regardless of who inhabits the White House this season. He follows the script, is handsomely paid and retires famous and breathing. Go off-script and doom is certain, the funeral subdued.

In closing the class, we can conclude that the FBI is not rogue; it is functioning as intended and professionally considering the gangly amateurs it has to herd along path.

Tea break.

[Jan 17, 2020] Ukraine is a deeply sick patient. The destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic. Diaspora is greedy and want a piece of cake immediately

Highly recommended!
Edited for clarity
Notable quotes:
"... The infrastructure they inherited from the USSR mostly is now fully amortized. For example railway park in in complete ruin. Central heating pipeline communications in cities like Kiev are in ruins too. In the USSR they tried to reuse the heat from electric stations and have elaborate hot water delivery networks from each, which provided heat to a large city blocks. Now pipes are completely rusted (which in 30 years is no surprise) and are in the state of constant repair. ..."
"... But when the standard of living dropped to such extent as it dropped after 2014 sentiments toward even slightly different ethnic groups turn hostile too. This is the case in Ukraine. In this sense you are wrong. There is no more unity now then existed before 2014. I would say there is less unity now. ..."
"... Sentiments turned against both Donbass dwellers and Ukrainians from Western Ukraine. In Kiev the derogatory term for both categories is "ponaekhali" ("come to overcrowd the place and displace us", or something along those lines; it's difficult to translate, but the term carries strong derogatory meaning) ..."
"... The nationalistic hysteria of 2014-2017 now mostly changed into deep depression: how a tiny group of far right nationalist and football hooligan gangs managed to get to power against the will of the majority of the country and destroy its economy. That's why Zelensky was elected and most far right parliamentarians lost their seats. Most of Western Ukraine voted for him, which is telling you something. ..."
"... The problem for Ukraine is that with the cut of economic ties with Russia the natural path for economics is probably down. De-industrialization, Baltic style, is raining supreme. Many enterprises survived the period from 1991 to 2014 only due to orders from Russia. Especially remnants of military industrial complex and manufacturing industry. Now what? Selling land (like Zelensky is trying to do) ? ..."
Jan 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

likbez says:January 17, 2020 at 8:35 am GMT • 1,500 Words @AP AP,

I agree with JPM:

I feel like robber barons in Kyiv have harmed you more through their looting of the country than impoverished Eastern Ukrainians, who were the biggest losers in the post-Soviet deindustrilization, have harmed you by existing and dying of diseases of poverty and despair.

It reminds me of how coastal shit-libs in America talk about "fly-over" country and want all the poor whites in Appalachia to die. I'm living in a country whose soul is totally poisoned. A country that is dying. While all this is happening, whites have split themselves into little factions focused on political point scoring.

I doubt people like Zelensky, Kolomoisky, Poroshenko and all the rest are going to turn Ukraine into an earthly paradise. They're more likely to be Neros playing harps, while Ukraine burns.

Looks like your understanding of Ukraine is mostly based of a short trip to Lvov and reading neoliberal MSM and forums. That's not enough, unless you want to be the next Max Boot.

Ukraine is a deeply sick patient, which surprisingly still stands despite all hardships (Ukrainians demonstrated amazing, superhuman resilience in the crisis that hit them, which greatly surprised all experts).

The infrastructure they inherited from the USSR mostly is now fully amortized. For example railway park in in complete ruin. Central heating pipeline communications in cities like Kiev are in ruins too. In the USSR they tried to reuse the heat from electric stations and have elaborate hot water delivery networks from each, which provided heat to a large city blocks. Now pipes are completely rusted (which in 30 years is no surprise) and are in the state of constant repair.

And, what is really tragic Ukraine now it is a debt state. Usually the latter is the capital sentence for the county. Few managed to escape even in more favorable conditions (South Korea is one.) So chances of economic recovery are slim: with such level of parasitic rent to the West the natural path is down and down. Don't cry for me Argentina.

And there is no money to replace already destroyed due to bad maintenance infrastructure, but surprisingly large parts of Soviets era infrastructure still somehow hold. For example, electrical networks, subway cars. But other part are already crumbling.

For example, in Kiev that means in some buildings you have winter without central heating, you have elevators in 16-storey buildings that work one or two weeks in month, you have no hot water, sometimes you have no water at all for a week or more, etc). Pensioners have problem with paying heating bills, so some of them are forced to live in non-heated apartments.

And that's in Kiev/Kyiv (Western Ukrainians love to change established names, much like communists) . In provincial cities it is a real horror show when even electricity supply became a problem. The countryside dwellers at least has its own food, but the situation for them is also very very difficult.

Other big problem -- few jobs and almost no well paid job, unless you are young, know English and have a university education (and are lucky). Before 2014 approximately 70% of Ukrainian labor migrants (in total a couple of million) came from the western part of the country, in which migration had become a widespread method of coping with poverty, the absence of jobs and low salaries.

Now this practice spread to the whole county. That destroyed many families.

The USA plays its usual games selling vassals crap at inflated prices (arms, uranium rods, coal, locomotives, cars, etc) , which Ukrainians can't refuse. Trump is simply a typical gangster in this respect, running a protection racket.

The rate of emigration and shrinking population is another fundamental problem. Mass emigration ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine ) is continuing even after Zelensky election. Looting by the West also continues unabated. This is disaster capitalism in action.

Add to those problems inflated military expenses to fight the civil war in Donbass which deprives other sectors of necessary funds (with the main affect of completely alienating Russia) and "Huston, we have a problem."

May be this is a natural path for xUSSR countries after the dissolution of the USSR, I don't know.

But the destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic: they wanted better life and got a really harsh one. Especially pensioners (typical pension is something like $60-$70) a month in Kiev, much less outside of Kiev. How they physically survive I do not fully understand.

There are still pro-Russian areas but being free of Crimea and Donbass means Ukraine can no longer be characterized as "split."

I agree that there is a substantial growth of anti-Russian sentiments. It is really noticeable. As well as growth of the usage of the Ukrainian language (previously Kiev, unlike Lvov was completely Russian-language city).

And in Western Ukraine Russiphobia was actually always a part of "national identity". The negative definition of national identity, if you wish. See popular slogan "Hto ne skache toi moskal" ("those who do not jump are Moskal" -- where Moskal is the derogatory name for a Russian). Here is this slogan in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rfqr9afMc ;-)

But when the standard of living dropped to such extent as it dropped after 2014 sentiments toward even slightly different ethnic groups turn hostile too. This is the case in Ukraine. In this sense you are wrong. There is no more unity now then existed before 2014. I would say there is less unity now.

Sentiments turned against both Donbass dwellers and Ukrainians from Western Ukraine. In Kiev the derogatory term for both categories is "ponaekhali" ("come to overcrowd the place and displace us", or something along those lines; it's difficult to translate, but the term carries strong derogatory meaning) .

"Donetskie" (former Donbass dwellers, often displaced by the war) are generally strongly resented and luxury cars, villas, etc and other excesses of neoliberal elite are attributed mostly to them (Donbass neoliberal elite did moved to Kiev, not Moscow) , while "zapadentsi" are also, albeit less strongly, resented because they often use clan politics within institutions, and often do not put enough effort (or are outright incompetent), as they rely on its own clan ties for survival.

This sentiment is stronger to the south of Kiev where the resentment is directed mainly against Western Ukrainians, not against "Donetskie" like in Kiev. And I am talking not only about Odessa. Western Ukrainians are now strongly associated with corrupt ways of getting lucrative positions (via family, clan or political connections), being incompetent and doing nothing useful.

What surprise me is that this resentment against "zapadentsi" and "Poloshenko clan" is shared by many people from Western Ukraine. The target is often slightly more narrow, for example Hutsuls in Lviv ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutsuls )

The nationalistic hysteria of 2014-2017 now mostly changed into deep depression: how a tiny group of far right nationalist and football hooligan gangs managed to get to power against the will of the majority of the country and destroy its economy. That's why Zelensky was elected and most far right parliamentarians lost their seats. Most of Western Ukraine voted for him, which is telling you something.

The problem for Ukraine is that with the cut of economic ties with Russia the natural path for economics is probably down. De-industrialization, Baltic style, is raining supreme. Many enterprises survived the period from 1991 to 2014 only due to orders from Russia. Especially remnants of military industrial complex and manufacturing industry. Now what? Selling land (like Zelensky is trying to do) ?

Ukraine will probably eventually lose a large part of its chemical industry because without subsidies for gas it just can't complete even taking into account low labor costs. And manufacturing because without Russian market it is difficult to find a place for their production in already established markets, competing only in price and suffering in quality (I remember something about Iraq returning Ukrainians all ordered armored carriers due to defect is the the armor https://sputniknews.com/military/201705221053859853-armored-vehicles-defects-extent /). Although at least for the Ukrainian arm industry there is place on the market in countries which are used to old Soviet armaments, because those are rehashed Soviet products.

Add to this corrupt and greedy diaspora (all those Jaresko, Chalupas, Freelands, Vindmans, etc ) from the USA and Canada (and not only diaspora -- look at Biden, Kerry, etc) who want their piece of the pie after 2014 "Revolution of dignity" (what a sad joke) and you will see the problems more clearly. Not that much changed from the period 1991-2014 where Ukraine was also royally fleeced by own oligarchs allied with Western banksers, simply now this leads to quicker deterioration of the standard of living.

None of Eastern European countries benefited from a color revolution staged by the USA. This is about opening the country not only to multinationals (while they loot the county they at least behave within a certain legal bounds, demonstrating at least decency of gangsters like in Godfather), but to petty foreign criminals from diaspora and outside of it who allies with the local oligarchs and smaller nouveau riche and are siphoning all the county wealth to western banks as soon as possible. Greed of the disapora is simply unbounded. https://neweasterneurope.eu/2016/08/26/the-ukrainian-diaspora-as-a-recipient-of-oligarchic-cash/

Of course, Ukrainian diaspora is not uniform. Still, outside well-know types from the tiny Mid-Eastern country, the most dangerous people for Ukraine are probably Ukrainians from diaspora with dual citizenship

[Jan 09, 2020] It looks like UK and the USA intelligences agencies run the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops

Highly recommended!
For MI6 this level of detachment from reality is stunning
Notable quotes:
"... "The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016." ..."
"... "Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..." ..."
Nov 24, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Likbez,

It looks like UK and USA are engaged in the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops.

British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

That shed some light on the common origin of MH17, Russiagate and Scripal propaganda campaigns connecting all three with British government's psy-op operation called The ' Integrity Initiative ' which builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.

And among others participants, William Browder is listed too:

Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person of interest is Andrew Wood who handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC.
Here is one interesting comment from MoA:

Anya, Nov 24, 2018 11:57:00 AM

The British government has been running a serious meddling into the US affairs:

https://www.zerohedge.com/n...

"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil
throughout 2016."
A Steele & Skrupal's anti-Russian / anti-Trump saga: https://spectator.org/big-d...
"Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..."
For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.

[Dec 22, 2019] So US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks. That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack was born -- distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam

Highly recommended!
Looks like Brennan ears are all over this false flag operation...
Dec 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Mark McCarty , 21 December 2019 at 02:34 PM

Here's a key point - on June 12, Assange announces that Wikileaks will soon be releasing info pertinent to Hillary. HE DOES NOT SAY THAT HE WILL BE RELEASING DNC EMAILS.

And yet, on June 14, Crowdstrike reports a Russian hack of the DNC servers - and a day later, Guccifer 2.0 emerges and proclaims himself to be the hacker, takes credit for the upcoming Wikileaks DNC releases, publishes the Trump oppo research which Crowdstrike claimed he had taken, and intentionally adds "Russian footprints" to his metadata.

So how did Crowdstrike and G2.0 know that DNC EMAILS would be released?

Because, as Larry postulates, the US intelligence community had intercepted communications between Seth Rich and Wikileaks in which Seth had offered the DNC emails (consistent with the report of Sy Hersh's source within the FBI).

So US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks.

That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack was born - distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam.

[Dec 20, 2019] Did John Brennan's CIA Create Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Gossufer2.0 and CrowdStrike are the weakest links in this sordid story. CrowdStrike was nothing but FBI/CIA contractor.
So the hypothesis that CrowdStrike employees implanted malware to implicate Russians and created fake Gussifer 2.0 personality is pretty logical.
Notable quotes:
"... Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan ..."
"... In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust. ..."
"... We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents : ..."
"... Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.) ..."
"... Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA. ..."
"... The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia. ..."
"... The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction. ..."
"... The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU. ..."
"... LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU." ..."
"... ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments? ..."
"... With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump. ..."
Dec 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization, the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me explain why.

Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following explanation about methodology:

When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment

To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary evidence."

Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:

We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.

  • Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 interacted with journalists.
  • Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting in June.

We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries.

Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan.

Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):

DCLeaks

"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter. Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and later made unrestricted to the public.


Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts (in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140


GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141 The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142


GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected] to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144


The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."

Guccifer 2.0

On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents. In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear") were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including "some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer 2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146

That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.

The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150

The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the Black Lives Matter movement.153"

Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.

In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.

We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents :

Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016, include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6

One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE. Hackernews explains the purpose and function of MARBLE:

Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.

Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.

"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks explains.

So guess what gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."

We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.

Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)

Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.

Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.

The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.

It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."

Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:

  1. It was 29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible. And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
  2. According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
    • Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
  3. The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
  4. 10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC. Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave their laptops in the office."
  5. On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
    • Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
    • The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.
    • The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
  6. 15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
  • Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
  • Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his VPN IP address in the process).
  • Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other outlets.
  • Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post. They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
    "On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")
  • Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
  • Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
  • Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)

The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable event.

Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.

It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.

The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU.

Posted at 02:13 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink

Factotum , 20 December 2019 at 02:45 PM

LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU."
Paul Damascene , 20 December 2019 at 02:54 PM
Larry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?
walrus , 20 December 2019 at 03:51 PM
Thank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts long enough to be extradited.

You can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published. Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.

Ghost Ship , 20 December 2019 at 04:04 PM
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?

With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.

[Dec 19, 2019] Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials, often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and incipient tyranny.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well. ..."
"... Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest of the world. ..."
Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Russ , Dec 18 2019 22:00 utc | 19

Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials, often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and incipient tyranny.

Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well.

Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM) taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.

Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never win in a free clash of ideas.

Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest of the world.

Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.

james , Dec 19 2019 1:51 utc | 57

hey b... i like your title - "How The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party" ... could change it to" How the Deep State Sunk the USA" could work just as well...

Seven of the 11 security state representatives who had joined the Democrats in 2018 gave the impulse for impeachment.

is this intentional?? it sort of looks like it...

good quote from @ 26 lk - "The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones."

ptb , Dec 19 2019 2:07 utc | 62
@babyl-on 35
yes that is about right. The top power networks are all a tight mix of names from govt, MIC, and private equity (incl. top 2-3 investment banks). With the latter group naturally paying the salaries of the whole policy making ecosystem, and holding the positions that select future generations who will eventually take their place.

They want the security of knowing noone in the world will mess with them. This necessitates that noone in the world *can* mess with them. Pretty straightforward from there.

[Dec 17, 2019] Judge Denies Flynn's Requests For Exculpatory Information, Case Dismissal by Peter Svab

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said in his Dec. 16 opinion ( pdf ). ..."
"... In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late. ..."
"... Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation. ..."
"... Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something it could allege was false. ..."
"... Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers, Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview." ..."
"... Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI investigation of election meddling. ..."
"... Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what his first team of "counselors" advised. ..."
"... Flynn is as deep state as it gets. He would throw the book at any one of you. Make no mistake. Being a general is a political appointment. ..."
"... Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore. ..."
"... "Michael Flynn reportedly filed paperwork on Tuesday for the $530,000 worth of work he did last year that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/08/michael-flynn-admits-turkey-lobbying ..."
"... NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet. ..."
"... They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile. ..."
"... Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses. ..."
"... Oh how soon you forget that Flynn commited war crimes in Grenada. ..."
"... Then bring him up on those charges. In court those kinds of leaps are inaddmissable. ..."
"... Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year ..."
"... Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is sentencing him is PISSED. ..."
"... Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say you weren't warned. ..."
"... They threatened his son if he did not plead guilty. Of course, to you Dems the means justifies the end. He will be pardoned, and deservedly so. ..."
"... I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other criminals. ..."
Dec 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Peter Svab via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge has denied requests by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to prompt the government to give him information he deems exculpatory and to dismiss the case against him .

District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with the government in arguing that Flynn was already given all the information to which he was entitled. The judge also dismissed Flynn's allegations of government misconduct, noting that Flynn already pleaded guilty to his crime and failed to raise his objections earlier when some of the issues he now complains about were brought to his attention.

"The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said in his Dec. 16 opinion ( pdf ).

Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to one count of lying to the FBI. He's been expected to receive a light sentence, including no prison time, after extensively cooperating with the government on multiple investigations.

In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late.

Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation.

Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something it could allege was false.

Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers, Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview."

Flynn was interviewed by two FBI agents, Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, two days after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump's national security adviser.

The prosecutors argued that the FBI had a "sufficient and appropriate basis" for the interview because Flynn days earlier told members of the Trump campaign, including soon-to-be Vice President Mike Pence, that he didn't discuss with the Russian ambassador the expulsion of Russian diplomats in late December 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.

Flynn later admitted in his statement of offense that he asked, via Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak, for Russia to only respond to the sanctions in a reciprocal manner and not escalate the situation.

The FBI was at the time investigating whether Trump campaign aides coordinated with Russian 2016 election meddling. No such coordination was established by the probe, which concluded more than two years later under then-special counsel Robert Mueller.

Powell argued that whatever Flynn told Pence and others in the transition team was none of the FBI's business.

"The Executive Branch has different reasons for saying different things publicly and privately, and not everyone is told the details of every conversation," she said in a previous court filing .

"If the FBI is charged with investigating discrepancies in statements made by government officials to the public, the entirety of its resources would be consumed in a week."

Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI investigation of election meddling.

Sullivan, however, thought otherwise, using a broader description of the investigation. The bureau, he said, probed the "nature of any links between individuals associated with the [Trump] Campaign and Russia" and what Flynn said was material to it. The description Sullivan used appears to omit the context of the probe, which focused specifically on the Russian election meddling.

Lord Raglan , 1 minute ago link

Powell was dealt a bad hand by Flynn's previous corrupt and incompetent attorneys. The judge has an obligation to honor the new views of new counsel. He can't assume that Flynn had been well advised by former counsel. There's no evidence or history of that. They sold him out.

thebigunit , 22 minutes ago link

Not sure what's going on.

Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what his first team of "counselors" advised.

hairlessBalls , 30 minutes ago link

Flynn is as deep state as it gets. He would throw the book at any one of you. Make no mistake. Being a general is a political appointment.

benb , 11 minutes ago link

He's so Deep State that Brennen and Clapper went to Soetoro to get him fired after the election. Flynn was going to rat them out on the treasonous Iran deal. When Obama said no because it was too close to the end of his presidency they then criminally framed Flynn.

You're talking out your butt.

spoonful , 8 minutes ago link

concurrr

https://brassballs.blog/home/four-lies-impeach-flynn-testimony-judges-jessie-liu-mike-flynn-mariia-maria-buina-imran-awan-spygate-in-congress-elijah-cummings-justice-department-doj-fbi-mueller-morrison-foerster-john-carlin-anthony-trenga-emmett-sullivan

VideoEng_NC , 30 minutes ago link

We're witnessing a judge being compromised. His actions & bold off-topic statements in court earlier this year seems to be the sign. DS Strikes Back.

peippe , 46 minutes ago link

never speak to leo without a lawyer representing you.

poor flynn.

socialist chum , 43 minutes ago link

Flynn was lied to. Flynn was a 30 year veteran and General. Flynn couldn't imagine his country turning against him like this. None of us could. But with the cabal running our country, it could and did happen. Now we have to stamp out the cockroaches before it's too late.

AHBL , 41 minutes ago link

Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore.

peippe , 39 minutes ago link

he had a dinner, at a gala, where foreigners were indeed present. (actually invited & not by Flynn)

Crime? You decide

AHBL , 36 minutes ago link

The **** are you talking about?

"Michael Flynn reportedly filed paperwork on Tuesday for the $530,000 worth of work he did last year that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/08/michael-flynn-admits-turkey-lobbying

peippe , 33 minutes ago link

thought Turkey was our, umm, friend. Also, I did not know the cash disbursements had to be 15 million + ('Biden Sized')

to be forgiven.....or overlooked.

Interesting.

Anthraxed , 33 minutes ago link

Tony Pedoesta did the same thing. Yet, somehow was not prosecuted for it...

sbin , 24 minutes ago link

NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet.

Impotence on parade

Soloamber , 48 minutes ago link

This ***** judge will give him a mouse sentence to protect his own *** . We don't know the half of it . How close is the judge to Obama ? I think we are going to find out .

leodogma1 , 50 minutes ago link

President Trump should step in now and Pardon Gen.Flynn and Roger Stone both trial were fixed unethical and not based on fact and law. In Stones case a radical jury of Demon Rat-Brains were assembled to hand down a guilty verdict.

dibiase , 41 minutes ago link

Stone was bragging he had dirt on Clinton from Assange and when the government called his bs, he lied to them.

Stone is a piece of ****.

PrideOfMammon , 7 minutes ago link

They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile.

sbin , 56 minutes ago link

Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses.

Those who violated the constitution and rule of law are media pundants and undisturbed.

Orange dotard please divert some of your swamp creatures from destroying Iran, Venezuela and Bolivia.

America needs the secret police smashed and held accountable for sedition and treason.

hairlessBalls , 35 minutes ago link

Oh how soon you forget that Flynn commited war crimes in Grenada.

VideoEng_NC , 28 minutes ago link

Then bring him up on those charges. In court those kinds of leaps are inaddmissable.

sbin , 12 minutes ago link

Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year

Soloamber , 59 minutes ago link

The minute they let Flynn off he talks and they sure as hell don't want that. They want to drag this out as long as possible and hope for a miracle (Trump gets beat ) or at least time enough for them to bugger off. FISA has known for years they were lied to by the FBI and now it has been confirmed . So why didn't they do anything then or now ? Were they in on it ? How do you draw any other conclusion ?

PopeRatzo , 1 hour ago link

Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is sentencing him is PISSED.

Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say you weren't warned.

Spetzco , 28 minutes ago link

They threatened his son if he did not plead guilty. Of course, to you Dems the means justifies the end. He will be pardoned, and deservedly so.

GreatUncle , 15 minutes ago link

I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other criminals.

MurderNeverWasLove , 55 minutes ago link

Flynn can ask to withdraw plea, but he's turned down that opportunity three times, so judge might not allow it. Then everything Powell has been doing becomes relevant. Up to this point it's just a bunch of noise, unfortunately.

sowhat1929 , 55 minutes ago link

The house cleaning this country needs is truly astounding. This ******* judge can be swept out with all the other worthless trash

lwilland1012 , 1 hour ago link

So let me just be sure I understand this: he is being denied evidence that could prove innocence on a trial related to a guilty plea, which was largely the result of persecution by the FBI and we ALLOW this to happen in America? What has happened to this country?

GoldenDonuts , 1 hour ago link

And the same old same old continues. I really hope that all of these people receive the judgement that they so richly deserve.

[Dec 17, 2019] History Doesn t Repeat, But It Often Rhymes: Wilson in UK was subjected to the similar attack by rogue elements in MI5 as Trump in the USA

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories". ..."
"... Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about. ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

English Outsider

Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that closely so that's just a general impression.

My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.

The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it. So I clicked on the BBC article -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-49939123

- and came across this -

" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".

Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.

On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you might happen to have dug up.

Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the compliment and topple Her Majesty.

14 December 2019 at 07:07 AM

[Dec 14, 2019] Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation

Highly recommended!
Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview: done in "bad faith" = SEDITION !!!! Deep State operatives...ie, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Stork, Lisa, McCabe, should be held accountable. Obama should probably be impeached.
The hard fact is, that the top of the FBI knew, in advance, that the "dossier" was just bs invented by Russian liars, for money, to be used as political lies for kilary's campaign. It Wasn't evidence and Comey knew far in advance of crossfire hurricane. I can't see less than 20 years in comey's future. That same includes barak, brennan and clapper, who were all informed, willing accomplices in this crime.
10:30 Whoever in FBI that intentionally misled the court using the Steele dossier knowing that the dossier was "total rubbish" as Barr states, needs to be inditing immediately. Why we are continuing to investigate instead of inditimg while continuing to investigate. Until these people are held accountable I don't think our country will begin to heal and media and others apologize to the country for the damage they have done.
7:49 - "Comey refused to sign back up for his security clearance, and therefore couldn't be questioned about classified matters." Well now, isn't that interesting. Haven't heard that one before.
Dec 14, 2019 | www.youtube.com

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News' Pete Williams about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the Russia investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.

grabir01 , 3 days ago

It appears that none of AG Barr's answers were what Pete Williams wanted to hear.

Gary Ellis , 2 days ago

I sincerely hope that the Durham investigation brings people to justice for what they have done to our country.

greg j , 2 days ago

The man just admitted "this may be the biggest conspiracy in U.S Political History." Ouch!

Jeremy Elice , 3 days ago

Shame we didn't get to see Pete William's face during Barr's answer accusing "an irresponsible press of fanning the flames."

JOHN DRUMHELLER , 2 days ago

Here's the adult in the room. Look out children.

Hart , 1 day ago

This is like if Watergate was on steroids and then some. Everyone involved should be prosecuted including the person who bought the dossier

Russell McAfee , 1 day ago (edited)

The FBI never got the actual DNC server. Crowdstrike has it. The FBI got a 'forensic copy'

Richard McLeod , 1 day ago

The FBI has now been proven to be corrupt at its' highest levels.

King Eris , 1 day ago

I could listen to AG Barr talk for hours. He's so calm and professional.

Noble Victory , 1 day ago

Barr is so intelligent and just. He's smoothe like the way he plays the Bagpipes. Pretty amazing! 🇺🇸👍

Nolan Gleason , 3 days ago

Death to the swamp

ctafrance , 1 day ago

The press is hopelessly corrupt. If we didn't know it already, this interview proves it.

Roman King , 1 day ago (edited)

I'm So glade we have a competent attorney General pushing back on the massive disinformation narrative that comes from Giant News outlets of which are used to being unchallenged, unchecked by today's "journalistic standards"

Clarion Call , 2 days ago

I so respect and admire this man's brain and logical thinking. His vocabulary is great as well.

wkcw1 , 2 days ago

NBC realizing they need to take a bath on this whole thing. Probably a bit too late now.

barbandrob1 , 1 day ago

Barr just basically clarified and justified Fox news reporting over the last 2 years.. Thanks NBC

Faris Hamarneh , 3 days ago

I love Barr's nonchalant style. But this is real big and heads are going to roll

Craig Bigelow , 2 days ago

Obama spied on Trump. Obama should have known about the FISA warrant!

Luis Santiago , 1 day ago

so this guy really asked Bahr"why not open an investigation even with little evidence?" because is a violation of civil liberties to invade the privacy of law abiding citizens. You need compelling evidence for something so huge

macfan128 , 1 day ago

17:44 "Why should the Attorney General care that the FBI was spying on a presidential candidate?" LOLOLOLOL Our media is a jooooooooke.

David , 3 days ago

NBC did a straight up interview??? This is shocking. Who told them that they could start doing journalism again?

Bill the Cat , 2 days ago

Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview.

Alan Sullivan , 1 day ago

Horowitz should be instructed to edit or update his Report to discuss The Question of Bias and Evidence of Bias. He has clearly misguided Americans with his choice of words and has omitted important facts underpinning bias.

MegaTrucker65 , 1 day ago

I haven't looked into Ukraine YET.

Gamer John3:18 , 1 day ago

AG Barr is an outstanding role model, a man of integrity and wisdom, calm in a raging political storm. I have full confidence he will make those who fabricated evidence and hid exculpatory evidence finally face justice. AG Barr for President 2024!

Yo Mama , 2 days ago

Barr is a straight shooter and I love it. It sounds like we will get to the real truth eventually through Durhams investigation I just hope it doesnt take another year to get to the prosecutions.

Direbear Coat , 1 day ago

So, I watched the interview... The video is called, "Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation." Not once did I hear him criticize the I.G.'s report. In fact, A.G. Barr clarified that the I.G.'s report was limited in scope because of the limitations put on the I.G. He said that the report was appropriate.

Wolverines Fight , 1 day ago

It's scary to see how powerful the corruption of the Democratic Party has grown. It represents a serious threat to all our personal freedom. The Democratic Party has to be stopped.

Benny .Burmeister Jørgensen , 3 days ago

Ok after watching this interview its quite clear that Barr and Durham is going after these criminals and people are going to jail. Maybe there is hope for US yet becuase this dane consider US atm a banana republic. Spying on political candidates? Forging documents? You FBI behaving like Stalins secret police. Lets see what happen.

Mike Dorsey , 1 day ago

God Bless Bill Barr. I'm glad there's still some adults in government that will speak their mind intelligently, rationally and unabashedly.

protochris , 1 day ago

This guy is brilliant; he's clearly exposing the FBI and the barking dogs on the alphabet networks.

Dan Kuo , 1 day ago

Amazing for the AG to go in deep into enemy territory at the heart of the opposition media to lay out a case for the criminal activities that undermined our country prior to and after the 2016 election. The deep state is trembling at the prospect of being held accountable after all the facts are laid out to the american people that these activities cannot be brushed aside or swept under the carpet if we are to continue as a country.

Jbyrd Texas , 2 days ago

The corrupt media is trying to act like they have not been involved in this treasonous scam since the beginning working directly with the treasonous cabal. The media has been lying and pushing fake news for 3 years calling Trump a Russia agent and called him treasonous. I knew the whole time that they were lying there was evidence from day one that this was all lies and if I can see that from the public then they can definitely see that from the inside they are purposefully lying.

Stephan Coutts , 1 day ago

I dare anyone on here to research Barr's History back to his involvement in the assignation of JFK, the cover up, defending Nixon, Epstein, and many other illegal and immoral activities. After reviewing the evidence, I walked away believing that Barr is trying to cover up his tracks so he does do jail time. No need to reply. Either take my dare or not. God Bless America and ALL her people, Stephan

Worlds Best Metal Detectorist , 2 days ago

The public are sick of waiting . I find myself skipping through a half hour news show in 5 minutes flat looking for arrests ,whereas before I was rivited to every minute of the half hour show but it goes on and on and at the there is Nothiing .The Democrats are the masters , it's obvious . If they break the law they get off scott free . If you are republican wave bye bye , you will be in jail for years . America is not the free and fair country it is all cracked up to be . It is corrupted by the democrats who have peoiple in high places that thwart real justice.

Right Thinking , 3 days ago

Mifsud approached George! Who was Mifsud working for (western asset) and why did he approach George? He’s the one who offered George dirt on Hill. Then invited him to meet the fake “niece”, of Putin, in England! What about this information? Someone set George up to make this happen outside the US, because of EO 12333. It had to happen outside the US so they could go to the fisa court!

dethtrk Jones , 3 days ago

I dont trust Christopher Wrey. He keeps slow-walking all the FBI documents and declassifications. He also fights judicial watch and judges that rule in their favor and continue not giving over what is ordered! This last judge was ready to hold him in contempt for refusing to cooperate with court ordered documents.

Brad Brown , 2 days ago

Why did the FBI continue to investigate Trump after January when the case collapsed? To try and find a way to impeach Trump. Remember the Washington Post headlined article right after the inauguration "The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already underway." The FBI "insurance" policy was essential!

[Dec 12, 2019] The FBI - Pushed By John Brennan - Lied To The Court Seven Times To Spy On The Trump Campaign

Highly recommended!
And behind Brennan we can can see the Nobel Peace Price winner.
Notable quotes:
"... A major role in directing the plot has fallen to Obama's consigliere John Brennan, the current director of the CIA. ..."
"... One part of the still ongoing deligitimization campaign was the FBI investigation of alleged Russian connections of four members of the Trump election campaign. ..."
"... The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with. ..."
"... The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors. ..."
"... That the dossier was mere dreck was quite obvious to any sober person who read it when it was first published ..."
"... That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at "director level", face-to-face between the two agency chiefs. ..."
"... (This is a Moon of Alabama fundraiser week. Please consider to support our work .) ..."
"... Occam's razor: CIA-MI6, with approval of US Deep State (Clintons, Bush, McCain, Brennan, Mueller, etc.), meddled to elect Trump and pointed fingers at Russia to initiate a new McCarthyism. ..."
"... "Sergey Lavrov: In my opinion, Congress sounds rather obsessed with destroying our relations. It continues pursuing the policy started by the Obama administration. As I mentioned, we are used to this kind of attack. We know how to respond to them. I assure you that neither Nord Stream-2 nor Turkish Stream will be halted." ..."
"... ... the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by Obama's team and was designed for Clinton to escalate ... ..."
"... It's Kissinger's WSJ Op-Ed of August 2014 that provides the answer. In this Op-Ed, Kissinger calls for a restored US Empire that is essentially Trump's MAGA. Kissinger is writing immediately after the Donbas rebels have won. The Russians refused to heed Kissinger's advice (to back down) and it has become apparent that Russia's joining the West is no longer an inevitability as the US elite had assumed. ..."
"... Good chance Steele had little to do with writing the Dossier. "Simpson-Ohr Dossier", anyone? Steele was needed as a credible looking intelligence officer with Russia ties and a past working relationship with US Intel, as cover to sell to FBI, FISA Court, and the public (meeting with Isikoff, Yahoo News story). ..."
"... Glenn Simpson and wife Mary Jacoby had written articles for the WSJ in 2007 and 2008 with a script and language similar to the Dossier. Devin Nunes seems to believe this scenario, and it is discussed in detail in books by Dan Bongino and Lee Smith, among others. ..."
"... physchoh @ 60; The difference, at least in my mind, is that, the "Russia did it" meme, is the weakest of all cases against DJT. Corbyn, on the other hand, may actually be hurt by the bogus charges. IMO, what this shows is coordination between the elites to bring down a progressive in the UK, who fancies public control over major finances instead of private concerns. ..."
"... So Horowitz was technically correct when he did not find bias. What he might have been reluctant to spell out is that he did find malice. ..."
Dec 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

On January 6 2017 this author concluded :

When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the relevant powers launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump.

The ultimate aim of the cabal is to kick him out of office and have a reliable replacement, like the Vice-President elect Pence, take over. Should that not be possible it is hoped that the delegitimization will make it impossible for Trump to change major policy trajectories especially in foreign policy. A main issue here is the reorientation of the U.S. military complex and its NATO proxies from the war of terror towards a direct confrontation with main powers like Russia and China.

...

A major role in directing the plot has fallen to Obama's consigliere John Brennan, the current director of the CIA.

One part of the still ongoing deligitimization campaign was the FBI investigation of alleged Russian connections of four members of the Trump election campaign.

The Inspector General of the U.S. Justice Department Michael Horowitz has investigated the FBI operation against the election campaign of Donald Trump. Yesterday he published his report, Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (pdf). It is 480 pages long and quite thorough but unfortunately very limited in its scope.

Horowitz finds that the FBI was within the law when it opened the investigation but that the FBI's applications to the FISA court, which decides if the FBI can spy on someone's communications, were based on lies and utterly flawed.

Your host unfortunately lacked the time so far to read more than the executive summary. But others have pointed out some essential findings.

Matt Taibbi remarks :

The Guardian headline reads: " DOJ Internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser ."

If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a "clearing" of the FBI, never clear me of anything. ...

Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz's conclusion that there was no evidence of "political bias or improper motivation" in the FBI's probe of Donald Trump's Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had "authorized purpose" to conduct.

...

However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose "serious" procedural problems and omissions of "significant information" in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president).

...

There are too many to list in one column, but the Horowitz report show years of breathless headlines were wrong. Some key points:

The so-called "Steele dossier" was, actually, crucial to the FBI's decision to seek secret surveillance of Page. ...

...

The "Steele dossier" was "Internet rumor," and corroboration for the pee tape story was "zero." ...

John Solomon finds :

Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.

The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.

A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: "Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is inaccurate."

For those who don't speak IG parlance, it means the FBI made nine false assertions to the FISA court. In short, what the bureau said was contradicted by the evidence in its official file.

The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with.

The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors.

That the dossier was mere dreck was quite obvious to any sober person who read it when it was first published . Here is what we wrote about it at that time:

The anonymous former British operator hears from an anonymous compatriot that two anonymous sources, asserted to have access to inner Russian circles, claimed to have heard somewhere that something happened in the Kremlin.

They assert that Trump was supported and directed by Putin himself five years ago while even a year ago no one would have bet a penny on Trump gaining any political significant position or even the presidency.

There is a lot more of such nonsense in these new Hitler diaries. It is bonkers from a to z.

Those who thought otherwise should question their judgment.

It is now claimed that the FBI is exculpated because the Horowitz report did not find "political bias or improper motivation". But that omits the fact that at least four high ranking people in the FBI and Justice Department who were involved in the case were found to be politically biased and were removed from their positions.

It also omits that the scope of Horowitz's investigation was limited to the Justice Department. He was not able to investigate the CIA and its former director John Brennan who was alleging Russia-Trump connections months before the FBI investigation started:

Contrary to a general impression that the FBI launched the Trump-Russia conspiracy probe, Brennan pushed it to the bureau – breaking with CIA tradition by intruding into domestic politics: the 2016 presidential election. He also supplied suggestive but ultimately false information to counterintelligence investigators and other U.S. officials.

The current CIA director Gina Haspel was CIA station chief in London during that time and while several of the entrapment attempts of Trump campaign staff by the FBI investigation happened. Horowitz spoke with neither of them.

Peter Van Buren concludes :

The current Horowitz Report, read alongside his previous report on how the FBI played inside the 2016 election vis-a-vis Clinton, should leave no doubt that the Bureau tried to influence the election of a president and then delegitimize him when he won. It wasn't the Russians; it was us.

That is correct, but the whole conspiracy was even deeper. It was not the FBI which initiated the case.

My hunch is still that the FBI investigation was a case of parallel construction which is often used to build a legitimate case after a suspicion was found by illegitimate means. In this case it was John Brennan who in early 2016 contacted the head of the British GCHQ electronic interception service and asked him to spy on the Trump campaign. GHCQ then claimed that something was found that was deemed suspicious :

That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at "director level", face-to-face between the two agency chiefs.

The FBI was tipped off on the issue and on July 31 2016 started an investigation to construct a parallel legal case. It send out British and U.S. agents to entrap Trump campaign members. It used the obviously fake Steele dossier to gain FISA court judgments that allowed it to spy on the campaign. Downing Street was informed throughout the whole affair. A day after Trump's inauguration the UK's then Prime Minister Theresa May fired GHCQ chief Robert Hannigan.

One still open question is to what extend then President Barack Obama was involved in the affair.

There is another ongoing investigation by U.S. Prosecutor John Durham. That investigation is not limited to the Justice Department but will involve all agencies and domestic as well as foreign sources. Durham has the legal rights to declassify whatever is needed and he can indict persons should he find that they committed a crime. His report will hopefully go much deeper than the already horrendous stuff Horowitz delivered.

(This is a Moon of Alabama fundraiser week. Please consider to support our work .)

Posted by b on December 11, 2019 at 16:16 UTC | Permalink

Antoinetta III , Dec 11 2019 16:27 utc | 1

Do we have any idea when the Durham report will be coming out?

Antoinetta III

casey , Dec 11 2019 16:30 utc | 2
Anyone taking bets on Durham/Barr making indictments in this mess? My guess is a whole lot of horse trading is going on behind the scenes now, as in, "I'll trade you a censure for all potential indictments going down the memory hole."
Kabobyak , Dec 11 2019 16:54 utc | 3
Typical dog and pony show which will change nothing relating to interventionist foreign policy and the new cold war with Russia. Too many saw benefits from the corruption in Ukraine to dig deep there; the Bidens were just the most blatant, Lindsey Graham and others from both parties were involved so don't expect much from the Senate hearings. The bipartisan major goals are a fait accompli; universal acceptance that Russia worked to undermine our elections (and to destroy our "Democracy") and are thus an enemy we must fight, and it's universally accepted by all that we MUST provide Ukraine with Javelin missiles and other lethal aid to fight "Russian Aggression" (with little mention that even Obama balked at that reckless option). All of these proceedings are great distractions, but the weapons of war will not be diminished.
c1ue , Dec 11 2019 17:08 utc | 4
@Kabobyak #3

Very possibly, but the Afghanistan papers have made an impact on some people: American Conservative editor is outraged, including militating against his children serving in the military and taxpayers funding it

jayc , Dec 11 2019 17:10 utc | 5
Another candidate for Steele's "primary source" is Stefan Halper. Svetlana Lhokova suggested that this past Sunday.
Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 17:12 utc | 6
Unfortuneately, few will question the findings of these investigations or consider the possibility that the investigations themselves are misdirection/cover-up.

Repeating my comment from yesterday on the Open Thread :

IMO the Lavrov-Pompeo presser is notable mostly for Lavrov's discussion of Russiagate (about 6 minutes in).

Lavrov tells us that the Russian's repeatedly sought to clarify their noninterference by publishing correspondence - which the Trump Administration didn't respond to. And he actual mentions McCarthyism!

Wait, wot?

Yeah, during the worst of the Russiagate accusations, Trump wouldn't do things that would've helped to prove that Russiagate was a farce!!

So, during the election, Trump called on Putin to publish Hillary's emails (the very act of making such a request is likely illegal because at the time it was known that her emails contained highly classified info) but he wouldn't accept Russia's publication of exculpatory info about Russiagate?!?!

This would cause cognitive dissonance galore in an Americans that hear it - so one can be sure that it will not be reported.

Occam's razor: CIA-MI6, with approval of US Deep State (Clintons, Bush, McCain, Brennan, Mueller, etc.), meddled to elect Trump and pointed fingers at Russia to initiate a new McCarthyism.

Meanwhile in bizarroland (aka USA), Barr says Russiagate is a fantasy based on FBI "bad faith" - yet Pompeo still presses on with the "Russia meddled" bullshit.

!!

james , Dec 11 2019 17:24 utc | 7
thanks b... i like your example in the comment - ''those who thought otherwise should question their judgment''.. good example!

i am a bit concerned like @ 2 casey, that most of this is going to go down the memory hole and there will be that made in america stamp on it - ''no accountability''... i wish i was wrong, but getting worked up at the idea anyone is going to be held accountable for any actions of the usa, or the insiders playing the usa, is clearly a fools game at this point.. all i mostly see is the needed collapse and waiting for that to happen..

Kabobyak , Dec 11 2019 17:27 utc | 8
@c1ue #4

Thanks for that, there are definitely cracks in the armor and we should promote that narrative as you do in your link. Tulsi Gabbard has also expanded the awareness, hopefully she will make the upcoming debates despite strong efforts to silence her. I'll try more to focus on the positive!

james , Dec 11 2019 17:27 utc | 9
@ 6 jr.. there is a press release on all what was said here for anyone interested..

lavrov quote and etc. etc.. "We suggested to our colleagues that in order to dispel all suspicions that are baseless, let us publish this closed-channel correspondence starting from October 2016 till November 2017 so it would all become very clear to many people. However, regrettably, this administration refused to do so. But I'd like to repeat once again we are prepared to do that, and to publish the correspondence that took place through that channel would clear many matters up, I believe. Nevertheless, we hope that the turbulence that appeared out of thin air will die down, just like in 1950s McCarthyism came to naught, and there'll be an opportunity to go back to a more constructive cooperation."

evilempire , Dec 11 2019 17:44 utc | 10
I continue to believe that the FBI and Horowitz perjured themselves in the FISA report. To correct a mistake in a previous post I made, I believe they lied when the claimed the Steele Dossier was not a predicate for opening crossfire hurricane. How can the Steele dossier not be instrumental in the opening of the investigation when bruce ohr's wife nellie ohr was working at fusion gps when bruce ohr met with steele to discuss the dirty dossier.

In other words, the FBI was concocting Operation Crossfire Hurricane prior to the time they had any knowledge of the phony Papadopoulus predicate that the russians were proferring the clinton emails to the trump campaign.

The FISA report claim that Operation Crossfire Hurricane was predicated solely on the Papadopolous allegations is therefore a lie. There was, in fact, no real predicate for Operation Crossfire Hurricane. The predications cited were all fictions and inventions fabricated in a conspiracy between MI6(the FFC or

friendly foreign country cited in the Horowitz report), the DOJ and the FBI. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was a massive Psyop from its inception.

Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 18:19 utc | 12
james @9

What major publications have picked up this info from the State Dept PR? Which of them are questioning why Trump didn't agree to let the Russians publish the exonerating information? And how many of those are linking this strange fact to other strange facts and thus raising troubling questions about the 2016 election?

<> <> <> <> <> <>

It's not just that Trump refused to publish exculpatory material. Anyone that's been reading my comments (and/or my blog) knows that Trump also:

- hired Manafort - whose work for pro-Russian candidates in Ukraine had drawn the ire of CIA - despite Manafort's having no recent experience with US elections;

- helped Pelosi to be elected Speaker of the House by inviting her to attend a White House meeting about his border wall (along with Chuck Schumer) prior to the House vote to elect a Speaker.

- initiated Ukrainegate by talking with Ukraine's President about investigating an announced candidate - he didn't have to do this(!) he could've let subordinates work behind the scenes .

And then there's a set of suspicious activity that is difficult to explain, such as: ...

- Kissinger's having called for MAGA in August 2014 (Trump announced his campaign 10 months later and he was the ONLY MAGA candidate and the ONLY populist in the Republican primary) ;

- London as a nexus for the US 2016 campaign (Cambridge Analytica; GPS Fusion; Halper, etc.) ;

- Hillary's making mistakes in the 2016 campaign that no seasoned politician would make;

- the settling of scores via entrapments of Flynn, Manafort, and Wikileaks/Assange (painted as a hostile intelligence agency and Russian agent).

All of these and more support the conclusion that CIA-MI6 elected MAGA Trump and initiated Russiagate.

!!

Piotr Berman , Dec 11 2019 18:28 utc | 13
The anonymous former British operator hears from an anonymous asserted compatriot what two anonymous sources, asserted to have access to inner Russian circles, claim to have heard somewhere that something happened in the Kremlin. <-- Perhaps it is too much to add that the entire conversation happen in a pub, like an eyewitness account of a trout caught by an angler that was larger than a tiger shark [the trout was so large, not the angler].

Really?? , Dec 11 2019 18:31 utc | 14
James #11

I am a great fan of Dmitri Orlov and have just read a large portion of his linked post.

What I do not see Orlov doing is taking into account--in his takedown of "scientific" models---evidence of global warming/change such as *actual* observations of *actual, current* phenomena that are being measured today, such as the condition of the world's coral reefs; the rate of melting of permafrost and release of methane gas; the melting of Greenland (and other) glaciers and release of fresh water into the oceans; acidification of oceans; and quite a lot of evidence for sea level rise, such as saltwater intrusion into freshwater swamps, aquifers, etc.

karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 18:38 utc | 15
More can be gleaned by the manner in which BigLie Media spin the investigation's results. At The Hill , Jonathon Turley makes that clear in the first paragraph:

"The analysis of the report by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz greatly depends, as is often the case, on which cable news channel you watch. Indeed, many people might be excused for concluding that Horowitz spent 476 pages to primarily conclude one thing, which is that the Justice Department acted within its guidelines in starting its investigation into the 2016 campaign of President Trump."

The further he goes the worse it gets for the Ds. And he's 100% correct about the biases present in reporting about the Report. Remarks made by Lavrov at the presser were likely done prior to anyone from Russia's delegation having digested any of the Report. What I found important was the following revelation by Lavrov:

"Let me remind you that at the time of the first statements on this topic, which was on the eve of the 2016 US presidential election, we used the communications channel that linked back then Moscow and the Obama administration in Washington to ask our US partners on numerous occasions whether these allegations that emerged in October 2016 and persisted until Donald Trump's inauguration could be addressed. The reply never came. There was no response whatsoever to all our proposals when we said: look, if you suspect us, let's sit down and talk, just put your facts on the table. All this continued after President Trump's inauguration and the appointment of a new administration. We proposed releasing the correspondence through this closed communications channel for the period from October 2016 until January 2017 in order to dispel all this groundless suspicion. This would have clarified the situation for many. Unfortunately, this time it was the current administration that refused to do so. Let me reiterate that we are ready to disclose to the public the exchanges we had through this channel . I think that this would set many things straight. Nevertheless we expect the turbulence that appeared out of thin air to calm down little by little, just as McCarthyism waned in the 1950s, so that we can place our cooperation on a more constructive footing." [My Emphasis]

Lavrov on Mueller Report: "It contains no confirmation of any collusion." End of story. But we do have all this compiled evidence within our communications we're ready to publish is the USA

agrees.

The Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) organization has yet to publish anything about the report. However, Matt Taibbi often writes for that outlet, so his reporting at Rolling Stone ought to be seen as a proxy FAIR report.

Michael Droy , Dec 11 2019 18:42 utc | 16
Great stuff as ever. How useful is it that Skripal is Unavailable but not Dead? For example does it affect redaction of material linked to him?
Jon Carter , Dec 11 2019 18:59 utc | 17
Now that we know Carter Page was working for the CIA as an informant in 2016, is it reasonable to speculate that Page was planted in the Trump campaign by the CIA?
GeorgeV , Dec 11 2019 19:11 utc | 18
The Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Micheal Horowitz's report on the move to delegitimize the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is clear proof of the massive rot that lies at the heart of the US' political system. If this matter is whitewashed over by the MSM, then one more step will have been taken to a violent and bloody revolution in the US of A.
JR , Dec 11 2019 19:41 utc | 20
By now Steele's credibility is zero. Time to revisit Steele's involvement with the debunked "Russia bought the soccer World Champion games", the Litvinenko polonium poisening and the Skripal novichok poisening. The timing of the Skripal matter deserves some scrutiny in relation to Skripal possibly being Steele's source for the infamous Trump dossier. There might be a motive hidden there.
Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 19:44 utc | 21
Jon Carter @17:
... is it reasonable to speculate that Page was planted in the Trump campaign by the CIA?

And then there's Simon Bracey Lane in the Sanders campaign as described here: British Spies Infiltrated Bernie Sanders' Campaign?

Plus we have the strange goings-on of Halper and Mifsud as well as Gina Haspel in London also.

!!

uncle tungsten , Dec 11 2019 20:04 utc | 22
karlof1 #15

Thank you for posting Lavrov's words. Between those words and the IG report the kabuki farce is revealed. Why was Trump ignoring the Russian offer you might ask. Because it suited him to have this nonsense dominate the news cycle, you might conclude. Trump and Comey and Brennan deserve each other.

Lavrov's words condemn the three of them.

S , Dec 11 2019 20:25 utc | 24
Twitter account @Techno_Fog lists MSM shills who assured the public the FISA warrant on Page was not based on Steele dossier (h/t Zero Hedge).
james , Dec 11 2019 20:26 utc | 25
just like 9-11... this is an inside job... does anyone really think the truth is going to come to light in any of it?? i'm still with @ 2 caseys view...
karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 20:48 utc | 27
uncle tungsten @22--

Thanks for your reply! Yes, agreed, and I'd add Obama and Clinton. Lavrov also held another presser at the conclusion of his visit that provides additional info not covered in the first. The following is one I thought important:

"Question: The day before, US Congress agreed on a draft military budget, which includes possible sanctions against Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream. Have you covered this topic? The Congress sounds very determined. How seriously will the new restrictions affect the completion of our projects?

"Sergey Lavrov: In my opinion, Congress sounds rather obsessed with destroying our relations. It continues pursuing the policy started by the Obama administration. As I mentioned, we are used to this kind of attack. We know how to respond to them. I assure you that neither Nord Stream-2 nor Turkish Stream will be halted."

I must emphatically agree with Lavrov's opinion and was very pleased he answered forthrightly. What seems quite clear is the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by Obama's team and was designed for Clinton to escalate, with bipartisan Congressional backing. That she lost didn't stop the anti-Russian wheel from being turned. So, logic tells us to discover the reason for Obama to alter policy. Over the years I've written here why I think that was done--to continue the #1 policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance over the planet and its people regardless of its impossibility given the Sino-Russo Alliance made reality by that policy goal. That a supermajority in Congress remain deluded is clearly a huge problem, and those continuing to vote for the War Budget need to be removed.

ben , Dec 11 2019 21:03 utc | 28
b posted, in part;"When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the relevant powers launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump."

It doesn't take HRC and her resident scum-bag sycophants to deligitimize DJT, his sorry life-style, and his past record do that quite nicely, IMO.

karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 21:07 utc | 29
This tweet sums up things nicely in ways BigLie Media won't:
  • "Let me get this straight:
  • "A Congress with a 9% approval rate
  • "Is trying to remove a president with a 52% approval rate that 63 million Americans voted for
  • "As a part of an impeachment process that 51% of voters don't want
  • "All while claiming to be fighting 'for the people'"

With only 9% approval, it ought to be easy to toss out most Congresscritters, excepting that part of the Senate not up for reelection.

ben , Dec 11 2019 21:18 utc | 30
Jrabbit @ 12 said; "All of these and more support the conclusion that CIA-MI6 elected MAGA Trump and initiated Russiagate."

YEP!!!!!

Paul Damascene , Dec 11 2019 21:24 utc | 32

Karlof1 @ 29--

Are you aware of any means by which a member of congress or of a congressional committee can be impeached or otherwise censured for the misconduct of official duties? That would at least be Schiff...

Posted by: Paul Damascene | Dec 11 2019 21:24 utc | 32

james , Dec 11 2019 21:25 utc | 33
@ 31 john.. i didn't know i had to read the orlov article to say what i did to you!! your post @11 never make any internet link to orlov... what am i missing? does this mean i can only speak with you after i have read another orlov article? lol...
james , Dec 11 2019 21:27 utc | 34
i see it now.. my comment still stands though... people seem especially pugnacious today..
William Gruff , Dec 11 2019 21:27 utc | 35
"It doesn't take HRC and her resident scum-bag sycophants to deligitimize DJT, his sorry life-style, and his past record do that quite nicely, IMO." --ben @28

Ah, but that would be legitimate deligitimization, like attacking his actual policies. Those are rocks that would break the Democrats' own windows as well as Trump's.

karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 21:30 utc | 36
29 Cont'd--

And Congress continues to alienate allies :

"So far on Dec 11:

1. Senate Foreign Relations Comm passed Turkey sanctions bill

2. Pentagon Chief warned Turkey moving away NATO

3. U.S. lawmakers introduce legislation to curb Turkey's nuclear weapon obtainment"

Finally, the pretense of being nice to Turkey has come to an end. It will now intensify its looking East, and pursue its national interests. IMO, the Eastern Med's energy issues will now become a major headache.

ben , Dec 11 2019 21:40 utc | 37
karlof @ 29: The head Dems know their pushing the " Russia did it"meme is weak, but the PTB

insist on it, to keep the MIC funds flowing.

The "no-brainer" charges should be; "Obstruction" and "Emoluments" violations. Charges the public can grasp.

What happens if you, or any average person, ignores a summons to appear? They are arrested.

Funneling govt. funds for personal gain is a violation of law, if you are POTUS.

These are violations average Americans can grasp, not the current circus of he said, she said, going on in D.C. lately.

Guess my point is, this hearings are built to fail, because most of our so-called leaders like things the way they are. The rape of the workings classes will continue.

karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 21:41 utc | 38
Paul Damascene @32--

Yes. The impeachment process is the same as for Trump. Censuring is much easier but doubt it will occur as too many are deserving. We're seeing the reason Congressional elections are held every two years--vote 'em out if they're no good!

Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 22:01 utc | 40
karlof1 @27:

... the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by Obama's team and was designed for Clinton to escalate ...

I don't agree that the baton would be passed to Clinton. The Deep State uses the two-party system as a device. It's not tied to partisan concerns. If the Deep State and the establishment really wanted Clinton elected, they would've made that happen. Few expected Trump to win and few would've been outraged if he had lost. Yet he won. Against all odds. Furthermore, Clinton wasn't the MAGA candidate as called for by Kissinger - Trump was. And he was from the beginning of his candidacy.

Russiagate was based on suspicions of a populist that was compromised by Russia. Hillary has too much baggage to play populist or nationalist - including Bill's involvement with Epstein.

Also, you're forgetting the set ups of Manafort, Flynn, and Wikileaks/Assange - which were important parts of Russiagate and also a convenient way of settling scores. These set-ups required the Russiagate-tainted candidate (Trump) to win.

And Trump's beating Hillary makes him the classic come-from-behind hero - giving Trump a certain legitimacy that an establishment candidate wouldn't have. That's important when contemplating taking the country to war in the near future.

It's strange to me that people can think that Hillary was the 'chosen candidate', and be OK with that but find a possible selection of a different candidate (Trump, as it turns out) to be outrageous and inconceivable.

=

... with bipartisan Congressional backing . That she lost didn't stop the anti-Russian wheel from being turned.

Since the Deep State and the Establishment desired an effort to restore the Empire, they would turn to whomever could most effectively accomplish that task.

Once again: It didn't have to be Hillary that was selected. In fact, for many reasons (that I've previously expressed) Hillary would have been a poor choice.

=

So, logic tells us to discover the reason for Obama to alter policy. Over the years I've written here why I think that was done--to continue the #1 policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance over the planet and its people ...

FSD is US Mil policy, not a political goal. It states that US Mil will strive to have superiority in weapons and capability in every sphere of combat.

Politically, FSD is just one of several means to an end. IMO that end is the maintenance and expansion of the Anglo-Zionist Empire (aka New World Order).

Also, your dominance theory doesn't answer the question of WHY NOW? (more on that below)

... regardless of its impossibility given the Sino-Russo Alliance ...

Firstly, US Deep State believes that it is possible. And I personally don't buy the notion that Russia and China are fated to prevail. If that were obvious, then the moa bar would have no patrons.

Secondly (and again), WHY NOW? The Sino-Russo Alliance was long in the making. Why did USA suddenly take note?

It's Kissinger's WSJ Op-Ed of August 2014 that provides the answer. In this Op-Ed, Kissinger calls for a restored US Empire that is essentially Trump's MAGA. Kissinger is writing immediately after the Donbas rebels have won. The Russians refused to heed Kissinger's advice (to back down) and it has become apparent that Russia's joining the West is no longer an inevitability as the US elite had assumed.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

I've written many times of Kissinger's Op-Ed and of indications that the Deep State selected MAGA Trump to be President while also initiating a new McCarthyism. Why is it STILL so difficult to believe a theory that makes so much sense?

!!

karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 22:08 utc | 41
ben @37--

Yes, the status quo is very generous to the Current Oligarchy and its tools, but not so for the vast public majority which is clamoring for change. IMO, much can be learned from the UK election tomorrow, of which there's been very little discussion here despite its importance. I suggest following the very important developments from the past few days at Criag Murray's Twitter and at his website , the linked article being a scoop of sorts.

Also harder to follow but important as well are ballot initiatives within the states. This site has current listing . I just looked over those for California where there are a few good ones, but the threshold for signatures is getting higher, close to one million are now needed in CA.

Cortes , Dec 11 2019 22:34 utc | 43
Lavrov's comments about the offers to open up normally closed communications really only highlight two obvious issues:
  • The previous US Administration had no interest in shutting off the oxygen to the "Trump = Moscow's Man" campaign; and
  • The current US Administration cannot afford to be perceived as receiving help in this matter from the country he is alleged to be beholden to for his election.
AshenLight , Dec 11 2019 22:38 utc | 44
@ Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 11 2019 21:07 utc | 29
With only 9% approval, it ought to be easy to toss out most Congresscritters, excepting that part of the Senate not up for reelection.

You'd think so, but somehow the numbers pretty much reverse when these same people consider their own rep, and the incumbency reelection rate is shockingly high (haven't looked recently but IIRC it has hovered around 90% for decades). Apparently it is amazingly easy to convince the masses that their guy is the one good apple in the bunch.

karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 22:39 utc | 45
Jon Schwartz reminds me why I don't stop and peruse magazine stands anymore. Seeing the words and this picture would've sparked lots of unpleasant language:

"The best part of Michelle Obama explaining she shares the same values as George W. Bush is she was being interviewed on network TV by Bush's daughter. There's nothing more American than our ruling class making us watch them discuss how great they all are."

And the escalation wasn't rigged for Clinton to initiate--yeah, sure, whatever the rabbit says.

steven t johnson , Dec 11 2019 22:42 utc | 46
Until there is some comparison of how the FISA court usually works, none of this chatter means a thing. Violations of Woods procedures and assertions not supported by documents are SOP. The FISA court is always a joke.

Delgeitimizing Trump, reversing the election, all simple-minded drviel, as only nitwits see Trump as anything but the loser.

Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 23:08 utc | 48
Jen, that's a really interesting post. Thanks.

Skripal knows something that US-UK either 1) don't want the Russians to know OR 2) don't want ANYONE to know.

What could that be? 1) That Steele dossier is bullshit? We know that. 2) That Steele dossier was meant to be bullshit ? Well, that raises a whole host of questions, doesn't it?

!!

Kabobyak , Dec 12 2019 0:45 utc | 51
Good chance Steele had little to do with writing the Dossier. "Simpson-Ohr Dossier", anyone? Steele was needed as a credible looking intelligence officer with Russia ties and a past working relationship with US Intel, as cover to sell to FBI, FISA Court, and the public (meeting with Isikoff, Yahoo News story).

Glenn Simpson and wife Mary Jacoby had written articles for the WSJ in 2007 and 2008 with a script and language similar to the Dossier. Devin Nunes seems to believe this scenario, and it is discussed in detail in books by Dan Bongino and Lee Smith, among others.

daffyDuct , Dec 12 2019 2:26 utc | 56
c1ue @4

The Afghanistan report outlines a *massive fraud*. $14 billion/month, 90% of the world's opium, no "progress", oh, and lying to Congress for two decades.

ben , Dec 12 2019 3:24 utc | 59
OT, but this seems to be going around..Eh?

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/11/jeremy-corbyn-faces-russiagate-smear-campaign-before-uk-vote/#more-17822

ben , Dec 12 2019 4:47 utc | 62
physchoh @ 60; The difference, at least in my mind, is that, the "Russia did it" meme, is the weakest of all cases against DJT. Corbyn, on the other hand, may actually be hurt by the bogus charges. IMO, what this shows is coordination between the elites to bring down a progressive in the UK, who fancies public control over major finances instead of private concerns.
Piotr Berman , Dec 12 2019 5:03 utc | 63
Fox News, now: Biden blames staff, says nobody 'warned' him son's Ukraine job could raise conflict. In a TV comedy Seinfeld, one of the main characters, George, is a compulsive liar with a knack of getting in trouble. Sometimes he has a job. Final scene of one of those jobs:
  • Boss: "You have been seen after hours making sex with the cleaning lady on the top of your desk."
  • George (after a measured look at his boss): "If I was only told that this kind of things is being frown upon..." [and she had cleaned the desk both before AND after!]
evilempire , Dec 12 2019 5:34 utc | 64
I have theory about why Horowitz did not bias in the FBI. The definition of bias is to harbor a deeply negative feeling that clouds one's judgement about a person or subject. However, the conspirators' judgement was not clouded in this case. Their negative feelings focused their intent to destroy the object of

their feeling. The precise term for this is malice.

So Horowitz was technically correct when he did not find bias. What he might have been reluctant to spell out is that he did find malice.

Perimetr , Dec 12 2019 6:03 utc | 65
Re Really?? | Dec 11 2019 18:31 utc | 14 and AshenLight | Dec 11 2019 19:36 utc | 19

I agree with you. Orlov is a brilliant, insightful analyst, who is also very funny. But he is off the mark with his dismissal of global warming and also with his endorsement of nuclear power. The immense amounts of waste from uranium mining all the way to hundreds of thousands of tons of high-level waste in spent fuel pools pose a huge threat to current and future generations . . . like the next 3000 generations of humans (and all other forms of life) that will have to deal with this. Mankind has never built anything that has lasted a fraction of the 100,000 years required for the isolation of high-level wastes from the biosphere. Take a look at Into Eternity which is a great documentary on the disposal of nuclear waste in Finland.

Orlov's analysis is superficial, unfortunately, in these areas.

[Dec 10, 2019] Carter Page may have just let slip that he's an FBI and CIA informant by Bill Palmer

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... In other words, Carter Page just admitted that he's supplied information about his Russian interactions to the FBI and CIA. That means that at one point, at least, he was a de facto informant. When did that begin? Was it in 2013, after the U.S. busted the Russian spy ring that had sucked him in? Was that why he wasn't prosecuted? How long did he remain an FBI informant? Was he one during the Trump campaign? Is he still one? Is that why he acts in interviews as if he has no fear of getting in trouble, even as he willingly incriminates himself with his answers? ..."
"... This casts new light one another already-documented piece of information about Carter Page: the FBI obtained a FISA warrant on him back in the summer of 2016 ( Washington Post ), not long after he went to work for the Donald Trump campaign. Usually a FISA warrant is aimed at spying on that person. But if Page was already a willing FBI informant, it's possible the warrant was obtained so the FBI could surveil the conversations Page was having with the rest of the Trump campaign. ..."
Apr 21, 2017 | www.palmerreport.com

CNN is confirming today what a wide barrage of evidence has long pointed to: that Russia tried to use Donald Trump's campaign adviser Carter Page to infiltrate the campaign from within ( link ). But while that's not really news in and of itself, the real story here may be what Page just told CNN in response – because he may have just given away everything .

It's already been established that a Russian spy ring tried to turn Carter Page into an asset back in 2013. Page went as far as giving the Russians some unspecified documents ( NY Times ). When the spy ring was busted, authorities in the U.S. notably took no known legal action against Page. It's led some to speculate that perhaps they turned Page into an informant right then and there. The response Page gave to CNN for its story today sounds a lot like he's confirming as much:

"My assumption throughout the last 26 years I've been going [to Russia] has always been that any Russian person might share information with the Russian government as I have similarly done with the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies in the past."

In other words, Carter Page just admitted that he's supplied information about his Russian interactions to the FBI and CIA. That means that at one point, at least, he was a de facto informant. When did that begin? Was it in 2013, after the U.S. busted the Russian spy ring that had sucked him in? Was that why he wasn't prosecuted? How long did he remain an FBI informant? Was he one during the Trump campaign? Is he still one? Is that why he acts in interviews as if he has no fear of getting in trouble, even as he willingly incriminates himself with his answers?

This casts new light one another already-documented piece of information about Carter Page: the FBI obtained a FISA warrant on him back in the summer of 2016 ( Washington Post ), not long after he went to work for the Donald Trump campaign. Usually a FISA warrant is aimed at spying on that person. But if Page was already a willing FBI informant, it's possible the warrant was obtained so the FBI could surveil the conversations Page was having with the rest of the Trump campaign.

Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report

Contribute to Palmer Report

[Dec 04, 2019] The central question of Ukrainegate is whether CrowdStrike actions on DNC leak were a false flag operation designed to open Russiagate and what was the level of participation of Poroshenko government and Ukrainian Security services in this false flag operation by Factotum

Highly recommended!
Highly recommended !
Republicans are afraid to raise this key question. Democrats are afraid of even mentioning CrowdStrike in Ukrainegate hearings. The Deep State wants to suppress this matter entirely.
Alperovisch connections to Ukraine and his Russophobia are well known. Did Alperovich people played the role of "Fancy Bear"? Or Ukrainian SBU was engaged? George Eliason clams that "I have already clearly shown the Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators." ... "Since there is so much crap surrounding the supposed hack such as law enforcement teams never examining the DNC server or maintaining control of it as evidence, could the hacks have been a cover-up?"
Notable quotes:
"... So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility. ..."
"... What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation. ..."
"... On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .) ..."
"... And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net ) ..."
"... The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed? ..."
"... Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers. ..."
"... What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion. ..."
"... Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link ..."
"... Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth ..."
"... Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike. ..."
"... In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives. ..."
"... His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed. ..."
"... Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time. ..."
Dec 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Originally from: The Intelligence Whistleblower protection Act did not apply to the phone call ... Reposted - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Factotum , 20 November 2019 at 01:02 PM

The favor was for Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and the 2016 DNC computer breach.

Reliance on Crowdstrike to investigate the DNC computer, and not an independent FBI investigation, was tied very closely to the years long anti-Trump Russiagate hoax and waste of US taxpayer time and money.

Why is this issue ignored by both the media and the Democrats. The ladies doth protest far too much.

vig -> Factotum... , 21 November 2019 at 11:00 AM
what exactly, to the extend I recall, could the Ukraine contribute the the DNC's server/"fake malware" troubles? Beyond, that I seem to vaguely recall, the supposed malware was distributed via an Ukrainan address.

On the other hand, there seems to be the (consensus here?) argument there was no malware breach at all, simply an insider copying files on a USB stick.

It seems to either or. No?

What basics am I missing?

David Habakkuk -> vig... , 21 November 2019 at 12:53 PM
vig,

There is no reason why it should be 'either/or'.

If people discovered there had been a leak, it would perfectly natural that in order to give 'resilience' to their cover-up strategies, they could have organised a planting of evidence on the servers, in conjunction with elements in Ukraine.

So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility.

The issues involved become all the more important, in the light of the progress of Ty Clevenger's attempts to exploit the clear contradiction between the claims by the FBI, in response to FOIA requests, to have no evidence relating to Seth Rich, and the remarks by Ms. Deborah Sines quoted by Michael Isikoff.

What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation.

On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .)

It is eminently possible that Ms. Hines has simply made an 'unforced error.'

However, I do not – yet – feel able totally to discount the possibility that what is actually at issue is a 'ruse', produced as a contingency plan to ensure that if it becomes impossible to maintain the cover-up over Rich's involvement in its original form, his laptop shows 'evidence' compatible with the 'Russiagate' narrative.

And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net )

Looking at it from the perspective of an old television current affairs hack, I do think that, while it is very helpful to have some key material available in a single place, it would useful if more attention was paid to presentation.

In particular, it would be a most helpful 'teaching aid', if a full and accurate transcript was made of the conversation with Seymour Hersh which Ed Butowsky covertly recorded. What seems clear is that both these figures ended up in very difficult positions, and that the latter clearly engaged in 'sleight of hand' in relation to his dealings with the former. That said, the fact that Butowsky's claims about his grounds for believing that Hersh's FBI informant was Andrew McCabe are clearly disingenuous does not justify the conclusion that he is wrong.

It is absolutely clear to me – despite what 'TTG', following that 'Grub Street' hack Folkenflik, claimed – that when Hersh talked to Butowsky, he believed he had been given accurate information. Indeed, I have difficulty seeing how anyone whose eyes were not hopelessly blinded by prejudice, a\nd possibly fear of where a quest for the truth might lead, could not see that, in this conversation, both men were telling the truth, as they saw it.

However, all of us, including the finest and most honourable of journalists can, from time to time, fall for disinformation. (If anyone says they can always spot when they are being played, all I can say is, if you're right, you're clearly Superman, but it is more likely that you are a fool or knave, if not both.)

The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.'

Factotum -> vig... , 21 November 2019 at 01:45 PM
Several loose end issues about Crowdstrike:

1. Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed?

2. Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.

3. What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion.

4. Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link .

5. Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth .

likbez said in reply to Factotum... , 04 December 2019 at 01:29 AM

Hi Factotum,
Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.

Alperovich is really a very suspicious figure. Rumors are that he was involved in compromising PGP while in MacAfee( June 2nd, 2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams - YouTube ):

Investigative Journalist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.

MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.

Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.

In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.

His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed.

Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time.

While all this DNC hack saga is completely unclear due to lack of facts and the access to the evidence, there are some stories on Internet that indirectly somewhat strengthen your hypothesis:

Enjoy and Happy Cyber Week shopping :-)

[Dec 04, 2019] Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon Reports

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here . ..."
"... Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here . ..."
"... Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here . ..."
"... Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning." You can read her testimony here . ..."
"... Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality. ..."
"... Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here . Kent testified he signed the letter here . ..."
"... Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here . ..."
"... Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
"... Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
Dec 04, 2019 | johnsolomonreports.com

honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's service to his country. He's a hero. I also respect his decision to testify at the impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimony was easy.

But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought on the battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate in America, one that can't be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.

So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman about the testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress, he asserted all the factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, except maybe my grammar

Here are his exact words:

"I think all the key elements were false," Vindman testified.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. "Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?"

"All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false . Were there more items in there, frankly, congressman? I don't recall. I haven't looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right."

Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.

And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.

  • Fact 1 : Hunter Biden was hired in May 2014 by Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at a time when his father Joe Biden was Vice President and overseeing US-Ukraine Policy. Here is the announcement. Hunter Biden's hiring came just a few short weeks after Joe Biden urged Ukraine to expand natural gas production and use Americans to help. You can read his comments to the Ukrainian prime minister here . Hunter Biden's firm then began receiving monthly payments totaling $166,666. You can see those payments here .
  • Fact 2 : Burisma was under investigation by British authorities for corruption and soon came under investigation by Ukrainian authorities led by Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
  • Fact 3 : Vice President Joe Biden and his office were alerted by a December 2015 New York Times article that Shokin's office was investigating Burisma and that Hunter Biden's role at the company was undercutting his father's anticorruption efforts in Ukraine.
  • Fact 4 : The Biden-Burisma issue created the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially for State Department officials. I especially refer you to State official George Kent's testimony here . He testified he viewed Burisma as corrupt and the Bidens as creating the perception of a conflict of interest. His concerns both caused him to contact the vice president's office and to block a project that State's USAID agency was planning with Burisma in 2016. In addition, Ambassador Yovanovitch testified she, too, saw the Bidens-Burisma connection as creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. You can read her testimony here .
  • Fact 5 : The Obama White House invited Shokin's prosecutorial team to Washington for meetings in January 2016 to discuss their anticorruption investigations. You can read about that here . Also, here is the official agenda for that meeting in Ukraine and English . I call your attention to the NSC organizer of the meeting.
  • Fact 6 : The Ukraine investigation of Hunter Biden's employer, Burisma Holdings, escalated in February 2016 when Shokin's office raided the home of company owner Mykola Zlochevsky and seized his property. Here is the announcement of that court-approved raid.
  • Fact 7 : Shokin was making plans in February 2016 to interview Hunter Biden as part of his investigation. You can read his interview with me here, his sworn deposition to a court here and his interview with ABC News here .
  • Fact 8 : Burisma's American representatives lobbied the State Department in late February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company, and specifically invoked Hunter Biden's name as a reason to intervene. You can read State officials' account of that effort here
  • Fact 9 : Joe Biden boasted in a 2018 videotape that he forced Ukraine's president to fire Shokin in March 2016 by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid. You can view his videotape here .
  • Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here .
  • Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here .
  • Fact 12 : Burisma's legal representatives secured that meeting April 6, 2016 and told Ukrainian prosecutors that "false information" had been spread to justify Shokin's firing, according to a Ukrainian government memo about the meeting. The representatives also offered to arrange for the remaining Ukrainian prosecutors to meet with U.S State and Justice officials. You can read the Ukrainian prosecutors' summary memo of the meeting here and here and the Burisma lawyers' invite to Washington here .
  • Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here .
  • Fact 14 : In March 2019, Ukraine authorities reopened an investigation against Burisma and Zlochevsky based on new evidence of money laundering. You can read NABU's February 2019 recommendation to re-open the case here , the March 2019 notice of suspicion by Ukraine prosecutors here and a May 2019 interview here with a Ukrainian senior law enforcement official stating the investigation was ongoing. And here is an announcement this week that the Zlochevsky/Burisma probe has been expanded to include allegations of theft of Ukrainian state funds.
  • Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning." You can read her testimony here .
  • Fact 16 : Chalupa sent an email to top DNC officials in May 2016 acknowledging she was working on the Manafort issue. You can read the email here .
  • Fact 17 : Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, Valeriy Chaly, wrote an OpEd in The Hill in August 2016 slamming GOP nominee Donald Trump for his policies on Russia despite a Geneva Convention requirement that ambassadors not become embroiled in the internal affairs or elections of their host countries. You can read Ambassador Chaly's OpEd here and the Geneva Convention rules of conduct for foreign diplomats here . And your colleagues Ambassador Yovanovitch and Dr. Hill both confirmed this, with Dr. Hill testifying this week that Chaly's OpEd was "probably not the most advisable thing to do."
  • Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality.
  • Fact 19 : George Soros' Open Society Foundation issued a memo in February 2016 on its strategy for Ukraine, identifying the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Action Centre as the lead for its efforts. You can read the memo here .
  • Fact 20 : The State Department and Soros' foundation jointly funded the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. You can read about that funding here from the Centre's own funding records and George Kent's testimony about it here .
  • Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here . Kent testified he signed the letter here .
  • Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here .
  • Fact 23 : Ambassador Yovanovitch and her embassy denied Lutsenko's claim, calling it a "fabrication." I reported their reaction here .
  • Fact 24 : Despite the differing accounts of what happened at the Lutsenko-Yovanovitch meeting, a senior U.S. official in an interview arranged by the State Department stated to me in spring 2019 that US officials did pressure Lutsenko's office on several occasions not to "prosecute, investigate or harass" certain Ukrainian activists, including Parliamentary member Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre and NABU director Sytnyk. You can read that official's comments here . In addition, George Kent confirmed this same information in his deposition here .
  • Fact 25 : In May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions sent an official congressional letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking that Yovanovitch be recalled as ambassador to Ukraine. Sessions and State confirmed the official letter, which you can read here .
  • Fact 26 : In fall 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors, using a third party, hired an American lawyer (a former U.S. attorney) to proffer information to the U.S. government about certain activities at the U.S. embassy, involving Burisma and involving the 2016 election, that they believed might have violated U.S. law. You can read their account here . You can also confirm it independently by talking to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan or the American lawyer representing the Ukrainian prosecutors' interests.
  • Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here .
  • Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here .

Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradicts any of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make it publicly available. Your testimony did not.

If you don't have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.

[Dec 04, 2019] Common Funding Themes Link 'Whistleblower' Complaint and CrowdStrike Firm Certifying DNC Russia 'Hack' by Aaron Klein

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc. ..."
"... In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma. ..."
"... Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race. ..."
"... Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. ..."
"... Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed." ..."
Sep 28, 2019 | www.breitbart.com

There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the so-called whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump and CrowdStrike, the outside firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.

One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor to the Democratic Party.

CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign, reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC's allegedly hacked server.

On behalf of the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

CrowdStrike is a California-based cybersecurity technology company co-founded by Dmitri Alperovitch.

Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc.

In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma.

Besides Google and Burisma funding, the Council is also financed by billionaire activist George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and the U.S. State Department.

Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race.

The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the whistleblower's document and released by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's own claims, as Breitbart News documented .

One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S. officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."

This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the "cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden corruption allegations.

Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

That footnote reads:

In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.

The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three more occasions. It does so to:

Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko "also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani." Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above."

The OCCRP report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and business records in the United States and Ukraine."

BuzzFeed infamously also first published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt outfit.

The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.

The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia collusion claims.

Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed."

Like OCCRP, the Poynter Institute's so-called news fact-checking project is openly funded by not only Soros' Open Society Foundations but also Google and the National Endowment for Democracy.

CrowdStrike and DNC servers

CrowdStrike, meanwhile, was brought up by Trump in his phone call with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it."

In his extensive report , Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller notes that his investigative team did not "obtain or examine" the servers of the DNC in determining whether those servers were hacked by Russia.

The DNC famously refused to allow the FBI to access its servers to verify the allegation that Russia carried out a hack during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, the DNC reached an arrangement with the FBI in which CrowdStrike conducted forensics on the server and shared details with the FBI.

In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey confirmed that the FBI registered "multiple requests at different levels," to review the DNC's hacked servers. Ultimately, the DNC and FBI came to an agreement in which a "highly respected private company" -- a reference to CrowdStrike -- would carry out forensics on the servers and share any information that it discovered with the FBI, Comey testified.

A senior law enforcement official stressed the importance of the FBI gaining direct access to the servers, a request that was denied by the DNC.

"The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated," the official was quoted by the news media as saying.

"This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier," the official continued.

... ... ...

Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.

[Dec 04, 2019] DNC Russian Hackers Found! You Won't Believe Who They Really Work For by the Anonymous Patriots

Highly recommended!
Jan 01, 2017 | themillenniumreport.com

"If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the algorithms are."

Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike.

By the Anonymous Patriots
SOTN Exclusive

Russians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one "super-hero cyber-warrior" seems to "have the codes" to figure out "if" a system was hacked and by "whom."

Dmitri's company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag, Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.

CrowdStrike's philosophy is: "You don't have a malware problem; you have an adversary problem."

CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America's cyber-defense policy. Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike's president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.

Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During that time, he "discovered" the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in history! Nothing suspicious about that.

Alperovitch and the DNC

After CrowdStrike was hired as an independent "vendor" by the DNC to investigate a possible cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch, Falcon "lit up," within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his "proof" in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This "alleged" evidence of Russian hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.

As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately involved in hacking that effects "National Security," has yet to even examine the DNC system to begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. "intelligence" agencies simply "agree" with Obama's most trusted "cyberwarfare" expert Dmitri Alperovitch's "TEN SECOND" assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.

Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence that it was Russian hackers . In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD). It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.

Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive "TEN SECOND" assessment that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked – before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents to the public. Alperovitch's assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange's repeated statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.

The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike naïvely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website posted just days before the party's convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.

It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no harm was done to the system by this "false-flag cyber-attack" on the DNC – or at least, Alperovitch "reported" there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military (GRU – like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also had done "nothing" but observe.

It is only Alperovitch's word that reports that the Russian FSB was "looking for files on Donald Trump."

It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the "alleged" attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly "looking for Trump files" was an attempt to "influence" the election. No files were found about Trump by the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0's leaks. To confabulate that "Russian's hacked the DNC to influence the elections" is the claim of one well-known Russian spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct – even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted .

How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch's company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag report?

After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made CrowdStrike's report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an "influence operation" to help win the election for Trump . This false assertion had absolutely no evidence to back it up.

On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a massive cache of emails that had been "stolen" (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three other officials, to resign.

Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately "believed" that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0's website. This time Guccifer released information about Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of Congress.

Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike's claims to be grossly incorrect about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered members of Congress Alperovitch's suggestion of installing Falcon , the system that failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.

Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S. Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.

Alperovitch's "Unbelievable" History

Dmitri was born in 1980 in Moscow where his father, Michael, was a nuclear physicist, (so Dmitri claims). Dmitri's father was supposedly involved at the highest levels of Russian nuclear science. He also claims that his father taught him to write code as a child.

In 1990, his father was sent to Maryland as part of a nuclear-safety training program for scientists. In 1994, Michael Alperovitch was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the family moved to Chattanooga, where Michael took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

While Dmitri Alperovitch was still in high school, he and his father started an encryption-technology business. Dmitri studied computer science at Georgia Tech and went on to work at an antispam software firm. It was at this time that he realized that cyber-defense was more about psychology than it was about technology. A very odd thing to conclude.

Dmitri Alperovitch posed as a "Russian gangster" on spam discussion forums which brought his illegal activity to the attention of the FBI – as a criminal. In 2005, Dmitri flew to Pittsburgh to meet an FBI agent named Keith Mularski, who had been asked to lead an undercover operation against a vast Russian credit-card-theft syndicate. Alperovitch worked closely with Mularski's sting operation which took two years, but it ultimately brought about fifty-six arrests. Dmitri Alperovitch then became a pawn of the FBI and CIA.

In 2010, while he was at McAfee, the head of cybersecurity at Google told Dmitri that Gmail accounts belonging to human-rights activists in China had been breached. Google suspected the Chinese government. Alperovitch found that the breach was unprecedented in scale; it affected more than a dozen of McAfee's clients and involved the Chinese government. Three days after his supposed discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington where he had been asked to vet a paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.

2014, Sony called in CrowdStrike to investigate a breach of its network. Alperovitch needed just "two hours" to identify North Korea as the adversary. Executives at Sony asked Alperovitch to go public with the information immediately, but it took the FBI another three weeks before it confirmed the attribution.

Alperovitch then developed a list of "usual suspects" who were well-known hackers who had identifiable malware that they commonly used. Many people use the same malware and Alperovitch's obsession with believing he has the only accurate list of hackers in the world is plain idiocy exacerbated by the U.S. government's belief in his nonsense. Alperovitch even speaks like a "nut-case" in his personal Twitters, which generally have absolutely no references to the technology he is supposedly the best at in the entire world.

Dmitri – Front Man for His Father's Russian Espionage Mission

After taking a close look at the disinformation around Dmitri and his father, it is clear to see that Michael Alperovitch became a CIA operative during his first visit to America. Upon his return to Russia, he stole the best Russian encryption codes that were used to protect the top-secret work of nuclear physics in which his father is alleged to have been a major player. Upon surrendering the codes to the CIA when he returned to Canada, the CIA made it possible for a Russian nuclear scientist to become an American citizen overnight and gain a top-secret security clearance to work at the Oakridge plant, one of the most secure and protected nuclear facilities in America . Only the CIA can transform a Russian into an American with a top-secret clearance overnight.

We can see on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page that he went from one fantastically top-secret job to the next without a break from the time he entered America. He seemed to be on a career path to work in every major U.S. agency in America. In every job he was hired as the top expert in the field and the leader of the company. All of these jobs after the first one were in cryptology, not nuclear physics. As a matter of fact, Michael became the top expert in America overnight and has stayed the top expert to this day.

Most of the work of cyber-security is creating secure interactions on a non-secure system like the Internet. The cryptologist who assigns the encryption codes controls the system from that point on .

Key Point: Cryptologists are well known for leaving a "back-door" in the base-code so that they can always have over-riding control.

Michael Alperovitch essentially has the "codes" for all Department of Defense sites, the Treasury, the State Department, cell-phones, satellites, and public media . There is hardly any powerful agency or company that he has not written the "codes" for. One might ask, why do American companies and the U.S. government use his particular codes? What are so special about Michael's codes?

Stolen Russian Codes

In December, Obama ordered the U.S. military to conduct cyberattacks against Russia in retaliation for the alleged DNC hacks. All of the attempts to attack Russia's military and intelligence agencies failed miserably. Russia laughed at Obama's attempts to hack their systems. Even the Russian companies targeted by the attacks were not harmed by Obama's cyber-attacks. Hardly any news of these massive and embarrassing failed cyber-attacks were reported by the Main Stream Media. The internet has been scrubbed clean of the reports that said Russia's cyber-defenses were impenetrable due to the sophistication of their encryption codes.

Michael Alperovitch was in possession of those impenetrable codes when he was a top scientist in Russia. It was these very codes that he shared with the CIA on his first trip to America . These codes got him spirited into America and "turned into" the best cryptologist in the world. Michael is simply using the effective codes of Russia to design his codes for the many systems he has created in America for the CIA .

KEY POINT: It is crucial to understand at this junction that the CIA is not solely working for America . The CIA works for itself and there are three branches to the CIA – two of which are hostile to American national interests and support globalism.

Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch work for the CIA (and international intelligence corporations) who support globalism . They, and the globalists for whom they work, are not friends of America or Russia. It is highly likely that the criminal activities of Dmitri, which were supported and sponsored by the FBI, created the very hackers who he often claims are responsible for cyberattacks. None of these supposed "attackers" have ever been found or arrested; they simply exist in the files of CrowdStrike and are used as the "usual culprits" when the FBI or CIA calls in Dmitri to give the one and only opinion that counts. Only Dmitri's "suspicions" are offered as evidence and yet 17 U.S. intelligence agencies stand behind the CrowdStrike report and Dmitri's suspicions.

Michael Alperovitch – Russian Spy with the Crypto-Keys

Essentially, Michael Alperovitch flies under the false-flag of being a cryptologist who works with PKI. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and distribution of digital certificates which are used to verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital certificates which map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central repository and revokes them if needed. Public key cryptography is a cryptographic technique that enables entities to securely communicate on an insecure public network (the Internet), and reliably verify the identity of an entity via digital signatures . Digital signatures use Certificate Authorities to digitally sign and publish the public key bound to a given user. This is done using the CIA's own private key, so that trust in the user key relies on one's trust in the validity of the CIA's key. Michael Alperovitch is considered to be the number one expert in America on PKI and essentially controls the market .

Michael's past is clouded in confusion and lies. Dmitri states that his father was a nuclear physicist and that he came to America the first time in a nuclear based shared program between America and Russia. But if we look at his current personal Linked In page, Michael claims he has a Master Degree in Applied Mathematics from Gorky State University. From 1932 to 1956, its name was State University of Gorky. Now it is known as Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod – National Research University (UNN), also known as Lobachevsky University. Does Michael not even know the name of the University he graduated from? And when does a person with a Master's Degree become a leading nuclear physicist who comes to "visit" America. In Michael's Linked In page there is a long list of his skills and there is no mention of nuclear physics.

Also on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page we find some of his illustrious history that paints a picture of either the most brilliant mind in computer security, encryption, and cyberwarfare, or a CIA/FBI backed Russian spy. Imagine that out of all the people in the world to put in charge of the encryption keys for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, U.S. military satellites, the flow of network news, cell phone encryption, the Pathfire (media control) Program, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Global Information Grid, and TriCipher Armored Credential System among many others, the government hires a Russian spy . Go figure.

Michael Alperovitch's Linked In Page

Education:

Gorky State University, Russia, MS in Applied Mathematics

Work History:

Sr. Security Architect

VT IDirect -2014 – Designing security architecture for satellite communications including cryptographic protocols, authentication.

Principal SME (Contractor)

DISA -Defense Information Systems Agency (Manager of the Global Information Grid) – 2012-2014 – Worked on PKI and identity management projects for DISA utilizing Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Performed application security and penetration testing.

Technical Lead (Contractor)

U.S. Department of the Treasury – 2011 – Designed enterprise validation service architecture for PKI certificate credentials with Single Sign On authentication.

Principal Software Engineer

Comtech Mobile Datacom – 2007-2010 – Subject matter expert on latest information security practices, including authentication, encryption and key management.

Sr. Software Engineer

TriCipher – 2006-2007 – Designed and developed security architecture for TriCipher Armored Credential Authentication System.

Lead Software Engineer

BellSouth – 2003-2006 – Designed and built server-side Jabber-based messaging platform with Single Sign On authentication.

Principal Software Research Engineer

Pathfire – 2001-2002 – Designed and developed Digital Rights Management Server for Video on Demand and content distribution applications. Pathfire provides digital media distribution and management solutions to the television, media, and entertainment industries. The company offers Digital Media Gateway, a digital IP store-and-forward platform, delivering news stories, syndicated programming, advertising spots, and video news releases to broadcasters. It provides solutions for content providers and broadcasters, as well as station solutions.

Obama – No Friend of America

Obama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch's "singular and most brilliant" ability to write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up the codes. But we shouldn't worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama administration, Michael's son Dmitri is called in to "prove" that it isn't the fault of his father's codes. It was the "damn Russians", or even "Putin himself" who attacked American networks.

Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri's help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems like the Russian's have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch for that.

It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a "frontman" for his father's encryption espionage mission.

Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has "his own people" to deliver his intelligence to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama administration ? Isn't any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?

It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very issues:
"If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the algorithms are." Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike

Originally posted at: http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=62536

[Dec 04, 2019] June 4th, 2017 Crowdstrike Was at the DNC Six Weeks by George Webb

Highly recommended!
A short YouTube with the handwritten timeline
Nov 27, 2019 | www.youtube.com
AwanContra - George Webb, Investigative Journalist

[Dec 04, 2019] Cyberanalyst George Eliason Claims that the "Fancy Bear" Who Hacked the DNC Server is Ukrainian Intelligence – In League with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. ..."
"... Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever. ..."
"... That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway). ..."
"... The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters: ..."
"... An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities? ..."
"... And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2 ..."
"... DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2 ..."
"... Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread level 1 ..."
"... George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17: ..."
"... Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab ..."
Dec 04, 2018 | www.reddit.com

Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the "Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/06/25/who-is-fancy-bear-and-who-are-they-working-for/

Since I am not very computer savvy and don't know much about the world of hackers - added to the fact that Eliason's writing is too cute and convoluted - I have difficulty navigating Eliason's thought. Nonetheless, here is what I can make of Eliasons' claims, as supported by independent literature:

Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, in Moscow court filings, has claimed that he did the DNC hack – and can prove it, because he left some specific code on the DNC server.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/366696-russian-hacker-claims-he-can-prove-he-hacked-dnc

Kozlovsky states that he did so by order of Dimitry Dokuchaev (formerly of the FSB, and currently in prison in Russia on treason charges) who works with the Russian traitor hacker group Shaltai Boltai.

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-hacker-stealing-clintons-emailshacking-dnc-putinsfsb-745555 (Note that Newsweek's title is an overt lie.)

According to Eliason, Shaltai Boltai works in collaboration with the Ukrainian hacker group RUH8, a group of neo-Nazis (Privat Sektor) who are affiliated with Ukrainian intelligence. And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike.

https://off-guardian.org/2018/06/25/who-is-fancy-bear-and-who-are-they-working-for/

Cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has stated that RUH8 has the X-Agent malware which our intelligence community has erroneously claimed is possessed only by Russian intelligence, and used by "Fancy Bear".

https://medium.com/@jeffreyscarr/the-gru-ukraine-artillery-hack-that-may-never-have-happened-820960bbb02d

Eliason has concluded that RUH8 is Fancy Bear.

This might help explain why Adam Carter has determined that some of the malware found on the DNC server was compiled AFTER Crowdstrike was working on the DNC server – Crowdstrike was in collusion with Fancy Bear (RUH8).

In other words, Crowdstrike likely arranged for a hack by Ukrainian intelligence that they could then attribute to Russia.

As far as I can tell, none of this is pertinent to how Wikileaks obtained their DNC emails, which most likely were leaked.

How curious that our Deep State and the recent Mueller indictment have had nothing to say about Kozlovsky's confession - whom I tend to take seriously because he offers a simple way to confirm his claim. Also interesting that the FBI has shown no interest in looking at the DNC server to check whether Kozlovsky's code is there.

I will ask Adam Carter for his opinion on this. 19 comments 84% Upvoted This thread is archived New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast Sort by View discussions in 1 other community level 1


zer0mas 1 point · 1 year ago

Its worth noting that Dimitri Alperovich's (Crowdstrike) hatred of Putin is second only to Hillary's hatred for taking responsibility for her actions. level 1

veganmark 2 points · 1 year ago

Thanks - I'll continue to follow Eliason's work. The thesis that Ukrainian intelligence is hacking a number of targets so that Russia gets blamed for it has intuitive appeal. level 1

alskdmv-nosleep4u -1 points · 1 year ago

I see things like this:

DNC wasn't even hacked.

and have to cringe. Any hacks weren't related to Wikileaks, who got their info from leakers, but that is not the same thing as no hack. Leaks and hacks aren't mutually exclusive. They actually occur together pretty commonly.

DNC's security was utter shit. Systems with shit security and obviously valuable info usually get hacked by multiple groups. In the case of the DNC, Hillary's email servers, etc., it's basically impossible they weren't hacked by dozens of intruders. A plastic bag of 100s will not sit untouched on a NYC street corner for 4 weeks. Not. fucking. happening.

Interestingly, Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever.

That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway).

The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters:

Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools

Yes, but that spoofed 'evidence' is not the direct opposite of the truth, like I see people assuming. Bad assumption, and the establishment plays on that to make critic look bad. The spoofed evidence is just mud.

An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities?

And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2

alskdmv-nosleep4u 2 points · 1 year ago

What's hilarious about the 2 down-votes is I can't tell if their from pro-Russiagate trolls, or from people who who can't get past binary thinking. level 1

Honztastic 2 points · 1 year ago

DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2

veganmark 2 points · 1 year ago

Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread level 1

Inuma I take the headspace of idiots 9 points · 1 year ago

So you mean to tell me that WWIII is being prepared by Mueller and it was manufactured consent?

I'd be shocked, but this only proves that the "Deep State" only cares about their power, consequences be damned. level 1

veganmark 8 points · 1 year ago

George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17:

  • Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab
  • Fancy Bear worked with Crowdstrike and Dimitri Alperovich Fancy Bear is Ukrainian Intelligence
  • How Fancy Bear tried to sway the US election for Team Hillary
  • Fancy Bear worked against US Intel gathering by providing consistently fraudulent data
  • Fancy Bear contributed to James Clapper's January 2017 ODNI Report on Fancy Bear and Russian Influence. [You really can't make this shit up.]
  • Fancy Bear had access to US government secure servers while working as foreign spies.* level 1
HillaryBrokeTheLaw Long live dead poets 10 points · 1 year ago

Nice.

I'm glad you're still following this. Crowdstrike is shady af. level 1

[Dec 04, 2019] Fancy Bear - Conservapedia

Highly recommended!
Dec 04, 2019 | www.conservapedia.com

Fancy Bear (also know as Strontium Group, or APT28) is a Ukrainian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike incorrectly has said with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU . CrowdStrike founder, Dmitri Alperovitch , has colluded with Fancy Bear. American journalist George Eliason has written extensively on the subject.

There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers. The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.

Eliason lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT, the BBC , and Press-TV. His articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews, the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson, SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.

Contents [ hide ] Fancy Bear is Ukrainian Intelligence Shaltai Boltai

The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their job.

According to Politico ,

"In an interview this month, at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely presidential campaign. Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well." [1]

The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.

All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena Chalupa at the Atlantic Council. Both Chalupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian government's intelligence and propaganda arms.

Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage , terrorist , counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda , and info war channels officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against Ukraine's criminal activities.

The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc. call themselves volunteers to keep safe from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.

They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the threshold of military action. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had a lot of latitude for making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intelligence. Based on how the rules of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber are written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution. The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to the State which in this case is Russia.

How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.

This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and of course Russia. After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for Russia. The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.

From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.

In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged data from the Surkov leak.

But during 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers .

The First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov Servers

The setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.

In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010, Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't we?

"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."

Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo hack.

The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.

So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.

Chalupa collusion with Ukrainian Intelligence
See also: Ukrainian collusion and Ukrainian collusion timeline

Alexandra Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group, which Dimitry Alperovich and Crowdstrike dubbed "Fancy Bear", in 2015 at the latest. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime. It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.

Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife Huma Abedin using Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to do opposition research hacked her.

Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate passwords.

Dobrovolska

Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. [2] [3] Alexandra Chalupa was running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives, hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.

Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in 2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington to meet with Chalupa.

Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?

According to the Politico article, Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.

Four Verkhovna Rada [parlaiment] deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y. Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh. [4]

According to CNN , [5] DNC sources said Chalupa told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information against Trump's campaign. Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.

Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and Washington.

Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers. [6] She took the Rada [parliament] members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.

Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top Secret Passwords From Team Clinton

One very successful method of hacking is called social engineering . You gain access to the office space and any related properties and physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in passwords.

The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research. On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.

Alleged DNC hack

There were multiple DNC hacks. There is also clear proof supporting the download to a USB stick and subsequent information exchange (leak) to Wikileaks . All are separate events.

  • The group I previously identified as Fancy Bear was given access to request password privileges at the DNC. And it looks like the DNC provided them with it.
  • the Podesta email hack looks like a revenge hack.
  • The reason Republican opposition research files were stolen can be put into context now because we know who the hackers are and what motivates them.

At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to State Department servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators.

If the leak came through Seth Rich , it may have been because he saw foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential election . The leaker may have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might have.

Alperovitch and Fancy Bear

George Eliason, Washingtonsblog: Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear. investigated. [7]

  • In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is" statement showing this.
  • The difference bet enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when it is their business to know?
  • The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement?
  • information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
  • Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."
  • How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. "Intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks." The public evidence never goes beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses.
  • NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this."The company, Crowdstrike, was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry , a former senior FBI official who consults for NBC News.
  • In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other, known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called the GRU." The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks."
  • The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren't on it, the former Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
  • Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
  • Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason are exposed.
  • According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page "After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her to stop her research."" July 25, 2016
  • If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by Alexandra Chalupa ? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection.
  • How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work.
  • Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
  • The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera . When these people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed. [8] There is no getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an authoritarian fascism .
  • Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , [9]
"The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms. Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi, Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the "heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached to it because it ended in a coup.
  • Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
  • In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found out.
  • At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an appointment with Yurash.
  • Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
  • Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
  • According to Robert Parry's article [10] At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council . Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
  • The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.
  • What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security?
  • When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it opens up criminal conspiracy.
  • If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a crime.
  • Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
  • When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
  • Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service Crowdstrike offers?
  • In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA. [11] They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source. Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.
  • Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his "Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the past.
  • Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.
  • These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
  • When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article, one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
  • Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let's understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics."
  • What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts.
  • The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
  • According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any other way," he told me. "I have."
  • While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to Ukraine.
  • The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of rumor.
Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike

According to Obama the hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into November.

Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election -- contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC

This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to Bill Binney , the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking ridiculous and impossible at best.

The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating. That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.

It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was prosecutable.

Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the spotlight but there are Republicans involved.

Further reading

[Dec 04, 2019] June 2nd, 2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams by George Webb

Highly recommended!
Nov 27, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Investigative Jouralist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.

MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the public.

The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.

Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.

In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.

[Nov 30, 2019] CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy by Oleg Atbashian

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom. ..."
"... The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years. ..."
"... And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president. ..."
"... I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. ..."
"... The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target. ..."
"... Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones. ..."
Nov 29, 2019 | www.frontpagemag.com

The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats' desperation and panic.

Fri Nov 29, 2019 Oleg Atbashian 133 In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.

A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.

Let's look at the facts:

  • Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server and investigate a data breach.
  • Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.
  • Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its Ukrainian-owned contractor.
  • Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.

None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent.

Now that Trump had asked the newly elected Ukrainian president Zelensky to look into CrowdStrike during that fateful July phone call, the media all at once started telling us that "CrowdStrike" is a code word for a conspiracy theory so insane that only Trump could believe in it, which is just more proof of how insane he is.

But if Trump had really said what Mr. Wallace and the media claim, Ukrainians would be the first to call him on it and the impeachment would've been over by now. Instead, Ukrainians back Trump every step of the way.

So where did this pretzel-shaped fake news come from, and why is it being peddled now ?

Note this is a classic case study of propaganda and media manipulation:

  1. Take an idea or a story that you wish to go away and make up an obviously bogus story with the same names and details as the real one.
  2. Start planting it simultaneously on media channels until the fake story supplants the real one, while claiming this is what your opponents really believe.
  3. Have various fact-checking outlets debunk your fake story as an absurd conspiracy theory. Ridicule those who allegedly believe in it. Better yet, have late night comedians do it for you.
  4. Once your opponent is brought down, mercilessly plant your boot on his face and never let up.

This mass manipulation technology had been tested and perfected by the Soviet propaganda machine, both domestically and overseas, where it was successfully deployed by the KGB. The Kremlin still uses it, although it can no longer afford it on the same grandiose scale. In this sense, the Democratic think tanks are the true successors of the KGB in deviousness, scope, and worldwide reach of fake narratives. How they inherited these methods from the KGB is a story for another day.

For a long time this technology was allowing the Democrats to delegitimize opposition by convincing large numbers of Americans that Republicans are

  • Haters
  • Racists
  • Fascists
  • Deniers of science
  • Destroyers of the environment
  • Heartless sellouts to corporate interests
  • And so on - the list is endless.

The Soviet communists had aptly named it "disinformation," which a cut above the English word "misinformation." It includes a variety of methods for a variety of needs, from bringing down an opponent to revising history to creating a new historical reality altogether. In this sense, most Hollywood movies on historical subjects today disinform us about history, supplanting it with a bogus "progressive" narrative. The Soviet term for such art was "socialist realism."

Long story short, the Democrat-media complex has successfully convinced one half of the world that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they're acting as if they'd spent the last three years in a coma, unaware of any bombshell stories about collusion. And bombshell stories without any continuation are a telltale sign of fake narratives. The only consequence of these bombshells is mass amnesia among the foot soldiers.

The Trump-Russian outrage is dead, long live the Trump-Ukraine outrage. And when that outrage is dead, the next outrage that will be just outrageous.

The current impeachment narrative alleges that Trump used military aid as leverage in asking Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden (which implies the Democrats know Biden is dirty, otherwise why bother?). What's not in this picture is CrowdStrike. Even though Trump mentioned it in the phone call, it has nothing to do with the Bidens nor the Javelin missiles. CrowdStrike has nothing to do with impeachment. We're told it's just a silly conspiracy theory in Trump's head, that it's a nonissue.

But then why fabricate fake news about it and plant blatant lies simultaneously in all media outlets from Mother Jones to Fox News? Why risk being exposed over such a nonissue? Perhaps because it's more important than the story suggests.

Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom.

The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years.

And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president.

This gives the supposedly innocuous reference to CrowdStrike during Trump's call a lot more gravity and the previously incoherent part of the transcript begins to make sense.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation.

If you read the transcript on the day it was released, you probably didn't understand what Trump was even talking about, let alone what had caused such a disproportionate outrage, complete with whistle blowing and calls for impeachment. What in that mild conversation could possibly terrify the Democrats so much? They were terrified because, unlike most Americans, the Democrats knew exactly what Trump was talking about. And now you know, too.

The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target.

It also helps us to see who at Fox News can be trusted to tell us the truth. And it ain't Chris Wallace.

NAHALKIDES • a day ago ,

Fine dissection of the CrowdStrike story. Of course if the DNC was serious about finding out who breached their security they would have allowed the FBI to investigate. They didn't - which means they're covering something up.

coolit10 NAHALKIDES • a day ago ,

And who doesn't have at least one backup system running constantly, I have two and am just a home user and the DNC would not have been dumb enough not to have one on the premises and one off site for safety and preservation and the FBI could have gotten to either one if they wanted to. DWS was involved in something very similar and the FBI backed off again. I thought the DNC and the FBI were on the same page and would have liked to find out how the "transfer" happened?

🕊jr🕊 " Deep State Target " coolit10 • 13 hours ago ,

Let's be honest, that FBI made no attempt to investigate it in the first place as they were as culpable in this crime as the DNC.

Herman Young 🕊jr🕊 " Deep State Target " • 12 hours ago ,

Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones.

SteveTn6b NAHALKIDES • 16 hours ago ,

They know who breached their security. He'd dead!

Herman Young SteveTn6b • 12 hours ago ,

Seth Rich - paper trail to Wikilinks needs to come out in any Senate impeachment trail since Democrats claim the Ukraine phone call was Trump's alleged downfall. CROWDSTRIKE was the only favor Trumps asked for.

Karen Herman Young • 9 hours ago ,

We all know it was Seth Rich

Clasvi SteveTn6b • 13 hours ago ,

you are spot on. it is amazing how they shut down the Seth Rich murder. The media was all to happy to shut it down.

Karen Clasvi • 9 hours ago ,

Fox helped with that cover up

undrprsr Clasvi • 6 hours ago ,

Yep, and Donna Brazile wrote in her book she feared for her life after Seth Rich was murdered, why's that if it was just a random attack?

El Cid NAHALKIDES • 15 hours ago ,

There are two important facts to glean from this article:

1) Crowdstrike, the DNC contractor, is Ukrainian
2) that the famous server may have been backed up in Ukraine and not tampered with.

From the MSM we were given the 'interpretation' that Trump is an idiot who believes that the DNC shipped the server with no changes to the Ukraine. No folks. He 'gets' technology and security. He actual ran a business! (imagine).

I'd love to hear that in Hillary's own voice. :) You know, cleaned with a cloth?

Joe Clear NAHALKIDES • 12 hours ago ,

They sure are, that being the killing of Seth Rich who copied the data to flash drive and gave it to Wikileaks.

stanley castleberry NAHALKIDES • 12 hours ago ,

They found out right away. Hence Rich was assassinated.

Herman Young NAHALKIDES • 12 hours ago • edited ,

That pretty much sums it up. MSM in total cahoots on this too since they put the entire topic of the CROWDSTRIKE part of the phone call into the cone of silence.

No Bread or Circuses • a day ago ,

The Left and media (One and the same within the "Deep State") have been playing "Three Card Monte" with America for a while; it stops now!

The "Impeachment" media show being run by the Lefty tool cretins in the House has NOTHING to do with wrong doing by President Trump. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fear that President Trump will expose the depth of the swamp and bring the criminals on the Left down to Justice!

We are s close to getting to the bottom of the conspiracies that threaten our nation. Time to make the America haters pay for the harm they have done to our nation!

We need open and in depth prosecution of the criminal activities of the Left. There needs to be LONG prison sentences and, yes, even executions for those that seek to undermine our nation.

People need to know that there our GRAVE penalties for betraying our nation!

God Bless President Trump!
God Bless America!

Anacleto Mitraglia • 21 hours ago • edited ,

In fact, when I first heard this story - that is: very recently - I was puzzled: why should a major party in the Country that invented IT and is still at its leading edge, ask an obscure firm of a crumbling, remote foreign State to do their IT security research? I'm not saying that Ukraine is a s++thole Country, but... you get me.

Either they have very much to hide, or they fear some closeted rightwing geek that works in any of the many leftist US technofirms. Or, CrowdStrike were involved from the beginning of the story, from the Steele dossier perhaps?

Herman Young Anacleto Mitraglia • 12 hours ago ,

The whole Crowdstrike fiasco has been around for years - plus became a solid CYA part of the Mueller report too - just in case the Democrats needed to bury it later.

El Cid Anacleto Mitraglia • 15 hours ago • edited ,

don't you get it? The DNC is completely infiltrated by Ukrainian graft. Even Joe Biden was on the take. Why won't they run their IT? (there is no Research in IT here, just office software)

Cynthia Campbell • 19 hours ago ,

If you want to sell and deliver State Secrets and Intel to our enemies, then you (Obama, the Clintons, the DNC) simply make it easier for THEM to access. They have done this for years, and this is why they had to fill the DOJ, the FBI and the State Department with traitors and haters of America and American principles. Barack Hussein Obama, the Clintons, their evil administrations and even two-faced RINOS like McCain, Romney, and Jeff Sessions were actively involved. This is treason pure and simple, and all of the above could be legitimately and justifiably hung or shot without recourse, and rightly so!

doc_who_cuts • 20 hours ago ,

not seizing the DNC and hillary servers is the clearest case of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE I know of in the last few years.

Herman Young doc_who_cuts • 12 hours ago ,

Isn't it ironic, the Dems accuse Trump of "obstruction of justice".

FRANCES LOUISE • a day ago ,

I have known about "Crowdstrike" since Dec. 2017. Pres. Trump is just subtlety introducing background on what will be the biggest story of treachery, subversion, treason and corruption ever. QAnon that the fakenews tries to vilify as a LARP has been dropping crumbs about "Crowdstrike", Perkins Coir, Fusion GPS, FVEY and so much more! Crowdstrike mentioned 7x in the last 2 years. I can't urge people enough to actually investigate the Q posts for themselves! You will be stunned at what you have been missing. Q which says "future proves past" and "news will unlock" what I see in the media now is old news to those of us following Q. Q told us that "Senate was the prize" "Senate meant more" that the investigations started in the House would now move to the Senate and all this that the Dems and Rinos have been trying to hide is going to be exposed. Fakenews corporate media has litterally written hundreds of hit pieces against Q - me knows "they doth protest to much" - Recent Q post told "Chairman Graham its time. Senate was the target"

Keep up with the Q posts and Pres. Trump's tweets in once place: https://qmap.pub/ - And if you are still having a hard time believing this is legit Pres. Trump himself has confirmed Q posts by "Zero Delta" drops - if you think this is fake - try and tweet within 1 minute of when Pres. Trump does BUT your tweet has to anticipate his! YOU have to tweet first and HE has to follow you within 1 minute. MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY UNLESS you are in the same immediate space or communicating at the time of the tweets! To all you doubters that think Q is just a by chance scam - NO WAY. There have been MANY, MANY of these ZERO DELTA PROOFS over the last 2 years. The most recent was Nov. 20th.

Link will show you how much attention has been given to "debunking" Q - gotta wonder why
https://cdn.qmap.pub/images...

elephant4life FRANCES LOUISE • 19 hours ago ,

Perkins-Coie is the real-world Milton, Chadwick & Waters. I'm willing to bet their industrial-sized shredders are working overtime.

Herman Young elephant4life • 12 hours ago ,

Unless Bleach-Bit got there first.

Herman Young FRANCES LOUISE • 12 hours ago ,

Crowdstrike in the dog who did not bark. The Democrat cone of silence they put on even the mention of the word has been the most damning clue this is where the real action is.

Grant Hodges • a day ago ,

The assertion that a digital image of the computer can be transmitted quickly all around the world is not necessarily correct in my experience as a cyber security analyst. I'm not an upper echelon type, but I am aware that it can take up to weeks to transmit such images depending on the hard disk, where it is, and the connections/network to your device creating the image. The FBI should have physically taken the device since there was a suspicion of wrong doing by Hillary Clinton. Had it been Donald Trump's computer I do not doubt the FBI would either have imaged it on the spot or taken the device.

coolit10 Grant Hodges • a day ago ,

Last night I completely removed Catalina-Safari on my older Mac Book Air and re-installed Mohave-Safari from my backup to the day before I installed Catalina including the data and system just like it was before. It took around 5 hours and was cabled and not on Wi-Fi and it was perfect and reset the clock, my old e-mails and the newer ones as well. I can't believe being hooked into real broadband or fiber couldn't do the same in a relatively short period of time, but still significantly longer than a thumb drive or external hard drive.

Grant Hodges coolit10 • a day ago ,

One variable is how big your hard drive is. If it is a big drive at a remote location, say somewhere in California to the Midwest, it can take weeks for a forensic backup. I only say that because . . . well, I'm not allowed to say. But you get it.

El Cid Grant Hodges • 14 hours ago • edited ,

The assertion is a figure of speech. Today's IT infrastructure companies sell the service of maintaining clones in real-time in two or more locations for safety purposes. VMware and other off-the-shelf products makes this kind of setup easy to deploy. Did Crowdstrike offer that service and did the DNC buy it, that is the question? And, if so, did Crowdstrike keep the image on their backups in Ukraine?

(Note: it is not obvious that such a setup would preserve the forensic data the FBI would be looking for, but its a start).

[Nov 29, 2019] Where s the Collusion

Highly recommended!
Now after her deposition Aaron should interview Fiona Hill. I would like to see how she would lose all the feathers of her cocky "I am Specialist in Russia" stance. She a regular MIC prostitute (intelligence agencies are a part of MIC) just like Luke Harding. And probably both have the same handlers.
Brilliant interview !
Harding is little more than an intelligence asset himself and his idea of speaking to "Russians" is London circle of Russian emigrants which are not objective source by any means.
He's peddling a his Russophobic line with no substantiation. In fact, the interview constitutes an overdue exposure of this pressitute.
Notable quotes:
"... He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western intelligence agencies. ..."
"... Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. ..."
"... This interview is a wonderful illustration of everything that is horribly wrong with corporate media. I hope it goes viral. ..."
"... Very well put! Everything that is labeled as "conspiracy theory" when aimed towards the West, is "respectable journalism" when aimed at Russia. ..."
"... Navalny is a corrupt ex-politician just like his mentor that was caught red-handed taking a bribe from a German businessman "all on camera" at a restaurant. Most of corrupt politicians and businessmen that get caught by the Russian government always cry that they are politically repressed and the government is evil. ..."
"... Navalnys brother was the owner of a small transport company that Navalny helped secure contracts with government enterprises '' anywhere in the world that would be a conflict of interest" but that's not why he is in jail! His brother is in jail for swindling the postal service company for transportation costs. ..."
"... Aaron Mate is a brilliant interviewer. He keeps a calm demeanor, but does not let his guest get away with any untruths or non sequiturs. This one of the many reasons I love The Real News. I encourage anyone who appreciates solid journalism to donate to The Real News. ..."
"... GREAT follow up questions Aaron... Harding did not expect to get a real reporter... he obfuscates and diverts to other issues because he can not EVER provide any evidence... Going to Moscow will not tell you anything about whether or not the DNC server was hacked. ..."
"... Luke Harding is a complete and total idiot. He kept qualifying his arguments with "I've been to Moscow... I don't know if you know this, but I've been to Moscow..." and even at one point, "Some of my friends have been murdered." LOL, sure, whatever you say, Luke! Like you're so big time and such an all star journalist who isn't just trying to capitalize on the wild goose chase that is psychologically trapping leftists into delusions and wishful thinking. ..."
"... NSA monitors every communication over the internet. if the Russians hacked the DNC, there would be proof, and it would not take years to uncover. Look at the numbers: Clinton spent 2 billion, Russian "agents" spent 200k to "influence" the election. Great job Aaron for holding this opportunist's feet to the fire. Oh he's a story teller all right. You know a synonym of storyteller? LIAR!!!! ..."
"... Hes making so many factual wrong statements I don't know where to start here. ..."
"... His logic seems to be: Putin does things we don't like -> Trump getting elected is something we don't like -> Putin got Trump elected. ..."
Dec 28, 2017 | www.youtube.com

Our Hidden History , 4 days ago (edited)

That Harding tells Mate to meet Alexi Navalny, who is a far right nationalist and most certainly a tool of US intelligence (something like Russia's Richard Spencer) was all I needed to hear to understand where Luke is coming from.

He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western intelligence agencies. That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season.

Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument.

Few in the US know about these cases or what occurred, or of the many forces inside of Russia that might be involved in murdering journalists just as in Mexico or Turkey. But these cases are not explained - blame is merely assigned to Putin himself. Of course if someone here discusses he death of Michael Hastings, they're a "conspiracy theorist", but if the crime involves a Russian were to assign the blame to Vladimir Putin and, no further explanation is required.

Elizabeth Ferrari , 4 days ago

This interview is a wonderful illustration of everything that is horribly wrong with corporate media. I hope it goes viral.

Esen B. , 3 days ago

He is far right, he is calling "cockroaches" Central Asian/ex-USSR workers coming to Moscow and in general his tone is quite ultra-nationalistic.

Lemmy Motorhead , 3 days ago

Very well put! Everything that is labeled as "conspiracy theory" when aimed towards the West, is "respectable journalism" when aimed at Russia.

Esen B. , 3 days ago

That is the video about fire arm legalization "cockroaches ", even if you are not Russian speaking it's pretty graphic to understand the idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ILxqIEEMg

Esen B. , 3 days ago (edited)

And FYI - Central Asian workers do the low-wage jobs in Moscow, pretty like Mexicans or Puerto Ricans in US. Yet, that "future president" is trying to gain some popularity by labeling and demonizing them. Sounds familiar a bit?

trdi , 3 days ago (edited)

"definitelly ddissagree with that assertation about Alexei he's had nationalist views but he's definitely not far right and calling him a tool of US intelligence is pretty bs this is the exact same assertation that the Russian state media says about him."

I disagree that there is any evidence of Navalny being tool of US intelligence, but you are wrong for not recognizing that Navalny is ultranationalist. His public statements are indefensible. He is a Russian ultra nationalist, far right and a racist. Statements about cockroaches, worse than rats, bullets being too good etc - there is no way to misunderstand that.

Sendan , 3 days ago

Navalny is a corrupt ex-politician just like his mentor that was caught red-handed taking a bribe from a German businessman "all on camera" at a restaurant. Most of corrupt politicians and businessmen that get caught by the Russian government always cry that they are politically repressed and the government is evil.

Navalnys brother was the owner of a small transport company that Navalny helped secure contracts with government enterprises '' anywhere in the world that would be a conflict of interest" but that's not why he is in jail! His brother is in jail for swindling the postal service company for transportation costs.

MrChibiluffy , 3 days ago

I know he said that i agree he has those views but that was in 2010.

Yarrski , 3 days ago

@trdi I am a Russian. And I remember the early Navalny who made me sick to my stomach with absolutely disgusting, RACIST, anti-immigration commentaries. The guy is basically a NEO-NAZI who has toned down his nationalist diatribes in the past 10 or so years. Has he really reformed? I doubt it.

Mohamed Elmaazi , 2 days ago

This is a solid comment mate. Well thought out, with solid reasoning. How refreshing.

Nikita Gusarov , 2 days ago

MrChibiluffy, Navalny became relatively popular in Russia precisely at that time, especially during the White Ribbon protests in 2011/2012. I remember it very well myself.

I am Russian and I lived in Moscow at that time and he was the darling of the Russian opposition. He publicly defined his views and established himself back then and hasn't altered his position to this day.

What's more important is that around 2015 or so he made an alliance with the far-right and specifically Diomushkin who is a neo-nazi activist. I understand that people change their views, it's just that he hasn't.

MrChibiluffy , 2 days ago

Nikita Gusarov it still feels like the best chance for some form of populist opposition atm. Even though they just rejected him he has a movement. Would you rather vote for Sobchak?

annalivia1308 , 1 day ago

Yes. The US are looking to repeat Ukraine's regime change.

Ind Aus , 1 day ago

Lets not forget that one reason many voted for Trump was his rhetoric about improving the peace-threatening antagonism towards Russia, especially in order to help resolve the situation in Syria. It's not like it was secret he was trying to hide. He only moderated his views somewhat when the Democrat-engineered anti-Russian smear campaign took off and there was a concerted effort to tie him to Russia.

Is it crime surround yourself with people that will help you fullfill your pledges?

artemis12061966 , 1 day ago

Or the death of Gary Webb, prosecution of whistleblowers.....like Private Manning...

RipTheJackR , 9 hours ago

Our Hidden History... beautiful. Very well put mate :)

Gabriel Olsen , 3 hours ago

Yep, when he talked about murdering journalists, I paused the video and told my girlfriend about the murder of Michael Hastings. Oh an PS the USA puts journalists in Guantanamo. We play real baseball.

Luca Clemente , 4 days ago (edited)

Aaron Mate is a brilliant interviewer. He keeps a calm demeanor, but does not let his guest get away with any untruths or non sequiturs. This one of the many reasons I love The Real News. I encourage anyone who appreciates solid journalism to donate to The Real News.

TheJagjr4450 , 3 days ago

GREAT follow up questions Aaron... Harding did not expect to get a real reporter... he obfuscates and diverts to other issues because he can not EVER provide any evidence... Going to Moscow will not tell you anything about whether or not the DNC server was hacked.

dzedo53 , 4 days ago

Putin is a bad guy. Therefore he colluded with Trump back in 1987 to help Trump win the election in 2016. Why is that so hard to see?? LOL.

Noah , 14 hours ago

Luke Harding is a complete and total idiot. He kept qualifying his arguments with "I've been to Moscow... I don't know if you know this, but I've been to Moscow..." and even at one point, "Some of my friends have been murdered." LOL, sure, whatever you say, Luke! Like you're so big time and such an all star journalist who isn't just trying to capitalize on the wild goose chase that is psychologically trapping leftists into delusions and wishful thinking.

jodi houts , 4 days ago

Thank you Aaron Matč for calling out the bullshit. The dem party is dead until they take care of their own espionage and corruption.

KAREN Nichols , 4 days ago

Thank you for "holding his feet to the fire"...I wish more media was more skeptical as well. Good work!

david ackerman , 4 days ago

NSA monitors every communication over the internet. if the Russians hacked the DNC, there would be proof, and it would not take years to uncover. Look at the numbers: Clinton spent 2 billion, Russian "agents" spent 200k to "influence" the election. Great job Aaron for holding this opportunist's feet to the fire. Oh he's a story teller all right. You know a synonym of storyteller? LIAR!!!!

shadex08 , 4 days ago

Great job Aaron, your work here makes me feel even better about my contribution to the real news.

95percent air , 4 days ago

Wow Aaron Matte NICE JOB. I'm only half through, I hope you don't make him cry. Do u make him cry? Did I hear this guy say he's ultimately a storyteller? Lol.

Mal c.H , 4 days ago

It may seem like Trump has an alarming amount of associations with Russia, because he does.. that's how rich oligarchs work. But it's all just SPECULATION still. Why publish a book on this without a smoking gun to prove anything? Collusion isn't even a legal term, it's vague enough for people to make it mean whatever they want it to mean. People investigating and reporting on this are operating under confirmation bias. Aaron, you're always appropriately critical and you're always asking the right questions. You seem to be one of the few sane people left in media. Trump is a disgrace but there still is no smoking gun.

jodi houts , 4 days ago

As he gets deeper in the weeds of speculation he starts attacking Aaron's credibility.

Fixel Heimer , 4 days ago

Omg a bunch of unproven conspiracy crap.. Hes making so many factual wrong statements I don't know where to start here.. How would anyone in the years before his candidacy have thought Trump would gain any political relevance. I mean even the pro Hillary media thought until the end, their massive trump coverage would only help to get him NOT elected, but the opposite was the case. This guy is a complete joke as are his theses. Actually reminding me of the guardian's so called report about Russian Hacking in the Brexit referendum. Look here if you want to have a laugh http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/12/how-097-changed-the-fate-of-britain-not.html

Hugh Mungus , 4 days ago

His logic seems to be: Putin does things we don't like -> Trump getting elected is something we don't like -> Putin got Trump elected.

Katie B , 4 days ago

Collusion Rejectionist! Ha Ha. Funniest interview ever. Well done Aaron. The Real News taking a stand for truth. So what's in the book if there's no evidence? Guardian journalism? Stop questioning the official narrative, oh and have you heard of Estonia. :)) ps that smiley face was not an admission of my working for the Kremlin.

Antman4656 , 4 days ago

Best interview ever. Aaron held him to his theories and asked what evidence or proof he had and he didn't come up with one spec of evidence only hearsay and disputed theories. What a sad indictment this is on America. 1 year on a sensationalized story and still nothing concrete. What a joke and proof of gullibility to anyone who believes this corporate media Narritive. I guess at least they don't have to cover policies like the tax theft or net neutrality. This is why we need The Real news.

maskedavenger777 , 4 days ago (edited)

I'd rather have American business making business deals with Russia for things like hotels, rather than business deals with the Pentagon to aim more weapons at the Russians. When haven't we been doing business with Russians? We might as well investigate Cargill, Pepsi, McDonald's, John Deere, Ford, and most of our wheat farmers.

[Nov 28, 2019] WSJ story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be part of the upcoming Horowitz report? ..."
Nov 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Factotum , 27 November 2019 at 11:57 AM

WSJ columnist today raises an old obscure issue today about the Clinton emails and Comey's calculated exoneration of Clinton's culpability.

This story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton. Comey claimed when confronted with this memo, Lynch merely smiled like the Cheshire cat and nothing more was done.

This memo was later discredited as an alleged planted Russian hoax. Yet the memo story is again put in lead position on the opinion pages of the WSJ this very morning. Why was that? Not clear, but does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be part of the upcoming Horowitz report?

(WSJ: 11/27/19 - Holman Jenkins, Jr. - "Who will turn over the 2016 rocks")

[Nov 27, 2019] The influence of some Eastern European émigrés on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious

Notable quotes:
"... Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. ..."
"... Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics ..."
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
Nov 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) , 06 November 2019 at 04:07 PM

Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins.

Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable -- those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort.

Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.

English Outsider -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 09:19 AM
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it had been an American Admiral. I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.

"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."

Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an outside observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.

Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.

Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious. And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.

It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes with neighbors.

That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States - because that is a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe.

In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen for half a century and more. But there was a price few noticed. The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a most destructive freight.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
David Habakkuk -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:15 PM
Andrei and EO,

I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to change what I had written.

When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was impossible to interest any of my old television colleagues in the idea that one might go to Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my editor, Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister.

As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating anecdote about what one of his fellow members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which of his country's two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.

Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article Brzezinski published in the 'Financial Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a real democracy.'

(See https://www.ft.com/content/5ac2df1e-6103-11e3-b7f1-00144feabdc0 .)

Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's fundamental belief that after all those years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment -- to use Victoria Nuland's term -- it would finally 'knuckle under', and become a quiescent satellite of the West.

An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site -- which actually has some very useful material on matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language -- headlined 'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series -- Part I -- Renowned Russian Academic Sergey Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'

Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new thinkers', linked to it on his own website, clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and informed discussion of his ideas.

(See http://karaganov.ru/en/news/534 )

There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are essential features of an argument can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.

It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few years -- doubly interesting, because his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant section of the Russian foreign policy élite -- may be illuminated in this way.

So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central contentions of his writings might be put as follows:

'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in 1989. But if in practice "by the people" means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"

'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us 'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes" running Western policy, a "real democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like Brzezinski clearly always wanted us to be.

'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political systems, are actually "Eurasian": a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.

'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples have to reckon, this gives us a very real potential advantage over people in the West, who, like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one path along which all of humanity must -- and can -- go.'

At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:

'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European -- simply that we cannot simply come to Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.

'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well realise that their future does not lie in an alliance with a coalition of people like Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".

'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism" -- and, in relation to some of the SJC and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism gone bonkers" -- which Putin criticized in his interview with the "Financial Times" back in June.

(This is also behind a subscription wall, but is available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60836 . It is well worth reading in full.)

An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental Europeans see sense, then the coalition of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalized, and indeed, on the 'dustbin of history' to which Trotsky once referred.

Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite wrong.

But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was working in the 'Analysis' office, back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to Britain and the United States.

Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> English Outsider ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:04 PM
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 01:33 PM
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with Putin and Lavrov being personally present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact screams, volumes. You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia Studies field in the West which was primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing a caricature. They succeeded and Russia had it with the West.
Vig -> David Habakkuk ... , 08 November 2019 at 08:45 AM
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.

Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)

Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as should be expected, maybe. They were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out of the door the next second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words, hard to read or to predict. Guess one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?

Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as opportunist.

That said, would you please explain why

Petrel -> Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) ... , 07 November 2019 at 11:03 AM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:06 PM
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia

Well, that explains a lot. Not all of it, but a lot.

David Habakkuk -> Petrel... , 07 November 2019 at 01:25 PM
Petrel,

I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not had time to do any serious searches.

What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?

And, if they do, what are these?

I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins are Polish.

But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista' Ukrainians?

It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to incorporate Galicia into the empire he was creating.

Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles -- as also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg -- could have gone back to their old habits of assassinating Polish policemen.

Petrel -> David Habakkuk ... , 07 November 2019 at 05:50 PM
Andrei Martyanov & David Habakuk:

I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is a land run by Galician zombies " -- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security positions such as ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks, the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.

[Nov 13, 2019] Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite these people at best only having advisory roles. The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits and are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

Notable quotes:
"... So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it). ..."
"... Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"). ..."
Nov 13, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

michael , November 13, 2019 at 10:50

"to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they set U.S. foreign policy and resent the president for intruding upon them. It is increasingly evident that Trump's true offense is proposing to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or less untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation)."

This may be even worse than Lawrence depicts. It is clear that Vindman in his opening remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama, Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite constitutionally these people at best only having advisory roles to the President (and constitutionally the President can ask for their opinions in writing; CYA even back then!) The Ukrainian Americans involved in the coup (national security from Vindman's perspective) are deeply committed since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits with no interference from Trump. And the Democrats/ Ukraine-Americans "running the show" are probably much more corrupt than Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.

I have started Oliver Bullough's "Money Land" and was aghast at the luxury items Yanukovich had stolen through corruption and accumulated at his many properties. Surely with so much money going to corrupt Yanukovich and his henchmen, the coup would have been a blessing for the Ukrainian people! Right? I was shocked to find that after the overthrow of Yanukovich in 2014, the median per capita household income in Ukraine, which had risen steadily from $2032 in 2010 to $2601 in 2013, had dropped over 50% to $1110 to $1135 in 2015 and 2016, and has only risen to $1694 in 2018 (ceicdata.com).

So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it).

Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman").

[Nov 03, 2019] Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force. ..."
Nov 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson Larry Johnson-5x7

The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump Task Force, and given the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump.

This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.

A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project. But it also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA. Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958. The author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.

A Task Force operates independent of the CIA " Mission Centers " (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).

So what did John Brennan do? I am told by an knowledgeable source that Brennan created a Trump Task Force in early 2016. It was an invitation only Task Force. Specific case officers (i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin personnel were recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.

This was not a CIA only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task Force. We have some clues that Christopher Steele's FBi handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been detailed to the Trump Task Force ( see here ).

So what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on identifying intelligence collection priorities. Task Force members could task NSA to do targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in covert action, such as targeting George Papadopoulos. Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who met with him, briefed on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange monitored meetings. I think it is highly likely that the honey pot that met with George Papadopoulos, a woman named Azra Turk, was part of the CIA Trump Task Force.

The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force.

In light of what we have learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, there should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at minimum, reporting to them.

When I described this to one friend, a retired CIA Chief of Station, his first response was, "My God, that's illegal." We then reminisced about another illegal operation carried out under the auspices of the CIA Central American Task Force back in the 1980s. That became known to Americans as the Iran Contra scandal.

I sure hope that John Durham and his team are looking at this angle. If true it marks a new and damning indictment of the corruption of the CIA. Rather than spying on genuine foreign threats, this Task Force played a critical role in creating and feeding the meme that Donald Trump was a tool of the Russians and a puppet of Putin.

[Sep 17, 2019] The Spy Who Failed by Scott Ritter

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The source was said to be responsible for the reporting used by the former director of the CIA, John Brennan, in making the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election for the purpose of tipping the scales in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump. ..."
"... On closer scrutiny, however, this aspect of the story falls apart, as does just about everything CNN, The New York Times ..."
"... "And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free," John 8:32, is etched into the wall of the main lobby of the Old CIA Headquarters Building. ..."
"... Every Russian diplomat assigned to the United States is screened to ascertain his or her susceptibility for recruitment. The FBI does this from a counterintelligence perspective, looking for Russian spies. The CIA does the same, but with the objective of recruiting a Russian source who can remain in the employ of the Russian government, and thereby provide the CIA with intelligence information commensurate to their standing and access. Turning a senior Russian diplomat is difficult; recruiting a junior Russian diplomat like Oleg Smolenkov less so. Someone like Smolenkov would be viewed not so much by the limited access he provided at the time of recruitment, but rather his potential for promotion and the increased opportunity for more essential access provided by such. ..."
"... The reality is, however, that the CIA and the FBI have different goals and objectives when it comes to the Russians they recruit. As such, Smolenkov's recruitment was most likely a CIA-only affair, run by NR but closely monitored by the Russian Operations Group of the Agency's Central Eurasia Division, who would have responsibility for managing Smolenkov upon his return to Moscow. ..."
"... But his job as foreman of the Rossotrudnichestvo coop was not the kind of job a Maurive Thorez graduate gets; Smolenkov had to have felt slighted. He allegedly turned to drink, and his marriage was on the rocks; his colleagues spoke of a man who believed his salary was too low. ..."
"... The enticements of money and future opportunity -- the CIA's principle recruitment ploys -- more than likely were a factor in convincing this dissatisfied diplomat to defect. ..."
"... the fact is, sometime in 2007-2008, Smolenkov was recruited by the CIA. ..."
"... He was granted a "second-level" security clearance, which allowed him to handle top secret information. ..."
"... Moscow Station, however, was having trouble carrying out its clandestine tasks. In the fall of 2011, the CIA's chief of station in Moscow, Steven Hall, had been approached by his counterpart in the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB, Russia's equivalent of the FBI) and warned that the CIA should stop trying to recruit agents from within the FSB ranks; the FSB had detected several of these attempts, which it deemed inappropriate given the ongoing cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries regarding the war on terrorism. ..."
"... The loss of Hall at this very sensitive time created a problem for both the CIA and Smolenkov. Smolenkov's new assignment was a dream come true for the CIA -- never before had the agency managed to place a controlled agent into the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. ..."
"... With communications down, and the chief of station evicted, Smolenkov was left in a state of limbo while the CIA trained up new case officers capable of operating in Moscow and sought a replacement for Hall. ..."
"... "To put it mildly," Ushakov said, "it is surprising that this extremely crude, clumsy attempt at recruitment took place in a situation where both President Obama and President Putin have clearly stated the importance of more active cooperation and contacts between the special services of the two countries." ..."
"... As a senior aide to Ushakov, Smolenkov was ideally positioned to gather intelligence about the Russian response. If he was able to communicate this information to the CIA, it would have provided Obama and his advisers time to prepare a response to the Russian letter. The situation meant that Smolenkov may have been reporting on events related to the expulsion of Hall, one of the CIA officers specifically trained to manage his reporting. ..."
"... Smolenkov's success was directly linked to the work of his boss, Ushakov. In June 2015, Ushakov was put in charge of establishing a high-level working group in the fuel and energy sector for the purpose of improving bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan. The reporting Smolenkov would have been able to provide on the work of this group would have been of tremendous assistance to those in the Obama administration working on U.S. energy policy, especially as it related to countering Russian moves in the former Soviet Republics. ..."
"... Ushakov's 10-year tenure as Russia's ambassador to the U.S. gave him unprecedented insight into U.S. decision making, experience and expertise Putin increasingly relied upon as he formulated and implemented responses to U.S. efforts to contain and punish Russia on the international stage. ..."
"... While Ushakov's meetings with Putin were conducted either in private, or in small groups of senior advisers, meaning Smolenkov was not present, Smolenkov was able to collect intelligence on the periphery by photographing itineraries and working papers, as well as overhearing comments made by Ushakov, that collectively would provide U.S. policymakers with important insight into Putin's thinking. ..."
"... According to the FSB, the Russians were adept at identifying CIA officers working under State Department cover and would subject these individuals to extensive surveillance. ..."
"... In addition to the decimation of its staff, Moscow Station was experiencing an alarming number of its agents being discovered by the FSB and arrested. While the Russians were circumspect about most of these cases, on several occasions they indicated that they had uncovered a spy by intercepting the electronic communications between him and the CIA. This meant that the Russians were aware of, and actively pursuing, the Google-based internet-based system used by the CIA to communicate with its agents in Russia. ..."
"... Sometime in early August 2016, a courier from the CIA arrived at the White House carrying a plain, unmarked white envelope. Inside was an intelligence report from Smolenkov that CIA Director Brennan considered to be so sensitive that he kept it out of the President's Daily Brief, concerned that even that restrictive process was too inclusive to adequately protect the source. The intelligence was to be read by four people only -- Obama, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. The document was to be returned to the courier once it had been read. ..."
"... The contents of the report were alarming -- Putin had personally ordered the cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election in favor of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump. ..."
"... The White House found the Smolenkov report so convincing that in September 2016, during a meeting of the G-20 in China, Obama pulled Putin aside and told him to stop meddling in the U.S. election. Putin was reportedly nonplussed by Obama's intervention. ..."
"... It is not publicly known what prompted the report from Smolenkov which Brennan found so alarming. Was it received out of the blue, a target of opportunity which Smolenkov exploited? Was it based upon a specific tasking submitted by Smolenkov's CIA handlers in response to a tasking from above? Or was it a result of the intervention of the CIA director, who tasked Smolenkov outside normal channels? In any event, once Brennan created his special analytical unit, Smolenkov became his dedicated source. If Smolenko was in this for the money, as appears to be the case, he would have been motivated to come up with the "correct" answer to Brennan's tasking for information on Putin's role. By late 2016, Western media had made quite clear what kind of answer Brennan wanted. ..."
"... Brennan took the extraordinary measure of sequestering the source from the rest of the Intelligence Community. He also confronted the head of the Russian FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, about the risks involved in interfering in U.S. elections. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Smolenkov's firing occurred right before the Intelligence Community released its much-anticipated assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election ..."
"... Brennan had sold the Smolenkov reporting to both President Obama and President-elect Trump, along with the rest of the intelligence community, as "high-quality information." It was, at best, nothing more than uncorroborated rumor or, at worst, simple disinformation. This reporting, which was parroted by an unquestioning mainstream media that accepted it as fact, created an impression amongst the American public that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered and directed a Russian interference campaign during the 2016 election designed "to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible," according to the ICA. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... Concerned that Smolenkov could be arrested by the Russians and, in doing so, have control over the narrative of Russian interference transfer to Moscow, the CIA once again approached Smolenkov to defect to the United States. This time the Russian agent agreed. ..."
"... Sometime in June 2018, Smolenkov and his wife bought a home worth nearly $1 million in northern Virginia. The couple used their real names. They were not afraid. ..."
"... I can only speculate as to the circumstances that led to Smolenkov's firing by secret decree. Normally, Russians charged with transmitting classified material to the intelligence services of a foreign state are arrested, placed on trial and given lengthy prison sentences, or worse. This did not happen to Smolenkov. ..."
"... In any case, the Smolenkov report in the white envelope represented a level of access that would have significantly deviated from what one could expect from a person in his position and which suggests he may have been telling the CIA what he knew Brennan wanted to hear. ..."
"... The third scenario is that Smolenkov, a low-level failure of a diplomat with drinking issues, marital problems and monetary frustrations, was recruited by the CIA, but only with the complicity of the Russian security services. ..."
"... The same red flags that the CIA looks for when recruiting agents are also looked at by Russian counterintelligence. At what point in the recruitment process the Russians stepped in is unknown (if they did at all.) ..."
"... Moreover, this muddling diplomat whose questionable behavioral practices scream "recruit me" is, within three years of returning to Moscow, given a significant promotion that enables him to follow Ushakov into the Presidential Administration–a posting which would require extensive vetting by the Russian security services. Smolenkov's promotion pattern is enough, in and of itself, to raise red flags within the counterintelligence offices tasked with monitoring such things. The fact that it did not indicates that the quality and quantity of reporting being provided by Smolenkov was deemed by the Americans too important to interfere with. ..."
"... In this scenario, Smolenkov would have been playing to a script written by the Russian security services. Since he, technically, had broken no laws by serving as a double agent, he would not be subjected to arrest and trial. But once his existence became the fodder of the U.S. media via inference and speculation, his services as a double agent were no longer needed. He was fired from his position, via a secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live his life as he saw fit. ..."
"... In my view, if one assumes that the Smolenkov July 2016 report at the center of this drama was not a result of serendipity, but rather a product derived from a specific request from his CIA managers to find out how high up in the Russian decision-making chain the authorization went for what U.S. intelligence agencies were already publicly pushing as an alleged DNC cyber attack, then the answer I believe becomes clear–the Russians knew the U.S. had an intelligence deficit. ..."
"... In my view, the CIA, Russia and Smolenkov were happy to maintain the status quo, with Smolenkov living in comfortable retirement with his family, the CIA continuing to accuse Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, and Russia denying it. ..."
"... Trump's instructions to Barr are linked to a desire on the part of the president to hold to account those responsible for creating the narrative of possible collusion. Reports indicate that Barr is particularly interested in finding out how and why the CIA concluded that Putin personally ordered the Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. ..."
"... Seen in this light, the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the "exfiltration" of the CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by Brennan and his allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the truth. ..."
"... A few days following Smolenkov's "outing" by the U.S. media, the Russian government filed a request with Interpol for an investigation into how someone who had gone missing in Montenegro was now living in the United States. ..."
"... The only person at risk from this entire sordid affair is Brennan, whose reputation and potential livelihood is on the line. At best, Brennan is guilty of extremely poor judgement; at worst, he actively conspired to use the office of Director of the CIA to interfere in the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Neither option speaks well of the U.S. Intelligence Community and those in Congress charged with oversight of its operations. ..."
"... Watch Scott Ritter discussing this article on ..."
"... Consortium News does not necessarily endorse the views of its authors. ..."
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"... making a donation ..."
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"... Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed. ..."
"... And under the third scenario, with Smolenkov a double agent all along, Ritter writes: "But once his existence became the fodder of the U.S. media via inference and speculation, his services as a double agent were no longer needed. He was fired from his position, via a secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live his life as he saw fit." ..."
"... That doesn't make sense to me. In fact I see the opposite: if he had been a successfully run double agent all that time, then when his usefulness had ended he would have been decently pensioned off – not simply cut loose to fend for himself – but *not* allowed to travel abroad unimpeded (with his whole family, no less) where he would have the opportunity to cause mischief. ..."
"... In the extremely sophisticated world of high grade intelligence I have repeatedly said that the Brennan, Clapper, Comey trio were lead-footed imbeciles ..."
"... Read The CIA as Organized Crime and Strength of the Wolf and Strength of the Pack by Douglas Valentine. ..."
"... "Kiriakou also notes that the way Smolenkov's intelligence was handled raises echoes of the CIA's manipulation of intelligence to help justify the Iraq war. The information from Smolenkov was handled personally by then-CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan reportedly sidelined other CIA analysts and kept the Smolenkov information out of the Presidential Daily Briefing – instead delivering it personally to President Obama and a small group of officials." ..."
"... More like a Le Carre' film. The CIA was originally sold as an intelligence gathering and analysis organization, and was not supposed to be involved in operations. Thus, it was founded on lies and the lies have only grown since. ..."
"... Even the former communist state governments in Europe and the Soviet Union rued the day that they unleashed their secret police from accountability, and thereby became subservient to their power. ..."
"... I suspect Scott was provided a great deal of the reporting in this fascinating article from a disgruntled insider, or former insider. Knowledge of Brennan's break with protocol to form a select 'stand alone fusion cell' that reported only to him is something that I haven't seen reported before. In any case this story adds another red flag to the entire Russiagate hoax. ..."
"... Just as Mueller failed to interview Julian Assange or Christopher Steele for his report -- obvious red flags -- we should now watch the conduct of Barr's investigation. Will Barr's investigators interview Smolenkov? ..."
"... ( ) the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the "exfiltration" of the CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by Brennan and his allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the truth. ..."
"... "If Smolenkov was a spy, he could have delivered important insights about Russia's foreign policy thinking and planning to U.S. intelligence. But if he was the source for the U.S. intelligence community's certainty that Putin personally orchestrated a covert interference campaign, that certainty rests on a weak foundation. Smolenkov served the wrong boss in the Kremlin to get reliable information about such ventures." ..."
Sep 14, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

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OPINION: Scott Ritter probes Oleg Smolenkov's role as a CIA asset and the use of his data by the director of the CIA to cast doubt over the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

By Scott Ritter
 Special to Consortium News

Reports that the CIA conducted an emergency exfiltration of a long-time human intelligence source who was highly placed within the Russian Presidential Administration sent shock waves throughout Washington, D.C.

The source was said to be responsible for the reporting used by the former director of the CIA, John Brennan, in making the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election for the purpose of tipping the scales in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump.

According to CNN's Jim Sciutto, the decision to exfiltrate the source was driven in part by concerns within the CIA over President Trump's cavalier approach toward handling classified information, including his willingness to share highly classified intelligence with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a controversial visit to the White House in May 2017.

On closer scrutiny, however, this aspect of the story falls apart, as does just about everything CNN, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have reported. There was a Russian spy whose information was used to push a narrative of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election; this much appears to be true. Everything else that has been reported is either a mischaracterization of fact or an outright fabrication designed to hide one of the greatest intelligence failures in U.S. history -- the use by a CIA director of intelligence data specifically manipulated to interfere in the election of an American president.

The consequences of this interference has deleteriously impacted U.S. democratic institutions in ways the American people remain ignorant of -- in large part because of the complicity of the U.S. media when it comes to reporting this story.

This article attempts to set the record straight by connecting the dots presented by available information and creating a narrative shaped by a combination of derivative analysis and informed speculation. At best, this article brings the reader closer to the truth about Oleg Smolenkov's role as a CIA asset; at worst, it raises issues and questions that will help in determining the truth.

"And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free," John 8:32, is etched into the wall of the main lobby of the Old CIA Headquarters Building.

The Recruit

Oleg Smolenkov

In 2007, Oleg Smolenkov was living the life of a Russian diplomat abroad, serving in the Russian embassy in Washington. At 33 years of age, married with a 1-year old son, Smolenkov was the picture of a young diplomat on the rise. A protégé of Russian Ambassador Yuri Ushakov, Smolenkov worked as a second secretary assigned to the Russian Cultural Center, a combined museum and exhibition hall operated by the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation (better known by its common Russian name, Rossotrudnichestvo), an autonomous government agency operating under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In addition to hosting Russian artists and musicians, Rossotrudnichestvo oversaw a program where it organized all-expense paid cultural exchanges for young Americans to travel to Russia, where they were accommodated in luxury hotels and met with Russian officials. Smolenkov's boss, Yegeny Zvedre, would also tour the United States, speaking at public forums where he addressed U.S.-Russian cooperation. As for Smolenkov himself, life was much more mundane -- he served as a purchasing agent for Rossotrudnichestvo, managing procurement and contract issues for a store operating out of the Rossotrudnichestvo building, which stood separate from the main embassy compound.

Rossotrudnichestvo had a darker side: the FBI long suspected that it operated as a front to recruit Americans to spy for Russia, and as such every Russian employee was viewed as a potential officer in the Russian intelligence service. This suspicion brought with it a level of scrutiny which revealed much about the character of the individual being surveilled, including information of a potentially compromising nature that could be used by the American intelligence services as the basis of a recruitment effort.

Every Russian diplomat assigned to the United States is screened to ascertain his or her susceptibility for recruitment. The FBI does this from a counterintelligence perspective, looking for Russian spies. The CIA does the same, but with the objective of recruiting a Russian source who can remain in the employ of the Russian government, and thereby provide the CIA with intelligence information commensurate to their standing and access. Turning a senior Russian diplomat is difficult; recruiting a junior Russian diplomat like Oleg Smolenkov less so. Someone like Smolenkov would be viewed not so much by the limited access he provided at the time of recruitment, but rather his potential for promotion and the increased opportunity for more essential access provided by such.

The responsibility within the CIA for recruiting Russian diplomats living in the United States falls to the National Resources Division, or NR, part of the Directorate of Operations, or DO -- the clandestine arm of the CIA. In a perfect world, the CIA domestic station in Washington, D.C., would coordinate with the local FBI field office and develop a joint approach for recruiting a Russian diplomat such as Smolenkov.

The reality is, however, that the CIA and the FBI have different goals and objectives when it comes to the Russians they recruit. As such, Smolenkov's recruitment was most likely a CIA-only affair, run by NR but closely monitored by the Russian Operations Group of the Agency's Central Eurasia Division, who would have responsibility for managing Smolenkov upon his return to Moscow.

The precise motive for Smolenkov to take up the CIA's offer of recruitment remains unknown. He graduated from one of the premier universities in Russia, the Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, and he married his English language instructor. Normally a graduate from an elite university such as Maurice Thorez has his or her pick of jobs in the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense or the security services. Smolenkov was hired by the Foreign Ministry as a junior linguist, assigned to the Second European Department, which focuses on Great Britain, Scandinavia and the Baltics, before getting assigned to the embassy in Washington.

Felt Underpaid

But his job as foreman of the Rossotrudnichestvo coop was not the kind of job a Maurive Thorez graduate gets; Smolenkov had to have felt slighted. He allegedly turned to drink, and his marriage was on the rocks; his colleagues spoke of a man who believed his salary was too low.

The enticements of money and future opportunity -- the CIA's principle recruitment ploys -- more than likely were a factor in convincing this dissatisfied diplomat to defect. Did the CIA compromise him by dangling the temptation of contract-based embezzlement? Or did the FBI uncover some sort of personal or financial impropriety that made the Russian diplomat vulnerable to recruitment? Only the CIA and Smolenkov know the precise circumstances behind the Russian's decision to betray his country. But the fact is, sometime in 2007-2008, Smolenkov was recruited by the CIA.

After Smolenkov accepted the CIA's offer, there was much work to be done -- the new agent had to be polygraphed to ascertain his reliability, trained on covert means of intelligence collection, including covert photography, as well as on how to securely communicate with the CIA in order to transmit information and receive instructions. Smolenkov was also introduced to his "handler," a CIA case officer who would be responsible for managing the work of Smolenkov, including overseeing the bank account where Smolenkov's CIA "salary" would be deposited. Various contingencies would be prepared for, including procedures for reestablishing communications should the existing means become unavailable, emergency contact procedures and emergency exfiltration plans in case Smolenkov became compromised.

Took Away His Name, and Gave Him a Code

The recruitment of a diplomat willing to return to Moscow and be run in place is a rare accomplishment, and Smolenkov's identity would become a closely guarded secret within the ranks of the CIA. Smolenkov's true identity would be known to only a few select individuals; to everyone else who had access to his reporting, he was simply a codename, comprised of a two-letter digraph representing Russia (this code changed over time), followed by a word chosen at random by a CIA algorithm (for example, Adolf Tolkachev, the so-called "billion dollar spy," was known by the codename CKSPHERE, with CK being the digraph in use for the Soviet Union at the time of his recruitment.) Because the specific details from the information provided by Smolenkov could compromise him as the source, the Russian Operations Group would "blend" his reporting in with other sources in an effort to disguise it before disseminating it to a wider audience.

Smolenkov followed Ambassador Ushakov when the latter departed the United States for Moscow in the summer of 2008; soon after arriving back in Moscow, Smolenkov and his wife divorced. Ushakov took a position as the deputy chief of the Government Staff of the Russian Federation responsible for international relations and foreign policy support. Part of the Executive Office of the Government of the Russian Federation, Ushakov coordinated the international work of the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and senior officials of the Government Executive Office. Smolenkov took up a position working for Ushakov, and soon found himself moving up the ranks of the Russian Civil Service, being promoted in 2010 to the rank of state advisor to the Russian Federation of the Third Class, a second-tier rank that put him on the cusp of joining the upper levels of the Russian government bureaucracy. He was granted a "second-level" security clearance, which allowed him to handle top secret information.

Moscow Station

Ukashov, r. with Putin (Kremlin photo)

In 2013 Ushakov received a new assignment, this time to serve in the Presidential Executive Office as the aide for international relations. Smolenkov joined Ushakov as his staff manager. Vladimir Putin was one year into his second stint as president and brought Ushakov, who had advised him on foreign relations while Putin was prime minister, to continue that service. Ushakov maintained an office at the Boyarsky Dvor (Courtyard of the Boyars), on 8 Staraya Square.

The Boyarsky Dvor was physically separate from the Kremlin, meaning neither Ushakov nor Smolenkov had direct access to the Russian president. Nevertheless, Smolenkov's new job had to have pleased his CIA masters. In the five years Smolenkov worked at the Executive Office of the Government, he was not privy to particularly sensitive information. His communications with CIA would most likely have been administrative in nature, with the CIA more interested in Smolenkov's growth potential than immediate value of any intelligence he could produce.

Smolenkov's arrival in the Presidential Administration coincided with a period of operational difficulty for the CIA in Moscow. First, the CIA's internet-based covert communications system, which used Google's email platform as the foundation for accessing various web pages where information was exchanged between the agent and his CIA handlers, had been globally compromised. Smolenkov had been trained on this system, and it provided his lifeline to the CIA. The compromise first occurred in Iran, and then spread to China; in both countries, entire networks of CIA agents were rounded up, with many being subsequently executed . China is believed to have shared the information on how to detect the covert communication-linked web pages with Russia; fortunately for Moscow Station, they were able to make the appropriate changes in the system to safeguard the security and identity of its agents. In the meantime, communications between the CIA and Smolenkov were cut off until the CIA could make contact using back-up protocols and re-train Smolenkov on the new communications procedures.

Moscow Station, however, was having trouble carrying out its clandestine tasks. In the fall of 2011, the CIA's chief of station in Moscow, Steven Hall, had been approached by his counterpart in the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB, Russia's equivalent of the FBI) and warned that the CIA should stop trying to recruit agents from within the FSB ranks; the FSB had detected several of these attempts, which it deemed inappropriate given the ongoing cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries regarding the war on terrorism.

But Hall had his orders, and after a year-long pause to review its operating procedures, Moscow Station resumed its targeting of FSB officers. Things went real bad real fast. In January 2013, a CIA officer named Benjamin Dillon was arrested by the FSB as he tried to recruit a Russian agent, declared persona non grata, and expelled from Russia. Then in May 2013 the FSB arrested another CIA officer, Ryan Fogle. Fogle was paraded before television cameras together with his spy paraphernalia, and like Dillon before him, expelled from the country. Moreover, the Russians, in condemning the CIA actions, revealed the identity of the CIA's Moscow chief of station (Hall), who because of the public disclosure was compelled to depart Russia.

A CIA Dream

Steve Hall (CNN/YouTube)

The loss of Dillon and Fogle was a serious blow to Moscow Station, but one from which the CIA could recover. But the near simultaneous loss of two case officers and the chief of station was a different matter altogether. Hall was one of the few people in the CIA who had been "read in" on the recruitment of Smolenkov, and as such was involved in the overall management of the Russian agent. The loss of Hall at this very sensitive time created a problem for both the CIA and Smolenkov. Smolenkov's new assignment was a dream come true for the CIA -- never before had the agency managed to place a controlled agent into the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.

But while Smolenkov had been able to provide evidence of access, by way of photographs of presidential documents, the CIA needed to confirm that Smolenkov hadn't been turned by the Russians and was not being used to pass on disinformation designed to mislead those who used Smolenkov's reporting. Normally this was done by subjecting the agent to a polygraph examination -- a "swirl," in CIA parlance. This examination could take place at an improvised covert location in Russia, or in a more controlled environment outside of Russia, if Smolenkov was able to exit on work or during vacation. But arranging the examination required close coordination between the CIA and its agent, as well as a healthy degree of trust between the agent and those directing him. With communications down, and the chief of station evicted, Smolenkov was left in a state of limbo while the CIA trained up new case officers capable of operating in Moscow and sought a replacement for Hall.

One of the ironies surrounding the arrest and expulsion of CIA officer Fogle, and the subsequent outing and eviction of Hall, was that Smolenkov was ideally positioned to provide an inside perspective on how the Russian leadership reacted to the incident. Smolenkov's boss, Ushakov, was tasked with overseeing Russia's diplomatic response. In a statement given to the Russian media, Ushakov expressed surprise at the timing of the incident. "To put it mildly," Ushakov said, "it is surprising that this extremely crude, clumsy attempt at recruitment took place in a situation where both President Obama and President Putin have clearly stated the importance of more active cooperation and contacts between the special services of the two countries."

Ushakov coordinated closely with the head of Putin's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, regarding the content of a letter Putin was planning to send in response to a previous communication from Obama. While the original text focused on missile defense issues, Ushakov and Patrushev inserted language about the Fogle incident. As a senior aide to Ushakov, Smolenkov was ideally positioned to gather intelligence about the Russian response. If he was able to communicate this information to the CIA, it would have provided Obama and his advisers time to prepare a response to the Russian letter. The situation meant that Smolenkov may have been reporting on events related to the expulsion of Hall, one of the CIA officers specifically trained to manage his reporting.

The Center

Amid the operational challenges and opportunity provided by Smolenkov's new position within the Russian Presidential Administration, the CIA underwent a radical reorganization which impacted how human agents, and the intelligence they produced, would be managed. The past practice of having intelligence operations controlled by insular regional divisions, which promoted both a physical and philosophical divide between the collectors and their analytical counterparts in the respective regional division within the Directorate of Intelligence, or DI, was discontinued by Brennan, who had taken over as director of the CIA in May 2013.

To replace what he viewed as an antiquated organizational structure, Brennan created what he called "Mission Centers," which combined analytical, operational, technical and support expertise under a single roof. For Moscow Station and Smolenkov, this meant that the Russia and Eurasia Division, with its Russian Operations Group, no longer existed. Instead, Moscow Station would take its orders from a new Europe and Eurasia Mission Center headed by an experienced CIA Russia analyst named Peter Clement.

Clement, who had earned a PhD in Russian history from Michigan State University, had a diverse resumé with the CIA which included service as the director for Russia on the National Security Council and as the CIA representative to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Clement served as the director of the Office of Russian and Eurasian Analysis and as the CIA's Russia issue manager from 1997 to 2003; as the President's Daily Brief (PDB) briefer for Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003-2004, and from 2005-2013, as the deputy director for intelligence for analytic programs. In 2015 Brennan appointed Clement to serve as the deputy assistant director of CIA for Europe and Eurasia, where he directed the activities of the newly created Europe and Eurasia Mission Center. If one was looking for the perfect candidate to manage the fusion of operational, analytical and technical experience into a singular, mission-focused entity, Peter Clement was it.

Peter Clement (C-Span)

As Clement got on with the business of whipping the Europe and Eurasia Mission Center into shape, Smolenkov was busy establishing himself as an intelligence source of some value. Smolenkov's success was directly linked to the work of his boss, Ushakov. In June 2015, Ushakov was put in charge of establishing a high-level working group in the fuel and energy sector for the purpose of improving bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan. The reporting Smolenkov would have been able to provide on the work of this group would have been of tremendous assistance to those in the Obama administration working on U.S. energy policy, especially as it related to countering Russian moves in the former Soviet Republics.

Another project of interest was Russia's sale of advanced Mi-35 helicopters to Pakistan in support of their counterterrorism efforts. Coming at a time when U.S.-Pakistani relations were floundering, the Russian sale of advanced helicopters was viewed with concern by both the Department of State and the Department of Defense. Again, Smolenkov's reporting on this issue would have been well received by critical policymakers in both departments.

But the most critical role played by Ushakov was advising Putin on the uncertain state of relations between the U.S. and Russia in the aftermath of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine, and Russia's annexation of Crimea. Ushakov's 10-year tenure as Russia's ambassador to the U.S. gave him unprecedented insight into U.S. decision making, experience and expertise Putin increasingly relied upon as he formulated and implemented responses to U.S. efforts to contain and punish Russia on the international stage.

While Ushakov's meetings with Putin were conducted either in private, or in small groups of senior advisers, meaning Smolenkov was not present, Smolenkov was able to collect intelligence on the periphery by photographing itineraries and working papers, as well as overhearing comments made by Ushakov, that collectively would provide U.S. policymakers with important insight into Putin's thinking.

Managing an important resource like Smolenkov was one of the critical challenges faced by Clement and the Europe and Eurasia Mission Center. Smolenkov's reporting continued to be handled using special HUMINT procedures designed to protect the source. However, within the Center knowledge of Smolenkov's work would have been shared with analysts who worked side by side with their operational colleagues deciding how the intelligence could best be used, as well as coming up with follow-up questions for Smolenkov regarding specific issues of interest.

Given the unique insight Smolenkov's reporting provided into Putin's thinking, it would be logical that intelligence sourced from Smolenkov would frequently find itself briefed to the president and his inner circle via the PDB process, which was exacting in terms of vetting the accuracy and reliability of any intelligence reporting that made it onto its pages. As a long-time Russia expert with extensive experience in virtually every aspect of how the CIA turned raw reporting into finished intelligence, Clement was ideally suited to making sure his Center handled the Smolenkov product responsibly, and in a manner which maximized its value.

Meanwhile, Moscow Station continued to exhibit operational problems. By 2015 the CIA had managed to rebuild its stable of case officers operating from the U.S. embassy. But the FSB always seemed to be one step ahead. According to the FSB, the Russians were adept at identifying CIA officers working under State Department cover and would subject these individuals to extensive surveillance. As if to prove the Russian's point, in short order the FSB rounded up the newly assigned case officers, along with the deputy chief of station, declared them persona non grata, and expelled them from Russia. To make matters worse, the FSB released surveillance video of all these officers, who in some cases were joined by their spouses, as they engaged in elaborate ruses to evade Russian surveillance in order to carry out their covert assignments.

Moscow Station's string of bad luck continued into 2016, when one of its officers, having been detected by the FSB during a meeting, fled via taxi to the U.S. embassy, only to be tackled by a uniformed FSB officer as he tried to enter the compound. In the scuffle that followed, the CIA officer managed to make entry into the embassy building, compelling the FSB guard to release him once jurisdiction was lost. The CIA officer, who suffered a separated shoulder during the incident, left Russia shortly thereafter, together with a female colleague who had also been detected by the FSB while engaged in clandestine activities and subsequently declared persona non grata.

FSB Headquarters in the Lubyanka Building, Moscow.

The FSB indicated, at the time these two officers were being expelled, that it had evicted three other CIA officers during the year. In addition to the decimation of its staff, Moscow Station was experiencing an alarming number of its agents being discovered by the FSB and arrested. While the Russians were circumspect about most of these cases, on several occasions they indicated that they had uncovered a spy by intercepting the electronic communications between him and the CIA. This meant that the Russians were aware of, and actively pursuing, the Google-based internet-based system used by the CIA to communicate with its agents in Russia.

Meanwhile, Smolenkov continued to send his reports to his CIA handlers unabated, using the same internet-based system. Under normal circumstances, an exception to compromise would raise red flags within the counterintelligence staff that evaluated an agent's reporting and activity. But by the summer of 2016, nothing about the work of the CIA, and in particular the Europe and Eurasia Mission Center could be considered "normal" when it came to the Russian target.

Little White Envelope

Sometime in early August 2016, a courier from the CIA arrived at the White House carrying a plain, unmarked white envelope. Inside was an intelligence report from Smolenkov that CIA Director Brennan considered to be so sensitive that he kept it out of the President's Daily Brief, concerned that even that restrictive process was too inclusive to adequately protect the source. The intelligence was to be read by four people only -- Obama, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. The document was to be returned to the courier once it had been read.

Brennan in Oval Office where he had envelope delivered. (White House photo/Pete Souza)

The contents of the report were alarming -- Putin had personally ordered the cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election in favor of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

The intelligence report was not a product of Clement's Europe and Eurasia Mission Center, but rather a special unit of handpicked analysts from the CIA, NSA and FBI who were brought together under great secrecy in late July and reported directly to Brennan. These analysts were made to sign non-disclosure agreements protecting their work from their colleagues.

This new analytical unit focused on three new sensitive sources of information -- the Smolenkov report, additional reporting provided by a former MI6 officer named Christopher Steele, and a signals intelligence report provided by a Baltic nation neighboring Russia. The Steele information was of questionable provenance, so much so that FBI Director James Comey could not, or would not, vouch for its credibility. The same held true for the NSA's assessment of the Baltic SIGINT report. By themselves, the Steele reporting and Baltic SIGINT report were of little intelligence value. But when viewed together, they were used to corroborate the explosive contents of the Smolenkov intelligence. The White House found the Smolenkov report so convincing that in September 2016, during a meeting of the G-20 in China, Obama pulled Putin aside and told him to stop meddling in the U.S. election. Putin was reportedly nonplussed by Obama's intervention.

It is extraordinarily difficult for a piece of intelligence to be deemed important and reliable enough to be briefed to the president of the United States. The principal forum for such a briefing is the Presidential Daily Brief, which prior to 2004 was a product produced exclusively by the CIA. When the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act was signed into law in 2004, the responsibility for the PDB was transferred to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), a newly created entity responsible for oversight and coordination of the entire Intelligence Community, or IC. The PDB is considered to be an IC product, the production of which is coordinated by ODNI's PDB staff in partnership with the CIA Directorate of Intelligence (DI)'s President's Analytic Support Staff.

Since he began reporting about his work in the Russian Presidential Administration in 2013, Smolenkov had, on numerous occasions, produced intelligence whose content and relevance was such that it would readily warrant inclusion in the PDB. After 2015, the decision to submit a Smolenkov-sourced report for inclusion in the PDB would be made by Clement and his staff. For a report to be nominated, it would have to pass an exacting quality control review process which evaluated it for accuracy, relevance and reliability.

U.S. Embassy Moscow ( Wikimedia Commons)

Sometime in the leadup to August 2016, this process was halted. Oleg Smolenkov was a controlled asset of the CIA. While he was given certain latitude on what information he could collect, generally speaking Smolenkov worked from an operations order sent to him by his CIA controllers which established priorities for intelligence collection based upon information provided by Smolenkov about what he could reasonably access. Before tasking Smolenkov, his CIA handlers would screen the request from an operational and counterintelligence perspective, conducting a risk-reward analysis that weighed the value of the intelligence being sought with the possibility of compromise. Only then would Smolenkov be cleared to collect the requested information.

It is not publicly known what prompted the report from Smolenkov which Brennan found so alarming. Was it received out of the blue, a target of opportunity which Smolenkov exploited? Was it based upon a specific tasking submitted by Smolenkov's CIA handlers in response to a tasking from above? Or was it a result of the intervention of the CIA director, who tasked Smolenkov outside normal channels? In any event, once Brennan created his special analytical unit, Smolenkov became his dedicated source. If Smolenko was in this for the money, as appears to be the case, he would have been motivated to come up with the "correct" answer to Brennan's tasking for information on Putin's role. By late 2016, Western media had made quite clear what kind of answer Brennan wanted.

Every intelligence report produced by a controlled asset is subjected to a counterintelligence review where it is examined for any evidence of red flags that could be indicative of compromise. One red flag is the issue of abnormal access. Smolenkov did not normally have direct contact with Putin, if ever. His intelligence reports would have been written from the perspective of the distant observer. His report about Putin's role in interfering in the 2016 election, however, represented a whole new level of access and trust. Under normal circumstances, a report exhibiting such tendency would be pulled aside for additional scrutiny; if the report was alarming enough, the CIA might order the agent to be subjected to a polygraph to ensure he had not been compromised.

This did not happen. Instead, Brennan took the extraordinary measure of sequestering the source from the rest of the Intelligence Community. He also confronted the head of the Russian FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, about the risks involved in interfering in U.S. elections.

Whether Brennan further tasked Smolenkov to collect on Putin is not known. Nor is it known whether Smolenkov produced more than that single report about Putin's alleged direct role in ordering the Russian intelligence services to intervene in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

Despite Brennan's extraordinary effort to keep the existence of a human source within the Russian Presidential Administration a closely-held secret, by December 2016 both The Washington Post and The New York Times began quoting their sources about the existence of a sensitive intelligence source close to the Russian president. The timing of these press leaks coincided with Smolensky being fired from his job working for the Presidential Administration; the method of firing came in the form of a secret decree. When the CIA found out, they desperately tried to convince Smolenkov to agree to extraction, fearing for his safety should he remain in Moscow. This Smolenkov allegedly refused to do, prompting the counterintelligence-minded within the CIA to become concerned that Brennan and his coterie of analysts had been taken for a ride by a Russian double agent.

Trump and Barr on Feb. 14, 2019. (Wikimedia Commons)

Smolenkov's firing occurred right before the Intelligence Community released its much-anticipated assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election . Like the special analytical unit created by Brennan to handle the intelligence about Putin ordering the Russian intelligence services to intervene in favor of Trump in the 2016 election, Brennan opted to produce the Russian interference assessment outside the normal channels. Usually, when the IC opts to produce an assessment, there is a formal process which has a national intelligence officer (NIO) from within the National Intelligence Council take the lead on coordinating the collection and assessment of all relevant intelligence. The NIO usually coordinates closely with the relevant Mission Centers to ensure no analytical stone was left unturned in the pursuit of the truth.

The 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was produced differently -- no Mission Center involvement, no NIO assigned, no peer review. Just Brennan's little band of sequestered analysts.

Smolenkov's information took top billing in the ICA, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections," published on Jan. 6, 2017. "We assess," the unclassified document stated, "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." Smolenkov's reporting appears to be the sole source for this finding.

The ICA went on to note, "We have high confidence in these judgments." According to the Intelligence Community's own definition, "high confidence'" generally indicates judgments based on high-quality information, and/or the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment. A "high confidence" judgment is not a fact or a certainty, however, and still carries a risk of being wrong.

The same day the ICA was published, Brennan, accompanied by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, met with President-elect Trump in Trump Tower, where he was briefed on the classified information behind the Russian ICA. Included in this briefing was the intelligence from "a top-secret source" close to Putin which sustained the finding of Putin's direct involvement.

Brennan had sold the Smolenkov reporting to both President Obama and President-elect Trump, along with the rest of the intelligence community, as "high-quality information." It was, at best, nothing more than uncorroborated rumor or, at worst, simple disinformation. This reporting, which was parroted by an unquestioning mainstream media that accepted it as fact, created an impression amongst the American public that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered and directed a Russian interference campaign during the 2016 election designed "to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible," according to the ICA.

As CIA director, Brennan understood very well the role played by intelligence in shaping the decisions of key policy makers, and the absolute need for those who brief the president and his key advisers to ensure only the highest quality information and derived assessments are briefed. In this, Brennan failed.

Coming in From the Cold

Tivat, Montenegro

After being fired from his position within the Presidential Administration, Smolenkov continued to live in Moscow, very much a free man. By this time he was the father of three children, his new wife having given birth to two daughters. Following Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017, Brennan resigned as CIA director. By May, Brennan was testifying before Congress about the issue of Russian interference. Increasingly, attention was being drawn to the existence of a highly-placed source near Putin, with both The New York Times and The Washington Post publishing surprisingly detailed reports.

Concerned that Smolenkov could be arrested by the Russians and, in doing so, have control over the narrative of Russian interference transfer to Moscow, the CIA once again approached Smolenkov to defect to the United States. This time the Russian agent agreed.

In July 2017, Smolenkov, accompanied by his wife and three children, travelled to Montenegro on vacation. They arrived in the resort city of Tivat, flying on a commercial air flight from Moscow. The CIA took control of the family a few days later, spiriting them away aboard a yacht that had been moored at the Tivat marina. Upon his arrival in the U.S., Smolenkov and his family were placed under the control of the CIA's resettlement unit.

According to the Russian media, Smolenkov's disappearance was discovered in September 2017. The FSB opened an investigation into the matter, initially suspecting foul play. Soon, however, the FSB reached a different conclusion -- that Smolenkov and his family had defected to the United States.

Normally a defector would be subjected to a debriefing, inclusive of a polygraph, to confirm that he or she had not been turned into a double agent. Smolenkov had, over the course of a decade of spying, accumulated a considerable amount of money which the CIA was holding in escrow. This money would be released to Smolenkov upon the successful completion of his debriefing. In the case of Smolenkov, however, there doesn't seem to have been a detailed, lengthy debriefing. His money was turned over to him. Sometime in June 2018, Smolenkov and his wife bought a home worth nearly $1 million in northern Virginia. The couple used their real names. They were not afraid.

I can only speculate as to the circumstances that led to Smolenkov's firing by secret decree. Normally, Russians charged with transmitting classified material to the intelligence services of a foreign state are arrested, placed on trial and given lengthy prison sentences, or worse. This did not happen to Smolenkov.

But this does not mean the Russian authorities were ignorant of his activities. This raises another possibility, that Smolenkov could have been turned by the Russian security services before he had compromised any classified information, and that he operated as a double agent his entire CIA career. Since the only classified information he transferred would, in this case, be approved for release by the Russian security services, he would not have technically committed a crime. If Smolenkov was working both sides, it could have been a Russian vehicle to create distrust between the U.S. intelligence community and Trump.

Smolenkov was fired, and left to his own devices, once his utility to Russia had expired. Having escaped being arrested as a spy, Smolenkov believed he might be able to live a normal life in Moscow. But when the potential for compromise arose due to leaks to the press, I assess that it was in the CIA's interest to bring Smolenkov in, if for no other reason than to control the narrative of Russian interference.

Three Scenarios

Old CIA building in Langely, Virginia.

There are three scenarios that could be at play regarding Smolenkov's bone fides as a human intelligence source for the CIA. First, that this was a solid recruitment, that Smolenkov was the high-level asset the CIA and Brennan claim he was, and the information he provided regarding the involvement of Putin was unimpeachable. Mitigating against this is the fact that when Smolenkov was fired from his position in late 2016, he was not arrested and put on trial for spying.

Russia is fully capable of conducting secret trials, and controlling the information that is made available about such a trial. Moreover, Russia is a vindictive state–persons who commit treason are not tolerated. As Putin himself noted in comments made in March 2018, "Traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me. These people betrayed their friends, their brothers in arms. Whatever they got in exchange for it, those thirty pieces silver they were given, they will choke on them." The odds of Smolenkov being fired for committing treason, and then being allowed to voluntarily exit Russia with his family and passports, are virtually nil.

The second scenario is a variation of the first, where Smolenkov starts as a solid recruitment, with his reporting commensurate with his known level of access–peripheral contact with documents and information pertaining to the work of the aide to President Putin on international relations. Sometime in July 2016 Smolenkov produces a report that catches the attention of DCI Brennan, who flags it and pulls Smolenkov out of the normal operational channels for CIA-controlled human sources, and instead creating a new, highly-compartmentalized fusion cell to handle this report, and possibly others.

Three questions emerge from the second scenario. First, was Smolenkov responding to an urgent tasking from Brennan to find out how high up the Russian chain of command went the knowledge of the alleged DNC cyber attack, or did Smolenkov produce this report on his own volition? Was Brennan arranging evidence to show that there was indeed a Russian hack. After all, all the FBI had to go by was a draft of a report by the virulently anti-Russian private security firm CrowdStrike. The FBI never examined the DNC server itself.

In any case, the Smolenkov report in the white envelope represented a level of access that would have significantly deviated from what one could expect from a person in his position and which suggests he may have been telling the CIA what he knew Brennan wanted to hear. As such, normal counterintelligence procedures should have mandated an operational pause while the intelligence report in question was scrubbed to ensure viability. Under no circumstances would a report so flagged be allowed to be put into the Presidential Daily Brief. However, by pulling the report from the control of the Europe and Eurasian Mission Center, turning it over to a stand-alone fusion cell, and bypassing the PDB process to brief the president and a handful of advisors, there would be no counterintelligence concerns raised. This implies that Brennan had a role in the tasking of Smolenkov, and was waiting for the report to come in, which Brennan then took control of to preclude any counter-intelligence red flags being raised.

The third scenario is that Smolenkov, a low-level failure of a diplomat with drinking issues, marital problems and monetary frustrations, was recruited by the CIA, but only with the complicity of the Russian security services.

The same red flags that the CIA looks for when recruiting agents are also looked at by Russian counterintelligence. At what point in the recruitment process the Russians stepped in is unknown (if they did at all.) But it is curious that this professional failure was suddenly transferred from running a co-op to being the right hand man of one of the most influential foreign policy experts in Russia–Yuri Ushakov.

Moreover, this muddling diplomat whose questionable behavioral practices scream "recruit me" is, within three years of returning to Moscow, given a significant promotion that enables him to follow Ushakov into the Presidential Administration–a posting which would require extensive vetting by the Russian security services. Smolenkov's promotion pattern is enough, in and of itself, to raise red flags within the counterintelligence offices tasked with monitoring such things. The fact that it did not indicates that the quality and quantity of reporting being provided by Smolenkov was deemed by the Americans too important to interfere with.

In this scenario, Smolenkov would have been playing to a script written by the Russian security services. Since he, technically, had broken no laws by serving as a double agent, he would not be subjected to arrest and trial. But once his existence became the fodder of the U.S. media via inference and speculation, his services as a double agent were no longer needed. He was fired from his position, via a secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live his life as he saw fit.

The most pressing question that emerges from this possibility is why? Why would the Russian security services want to cook the books, so to speak, in a manner which made the Russians look guilty of the very thing they were publicly denying?

In my view, if one assumes that the Smolenkov July 2016 report at the center of this drama was not a result of serendipity, but rather a product derived from a specific request from his CIA managers to find out how high up in the Russian decision-making chain the authorization went for what U.S. intelligence agencies were already publicly pushing as an alleged DNC cyber attack, then the answer I believe becomes clear–the Russians knew the U.S. had an intelligence deficit.

I am speculating here, but if the Russians provided an answer guaranteed to attract attention at a critical time in the U.S. presidential election process, it would inject the CIA and its reporting into the democratic processes of the United States, and thereby politicize the CIA and the entire intelligence community by default. This would suppose, however, that the agencies did not have their own motives for wanting to stop Trump.

Rogers, Comey, Clapper and Brennan all in a row.

In this scenario, the Russians would have been in control of when to expose the CIA's activities–all they had to do was fire Smolenkov, which in the end they did, right as Smolenkov's report was front and center in the post-election finger-pointing that was taking place regarding the allegation of Russian interference. The best acts of political sabotage are done subtlety, where the culprit remains in the shadows while the victims proceed, unaware that they have been played.

For the Russians, it didn't matter who won the election, even if they may have favored Trump; simply getting President Obama to commit to the bait by confronting Putin at the G20 meeting in September 2016 would have been a victory, because I assess that at that point the Russians knew that they were driving the American narrative. When the President of the United States acts on intelligence that later turns out to be false, it is an embarrassment that drives a wedge between the intelligence community and the Executive Branch of government. I have no solid evidence for this. But in my speculation on what may have happened, this was the Russian objective–to drive that wedge.

An Idyllic Truce

In my view, the CIA, Russia and Smolenkov were happy to maintain the status quo, with Smolenkov living in comfortable retirement with his family, the CIA continuing to accuse Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, and Russia denying it. As well, Russia seems to have brushed off the sanctions that resulted from this alleged "interference." This idyllic truce started to unravel in May 2019, when Trump ordered Attorney General William Barr to "get to the bottom" of what role the CIA played in initiating the investigation into allegations of collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians that led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller's investigation concluded earlier this year, with a 400-plus page report being published which did not find any evidence of active collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Trump's instructions to Barr are linked to a desire on the part of the president to hold to account those responsible for creating the narrative of possible collusion. Reports indicate that Barr is particularly interested in finding out how and why the CIA concluded that Putin personally ordered the Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Barr's investigation will inevitably lead him to the intelligence report that was hand couriered to the White House in early August 2016, which would in turn lead to Smolenkov, and in doing so open up the can of worms of Smolenkov's entire history of cooperation with the CIA. Not only could the entire foundation upon which the intelligence community has based its assessment of Russian interference collapse, it could also open the door for potential charges of criminal misconduct by Brennan and anyone else who helped him bypass normal vetting procedures and, in doing so, allowed a possible Russian double agent to influence the decisions of the president of the United States.

Seen in this light, the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the "exfiltration" of the CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by Brennan and his allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the truth.

At the end of the day, Smolenkov and his family are not at risk. If the Russian government wanted to exact revenge for his actions, it would have done so after firing him in late 2016. In any event, Smolenkov and his family would never have been allowed to leave Russia had he been suspected or accused of committing crimes against the state. A few days following Smolenkov's "outing" by the U.S. media, the Russian government filed a request with Interpol for an investigation into how someone who had gone missing in Montenegro was now living in the United States.

The only person at risk from this entire sordid affair is Brennan, whose reputation and potential livelihood is on the line. At best, Brennan is guilty of extremely poor judgement; at worst, he actively conspired to use the office of Director of the CIA to interfere in the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Neither option speaks well of the U.S. Intelligence Community and those in Congress charged with oversight of its operations.

Watch Scott Ritter discussing this article on CN Live! Episode 9 .

Consortium News does not necessarily endorse the views of its authors.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

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Linda Wood , September 17, 2019 at 00:34

Brennan may have written the white envelope report and attributed it to Smolenkov, who may or may not have been a double agent. The Russian interference story is not just something Brennan wanted to hear, it's what the military industrial complex needs us to believe.

Dan Anderson , September 16, 2019 at 22:09

I trust Scott Ritter. Had we listened to him, the USA would not have invaded Iraq over WMDs. Reading the piece added to my distrust of our intelligence community, remembering this haunting exchange on live TV.

  • January 3, 2017 – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you. So, even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he is being really dumb to do this."
  • Rachel Maddow: "What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated to?"
  • Schumer: "I don't know, but from what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them," -- The Rachel Maddow Show Jan 3, 2017

David G , September 16, 2019 at 18:32

I'm surprised Scott Ritter thinks it likely that Russia engineered the "Putin meddled" narrative – that just seems unbelievable to me. There are enough moving parts here that one doesn't have to commit to one of Ritter's three scenarios: numerous variations are possible. For instance, Smolenkov may have been fired for some mundane mix of reasons going to performance and reliability. He may have been considered dubious without Russian counterintelligence having fingered him as a U.S. agent.

And under the third scenario, with Smolenkov a double agent all along, Ritter writes: "But once his existence became the fodder of the U.S. media via inference and speculation, his services as a double agent were no longer needed. He was fired from his position, via a secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live his life as he saw fit."

That doesn't make sense to me. In fact I see the opposite: if he had been a successfully run double agent all that time, then when his usefulness had ended he would have been decently pensioned off – not simply cut loose to fend for himself – but *not* allowed to travel abroad unimpeded (with his whole family, no less) where he would have the opportunity to cause mischief.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , September 16, 2019 at 15:26

Were it not so powerful militarily and financially, the United States would be the laughingstock of the world. This entire business is just another avenue travelled in America's nonstop Russophobia lunatic wanderings. The DNC material was not hacked as a number of true experts have told us, including the key one now languishing in a British prison. Putin had no plan because nothing ever happened.

Nothing. And I think we've all seen that when Putin plans something, it happens. The article is interesting for its laying out of elaborate security procedures – kind of a high-level almost academic "police procedural" – but I do feel in the end it is not that helpful, much as I respect Mr Ritter.

When nothing has happened, it does seem a bit odd to scrutinize every piece of fiber and bit of dust and to construct a massive scenario of "what ifs."

Meanwhile, the murder of Seth Rich, a genuine and meaningful event, goes virtually uninvestigated.

No wonder you are in so much trouble, America, and no wonder you make so much trouble for others.

Anonymot , September 16, 2019 at 15:16

In the extremely sophisticated world of high grade intelligence I have repeatedly said that the Brennan, Clapper, Comey trio were lead-footed imbeciles. That has been the CIA tradition since Dulles left. All of those in our intelligence racket have led us to the trough of poisoned water and all of our Presidents drank. They have all become very rich, but not from book sales nor from consulting fees.

It says a lot about the entire echelon of those who decide our fates. There is no way to know whether it stems from ignorance or incompetence, but those with the Deep State mindset like each other, hire each other, and have been in some sort of daisy chain since university. We not only need to describe How it happens as this article does very well, but even more importantly Why. Only then can we start to do something about it, although it is probably far too late – it would be like taking the shell off of an egg and leaving that delicate interior membrane just inside the shell intact.

Clods like these (add the Clintons) should have their post-employment millions confiscated and put on trial.

JOHN CHUCKMAN , September 16, 2019 at 15:39

Sorry, but "Big Intelligence" is always a failure, and on many levels. It is not a matter of any "clods." It is a matter of the very nature of the institution and the nature of the people who use its output. The CIA only has a good record at doing bad things. I refer to its operations side and the havoc and violence they have released through the decades. It is an army of richly-equipped thugs without uniforms interfering in the business of others, "lying, cheating, and stealing."

The true intelligence side of things fails and always has to a great extent. https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/

jessika , September 16, 2019 at 15:11

I find it maddening that we "puppet proles" are treated like stupid fools, lied to constantly, and nothing happens to stop the mad lying/false flag garbage that keeps on. Now, today, after Bolton departure, out of the weirdness comes Pompous Pompeo spewing even worse madness that could tip "us" into attacking Iran! Saudis are insane, Netanyahu faces his electorate tomorrow, and we should believe MbS and cronies? Trump is nothing but a stooge!

Maricata , September 16, 2019 at 19:28

Read The CIA as Organized Crime and Strength of the Wolf and Strength of the Pack by Douglas Valentine.

Please, CN, have Mr. Valentine on your livc broadcast

Jeff Harrison , September 16, 2019 at 14:36

It occurs to me that this may have an inappropriate title. Plausibly Mr. Ritter has pegged what Smolenkov was eventually – a double agent. In which case I would probably call him pretty successful.

hetro , September 16, 2019 at 13:06

Also published yesterday, this Aaron Mate interview with John Kiriakou on Smolenkov:

"Kiriakou also notes that the way Smolenkov's intelligence was handled raises echoes of the CIA's manipulation of intelligence to help justify the Iraq war. The information from Smolenkov was handled personally by then-CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan reportedly sidelined other CIA analysts and kept the Smolenkov information out of the Presidential Daily Briefing – instead delivering it personally to President Obama and a small group of officials."

"That is a highly highly unusual thing to do, but I think [Brennan] did it because he knew that the source wasn't well placed, he knew that the source was lying about his access to Putin -- or information coming from Putin -- and I think that for whatever reason John Brennan really wanted the president to run with this narrative that the Russians were trying to somehow impact the 2016 election, when the intelligence just simply wasn't there," Kiriakou says.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/15/outing-of-cias-kremlin-mole-echoes-iraq-wmd-hoax/

dean 1000 , September 16, 2019 at 11:53

When Trump campaigned against the bloody foreign policies of the duopoly he was also campaigning against an out of control, coup making, drug running, blackmailing, imperial CIA. my comment to The Brennan wanted to 'get' Trump to save his own hide, the CIA, and the duopoly from further embarrassment.

If Smolenkov is missing from his Virginia home (Chancellor below at 9.15.19 at 23:40) hopefully he is in hiding to assure he can tell a Grand Jury about any instructions or suggestions he may have received from Brennan, or others regarding the election of Donald Trump.

Zhu , September 16, 2019 at 05:25

Re John 8:32, people forget Pilate's remark, "what is truth"?

Igor Bundy , September 16, 2019 at 04:29

The next report from the CIA will be from hogwarts and how the measter is concatenating a secret potion on how to turn dykes into donkeys.. This is especially impotent to the CIA and such.. to hide in plain sight..

Imagine them trying to make a bond movie from this. Or more of Bourne.. But now it makes sense of all the shows that show the CIA as protector of humanity and the good guys.. There are no righteous intelligence agencies anywhere, only how evil and their limits.. Why their powers should be limited and their actions also limited to a small sphere. Because where does it stop? Once given the power to shape reality, then the entire world is shaped according to a few with psychopathic tendencies. Which normal person would want to control everyone according to their own reality? When you cant control your very own family, you have to be one heck of a control freak to do it globally and to force everyone to do as told. But these are the dreams and aspirations of an ape.. To remake the world in his own image.. and the prize is the banana..

John Wright , September 16, 2019 at 15:11

More like a Le Carre' film. The CIA was originally sold as an intelligence gathering and analysis organization, and was not supposed to be involved in operations. Thus, it was founded on lies and the lies have only grown since.

Neither the CIA nor the FBI are salvageable at this point. They need to be abolished, their functions reconsidered and new institutions which adhere to the Constitution created. Of course, the entire military intelligence complex needs to be dismantled, starting with the DHS, but that will require a revolution in this country.

Perhaps after the crash

junaid , September 16, 2019 at 03:12

US President Donald Trump dismissed another official – National Security Advisor John Bolton. what threatens relations between the US and Russia What threatens relations between the US and Russia

Fran Macadam , September 16, 2019 at 01:49

Even the former communist state governments in Europe and the Soviet Union rued the day that they unleashed their secret police from accountability, and thereby became subservient to their power.

Chancellor , September 15, 2019 at 23:40

"But his job as foreman of the Rossotrudnichestvo coop was not the kind of job a Maurive (sic) Thorez graduate gets;"

Of course it isn't, because that was never really his job. My guess is that his real job all along was to be recruited by the CIA, when, in fact, he was always a double agent. The rumors that he drank too much, was dissatisfied with his pay, and so on, strike me as too obvious a come-on to an over-confident CIA. If Mr. Ritter knows that this is the type of individual the CIA looks for, then the Russian security services know this as well. After all, they tagged every American on the Moscow Station. Clearly, they have excellent tradecraft.

The final coup by the Russian security services was to create a situation where Smolenkov would have to be extracted by the CIA, although the Russians probably didn't think it would take so long. Now it appears that Smolenkov is missing from the Virginia home that he purchased openly under his own name. I wouldn't be surprised if he is living comfortably somewhere back in Russia–this time having been "extracted" by the Russians, since his cover as a CIA asset was finally blown.

Clearly this is speculation, but no more so than the scenarios Mr. Ritter posits.

Fabrizio Zambuto , September 16, 2019 at 14:11

Third scenario seems possible. He starts to drink, he shows how unsatisfied he is, knows Americans will target him.
Meanwhile he gets spoonfed the intel he will have to share with the CIA.

According to Lavrov, he was a employee with little access to the echelons.

Last but not least: Putin said traitors will be punished but they don't get killed, they're sent to Prison and handed years like Skripal which managed to go to UK thanks to a swap.

Overall I like the article but too much Hollywood in the story. Why was he fired?

John Wright , September 15, 2019 at 23:38

[The Chinese play Go, the Russians Chess and the Americans Poker (badly)]

I think it's pretty clear that Mr. Ritter's third scenario is the correct interpretation of the facts. I wouldn't even be surprised if the Russians surreptitiously got the U.S. media to out their double agent. Timing is everything, after all, and now he's Langley's problem to deal with.

The Russians know that the corrupt Anglo-American Deep State will work against any relationship which is beneficial to Russia, so they have absolutely nothing to lose by feeding the Deep State a narrative that can potentially wreak havoc within it.

Having Smolenkov feed this narrative into the bowels of the CIA clearly helped advance the Deep State's rather obvious operation to create the appearance of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, all the more reason for Brennan and company to swallow it hook, line and sinker.

So Deep State tool Obama bites on the interference narrative, confronts Putin and takes illegal actions that, if exposed, have the potential to seriously damage his legacy and the presidency. This plausible result would cause Americans to lose even more faith in their increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional government and affect world opinion.

We now see that if Barr actually does his job as mandated by the Constitution, then this becomes a very distinct possibility.

Had the rabid neocon Clinton won, her administration would've undoubtedly buried Obama's unconstitutional indiscretion, but fingerprints would've lingered for a future Republican to possibly uncover and cause chaos with. It's even possible that Smolenkov would've remained in place and continued to feed even more poisonous disinformation to the U.S. intelligence morass, setting Clinton up for who knows what.

However, the unstable, narcissistic and easily played Trump miraculously wins. He's immediately and continuously hit with RussiaGate. Trump reacts predictably by fanning the flames of distraction when he calls out the Deep State and keeps punching back. The Executive Branch is divided against itself, Congress and the electorate are further polarized and a significant amount of energy is tied up with unproductive domestic political machinations.

Almost three years of noise and crisis worked to increase Trump's natural dysfunction while the Russians and Chinese quietly manage their coordinated effort to transform the global power structure in their favor.

Will this Russian gift keep on giving?

Will Barr, or someone else if Trump fires him, dig into the entire RussiaGate mess and expose all the lies and blatant illegality potentially causing a serious national crisis, further damaging the reputation and credit worthiness of the U.S. ?

Or will Barr remain a faithful Deep State fixer, convince Trump that taking down Obama would not be good for the economic health of the country (and his re-election), and carefully steer everything he can down the memory hole?

Are those vodka glasses I hear clinking in Beijing?

[I'm just left wondering who will produce the deliciously embarrassing (to the U.S.) film that this would make.]

Taras77 , September 15, 2019 at 19:42

Remarkable detail on the recruitment and control of agents by the CIA. In this case, it would appear that Brennan has been played big time. IMO, to see Smolenkov walk away with his loot in the bank, there can not be any other conclusion.

Hence, the obvious panic by brennan to use the likely suspects, NYT and wapo, to cast more haze on the story. If there were treason, I doubt Smolenkov would be walking because the Russians do not take that lightly. Actually, they have acted and are acting with competence and confidence in the face of the bumbling, fumbling bombast and threats of the group around trump which passes themselves off as diplomats and security advisors.

Brennan in his obsession to interfere with the political process prob contributed to his malfeasance and a possible crime-I am no legal expert but it certainly seems that he committed crimes.

Of course, this raises the question as to whether barr et al will act accordingly and bring him to justice-I have strong doubts about barr taking on the cia as they will certainly close ranks to protect him. My doubts about barr, however, go well beyond this particular issue vis-a-vis the cia.

SilentPartner , September 15, 2019 at 18:58

I suspect Scott was provided a great deal of the reporting in this fascinating article from a disgruntled insider, or former insider. Knowledge of Brennan's break with protocol to form a select 'stand alone fusion cell' that reported only to him is something that I haven't seen reported before. In any case this story adds another red flag to the entire Russiagate hoax.

Just as Mueller failed to interview Julian Assange or Christopher Steele for his report -- obvious red flags -- we should now watch the conduct of Barr's investigation. Will Barr's investigators interview Smolenkov? This should be an important metric to determine how serious his investigation is. Another metric for Barr will be whether Ghislaine Maxwell is indicted and arrested in the Jefferey Epstein affair. If not, we will soon know just how deep goes the corruption of the ruling class.

Sam F , September 15, 2019 at 18:28

Many thanks to Scott Ritter for this information and cogent argument.

However it is not clear how Russia would expect to benefit by allowing Smolenkov to deceive the CIA that Putin directly ordered interference in the US election. While later discrediting of the US "Russia-gate" nonsense would make the US IC look bad, it is unclear that this could be done, and it would have been done by now to reduce political tensions, but still has not been done. Putin himself denied the accusations as nonsense.

So something is missing: if that was not the plan, Smolenkov was not asked to do that, and he would not have been viewed as harmless when fired for that. If he had other incriminating info on decision makers there, he would not have been allowed to leave, and having escaped, he would have concealed his new location. Perhaps his superiors ill-advisedly asked him to make false statements, for which he was not blamed.

Anon , September 16, 2019 at 07:09

I agree. The logic of "embarrassing" the CIA and dividing them from the president by passing inflammatory information seems a stretch. On the other hand, I agree there do appear a number of "red flags."

I'm wondering about the merit of the idea that this guy cooked up the story himself, though I'm not sure that works either. It just seems to me something is missing.

Ojkelly , September 16, 2019 at 12:00

I thought the idea was that a Brennan minion planted or asked for the "Putin is interfering " report, or even made it up and attributed it to a minor asset.

Brendan , September 15, 2019 at 15:00

( ) the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the "exfiltration" of the CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by Brennan and his allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the truth.

That's very likely to be true, but I think there's more to it than just getting Brennan's version of events published before anyone elses. If you want to implant your narrative in the public's mind it certainly does help to get your story out first, but in this case there's an additional motive for leaking the spy story.

One effect of the leak was that Smolenko suddenly disappeared. His family apparently fled their house in a hurry, leaving belongings lying around according to media reports.

Normally the CIA would never 'out' a valued asset, even a used one, because that would discourage potential informers. And CNN and the NYT would not reveal details that would identify a Russian defector – as happened in this case when Russian Kommersant identified Smolenkov. American mainstream media would first check that it was OK to publish those details.

This looks far too unusual to be simply a result of incompetence by Americans. A much better explanation is that some powerful people were really desperate to make Smolenko disappear. And the reason is that he knew too much. And now he has gone into hiding, supposedly to escape vengeance from Putin. What is most significant is that he does not face as many questions about his role in Russiagate.

Abe , September 15, 2019 at 14:31

As far as spying is concerned, "a different set of calculations" prevails under Trump
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/israel-white-house-spying-devices-1491351

The Blue Fairy , September 16, 2019 at 00:57

A general search for Intel on google doesn't yield an abundance of articles that mention its move to Israel in 1974, but I discovered it when the Spectre/Meltdown (intentional Israeli processor security flaws, I mean "features") became known in 2018. "Nothing is ever impossible, in this life" except for a computer that's not infested with the US-Israeli partnership. We are also not surprised that Intel was not on Donald Trump's list of American companies to bring back to the US.

Mike from Jersey , September 15, 2019 at 14:23

Good article. This is the kind of analysis you will not find in the New York Times or the Washington Post. This is why I come to the Consortium News.

hetro , September 15, 2019 at 13:46

If I'm following properly, the white paper from Smolenkov is at the heart of the January 6, 2017, "assessments" that the case would be made–Trump as dupe of Putin.

Recall, too, that these "assessments" differed. Brennan's and Comey's were "high"; Clapper's was "moderate."

And, as Scott Ritter points out, they were "estimates" not based on hard proof; they were essentially "guesses."

Why the discrepancy? (Related: William Binney says this "moderate" from Clapper means the NSA knows Russia did not hack the DNC.)

I think this discrepancy question is important. How could a (supposedly) verifiable report via white paper from a verifiable double agent Smolenkov be anything but a slam dunk (unanimous) "high" for the major intelligence agencies?

The other question is Scott's WHY the Russian intelligence apparatus, with Putin complicit, would set out to embarrass the US intelligence agencies with a cooked up story–that made Putin look bad?

Of course, they could not know back at that time how the story would cook and proliferate across US mainstream media with all the glee of Russia-bashing run amok and its TDS.

This view would also suggest a belief that somewhere in the US justice system was the integrity to dig everything out and expose the fraud.

nwwoods , September 15, 2019 at 17:56

I believe that it was NSA which declared "moderate confidence", so no, not Clapper. Clapper, in my opinion, was in on the gambit, a witting confederate of ringleader Brennan.

hetro , September 16, 2019 at 11:30

Yes. Technically Clapper resigned as head of the NSA in 2016, and it was Mike Rogers, the new head in 2017 who declared the assessment "moderate." Clapper had been involved with Brennan and Comey in forming the January 6, 2017 assessment.

https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-is-right-to-doubt-the-obama-intelligence-communitys-claims/

The question still remains: why the discrepancy in this "assessment" at the very beginning of Trump's presidency, with its powerful impact.

JP McEvoy , September 15, 2019 at 12:33

One thing is for sure, if anything bad happens to the mole, it's won't be the Russians who did it. Watch your back Mr. Skrip – er – I mean Smolenkov.

Robert Emmett , September 15, 2019 at 11:25

Damn! Please allow me to toss the "curveball" too. What's that? The real one or the fake, you say? Ha ha. Yes, exactly! O, Vaunted sacred screed of PDB where the truth shall set you free to prime the pump with lies. (hint: to spare your soul don't look into their eyes)

I haven't exactly been able to figure out what's wrong with Brennan's face, 'til I just got it. He's been double-yoked! His own plus Barrack's (truer sp.). Egg that just won't wash off! So you have to wear it everywhere, every day. Talk about serviceable villains hiding in plain sight. Hey, Clapper! Don't get any on ya! Haha. Too late!

Carroll Price , September 15, 2019 at 10:43

Another example of checker champions competing with chess masters.

CortesKid , September 15, 2019 at 10:33

Brilliant and thorough. As I was reading Mr. Ritter's analysis, an overwhelming impression was building, analogous to the third scenario, that Smolenkov , indeed, was a lure perfectly placed to catch an intelligence agency or three. As I've watched and read many Russian official's communications, especially their diplomatic efforts, it has become obvious to me that, on average, they are some of the few "adults in the room." In broadstrokes, they are playing chess, while the whole of the West, with its increasingly senile elites, is at the Checkers table.

And in even broader strokes, I believe that at the heart of all of these shenanigans, is a foundational turning away from a matured-and-deflating West, to an energized and expanding Eurasia (Brezhinki's nightmare). As you know, changes on the scale of hegemon are never easy. "Dying empires don't lay down, they double-down."

And I don't necessarily think Smolenkov and family are safe–from, for instance, "Novichok" delivered via some American ally's secret service–as a pretense for further demonization of Russia.

Brendan , September 15, 2019 at 07:51

Sorry but the theory that's proposed above is a bit too convoluted to be believable – that Russia manipulated the CIA with the fake hacking story from Smolenkov and then the CIA chief Brennan used it to manipulate Obama who then unwittingly revealed to Putin that the USA was fooled by the story.

I'd rather follow Occam's razor and go for a simpler scenario. Brennan and the CIA persuaded Smolenkov to invent the story (that he had inside knowledge that Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC).

Not only that, but Obama suspected that the story was fake, since it was passed on to him outside the normal channels and was investigated in a similar unconventional way. It's hard to believe that Obama was easily hoodwinked and simply accepted the story as fact without any convincing evidence.

The Democratic Party's fingerprints are all over the Russiagate story. The DNC commissioned the Steele dossier and Steele met officials in the Obama administration's State Department before the 2016 election. We're expected to believe that this all went on behind President Obama's back.

We're also expected to believe that Obama innocently believed Smolenkov's report, as if the CIA and FBI would never tell a lie. He's not completely stupid – at the very least he must have had serious doubts about the allegations, or he could even have been in on the Russiagate fabrication himself.

Maricata , September 16, 2019 at 19:34

It is more and more difficult to ascertain reality from fantasy, certainty from assumptions. And this all plays into the hands of the ruling elites and their international and national pratorean guards.

Americans do not ask questions. They prefer to believe than to know and thus the {swirl} will yield nothing.

F. G. Sanford , September 15, 2019 at 07:05

Putin must surely have smirked. The little white envelope worked.
The debate made it plain he had pulled Brennan's chain,
And behind the scene subterfuge lurked!

Only four people went to the meeting. Connections might prove rather fleeting.
The "puppet" rebuke at the time seemed a fluke,
No one dared claim that Clinton was cheating!

Brennan's confidence level was high. He had sources and methods to spy.
He had top secret stuff that he claimed was enough,
But no evidence he'd specify!

Then Clinton claimed Russian subversion. In retrospect, not a diversion.
She must have been tipped by somebody loose lipped,
And she ran with the Putin incursion!

Strzok and Page were kept out of the loop. They didn't get insider poop.
They found no 'there' there, Comey's cupboard looked bare,
Brennan's spy had not yet flown the coop.

The durable lie picked up traction. Their spook would require extraction.
How could Clinton be sure that the blame would endure,
And the Steele Dossier would get action?

The 'Agent in Place' was a double. He didn't get in any trouble.
Hillary's pride had some hubris to hide,
In the end it would burst Brennan's bubble!

The big secret meeting was leaked. On the stage, "He's a puppet!" she shrieked.
Perhaps Susan Rice was inclined to be nice,
And her duty to Hillary peaked!

So now, they blame Trump for the outing. But it's over except for the shouting.
The 'insurance' is void, the illusion destroyed,
And poor Hillary just keeps on pouting!

David Otness , September 14, 2019 at 23:41

Scott -- so glad I got the head's-up on this via the CN Live show. I just now finished it and am putting it into perspective. Well-researched, and well-written -- it's truly a web so very reminiscent of what should have remained Cold War 1.0 finis.

And Episode Nine of CN Live is showing us where this internet platform can go with the assembled experience and talent exhibited. The tech glitches were too bad, but the audio was quite good enough.

Thanks for this travel guide to the heart of the labyrinth. Hopefully good things come of it. I do worry about Barr's too many allegiances to his CIA incubator though, especially with all of the ongoing coverups of the Epstein fiasco (engineered or not,) that complicate and obfuscate the twin scandals that both end up under Barr's purview.

Ya done good, nonetheless. Thank you.

Abe , September 14, 2019 at 22:07

"After the U.S. reports came out, an anonymous, well-informed Russian Telegram channel, The Ruthless PR Guy, reported that the asset was Kremlin official Oleg Smolenkov. On Tuesday (10 September 2019] morning, the Moscow daily Kommersant published a story confirming that it was him based on anonymous sources and some pretty convincing circumstantial evidence. [ ]

"If Smolenkov was a spy, he could have delivered important insights about Russia's foreign policy thinking and planning to U.S. intelligence. But if he was the source for the U.S. intelligence community's certainty that Putin personally orchestrated a covert interference campaign, that certainty rests on a weak foundation. Smolenkov served the wrong boss in the Kremlin to get reliable information about such ventures."

Was this man the prized US asset in the Kremlin? By Leonid Bershidsky http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0919/bershidsky091119.php3#Asy3R8hJ2mAQPm1y.99

Ojkelly , September 14, 2019 at 22:01

Mr Ritter, Very lightly done. " Curveball made me do it" is the defense.
Brennan, well,I am not knowledgeable , but tight with Barry, unprofessional to my view, has an issue. He made the most outrageous statements, Commander believing his own BS, NYT magazine. Imagine going around saying that Trump was a Russian agent . Did incomparable harm.And Morrell endorsing Hillary Clinton :beyond the pale , Professional members of the agency must've been? Shocked appalled, whatever.

Jeff Harrison , September 14, 2019 at 21:52

Whooof! Obviously the MSM won't touch any of this stuff. I also don't have a lot of confidence in the US government's ability to clean up the mess it has made. Amusingly, I've watched the US's ham handed operations around the world and wondered when somebody would return the complement. If Mr. Ritter is to be believed, it seems the Russians have started. As Mr. Lawrence pointed out on CN live, Americans need to dispense with the notion that we are exceptional. That's a weakness as it leads to complacency. How many more bricks of trust in our government will we have to see broken before the entire edifice collapses? I would also like to point out that we wouldn't be having these kind of problems if we weren't hell bent on being the global hegemon.

Clark M Shanahan , September 14, 2019 at 22:54

"If Mr. Ritter is to be believed"
Jeffrey, I've followed Mr Ritter.
You can believe what he is stating, he's a good man.

he follows soon, here w/G. Galloway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutNHIj2nU8

Clark M Shanahan , September 15, 2019 at 08:46

my bad: Ritter starts at 48 minutes, before Nixon & Maupin

Jeff Harrison , September 15, 2019 at 17:43

I'm hip, Clark. I said that simply because I have no other collaborating commentary. Ritter had my vote when he stood up to Shrub over Iraq's WMDs. But you do have to keep the realization that you could be wrong so if Mr. Ritter is to be believed. I think that the odds that Ritter is wrong are in the general vicinity of the odds that the US will start acting like a normal nation.

[Sep 15, 2019] How the UK Security Services neutralised the country s leading liberal newspaper by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis

Highly recommended!
Essentially neoliberal MSM were hijacked. Which was easy to do. The current anti-Russian campaign is conducted under the direct guidance of MI6 and similar agencies
Notable quotes:
"... committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it." ..."
"... These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media". ..."
"... "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story." ..."
"... The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies. ..."
"... The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen". ..."
"... But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member". ..."
"... The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing. ..."
"... In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article. ..."
"... The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files." ..."
"... Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004". ..."
"... The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again. ..."
"... The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law." ..."
"... A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian." ..."
"... The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM ..."
Jan 01, 2019 | dailymaverick.co.za

The Guardian, Britain's leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the 'security state', according to newly released documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.

The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.

Snowden's bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of mass surveillance operated by both agencies.

According to minutes of meetings of the UK's Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence.

" This event was very concerning because at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the [committee] before publishing the first tranche of information," state minutes of a 7 November 2013 meeting at the MOD.

The DSMA Committee, more commonly known as the D-Notice Committee, is run by the MOD, where it meets every six months. A small number of journalists are also invited to sit on the committee. Its stated purpose is to "prevent inadvertent public disclosure of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations". It can issue "notices" to the media to encourage them not to publish certain information.

The committee is currently chaired by the MOD's director-general of security policy Dominic Wilson, who was previously director of security and intelligence in the British Cabinet Office. Its secretary is Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds OBE, who describes himself as an "accomplished, senior ex-military commander with extensive experience of operational level leadership".

The D-Notice system describes itself as voluntary , placing no obligations on the media to comply with any notice issued. This means there should have been no need for the Guardian to consult the MOD before publishing the Snowden documents.

Yet committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it."

' Considerable efforts'

These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media".

Clearly the committee did not want its issuing of the notice to be publicised, and it was nearly successful. Only the right-wing blog Guido Fawkes made it public.

At the time, according to the committee minutes , the "intelligence agencies in particular had continued to ask for more advisories [i.e. D-Notices] to be sent out". Such D-Notices were clearly seen by the intelligence services not so much as a tool to advise the media but rather a way to threaten it not to publish further Snowden revelations.

One night, amidst the first Snowden stories being published, the D-Notice Committee's then-secretary Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance personally called Alan Rusbridger, then editor of The Guardian. Vallance "made clear his concern that The Guardian had failed to consult him in advance before telling the world", according to a Guardian journalist who interviewed Rusbridger.

Later in the year, Prime Minister David Cameron again used the D-Notice system as a threat to the media.

" I don't want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or the other tougher measures," he said in a statement to MPs. "I think it's much better to appeal to newspapers' sense of social responsibility. But if they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."

The threats worked. The Press Gazette reported at the time that "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story."

The Guardian, however, remained uncowed.

According to the committee minutes , the fact The Guardian would not stop publishing "undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system's future usefulness". If the D-Notice system could not prevent The Guardian publishing GCHQ's most sensitive secrets, what was it good for?

It was time to rein in The Guardian and make sure this never happened again.

GCHQ and laptops

The security services ratcheted up their "considerable efforts" to deal with the exposures. On 20 July 2013, GCHQ officials entered The Guardian's offices at King's Cross in London, six weeks after the first Snowden-related article had been published. At the request of the government and security services, Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent three hours destroying the laptops containing the Snowden documents.

The Guardian staffers, according to one of the newspaper's reporters, brought "angle-grinders, dremels – drills with revolving bits – and masks". The reporter added, "The spy agency provided one piece of hi-tech equipment, a 'degausser', which destroys magnetic fields and erases data."

Johnson claims that the destruction of the computers was "purely a symbolic act", adding that "the government and GCHQ knew, because we had told them, that the material had been taken to the US to be shared with the New York Times. The reporting would go on. The episode hadn't changed anything."

Yet the episode did change something. As the D-Notice Committee minutes for November 2013 outlined: "Towards the end of July [as the computers were being destroyed], The Guardian had begun to seek and accept D-Notice advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details and since then the dialogue [with the committee] had been reasonable and improving."

The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies.

The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen".

Moreover, he added , there were now "regular dialogues between the secretary and deputy secretaries and Guardian journalists". Rusbridger later testified to the Home Affairs Committee that Air Vice-Marshal Vallance of the D-Notice committee and himself "collaborated" in the aftermath of the Snowden affair and that Vallance had even "been at The Guardian offices to talk to all our reporters".

But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member".

At some point in 2013 or early 2014, Johnson – the same deputy editor who had smashed up his newspaper's computers under the watchful gaze of British intelligence agents – was approached to take up a seat on the committee. Johnson attended his first meeting in May 2014 and was to remain on it until October 2018 .

The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing.

A new editor

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger withstood intense pressure not to publish some of the Snowden revelations but agreed to Johnson taking a seat on the D-Notice Committee as a tactical sop to the security services. Throughout his tenure, The Guardian continued to publish some stories critical of the security services.

But in March 2015, the situation changed when the Guardian appointed a new editor, Katharine Viner, who had less experience than Rusbridger of dealing with the security services. Viner had started out on fashion and entertainment magazine Cosmopolitan and had no history in national security reporting. According to insiders, she showed much less leadership during the Snowden affair than Janine Gibson in the US (Gibson was another candidate to be Rusbridger's successor).

Viner was then editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia, which was launched just two weeks before the first Snowden revelations were published. Australia and New Zealand comprise two-fifths of the so-called "Five Eyes" surveillance alliance exposed by Snowden.

This was an opportunity for the security services. It appears that their seduction began the following year.

In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article.

The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files."

Parker told the two reporters, "We recognise that in a changing world we have to change too. We have a responsibility to talk about our work and explain it."

Four months after the MI5 interview, in March 2017, the Guardian published another unprecedented "exclusive", this time with Alex Younger, the sitting chief of MI6, Britain's external intelligence agency. This exclusive was awarded by the Secret Intelligence Service to The Guardian's investigations editor, Nick Hopkins, who had been appointed 14 months previously.

The interview was the first Younger had given to a national newspaper and was again softball. Titled "MI6 returns to 'tapping up' in an effort to recruit black and Asian officers", it focused almost entirely on the intelligence service's stated desire to recruit from ethnic minority communities.

" Simply, we have to attract the best of modern Britain," Younger told Hopkins. "Every community from every part of Britain should feel they have what it takes, no matter what their background or status."

Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004".

None of this featured in The Guardian article, which did, however, cover discussions of whether the James Bond actor Daniel Craig would qualify for the intelligence service. "He would not get into MI6," Younger told Hopkins.

More recently, in August 2019, The Guardian was awarded yet another exclusive, this time with Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer. This was Basu's " first major interview since taking up his post" the previous year and resulted in a three-part series of articles, one of which was entitled "Met police examine Vladimir Putin's role in Salisbury attack".

The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again.

What, if any, private conversations have taken place between Viner and the security services during her tenure as editor are not known. But in 2018, when Paul Johnson eventually left the D-Notice Committee, its chair, the MOD's Dominic Wilson, praised Johnson who, he said, had been "instrumental in re-establishing links with The Guardian".

Decline in critical reporting

Amidst these spoon-fed intelligence exclusives, Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian's celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations.

One well-placed source told the Press Gazette at the time that journalists on the investigations team "have not felt backed by senior editors over the last year", and that "some also feel the company has become more risk-averse in the same period".

In the period since Snowden, The Guardian has lost many of its top investigative reporters who had covered national security issues, notably Shiv Malik, Nick Davies, David Leigh, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen MacAskill and Ian Cobain. The few journalists who were replaced were succeeded by less experienced reporters with apparently less commitment to exposing the security state. The current defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, started at The Guardian as head of media and technology and has no history of covering national security.

" It seems they've got rid of everyone who seemed to cover the security services and military in an adversarial way," one current Guardian journalist told us.

Indeed, during the last two years of Rusbridger's editorship, The Guardian published about 110 articles per year tagged as MI6 on its website. Since Viner took over, the average per year has halved and is decreasing year by year.

" Effective scrutiny of the security and intelligence agencies -- epitomised by the Snowden scoops but also many other stories -- appears to have been abandoned," a former Guardian journalist told us. The former reporter added that, in recent years, it "sometimes seems The Guardian is worried about upsetting the spooks."

A second former Guardian journalist added: "The Guardian no longer seems to have such a challenging relationship with the intelligence services, and is perhaps seeking to mend fences since Snowden. This is concerning, because spooks are always manipulative and not always to be trusted."

While some articles critical of the security services still do appear in the paper, its "scoops" increasingly focus on issues more acceptable to them. Since the Snowden affair, The Guardian does not appear to have published any articles based on an intelligence or security services source that was not officially sanctioned to speak.

The Guardian has, by contrast, published a steady stream of exclusives on the major official enemy of the security services, Russia, exposing Putin, his friends and the work of its intelligence services and military.

In the Panama Papers leak in April 2016, which revealed how companies and individuals around the world were using an offshore law firm to avoid paying tax, The Guardian's front-page launch scoop was authored by Luke Harding, who has received many security service tips focused on the "Russia threat", and was titled "Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin".

Three sentences into the piece, however, Harding notes that "the president's name does not appear in any of the records" although he insists that "the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage".

There was a much bigger story in the Panama Papers which The Guardian chose to downplay by leaving it to the following day. This concerned the father of the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, who "ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork".

We understand there was some argument between journalists about not leading with the Cameron story as the launch splash. Putin's friends were eventually deemed more important than the Prime Minister of the country where the paper published.

Getting Julian Assange

The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010.

One 2017 story came from investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who writes for The Guardian's sister paper The Observer, titled "When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange". This concerned the visit of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage to the Ecuadorian embassy in March 2017, organised by the radio station LBC, for whom Farage worked as a presenter. Farage's producer at LBC accompanied Farage at the meeting, but this was not mentioned by Cadwalladr.

Rather, she posited that this meeting was "potentially a channel of communication" between WikiLeaks, Farage and Donald Trump, who were all said to be closely linked to Russia, adding that these actors were in a "political alignment" and that " WikiLeaks is, in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything".

Yet Cadwalladr's one official on-the-record source for this speculation was a "highly placed contact with links to US intelligence", who told her, "When the heat is turned up and all electronic communication, you have to assume, is being intensely monitored, then those are the times when intelligence communication falls back on human couriers. Where you have individuals passing information in ways and places that cannot be monitored."

It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to undermine Assange.

In 2018, however, The Guardian's attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began on 18 May 2018 with one alleging Assange's "long-standing relationship with RT", the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been closely documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.

One story, co-authored again by Luke Harding, claimed that "Russian diplomats held secret talks in London with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, The Guardian has learned". The former consul in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at this time, Fidel Narvaez, vigorously denies the existence of any such "escape plot" involving Russia and is involved in a complaint process with The Guardian for insinuating he coordinated such a plot.

This apparent mini-campaign ran until November 2018, culminating in a front-page splash , based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy with Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

This "scoop" failed all tests of journalistic credibility since it would have been impossible for anyone to have entered the highly secured Ecuadorian embassy three times with no proof. WikiLeaks and others have strongly argued that the story was manufactured and it is telling that The Guardian has since failed to refer to it in its subsequent articles on the Assange case. The Guardian, however, has still not retracted or apologised for the story which remains on its website.

The "exclusive" appeared just two weeks after Paul Johnson had been congratulated for "re-establishing links" between The Guardian and the security services.

The string of Guardian articles, along with the vilification and smear stories about Assange elsewhere in the British media, helped create the conditions for a deal between Ecuador, the UK and the US to expel Assange from the embassy in April. Assange now sits in Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he faces extradition to the US, and life in prison there, on charges under the Espionage Act.

Acting for the establishment

Another major focus of The Guardian's energies under Viner's editorship has been to attack the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

The context is that Corbyn appears to have recently been a target of the security services. In 2015, soon after he was elected Labour leader, the Sunday Times reported a serving general warning that "there would be a direct challenge from the army and mass resignations if Corbyn became prime minister". The source told the newspaper: "The Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that."

On 20 May 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2017 General Election, the Daily Telegraph was fed the story that "MI5 opened a file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his links to the IRA". It formed part of a Telegraph investigation claiming to reveal "Mr Corbyn's full links to the IRA" and was sourced to an individual "close to" the MI5 investigation, who said "a file had been opened on him by the early nineties".

The Metropolitan Police Special Branch was also said to be monitoring Corbyn in the same period.

Then, on the very eve of the General Election, the Telegraph gave space to an article from Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of MI6, under a headline: "Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to this nation. At MI6, which I once led, he wouldn't clear the security vetting."

Further, in September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources told The Times that Corbyn had been "summoned" for a "'facts of life' talk on terror" by MI5 chief Andrew Parker.

Just two weeks after news of this private meeting was leaked by the government, the Daily Mail reported another leak, this time revealing that "Jeremy Corbyn's most influential House of Commons adviser has been barred from entering Ukraine on the grounds that he is a national security threat because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin's 'global propaganda network'."

The article concerned Andrew Murray, who had been working in Corbyn's office for a year but had still not received a security pass to enter the UK parliament. The Mail reported, based on what it called "a senior parliamentary source", that Murray's application had encountered "vetting problems".

Murray later heavily suggested that the security services had leaked the story to the Mail. "Call me sceptical if you must, but I do not see journalistic enterprise behind the Mail's sudden capacity to tease obscure information out of the [Ukrainian security service]," he wrote in the New Statesman. He added, "Someone else is doing the hard work – possibly someone being paid by the taxpayer. I doubt if their job description is preventing the election of a Corbyn government, but who knows?"

Murray told us he was approached by the New Statesman after the story about him being banned from Ukraine was leaked. "However," he added, "I wouldn't dream of suggesting anything like that to The Guardian, since I do not know any journalists still working there who I could trust."

The Guardian itself has run a remarkable number of news and comment articles criticising Corbyn since he was elected in 2015 and the paper's clearly hostile stance has been widely noted .

Given its appeal to traditional Labour supporters, the paper has probably done more to undermine Corbyn than any other. In particular, its massive coverage of alleged widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has helped to disparage Corbyn more than other smears carried in the media.

The Guardian and The Observer have published hundreds of articles on "Labour anti-Semitism" and, since the beginning of this year, carried over 50 such articles with headlines clearly negative to Corbyn. Typical headlines have included " The Observer view: Labour leadership is complicit in anti-Semitism ", " Jeremy Corbyn is either blind to anti-Semitism – or he just doesn't care ", and " Labour's anti-Semitism problem is institutional. It needs investigation ".

The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law."

Analysis of two YouGov surveys, conducted in 2015 and 2017, shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters declined substantially in the first two years of Corbyn's tenure and that such views were significantly more common among Conservative voters.

Despite this, since January 2016, The Guardian has published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-Semitism, an average of around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles. In the same period, The Guardian published just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party's much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example, found that nearly half of the Tory Party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister.

At the same time, some stories which paint Corbyn's critics in a negative light have been suppressed by The Guardian. According to someone with knowledge of the matter, The Guardian declined to publish the results of a months-long critical investigation by one of its reporters into a prominent anti-Corbyn Labour MP, citing only vague legal issues.

In July 2016, one of this article's authors emailed a Guardian editor asking if he could pitch an investigation about the first attempt by the right-wing of the Labour Party to remove Corbyn, informing The Guardian of very good inside sources on those behind the attempt and their real plans. The approach was rejected as being of no interest before a pitch was even sent.

A reliable publication?

On 20 May 2019, The Times newspaper reported on a Freedom of Information request made by the Rendition Project, a group of academic experts working on torture and rendition issues, which showed that the MOD had been "developing a secret policy on torture that allows ministers to sign off intelligence-sharing that could lead to the abuse of detainees".

This might traditionally have been a Guardian story, not something for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times. According to one civil society source, however, many groups working in this field no longer trust The Guardian.

A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian."

The Times published its scoop under a strong headline , "Torture: Britain breaks law in Ministry of Defence secret policy". However, before the article was published, the MOD fed The Guardian the same documents The Times were about to splash with, believing it could soften the impact of the revelations by telling its side of the story.

The Guardian posted its own article just before The Times, with a headline that would have pleased the government: "MoD says revised torture guidance does not lower standards".

Its lead paragraph was a simple summary of the MOD's position: "The Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath of a series of scandals following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." However, an inspection of the documents showed this was clearly disinformation.

The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM

The Guardian did not respond to a request for comment.

Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the authors of this article – in November 2019.

Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist and co-founder of Declassified . He was previously director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and before that a reporter for the Financial Times in the US and UK. He is the author of two books, Irregular Army and The Racket .

Mark Curtis is a leading UK foreign policy analyst, journalist and the author of six books including Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World and Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam .

[Sep 11, 2019] John Brennan's and Jim Clappers' Last Gasp by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
The fact that Smolenkov purchased house on his name excludes his "extraction" to the USA. He probably legally emigrated amazing some serious money in Russia
Notable quotes:
"... [Smolenkov] follows Ushakov back to Moscow, where he is a mid-level paper pusher doing administrative support for Ushakov. The CIA gets copies of Putin's itineraries that Smolenkov photographs. He is a big hit, but ultimately produces nothing of vital importance because all truly sensitive information is hand carried by principles, and never seen by administrative staff. Moreover Ushakov advises on international relations, and would not be privy to anything dealing with intelligence. Ushakov, as a long-serving Ambassador to the US, would be asked by Putin to opine on US politics. Smolenkov has access to Ushakov's post-meeting verbal comments, which he turns over to the CIA. ..."
"... The initial reports of the Steele Dossier appeared in June 2016. This coincided with John Brennan ordering Moscow Station to turn up the heat on Smolenkov to gain access to what Putin is thinking. But Smolenkov has no real direct access. Instead, he starts fabricating and/or exaggerating his access to convince his CIA handler that he is on the job and worth every penny he is being paid by US taxpayers. ..."
"... The information Smolenkov creates is passed to his CIA handler via the secure communications channel set up when he was signed up as a spy. But these reports are not handled in the normal way that sensitive human intelligence is treated at CIA Headquarters. Instead, the material is accepted at face value and not vetted to confirm its accuracy. My intel friend, citing a knowledgeable source, indicates that Smolenkov was not polygraphed. ..."
"... This raised red flags in the CIA Counterintelligence staff, especially when Brennan starts briefing the President using the information provided by Smolenkov. Brennan responds by locking most of the CIA's Russian experts out of the loop. Later, Brennan does the same thing with the National Intelligence Council, locking out the National Intelligence Officers who would normally oversee the production of a National Intelligence Assessment. In short, Brennan cooked the books using Smolenkov's intelligence, which had it been subjected to normal checks and balances would never have passed muster. It's Brennan's leaks to the press that eventually prompt the CIA to pull the plug on Smolenkov. ..."
"... The dossier attributed to Steele, it has seemed to me, showed every sign of being the proverbial 'camel produced by a committee.' ..."
"... Although I know that fabricating evidence and corrupting judicial proceedings is part of its supposed author's 'stock in trade', I think it is unclear whether he contributed all that much to the dossier. ..."
"... His prime role, I think, was to contribute a veneer of intelligence respectability to a farrago the actual origins of which could not be acknowledged, so it could be used in support of FISA applications and in briefings to journalists. ..."
"... Although it had started much earlier, the moving into 'high gear' of the conspiracy behind 'Russiagate, of which the dossier was one manifestation, and the phone 'digital forensics' produced by 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait another, were I think essentially panicky 'firefighting' operations. ..."
"... Part of this involved turning the conspiracy to prevent Trump being elected into a conspiracy to destabilise his Presidency and ensure he did not carry through on any of his 'anti-Borgist' agenda. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

A flood of news in the last 24 hours regarding Russiagate. I am referring specifically to reports that the CIA ex-filtrated Oleg Smolenkov, a mid-level Russian Foreign Ministry bureaucrat who reportedly hooked himself on the coat-tails of Yuri Ushakov, who was Ambassador to the US from 1999 through 2008. He was recruited by the CIA (i.e., asked to collect information and pass it to the U.S. Government via his or her case officer) at sometime during this period. Smolenkov is being portrayed as a supposedly "sensitive" source. But if you read either the Washington Post or New York Times accounts of this event there is not a lot of meat on this hamburger.

Regardless of the quality of his reporting, Smolenkov is the kind of recruited source that looks good on paper and helps a CIA case officer get promoted but adds little to actual U.S. intelligence on Russia. If you understood the CIA culture you would immediately recognize that a case officer (CIA terminology for the operations officer tasked with identifying and recruiting human sources) gets rewarded by recruiting persons who ostensibly will have access to information the CIA has identified as a priority target. In this case, we're talking about possible access to Vladimir Putin.

If you take time to read both articles you will quickly see that the real purpose of this "information operation" is to paint Donald Trump as a security threat that must be stopped. This is conveniently timed to assist Jerry Nadler's mission impossible to secure Trump's impeachment. But I think there is another dynamic at play--these competing explanations for what prompted the exfiltration of this CIA asset say more about the incompetence of Barack Obama and his intel chiefs. John Brennan and Jim Clapper in particular.

A former intelligence officer and friend summarized the various press accounts as the follows and offered his own insights in a note I received this morning:

[Smolenkov] follows Ushakov back to Moscow, where he is a mid-level paper pusher doing administrative support for Ushakov. The CIA gets copies of Putin's itineraries that Smolenkov photographs. He is a big hit, but ultimately produces nothing of vital importance because all truly sensitive information is hand carried by principles, and never seen by administrative staff. Moreover Ushakov advises on international relations, and would not be privy to anything dealing with intelligence. Ushakov, as a long-serving Ambassador to the US, would be asked by Putin to opine on US politics. Smolenkov has access to Ushakov's post-meeting verbal comments, which he turns over to the CIA.

The initial reports of the Steele Dossier appeared in June 2016. This coincided with John Brennan ordering Moscow Station to turn up the heat on Smolenkov to gain access to what Putin is thinking. But Smolenkov has no real direct access. Instead, he starts fabricating and/or exaggerating his access to convince his CIA handler that he is on the job and worth every penny he is being paid by US taxpayers.

The information Smolenkov creates is passed to his CIA handler via the secure communications channel set up when he was signed up as a spy. But these reports are not handled in the normal way that sensitive human intelligence is treated at CIA Headquarters. Instead, the material is accepted at face value and not vetted to confirm its accuracy. My intel friend, citing a knowledgeable source, indicates that Smolenkov was not polygraphed.

This raised red flags in the CIA Counterintelligence staff, especially when Brennan starts briefing the President using the information provided by Smolenkov. Brennan responds by locking most of the CIA's Russian experts out of the loop. Later, Brennan does the same thing with the National Intelligence Council, locking out the National Intelligence Officers who would normally oversee the production of a National Intelligence Assessment. In short, Brennan cooked the books using Smolenkov's intelligence, which had it been subjected to normal checks and balances would never have passed muster. It's Brennan's leaks to the press that eventually prompt the CIA to pull the plug on Smolenkov.

There is public evidence that Brennan not only cooked the books but that the leaks of this supposedly "sensitive" intelligence occurred when he was Director and lying Jim Clapper was Director of National Intelligence. If Oleg Smolenkov was really such a terrific source of intel, then where are the reports? It is one thing to keep such reports close hold when the source is still in place. But he has been out of danger for more than two years. Those reports should have been shared with the Senate and House Intelligence committees. If there was actual solid intelligence in those reports that corroborated the Steele Dossier, then that information would have been leaked and widely circulated. This is Sherlock Holmes dog that did not bark.Then we have the odd fact that this guy's name is all over the press and he is buying real estate in true name. What the hell!! If the CIA genuinely believed that Mr. Smolenkov was in danger he would not be walking around doing real estate deals in true name. In fact, the sources for both the Washington Post and NY Times pieces push the propaganda that Smolenkov is a sure fire target for a Russian retaliatory hit. Really? Then why publish his name and confirm his location.

That leaves me with the alternative explanation--Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being trotted out by Brennan to try to provide public pressure to prevent the disclosure of intelligence that will show that the CIA and the NSA were coordinating and operating with British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald Trump and members of his campaign.

I want you to take a close look at the two pieces on this exfiltration (i.e., Washington Post and NY Times) and note the significant differences

REASON FOR THE EXFILTRATION :

Let's start with the Washington Post:

The exfiltration took place sometime after an Oval Office meeting in May 2017, when President Trump revealed highly classified counterterrorism information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, said the current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.

What was the information that Trump revealed? He was discussing intel that Israel passed regarding ISIS in Syria. (See the Washington Post story here .) Why would he talk to the Russians about that? Because every day, at least once a day, U.S. and Russian military authorities are sharing intelligence with one another in a phone call that originates from the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center (aka CAOC) at the Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar. Trump's conversation not only was appropriate but fully within his right to do so as Commander-in-Chief.

What the hell does this have to do with a sensitive source in Moscow? NOTHING!! Red Herring.

The NY Times account is more detailed and damning of Obama instead of Trump:

But when intelligence officials revealed the severity of Russia's election interference with unusual detail later that year, the news media picked up on details about the C.I.A.'s Kremlin sources.

C.I.A. officials worried about safety made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia. The situation grew more tense when the informant at first refused, citing family concerns -- prompting consternation at C.I.A. headquarters and sowing doubts among some American counterintelligence officials about the informant's trustworthiness. But the C.I.A. pressed again months later after more media inquiries. This time, the informant agreed. . . .

The decision to extract the informant was driven "in part" because of concerns that Mr. Trump and his administration had mishandled delicate intelligence, CNN reported. But former intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency's sources alone was the impetus for the extraction. . . .

But the government had indicated that the source existed long before Mr. Trump took office, first in formally accusing Russia of interference in October 2016 and then when intelligence officials declassified parts of their assessment about the interference campaign for public release in January 2017. News agencies, including NBC, began reporting around that time about Mr. Putin's involvement in the election sabotage and on the C.I.A.'s possible sources for the assessment.

Trump played no role whatsoever in releasing information that allegedly compromised this so-called "golden boy" of Russian intelligence. The NY Times account makes it very clear that the release of information while Obama was President, not Trump, is what put the source in danger. Who leaked that information?

WHAT DID THE SOURCE KNOW AND WHAT DID HE TELL US?

But how valuable was this source really? What did he provide that was so enlightening? On this point the New York Times and Washington Post are more in sync.

First the NY Times:

The Moscow informant was instrumental to the C.I.A.'s most explosive conclusion about Russia's interference campaign: that President Vladimir V. Putin ordered and orchestrated it himself . As the American government's best insight into the thinking of and orders from Mr. Putin, the source was also key to the C.I.A.'s assessment that he affirmatively favored Donald J. Trump's election and personally ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee .

The Washington Post provides a more fulsome account:

U.S. officials had been concerned that Russian sources could be at risk of exposure as early as the fall of 2016, when the Obama administration first confirmed that Russia had stolen and publicly disclosed emails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta.

In October 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement that intelligence agencies were "confident that the Russian Government directed" the hacking campaign. . . .

In January 2017, the Obama administration published a detailed assessment that unambiguously laid the blame on the Kremlin, concluding that "Putin ordered an influence campaign" and that Russia's goal was to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and harm Clinton's chances of winning.

"That's a pretty remarkable intelligence community product -- much more specific than what you normally see," one U.S. official said. "It's very expected that potential U.S. intelligence assets in Russia would be under a higher level of scrutiny by their own intelligence services."

Sounds official. But there is no actual forensic or documentary evidence (by that I mean actual corroborating intelligence reports) to back up these claims by our oxymoronically christened intelligence community.

Vladimir Putin ordered the hack? Where is the report? It is either in a piece of intercepted electronics communication and/or in a report derived from information provided by Mr. Smolenkov. Where is it? Why has that not been shared in public? Don't have to worry about exposing the source now. He is already in the open. What did he report? Answer--no direct evidence.

Then there is the lie that the Russians hacked the DNC. They did not. Bill Binney, a former Technical Director of the NSA, and I have written on this subject previously ( see here ) and there is no truth to this claim. Let me put it simply--if the DNC had been hacked by the Russians using spearphising (this is claimed in the Robert Mueller report) then the NSA would have collected those messages and would be able to show they were transferred to the Russians. That did not happen.

This kind of chaotic leaking about an old intel op is symptomatic of panic. CIA is already officially denying key parts of the story. My money is on John Brennan and Jim Clapper as the likely impetus for these reports. They are hoping to paint Trump as a national security threat and distract from the upcoming revelations from the DOJ Inspector General report on the FISA warrants and, more threatening, the decisions that Prosecutor John Durham will take in deciding to indict those who attempted to launch a coup against Donald Trump, a legitimately elected President of the United States.

blue peacock , 10 September 2019 at 02:34 PM

I'm always skeptical of NY Times and WaPo and CNN reporting on anything national security related. It seems there is always an axe to grind.

I don't know why folks believe these media outlets have any credibility.

Larry Johnson -> blue peacock... , 10 September 2019 at 03:16 PM
Important to focus on the fact they are telling different and even contradictory stories. That's confusion on the part of the deep state.
Ana said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 11 September 2019 at 10:00 AM
... And what helps us to decode the plot!
turcopolier -> blue peacock... , 11 September 2019 at 09:47 AM
BP

As I told LJ yesterday while he was writing this piece I have a slightly different theory of this matter. It is true that CIA suffered for a long time from a dearth of talent in the business of recruiting and running foreign clandestine HUMINT assets. This was caused by a focus by several CIA Directors on technical collection means rather than espionage. This policy drove many skilled case officers into retirement but the situation has much improved in the last decade and it must be remembered that an agency only needs a few skilled case officers with the right access to human targets to acquire some very fine and useful well placed foreign agents (spies). IMO it is likely that CIA has/had several well placed Russian assets in Moscow of whom Smolenkov was probably the least useful and the most expendable. It may well be that Brennan was using the chicken feed provided by Smolenkov to fuel the conspiracy run by him and Clapper against Trump's campaign and presidency, but Brennan left office and then the CIA under other management was faced with the problem of a Russian government which was told in the US press by implication that either the US had deep penetrations of Russian diplomatic and intelligence communications or that there were deep penetration moles in Moscow. that being the case it seems likely to me that the Russians would have been beating the bushes looking for the moles. In that situation the CIA may have decided to exfiltrate Smolenkov and his wife while leaving enough clues along the way that would have indicated that he might have been THE MOLE. People do not need a lot of encouragement to accept thoughts that they want to believe. A point in favor of this theory is that once CIA had him in the States they quickly lost interest in him, terminated their relationship with him and paid him his back pay and showed him the door. No new identity, no resettlement, he was given none of that. Finding himself alone in a strange land, Smolenkov then bought a house in the suburbs of Washington in HIS OWN NAME. Say what? That would not have happened if CIA had maintained some sort of relationship with him. And then... someone in CIA leaked the story of the exfiltration as movie plot to "a former senior intelligence officer" who gives sit to Sciutto at CNN. Why would they do that? IMO they would have though that having the story appear in the media would reinfocer Smolenkov's importance in Russian minds. Well, pilgrims, Clapper fits the bill as the "former blah, blah". He is an employee of CNN. CNN hates Trump and they quickly broadcast the story far and away. Unfortunately for CNN the story immediately began to disintegrate even in the eyes of the NY Times. The Smolenkov/Brennan affair will undoubtedly be part of the road that leads to doom for Brennan and Clapper but the possible CIA story is equally interesting.

ambrit , 10 September 2019 at 03:51 PM
Sir;
The fact that Mr. Smolenkov is out and about in his new home in the West shows that he is a small fish. As you say, if he was really in danger, he would be living somewhere in the West now under a new name and maybe a new face. The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax security to happen is a sign of how unimportant he is. Unless, my inner cynic prompts, he is destined to become one of the "honoured dead," perhaps by a false flag 'liquidation.'
How low will Clapper and Brennan et. al. go?
Thanks for keeping this matter front and centre.
Fred , 10 September 2019 at 04:22 PM
So the son of Our Man in Havana went to Moscow. It would make a decent movies if it weren't for the damage Brennan and company have done to us. Obama, of course, knew nothing......
Diana C , 10 September 2019 at 04:49 PM
I have lost hope that anyone--especially Brennan and Clapper--will be held accountable for their attempt to "launch a coup" (as you put it).

Since their coup attempt ultimately failed, most people will be wanting just to move on.

As an unimportant citizen liveing in a fly-over state, I feel very angry that my tax dollars were wasted on these many government hearings and enormously expensive investigations rather than on actually on governing and improving the governing of our country.

The least we should be able to expect is that people who live off our tax dollars should be held accountable for all that wasted expense and for the lack of actual governing going on in The House and The Senate. So many problems that need the attention of our elected representative and Senators were ignored while elected representatives and representatives got to capture the spotlight and try to become "media stars" while accomplishing nothing.

I also feel terrible that men have been sent to prison for seemingly nothing and have their lives ruined for nothing but the chance of some to grand stand and claim they are really doing the jobs they were sent to do. So many people with no real sense of honor or of what is right and what is wrong.

Thanks, Larry. You have been consistently one of the good guys. (And I bet you are happy now that Yosemite Sam Bolton is no longer advising the POTUS.)

fredw , 10 September 2019 at 06:09 PM
"The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax security to happen is a sign of how unimportant he is."

It indicates to me that he and any handlers believe that the Russians are OK with it. That could be for various reasons. But relying on Russian tolerance because he is a "small fish" seems incredibly trusting. Neither fled agents nor their handlers are known for their trusting natures. They have had some reasons stronger than that for their unconcern. Whether those reasons will survive publicity remains to be seen.

Oscar , 10 September 2019 at 06:31 PM
Are those CIA agents as stupid, naive & incompetent as you paint them to be?
If that's the case our country is in real danger! You are. Pro Trump
and, you are basically defending him, but Putin do own Donald Trump,whether you like it or not!
turcopolier -> Oscar ... , 11 September 2019 at 08:56 AM
Oscar
What is the evidence for "Putin do own Trump?"Is it Trump's attempts to conduct foreign policy relationships with Russia? That is his job.
JohnH , 10 September 2019 at 08:16 PM
My question is: why did they push this report now? Any way you cut it, the Times and Post are just providing some trivia and drivel. Without substance, they can accomplish nothing and substance has been what's been missing all along.

I doubt that Democrats, having been burned once, are eager to explore Brennan's smoke and mirrors again. It's never been a big concern to voters. And unless Brennan & Co. can do better than this superficial stuff, voters are never going to be concerned.

Maybe the Times and Post just felt sorry for Brennan, who's been off barking at the moon for years now.

Factotum , 10 September 2019 at 08:40 PM
Have a cup of Ovomaltine.
Rhondda , 10 September 2019 at 08:48 PM
...Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being trotted out by Brennan to try to provide public pressure to prevent the disclosure of intelligence that will show that the CIA and the NSA were coordinating and operating with British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald Trump and members of his campaign...

Well said. Thank you for following this closely and shining the light! You are an amazing American patriot, Mr. Larry C. Johnson. A glass in your honor!

plantman , 10 September 2019 at 09:13 PM
I think AG Barr might have cut these guys (Brennan and Clapper) some slack and let them off the hook, but NOW, what can he do but prosecute??

Brennan has shown that he is going to persevere with his fallacious attacks on Trump come hell or high water.

He needs to be stopped and brought to justice...

[email protected] -> plantman... , 11 September 2019 at 08:51 AM
Haha! Dream on. Barr IS CIA...remember his role back in the Slick WIlly days in Mena Arkansas?
Roy G , 10 September 2019 at 11:27 PM
IMO this scenario is the most plausible, Thanks for the sanity check. That said, given the desperation by these Sorcerer's Apprentices, I would be on the lookout for Mr. Smolenkov lest he be 'Skirpal-ed' in the coming weeks.
anon , 10 September 2019 at 11:36 PM
This whole story convinces now more than ever before that there is a high level spy/mole in the us administration and intelligence community.The only question is it spying for russia or china or both.Just a beautiful thing to watch.Those knickers,must surely be in a knot by now.
Even rocketman had a giggle.
Jim Ticehurst , 10 September 2019 at 11:52 PM
How many CIA Assets have been exposed..Tortured and Murdered During The Barrack Obama Reign...In May..2014 HE Paid a Surprise Visit to Afghanastan..His White House Bureau Chief Sent out an email to Reporters with a List of Who would meet With President Obama..It Contained the NAME of the CIA...Chief of Station in Kabul...Now that is REAL MESSY..
turcopolier , 11 September 2019 at 08:59 AM
[email protected]

Is there any basis for any of your assertions or are you just running your mouth?

David Habakkuk , 11 September 2019 at 10:37 AM
Larry,

Having been away from base, I have not been able to comment on some very fascinating recent posts.

Both your recent pieces, and Robert Willman's most helpful update on the state of play relating to the unraveling of the frame-up against Michael Flynn, have provided a lot to chew over.

Among other things, they have made me think further about the 302s recording the interviews with Bruce Ohr produced by Joseph Pientka – a character about whom I think we need to know more.

On reflection, I think that the picture that emerges of Ohr as an incurious and gullible nitwit, swallowing whole bucket loads of 'horse manure' fed him by Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, may be a carefully – indeed maybe cunningly – crafted fiction.

The interpretation your former intelligence officer friend puts on the Smolenkov affair, and also some of what Sidney Powell has to say in the ''Motion to Compel' on behalf of Flynn, both 'mesh' with what I have long suspected.

The dossier attributed to Steele, it has seemed to me, showed every sign of being the proverbial 'camel produced by a committee.'

Although I know that fabricating evidence and corrupting judicial proceedings is part of its supposed author's 'stock in trade', I think it is unclear whether he contributed all that much to the dossier.

His prime role, I think, was to contribute a veneer of intelligence respectability to a farrago the actual origins of which could not be acknowledged, so it could be used in support of FISA applications and in briefings to journalists.

Although it had started much earlier, the moving into 'high gear' of the conspiracy behind 'Russiagate, of which the dossier was one manifestation, and the phone 'digital forensics' produced by 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait another, were I think essentially panicky 'firefighting' operations.

They are likely to have been responses, first, to the realisation that material leaked from the DNC was going to be published by WikiLeaks, and then the discovery, probably significantly later, that the source was Seth Rich, and his subsequent murder.

Although the operation to divert responsibility to the Russians which then became necessary was strikingly successful, it did not have the expected result of saving Hillary Clinton from defeat.

What I then think may have emerged was a two-pronged strategy.

Part of this involved turning the conspiracy to prevent Trump being elected into a conspiracy to destabilise his Presidency and ensure he did not carry through on any of his 'anti-Borgist' agenda.

In different ways, both the framing of Flynn, and the final memorandum in the dossier, dated 13 December 2016, were part of this strategy.

Also required however was another 'insurance policy' – which was what the Bruce Ohr 302s were intended to provide.

The purpose of this was to have 'evidence' in place, should the first prong of the strategy run into problems, to sustain the case that people in the FBI and DOJ, and Bruce and Nellie Ohr in particular, were not co-conspirators with Steele and Simpson, but their gullible dupes.

This brings me to an irony. Some people have tried to replace the 'narrative' in which Steele was an heroic exposer of a Russian plot to destroy American democracy by an alternative in which he was the gullible 'patsy' of just such a plot.

In fact there is one strand, and one strand only, in the dossier which smells strongly to me of FSB-orchestrated disinformation.

Some of the material on Russian cyber operations, including critically the suggestions about the involvement of Aleksej Gubarev and his company XBT which provoked legal action by these against BuzzFeed and Steele, look to me as though they could come from sources in the FSB.

But, if this is so, the likely conduit is not through Steele, but from FSB to FBI cyber people.

How precisely this worked is unclear, but I cannot quite get rid of the suspicion that Major Dmitri Dokuchaev just might be serving out his sentence for treason in a comfortable flat somewhere above the Black Sea. Indeed, I can imagine a lecture to FSB trainees on how to make 'patsies' of people like the Ohrs.

If this is so, however, it mat also be the case that these are attempting to make 'patsies' of Steele and Simpson.

[Sep 10, 2019] Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein by Larry C Johnsons

Highly recommended!
Sep 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Diana C ,

"Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein."

As usual, your analogy here is spot on. I'm still giggling.

[Aug 23, 2019] Spygate The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
Images removed. See the original for full version.
Much more plausible explanation of Russiagate then Mueller report that cost probably 1000 times less. Mueller and his team should commit hara-kiri in shame.
It contains more valuable information about Russiagate and color revolution against Trump initiatesd by Obama and Brennan. And what is important it is much shorter and up to the point. In other words, Jeff Carlson beat the whole Mueller team to the punch.
An excellent reporting by Jeff Carlson !!! Bravo!!!
Notable quotes:
"... Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016, Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law. ..."
"... The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims that there was no classified information present on her server. ..."
"... On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began. ..."
"... Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters. ..."
"... On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey appointed McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having held the No. 3 position for just six months. ..."
"... By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place at the FBI. ..."
"... Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. ..."
"... It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?" ..."
"... Peter and Jon, yeah." ..."
"... Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?" ..."
"... My understanding was that he was aware." ..."
"... Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa. ..."
"... While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious -- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so. ..."
"... As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. ..."
"... The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports. The first, titled the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the intelligence community assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017. ..."
"... On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry. ..."
"... Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014. ..."
"... Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia -- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie. ..."
"... In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media, government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia." ..."
"... Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day. One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI. ..."
"... The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight was done in consultation with the Obama administration: ..."
"... Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. ..."
"... Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a statement on the same day that touted Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached. ..."
"... Winer had received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier. ..."
"... Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to UK Court documents , Steele testified that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person." ..."
"... Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016. Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession. ..."
"... Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration. ..."
"... On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted. ..."
"... Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the NSA inspector general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702-compliance review. ..."
Mar 28, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Updated: July 7, 2019

Efforts by high-ranking officials in the CIA , FBI , Department of Justice ( DOJ ), and State Department to portray President Donald Trump as having colluded with Russia were the culmination of years of bias and politicization under the Obama administration.

<img class="size-large wp-image-2855920" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/27/DOJ-FBI_infographic_3_Epoch-Times-1200x630.png" alt="" width="640" height="336" /> Click on image to enlarge.

The weaponization of the intelligence community and other government agencies created an environment that allowed for obstruction in the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the relentless pursuit of a manufactured collusion narrative against Trump.

A willing and complicit media spread unsubstantiated leaks as facts in an effort to promote the Russia-collusion narrative.

The Spygate scandal also raises a bigger question: Was the 2016 election a one-time aberration, or was it symptomatic of decades of institutional political corruption?

This article builds on dozens of congressional testimonies, court documents, and other research to provide an inside look at the actions of Obama administration officials in the scandal that's become known as Spygate.

<img class=" wp-image-2833768" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Michael-Horowitz-1200x1239.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="165" /> Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz . (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

To understand this abuse of power, it helps to go back to July 2011, when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed.

From the very start, Horowitz found his duties throttled by Attorney General Eric Holder, who placed limitations on the inspector general's right to have unobstructed access to information. Holder used this tactic to delay Horowitz's investigation of the failed sting operation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information," Horowitz told members of Congress in February 2015.

On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general had sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum, titled " Memorandum for Sally Quillian Yates Deputy Attorney General ," written by Karl R. Thompson, the principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

<img class=" wp-image-2833772" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/sally-yates-1200x1188.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="159" /> Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The July 20, 2015, opinion was widely criticized . But it accomplished what it was intended to do. The opinion limited IG Horowitz's oversight from extending to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters. (Notably, The New York Times disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.)

In response, on Aug. 3, 2015, IG Horowitz sent a blistering letter to Congress. The letter was signed not only by Horowitz but by all other acting inspectors general as well:

"The OLC opinion's restrictive reading of the IG Act represents a potentially serious challenge to the authority of every Inspector General and our collective ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner. Our concern is that, as a result of the OLC opinion, agencies other than DOJ may likewise withhold crucial records from their Inspectors General, adversely impacting their work.

Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016, Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law.

It is against this backdrop of minimal oversight that Spygate took place.

Ironically, the Clinton email server investigation, known as the "Mid-Year Exam," originated from a disclosure contained in a June 29, 2015, memo sent by the inspectors general for both the State Department and the Intelligence Community to Patrick F. Kennedy, then-undersecretary of state for management.

The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims that there was no classified information present on her server.

On July 6, 2015, the IG for the Intelligence Community made a referral to the FBI, which resulted in the official opening of an investigation into the Clinton email server by FBI officials Randall Coleman and Charles Kable on July 10, 2015.

<img class="size-large wp-image-2833204" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Andrew-McCabe-Lisa-Page-Peter-Strzok-1200x720.jpg" alt="peter strzok andrew mccabe and lisa page" width="640" height="384" /> (L-R) FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe , and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Getty Images/Epoch Times)

A Hand-Picked Team

At this time, Peter Strzok was an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's Washington Field Office. The assistant director in charge at the Washington Field Office during this period was Andrew McCabe, a position he assumed on Sept. 14, 2014.

On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began.

Strzok would follow shortly. Less than a month after McCabe was transferred, FBI headquarters reached out to the Washington Field Office, saying it needed greater staffing and resources "based on what they were looking at, based on some of the investigative steps that were under consideration," Strzok told congressional investigators in a closed-door hearing on June 27, 2018.

Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters.

Starting in October 2015 and continuing into early 2016, FBI Director James Comey made a series of high-profile reassignments that resulted in the complete turnover of the upper-echelon of the FBI team working on the Clinton email investigation:

  • Oct. 12, 2015: Louis Bladel was moved to the New York Field Office.
  • Dec. 1, 2015: Randall Coleman, assistant director of Counterintelligence, was named as executive assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, and was replaced by Bill Priestap.
  • Dec. 9, 2015: Charles "Sandy" Kable was moved to the Washington Field Office.
  • Feb. 1, 2016: Mark Giuliano retired as FBI deputy director and was replaced by Andrew McCabe.
  • Feb. 11, 2016: John Giacalone retired as executive assistant director and was replaced by Michael Steinbach.
  • March 2, 2016: Gerald Roberts, Jr. was moved to the Washington Field Office.

Comey is the only known senior FBI leadership official who remained involved throughout the entire Clinton email investigation. McCabe had the second-longest tenure.

On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey appointed McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having held the No. 3 position for just six months.

It was at this point that FBI lawyer Lisa Page was assigned to McCabe as his special counsel. This was not the first time that Page worked directly for McCabe. James Baker, the FBI's former general counsel, told congressional investigators that Page had worked for McCabe at various times during McCabe's career, going back as far as 2013.

By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place at the FBI.

In January 2016, Bill Priestap was named as head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, replacing Coleman and inheriting the Clinton email investigation in the process.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2857145" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/28/Spygate_Epoch-TImes.jpg" alt="" width="676" height="1280" />

According to Priestap, Coleman had "set up a reporting mechanism that leaders of that team would report directly to him, not through the customary other chain of command" in the Clinton email investigation. Priestap, who said he didn't know why Coleman had "set it up," kept the chain of command in place when he assumed Coleman's position in January 2016.

This new structure resulted in some unusual reporting lines that went outside normal chains of command. Strzok, who would not normally fall under Priestap's oversight, was now reporting directly to him.

As Priestap described it, the team involved in the Clinton investigation comprised three different but intertwined elements: the primary team, the filter team, and the senior leadership team.

  • The primary team was small, consisting only of Strzok, FBI analyst Jonathan Moffa, and, to varying degrees, filter team leader Rick Mains and FBI lawyer Sally Moyer. Mains reported to Strzok and Moffa, who in turn, along with Moyer, provided briefings to Priestap.
  • Below Strzok and Moffa was the day-to-day investigative "filter" team of approximately 15 FBI agents and analysts that was overseen by Mains, a supervisory special agent.
  • The senior leadership team was more fluid, consisting of higher-level FBI officials who provided briefings and updates to Comey and/or McCabe. In addition to Priestap, Strzok, and Moffa, frequent attendees included Moyer, Page, Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson, chief of staff Jim Rybicki, and General Counsel James Baker.

While the elements of the day-to-day investigative team differed for the Clinton email investigation and the Trump–Russia investigation, the primary team remained the same throughout both cases -- as did the lines of communication between the FBI and the DOJ. According to testimony by Page, John Carlin, who ran the DOJ's National Security Division (NSD), was receiving briefings on both investigations directly from McCabe.

Priestap Left in the Dark

Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. Priestap was asked about this by congressional investigators during a June 5, 2018, testimony:

Rep. Meadows: " It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?"

Mr. Priestap: " Peter and Jon, yeah."

<img class=" wp-image-2833249" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Priestap-1200x1548.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="205" /> Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap. (Jennifer Zeng/The Epoch Times)

Additionally, Page often circumvented the established chain of command, not only with McCabe, for whom she reportedly served as a conduit for Strzok, but also with Baker. Additionally, there were concerns that Page bypassed both the executive assistant director for the National Security Branch -- first Giacalone, then Steinbach -- and Priestap, the head of counterintelligence. Anderson, the No. 2 lawyer, admitted in her testimony to congressional investigators that she had been aware of these concerns, saying, "Neither of them personally complained to me, but I was aware of their concerns."

A report published by IG Horowitz in June 2018, which reviewed the FBI's investigation of the Clinton email case, included the notable statement that several witnesses had informed the IG that Page "circumvented the official chain of command, and that Strzok communicated important Midyear case information to her, and thus to McCabe, without Priestap's or Steinbach's knowledge." Steinbach, who was the executive assistant director and Priestap's direct supervisor, left the FBI in early 2017.

According to Anderson, McCabe was aware of the ongoing concerns regarding Page's circumventions, but it appears that nothing was done to address them:

Mr. Baker: " Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?"

Ms. Anderson: " My understanding was that he was aware."

DOJ Prevents 'Gross Negligence' Charges

By the spring of 2016, the Clinton email investigation was already winding down. This was due in large part to the fact that the DOJ, under Attorney General Loretta Lynch , had decided to set an unusually high threshold for the prosecution of Clinton, effectively ensuring from the outset that she would not be charged.

In order for Clinton to be prosecuted, the DOJ required the FBI to establish evidence of intent -- even though the gross negligence statute explicitly does not require this.

This meant that the FBI would have needed to find a smoking gun, such as an email or an admission made during FBI questioning, revealing that Clinton or her aides knowingly set up the private email server to send classified information.

According to Page, the DOJ played a far larger role in the Clinton investigation than previously had been known:

"Everybody talks about this as if this was the FBI investigation, and the truth of the matter is there was not a single step, other than the July 5th statement, there was not a single investigative step that we did not do in consultation with or at the direction of the Justice Department," Page told congressional investigators on July 13, 2018.

<img class=" wp-image-2833254" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-545524880-1200x1441.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="193" /> Attorney General Loretta Lynch. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Comey also had hinted at the influence exerted by the DOJ over the Clinton investigation, at a July 5, 2016, press conference , in which he recommended that Clinton not be charged, stating that "there are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent."

Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa.

CIA Director Instigates Trump Investigation

As the Clinton investigation wound down, interest from the intelligence community in the Trump campaign was ramping up. Sometime in 2015, it appears former CIA Director John Brennan established himself as the point man to push for an investigation into the Trump campaign. Using a combination of unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates -- primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia -- Brennan then fed this information to the FBI. Brennan stated this fact repeatedly during a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :

"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."

<img class=" wp-image-2833258" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-687314312-1200x1279.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="171" /> CIA Director John Brennan. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Brennan also admitted that it was his intelligence that helped establish the FBI investigation:

"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."

In late 2015, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. The GCHQ is the UK equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

<img class=" wp-image-2833230" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/George-Papadopoulos.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="192" /> Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious -- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

  • Mifsud, who introduced Papadopoulos to a series of Russian contacts, appears to have more connections with Western intelligence than with Russian intelligence.
  • Downer, then Australia's high commissioner to the UK, met with Papadopoulos in May 2016, in a meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries.
  • Information allegedly relayed by Papadopoulos during the Downer meeting -- that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton -- appears nearly identical to claims later contained in the first memo from former MI6 spy and dossier author Christopher Steele that the FBI obtained in early July 2016.
<img class=" wp-image-2833234" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Alexander-Downer-1200x1391.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="186" /> Australian high commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer. (GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Downer's conversation with Papadopoulos was reportedly disclosed to the FBI on July 22, 2016, through Australian government channels, although it may have come directly from Downer himself.

Details from the conversation between Downer and Papadopoulos were then used by the FBI to open its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016.

In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of the UK's GCHQ, traveled to Washington to meet with Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Around the same time, Brennan formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the NSA handled foreign and intelligence aspects.

During this time, Brennan appeared to have employed the use of reverse targeting , which refers to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen.

Mr. Brennan:

" We call it incidental collection in terms of CIA's foreign intelligence collection authorities. Any time we would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI because they have the legal authority to do it. We would not pursue that type of investigative, you know, sort of leads. We would give it to the FBI. So, we were picking things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there -- so they could piece it together with whatever they were collecting domestically here."

As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation.

The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports. The first, titled the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the intelligence community assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017.

This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump. Notably, Adm. Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning it only a moderate confidence level.

Fusion GPS and the Steele Dossier

Meanwhile, another less official effort began. Information paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign targeting Trump made its way to the highest levels of the FBI and the State Department, with a sophisticated strategy relying on the personal connections of hired operatives.

<img class=" wp-image-2833265" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-621958726-1200x1324.jpg" alt="" width="159" height="176" /> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

At the center of the multi-pronged strategy to disseminate the information were Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and former British spy Steele.

In early March 2016, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie -- the law firm used by the Clinton campaign and the DNC -- expressing interest in an "engagement," according to an Oct. 24, 2017, response letter by Perkins Coie. The firm hired Fusion GPS in April 2016 to "perform a variety of research services during the 2016 election cycle."

Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, was retained by Fusion GPS during the period between June and November 2016. During this time, Steele produced 16 memos, with the last memo dated Oct. 20, 2016. There is one final memo that Steele wrote on Dec. 13 at the request of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

<img class=" wp-image-2833240" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-634408242-1200x1349.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="180" /> Sen. John McCain commissioned one of Steele's memos. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Steele provided Fusion GPS with something that Simpson's firm was lacking: access to individuals within the FBI and the State Department. These contacts could be traced back to at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance in the FBI's investigation into FIFA over concerns that Russia might have been engaging in bribery to host the 2018 World Cup.

Sometime in the latter half of 2014, Steele began to informally provide reports he had prepared for a private client to the State Department. One of the recipients of the reports was Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

After Steele's company was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016, he began to reach out to the FBI through Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Rome who Steele had worked with on the FIFA case. Gaeta also headed up the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, which specializes in investigating criminal groups from Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine.

Gaeta was later identified as Steele's FBI handler, in a July 16, 2018, congressional testimony before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees by Page.

<img class=" wp-image-2833242" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/victoria-nuland-1200x1373.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="183" /> Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

Exactly what happened with the reports that Gaeta brought back from London, and precisely who he gave them to within the FBI, remains unknown, although some media reports have indicated they might have been sent to the FBI's New York Field Office. During the period following Steele's initial contact with the FBI, there appears to have been no further FBI interaction or contact with Steele.

Former CIA Contractor Worked for Fusion GPS

Notably, eight months before Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, Simpson had hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, to work for his firm as a researcher in October 2015. It was at this time that Fusion GPS was retained by the Washington Free Beacon to engage in research on the Trump campaign.

Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014.

Nellie told congressional investigators, in her Oct. 19, 2018, closed-door testimony, that part of her work for Fusion GPS was to research the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, including campaign associate Carter Page, early campaign supporter Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Trump's family members, including some of his children.

Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia -- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie.

In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media, government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia."

The work Nellie conducted for Fusion GPS matches the same skill set used when she worked for Open Source Works, which is a division within the CIA that uses open-source information to produce intelligence products.

When asked how she came to be hired by Fusion GPS and who had approached her, Nellie responded, "Nobody approached me," telling investigators that it was she who had initiated contact and approached Fusion GPS after reading an article on Simpson.

Nellie would continue to work for Fusion GPS until September 2016. By this time, Simpson and Steele already had started working on pushing the Steele dossier into the FBI.

Following the end of her employment with Fusion GPS, Nellie provided Bruce with a memory stick that contained all of the research she had compiled during her time at the firm. Bruce then gave the memory stick to the FBI, through his handler, Joe Pientka.

Bruce Ohr Becomes a Conduit

Nearly a month after Gaeta brought back the reports that Steele provided in London, Simpson and Steele decided to pursue a new channel into the FBI through Bruce Ohr. Bruce had known Steele since at least 2007, when they met during an "official meeting" while Steele was still employed by the British government as an MI6 agent. Steele had already been in contact with Bruce via email in early 2016. Notably, most of these prior communications appeared to discuss Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his ongoing efforts to obtain a U.S. visa.

<img class=" wp-image-2833270" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Bruce-ohr.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="191" /> Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

On July 29, 2016, Steele wrote to Bruce, saying that he would "be in DC at short notice on business," and asked to meet with both Bruce and his wife. On July 30, 2016, the Ohrs met Steele for breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel. Also present at the breakfast meeting was a fourth individual, described by Bruce as "an associate of Mr. Steele's, another gentleman, younger fellow. I didn't catch his name." Nellie testified that Steele's associate had a British accent.

The timing of the July 30 breakfast meeting is of particular note, as the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, "Crossfire Hurricane," was formally opened the following day, on July 31, 2016, by FBI agent Peter Strzok.

<img class=" wp-image-2833272" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Nellie-Ohr.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="183" /> Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

According to a transcript of Bruce's testimony before Congress, Steele relayed information from his dossier at this meeting and claimed that "a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, had stated to someone that they had Donald Trump over a barrel."

Steele also referenced Deripaska's business dealings with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and foreign policy adviser Carter Page's meetings in Moscow.

Lastly, Bruce noted that Steele told him he had been in contact with the FBI but now had additional reports. "Chris Steele had provided some reports to the FBI, I think two, but that Glenn Simpson had more," he said.

Immediately following the Ohrs' breakfast meeting with Steele, Bruce Ohr reached out to FBI Deputy Director McCabe and the two met in McCabe's office -- sometime between July 30 and the first days of August. Also present at this meeting was FBI lawyer Page, who had previously worked for Bruce Ohr at the DOJ, where he was her direct supervisor for five to six years.

Bruce Ohr would later testify that during the July/August meeting, he told McCabe that his wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion, noting, "I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias." FBI General Counsel Baker, who reviewed a portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page -- which relied in part on the information from Steele -- told congressional investigators that he was never told of Ohr's concerns regarding possible bias and conflicts of interest.

On Aug. 15, 2016, a week or two following Bruce Ohr's meeting with McCabe, Strzok would send the now-infamous "insurance policy" text referencing McCabe to Lisa Page:

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office – that there's no way he gets elected – but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

On Aug. 22, Bruce Ohr had a meeting with Simpson. Ohr would later discuss that meeting during his testimony:

"I don't know exactly what Chris Steele was thinking, of course, but I knew that Chris Steele was working for Glenn Simpson, and that Glenn might have additional information that Chris either didn't have or was not authorized to prevent [present], give me, or whatever."

It was at this meeting that Simpson first mentioned Belarusan-American businessman Sergei Millian and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

Brennan's Briefings to the Gang of Eight <img class=" wp-image-2833280" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/GettyImages-103218413-1200x1585.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="211" /> Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

During this same period in late August 2016, Brennan began briefing members of the Gang of Eight on the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, through a series of meetings in August and September 2016. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts by Democrats to block the release of transcripts from each meeting are ongoing. Comey, however, did not notify Congress of the FBI investigation until early March 2017, and it's entirely possible he was unaware of Brennan's private briefings during the summer of 2016.

During her testimony, FBI lawyer Lisa Page was questioned by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) in relation to an Aug. 25, 2016, text message that read, "What are you doing after the CH brief?" CH almost certainly referred to Crossfire Hurricane.

Lisa Page then was asked about an event that took place on the same day as the "CH brief" -- a briefing provided by Brennan to then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:

"You give a brief on August the 25th. Director Brennan is giving a brief. It's not a Gang of Eight brief. It is a one-on-one, from what we can tell, a one-on-one briefing with Harry Reid at that point."

According to Meadows, Brennan briefed Reid on the Steele dossier:

"We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then obviously we're going to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware [of the dossier]?"

Lisa Page appeared genuinely surprised that Brennan would have been aware of the dossier's existence at this early point, telling Meadows: "The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did."

She elaborated further: "As of August of 2016, I don't know who Christopher Steele is. I don't know that he's an FBI source. I don't know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life."

This claim by Page seems incongruous when viewed against Bruce Ohr's testimony that he met with Page and McCabe in the first days of August following his July 30, 2016, breakfast with Steele:

"My initial meeting was with Mr. McCabe and with Lisa Page.

"I was telling them about what I was hearing from Chris Steele."

Meanwhile, Brennan's briefing prompted Reid to write not one but two letters to Comey. Both demanded that Comey commence an investigation, with the details to be made public.

Reid's first letter , which touched on Carter Page, was sent on Aug. 27, 2016. Reid's second letter , far angrier and declaring Comey to be in possession of material information, was sent on Oct. 30, 2016.

There had been reports that Comey had been considering closing the FBI investigation of Trump, something Brennan strongly opposed. Now, with Reid's letters sent, that avenue was effectively closed. The termination of the FBI's Trump–Russia investigation would be all but impossible in the face of Reid's public demands.

Perhaps it was in response to Reid's Aug. 27 letter that the FBI suddenly reached out to Steele in September 2016, asking him for all the information in his possession. The team working on Crossfire Hurricane received documents and a briefing from Steele in mid-September, reportedly at a meeting in Rome, where Gaeta also was present.

During Lisa Page's testimony, she appeared to corroborate this account, noting that the team received the "reports that are known as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele's handler in September of 2016." She would later clarify the timing, noting "we received the reporting from Steele in mid-September." A text sent to her by FBI agent Peter Strzok on Oct. 12, 2016, may provide us with the actual date:

"We got the reporting on Sept 19. Looks like [redacted] got it early August."

Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day. One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI.

The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight was done in consultation with the Obama administration:

"Through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept Congress apprised of these issues as we identified them. Again, in consultation with the White House, I personally briefed the full details of our understanding of Russian attempts to interfere in the election to congressional leadership.

"Given the highly sensitive nature of what was an active counter-intelligence case, involving an ongoing Russian effort, to interfere in our presidential election, the full details of what we knew at the time were shared only with those members of Congress."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/PseDla0l9xE?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque The Carter Page FISA Warrant <img class=" wp-image-2833286" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Carter-Page.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="207" /> Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

As the dossier was making its way into the FBI, the agency began its preparations to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was surveilled under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

According to Baker's testimony, it appears that the FBI began to set its sights on Carter Page in the summer of 2016. When asked how he had first gained knowledge of the FBI's intention to pursue a FISA warrant on Carter Page, Baker testified that it came through his familiarity with the FBI's investigation:

Mr. Baker: " I learned of -- so I was aware when the FBI first started to focus on Carter Page, I was aware of that because it was part of the broader investigation that we were conducting. So I was aware that we were investigating him. And then at some point in time –"

Rep. Meadows: "But that was many years ago. That was in 2014. Or are you talking about 2016?"

Mr. Baker: " I am talking about 2016 in the summer."

Rep. Meadows: "Okay."

Mr. Baker: " Yeah. And so I was aware of the investigation, and then at some point in time, as part of the regular briefings on the case, the briefers mentioned that they were going to pursue a FISA."

It appears the FBI, and possibly the CIA, began to focus on Carter Page earlier than Baker was aware. Carter Page had been invited some months prior to a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election. The speaker list was notable:

  • Madeleine Albright (former U.S. secretary of state)
  • Vin Weber (Republican Party strategist and former congressman)
  • Peter Ammon (German ambassador to the UK)
  • Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6 and Steele's former boss)
  • Bridget Kendall (BBC diplomatic correspondent and the next master of Peterhouse College)
  • Sir Malcolm Rifkind (former defense and foreign secretary)

Carter Page attended the event just four days after his July 2016 Moscow trip, and it was during this time in the UK that he first encountered Stefan Halper. Page's Moscow trip would later figure prominently in the Steele dossier.

Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired.

Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the FBI and head of the bureau's National Security and Cyber Law Branch, approved the application for a warrant to spy on Carter Page before it went to FBI Director James Comey.

According to Anderson, pre-approvals for the Carter Page FISA warrant were provided by both McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, before the FISA application was ever presented to Anderson for review.

"[M]y boss and my boss' boss had already reviewed and approved this application. And, in fact, the Deputy Attorney General, who had the authority to sign the application, to be the substantive approver on the FISA application itself, had approved the application. And that typically would not have been the case before I did that," said Anderson.

The unusual preliminary reviews and approvals from both McCabe and Yates appear to have had a substantial impact on the normal review process, leading other individuals like Anderson to believe that the warrant application was more vetted than it really was.

Anderson also testified that she had not read the Carter Page FISA application prior to signing off on it and passing it along to Comey for the final FBI signature. According to FBI lawyer Sally Moyer, the underlying Woods file (a document that provides facts supporting the allegations made in a FISA application) was only read by the originating agent and the supervisory special agent in the field. Moyer also noted that the Woods file relating to the Page FISA had not been reviewed or audited by anyone.

The Carter Page FISA application was largely reliant on the Steele dossier, which was unverified at the time of its submission to the FISA court and remains unverified by the FBI to this day. Circular reporting, provided by Steele himself, was used as corroboration of the dossier. Additionally, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whose conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was used to open the FBI's July 31, 2016, counterintelligence investigation, is referenced in the FISA, yet there "is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos," according to a House Intelligence Committee memo.

Moyer testified that without the Steele dossier, the Carter Page application would have had a "50/50" chance of achieving the probable cause standard before the FISA court. Notably, the Steele dossier is generally considered to have been largely discredited.

A Perkins Coie Partner and Alfa Bank Allegations

<img class=" wp-image-2679668" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/05/Michael-Sussmann-Perkins-Coie.jpg" alt="Michael Sussmann Lawyer Perkins Coie" width="160" height="194" /> Michael Sussmann, partner at Perkins Coie. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)

On Sept. 19, shortly after Steele completed his latest three memos, FBI General Counsel James Baker met with Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann, the lawyer the DNC turned to on April 28, 2016, after discovering the alleged hacking of their servers.

Sussman, who sought out the meeting, presented Baker with documents that Baker described as "a stack of material I don't know maybe a quarter inch half inch thick something like that clipped together, and then I believe there was some type of electronic media, as well, a disk or something."

The information that Sussmann gave to Baker was related to what Baker described as "a surreptitious channel of communications" between the Trump Organization and "a Russian organization associated with the Russian Government."

Baker was describing alleged communications between Alfa Bank and a server in the Trump Tower. The allegations, which were investigated by the FBI and proven to be false, were widely covered in the media.

Just four days earlier, on Sept. 14, Steele mentioned Alfa Bank (misspelled as Alpha bank) in one of his memos.

According to Baker's testimony, there appears to have been at least three meetings with Sussmann -- the first in person and at least two subsequent meetings by phone. In either the second or third conversation, Baker came to understand The New York Times was also in possession of Sussmann's information. As would become clear later, other members of the media also had this same information.

As Baker was meeting with Sussmann, Steele was back in Washington for a series of meetings that included his DOJ contact, Bruce Ohr.

On Sept. 23, 2016, Bruce Ohr again met with Steele for breakfast, telling lawmakers during testimony, "Steele was in Washington, D.C., again, and he reached out to me, and, again, we met for breakfast, and he provided some additional information." Ohr said this meeting concerned similar topics that were discussed at the July 30, 2016, meeting but did not provide further details.

Bruce Ohr would also meet either that same month or in early October with FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and DOJ career officials from the criminal division, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, and Andrew Weissman (Ohr testified that he was unsure whether Weismann was at this or a later meeting). Both Weissman and Ahmad would later become part of the team assembled by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Steele's Meetings With the Media

On the same day that Bruce Ohr met with Christopher Steele for breakfast, on Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff published an article about Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The article, headlined " U.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin ," was based on an interview with Steele. Isikoff's article would later be used by the FBI in the FISA spy warrant application on Carter Page as corroborating information.

Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a statement on the same day that touted Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached.

A second lengthy article was published on Sept. 23, by Politico: " Who Is Carter Page? The Mystery of Trump's Man in Moscow ," by Julia Ioffe. This article was particularly interesting as it appeared to highlight media efforts by Fusion GPS:

"As I started looking into Page, I began getting calls from two separate 'corporate investigators' digging into what they claim are all kinds of shady connections Page has to all kinds of shady Russians. One is working on behalf of various unnamed Democratic donors; the other won't say who turned him on to Page's scent. Both claimed to me that the FBI was investigating Page for allegedly meeting with Igor Sechin and Sergei Ivanov, who was until recently Putin's chief of staff -- both of whom are on the sanctions list -- when Page was in Moscow in July for that speech."

Ioffe noted that "seemingly everyone I talked to had also talked to the Washington Post, and then there were these corporate investigators who drew a dark and complex web of Page's connections."

Her article also mentioned rumors regarding Alfa Bank:

"In the interest of due diligence, I also tried to run down the rumors being handed me by the corporate investigators: that Russia's Alfa Bank paid for the trip as a favor to the Kremlin; that Page met with Sechin and Ivanov in Moscow; that he is now being investigated by the FBI for those meetings because Sechin and Ivanov were both sanctioned for Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

It was probably during this same trip to Washington that Steele met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya, whom Steele had known since at least 2010.

Winer had received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier.

Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to UK Court documents , Steele testified that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person."

Alfa Bank Media Leaks

<img class=" wp-image-2679669" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/05/james-baker.jpg" alt="James Baker FBi Special Counsel" width="160" height="203" /> Former FBI General Counsel James Baker.

As Steele's media meetings were going on, FBI General Counsel James Baker learned that Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann was also speaking with reporters from The New York Times regarding the Alfa Bank information that Sussmann had provided to the FBI. After some internal discussion, the FBI approached both Sussmann and The New York Times, asking that any story be held until the FBI had time to complete an investigation into the documents provided by Sussmann. It appears that an agreement was reached, and the FBI began to look into the claims regarding Alfa Bank and the server at Trump Tower.

But Sussman wasn't the only one that Baker, currently the subject of an ongoing criminal leak investigation, was speaking with. According to congressional investigators, beginning sometime in September 2016 -- before the presidential election -- Baker began having conversations with his old friend and journalist, David Corn of Mother Jones.

According to Baker, these conversations were in relation to ongoing FBI matters:

Rep. Jordan: " Did you talk to Mr. Corn prior to the election about anything, anything related to FBI matters? Not -- so we're not going to ask about the Steele dossier. Anything about FBI business, FBI matters?"

Mr. Baker: " Yes."

Rep. Jordan: " Yes. And do you know -- can you give me some dates or the number of times that you talked to Mr. Corn about FBI matters leading up to the 2016 Presidential election?"

Mr. Baker: " I don't remember, Congressman."

By Oct. 31, 2016, the FBI had apparently wrapped up their investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations, finding no evidence of anything untoward in the process. It was on this day that three separate articles on Alfa Bank would be published.

The first, " Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia " by The New York Times, appeared to be an updated version of the article they had intended to publish before the FBI asked them to delay their reporting. It stated the following:

"In classified sessions in August and September, intelligence officials also briefed congressional leaders on the possibility of financial ties between Russians and people connected to Mr. Trump. They focused particular attention on what cyberexperts said appeared to be a mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and the Alfa Bank, which is one of Russia's biggest banks and whose owners have longstanding ties to Mr. Putin."

The reference to "classified sessions in August and September" is likely in relation to the series of Gang of Eight briefings that former CIA Director John Brennan engaged in at that time -- including his briefing to then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The article continued:

"F.B.I. officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server and Alfa Bank. Computer logs obtained by The New York Times show that two servers at Alfa Bank sent more than 2,700 'look-up' messages -- a first step for one system's computers to talk to another -- to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring. But the F.B.I. ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts."

The second article, "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?" by Slate Magazine, was solely focused on the allegations regarding a server in the Trump Tower that had allegedly been communicating with a server at Alfa Bank in Russia.

Immediately following the publication of the Slate article, Clinton posted a tweet that included a statement from Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser:

"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."

Sullivan's statement referenced the Slate article and included the following:

"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."

The Alfa Bank story took off -- despite the same-day story from The New York Times that specifically noted the FBI had investigated that matter and found nothing untoward.

The final article published on Oct. 31, " A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump " by Mother Jones reporter -- and Baker's friend -- David Corn, also mentioned Alfa Bank:

"In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous online reports that a computer server related to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia. On Monday, a Slate investigation detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, 'We don't yet know what this [Trump] server was for, but it deserves further explanation.' In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, 'The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.'"

More notably, Corn's article also provided the first public reporting on the existence of the Steele dossier:

"A former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more information from him."

As it turns out, Corn had detailed, first-hand knowledge of the dossier. According to testimony from Baker, Corn had been provided with parts of the dossier by Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson. Baker knew of this fact, because within a week of publishing his article, Corn passed these dossier parts on to Baker personally:

Rep. Jordan: " Prior to the election Mr. Corn had a copy of the dossier and was talking to you about giving that to you so the FBI would have it. Is that all right? I mean all accurate."

Mr. Baker: " My recollection is that he had part of the dossier, that we had other parts already, and that we got still other parts from other people, and that -- and nevertheless some of the parts that David Corn gave us were parts that we did not have from another source?"

Steele had written four memos after the FBI team received his information in mid-September. All of the memos were written in October -- on the 12th, 18th, 19th, and the 20th. It is possible that these were the memos passed along to Baker by Corn.

Baker testified that he received elements of the dossier from Corn that were not in the FBI's possession at the time. He said that he immediately turned this information over to leadership within the FBI, noting, "I think it was Bill Priestap," the head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.

The use of personal relationships as a mechanism to transmit outside information to the FBI was actually noted by Baker, who said of Corn: "Even though he was my friend, I was also an FBI official. He knew that. And so he wanted to somehow get that into the hands of the FBI."

Bruce Ohr's FBI Handler

Christopher Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016, for communicating with the media. Despite this, DOJ official Bruce Ohr and Steele communicated regularly for another full year, until November 2017.

On Nov. 21, 2016, Ohr had a meeting with FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and was introduced to FBI agent Joe Pientka, who became Ohr's FBI handler. Pientka was also present with Strzok during the Jan. 24, 2017, interview of Trump's national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn .

The next day, Nov. 22, 2016, Ohr met alone with Pientka. Ohr would continue to relay his communications with Steele to the FBI through Pientka, who then recorded them in FD-302 forms. What Ohr didn't know was that Pientka was transmitting all the information directly to Strzok.

Ohr, in his testimony, detailed his interactions with Steele and Glenn Simpson, as well as his communications with officials at the FBI and DOJ. Notably, Ohr repeatedly stated that he never vetted any of the information provided by either Steele or Simpson. He simply turned it over or relayed it to the FBI -- usually to Pientka -- but Ohr also testified that "at least on two occasions I was handed onto a new agent."

Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016. Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession.

On Dec. 10, 2016, Bruce Ohr met with Simpson, who gave him a memory stick that Ohr believed contained a copy of the Steele dossier. Ohr also passed this second memory stick along to Pientka.

On Jan. 20, 2017, Ohr had one final communication with Simpson, a phone call that took place on the same day as Trump's inauguration. Ohr testified that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was concerned that one of Steele's sources was about to be exposed through the pending publication of an article:

Mr. Ohr: " He says something along the lines of, I -- there's going to be some reporting in the next few days that's going to -- could expose the source, and the source could be in personal danger."

Rep. Meadows: " And why was he concerned about that source being exposed?"

Mr. Ohr: " I think he was aware of some kind of article that was likely to come out in the next, you know, few days or something."

Apparently, Simpson's information was at least partly accurate. On Jan. 24, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sergei Millian, a Belarusan-American businessman and onetime Russian government translator, was both "Source D" and "Source E" in the dossier. It remains unknown exactly how Simpson knew in advance that Millian would be outed as a source.

But there are some questions as to the accuracy of the Journal's reporting. The dossier appears to conflict with the newspaper's article in at least one aspect. According to the dossier, Source E was used as confirmation for Source D -- meaning they can't be the same person.

McCain, the Dossier, and a UK Connection

Simpson and Steele were carefully thorough in their dissemination efforts. The dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources.

One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood may have previously worked on behalf of Steele's company, Orbis Business Intelligence; he was referenced in a UK court filing as an associate of Orbis. Wood was also referred to as an adviser to Orbis in a deposition by an associate of late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), David Kramer.

Kramer knew Wood previously from their mutual expertise on Russia. Kramer said in his deposition, which was part of a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed News, that Wood told him that "he was aware of information that he thought I should be aware of and that Senator McCain might be interested in."

<img class=" wp-image-2833323" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/kramer-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="173" /> McCain associate David Kramer. (Courtesy McCain Institute)

McCain, Wood, and Kramer would meet later that afternoon, on Nov. 19, 2016, in a private meeting room at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Wood told both Kramer and McCain that "he was aware of this information that had been gathered that raised the possibility of collusion and compromising material on the president-elect. And he explained that he knew the person who gathered the information and felt that the person was of the utmost credibility," Kramer said.

Kramer ascribed the word "collusion" three times to Wood in his deposition. He also said that Wood mentioned the possible existence of a video "of a sexual nature" that might have "shown the president-elect in a compromising situation." According to Kramer, Wood said that "if it existed, that it was from a hotel in Moscow when president-elect, before he was president-elect, had been in Moscow."

No such video was ever uncovered or given to Kramer.

Kramer testified that following the description of the video, "the senator turned to me and asked if I would go to London to meet with what turned out to be Mr. Steele."

Kramer traveled to London to meet with Steele on Nov. 28, 2016. Kramer reviewed all the memos during his meeting with Steele but wasn't provided with a physical copy of the dossier.

When Kramer returned to Washington, he was provided with a copy of the dossier -- which, at that point, consisted of 16 memos -- during a meeting with Simpson on Nov. 29, 2016. Kramer also testified that there was another individual, "a male," present at the meeting.

<img class=" wp-image-2849229" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/John-McCain-1200x1530.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="204" /> Late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Interestingly, Kramer testified that Simpson gave him two copies of the dossier, noting that Simpson told him that "one had more things blacked out than the other." Kramer said, "It wasn't entirely clear to me why there were two versions of this, so but I took both versions."

Kramer noted that Simpson, who was aware the dossier was being given to McCain, said the dossier "was a very sensitive document and needed to be handled very carefully."

Despite that warning, Kramer showed the dossier to a number of journalists and had discussions with at least 14 members of the media, along with some individuals in the U.S. government.

Kramer testified that he gave a physical copy of the dossier to reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon of McClatchy; to Fred Hiatt, the editor of the Washington Post editorial page; Alan Cullison of The Wall Street Journal; Bob Little at NPR; Carl Bernstein at CNN; and Ken Bensinger at BuzzFeed. It's possible that Kramer gave copies to other reporters as well.

Kramer said that Simpson and Steele were aware of most of these contacts, but that Kramer hadn't told either of them that he gave the dossier to NPR. He also noted that Steele had been in contact with Bernstein at CNN and that the CNN and BuzzFeed meetings occurred at Steele's request. Steele told Kramer that he and Bensinger "had been in touch during the FIFA investigation; they got to know each other that way."

According to Kramer, he didn't believe that Fusion GPS and Simpson were aware of these two meetings with CNN and BuzzFeed.

Kramer testified that he, McCain, and McCain's chief of staff, Christopher Brose, met to review the dossier on Nov. 30, 2016. Kramer suggested that McCain "provide a copy of [the dossier] to the director of the FBI and the director of the CIA." McCain later passed a copy of the dossier to James Comey on Dec. 9, 2016. It isn't known whether McCain also provided a copy to then-CIA Director John Brennan. Notably, Brennan did attach a two-page summary of the dossier to the intelligence community assessment that he delivered to outgoing President Barack Obama on Jan. 5, 2017.

Kramer said that he wasn't aware of the content of McCain's Dec. 9 discussion with Comey, noting that he "did not get any readout from the senator on the meeting, but just that it had happened."

Kramer did, however, provide updates to both Steele and Simpson regarding the status of McCain's meeting with Comey, in subsequent discussions with Simpson and Steele:

"It was mostly just to inform him about whether or not the senator had transfer -- transmitted the document to the FBI. Both he and Mr. Steele were -- I kept them apprised of whether the senator was -- where the senator was in terms of his contact with the FBI."

The implications of this statement are significant. Kramer, a private citizen, was providing updates to a former British spy as to what a sitting senator, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, was saying to the director of the FBI.

Other members of the media also had advance knowledge of McCain's intention to meet with Comey. Kramer testified that both Mother Jones reporter David Corn and Guardian reporter Julian Borger came to meet with him. According to Kramer, "They were mostly interested in Senator McCain and his, whether he had given it to Director Comey or not."

Several days after McCain, Brose, and Kramer met to discuss the dossier, Kramer said that McCain instructed him to meet with Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, and Celeste Wallander, the senior director for Russia and Central Asia on the National Security Council.

The purpose of the meeting was to verify whether the dossier "was being taken seriously." Both Nuland and Wallander were previously aware of the dossier's existence, and both officials previously knew Steele, whom "they believed to be credible." Kramer said he didn't physically share the dossier with them at this point, but met again with Wallander "around New Years" and "gave her a copy of the document"

Nuland had actually received a copy of the earlier Steele memos back in July 2016.

Steele produced a final memo dated Dec. 13, 2016. According to UK court documents , Kramer, on behalf of McCain, had asked Steele to provide any further intelligence that he had gathered relating to "alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election." Notably, it appears it was this request from McCain that led Steele to produce his Dec. 13 memo.

Although Kramer didn't provide a date, he said he received the final Steele memo sometime after "Senator McCain had provided the copy to Director Comey." We know that Kramer received the final memo prior to Dec. 29 -- when Kramer met with BuzzFeed's Bensinger.

Kramer testified that Bensinger "said he wanted to read them, he asked me if he could take photos of them on his -- I assume it was an iPhone. I asked him not to. He said he was a slow reader, he wanted to read it. And so I said, you know, I got a phone call to make, and I had to go to the bathroom " Kramer said that he "left him to read it for 20, 30 minutes."

Kramer also testified that besides the reporters, he gave a final copy of the dossier to two other people in early January 2017: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan's chief of staff, Jonathan Burks.

James Clapper Leaks Details of Obama–Trump Briefings

The ICA on alleged Russian hacking was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, outgoing president Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the assessment -- and the attached summation of the dossier -- with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

The following day, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the ICA and the Steele dossier.

<img class=" wp-image-2833293" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/James-Clapper-1200x1296.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="173" /> Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview that he had done so at the request of Clapper and Brennan, "because that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community agreed he needed to be told about."

Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo :

"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump on it that CNN reported on the dossier. The House Intelligence Committee report on Russian election interference confirmed that Clapper personally leaked confirmation of the dossier, along with Comey's meeting with Trump, to CNN:

"The Committee's investigation revealed that President-elect Trump was indeed briefed on the contents of the Steele dossier and when questioned by the Committee, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted that he confirmed the existence of the dossier to the media."

Additionally, the House intelligence report shows Clapper appears to have been the direct source for CNN's Jake Tapper and his Jan. 10 story that disclosed the existence of the dossier:

"When initially asked about leaks related to the ICA in July 2017, former DNI Clapper flatly denied 'discuss[ing] the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists.' Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the 'dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,' and admitted that he might have spoken with other journalists about the same topic.

"Clapper's discussion with Tapper took place in early January 2017, around the time IC leaders briefed President Obama and President-elect Trump, on 'the Christopher Steele information,' a two-page summary of which was 'enclosed in' the highly-classified version of the ICA."

On Jan. 10, 2017, CNN published the article "Intel Chiefs Presented Trump With Claims of Russian Efforts to Compromise Him " by Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper, and Carl Bernstein. (The article would later be updated and have a Jan. 12, 2017, date.)

The allegations within the dossier were made public, and with reporting of the briefings by intelligence community leaders, instant credibility was given to the dossier's assertions.

Immediately following the CNN story, BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier, and the Trump–Russia conspiracy was pushed into the mainstream.

David Kramer was asked about his reaction when CNN broke the story on the dossier. According to his deposition, Kramer stated, "I believe my words were 'Holy [expletive].'"

Kramer, who was actually meeting with The Guardian's Julian Borger when CNN reported on the dossier, said that he quickly spoke with Steele, who "was shocked."

On the following day, Jan. 11, 2017, Clapper issued a statement condemning the leaks -- without revealing the fact that he was the source of the leak.

On Nov. 17, 2016, Clapper submitted his resignation as director of national intelligence; his resignation became effective on Jan. 20, 2017. Later that year, CNN hired Clapper as its national security analyst.

The Effort to Remove General Flynn

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then-national security adviser to President Donald Trump, was interviewed on Jan. 24, 2017, by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka about two December 2016 conversations that Flynn had had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

<img class=" wp-image-2833340" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Michael-Flynn-1200x1469.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="197" /> National security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. (Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)

Details of the phone conversation had leaked to the media. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI regarding his conversations with Kislyak. It remains unknown to this day who leaked Flynn's classified call -- a far more serious felony violation.

The Washington Post reported in January 2017 that the FBI had found no evidence of wrongdoing in Flynn's actual call with the Russian ambassador. The call, and the matters discussed in it, broke no laws.

Flynn has been portrayed in the media as being suspiciously close to Russia; a dinner in Moscow that occurred in late 2015 is frequently cited as evidence of this.

On Dec. 10, 2015, Flynn attended an event in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Russian television network RT. Flynn, who was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the culminating dinner, was also interviewed on national security matters by an RT correspondent. Flynn's speaker's bureau, Leading Authorities Inc., was paid $45,000 for the event and Flynn received $33,000 of the total amount.

Seated at the same table with Flynn was Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in the 2016 election. By all accounts, including Stein's , Flynn and Putin didn't engage in any real conversation. At the time, Flynn's trip didn't garner significant attention. But it would later be used by the media and the Clinton campaign to push the Russia-collusion narrative.

Notably, as stated by lawyer Robert Kelner, Flynn disclosed his Moscow trip to the Defense Intelligence Agency before he traveled there and provided a full briefing upon his return:

"As has previously been reported, General Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a component agency of the DoD, extensively regarding the RT speaking event trip both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by the DIA concerning the trip during those briefings."

Flynn's trip to Russia was first brought to broader attention on July 18, 2016, during a live interview at the Republican National Convention with Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vjvvtuDEQJY?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque

The Isikoff interview took place on July 18, 2016. Unknown at the time, the matter had also captured the attention of Christopher Steele, who had begun publishing his dossier memos on June 20, 2016.

Contained within an Aug. 10, 2016, memo was this initial reference to Flynn:

"Kremlin engaging with several high profile US players, including STEIN, PAGE and (former DIA Director Michael Flynn) and funding their recent visits to Moscow."

In addition to the obvious questions raised by the timing of Flynn's name appearing in Steele's Aug. 10 memo, is the manner in which Flynn is denoted. All other names are capitalized, in the manner of intelligence briefings. Flynn's name isn't capitalized and, in one case, appears within parentheses.

Steele met with Yahoo News' Isikoff in September 2016 and gave him information from the dossier. The resulting Sept. 23, 2016, article from Isikoff was then cited by the FBI as validating Steele's claims and was featured in the original FISA application , and its three subsequent renewals , for a warrant to spy on Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

Steele wasn't the only person Isikoff was working with. On April 26, 2016, Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a Democratic National Committee (DNC) email leaked by Wikileaks that Isikoff had been working with Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American operative who was doing consulting work for the DNC. Chalupa met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose alleged ties between Trump, Manafort, and Russia.

The obvious question remains: How did the information on Flynn make its way into the dossier at the time it did, and who provided the information to Steele?

Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration.

A Jan. 10, 2017, article in The New York Times, " Trump's National Security Pick Sees Ally in Fight Against Islamists: Russia ," highlighted the efforts:

"In an extraordinary report released last week, the agencies bluntly accused the Russian government of having worked to undermine American democracy and promote the candidacy of Mr. Trump. The report is likely to renew questions about Mr. Flynn's avowed eagerness to work with Russia, and his dismissal of concerns about President Vladimir V. Putin."

Flynn would resign from his position as national security adviser in February 2017. The sequence of events leading to his resignation were both coordinated and orchestrated, with acting Attorney General Sally Yates playing a leading role.

On Jan. 12, 2017, Flynn's Dec. 29, 2016, call with Kislyak was leaked to The Washington Post. The article portrayed Flynn as undermining Obama's Russia sanctions that had been imposed on the same day as Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador.

On Jan. 15, five days before Trump's inauguration, Vice President Mike Pence appeared on "Face the Nation" to defend Flynn's calls.

A few days later, on Jan. 19, Obama officials -- Yates, Clapper, Brennan and Comey -- met to discuss Flynn's situation. The concern they reportedly discussed was that Flynn might have misled Trump administration officials regarding the nature of his call with Kislyak.

<img class="wp-image-2852644 size-full" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2018/10/25/spygate-small.jpg" alt="" width="592" height="724" /> Click on the infographic to enlarge

Yates, Clapper, and Brennan supported informing the Trump administration of their concerns. Comey took a dissenting view. On Jan 23, Yates again pressured Comey, telling the FBI director that she believed Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail. At this point, according to media reports, Comey relented, despite the FBI finding nothing unlawful in the content of Flynn's calls.

Strzok and Pientka, at the instruction of McCabe, interviewed Flynn the following day. According to court documents, McCabe and other FBI officials "decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed." It was during this interview that Flynn reportedly lied to the FBI.

The DOJ was provided with a detailed briefing of the Flynn interview on the following day. On Jan. 26, Yates contacted White House counsel Don McGahn, who agreed to meet to discuss the matter. Yates arrived at McGahn's office, bringing Mary McCord, John Carlin's acting replacement as head of the DOJ's National Security Division.

Yates later testified before Congress that the meeting surrounded Flynn's phone calls and his FBI interview. She also testified that Flynn's call and subsequent interview "was a topic of a whole lot of discussion in DOJ and with other members of the intel community." McGahn reportedly asked Yates, "Why does it matter to the DOJ if one White House official lies to another official?"

McGahn called Yates the following day and asked her to return for a second meeting. Yates returned to the White House without McCord. McGahn asked to examine the FBI's evidence on Flynn. Yates said she would respond by the following Monday.

Yates failed to provide McGahn with the FBI's evidence on Flynn. From that point, the pressure on Flynn and the Trump administration escalated -- with help from media reporting.

Flynn resigned on Feb. 13, after it was reported that he had misled Pence about phone conversations he'd had with Kislyak.

The following day, The New York Times reported that "phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials."

With Flynn gone and the Russian narrative firmly established, the conspirators then turned their attention to Trump's newly confirmed attorney general, Jeff Sessions . On March 1, 2017, The Washington Post reported that Sessions had twice had contact with the Russian ambassador, Kislyak. The following day, March 2, Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation.

On the same day that Sessions recused himself, Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, detailed efforts at hampering the newly installed Trump administration, during a March 2, 2017, interview with MSNBC , in which she described how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

Note that Farkas said "how we knew," not just "what we knew."

Obama Officials Used Unmasking to Target the Trump Campaign

On Tuesday, March 21, 2017, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), met a classified source who showed him "dozens" of intelligence reports. Contained within these reports was evidence of surveillance on the Trump campaign. Nunes held a press conference on March 22 highlighting what he had found:

<img class=" wp-image-2849235" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Devin-Nunes-1200x1522.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="203" /> Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

"I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting."

In a series of rapid-fire questions and answers, Nunes attempted to elaborate on what he had been shown:

"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying to get to the bottom of it I think the NSA's going to comply. I am concerned – we don't know whether or not the FBI is going to comply. I have placed a call, I'm waiting to talk to Director Comey, hopefully later today.

"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the President-elect and his team were at least monitored and disseminated out in intelligence, in what appears to be raw -- well I shouldn't say raw -- but intelligence reporting channels.

"It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the President-elect and his transition team and what they were doing."

The documents Nunes had been shown highlighted the unmasking activities of the FBI, the Obama administration, and CIA Director Brennan in relation to the Trump campaign. Although March 2017 would prove chaotic, the Trump administration had survived the first crucial months, and would now begin to slowly assert its administrative authority.

Comey Testifies No Obstruction by Trump Administration

On May 3, 2017, James Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under oath, Comey stated that his agency -- and the FBI's investigation -- had not been pressured by the Trump administration:

Sen. Hirono: " So if the attorney general or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation, can they halt that FBI investigation?"

Mr. Comey: " In theory, yes."

Sen. Hirono: " Has it happened?"

Mr. Comey: " Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that – without an appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing resources in it. But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason. That would be a very big deal. It's not happened in my experience."

<img class="wp-image-2849240" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Former-FBI-Director-James-Comey-.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="199" /> FBI Director James Comey. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Less than a week later, on May 9, Trump fired Comey based on a May 8 recommendation by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein .

Rosenstein would later tell members of Congress: "In one of my first meetings with then-Sen. Jeff Sessions last winter, we discussed the need for new leadership at the FBI. Among the concerns that I recall were to restore the credibility of the FBI, respect the established authority of the Department of Justice, limit public statements and eliminate leaks."

Regarding the recommendation, Rosenstein said: "I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it."

McCabe's FBI Reaches Out Again to Steele

Within days of Trump's firing of Comey, the FBI, now under the leadership of acting-FBI Director Andrew McCabe, suddenly decided to reestablish direct contact with Christopher Steele through DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

The re-engagement attempt came six months after Steele had been formally terminated by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016.

The FBI's re-engagement of Ohr was highlighted during a congressional review of some text messages between Ohr and Steele:

Mr. Ohr: " The FBI had asked me a few days before, when I reported to them my latest conversation with Chris Steele, they had had would he -- next time you talk with him, could you ask him if he would be willing to meet again."

Rep. Jordan: " So this is the re-engagement?"

Mr. Ohr: " Yes."

The texts being referenced were sent on May 15, 2017, and refer to a request that Ohr received from the FBI to ask Steele to re-engage with the FBI in the days after Comey had been fired on May 9.

This was the only time the FBI used Ohr to reach out to Steele.

The Battle Between McCabe and Rosenstein

Two days after Comey was fired, on May 11, 2017, McCabe testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. While the hearing's original intent had been to focus on national security threats, Trump's firing of Comey completely altered the topic of the hearing.

McCabe, who agreed that he would notify the committee "of any effort to interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign," told members of Congress that there had been "no effort to impede our investigation to date." In other words, McCabe testified that he was unaware of any evidence of obstruction from Trump or his administration. Notably, Comey's May 3 testimony may have left McCabe with little choice other than to confirm there had been no obstruction.

<img class="wp-image-2849245 " src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/McCabe-1200x1290.jpg" alt="" width="161" height="173" /> Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

McCabe, however, failed to inform the committee that he was actively considering opening an obstruction-of-justice probe of Trump -- a path he would initiate in a meeting with Rosenstein just five days later.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein allegedly suggested to McCabe that he could secretly record Trump. It was at this meeting that McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president," according to witness accounts reported by The Washington Post.

In addition to McCabe, Rosenstein, and McCabe's special counsel, Lisa Page, there were one or two others present, including Rosenstein's chief of staff , James Crowley, and possibly Scott Schools, the senior-most career attorney at the DOJ and a top aide to Rosenstein.

An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation between McCabe and Rosenstein in an entirely different light, noting that Rosenstein had responded with angry sarcasm to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

This was just five days after McCabe had publicly testified that there was no obstruction on the part of the Trump administration.

<img class="wp-image-2849247 " src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Rod-Rosenstein-1200x1404.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="187" /> Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Sometime later that same day, both Rosenstein and Trump met with former FBI Director Robert Mueller in the Oval Office. The meeting was reported as being for the FBI director position, but the idea that Mueller would be considered for the FBI director role seems highly unlikely.

Mueller had previously served as the FBI director from 2001 to 2013 -- two years beyond the normal 10-year tenure for an FBI director. In 2011, Obama requested that Mueller stay on as FBI director for an additional two years, which required special congressional approval .

Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel the following day, on May 17, 2017, and in doing so, Rosenstein removed control of the Trump–Russia investigation from McCabe and put it in the hands of Mueller.

This was confirmed in a recent statement by a DOJ spokesperson, who said, "The deputy attorney general in fact appointed special counsel Robert Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation."

Following the appointment of Mueller as special counsel, it also appears the FBI's efforts to re-engage with Steele abruptly ended.

'There's No Big There There'

We know the FBI hadn't found any evidence of collusion in the May 2017 timeframe. While McCabe was attempting to open an obstruction investigation, Peter Strzok -- who played a key role in the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign -- texted Lisa Page about lacking evidence of collusion:

"You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there, no question. I hesitate, in part, because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."

Page, who was asked about this text during her July 2018 testimony, said, "So I think this represents that even as far as May of 2017, we still couldn't answer the question."

James Baker, who was questioned about the Strzok text, was then asked if he'd seen any evidence to the contrary. He stumbled a bit in his reply:

Rep. Meadows: " Do you have any evidence to the contrary that you observed personally in your official capacity?"

Mr. Baker: " So the difficulty I'm having with your question is, what does 'collusion' mean, and what does 'prove' mean? And so I don't know how to respond to that."

FBI Leadership Speculates on New Trump–Russia Collusion Narrative

In his testimony, Baker disclosed the actual substance of discussions taking place at the upper echelons of the FBI immediately following Comey's firing -- that Vladimir Putin had ordered Trump to fire Comey:

Mr. Baker: " We discussed, so to the best of my recollection, with the same people I described earlier: Mr. McCabe, possibly Mr. Gattis [Carl Ghattas, executive assistant director of the National Security Branch], Mr. Priestap, possibly Lisa Page, possibly Pete Strzok. I don't remember that specifically."

Rep. Ratcliffe: " So there was -- there was a discussion between those folks, possibly all of the folks that you've identified, about whether or not President Trump had been ordered to fire Jim Comey by the Russian Government?"

Mr. Baker: " I wouldn't say ordered. I guess I would say the words I sort of used earlier, acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will, whether -- and so literally an order or not, I don't know. But -- "

Rep. Ratcliffe: " And so -- "

Mr. Baker: " As a -- it was discussed as a theoretical possibility."

Rep. Ratcliffe: " When was it discussed?"

Mr. Baker: "After the firing, like in the aftermath of the firing."

The FBI, with no actual evidence of collusion after 10 months of investigating, began discussing a complete hypothetical at the highest levels of leadership as a means to possibly open an obstruction-of-justice investigation of the president of the United States.

During his testimony, Baker told lawmakers: "I had a jaundiced eye about everything, yes. I had skepticism about all this stuff. I was concerned about all of this. This whole situation was horrible, and it was novel and we were trying to figure out what to do, and it was highly unusual."

McCabe was later fired for lying to the DOJ inspector general and is currently the subject of a criminal grand jury investigation.

The Fixer

Despite the ongoing assault from the intelligence community and holdovers from the Obama administration, Trump was not entirely without allies.

Dana Boente, one of the nation's highest-profile federal prosecutors, served in a series of critical shifting roles within the Trump administration. Boente, who remained the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia until early 2018, concurrently became the acting attorney general following the firing of Sally Yates. Boente, who was specifically appointed by Trump, was not directly in the line of succession that had been previously laid out under an unusual executive order from the Obama administration.

<img class=" wp-image-2849248" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/Dana-Boente.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="213" /> FBI General Counsel Dana Boente. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Upon the confirmation of Sessions as attorney general, Boente next served as acting deputy attorney general until the confirmation of Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general on April 25, 2017. Boente then became the acting head of the DOJ's National Security Division on April 28, 2017, following the sudden resignation of Mary McCord.

Boente was appointed as FBI general counsel on Jan. 23, 2018, replacing Baker, who was demoted and reassigned. Baker is currently the subject of a criminal leak investigation. Boente remains in his position as FBI general counsel.

On March 31, 2017, the Trump administration asked for the resignations all 46 holdover U.S. attorneys from the Obama administration. Trump refused to accept the resignations of just three of them -- Boente, Rosenstein, and John Huber.

As Sessions noted in a March 29, 2018, letter to congressional chairmen Chuck Grassley, Bob Goodlatte, and Trey Gowdy, Huber was assigned by Sessions to lead a prosecution team and is currently working with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz:

"I already have directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues previously raised by the Committee. Specifically, I asked United States Attorney John W. Huber to lead this effort."

John Carlin's Race With Admiral Rogers

<img class=" wp-image-2833317" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/11/Mike-Rogers-1200x1435.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="191" /> Director of the National Security Agency Admiral Mike Rogers. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

The Carter Page FISA application has been the subject of significant media attention, but there's another element to the story that, although largely ignored, is equally important. It involved what amounted to a surreptitious race between then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers and DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin.

Following a March 9, 2016, discovery that outside contractors for the FBI had been accessing raw FISA data since at least 2015, Rogers directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702" at some point in early April 2016 ( Senate testimony & pages 83–84 of court ruling).

On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted.

The DOJ's NSD maintains oversight of the intelligence agencies' use of Section 702 authority. The NSD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) jointly conduct reviews of the intelligence agencies' Section 702 activities every 60 days. The NSD -- with notice to the ODNI -- is required to report any incidents of agency noncompliance or misconduct to the FISA court.

Instead of issuing individual court orders, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence (DNI) are required by Section 702 to provide the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) with annual certifications that specify categories of foreign intelligence information the government is authorized to acquire, pursuant to Section 702.

The attorney general and the DNI also must certify that Intelligence Community agencies will follow targeting procedures and minimization procedures that are approved by the FISC as part of the certification.

Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the NSA inspector general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702-compliance review.

On Sept. 27, 2016, the day after he filed the annual certifications, Carlin announced his resignation , which would become effective on Oct. 15, 2016.

<img class=" wp-image-2849255" src="https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2019/03/22/John-Carlin-FBI.jpg" alt="" width="160" height="192" /> John Carlin, DOJ's National Security Division. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

On Oct. 4, 2016, a standard follow-up court hearing was held ( Page 19 ), with Carlin present. Again, he made no disclosure of FISA abuse or other related issues. This lack of disclosure would be noted by the court later in the April 2017 ruling:

"The government's failure to disclose those IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing [was ascribed] to an institutional 'lack of candor.'"

  • On Oct. 15, 2016, Carlin formally left the NSD.
  • On Oct. 20, 2016, Rogers was briefed by the NSA compliance officer on findings from the 702 NSA compliance audit. The audit had uncovered a large number of issues, including numerous "about query" violations ( Senate testimony ).
  • Rogers shut down all "about query" activity on Oct. 21, 2016. "About queries" are particularly worrisome, since they occur when the target is neither the sender nor the recipient of the collected communication; rather, the target's "query," such as an email address, is being passed between two other communicants.
  • On the same day, the DOJ and FBI sought and received a Title I FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. At this point, the FISA court still was unaware of the Section 702 violations.
  • On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA court of his findings:
  • "On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA's minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court."

Rogers appeared formally before the FISA court on Oct. 26, 2016, and presented the written findings of his audit:

"Two days later, on the day the Court otherwise would have had to complete its review of the certifications and procedures, the government made a written submission regarding those compliance problems and the Court held a hearing to address them.

"The government reported that the NSA IG and OCO were conducting other reviews covering different time periods, with preliminary results suggesting that the problem was widespread during all periods under review."

The FISA court was unaware of the FISA "query" violations until they were presented to the court by then-NSA Director Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications, apparently in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA court ahead of receiving the Carter Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. FISA Abuse & the FISC

Rogers presented his findings directly to the FISA court's presiding judge, Rosemary Collyer. Collyer and Rogers would work together for the next six months, addressing the issues that Rogers had uncovered.

It was Collyer who wrote the April 26, 2017, FISA court ruling on the entire episode. It also was Collyer who signed the original FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016, before being apprised of the many issues by Rogers.

The litany of abuses described in the April 26, 2017, ruling was shocking and detailed the use of private contractors by the FBI in relation to Section 702 data. Collyer referred to it as "a very serious Fourth Amendment issue." The FBI was specifically singled out by the court numerous times in the ruling:

"The improper access previously afforded the contractors has been discontinued. The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

Rogers informed Collyer of the ongoing FISA abuses by the FBI and NSD just three days after she personally signed the Carter Page FISA warrant.

Virtually every FBI and NSD official with material involvement in the original Carter Page FISA application would later be removed -- either through firing or resignation.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated the wrong month for Christopher Steele's 2016 meeting with the FBI in Rome. The meeting took place in September 2016.

[Aug 21, 2019] Solomon If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed

Highly recommended!
They are afraid to admin that a color revolution was launched to depose Trump after the elections of 2016. Essentially a coup d'état by intelligence agencies and Clinton wing of Democratic Party.
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
"... 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 . ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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." ..."
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

America's Ruling Class is laughing at all you fools still falling for the Rs v Ds scam.

Stupid people lose.

LibertyVibe , 3 minutes ago link

I 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.

#TheDailyNews #DrainTheSwamp

Lord Raglan , 5 minutes ago link

Where's all the other, earlier docs Trump was going to declassify? Just wondering..............

TheFQ , 16 minutes ago link

Does 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...

benb , 12 minutes ago link

WHY ARE THESE TREASONOUS, VILE, CORRUPT CRIMINALS NOT INDICTED FOR TREASON?

Because the people doing the indicting are in on it.

enfield0916 , 36 minutes ago link

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.

[Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko trace to Steele dossier is a real shocker.
Notable quotes:
"... On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. ..."
"... If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI. ..."
"... What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr. ..."
"... FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble. ..."
"... It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from... ..."
"... So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination.. ..."
"... I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations? ..."
"... So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? ..."
"... Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment. ..."
"... They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose. ..."
"... Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'??? ..."
"... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort. ..."
"... So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election! ..."
"... The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement, became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good. ..."
Aug 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

There are many moving pieces in the drama surrounding the Deep State attempt to kill the Trump Presidency. God Bless Judicial Watch. I think most of the key evidence that has surfaced came courtesy of Tom Fitton, Chris Farrell and their team of tireless workers.

I want to bring you back to Mr. Felix Sater . He was part of Bayrock, which worked closely with Donald Trump's organization and, most importantly of all, was an FBI Confidential Human Source since December of 1998.

Thanks to Judicial Watch we have a new dump of Bruce Ohr emails, which include several from his wife, Nellie. There are 330 pages to wade thru (you can see them here ). There is one item in particular I encourage you to look at:

On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly "linked to Trump" include: a Russian involved in a "gangland killing;" an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly "buys up banks and pumps them dry"; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their name to the Trump Institute, promoting its "get-rich-quick schemes"; a man who poured him a drink; and others.

The spreadsheet starts on page 301. If you search the document for the name Felix Sater, he will pop up. Now here is the curious and, I suppose, reassuring thing about this document--Nellie Ohr did not have a clue that Felix Sater was an active FBI informant. We can at least give the FBI credit for protecting Sater's identity from Nellie Ohr and, more importantly, her husband, DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI.

One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed.

Shifting gears, there are two very important pieces recently posted at The Conservative Tree House that I encourage you to read:

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/quirky-angle-overstock-ceo-patrick-byrne-2016-fbi-activity-was-political-espionage/#more-168122 https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/08/12/federal-judge-completely-rejects-doj-argument-orders-archey-declarations-descriptions-of-comey-memosreleased/ The first piece focuses on CEO Patrick Byrne and the role he played in trying to entrap and portray Marina Butina as a Russian agent.

What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.

You can find this information in the Bruce Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured. Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence agent. It was a damn lie.

I do not ever want to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is entrapped and unfairly prosecuted in Russia.

We have done the same damn thing that we have accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful.

The second piece is the ultimate feel good piece. Kudos to its author, Sundance.

He details how a Federal Judge, infuriated by the FBIs stupidity and mendacity, tells the Bureau to go pound sand. The FBI is frantically trying to prevent the Archey Declarations from being revealed thanks to a lawsuit brought by CNN (finally, CNN did something right).

The Archey Declarations provide a detailed description of the memos written and illegally removed from FBI Headquarters by that sanctimonious twit, Jim Comey. More shoes will be dropping in the coming days.

It appears that Inspector General Horowitz is going to present at least one report on Jim Comey and one report on the FISA abuse by the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble.

Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today ( see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June 20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's team the right to destroy computers and emails.

It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

The fix was in more than a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending prosecution of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server.

Jim Comey lied when he declared that could not prove "intent."

I am sure that those of you who have never held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie.

But anyone who knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS material on an unclassified server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this mistakenly.

Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... ,

Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from...

So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination..

creating Phase 2..Operations..

"The Washington Free Beacon ".Has an Editor in Chief ..who is William Kristols Son In Law..And William Kristols ..Father....Irving Kristol..is Called..."the God Father of Neo Conservatism". William Kristol..was a John McCain supporter..

Thus Fusion GPS..retained Nellie Ohr..(strangly..NO Wiki Profile) who apparently had to Use her husbnd Bruce Ohrs Clearances,,to continue Her Collaberation with Fusion GPS..

By June 2016 the Strategy was to bring in Christopher Steele..who was know to Bruce Ohr back to 2006.. Strange.. NO early life BIOS for Bruce or Nellie Ohr..

Jack , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Larry

Do you believe the current DOJ under Barr will really investigate and convene a grand jury to hear testimony from Comey, Brennan and Clapper?

And what do you make of the fact that Epstein who was on suicide watch either was murdered or killed himself while in custody?

akaPatience , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations?

The Gateway Pundit item about the ridiculously unfair and unethical deals made in Hillary Clinton's email scandal investigation is just further proof of how the Clinton taint infected the FBI. "Crooked" is a very apt epithet, that's for sure. I'd love to know how much Bill and Hill raked in during her Sec'y. of State racketeering.

Fred , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?
plantman , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
You say: "One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed."

This is true, but it is also true that Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment.

They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose.

Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'???

Keith Harbaugh , 16 August 2019 at 01:38 AM
Let me just add this piece by John Solomon: "New evidence shows why Steele, the Ohrs and TSA workers never should have become DOJ sources" by John Solomon, 2019-08-15
...
Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort.

Why is that significant? Tymoshenko and Hillary Clinton had a simpatico relationship after the former secretary of State went out of her way in January 2013 to advocate for Tymoshenko's release from prison on corruption charges.

So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election!
...
The tales of Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Yulia Tymoshenko, and those DEA and TSA agents raise a stark warning:

The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement,
became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good.

That's a problem sorely in need of fixing.

oldman22 said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... 17 August 2019 at 01:16 AM

The person responsible for securing the release of Yulia Tymoshenko was Chancellor Merkel. Further, that USA opposed Tymoshenko.

quote
As for one of the leaders of the war party in Kiev, Merkel has privately and publicly endorsed every claim of Yulia Tymoshenko, promoting her release from prison and protecting her campaigns for war against Russia, even though – according to the high-level German source – “they [Chancellery, Foreign Ministry] have known for years that [Tymoshenko] was a crook.”
endquote

There is a lot more detail Tymoshenko's corruption and Merkel's rescue here:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/john-helmer-the-political-motivation-of-chancellor-merkels-embrace-of-yulia-tymoshenko-and-war.html

(republished from John Helmer's website, includes a great cartoon worth viewing)

If you want more sources for this story,google
"Merkel, Tymoshenko, prison"

[Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Highly recommended!
That suggest that FBI actions were influenced by Obama administration and CIA to much greater expent thatn we assuned.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

In reviewing these 302s there are some salient points I want to bring to your attention.

First, Christopher Steele was terminated as an FBI Confidential Human Source at the end of September 2016 for leaking to the press. That should have put an end to the relationship. Instead, the FBI starts using Bruce Ohr, the number four guy at the Department of Justice, as a cutout. Absolutely no justification for this kind of behavior by the FBI. It is, at a minimum, unethical and creates a real problem if any of the info collected from Ohr was to be used in a court proceeding. Something known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" would kick in and the so-called evidence proffered by Ohr would be inadmissible or unusable because of Steele's previous lies to the FBI.

Second, Glenn Simpson played a huge role in helping spread anti-Trump propaganda generated by Steele. In fact, it was Simpson's insistence on Steele speaking with the press that got Steele terminated as an FBI source.

Third, the FBI knew by mid-December 2016 that Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, was working with Simpson and Steele. This too should have set off alarm bells about the potential conflicts of interest and unethical conduct.

Fourth, evidence used ultimately against Paul Manafort came from Nellie Ohr. If this was not disclosed to Manafort's attorney's there is a likely Brady violation, which bolster's Manafort's prospects for an appeal.

Fifth, Steele and Simpson made several claims of fact about Russia ties to the Trump campaign that were later proven to be false. For example, stating that Michael Cohen was in Prague meeting the Russians. Important to note that Christopher Steele produced the final report of the so-called dossier bearing his name on 13 December 2016 yet this information was "passed" to Ohr one day prior to the date on the report.

Sixth, the "debriefing" of Ohr on 12 December 2016 also provided the foundation for going after Marina Butina. (See Sara Carter's excellent update on this case here ). The false information from Steele/Simpson via Bruce Ohr became the pretext for launching an investigation of Butina, who was working for a wealthy Russian banker, Alexander Torshin. This too turns out to have been a fabrication. I believe this provides Butina's attorneys more ammunition for arguing prosecutorial misconduct and failure to provide critical Brady material.

Seventh, Ohr's report that Simpson and Steele were communicating with the State Department, including Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and Kathleen Kavalec makes it clear that State Department was used as a front to pass on info from the questionable Steele Dossier. This information was used in the FISA warrant and provided a seemingly reliable justification for spying on Carter Page (see the Page FISA warrant here .)

And finally, Fusion GPS, which was hired on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, was regularly communicating and coordinating with Obama's Department of Justice and Department of State. This was a complete abuse of power.

Now, here is the summary of the 302s:

11/22/2016 (entered on 12/19/2006)

Ohr met with Steele in 2007 (not sure of date) at a conference.

July 30, 2016 Steele met Ohr for breakfast. Steele claimed Carter Page had met with Russian Sechin at a conference.

States that Glenn Simpson hired Steele and Ohr's wife to dig up dirt on Trump's connections to Russia.

Noted that reporting was going to the Clinton Campaign, Jonathan Winer and the FBI.

Ohr met with Steele in late September and was told about Alfa Bank ties to Trump and the Sergei Millian organization.

Noted that Steele was desperate to stop Trump and to thwart the Kremlin.

Ohr knew that Glenn Simpson and "others" were meeting with Victoria Nuland.

12/05/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (drafted on 12/12/2016)

Glenn Simpson directed Christopher Steele to speak to the press, including David Corn at Mother Jones.

Ohr provided FBI info on Manafort Chronology prepared by his wife.

12/12/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (Drafted on 12/14/2016)

Ohr states, per Simpson, that Cohen replaced Manafort and Page as the contact with the Russians.

Says that Cohen met with Russians in Prague.

Claims that Torshin is a Russian mobster and is trying to infiltrate the NRA and was pushing money to Trump.

Simpson opined that Sergei Millian was an SVR officer and a link to Trump.

12/20/2016 (entered on 12/27/2016)

Thumb drive with Nelly Ohr's research passed to FBI.

1/23/2017 (entered on 1/31/2017) (drafted on 1/25/2017)

Simpson tells Ohr a source will be outed in the coming days.

Steele claims he met with a McCain staffer prior to October 2016

1/25/017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Ohr spoke with Steele on 25 January 2017.

1/27/2017 (entered on 1/27/2017)

Steele told Ohr he wanted to keep lines of communication open.

02/06/2017 (entered on 02/08/2017)

Ohr contacted by Steele via What'sApp on 31 January 2017. Was reacting to firing of Sally Yates. Worried that if Ohr got fired he would have no one to talk to.

"Interviewing agents asked Ohr to ask Steele if he would be comfortable getting the name of an FBI agent."

Ohr reminded agents that Steele had spoken several times prior to 2016 Presidential election with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. Ohr identified one of the sources for Steele's report as a Ukranian.

02/14/2017 (entered on 02/15/2017)

Ohr tells FBI about Steele's concerns about his business. Identifies other lawyer (name blacked out) he is working with. Steele is preparing a proposal to re-establish his business releationship with the FBI.

05/08/2017 (entered on 05/10/2017)

Steele tells Ohr that he is worried about Comey's upcoming testimony. Ohr tells Steele what Comey will say and Steele is "happy."

Ohr said that Glenn Simpson would be visiting Steele soon.

Jonathan Winer was bringing a letter to Steele.

walrus , 11 August 2019 at 04:43 PM

this is treason.
PRC90 , 11 August 2019 at 08:24 PM
As an aside, note the similarities between Steele and Downer. Both carried some imprimatur of credibility based on prior government service, and popped up from no where and returned to relative obscurity after producing a document that was able to be immediately misused by others for the same purpose.

I'd wondered why anyone would want to involve Downer in these events, the man is a moron. However, one of his greatest strengths is producing wonderful well written reports, and to that extent would appear to have been chosen well.

confusedponderer , 12 August 2019 at 05:52 AM
It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining - that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably bringing in her ... regime change experience aquired in the Ukraine.

I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?

https://orf.at/static/images/site/news/20131250/ukraine_klitschko_usa_body_a.4532409.jpg

As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+ billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper - i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.

That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent observer.

Thanks for sharing and elaborating.

Patrick Armstrong , 12 August 2019 at 08:48 AM
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from beginning to end?

The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance.

Any ideas?
One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out over such a long time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an effect.

My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.

But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that they're not exploded.

turcopolier , 12 August 2019 at 09:02 AM
PA

Unless there are a lot of indictments none of this will matter.

plantman , 12 August 2019 at 11:39 AM
So, state department honchos--Victoria Nuland, Kavalec and Sally Yates (DOJ)--all had some knowledge of what was going on, right? And so did national security advisor Susan Rice.

Doesn't that prove that Obama must have been in the loop?

I think it does.

Second, how much of Nellie Ohr's russia research actually ended up in the steele dossier? I think that it is very unlikely that Chris Steele maintained his sketchy connections in Russia after the seismic political changes in the early 2000s. It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives.

notamusedobserver -> plantman... , 12 August 2019 at 04:42 PM
The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used..

[Aug 12, 2019] Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized. Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract from her being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor of donor interests. "Moderates" need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address the interests of voters. ..."
Aug 12, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Mark Thomason , August 12, 2019 at 10:34

Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized. Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract from her being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor of donor interests. "Moderates" need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address the interests of voters.

[Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
Jul 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.

As I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about election meddling :

"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.

"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.

"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."

It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :

Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer, "well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .

Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.

The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents.

There are only two possibilities:

  1. Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project to take out Trump, or
  2. Obama was kept in the dark.

Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?

On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump?

turcopolier , 26 July 2019 at 04:19 PM

All

My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision. As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.

Bill H , 26 July 2019 at 04:51 PM
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?" causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
Alexandria , 26 July 2019 at 07:02 PM
Bill H,

When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by the Internet Research Agency.

Jack said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:41 AM
TTG

You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?

What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?

Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe the Russians did?

uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have no idea what China did or is doing.

Larry Johnson -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 11:36 AM
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.

The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS. Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.

The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign. Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.

blue peacock said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 12:29 PM
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."

I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous accounts.

The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow journalism is as American as apple pie.

The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms of financing and dubiousness.

It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.

The Twisted Genius -> blue peacock... , 27 July 2019 at 01:42 PM
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations, misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
Fred -> The Twisted Genius ... , 27 July 2019 at 09:23 AM
TTG,

You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right? It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.

"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false. Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?

catherine , 27 July 2019 at 12:20 AM
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate. We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..

Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.

LondonBob , 27 July 2019 at 06:57 AM
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
J , 27 July 2019 at 12:27 PM
This has shown two things IMO

1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and

2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.

Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their jobs upholding our Constitution!

Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!

Mark Logan said in reply to J... , 27 July 2019 at 02:14 PM
J,

I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO, wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.

plantman , 27 July 2019 at 12:55 PM
I believe Larry Johnson is right when he says:

"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing....

My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???

Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???

rg , 27 July 2019 at 01:46 PM
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence, where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if it means "Trump's error".

And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".

Keep up your great work for this excellent website.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.

turcopolier , 27 July 2019 at 03:35 PM
Mark Logan

How do you know "they lied their asses off?" Mueller's report stated that no American had conspired with the Russians,

[Jul 09, 2019] Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge. ..."
"... Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 , prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information). ..."
"... Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president "wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire to provide him with "plausible denial." ..."
"... It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him. ..."
"... "That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)." ..."
"... It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. ..."
"... The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly sell out the middle class in broad daylight. ..."
"... The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful. ..."
"... Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge would. ..."
"... I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even before they made it legal. ..."
"... Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television. ..."
"... This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused. ..."
"... I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is lawless. It is a disaster. ..."
"... Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior, and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc. recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders". ..."
"... This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more. ..."
"... there have always been nefarious agents in one government or another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct interest of the American people ..."
"... It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just it will to power. ..."
"... So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold War. A stark education has just played out to this point. ..."
Jul 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on Trump to unfetter investigators, all hell may break lose, says Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern
 Special to Consortium News

A s Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.

King told a radio audience: "There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the United States or, at that time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The Hill.

King, a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence Committee.

He asserted:

"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign – and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders It's just wrong."

The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today: "The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia against his own country."

King: Lashes out.

According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William Barr, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation led by John Durham, U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to complete his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the experience of waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about now?

So Where is the IG Report on FISA?

That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).

The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process. (Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)

The Washington Examiner reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The report continued:

"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview, Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz 'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,' Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"

Horowitz: Still waiting for his report

Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may, in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the 11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the Justice Department and FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was assigned to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.

Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 , prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).

It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end, even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?

What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?

Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president "wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire to provide him with "plausible denial."

It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.

Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it" defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang. Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that -- or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.

Reining in Devin Nunes

That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA). On April 5, 2019, in the apparent belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."

On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.

Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the criminal referrals?

There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.

Joe T Wallace , July 8, 2019 at 20:24

I'm a great admirer of Ray McGovern's reporting. He exposes much that is never revealed by the mainstream media. That said, I do have one quibble about this article. In the seventh paragraph, just below the heading "So Where is the IG Report on FISA?" he writes:

"That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)."

My immediate reaction was: Who is Horowitz? It was confusing not to know. Further down in the article, I learned that Ray was referring to Michael Horowitz, a DOJ watchdog who is preparing an IG report about FISA abuse, but readers should have been informed who he was earlier in the article.

John , July 8, 2019 at 17:10

Peter King? Devin Nunes?

At one point the article says little effort was made to cover tracks because of certainty that HRC would win but later that the FBI et al were planting land mines to either defeat Trump or blow up his presidency. Seemed contradictory to me.

Perhaps you have the skinny on these machinations, if indeed there were machinations by one person or group or another for this purpose or that.

But Peter King and Devin Nunes? If either ever was credible, their track record condemns them to be received, if at all, with extreme skepticism.

Realist , July 8, 2019 at 16:59

It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. Or will she be expected to repudiate the Hitlery-run DNC? Where does the money and the ground game originate if the latter?

The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly sell out the middle class in broad daylight. I won't like it, but I can see Trump Derangement Syndrome pulling out the chestnuts for the Dems, what with all their celebrity spokespeople constantly running and ranting like their hair is on fire underneath those pussy hats. My poor gullible sister from Cali embraces that whole ball of wax as revealed truth holier than the total dry weight of all the Abrahamic scriptures rolled into one big bale for the recycling center. Kamala Harris seems to be emerging as the new messiah anointed to lead this country back to Obamian gridlock and more prestidigitation like mandated insurance to ensure the health of the insurance companies. Again, it will only be the illusion of "free stuff."

The only way such a scenario won't cause four more years of turmoil for this country (rinse and repeat in 2024) is if the victor is Gabbard and she ends all the illegal and unconstitutional wars by edict, telling all the sure-to-be pissing and moaning Deep State functionaries to pick up their severance pay and go pound sand. Then shut the world-wide spider web of military bases and bring home the troops while we can still afford the carfare. That would be "morning in America," and Gabbard would be the most heroic chief exec since Lincoln and FDR made their marks in the history books, though such fantasies never play out in the real world. More likely all the criminal evidence of treason remains classified, most Americans pop the blue pill, the actual rabbit hole continues to grow ever deeper but the masses are contentedly oblivious to it all, satisfied to blame select scapegoats from Russia, China and other "malign" countries for our viewing entertainment.

Deniz , July 8, 2019 at 17:50

The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful.

ML , July 8, 2019 at 20:12

You are really something, Realist. I love the way you flourish that pen of yours. Thank you.

Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:13

Realist, well said, per usual. To add a bit the Dems probably gave Trump the gift of a lifetime the next election. Wasting three years on Russiagate instead of hammering out a decent platform for the party was beyond dumb. That reminds me. the Dems's next dumbest idea choosing Joe Biden as their next candidate. Just like Hillary, he can't beat Trump. The duopoly is dead, they just don't know it.

As for Tulsi, she's got my vote.

John Earls , July 8, 2019 at 16:55

Looks like Barry Eisler's John Rain (expert in "death by natural causes") will have a lot of work in front of him if the investigation builds and a whole lot of "material witnesses" begin to testify.

ricardo2000 , July 8, 2019 at 16:33

I'm supposed to feel sorry for the surveillance of a right-wing creep? OH PLEASE.
No one in government, or the right wing ReThugs, has ever suffered the intrusive, lying, speculative 'investigations' that social justice, environmental, or human rights activists have over the past 70 years.

When these buttheads suffer what MLK and Malcolm X have suffered then I might just wipe away a few tears, after I stop roaring with laughter and get off the floor.

Realist , July 8, 2019 at 17:08

You prefer a race to the bottom of the cesspool?

You never win when you adopt the methods you claim to revile. The opponent who introduced the tactics you condemn wins if you embrace them as your own. You didn't beat him, you joined him.

LibertyBonBon , July 8, 2019 at 18:12

Must be nice to think the justice system should revolve around your particular emotions, rather than equality and objectivity. Safe and easy.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:41

ricardo2000, nothing personal, I get the revulsion to Trump and entourage not to mention a large portion of the Maga crowd but this right and left thing is really just an illusion, the people doing the persecuting here regardless of how disgusting Trump is are the same ones doing the persecuting to a large degree of everyone else from Assange to the Iranians, that is this government deep state in combination with all of the various American alphabet soup agencies as well as foreign deep states have cornered the market in State power, hate Trump but don't confuse this with a good thing.

O Society , July 8, 2019 at 16:18

Thank you, Ray McGovern. You are a good man, Charlie Brown!

Thing is, all of this was predictable from the beginning. Many of us saw it coming.

No one really wanted an incompetent baboon running things – the song about Monkey and the Engineer comes to mind – so Obama tried to hamstring Trump with this investigation. I mean, Obama couldn't very well have not completed the transfer of power because it is the most valuable thing about democracy. There is no ten year bloody hellified civil war every time the crown changes hands from one inbred to the next.

So Obama did the next best thing on his way out the Oval Office doors, he put Brennan and the boys on it. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I'm sure. But it backfired because he couldn't call the dogs off once he was no longer president. Not Brennan, not anyone could call them off after the snowball really got rolling because the spooks believed their own story and the media made too much money off selling the mythology:

https://osociety.org/2019/07/06/spooks-spooking-themselves/

Only question left to answer now is whether or not Trump the carnival barker can milk his opportunist Armageddon into a second term of fleecing the rubes.

http://osociety.org/2019/07/08/can-donald-trump-delay-an-economic-crash-until-2020

karlof1 , July 8, 2019 at 15:00

This is a very serious Constitutional Law issue and MUST be pursued–and it makes no difference the political party denomination of those breaking the law! The Current Oligarchy–Deep State–is the adversary of the vast majority of US citizens and humanity. With Epstein's arrest and the developments McGovern relates, some progress appears to be happening.

Lydia , July 8, 2019 at 14:51

You summed it up perfectly, Jill.

Pablo Diablo , July 8, 2019 at 14:42

"the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him." says it all. Trump is a loose cannon. The so called "Deep State" has been "controlling" our Presidents since at least the Dulles Brothers. Truman even admitted giving them power was a BIG mistake. Still question the Kennedy Assassination.
In the 70's, the FBI mailed me a box of drugs, which I refused to take from a very incompetent fake Mail Man, and three minutes later they showed up with a search warrant for my house that listed all the drugs in the failed mailed box signed by a Federal Judge. So much for FISA. The bullshit continues. I could reveal more if necessary.

robert e williamson jr , July 8, 2019 at 14:32

Sam F. whether you realize it or not you got it pretty much on the nose. Except for this.

The judiciary has been compromised by the congresses refusal to hold CIA et. al. accountable for their actions. Why? Those in congress remember what happened to JFK.

The number one reason is because the deep state ensures that if anyone goes after CIA officials or designees that the persons career and life are ruined. Which is something else that needs to be investigated. Something that if explored may very well put a stop to CIA's B.S. of lying about everything and getting away with it.

Currently no deterrent exists. None.

Anytime some one or entity gets close the Deep State ends up with their guy as AG. See the Bill Barr story.

Barr may get his chance to prove me right and at the same time prove "Lady Justice" has little to do with the DOJ! I think he is a cowardly blowhard. Justice would be Trump and Barr going to jail .

Justice in this country for the true scoundrels in government or billionaires is non- existent at this point in time. Putting Epstein in prison for life is called for and if he is threatened with that maybe his jaw will loosen up.

Until DOJ can become a deterrent to bad actors in government, all government the country will be controlled by the Deep State. The SWETS, super wealthy elitists.

Keep your eyes on George Soro and the Kochs.

Paul Merrell , July 8, 2019 at 17:28

@ "Justice would be Trump and Barr going to jail ."

Are you suggesting that *any* of their living predecessors don't deserve the same? If so, which do not and why?

Jay , July 8, 2019 at 14:18

Bif:

I agree something very suspect occurred.

And it's very likely the Obama White House knew that either the NSA or the FBI was tapping into the communications of some of Trump's campaign team BEFORE Hillary lost in Nov. 2016.

However the xenophobic, lying, terrorist (IRA) supporting, Peter King is not a credible messenger. (Right, Rep Steve King of Iowa is even worse than King of Long Island.)

Peter Dyer , July 8, 2019 at 14:09

Thanks, Ray.

DH Fabian , July 8, 2019 at 13:59

Actually, that deep split among the masses, and certainly within the Dem voting base, was achieved in the 1990s -- middle class vs. poor, workers vs. those left jobless, further split by race. The Obama years confirmed that this split is permanent. Russia had nothing to do with the Democrats' 2016 defeat, nor will it be the reason for their 2020 defeat. Democrats maintain their resistance against acknowledging the consequences of dividing and conquering their own voting base.

EuGene Miller , July 9, 2019 at 00:24

DH, that's an interesting assessment. However, I doubt that any House or Senate Democrat sought an advantage by "splitting their base". The elected Dems do not control the narrative. So, who benefits by splitting the masses into rival factions?

Perhaps the narrative of social and political discourse is defined by the owners, boards, and foundations that control the main-stream media and pop-culture.

Robert Reich wrote that an oligarchy divides-and-conquers the rest of us. I suspect that controlling the narrative is not simply a propaganda tool; it is the basis of divide-and-conquer strategy.

https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/57499-there-is-no-right-v-left-it-is-trump-and-the-oligarchs-against-the-rest

robert e williamson jr , July 8, 2019 at 13:56

Is it possible that the DOJ, see the Sec. of Labor's problems developing with the Espstein case, is about to have it's gloriously corrupt underbelly rolled over into the sunlight? (you must roll the snake over to see its belly)

Please Ray tell me this is where we might be heading or instead will we end up with the courts truncating investigation because they say it will be best for the country not to have all this filthy laundry dragged out into the sunlight or someones bull shit sources and methods might be exposed. The DOJ has become a really bad joke!

I'm hoping you know something I don't because Barr's past history pretty much speaks for itself I'd say after be made sure he pardoned all of Bush 41 henchmen!

At this point I certainly do not have much faith in the DOJ doing the right thing. What Acosta did in Florida with Epstein was hardly the right thing to do.

They all need to be locked up.

Eric32 , July 8, 2019 at 13:33

Very little "punishment" will occur, and no deep change cleanup will occur.
The US govt. is controlled by money and blackmail – not "voting" or public outrage.

So many high level people have so much dirt on other high level people that nothing major will be done.
A series of very big events, including the JFK murder and the 9/11 charade went unexposed and undealt with – there is no reason to think that this medium size event will wind up making a big difference.

What will happen is that US "democracy" will continue on its downward course, but maybe with a better facade.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:59

I personally believe that the empire will crash when it hits maximum overreach it will also simultaneously go broke at the same time, as the money interests at that point Will probably move east, this will partially be due to both the feds tendency to over inflate in order to cover military acquisitions as well as the decline of swift and the ascendancy of China in the rest. I actually think that this is what some American factions desire, it is potentially good for all of us if we can regain a republic but it will mean the end of American hegemony.

Gary Weglarz , July 8, 2019 at 13:22

This is the same "deep state" that assassinated a sitting president, then proceeded to assassinate the next three most important and influential progressive leaders in the country all over a five year period. Problem solved. And just when you thought Allen Dulles didn't know what to do with all those oh so experienced Nazi war criminals he'd recruited to the CIA.

When Congress investigated the CIA in the mid-1970's (before Congress became completely "owned" by the deep state) right on cue witnesses began to "commit suicide" just before they would be scheduled to testify. Problem solved. Hardly a raised eyebrow from the always complicit MSM through all of this. Expecting anything more than a massive coverup of this latest deep state corruption and abuse is beyond my abilities to even effectively fantasize about.

herbert davis , July 8, 2019 at 14:12

Justice in the USA?

John Drake , July 8, 2019 at 13:20

The corporate Democrats strike out again. They run a corrupt, violent(war monger) candidate, who loses to a buffoon-an election which was hers to lose. Meanwhile trying to hedge their bets they play sleazeball with the investigative arm's authority in order to sabotage said buffoon; which as it is revealed gives ammunition and the advantage to their target. i.e. "They were illegally picking on me"
If Trump is smart-a very long stretch, but some advisor might suggest this- he will expose all this slime closer to the election for maximum effect. What a distressing thought. All the more reason to run a progressive Presidential candidate that can disavow the DNC clowns and their corruption.

geeyp , July 8, 2019 at 12:37

It's past time for the Deep State to come up from the deep state of hell in which they reside. At least to purgatory for some fresh air and a wee ray of light. I couldn't let the Schumer warning keep me from giving the go ahead on this. If my coconut is shattered, someone somewhere (not our current media) would have a clue as to what happened to me. Sic 'em, President Trump and A.G. and Devin Nunes!

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 12:14

The US needs to solve the underlying problem of corruption of secret agencies and judiciary, otherwise the political wrongdoing of one faction will only be matched by that of its opponents, regardless of a few prosecutions. I know from experience the extreme corruption of the Repubs, and little doubt that the Dems do such things at least when desperate.

The solution includes:
1. All secrets meaningfully shared among multiparty committees;
2. All politicians and top officials monitored for corrupt influence;
3. Entire federal judiciary fired, replaced, and monitored like the politicians; and
4. Amendments to protect elections and mass media from control by money power.
Until then all government acts are tribal gangsterism and little more.

Guy , July 8, 2019 at 13:50

You forgot about dual citizenship members of the senate and congress . Elected as a representative for the country of the US should mean just that and not another country . And while we are at it , major reform on monetary contributions to candidates running for re-election . There is something terribly wrong with needing millions if not billions of dollars to run the electoral races.There is much more that needs to be done but this would be a good start .

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:32

Yes, the proposed Amendments would restrict funding of mass media and elections to registered individual contributions (some prefer government funding) limited to the average day's pay annually (for example), with full reporting by candidates and all intermediaries. We all can see the destruction of democracy that was caused by economic power controlling elections, mass media, the judiciary, etc.

But of course we cannot get those amendments because those tools of democracy now belong to the rich, etc. History suggests that we are in for generations of severe decline before the people are hurting enough to turn off the tube and do something, and generations more before they can re-establish democracy.

Herman , July 8, 2019 at 15:20

Ray McGovern writes:"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge"

On the matter of government reform classification there is a great need of public discussion and radical reform. Why? Because the government is playing with an essential right, the right to know. All the red herrings needed to be thrown in the trash and the burden placed on the classifiers to justify why the public does not have a right to know.

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:24

Yes, the facts and their significance (especially about false flags and scandals) need to be publicly debated, as well as policy goals, and the policies derived from facts and goals. We have far too many government secrets to sustain a democracy.

I suggest limiting secrets to ongoing investigations (with a time limit), defensive military plans and operations (not alleged provocations or aggressive war schemes), and personal IDs of those at risk. Beyond that secrets disguise tyranny.

Ida G Millman , July 8, 2019 at 16:02

Another path towards a solution to government corruption could be term limits for all federal representatives. Limiting the number of terms would curtail the opportunities for forming the uninterrupted years of long coalitions between public servants and government officials that result in the abuses of power that have damaged the interests of ordinary less wealthy citizens, in favor of corporate and military interests.

In the matter of the original intentions of the men who wrote our founding documents, we should consider one of the enormous differences that technology has made between us: that our representatives can travel between DC and their homes with enough ease that they can continue reasonably, or nearly reasonably, satisfactory family lives – something that could not be done in the 18th century. The forefathers did not foresee that being a member of government would become a career for a lifetime. They assumed, I believe, that members of government would always be citizens who would give our country a few years of their lives and then return to private life to share their experience and knowledge with their neighbors.

Such a change would not magically reform government corruption. There will always be those who will find a way – but it could slow things down and it would certainly engage an increasing number of citizens who would participate in governing, as well as the circles of people surrounding each of them whose interest in and understanding of government would increase because everyone would know more of their representatives. Got that, kids? L&B&L

Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:37

Term limits are useful and we should enact more. There seems to be a sufficient supply of puppets for the rich/WallSt/Mic/zionists to ensure that all new candidates represent only those interests, unless we go further and control funding of mass media and elections, monitoring of politicians and judges for life, etc.

Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:28

Ida,
Term limits wouldn't be necessary if money were out of elections and all elections were publicly funded. Next, a law should be passed to prevent retired congress people from lobbying for any private company of any kind. Then people wouldn't have to spend all their time in congress lining up money for the next election, nor would they owe favors to anyone.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:19

Sam F, all of those goals seem very nice but it would probably be better if we just dissolved back into 50 states save for an interstate system and a very small navy for common defense, maybe four nuclear submarines total, the American people will be best off without a government completely working it out for themselves, if some of them work it out in completely different ways without hurting each other so be it. Besides even a libertarians would have to acknowledge democracy best works for smaller populations. We may never be able to curb the will to power of evil men but we can diminish their abilities to fleece the public if we are not subject to them.

Jay , July 8, 2019 at 11:42

Peter King?

Really now.

Not a credible source, no matter how invention filled Russia-gate is. And no matter how clear it is that in 2016 the FBI was poking around campaign Trump and likely telling the White House what it found.

Bif Webster , July 8, 2019 at 13:28

I agree that King isn't the best of messengers, but we can also go to others who are not right-wing to see something fishy went on.

Those text messages convinced me something was going on. And that was before all the other stuff came to light.

I think this will be about who has more dirt on the other side you know, leverage?

Jeff Harrison , July 8, 2019 at 11:41

Thank you, Ray. Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge would.

I don't see that as necessarily much of a plus.

Steven Berge , July 8, 2019 at 11:40

I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even before they made it legal.

Drew Hunkins , July 8, 2019 at 11:32

Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television.

Jill , July 8, 2019 at 11:15

This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused.

I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is lawless. It is a disaster.

Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior, and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc. recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders".

People won't speak to one another because of this division, all based on lies. Democrats want Assange put to death because he exposed truthful information about Clinton. Neighbor has turned against neighbor over this. We have stopped talking and stopped thinking about whether claims make sense or have evidence behind them. Political parties have become cults with cult leaders. Meanwhile, many who think it was wrong to use surveillance against Trump, accept mass surveillance against everyone else, including themselves.

This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more.

I cannot believe what Russiagate has done to our own people. I am terrified at the wars it has/may yet cause and the cruelty against others, both foreign and domestic, which it has wrought.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:51

What else would you call it, there have always been nefarious agents in one government or another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct interest of the American people, I'm not trying to be you over the head with this but Mr. McGovern was once upon a Time swimming in the same waters and he knows what he is talking about. The deep state maybe several different factions but all of it at least so far is fairly I'm Accountable, this thing must be named.

AnneR , July 8, 2019 at 14:18

First the Disclaimer: I'm not a supporter of either side of the one party two headed monster political machine, not of either HRC or DT, both, and their "parties," making me want to puke.

I am curious about the following: "He [DT] has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused."

While I have no doubt that DT has been responsible for civilian deaths (I am far less concerned about military deaths – join the military and you cannot expect not to have to chance it, particularly in a warmongering nation state; if the recruit doesn't recognize this reality, then they need to do some reading), *most* such deaths in those countries we (the US and its vassal states and proxies) have been happily bombing, shelling, destroying one way or another, even since the late 1980s (not therefore including the appalling and illegal warring on Vietnam et al) are down, not to DT, but rather to presidents: BC, GHB, GWB, BO. Pretty evenly divided betwixt the two heads, wouldn't you say?

That's not to excuse DT (and I wouldn't excuse HRC either – think Libya; as bad as MA, if with different forms of warfare; but then they're buddies, like attracting like).

We – the US – need to stop killing other peoples (let's cry for the war-making profiteers), stop destroying other countries (and for our corporate-capitalists who plunder them); need to mind our own "shop" and business. And stop pretending that we're such a wonderful, white-hatted, "good" nation.

Jill , July 8, 2019 at 15:15

AnneR,

We have had war criminal presidents from the legacy parties, period. Barr is a party to war crimes so I share other's doubts that he will do anything about actual justice. He may be in on the current winning side of the IC and they may be purging some enemies at this time. That is the only thing I see Barr being involved in.

Speaking as someone who has done counter-recruitment in schools, I will just give you my experience. Students are tracked from grade school. A file is kept on them with over a thousand data points. These files are taken by recruiters and used to "pitch" the military to young people. I don't know if you were sophisticated at 16. I was a little bit but not much. So here's an example–they told one young woman who had a single mother that if she went in the military she would not be a burden on her mother any longer. They understood the family had few resources and they played on this young woman's "guilt" over being a financial "drain" on her mother. No, recruiters do not tell the truth to those they meet. They lie and they lie very well because they have excellent information to help them tell the correct lies. That girl is dead and I mourn her death.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:05

AnneR, you have so much anger, I understand, it is terrible what our nation has done and is continuing to do, it has gone on so long that many of the people currently perpetrating the crimes against foreign populations are themselves of descendents of peoples the US has victimized. It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just it will to power.

Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:09

Jill that was an incredibly cogent description of the mess we are currently in, congratulations on such clarity, peace out.

David Otness , July 9, 2019 at 00:18

With you on all that you state, Jill. It's really exposed the U.S. population for what we unfortunately are, if not what we've become. So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold War. A stark education has just played out to this point. I wonder how many have learned anything at all from it?

[Jun 30, 2019] USG's Bizarre Change of Position in the Roger Stone Case by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Given these facts you would think it would be easy for Robert Mueller to explain how the Russians got their hands on the DNC emails and then passed them on to Wikileaks. But it is not easy because the foundation of the case against the Russians rests on assumptions and beliefs. No solid facts. ..."
"... To reiterate a point I have raised in previous posts, the only entity to have forensic access to the DNC computers, i.e. CrowdStrike, is on the record in the person of the CrowdStrike CEO, Dimitri Alperovitch admitting they don't know how the Russians got access. ..."
"... CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with "spearphishing" emails. These are communications that appear legitimate -- often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted -- but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. " But we don't have hard evidence ," Alperovitch said. ..."
"... If CrowdStrike actually had conducted a legitimate forensic examination of the DNC server/servers then they absolutely would have had "hard evidence." ..."
"... The government produced the CrowdStrike reports because the Indictment in this case referenced, as background, CrowdStrike's statements about the DNC hack. Stone's statement that the government has no other evidence is not only irrelevant to this proceeding but is also mistaken. ..."
"... It is a horrible irony that Stone is being persecuted with prosecution based on an even bigger lie -- i.e., the Russians hacked the DNC. Russia did not hack the DNC. Let's hope that Stone's lawyers get a chance to demand the US Government put up the evidence or shut up. ..."
Jun 30, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

There is zero forensic evidence in the public arena that supports the US Government's assertion that the Russian Government hacked the DNC. In fact, the forensic computer evidence that is available indicates that the emails from the DNC were downloaded onto something like a thumb drive.

There also is zero forensic evidence in the public arena that the Russians passed/delivered the DNC emails to Julian Assange/Wikileaks. There are only two ways to get DNC emails into the hands of Wiki people--an electronic transfer or a physical/human transfer. That's it.

And here is what we know for certain. First, since Edward Snowden absconded with the NSA's family jewels with the help of Wikileaks, U.S. and British intelligence assets have been monitoring every single electronic communication to and from Wikileaks/Julian Assange. They also have been conducting surveillance on all personal contacts with Assange and other key members of the Wikileaks staff.

Given these facts you would think it would be easy for Robert Mueller to explain how the Russians got their hands on the DNC emails and then passed them on to Wikileaks. But it is not easy because the foundation of the case against the Russians rests on assumptions and beliefs. No solid facts.

To reiterate a point I have raised in previous posts, the only entity to have forensic access to the DNC computers, i.e. CrowdStrike, is on the record in the person of the CrowdStrike CEO, Dimitri Alperovitch admitting they don't know how the Russians got access. Alperovitch told Washington Post Reporter Ellen Nakashima on June 14, 2016 the following :

CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with "spearphishing" emails. These are communications that appear legitimate -- often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted -- but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. " But we don't have hard evidence ," Alperovitch said.

If CrowdStrike actually had conducted a legitimate forensic examination of the DNC server/servers then they absolutely would have had "hard evidence."

Then, 13 months later, we have FBI Director Jim Comey admitting that the FBI relied on CrowdStrike for its "evidence." Jim Comey testified to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017 and stated the following :

"we never got direct access to the machines themselves. The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system."

Now take a look at a very significant reversal of the US Government's position in the case against Roger Stone. On 20 June 2019, US Attorney Jessie Liu filed a motion attempting to rebut the argument presented by Stone's attorneys that there was no supporting evidence for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC. Here are the key snippets from her filing:

As the government has argued (Doc. 122, at 6, 9, 14), Russia's role in the DNC hack is not material to the eighteen findings of probable cause that Stone appears to be challenging. . . . The government produced the CrowdStrike reports because the Indictment in this case referenced, as background, CrowdStrike's statements about the DNC hack. Stone's statement that the government has no other evidence is not only irrelevant to this proceeding but is also mistaken.

Yet, when you read the original indictment, Roger Stone was put in the cross hairs because he was allegedly communicating with Wikileaks/Julian Assange about the DNC emails. And those emails are identified in the indictment as "stolen." The Government is hoping to nail Stone on the charge of "lying" to Congress. Good luck with that.

It is a horrible irony that Stone is being persecuted with prosecution based on an even bigger lie -- i.e., the Russians hacked the DNC. Russia did not hack the DNC. Let's hope that Stone's lawyers get a chance to demand the US Government put up the evidence or shut up.

[Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk. It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.

German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time for CIA instead of Abwehr.

The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine. They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.

Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty to his country and its constitution.

Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.

It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.

Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.

Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.

Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost, Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew of to the FBI hands.

In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.

They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.

The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.

Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The head of FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested as the search of their premises revealed immense amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.

In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.

In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.

You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.

Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics, also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver. But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.

In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies; apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.

When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in, among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.

During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director, to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid contacts altogether.

Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further", a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.

While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.

In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over Europe. Another tool is The Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is blurred . And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.

In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them.

If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party, the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.

People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place.

Sean McBride , says: May 21, 2019 at 3:18 pm GMT

Side note:

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.

These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.

Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.

Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.

Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.

Ding ding ding , says: May 21, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMT
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:

– It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.

– It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control.

– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world. That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing" treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article 46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation stipulating otherwise.

Endgame Napoleon , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:14 pm GMT
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on. The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.

The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at least, to understand how it works.

In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.

Digital Samizdat , says: May 21, 2019 at 6:40 pm GMT

In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.

FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.

Cyrano , says: May 21, 2019 at 7:09 pm GMT
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.

If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.

It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case.

And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.

The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.

Kirt , says: May 21, 2019 at 10:01 pm GMT
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.

An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture. This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock stars.

israel shamir , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:06 am GMT
@Kirt

Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA

Good explanation of freemasonry's decline, Kirt! As for popular culture – almost all latest cinema characters are spies – like Avengers))

anno nimus , says: May 22, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto them! they will have no place to hide or run to.

Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.

3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."

5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. 6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.

8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"

9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also, My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."

11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded me."

Antares , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:01 am GMT
Espionage depends on contra-espionage. We will never get that hold on Jewish spies as they can have on our spies.
Paul Bennett , says: May 22, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
Great article.

E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz. https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272

Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants.

John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.

Yarkob , says: May 22, 2019 at 7:52 am GMT
@Antares that's because the Mossad isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
MarkU , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.

Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3 of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?

I am open to any sensible alternative hypothesis.

Realist , says: May 22, 2019 at 8:48 am GMT
@Sean McBride

How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?

Shit floats.

Sally , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:06 am GMT
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror.

Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.

Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed, distorted or destroyed.

Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/ <i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.

Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.

I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical, human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support of robin -hood terror.

Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained, certified mental case terrorist.

Anon [295] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:08 am GMT
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent because the agent merely enables action.

The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.

Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says, "print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.

While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaganda-network-built-by-the-cia-a-worldwide-network.html

http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-%20CIA%20and%20Media.htm

joeshittheragman , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
Do Spies Run the World?
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
If they're Jewish spies – then yes.
Vojkan , says: May 22, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT
Not usually a big fan of Israel Shamir's pieces but this one on spooks is truly excellent. The article is spot on.
9/11 Inside job , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:37 am GMT
Spies do not run the world , they are merely agents of the "families" who use them to retain and increase their control ,power and wealth .
cowherd , says: May 22, 2019 at 10:46 am GMT
@Sean McBride And now Trump should have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
atlantis_dweller , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:26 am GMT
Don't agree.

[Should don't agree, agree, troll, and lol "buttons" for columns be added? I think it would be a nice extra].

mike k , says: May 22, 2019 at 11:49 am GMT
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately need to find out ..
Anon [421] Disclaimer , says: May 22, 2019 at 12:41 pm GMT
@Sean McBride

Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint those three.

Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."

[May 30, 2019] Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't understand what you're looking at." ..."
May 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
ben , May 29, 2019 10:45:47 PM | 2

SteveK9 , May 29, 2019 6:54:20 PM | 0

Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth. I recommend listening to the two-part interview of George Papadopoulos with Mark Steyn, where he describes the convoluted plot to use him to bring down Trump.

What they did to this guy is truly disgusting. Brennan belongs in a prison cell, and he should be sharing it with Mueller. Papadopoulos also has written a book about his experiences called 'Deep State Target, How I got caught in the crosshairs of the plot to bring down President Trump.

And, a final comment. Hillary Clinton proved beyond all doubt that she and not Trump was not fit to be President. To engage in this scheme and then to raise tensions through the roof with a nuclear superpower, which can destroy this country, is about as low and selfish as it is possible to be.

As I stated on the open thread, to paraphrase Muller;

I don't give a s###. figure it out yourself, Im f***ing outta' here.

The whole point of impeachment, is to have a show trial, not actually impeach. If the thing is on TV, the American people may watch it, and that would be interesting.

Not to worry though, Pelosi and Schumer won't let that happen. Appeasing their donors,is all they care about.

psycho @ 2 quoting C. Johnston stated;

"All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't understand what you're looking at."

That, my friends, is the clearest truth of all..

[May 27, 2019] The Campaign to Paint Trump as a Russian Stooge Started on May 4, 2016 by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... 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 ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... May 4, 2016, FBI Informant Felix Sater followed up with Michael Cohen re Trump Tower Moscow Project: ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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? ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... NSA has records of communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange. ..."
"... 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? ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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)? ..."
"... Can Barr declassify the Rich/Assange material? Also, was Skripal one of Steele's "sources"? ..."
"... Joseph Mifsud is missing in this time line. He always appeared to be the most curious player. Any reason he is left out? ..."
"... This 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 ..."
"... Before 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. ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... I 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? ..."
"... Declassify 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. ..."
"... 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/ ..."
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

Larry,

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)?

O'Shawnessey , 24 May 2019 at 11:22 AM

Can Barr declassify the Rich/Assange material? Also, was Skripal one of Steele's "sources"?

The Twisted Genius -> O'Shawnessey... , 24 May 2019 at 09:49 PM

O'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.

Factotum , 24 May 2019 at 12:14 PM

Joseph Mifsud is missing in this time line. He always appeared to be the most curious player. Any reason he is left out?

Larry Johnson -> Factotum... , 24 May 2019 at 12:47 PM

If you re-read closely I reference Timofeev who was introduced to Papadopolous by MIFSUD. He's there.
Thanks for asking

Doggrotter , 24 May 2019 at 12:44 PM

Siht, 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.

begob -> Doggrotter... , 25 May 2019 at 02:03 AM

This 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.

jjc , 24 May 2019 at 02:41 PM

Before 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.

Tidewater -> Keith Harbaugh... , 24 May 2019 at 04:32 PM

I'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

begob -> Keith Harbaugh... , 25 May 2019 at 02:05 AM

I believe Glenn Greenwald has weighed in on this one. You should be able to find his views in an online search.

Keith Harbaugh , 24 May 2019 at 03:14 PM

Sundance 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.]
akaPatience , 24 May 2019 at 06:41 PM

I 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...

joanna -> akaPatience ... , 25 May 2019 at 12:43 PM

Wasn'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.

ex-PFC Chuck , 24 May 2019 at 09:41 PM

I 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.

Ghost Ship -> ex-PFC Chuck... , 26 May 2019 at 05:56 AM

I 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.

Factotum , 24 May 2019 at 10:53 PM

Declassify 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.

walrus , 25 May 2019 at 07:53 PM

I'm concerned that Assange may not live long enough to stand trial because he is capable of closing too many open investigations.

Factotum , 25 May 2019 at 11:56 PM

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/

[May 20, 2019] The dirty art of politicians entrapment: Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers, gay sex, pedophilia, or what-have-you, all or in combination

Highly recommended!
That remind me how old Kushner tried to smear his relative...
Notable quotes:
"... They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts. ..."
"... The "Russian" female is notably very attractive with a slender build. There is a honey-trap angle here as well. This would likely inspire the boasting (in order to impress her) on the part of the wingnut politician. ..."
"... The far-right is the Troy Horse of transnational corporations and capital and already discredited neoliberal stablishment which comes now disguised under the softening label of "populists". Beware, there seems to be a coordinated effort at several blogs in the ten previous days of the European elections to whitewash the far-right. ..."
"... So this very much hints something more. Right now there is a debate of cocain being visible on the table but this accusation points more towards schnickle with a babe imho. The babe to his right is not that ugly, admittely. ..."
"... As expected the hysteria of "russian" meddling have now publicized to weaken FPÖ in the EU election. Winners? NATO/US parties. ..."
"... Seems indeed to be a honeypot aspect to the entrapment, and it's quite possible Strache stepped down at once to avoid that part to come to light, so that the public revelations would be limited to the economic shenanigans and influence-peddling level. ..."
"... Also, this goes to show that the bulk of our Western politicians, across all the political spectrum, are a bunch of mediocre and quite corrupt fools. For him not to smell that this was a setup from the very first minute, it must be that such proposals are common place all across the board - which will only reinforce my suspicion that our societies, peoples and mankind as a whole would only benefit if we fully wiped out our economic, financial and political establishment and started from scratches. ..."
"... Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers and blow, gay sex, paedofilia, or what-have-you, - all or in combination. Politicians are "all" compromised in these ways. Buck the system or threaten the status quo - whereby it gets somebody's serious attention and the shite hits the fan. ..."
"... The savages in this neoliberal order use the secret services to subvert democracy. Deception and manipulation are the means used to corrupt the public domain. They would push the most pliable and ruthless leaders into office. Catastrophe and violence and disinformation are their most powerful weapons. But I still think that political processes and elections do matter; and what counts is a struggle to improve and reform the system of government. Doing our best to protect and maintain the integrity of electoral processes is something that requires both protests and political campaigns. ..."
"... The very strong implication certainly seems to be that there may be further video of Strache sleeping with the honey pot. He obviously knows what happened that night. If there were video cameras hidden everywhere, that was obviously one of the intentions behind the sting from the outset. ..."
"... B, please do an article on the Nazi penetration of the German security services, Interior Ministry, Army, CDU etc, and links to the NSU affair, shredding of millions of documents by the Interior Ministry when demanded by the courts as evidence, links with the Board members and advisory board members of German big business especially Siemens and Deutche Bank and Bayer, etc. ..."
"... It is a wonder Strache's remark "Journalists are the biggest whores on the planet" and how he says he can subvert an entire media outlet to his political agenda by even firing the few remaining fringe elements. ..."
"... I don't think Strache is as harmless as you portray him, B. You fall for his defence strategy if you attribute all his statements to the influence of alcohol. At that time, the man was very confident that he would soon be at the levers of power, which then materialized. It remains to be proven whether he did not put into practice anything of what he talked about at that house in Ibiza. After all, he was talking about the by far most influential newspaper in Austria. ..."
"... Of course it is true that it is the neoliberal globalisers who have brought us to where we stand today. But that doesn' make people like Strache and Salvini any less dangerous. If they rise to total power, the result will be a naked dictatorship. Strache was beaten with his own weapons, you don't have to be under any illusions. ..."
"... Who could have ordered such an elaborate sting operation? ..."
"... The sophisticated operation using actors and a villa prepared with hidden cameras and microphones shows that this is hardly a normal case of dirty campaigning by political opponents. Most likely, either it was an action by a secret service or someone with deep pockets hired former secret agents. ..."
"... If it was an action by secret services, the most plausible explanation seems to be that Western secret services targeted Strache because FPÖ is one of the parties who is in favor of restoring normal relations with Russia ..."
"... François Fillon comes to mind, a French conservative candidate who also had a quite a friendly attitude towards Russia - shortly before the elections, it was revealed (at least claimed) that Fillon had given his wife ficticious employment, and Fillon lost popularity, which helped Macron enormously. ..."
"... Probably, some of the things Strache said during this sting operation were inacceptable, and Fillon may also not be innocent, but if there is a systematic selective targeting of European politicians who want to normalize relations with Russia by secret services, that would be a huge problem for democracy. ..."
"... In 2016, Joseph Mifsud invited George Papadopoulos to Rome and introduced him to "Putin's niece" with the intent of smearing Trump as "Russian puppet" and destroying his election chances. In 2017, someone (who?) invited Heinz-Christian Strache to Ibiza and introduced him to "Russian billionaire's niece" with the intent of smearing Strache as "Russian puppet" and destroying his party's election chances. Notice a pattern? ..."
"... This is a clear case of Germany interfering in Austrian elections. Austria should deport 60 German diplomats, shut down German embassy in Vienna, and impose sanctions on Germany. Also put a German girl interested in Austrian politics in jail for 18 months. ..."
"... Thinking about it, after revealing e-mail of HRC, Podesta etc. were published, their core supporters were enraged about the dirty trick and did not pay attention to the disclosed content, while for the core opponents of HRC she was already sufficiently vilified so the net change in voting intentions that can be attributed to that incident was modest. ..."
"... Anyone who does not directly have his or her family's nose in the EU trough at this point knows that the policies espoused by transatlantic puppets like Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron push our countries and our continent towards self-destruction. Life in Europe, post-1968 and pre-2013, has been pretty damn good. There's absolutely no good reason for us to rip up our traditions or turn into a continent of immigrants and mobile job seekers. ..."
"... As Strache explains in the video, Austrian dirty tricks are done "via another country". ..."
"... To those who fill that politics of Strache are obnoxious and that justifies entrapment, remembers that methods of that type are not improvised, and that means that there is an apparatus that does it. We noted similarities with provocations against George Papadopoulos. In the latter case the target was cautious, after all, we had to be well aware of such methods. But anyone who is despised by NATO establishment are similar group can be on the receiving end, think about Assange. ..."
May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

During the last days a right wing politician in Austria was taken down by using an elaborate sting. Until Friday Heinz-Christian Strache was leader of the far right (but not fascist) Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and the Vice Chancellor of the country. On Friday morning two German papers, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel published (German) reports (English) about an old video that was made to take Strache down.

The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in east Europe. It's pro-Russian position has led to verbal attacks on and defamation of the party from NATO supporting and neoliberal circles.

In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts.

Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones.


A scene from the video. Source: Der Falter (vid, German)

During the six hour long party several schemes get proposed by the "Russian" and are discussed. Strache rejects most of them. He insists several times that everything they plan or do must be legal and conform to the law. He says that a large donation could probably be funneled through an endowment that would then support his party. It is a gray area under Austrian party financing laws. They also discuss if the "Russian" could buy the Kronen Zeitung , Austria's powerful tabloid, and use it to prop up his party.

The evening goes on with several bottles of vodka on the table. Starche gets a bit drunk and boosts in front of the "oligarch daughter" about all his connections to rich and powerful people. He does not actually have these.

Strache says that, in exchange for help for his party, the "Russian" could get public contracts for highway building and repair. Currently most of such contracts in Austria go to the large Austrian company, STRABAG, that is owned by a neoliberal billionaire who opposes the FPOe. At that time Strache was not yet in the government and had no way to decide about such contracts.

At one point Strache seems to understand that the whole thing is a setup. But his right hand man calms him down and vouches for the "Russian". The sting ends with Strache and his companion leaving the place. The never again see the "Russian" and her co-plotter. Nothing they talked about will ever come to fruition.

Three month later Strache and his party win more than 20% in the Austrian election and form a coalition government with the conservative party OeVP led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Even while the FPOe controls several ministries, it does not achieve much politically. It lacks a real program and the government's policies are mostly run by the conservatives.

Nearly two years after the evening on Ibiza, ten days before the European parliament election in which Strache's party is predicted to achieve good results, a video of the evening on Ibiza is handed to two German papers which are known to be have strong transatlanticist leanings and have previously been used for other shady 'leaks'. The papers do not hesitate to take part in the plot and publish extensive reports about the video.

After the reports appeared Strache immediately stepped down and the conservatives ended the coalition with his party. Austria will now have new elections.

On Bloomberg Leonid Bershidsky opines on the case:

Strache's discussion with the Russian oligarch's fake niece shows a propensity for dirty dealing that has nothing to do with idealistic nationalism. Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps. In the videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's.

I do not believe that the people who voted for the FPOe (and similar parties in other countries) will subscribe to that view. The politics of the main stream parties in Austria have for decades been notoriously corrupt. Compared to them Strache and his party are astonishingly clean. In the video he insists several times that everything must stay within the legal realm. Whenever the "Russian" puts forward a likely illegal scheme, Starche emphatically rejects it.

Bershidsky continues:

Strache, as one of the few nationalist populists in government in the European Union's wealthier member states, was an important member of the movement Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been trying to cobble together ahead of the European Parliament election that will take place next week. On Saturday, he was supposed to attend a Salvini-led rally in Milan with other like-minded politicians from across Europe. Instead, he was in Vienna apologizing to his wife and to Kurz and protesting pitifully that he'd been the victim of a "political assassination" -- a poisonous rain on the Italian right-winger's parade.
...
This leaves the European far right in disarray and plays into the hands of centrist and leftist forces ahead of next week's election. Salvini's unifying effort has been thoroughly undermined, ...

This is also a misreading of the case. The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy.

Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now.

But that Strache stepped down after the sudden media assault only makes him more convincing. The right-wing all over Europe will see him as a martyr who was politically assassinated because he worked for their cause. The issue will increase the right-wingers hate against the 'liberal' establishment. It will further motivate them: "They attack us because we are right and winning." The new far-right block Natteo Salvini will setup in the European Parliament will likely receive a record share of votes.

Establishment writers notoriously misinterpret the new right wing parties and their followers. This stand-offish sentence in the Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:

In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.

The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly snobbish but utterly false. The working class understands very well what the establishment parties have done to it and continue to do. The increasing vote share of the far-right is a direct consequence of the behavior of the neoliberal center and of the lack of real left alternatives.

Last week, before the Strache video appeared, Craig Murray put his finger on the wound:

The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions.
...
The rejection of the political class manifests itself in different ways and has been diverted down a number of entirely blind alleys giving unfulfilled promise of a fresh start – Brexit, Trump, Macron. As the vote share of the established political parties – and public engagement with established political institutions – falls everywhere, the chattering classes deride the political symptoms of status quo rejection by the people as "populism". It is not populism to make sophisticated arguments that undermine the received political wisdom and take on the entire weight of established media opinion.

If one wants to take down the far right one has to do so with arguments and good politics for the working class. Most people, especially working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money.

While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote for Strache's FBOe and similar parties. When one talks to these people issues of injustice and inequality always come up. The new 'populist' parties at least claim to fight against the injustice done to the common men. Unlike most of the establishment parties they seem to be still mostly clean and not yet corrupted.

In the early 1990s Strache actually flirted with violent fascists but he rejected their way. While he has far-right opinions, he and his like are no danger to our societies. If we can not accept that Strache and his followers have some legitimate causes, we will soon find us confronted with way more extreme people. The neoliberal establishment seems to do its best to achieve that.

Posted by b on May 19, 2019 at 01:10 PM | Permalink

james , May 19, 2019 1:40:31 PM | 1

b - thanks .. i agree "elaborate sting" and "the video was held back until the right moment"... clearly this was a set up.. strache says he is going to pursue this legally..

"working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust." injustices are being done on a constant basis now and being justified by the msm regularly.. i think this is part of the reason people are seeking alternatives - whatever they might be... power to the people..screw the neoliberal agenda and blackmail artists that are so rampant at present...

Bratislav Metulski , May 19, 2019 1:40:51 PM | 2
Funny thing is e.g.- a German comedian Jan Böhmerman knew before. Already in April he said in a Video call live in Austian television duringthe TV-prize-giving of the trophy "Romy" that he couldn´t attend personally to receive the price because right know he was sitting together with some FPÖ-buddies in a Russian oligarch-villa on Ibiza, sniffing cocain, drinking and negotiating the takeover of the "Krone-Zeitung" (the biggest rag in Austira, smth like the "Bild" in Germany or "The sun" in Britain).

Böhmers management released a statement yesterday that Böhermann did know before but didn´t name the source he knew it from.
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article193725535/FPOE-Vize-Strache-Was-Boehmermann-mit-dem-Video-zu-tun-hat.html

Cui bono?

Paul Damascene , May 19, 2019 1:43:18 PM | 3
Your article here raises a number of important issues. More or less at random:

* If I understand your characterization of your political leanings, based on this and on the perspectives MoA offers, I share many of your views. And whereas there may be a certain Schadenfreude at seeing a right-wing, B-team operator reveal himself, I agree that the forces behind the sting itself are of potentially far greater interest (and danger)..

* For every sting and smear such as this that we see, how many others take place sub rosa, corrupting our political and social landscapes, leaving no evidence that might trigger criticism or resistance?

* I'm not sure of how this plays out legally, but this seems not just to have been a sting, but entrapment, in which (if these were law enforcement agents) we could protest that the only illegal activity being proposed, was by those conducting the sting.

* If this was, as you suggest, authored by the BND, then this would be a clear instance of election "meddling" -- though not of the sort that our shining democracies are now being warned against. (At least President Putin will not be accused of conducting it, for once. That oligarch's daughter could have come from anywhere, but of course Russia.) Russia gets smeared is probably the larger aim, rather than this particularly Austrian politician.

hallelujah hinton , May 19, 2019 1:55:07 PM | 4
The "Russian" female is notably very attractive with a slender build. There is a honey-trap angle here as well. This would likely inspire the boasting (in order to impress her) on the part of the wingnut politician.
somebody , May 19, 2019 1:56:55 PM | 5
I think the word is protofascist. b. you have got a blind spot seeing geopolitics everywhere. Truth is most of this is simply a battle of billionaires. The key to understand the Ibiza video is the product placement. Everybody there drinks Red Bull plus alcohol (I am not sure about the alcohol the loss of control of the politicians who are present suggests cocaine).

The owner of Red Bull is an Austrian billionaire called Dietrich Mateschitz. Mateschitz is a right wing crank building a media empire in Austria including an "investigative platform" called addendum that is something like the Austrian version of Breitbart.

For some reason "addendum" began to shoot against Rene Benzko, an Austrian real estate billionaire, who intends to take over Kronenzeitung.

And guess what, Rene Benzko was mentioned in the video "as a friend", and a large part of the conversation centered on taking over Kronenzeitung something Rene Benzko is involved in.

Strache, Vice Chancellor of Austria, explained in the video for every Austrian to understand, that his party's scheme is based on accepting illegal contributions via a ngo, and lowering taxes in return. According to what he says in the video he also intends to charge for water by selling the right to the Latvian/Russien "niece of a Russian oligarch" or someone else prepared to pay to his party's ngo.

Anybody who is not a billionaire voting for FPÖ after this must be braindead.

Arioch , May 19, 2019 1:58:49 PM | 6
> with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin

Putin himself though stresses his non involvement in that party, he also tried to bootstrap organizations that could supplant or even challenge U.R. at least in some niches.

While U.R. probably is party of Russian ruling elites, it is hardly one-man-show of LDPR/Zhirinovsky kind and whether Putin is "gray cardinal" of U.R. is very questionable.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 2:05:52 PM | 7
It is said that children and drunk people always say the truth... Why is it not to be taken into account what he said once drunk enough?

For to be a strong leftist, b, you spend a great effort in discharging this man, while whitewashing the far-right saying they are no danger for our societies and assuring that they are clean, when that is a thing you do not know since they have not had yet the possibility to rule.

They are neither cleaner nor inocuous for our societies. For starters they have chosen as scapegoat the migrants when who is to blame for the wave of migration is the US, NATO and their imperial ambitions, so as to throw poor against poor and that way the elites could continue quietly looting us, while we fight each other. You will never heard anything agsint banks ans elites from anybody in the far-right.

FYI, it is not Matteo Salvini who is forming a coalition of the far-right to conflude to European elections, but it is Bannon from his HQ in a Cisterciense monastery in Italy who is commanding this operation. Salvini is really a piece, having supported Guiado and the Venezuelan coup intend, and said what he would do with the Yellow Vests , "I don't go to the Yellow Vests with Molotov cocktails, if anything, I put them in prison" ...

Then it is AfD, who goes also in the block, whose members have claimed the Germans should be proud of the performance of the German Army during both WW....

Then Vox, financed by MEK and Israeli lobby and promoted by Bannon and the WH, who only wear clear neoliberal economic policies in their, for the rest, confusing program.

The best to test what the far-right will do in Europe is taking a look at what is happening in Brazil during these last days, an attack on education and research as if it was a military target ...This, after the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem and wide support to coup d´etat in Venezuela...He is also widely supported and financed by the US and Zionists.

The far-right is the Troy Horse of transnational corporations and capital and already discredited neoliberal stablishment which comes now disguised under the softening label of "populists". Beware, there seems to be a coordinated effort at several blogs in the ten previous days of the European elections to whitewash the far-right.

Bratislav Metulski , May 19, 2019 2:20:38 PM | 8
@4 hallelujah hinton
https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Neuwahlen-Der-gefeierte-Stratege-Kurz-hatte-keine-Optionen-mehr-4425362.html
Telepolis one of the oldest and biggest non-commercial online news and discussion platforms in Germany states in the following article, commenting on his statement at his resignation declaration:

"Glaubt er, man wäre bei Alkohol nachsichtiger? Offenbar schien er sich betrunken kaum mehr im Griff zu haben - und dies ist wohlgemerkt seine Erklärung für die Äußerungen im Video. Erst gegen Ende beginnt er eigenes Fehlverhalten einzuräumen und bittet insbesondere seine Frau um Verzeihung, mit der er ein wenige Monate altes Kind hat. Kenner Straches ahnten an dieser Stelle bereits, dass dieser sich bereits für Dinge entschuldigt, die zu diesem Zeitpunkt der Öffentlichkeit noch gar nicht bekannt sind."

Does he (Strache) really assume he would get more indulgence by blaming it on the alcolhol? Obviously when being drunken he wasn´t in control of himself anymore - and this is actually his explanation for his statements in the video. Somehow at the end he finally begins admitting own misconduct and especially asks his wife for forgiveness, with which he has a few months old child. Experts on Strache suspected from this moment on, that he apologized for things which at this moment are not known to the public, yet"

So this very much hints something more. Right now there is a debate of cocain being visible on the table but this accusation points more towards schnickle with a babe imho. The babe to his right is not that ugly, admittely.

Jackrabbit , May 19, 2019 2:26:38 PM | 9
somebody @5:
battle of billionaires.... Anybody who is not a billionaire voting for FPÖ after this must be braindead.
Anyone who believes voting will change anything is braindead. Only supporting protest Movements (like Gillet Jeune) and free press/citizen journalism (Wikileaks/Assange) will have any real effect.
Zanon , May 19, 2019 2:30:32 PM | 0
Great piece - I dont see how Strache actually made anything wrong or atleast nothing not normal to politicians that constantly seek out support by big, powerful people. Most likely the deep state in Austria struck FPÖ just like FBI struck Trump.

As expected the hysteria of "russian" meddling have now publicized to weaken FPÖ in the EU election. Winners? NATO/US parties.

Arioch , May 19, 2019 2:36:33 PM | 1
@hallelujah hinton #4

Also notice how she pretended to be a niece.

Not some very close relative like daughter or sister, which may be fearsome, as "russian mafia" oligarch could be expected to "protect" her of ladykillers viciously. But also not some far relative who would be seen alien and have no financial support.

Just enough distance to be safe to hit on and try to share the oligarch's money. It was both honey&gold trap.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 2:38:57 PM | 2
Anyone who believes voting will change anything is braindead.

@Posted by: Jackrabbit | May 19, 2019 2:26:38 PM | 9

If voting would be such a waste, why would had taken so hard and long to achieve voting for minorities and women? Why the parties go to such efforts to campaign and disguise themselves as wolves with sheepskin like the far-right?

Why would certain forces need to go to such editorial coordinated efforts through their several blogs out there to give an impression of certain candidates which is opposite to what they really are? Wikilieaks/Assange are part of this efforts, btw

Clueless Joe , May 19, 2019 2:44:05 PM | 4
Metulski:

Seems indeed to be a honeypot aspect to the entrapment, and it's quite possible Strache stepped down at once to avoid that part to come to light, so that the public revelations would be limited to the economic shenanigans and influence-peddling level.

Also, this goes to show that the bulk of our Western politicians, across all the political spectrum, are a bunch of mediocre and quite corrupt fools. For him not to smell that this was a setup from the very first minute, it must be that such proposals are common place all across the board - which will only reinforce my suspicion that our societies, peoples and mankind as a whole would only benefit if we fully wiped out our economic, financial and political establishment and started from scratches.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 2:44:10 PM | 5
Spanish Colonel ( ret.) Pedro Baños, who was postulated for head of the CNI by the Socialist government of Pedro Sanchez, was object of slander campiagn as "pro-Russian" by the Spanish cluster of Integrity Initiative, only for declarations on the prejudice of sanctions for Spain, and nobody made such noise....
hallelujah hinton , May 19, 2019 3:03:31 PM | 6
Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers and blow, gay sex, paedofilia, or what-have-you, - all or in combination. Politicians are "all" compromised in these ways. Buck the system or threaten the status quo - whereby it gets somebody's serious attention and the shite hits the fan.

Enforcement and and penalties are selective. Selective enforcement. It's how "The Law" operates. Not defending the wingnut pig in the article. I appreciate Sasha's Trojan Horse allegory above.

the pair , May 19, 2019 3:16:52 PM | 7
wow...a bunch of elitist neoliberals with contempt for anyone lacking 10 zeroes on their paychecks and zero useful policies use "russian collusion" to entrap and embarrass a pseudo-right wing politician. who could ever imagine such a scenario? and why learn from the masses you represent when james o'keefe gives you all the inspiration you need?

but at least they blocked the ascension of someone who would trade political favors for money. that kind of nonsense simply won't do in western society.

karlof1 , May 19, 2019 3:24:47 PM | 8
Thanks for this explanation, b! I first saw this reported at Geroman's Twitter and used machine translation of the article he linked, but it lacked the context which you provided. This incident is subsumed within the larger conflict that's trying to keep EU from combining with BRI/EAEU, which means its roots/culprits are NATO/Outlaw US Empire--it points to desperation on their part.
Jackrabbit , May 19, 2019 3:25:34 PM | 9
the pair @17

Some will fail to see the sarcasm. Best to use the /sarc tag.

somebody , May 19, 2019 3:34:51 PM | 0
Posted by: hallelujah hinton | May 19, 2019 1:55:07 PM | 4

Sorry, you don't see the Latvian/Russian woman. You see Gudenus' wife who is from Serbia. Whatever the publishing papers got, it was a copy. More will come out.

Copeland , May 19, 2019 4:01:44 PM | 1
The savages in this neoliberal order use the secret services to subvert democracy. Deception and manipulation are the means used to corrupt the public domain. They would push the most pliable and ruthless leaders into office. Catastrophe and violence and disinformation are their most powerful weapons. But I still think that political processes and elections do matter; and what counts is a struggle to improve and reform the system of government. Doing our best to protect and maintain the integrity of electoral processes is something that requires both protests and political campaigns.
BM , May 19, 2019 4:14:36 PM | 2
So this very much hints something more. Right now there is a debate of cocain being visible on the table but this accusation points more towards schnickle with a babe imho. The babe to his right is not that ugly, admittely.
Posted by: Bratislav Metulski | May 19, 2019 2:20:38 PM | 8

The very strong implication certainly seems to be that there may be further video of Strache sleeping with the honey pot. He obviously knows what happened that night. If there were video cameras hidden everywhere, that was obviously one of the intentions behind the sting from the outset.

---

On the issue of "populism" and right-wing parties I confess I have a problem. I certainly want to see the Establishment thrashed, and especially in next week's EU elections, and there is no question that at the moment the right-wing parties have far more potential to upset the establishment than the left. If "Populist" parties are able to radically upset the EU Parliament, that should bring a much-needed hammer and axe to the anti-populist activities of the EU, and hopefully lead to the breakup of the EU.

On the other hand, unlike B, I do have extremely strong worries about the rising power of the far right and their connections to Nazis and neo-Nazis. I am concerned - even without the involvement of Bannon, but far more so with - that the rise of "populism" is a calculated policy of a Nazi segment of the Establishment that is designed specifically to usher in an international Nazi movement across Europe and Latin America under the leadership of and proxies of the - ever more and more Nazi behaving - US (which itself is in so many very real ways descended from Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party and the Japanese war criminals including Bush's family, tight connections with Nazi war criminals in the CIA, and historical leadership figures in the CIA). The large scale and extremely high level infiltration of hardcore Nazis in the German security services, Interior Ministry, Army, and CDU politics is a ticking timebomb waiting for its moment. There seems to be similar high level Nazi infiltration in many other countries.

We have to be careful what we wish for!

B, please do an article on the Nazi penetration of the German security services, Interior Ministry, Army, CDU etc, and links to the NSU affair, shredding of millions of documents by the Interior Ministry when demanded by the courts as evidence, links with the Board members and advisory board members of German big business especially Siemens and Deutche Bank and Bayer, etc.

Sasha , May 19, 2019 4:21:50 PM | 3
On how there is real danger with these wolves on sheepskin who only try to divide and conquer the working masses of the world, this old article by Ho Chi Minh on the importance of class conscience and the great labor of the University of the East in the former USSR to get workers of the world conscous and united in the common struggle. Also on the importance of having the right to vote:
Colonialism is a leech with two suckers, one of which sucks the metropolitan proletariat and the other that of the colonies. If we want to kill this monster, we must cut off both suckers at the same time. If only one is cut off, the other will continue to suck the blood of the proletariat, the animal will continue to live, and the cut–off sucker will grow again. The Russian Revolution has grasped this truth clearly. That is why it is not satisfied with making fine platonic speeches and drafting "humanitarian" resolutions in favor of oppressed peoples, but it teaches them to struggle; and helps them spiritually, as proclaimed by Lenin in his theses on the colonial question. To the Baku Congress, twenty–one Eastern nations sent delegates. Representatives of Western workers' parties also participated in the work of this congress. For the first time, the proletariat of the conquering Western States and that of the subject Eastern countries fraternally joined hands and deliberated in common on the best means to defeat their common enemy, imperialism .

Following this historic congress, despite internal and external difficulties, revolutionary Russia has never hesitated to come to the help of peoples awakened by its heroic and victorious revolution. One of its first important acts was the founding of the University of the East.(...)

The sixty–two nationalities represented at the University form a "Commune." Its chairman and functionaries are elected every three months by all the students.

A student delegate takes part in the economic and administrative management of the University. All must regularly and in turn work in the kitchen, the library, the club, etc. All "misdemeanors" and disputes are judged and settled by an elected tribunal in the presence of all comrades. Once a week, the "Commune" holds a meeting to discuss the international political and economic situation. From time to time, meetings and evening parties are organized where the amateur artists introduce the art and culture of their country.

The fact that the Communists not only treat the "inferior natives of the colonies" like brothers, but that they get them to participate in the political life of the country, is highly characteristic of the "barbarity" of the Bolsheviks. Treated in their native country as "submissive subjects" or "protéges," having no other right but that to pay taxes, the Eastern students, who are neither electors nor eligible for election in their own country, from whom the right to express their political opinion is withdrawn, in the Soviet Union take part in the election of the Soviets and have the right to send their representatives to the Soviets. Let our brothers of the colonies who vainly seek a change of nationality make a comparison between bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy.

These students have suffered themselves and have witnessed the sufferings of others. All have lived under the yoke of "high civilization," all have been victims of exploitation and oppression by foreign capitalists . Moreover, they passionately long to acquire knowledge and to study. They are serious and full of enthusiasm. They are entirely different from the frequenters of the boulevards of the Latin Quarter, the Eastern students in Paris, Oxford, and Berlin. It can be said without exaggeration that under the roof of this University is the future of the colonial peoples.

The colonial countries of the Near and Far East, stretching from Syria to Korea, cover an extent of more than 15 million square kilometers and have more than 1,200 million inhabitants. All these immense countries are now under the yoke of capitalism and imperialism. Although their considerable numbers should be their strength, these submissive peoples have never yet made any serious attempts to free themselves from this yoke. Not yet having realized the value of international solidarity, they have not known how to unite for the struggle. Relationships between their countries are not yet established as they are among the peoples of Europe and America. They possess gigantic strength and do not yet realize it. The University of the East, assembling all the young, active, and intelligent leaders of the colonized countries, has fulfilled a great task, namely:

-It teaches to the future vanguard militants the principles of class struggle, confused in their minds by race conflicts and patriarchal customs.
-It establishes between the proletarian vanguard of the colonies a close contact with the Western proletariat, thus preparing the way for the close and effective cooperation which will alone ensure the final victory of the international working class.
-It teaches the colonized people, hitherto separated from one another, to know one another and to unite, by creating the bases of a future union of Eastern countries, one of the wings of the proletarian revolution.
-It sets the proletariat of colonialist countries and example of what they can and must do in favor of their oppressed brothers .

This is why it is needed to throw the workers from the West against the migrants from the East and South, to avoid the invincible force they would constitute together. This dirty work is made by the far-right in the name of corporate liberal elites. They can play that they fight each other, but as soon as they get seats at the European Parliament, you will find the previous allegedly opponents all together aligned in the same Eurogroup. Time to time.

Bacchante , May 19, 2019 4:38:44 PM | 4
It is a wonder Strache's remark "Journalists are the biggest whores on the planet" and how he says he can subvert an entire media outlet to his political agenda by even firing the few remaining fringe elements. Yet here we can still talk about he was drunk, how his being set up was unjust, and how the poor guy will have to miss his lovers' right cause in Italy. Those vulgar masses are at it again! There can be no justification about the masses' support of far-right causes and the clowns like him. If you think otherwise it is the likes of moonofalabama next in line to be "fired", or eliminated. Legitimize their causes and it is Germany in 1920s all over again.

Two wrongs do not make a right, unfortunately.

Walter , May 19, 2019 4:56:04 PM | 5
"Left/right", I agree, is nearly without semantic value. Nevertheless class interests remain...how is it that this is so? Think about that, comrades.

And then consider wsws report about "At the annual meeting of the Bundeswehr reserve in autumn 2016, Veith announced: "I dream that in 2026 there will be a provincial regiment in each state with a charismatic commander, a troop flag and an organization of between 800 and 2,000 reservists to support the police and the Bundeswehr in emergency situations." " see> "German government prepares troops for domestic missions" @ wsws.org

Considering the overall aspects, it's rational to expect all parties in Europe to make plans, is it not? Of course the working class is not permitted to make such plans...is it?

Pnyx , May 19, 2019 5:04:18 PM | 6
I don't think Strache is as harmless as you portray him, B. You fall for his defence strategy if you attribute all his statements to the influence of alcohol. At that time, the man was very confident that he would soon be at the levers of power, which then materialized. It remains to be proven whether he did not put into practice anything of what he talked about at that house in Ibiza. After all, he was talking about the by far most influential newspaper in Austria.

Of course it is true that it is the neoliberal globalisers who have brought us to where we stand today. But that doesn' make people like Strache and Salvini any less dangerous. If they rise to total power, the result will be a naked dictatorship. Strache was beaten with his own weapons, you don't have to be under any illusions.

I agree with you that this is not the big setback for the right the mainstream parties dream of. But it won't help the fascists in spe in the future either.

Adrian E. , May 19, 2019 5:25:25 PM | 7
Who could have ordered such an elaborate sting operation?

A first association might be the dirty, deceptive campaigning SPÖ used against Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) - the Silberstein affair -, but I think the methods that were chosen are too different to make a common source likely, Strache was targeted in a much more sophisticated way. The Silberstein affair may, however, be the reason why the tapes have partially been published now rather than before the last Austrian elections - at that time, dirty campaigning might have been discredited too much for the tape to have the desired effect,

The sophisticated operation using actors and a villa prepared with hidden cameras and microphones shows that this is hardly a normal case of dirty campaigning by political opponents. Most likely, either it was an action by a secret service or someone with deep pockets hired former secret agents.

If it was an action by secret services, the most plausible explanation seems to be that Western secret services targeted Strache because FPÖ is one of the parties who is in favor of restoring normal relations with Russia.

François Fillon comes to mind, a French conservative candidate who also had a quite a friendly attitude towards Russia - shortly before the elections, it was revealed (at least claimed) that Fillon had given his wife ficticious employment, and Fillon lost popularity, which helped Macron enormously.

Probably, some of the things Strache said during this sting operation were inacceptable, and Fillon may also not be innocent, but if there is a systematic selective targeting of European politicians who want to normalize relations with Russia by secret services, that would be a huge problem for democracy.

In the case of Strache and FPÖ, a different motive may also be plausible. There are connections between FPÖ and neonazis, and there are, in my view, legitimate concerns that Strache is too close to such far-right networks. I don't think it is good when right-wing populists whose rise is mainly due to the unpopularity of the neoliberal elites are equated with Nazis too quickly.

But in the case of FPÖ, this is less far-fetched than in the case of other European right-wing parties - historically, Nazis played an important role in FPÖ in post-war Austria, and it is one of the current right-wing parties that probably has more connections to the extreme right (e.g. via Burschenschaften) than others. I could imagine that someone might have ordered and financed the sting operation out of antifascist principles. While I may recognize the motivation as ethical and even partially agree with it, I don't think the right means were chosen, and such dirty methods can backfire.

Michael Droy , May 19, 2019 5:33:51 PM | 8
"While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote for Strache's FBOe and similar parties"

Quite. It seems to me that only the Right and the Left have a clue right now, because they have an instinctive mistrust of what they are told in the media.
People like "b" and Craig Murray are to be thanked for explaining that to us middling voters.

You miss the most glaring "injustice". That which shows that GDP in most western countries had doubled in the last 30 odd years, that earnings for the top quartile have gone up by factors of 3 or 4. But that median earnings in US are unchanged, and in say UK are only up 10% or so (unless one is seeking to buy one's own house or flat).

All the improvements in inequality from 1930s to 1980s have been reversed in full. "Populists" (or better "anti-elitists") are driven mostly by sheer anger at how a small group had taken all the Economic gains of the last 35 years.

somebody , May 19, 2019 5:35:30 PM | 9
Posted by: Pnyx | May 19, 2019 5:04:18 PM | 26

I don't know what b. saw in the video what I saw was a discussion of an Orban like take over of Austria by FPÖ.

In other news people are arguing the following
- who will profit most - ÖVP
- why was the video not published after it was produced in 2017 - because ÖVP wanted a coalition with FPÖ
- why was it published now - ÖVP has been renting advertising space for weeks for an election in September (renting before the video came out), Sebastian Kurz will be the saviour who will get the disappointed FPÖ vote
add
- why the emphasis on Kronenzeitung,
who were the people producing the video
why Red Bull everywhere - Red Bull media empire billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz publicly announced that he would back Sebastian Kurz in 2017

ÖVP/Kurz/Mateschitz have moved so far to the right that there is not much space for FPÖ anyway. His problems will return when he needs another coalition.

brian , May 19, 2019 5:37:28 PM | 0
'The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in east Europe'

other?

Erelis , May 19, 2019 6:09:06 PM | 1
While the right wing parties in Europe don't have a problem with Putin, it does seem that much of the Western European establish has gone full McCarthyite hysterical where they see any contact for any reason with a Russian is automatically criminal. Aside from being a setup it relied the underlying false flag of presenting the woman as a Russian (and hence guility of some crime against the Austrians).

In fact, a suggestion for a column--personal impressions on whether everyday Europeans are falling for anti-Russian propaganda. Polls in the US indicate that Americans simply do not care (they could believe it, but not effecting their daily lives).

S , May 19, 2019 6:36:42 PM | 2
1. The ER (United Russia) party was founded by Sergey Shoygu, Yuriy Luzhkov, and Mintimer Shaymiev. Its chairman is Dmitriy Medvedev, not Vladimir Putin. Putin is not even a member of ER. Putin is the leader of ONF (All-Russia People's Front), which is a nation-wide discussion platform for politicians, professionals, and NGOs.

2. Russian billionaire Igor Makarov denies having a niece: "I was the only child in the family." ( Forbes.ru , in Russian).

3. In 2016, Joseph Mifsud invited George Papadopoulos to Rome and introduced him to "Putin's niece" with the intent of smearing Trump as "Russian puppet" and destroying his election chances. In 2017, someone (who?) invited Heinz-Christian Strache to Ibiza and introduced him to "Russian billionaire's niece" with the intent of smearing Strache as "Russian puppet" and destroying his party's election chances. Notice a pattern?

4. This is a clear case of Germany interfering in Austrian elections. Austria should deport 60 German diplomats, shut down German embassy in Vienna, and impose sanctions on Germany. Also put a German girl interested in Austrian politics in jail for 18 months.

Piotr Berman , May 19, 2019 6:37:32 PM | 3
Thinking about it, after revealing e-mail of HRC, Podesta etc. were published, their core supporters were enraged about the dirty trick and did not pay attention to the disclosed content, while for the core opponents of HRC she was already sufficiently vilified so the net change in voting intentions that can be attributed to that incident was modest.

Leaving aside the discussion of of various factors in that election, this public reaction is typical. Actually, in both cases the core supporters may be energized by the suspicion that this trick was performed by a foreign government. I do not think that there is a particular hostility toward Germany in Felix Austria, but the to the right wing Merkel government is like red cape for a bull. The women who unleashed a wave of refugees. On top of that, traditionally major parties of Austria gained reputation of dirty patronage, so the voters who care about that issue probably do not vote for them.

I do not expect Austrians to demand expulsions of German diplomats -- interference in our democracy -- or other sanctions, but nevertheless it stinks. Making sting operations on politicians has corrupt potential even if it is done by domestic law enforcement, but foreign intelligence services really do not have any excuse.

Thinking about it, the stings against George Papadopoulos described in his book were remarkably similar.

Piotr Berman , May 19, 2019 6:45:53 PM | 4
Great minds think alike, S!

That said, Austrians have a reputation of good manners etc., they will not unload their frustration on a girl. BTW, why there are suspicions of Germany being involved? Again, even extremist Austrians probably would like to have some proof before doing anything. I guess, America is indeed exceptional.

Uncoy , May 19, 2019 6:49:33 PM | 5
For all those of you whining about the corruption of Strache, this is how business and politics is done in Austria. Strache was just talking about the FPÖ's fair share after an election which they would win.

This all starts with Austrian's Presidential Election of 2016. The FPÖ won the presidential election a couple of years ago in May 2016. After the bell, postal votes overturned it! – postal votes more than 90% in favour of the establishment candidate Van der Bellen. Some constituencies full of Van der Bellen votes turned out to have 148% turn out. There was a court case by the FPÖ about procedure and hinting at ballot falsification. The case was judged by a (non-corrupt but under serious pressure) judge to have enough merit that the elections had to be annulled and the election rerun six months later . Austria went without a president at all for six months!

For six months the mainstream Austrian media campaigned non-stop against the FPÖ and Norbert Hofer. Huge efforts were made for voter turnout (it included huge bussing of potential anti-FPÖ constituencies and bribing pensioners to vote against the FPÖ via parties and cakes). With all of that, Van der Bellen scraped in on 4 December 2016, by 348,231 votes. Despite the non-stop anti-FPÖ propaganda and banging on drums, votes for Hofer's fell by less than 100,000 (95,993 votes to be exact). It's just that with six months to prepare the establishment had found enough "dead souls" to win the second round.

In the parliamentary elections of 15 October 2017, the FPÖ were set to win a strong majority in parliament. To defeat the FPÖ and Strache, the conservatives (Völkspartei) were forced to elect a male model non-university graduate 30 year old sex symbol with no work experience outside of politics as party leader. Of course Sebastian Kurz was mainly a figurehead for establishment figures in the venerable Völkspartei. Kurz does have a mind of his own though (I had the opportunity to interact with him personally at a local political discussion group in 2015) and it's hard to know exactly how much of his policy is dictated to him and how much is off his own bat.

Going back to Austrian corruption, there are enormous sums at stake. There is a long entrenched system of corruption in the establishment parties, the Völkspartei and the SPÖ. Strabag does win most of the government contracts. Favour is regularly granted on quid pro basis. The media landscape is very partisan and mostly for sale. Kurz's spiritual predecessor as a powerful head of the Völkspartei if not direct predecessor Wolfgang Schüssel was forced to retire from politics in 2011 due to never-ending corruption scandals. Schüssel's longstanding finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser was caught carrying bags of cash to Lichtenstein and is still under investigation. If his mother-in-law were not the richest woman in Austria (Swarovski Crystal) and devoted to her daughter (Grasser's wife), he would long ago have been in jail.

Politically, Grasser knows where a lot of the bodies are buried from the Schlüssel political machine so either he has to be kept out of jail or he may take others down with him. In elite Austrian circles turning informant would be considered unsportsmanlike so there's an uneasy truce still fought to this day in the courts where Grasser is kept out of jail via procedural methods (detect a pattern) and Grasser doesn't rat out the others.

Strache's sin is not planning to use the advantages which accrue to the governing Austrian party but getting caught out talking about it. Strache is something of a lout, not terribly loyal (he was the Brutus who threw Jörg Haider under the bus in 2005 in a palace putsch). He's a smoker in power who used his power to overturn some very positive anti-smoking laws. But he's less corrupt than any of his equivalents in the Völkspartei and is only a nose ahead of the his equivalents in the SPÖ. His politics and policies of Austria for Austrians are pretty simple. Hence people vote for these policies.

Here's a sample of the SPÖ's wares in the 2010 Vienna elections:

  • Zu viel Fremdes tut niemandem gut. (Too many foreigners [or more literally: Too much foreign] does nobody well.)
  • Wir bewahren unsere Heimatstadt. Die SPÖ macht sie uns fremd. (We maintain our homeland-city. The SPÖ makes it foreign.)
  • Wir glauben an unsere Jugend. Die SPÖ an Zuwanderung. (We believe in our youth. The SPÖ in immigration.)
  • Wir schützen freie Frauen. Die SPÖ den Kopftuchzwang (We protect free women. The SPÖ protects the compulsory veil.)
  • Mehr Mut für unser Wiener Blut (More courage for our Viennese blood.)
  • Uns geht's um die Wiener (To us, it's about the Viennese)

The FPÖ has historically been weakest in Vienna but in 2010 they took 27% of the vote in this SPÖ stronghold, their first step in what has been a steady march to power.

Anyone who does not directly have his or her family's nose in the EU trough at this point knows that the policies espoused by transatlantic puppets like Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron push our countries and our continent towards self-destruction. Life in Europe, post-1968 and pre-2013, has been pretty damn good. There's absolutely no good reason for us to rip up our traditions or turn into a continent of immigrants and mobile job seekers. We instinctively abhor what is happening to our nations. By nature Strache is inclined this way himself (he's no great thinker) and has the good sense to ride the wave.

somebody , May 19, 2019 7:11:44 PM | 6
Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 19, 2019 6:45:53 PM | 34

As Strache explains in the video, Austrian dirty tricks are done "via another country".

somebody , May 19, 2019 7:21:16 PM | 7
For all those of you whining about the corruption of Strache, this is how business and politics is done in Austria. Strache was just talking about the FPÖ's fair share after an election which they would win.

So why did he step down?

Here's a sample of the SPÖ's wares in the 2010 Vienna elections:

You mean FPÖ wares .

Hoarsewhisperer , May 19, 2019 7:29:57 PM | 8
...
"This stand-offish sentence in the Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:"

In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.

"The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly snobbish but utterly false..."

I can't agree that Spiegel's attitude to Strache's party is condescending toward the working class. Right-wing parties tend to spout a lot of aggressively authoritarian spin tank bullshit to encourage voters to tune out when a R-w politician is telling them what to think. If Strache is adept at separating fact from fiction and superfluous verbiage, then people would appreciate his candor.

In a Democracy, and in theory at least, politicians are supposed to represent and defend the views of the people who voted for them, not vested intere$t$. Or so we've been led to believe...

I'll always remember Spiegel as the folks whose photo-journalists torpedoed Crooked Hillary's feeble-minded Cheonan (NK-SK) bullshit. That story vanished overnight. It's not even referred to in NK smear campaigns. Dead & buried.

somebody , May 19, 2019 8:15:54 PM | 9
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 19, 2019 7:29:57 PM | 38

In a Democracy, and in theory at least, politicians are supposed to represent and defend the views of the people who voted for them, not vested intere$t$. Or so we've been led to believe...

You are making this theory up.

Let's take the American constitution .

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

That's it.

The German constitution is absolutely clear that members of parliament represent all of the people (ie different views and interests) and are bound by their own judgement and conscience only.

As we are discussing Austria, lets see what the Austrian constitution says. Austria has "linguistic and cultural diversity" and the protection of its grown native peoples in its constitution, this means Slovenian, Croatian, Czech, Slovakian, Roma and Hungarian. So the Austrian constitution has a concept of a multinational state where different peoples grow and are protected even if the Viennese "Stammtisch" does not like them.

There is no "democratic theory" that suggests representatives should follow the uninformed and prejudiced views of their electorate against their better judgement.

Strache seems to have specialized in "fake news" - ie mostly invented stuff claiming Muslims, immigrants or whoever were treated in a better way than native Austrians or threatened native Austrians.

It is a very convenient technique when you plan to cut social services, you have someone to blame.

Piotr Berman , May 19, 2019 9:05:45 PM | 0
To those who fill that politics of Strache are obnoxious and that justifies entrapment, remembers that methods of that type are not improvised, and that means that there is an apparatus that does it. We noted similarities with provocations against George Papadopoulos. In the latter case the target was cautious, after all, we had to be well aware of such methods. But anyone who is despised by NATO establishment are similar group can be on the receiving end, think about Assange.

[May 19, 2019] Intel agencies of the UK and US are guilty of fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing fake analysis and operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community "needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister influences of foreign powers. ..."
"... the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE, Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down", reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of people. ..."
May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Couple of factors not mentioned. one is Israel and the other is more sinister still and tied to the conclusions to be drawn from the Mueller report.

it may be true that Skripal helped Steele with some elements of the dossier compiled by Steele, via SKripals handler Pablo Miller. It may be true that Skripal went "stir crazy" and an attempt was made to silence him and his daughter - permanently, because they simply cold not be trusted. a similar motivation could be drawn up against Russia - with the two Russians visiting Salisbury used as diversionary "stool pigeons". It may be true that the "poisoning" was self inflicted and was in fact a murder/suicide attempt as a result of depression along the ines "what's the point of it all".

what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community "needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister influences of foreign powers.

what ought to be apparent is

- the same tactics used by the special prosecutor to investigate the "Russia collusion" smoke screen erected by the howler monkeys in the US intel agencies (aided and abetter by howler monkeys in UK intel agencies) to stymie the US executive branch (Trump) are likely to be used by the the UK government and some more as well - in true Le Carre fashion, but with much dumber and less principled actors than Smiley's people.

these tactics prevented (and continue to prevent) investigation and prosecution of heinous corruption within the obama administration of the previous 8 years - these howler monkey intelligence agency tactics include(d) entrapment, honeypots, racketeering, blackmail, de facto kidnapping (in the case of Skripals), bribery, wire fraud, unauthorized wire-tapping, breach of authorized intel agency activities (like the FBI operating overseas and the CIA operating domestically in the US, false and unverified claims in FISA warrants, NSA providing unauthorized information to the CIA and FBI etc)

- given the howler monkey activities of the alphabet soup, it is not beyond the imagination to draw parallels with the CIA's reporting and analysis of situations on the ground wherever they operate to provide intel ahead of military activity. the DOD has already proved complicit by hiring Halper (for hundreds of thousands of dollars) to assist with the entrapment of Trump operative Papadopoulos. Mifsud is likely a CIA, not a Russian, asset.

- given that we have ample evidence of the howler monkeys in the alphabet soup seeking to facilitate a coup against a sitting US president, it is certainly plausible that - as with the US goverment sponsoring the mujaheedin, isis and al qaeda in afghanistan to fight the russians in late 80's early 90's, Iraq yellow cake and WMD - that the howler monkeys paid the white helmets to ovethrow assad and foment civil war in Syria - thus causing the migration of some 5 million syrians into europe, iraq, turkey, jordan, turkey and lebanon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Helmets_(Syrian_Civil_War)

so , the case is that howler monkey activity in intel agencies of the UK and US (add (F)rance to get FUKUS) are guilty of the manufacture of human conflict by fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing shitty analysis (howler monkeys are only good at swinging in trees and flinging ****) and generally operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity.

this can only be brought into sharp relief if howler monkey activities were instead shown to be powers for good rather than the geo-political risks that persist in Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Yemen, Libya and so on and so forth.

Never mind how much past conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and so on relied on evidence and analysis thrown at us by the howler monkeys in the tree tops, how much of what we we are doing now is a fabrication causing needless suffering by civilian (not politicians or military engaged in conflict) populations?

the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE, Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down", reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of people.

there are equivalents of strzok, page, ohr right throughout the US and UK government "machines" operating overseas. think about that. crimes exposed by Barr et al in the US - against a sitting president - are replicated wherever howler monkeys operate overseas as well.

[May 15, 2019] Barr s Investigator John Durham Once Probed Mueller In A Shocking Case

Highly recommended!
So Strzok worked with Mueller in Boston. Really close circle of friends.
Notable quotes:
"... In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of "four other FBI informants because they'd been framed by Robert Mueller's FBI. ..."
"... "In 2007," to help protect Whitey Bulger (that's what all those people were held in jail for) "the documents helped Salvati, Limone, and the families of the two other men who had died in prison to win a US $101.7 million civil judgment against the government." ..."
"... Durham got the two surviving framed men released from prison. Robert Mueller was knee-deep in this scandal, along with Andrew Weissman and the agent sent to prison, but because Reno gave him very limited authority, Durham was not able to prosecute Mueller, who was not in the FBI at the time. ..."
"... Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, calling Mueller a "zealot," he reminded Mueller supporters about the former FBI director's role in protecting "notorious mass murderer" Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant. ..."
"... There is also the fact that Rod Rosenstein seems to think well of him. ..."
"... You can be sure there are a lot of people losing sleep knowing Durham is on the case. You might have noticed Rod Rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney General, is out trashing Jim Comey. ..."
"... Strzok was in the Boston FBI office at the same time. ..."
"... Mueller was the perfect choice for special prosecutor because they have so much dirt on him he'll do whatever they tell him to do. Modus Operandi in DC for many many decades. ..."
May 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Barr's Investigator John Durham Once Probed Mueller In A Shocking Case

by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/15/2019 - 15:30 0 SHARES Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print Authored by S.Noble via IndependentSentinel.com,

Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham was appointed to investigate the origins of the Russia-Trump probe. Apparently, he has been on the job for weeks.

Durham is the perfect investigator for the job by all accounts and he had experience with Robert Mueller in the Whitey Bulger case. He did not side with Mueller and Mueller's agents suffered the consequences of Mueller's, some would say, corrupt leadership.

THE WHITEY BULGER CASE

Back in the late 1990s, there were "allegations that FBI informants James 'Whitey' Bulger and Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi had corrupted their handlers. So, in 1999, Janet Reno appointed John Durham as Special Prosecutor and charged him with investigating FBI corruption in Boston. As it turned out, FBI agents aided mass murderer, Whitey Bulger and hid his crimes. Bulger was a protected informant. Durham sent one agent involved to prison for 10 years.

Then-US Attorney, Robert Mueller is probably the one who should have landed in the pen. He allowed four innocent men to be sent to prison for a murder he knew they didn't commit. He did it to protect Bulger. One of the four men was in Florida at the time of the murder and could not have committed the murder.

When Durham went through the documents. He found that the four men, Enrico Tameleo , Joseph Salvati , Peter J. Limone , and Louis Greco, had actually been framed. Four people who were innocent were kept in jail for years in order to protect the status of Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant.

The Boston Globe wrote:

"[Mike] Albano [former Parole Board Member who was threatened by two F.B.I. agents for considering parole for the men imprisoned for a crime they did not commit] was appalled that, later that same year, Mueller was appointed FBI director, because it was Mueller, first as an assistant US attorney then as the acting U.S. attorney in Boston, who wrote letters to the parole and pardons board throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies. Of course, Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset "

In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of "four other FBI informants because they'd been framed by Robert Mueller's FBI.

"In 2007," to help protect Whitey Bulger (that's what all those people were held in jail for) "the documents helped Salvati, Limone, and the families of the two other men who had died in prison to win a US $101.7 million civil judgment against the government."

Durham got the two surviving framed men released from prison. Robert Mueller was knee-deep in this scandal, along with Andrew Weissman and the agent sent to prison, but because Reno gave him very limited authority, Durham was not able to prosecute Mueller, who was not in the FBI at the time.

Mueller kept four innocent people in jail for years to protect the informant status of Whitey Bulger, a mass-murdering Boston mobster who ended up dying in California, and it ended up costing the government $100 million plus in civil judgments.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ CALLED MUELLER A "ZEALOT"

Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, calling Mueller a "zealot," he reminded Mueller supporters about the former FBI director's role in protecting "notorious mass murderer" Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant.

"I think Mueller is a zealot," Dershowitz told "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y. ". . . I don't think he cares whether he hurts Democrats or Republicans, but he's a partisan and zealot.

"He's the guy who kept four innocent people in prison for many years in order to protect the cover of Whitey Bulger as an FBI informer. Those of us in Boston don't have such high regard for Mueller because we remember this story. The government had to pay out tens of millions of dollars because Whitey Bulger, a notorious mass murderer, became a government informer against the mafia . . .

"And that's regarded in Boston of one of the great scandals of modern judicial history . And Mueller was right at the center of it. So, he is not without criticism by people who know him in Boston."

HOW DID MUELLER BECOME THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR?

There were other cases in which Mueller behaved scandalously, here and here . Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Sydney Powell tells the same story. She calls them creeps on a mission and has a website of the same name detailing the offenses of Mueller and Weissman.

How did Robert Mueller end up as the Special Prosecutor? Thank a Democrat. The Democrats insisted he was a great man of inviolable character. They said he was the impeccable man and investigator.

There is also the fact that Rod Rosenstein seems to think well of him.

You can be sure there are a lot of people losing sleep knowing Durham is on the case. You might have noticed Rod Rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney General, is out trashing Jim Comey.

For his part, Jim Comey hasn't written anything inspirational or anti-Trump on Twitter for four days. He has been giving a lot of public speeches lately. Maybe he should shut up.

DoctorFix , 7 minutes ago link

Weren't Comey and Mueller involved in other scandal with Comeys brother?

insanelysane , 1 hour ago link

Strzok was in the Boston FBI office at the same time. The entire FBI is crooked. They supposedly couldn't find Bulger for years. Then the case was going to be turned over to the US Marshal Service. And what do you know, someone in Greenland or Iceland called the FBI with a tip that Bulger was in California. And just like that the FBI goes and picks him up with less force than they used to pick up Roger Stone. The FBI is dirty. Every single one of them.

MrBoompi , 1 hour ago link

Mueller was the perfect choice for special prosecutor because they have so much dirt on him he'll do whatever they tell him to do. Modus Operandi in DC for many many decades.

MushroomCloud2020 , 1 hour ago link

John Durham Once Probed Mueller

Yeah, but did he do an investigation afterwards or did he just have a smoke and fall asleep?

Truthistheagenda , 2 hours ago link

The Rats can't abandon ship fast enough so they are starting to eat their own... more popcorn this movie is getting good.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/05/comey-turns-on-brennan-fired-fbi-chief-claims-brennan-pushed-junk-dossier-in-ic-report-video/

jaxville , 2 hours ago link

What about the frame up of Edgar J Steele ? Another victim of a corrupt FBI investigation and a corrupt jewdiciary.

I used to find Edgar's "nickle rants" entertaining. What happened to him gave me the biggest red pill of my life.

"Whenever you find something foul, when you peel back the layers; more often than not you find the same maggots underneath it all." Please forgive my quote may not be precise as I don't have my copy of Song of the Reich handy. I think you get the point though.

Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago link

Not for me. I simply assume government is corrupt beyond our wildest dreams. Remember the story of the Dutch banker who escaped the Illuminati and his story of laundering proceeds from Iranian oil sales when Iran was, once again, under sanctions in former years? That trucks and trucks pulled up to these German banks loaded with USD. His job was to make sure that money continued its journey...but not in a truck.

But I'm with Team. What the **** did I just read? This is like being in a small town and learning yet another tidbit in a scandelous affair. Soap opera-ville. Like, dude! What's goin' happen next?

misterlee , 2 hours ago link

Mueller appears to have been dirty for some time now. This speaks to the extent of the swamp more than anything else. Mueller is careful enough to not break criminal law so all he'll ever suffer is criticism for loading up his team with Trump haters. None of these people will go down for anything unless Weissman is tagged with withholding exculpatory evidence, again.

Zero Schmeero , 3 hours ago link

If convicted of sedition Mueller and Weissman can serve in the same prison they sent Bulger. Seems they have a lot of friends there.

TGDavis , 3 hours ago link

How do you cost your employer 100 million and still have a job? This is why I don't believe anything. If this true, then our country is really in bad shape. No American would do this.

LOL123 , 3 hours ago link

I tell you the Democrats are a cult not a representative party of ANY PEOPLE except the i(legal) mob.

Truthistheagenda , 2 hours ago link

Unfortunately it is not just Dems, it is the whole damn swamp except a few.

  • Good vs Evil.
  • Party doesn't matter
  • Race doesn't matter
  • Religion doesn't matter
  • Sex doesn't matter

they want everyone divided because divided the people are weak, wake up and smell the Covfefe

lowscorewins , 3 hours ago link

Sadly Comey is not smart enough to shut up...

Sparehead , 3 hours ago link

There were so many "real dirty birds", but I'd add Hilliary, Holder, Lynch, and Clapper to round out the high-profile list. As an ex-President and the first "magic" one I expect Obama to get a pass.

LEEPERMAX , 3 hours ago link

CIA DESTROYS AMERICA FROM THE UK: https://aim4truth.org/2019/05/15/cia-destroys-america-from-the-uk/

The Herdsman , 3 hours ago link

Hey fellas, gee wiz. Turns out those guys we gave special rights, special power, specials guns, and special equipment too actually hurt people with them. Who'd'a thunk?

atlasRocked , 4 hours ago link

ERROR in the article? "... the United States Penitentiary, Hazelton , near Bruceton Mills , West Virginia . [22] Bulger, who was in a wheelchair, was found dead on October 30, 2018, at the age of 89. He was killed by inmates within hours of his arrival at Hazelton. "

Muddy1 , 4 hours ago link

"As it turned out, FBI agents aided mass murderer, Whitey Bulger and hid his crimes"

Over the past two years, I have heard Sean Hannity bad mouth the upper echelons of the FBI. He consistently goes on to grovel and talk about the thousands of agents in local offices who are hard working agents doing a great job. I always though his *** kissing was to good to be true. Now I read just how corrupt local agents are, willing to send innocent people to jail to protect some dirt bag.

I've come to the conclusion that the FBI is full of dirty agents from top to bottom. Time to abolish the FBI.

The Herdsman , 4 hours ago link

Every government agency is. Thats the nature of it. Power corrupts. You think you can create an agency of human beings, give them special powers, special rights, special guns, special equipment, turn them loose on society and think they are not going to dry **** everybody who gets in their way?

Koba the Dread , 3 hours ago link

The FBI (originally the BI) was first headed by Napoleon Bonaparte's grand nephew, a family not noted for republican sentiments. It was set up as a political police to persecute communists. Fair enough! But as Ward Churchill in his book by the same name calls the FBI, they are Agents of Repression . It could be communists one decade, conservatives the next, libertarians after that.

The FBI's reputation as an investigative body is very poor. Its crime lab has made hideous blunders. Its fingerprint section accused a man in Spain of finding his fingerprints on a bomb until other international fingerprint experts proved that the fingerprints definitely were not those of the man the FBI accused. Local and state police throughout the US universally loathe FBI interference with their cases because all the FBI does is interfere with their investigations and do it only so it (the FBI) can grandstand. It's investigation of the false flag 9-11event was a cover-up, as was its investigation of the false flag Boston Marathon "bombing". Two of the three "suspects" were shot to death by the FBI and the third is in prison for life for something he didn't even do.

shankster , 4 hours ago link

see the film 'Black Mass'

SRV , 4 hours ago link

The Bulger thing is peanuts... Mueller comes from a long line of Deep State criminals going back decades

shankster , 4 hours ago link

Don't forget that Mueller was also the 'clean-up' guy for Bush after 9II.

Joebloinvestor , 5 hours ago link

They are turning on each other. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7032973/Obamas-intel-chiefs-claim-told-Comey-NOT-use-golden-showers-dossier-warrant.html I can't wait till the "five eye" co-conspirators get it in their heads that Brennan or Clapper are going to rat them out.

Imagine That , 5 hours ago link

How much did Whitey Bulger give Mueller to earn protection? Therein lies the most critical issue of all. 'How much' could be how many mafia members the FBI brought down because of Bulger. It could also be how much Mueller benefited in other ways. Payoffs, anyone?

However, there may be another benefit. What did Bulger know about Mueller? To be black-mailable over many years, and to be truly effective, it must be devastating and run both ways--let's call it mutually assured blackmail.

It purports to be fiction, but DC, the Dark City is the inside story of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's a horror story and an eye-opener, politics viewed from inside the establishment.

insanelysane

The Bulger thing gets really interesting because Bulger's brother was the President of the Massachusetts Senate during the same time. Billy Bulger was a big time Democrat in Massachusetts, shocking of course. So you have 1 brother running the mob and the other brother, well, running a mob at the State House.

One story, link below, has an honest State Trooper try to search Whitey's bags at Logan Airport. Whitey throws a bag to a lackey and the lackey disappears. Trooper reports the incident and guess what happens. Trooper is reassigned to hell for interfering with the Brothers Bulger and the FBI.

https://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/19980929/news/309299966

[May 13, 2019] Angry Bear Senate Democratic Jackasses and Elmer Fudd

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Looks like Robert Mueller was a dirty cop hired to confirm fairy tales of Russian collusion peddled by a Clinton wing of Dems (DemoRats) sing Trump. And he enjoyed the full support of several intelligence agencies brass (especially FBI brass; initially Stzkok was one of his investigators) ..."
"... Before that Mueller was in charge of 9/11 and Anthrax scare investigations. So he is a card caring member of the neoliberal elite which converted the USA into what can be called the "National Security State" ..."
"... In order for a person to obstruct justice, there must be some justice to obstruct. Hence, if the alleged obstructer did not commit the underlying crime being investigated, then his so-called obstruction did not impair justice; it just impaired a fruitless investigation ..."
"... the USA squabble over Parteigenosse Mueller Final Report between two factions of neoliberal elite makes the USA a joke in the eyes of the whole world ..."
"... Hopefully, a more sound part of the USA elite, which Barr represents, will put some sand into those wheels. His decision to investigate the origin of Russiagate produced almost a heart attack for Pelosi. And the fact that he decided to skip his auto-da-fé at the House adds insult to injury. Poor Pelosi almost lost her mind. ..."
"... Out of democratic challengers IMHO only Tulsi Gabbard can probably attract a sizable faction of former Trump supporters and she is the most reviled, ignored, and slandered by DNC liberals and neocons alike candidate. ..."
"... The truth is that the color revolution against Donald Trump (a soft coup if you wish) failed. Now he badly needs to win in 2020 to avoid an indictment in NY State when he leaves the Presidency. It is just a matter of survival for him. ..."
"... Neoliberal Democrats will help him by putting their weakest pro-war candidate like the aged, apparently slightly demented neocon Joe Biden. With his rabid neoliberal past, neocon foreign policy past, Ukrainian skeletons in the closet and probably participation in the Obama administration dirty and criminal attempt to derail Trump using intelligence agencies as the leverage. ..."
"... Just like is the case with Boeing the situation for neoliberal democrats does not look promising. The world is starting to crash all around them. ..."
May 04, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

likbez, May 4, 2019 8:24 pm

The F.B.I. surveillance didn't come out until after the election. Therefore it couldn't impact the election. McConnell threatened to shriek "partisan politics!" if Obama said anything publicly about the Russian issue. Obama didn't. Claims of partisan behavior? Bullshit.

What about proven attempts of entrapments and inserting spies into Trump campaign?

Mifsud and Halper's stories come to mind (Halper's story has an interesting "seduction" subplot with undercover FBI informant Azra Turk). FBI and Justice Department brass acted as dirty mafia style politicians. McCabe and Brennan are two shining examples here. Probably guided personally by Obama, who being grown in a family of CIA operatives probably know this color revolutions "kitchen" all too well.

BTW Hillary did destroy evidence from her "bathroom server" while under subpoena.

Looks like Robert Mueller was a dirty cop hired to confirm fairy tales of Russian collusion peddled by a Clinton wing of Dems (DemoRats) sing Trump. And he enjoyed the full support of several intelligence agencies brass (especially FBI brass; initially Stzkok was one of his investigators)

Before that Mueller was in charge of 9/11 and Anthrax scare investigations. So he is a card caring member of the neoliberal elite which converted the USA into what can be called the "National Security State"

Which looks like classic Mussolini Italy with two guiding principles of jurisprudence applied to political enemies:

(1) To my friends, everything; to my enemies, the law (originated in 1933) .
(2) Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime (that actually comes from Stalinism period of the USSR, but the spirit is the same) .

It was actually Barr who saved Trump from obstruction of justice charge. He based his defense on the interpretation of the statuses the following (actually very elegant) way:

In order for a person to obstruct justice, there must be some justice to obstruct. Hence, if the alleged obstructer did not commit the underlying crime being investigated, then his so-called obstruction did not impair justice; it just impaired a fruitless investigation

Of course, that upset DemoRats who want President Pence to speed up the destruction of the USA and adding a couple of new wars to list the USA is involved.

Mueller was extremely sloppy and one-sided in writing his final report. Which is given taking into account his real task: to sink Trump. As Nunes aptly observed about his treatment of Mifsud as a Russian agent :

"If he is, in fact, a Russian agent, it would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals for not only the United States, but also our allies like the Italians and the Brits and others. Because if Mifsud is a Russian agent, he would know all kinds of our intelligence agents throughout the globe

likbez , May 4, 2019 10:11 pm

run75441,

Yes, of course, in the current neo-McCarthyism atmosphere merely passing the salt to a Russian guest at a dinner party makes you "an unregistered foreign agent" of Russia bent on implementing Putin's evil plans and colliding with Russian government ;-).

It looks like you are unable/unwilling to understand the logic behind my post. With all due respect, the situation is very dangerous -- when the neoliberal elite relies on lies almost exclusively as a matter of policy (look at Kamala Harris questioning Barr -- she is not stupid, she is an evil, almost taken from Orwell 1984, character), IMHO the neoliberal society is doomed. Sooner or later.

Currently, the USA squabble over Parteigenosse Mueller Final Report between two factions of neoliberal elite makes the USA a joke in the eyes of the whole world and Democrats look like Italian Fascists in 30th: a party hell-bent of dominance which does not care about laws or legitimacy one bit and can use entrapment and other dirty methods to achieve its goals.

Hopefully, a more sound part of the USA elite, which Barr represents, will put some sand into those wheels. His decision to investigate the origin of Russiagate produced almost a heart attack for Pelosi. And the fact that he decided to skip his auto-da-fé at the House adds insult to injury. Poor Pelosi almost lost her mind.

Neoliberals and neoconservatives joined ranks behind Russiagate and continue to push it because otherwise they need to be held accountable for all the related neoliberal disasters in the USA since 1980th including sliding standard of living, disappearance of "good" jobs, sky-high cost of university education and medical insurance, and the last but not least, Hillary fiasco.

Trump ran to the left of Clinton in foreign policy and used disillusionment of working close with neoliberal Democratic Party to his advantage promising jobs, end of outsourcing, end of uncontrolled immigration, and increased standard of living. He betrayed all those promises, but, still, that's why he won.

And that why the neoliberal establishment must present his election as de facto illegitimate, because otherwise they would be forced to admit that the bipartisan consensus around both financialization driven economics (casino capitalism) and imperial, war on terror based interventionism that are the foundation of the USA neoliberal elite politics since Clinton has been a disaster for most ordinary Americans -- of all political persuasions.

Out of democratic challengers IMHO only Tulsi Gabbard can probably attract a sizable faction of former Trump supporters and she is the most reviled, ignored, and slandered by DNC liberals and neocons alike candidate.

The truth is that the color revolution against Donald Trump (a soft coup if you wish) failed. Now he badly needs to win in 2020 to avoid an indictment in NY State when he leaves the Presidency. It is just a matter of survival for him.

Neoliberal Democrats will help him by putting their weakest pro-war candidate like the aged, apparently slightly demented neocon Joe Biden. With his rabid neoliberal past, neocon foreign policy past, Ukrainian skeletons in the closet and probably participation in the Obama administration dirty and criminal attempt to derail Trump using intelligence agencies as the leverage.

Just like is the case with Boeing the situation for neoliberal democrats does not look promising. The world is starting to crash all around them.

[May 11, 2019] Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia

Highly recommended!
Looks like Chalupa was an important player in Steele dossier. That suggests Ukrainian diaspora, and possibly Ukrainian SBU links.
Notable quotes:
"... Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia. ..."
"... That would tend to work against theories that involve Skripal in a significant role in generating the dossier; though it would not rule him out in a more peripheral role ..."
"... We can also conclude neither bruce ohr, or the expat russian living in the us are neutral players in any of this too.. Was someone paid a fee to say something?? ..."
"... Steele is a stranger to the truth in any event so I wouldn't set much store by it – though if the dossier is third hand material at best it certainly explains why it is such rubbish. Steele's ability to get cash by selling steaming nonsense to the gullible is amazing. ..."
"... "A Ukrainian political consultant has revealed to Sputnik that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele sought and paid for researchers in Ukraine to concoct fake stories about Donald Trump prior his election as US president to use in the now-infamous dossier that supposedly contained damning evidence of Russia-Trump collusion. ..."
"... Radio Sputnik's Lee Stranahan spoke previously with Ukrainian political consultant and former diplomat Andrii Telizhenko about his connections to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative named Alexandra Chalupa who also worked for clients in Ukrainian politics. Chalupa told Politico in January 2017 that beginning in 2015, she pulled on a network of sources she'd established in Kiev and Washington to try and turn up dirt on Trump, once his star began to rise in the Republican primary campaign." ..."
Aug 30, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

Ed Snack , August 27, 2018 at 21:21

Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia.

That would tend to work against theories that involve Skripal in a significant role in generating the dossier; though it would not rule him out in a more peripheral role.

Edward , August 27, 2018 at 22:43

Such faith.

james , August 27, 2018 at 23:34

We can also conclude neither bruce ohr, or the expat russian living in the us are neutral players in any of this too.. Was someone paid a fee to say something?? your last comment-conclusion is very shaky at best..

craig Post author , August 28, 2018 at 07:08

Ed,

Could you give a link to the source of that info? Steele is a stranger to the truth in any event so I wouldn't set much store by it – though if the dossier is third hand material at best it certainly explains why it is such rubbish. Steele's ability to get cash by selling steaming nonsense to the gullible is amazing.

Ed Snack , August 28, 2018 at 09:54

The Hill has an article, can't post a link from my phone, but google Ohr hand written notes. Apparently reliable and sounds very interesting.

I wonder what will get out from his testimony tomorrow.

Ort , August 28, 2018 at 18:52

Craig, FYI I believe that this is the article Ed cites: "The handwritten notes exposing what Fusion GPS told DOJ about Trump"

Jo , August 29, 2018 at 12:03

5103

"A Ukrainian political consultant has revealed to Sputnik that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele sought and paid for researchers in Ukraine to concoct fake stories about Donald Trump prior his election as US president to use in the now-infamous dossier that supposedly contained damning evidence of Russia-Trump collusion.

Radio Sputnik's Lee Stranahan spoke previously with Ukrainian political consultant and former diplomat Andrii Telizhenko about his connections to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative named Alexandra Chalupa who also worked for clients in Ukrainian politics. Chalupa told Politico in January 2017 that beginning in 2015, she pulled on a network of sources she'd established in Kiev and Washington to try and turn up dirt on Trump, once his star began to rise in the Republican primary campaign."

[May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Also note: Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they "discovered" later - https://disobedientmedia.com/2017/12/fancy-frauds-bogus-bears-malware-m ..."
"... And look who else sits on the Atlantic Council - http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/irene-chalupa why it's the sister of Andrea Chalupa, unregistered foreign agent employed by the DNC as a "Consultant", whose entire family is tied to Ukraine Intelligence. ..."
"... Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel Stopfake.org She is a Ukrainian Diaspora leader. The Chalupas are the first family of Ukrainian propaganda. She works with and for Ukrainian Intelligence through the Atlantic Council, Stopfake.org, and her sisters Andrea (EuromaidanPR) and Alexandra. ..."
Mar 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

mc888 Fri, 03/02/2018 - 20:06 Permalink

Thanks Tyler.

Also note: Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they "discovered" later - https://disobedientmedia.com/2017/12/fancy-frauds-bogus-bears-malware-m

(if that's too 'in the weeds' for you, ask your tech guys to read and verify)

And look who else sits on the Atlantic Council - http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/irene-chalupa why it's the sister of Andrea Chalupa, unregistered foreign agent employed by the DNC as a "Consultant", whose entire family is tied to Ukraine Intelligence.

http://theantimedia.org/propornot-2017-biggest-fake-news-story/

Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel Stopfake.org She is a Ukrainian Diaspora leader. The Chalupas are the first family of Ukrainian propaganda. She works with and for Ukrainian Intelligence through the Atlantic Council, Stopfake.org, and her sisters Andrea (EuromaidanPR) and Alexandra.

and lest we forget crazy eyes #1

http://theduran.com/adam-schiffs-collusion-with-oligarch-ukrainian-arms

[May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine has been screaming for the US to start a war with Russia for the past 2 1/2 years. ..."
"... Is Ukrainian Intelligence trying to invent a reason for the US to take a hard-line stance against Russia? Are they using Crowdstrike to carry this out? ..."
"... Meet the real Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, part of the groups that are targeting Ukrainian positions for the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. These people were so tech savvy they didn't know the Ukrainian SBU (Ukrainian CIA/internal security) records every phone call and most internet use in Ukraine and Donbass. Donbass still uses Ukrainian phone and internet services. ..."
"... This is a civil war and people supporting either side are on both sides of the contact line. The SBU is awestruck because there are hundreds if not thousands of people helping to target the private volunteer armies supported by Ukrainian-Americans. ..."
"... If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by Alexandra Chalupa? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection. These words mirror Dimitri Alperovitch's identification process in his interview with PBS Judy Woodruff. ..."
"... How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction. ..."
"... According to Esquire.com , Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work. ..."
"... Still, this is not enough to show a conflict of interest. Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers do. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016. ..."
"... According to Robert Parry's article At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council. Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. ..."
"... The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign. ..."
"... What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security? ..."
"... Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers. ..."
"... When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually . There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. ..."
"... Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other? ..."
"... Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network ..."
"... In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA. They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency." ..."
"... Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list. ..."
"... This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention. ..."
"... Pravy Sektor Hackers and Crowdstrike? ..."
"... What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts. ..."
"... The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated. ..."
"... According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any other way," he told me. "I have." ..."
"... While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to Ukraine. ..."
Dec 29, 2017 | www.washingtonsblog.com

In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is" statement showing this.

The difference between Dmitri Alperovitch's claims which are reflected in JAR-1620296 and this article is that enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes.

For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine . How did Crowdstrike miss this when it is their business to know?

Later in this article you'll meet and know a little more about the real "Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear." The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution.

The article is lengthy because the facts need to be in one place. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement?

The December 29th JAR adds a flowchart that shows how a basic phishing hack is performed. It doesn't add anything significant beyond that. Noticeably, they use both their designation APT 28 and APT 29 as well as the Crowdstrike labels of Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear separately.

This is important because information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's that every private actor in the information game was radically political.

The Hill.com article about Russia hacking the electric grid is a perfect example of why this intelligence is political and not taken seriously. If any proof of Russian involvement existed, the US would be at war. Under current laws of war, there would be no difference between an attack on the power grid or a missile strike.

According to the Hill "Private security firms provided more detailed forensic analysis, which the FBI and DHS said Thursday correlated with the IC's findings.

"The Joint Analysis Report recognizes the excellent work undertaken by
security companies and private sector network owners and operators, and provides new indicators of compromise and malicious infrastructure
identified during the course of investigations and incident response," read a statement. The report identities two Russian intelligence groups already named by CrowdStrike and other private security firms."

In an interview with Washingtonsblog , William Binney, the creator of the NSA global surveillance system said "I expected to see the IP's or other signatures of APT's 28/29 [the entities which the U.S. claims hacked the Democratic emails] and where they were located and how/when the data got transferred to them from DNC/HRC [i.e. Hillary Rodham Clinton]/etc. They seem to have been following APT 28/29 since at least 2015, so, where are they?"

According to the latest Washington Post story, Crowdstrike's CEO tied a group his company dubbed "Fancy Bear" to targeting Ukrainian artillery positions in Debaltsevo as well as across the Ukrainian civil war front for the past 2 years.

Alperovitch states in many articles the Ukrainians were using an Android app to target the self-proclaimed Republics positions and that hacking this app was what gave targeting data to the armies in Donbass instead.

Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."

How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. " Intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks."

The public evidence never goes beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses. NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant for NBC.

According to NBC the story reads like this." The company, Crowdstrike, was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry, a former senior FBI official who consults for NBC News.

"But the Russians used the app to turn the tables on their foes, Crowdstrike says. Once a Ukrainian soldier downloaded it on his Android phone, the Russians were able to eavesdrop on his communications and determine his position through geo-location.

In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other, known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called the GRU."

The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks."

Because Ukrainian soldiers are using a smartphone app they activate their geolocation to use it. Targeting is from location to location. The app would need the current user location to make it work.

In 2015 I wrote an article that showed many of the available open source tools that geolocate, and track people. They even show street view. This means that using simple means, someone with freeware or an online website, and not a military budget can look at what you are seeing at any given moment.

Where Crowdstrike fails is insisting people believe that the code they see is (a) an advanced way to geolocate and (b) it was how a state with large resources would do it. Would you leave a calling card where you would get caught and fined through sanctions or worse? If you use an anonymous online resource at least Crowdstrike won't believe you are Russian and possibly up to something.

" Using open source tools this has been going on for years in the private sector. For geolocation purposes, your smartphone is one of the greatest tools to use. Finding and following you has never been easier . Let's face it if you are going to stalk someone, "street view" on a map is the next best thing to being there. In the following video, the software hacks your modem. It's only one step from your phone or computer."

If you read that article and watch the video you'll see that using "geo-stalker" is a better choice if you are on a low budget or no budget. Should someone tell the Russians they overpaid?

According to Alperovitch, the smartphone app plotted targets in about 15 seconds . This means that there is only a small window to get information this way.

Using the open source tools I wrote about previously, you could track your targets all-day. In 2014, most Ukrainian forces were using social media regularly. It would be easy to maintain a map of their locations and track them individually.

From my research into those tools, someone using Python scripts would find it easy to take photos, listen to conversations, turn on GPS, or even turn the phone on when they chose to. Going a step further than Alperovitch, without the help of the Russian government, GRU, or FSB, anyone could take control of the drones Ukraine is fond of flying and land them. Or they could download the footage the drones are taking. It's copy and paste at that point. Would you bother the FSB, GRU, or Vladimir Putin with the details or just do it?

In the WaPo article Alperovitch states "The Fancy Bear crew evidently hacked the app, allowing the GRU to use the phone's GPS coordinates to track the Ukrainian troops' position.

In that way, the Russian military could then target the Ukrainian army with artillery and other weaponry. Ukrainian brigades operating in eastern Ukraine were on the front lines of the conflict with Russian-backed separatist forces during the early stages of the conflict in late 2014, CrowdStrike noted. By late 2014, Russian forces in the region numbered about 10,000. The Android app was useful in helping the Russian troops locate Ukrainian artillery positions."

In late 2014, I personally did the only invasive passport and weapons checks that I know of during the Ukrainian civil war. I spent days looking for the Russian army every major publication said were attacking Ukraine. The keyword Cyber Security industry leader Alperovitch used is "evidently." Crowdstrike noted that in late 2014, there were 10,000 Russian forces in the region.

When I did the passport and weapons check, it was under the condition there would be no telephone calls. We went where I wanted to go. We stopped when I said to stop. I checked the documents and the weapons with no obstacles. The weapons check was important because Ukraine was stating that Russia was giving Donbass modern weapons at the time. Each weapon is stamped with a manufacture date. The results are in the articles above.

The government in Kiev agreed with my findings throughout 2014 and 2015. There were and are no Russian troops fighting in Donbass regardless of what Mr. Alperovitch asserts. There are some Russian volunteers which I have covered in detail.

Based on my findings which the CIA would call hard evidence, almost all the fighters had Ukrainian passports. There are volunteers from other countries. In Debaltsevo today, I would question Alperovitch's assertion of Russian troops based on the fact the passports will be Ukrainian and reflect my earlier findings. There is no possibly, could be, might be, about it.

The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment . Although subtitles aren't on it, the former Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine would have been in deep trouble.

How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention? Could the investment made by Google and some very large players have anything to do with the media Crowdstrike is causing?

In an interview with PBS newshour on December 22nd 2016, Dmitri Alperovitch finally produced the hard evidence he has for Russian involvement clearly. To be fair, he did state it several times before. It just didn't resonate or the media and US intelligence agencies weren't listening.

According to Alperovitch, the CEO of a $150 million dollar cyber security company "And when you think about, well, who would be interested in targeting Ukraine artillerymen in eastern Ukraine who has interest in hacking the Democratic Party, Russia government comes to mind, but specifically, Russian military that would have operational over forces in the Ukraine and would target these artillerymen."

That statement is most of the proof of Russian involvement he has. That's it, that's all the CIA, FBI have to go on. It's why they can't certify the intelligence. It's why they can't get beyond the threshold of maybe.

Woodruff then asked two important questions. She asked if Crowdstrike was still working for the DNC. Alperovitch responded "We're protecting them going forward. The investigation is closed in terms of what happened there. But certainly, we've seen the campaigns, political organizations are continued to be targeted, and they continue to hire us and use our technology to protect themselves."

Based on the evidence he presented Woodruff, there is no need to investigate further? Obviously, there is no need, the money is rolling in.

Second and most important Judy Woodruff asked if there were any questions about conflicts of interest, how he would answer? This is where Dmitri Alperovitch's story starts to unwind.

His response was "Well, this report was not about the DNC. This report was about information we uncovered about what these Russian actors were doing in eastern Ukraine in terms of locating these artillery units of the Ukrainian army and then targeting them. So, what we just did is said that it looks exactly as the same to the evidence we've already uncovered from the DNC, linking the two together."

Why is this reasonable statement going to take his story off the rails? First, let's look at the facts surrounding his evidence and then look at the real conflicts of interest involved. While carefully evading the question, he neglects to state his conflicts of interest are worthy of a DOJ investigation. Can you mislead the federal government about national security issues and not get investigated yourself?

If Alperovitch's evidence is all there is, then the US government owes some large apologies to Russia.

After showing who is targeting Ukrainian artillerymen, we'll look at what might be a criminal conspiracy.

Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?

Ukraine has been screaming for the US to start a war with Russia for the past 2 1/2 years. Using facts accepted by leaders on both sides of the conflict, the main proof Crowdstrike shows for evidence doesn't just unravel, it falls apart. Is Ukrainian Intelligence trying to invent a reason for the US to take a hard-line stance against Russia? Are they using Crowdstrike to carry this out?

Real Fancy Bear?

Real Fancy Bear?

Meet the real Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, part of the groups that are targeting Ukrainian positions for the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. These people were so tech savvy they didn't know the Ukrainian SBU (Ukrainian CIA/internal security) records every phone call and most internet use in Ukraine and Donbass. Donbass still uses Ukrainian phone and internet services.

These are normal people fighting back against private volunteer armies that target their homes, schools, and hospitals. The private volunteer armies like Pravy Sektor, Donbas Battalion, Azov, and Aidar have been cited for atrocities like child rape, torture, murder, and kidnapping. That just gets the ball rolling. These are a large swath of the Ukrainian servicemen Crowdstrike hopes to protect.

This story which just aired on Ukrainian news channel TCN shows the SBU questioning and arresting some of what they call an army of people in the Ukrainian-controlled areas. This news video shows people in Toretsk that provided targeting information to Donbass and people probably caught up in the net accidentally.

This is a civil war and people supporting either side are on both sides of the contact line. The SBU is awestruck because there are hundreds if not thousands of people helping to target the private volunteer armies supported by Ukrainian-Americans.

The first person they show on the video is a woman named Olga Lubochka. On the video her voice is heard from a recorded call saying " In the field, on the left about 130 degrees. Aim and you'll get it." and then " Oh, you hit it so hard you leveled it to the ground.""Am I going to get a medal for this?"

Other people caught up in the raid claim and probably were only calling friends they know. It's common for people to call and tell their family about what is going on around them. This has been a staple in the war especially in outlying villages for people aligned with both sides of the conflict. A neighbor calls his friend and says "you won't believe what I just saw."

Another "fancy bear," Alexander Schevchenko was caught calling friends and telling them that armored personnel carriers had just driven by.

Anatoli Prima, father of a DNR(Donetsk People's Republic) soldier was asked to find out what unit was there and how many artillery pieces.

One woman providing information about fuel and incoming equipment has a husband fighting on the opposite side in Gorlovka. Gorlovka is a major city that's been under artillery attack since 2014. For the past 2 1/2 years, she has remained in their home in Toretsk. According to the video, he's vowed to take no prisoners when they rescue the area.

When asked why they hate Ukraine so much, one responded that they just wanted things to go back to what they were like before the coup in February 2014.

Another said they were born in the Soviet Union and didn't like what was going on in Kiev. At the heart of this statement is the anti- OUN, antinationalist sentiment that most people living in Ukraine feel. The OUNb Bandera killed millions of people in Ukraine, including starving 3 million Soviet soldiers to death. The new Ukraine was founded in 1991 by OUN nationalists outside the fledgling country.

Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason are exposed.

In the last article exploring the DNC hacks the focus was on the Chalupas . The article focused on Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa. Their participation in the DNC hack story is what brought it to international attention in the first place.

According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page " After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her to stop her research."" July 25, 2016

If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by Alexandra Chalupa? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection. These words mirror Dimitri Alperovitch's identification process in his interview with PBS Judy Woodruff.

How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction.

According to Esquire.com , Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work.

Still, this is not enough to show a conflict of interest. Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers do. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.

In my previous article I showed in detail how the Chalupas fit into this. A brief bullet point review looks like this.

  • The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera. When these people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed There is no getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an authoritarian fascism.
  • Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , "The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms. Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi, Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the "heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached to it because it ended in a coup.
  • Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young activist that founded Euromaidan Press . Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev .

In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found out.

At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an appointment with Yurash.

Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.

  • Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice is Irene Chalupa. From her bio – Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.

According to Robert Parry's article At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council. Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.

What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security?

When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it opens up criminal conspiracy.

If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a crime.

Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.

When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually . There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government.

Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other?

Alperovitch and Fancy Bear tweet each other?

Crowdstrike is also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.

ff-twitter-com-2016-12-30-02-24-54

Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service Crowdstrike offers? Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network.

Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network

In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA. They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."

In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source. This is something you do when you don't want to be too obvious. Here is another example of that.

Ukrainian Intelligence and the real Fancy Bear?

Ukrainian Intelligence and the real Fancy Bear?

Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.

Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his "Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the past.

Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter.

Trying to keep it hush hush?

Trying to keep it hush hush?

This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.

These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and with to promote the story of Russian hacking.

Pravy Sektor Hackers and Crowdstrike?

Pravy Sektor Hackers and Crowdstrike?

When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article, one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.

Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say" Let's understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics."

What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts.

The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.

According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any other way," he told me. "I have."

While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to Ukraine.

The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in international politics.

By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of rumor.

From the Observer.com , " Andrea Chalupa -- the sister of DNC research staffer Alexandra Chalupa -- claimed on social media, without any evidence, that despite Clinton conceding the election to Trump, the voting results need to be audited to because Clinton couldn't have lost -- it must have been Russia. Chalupa hysterically tweeted to every politician on Twitter to audit the vote because of Russia and claimed the TV show The Americans , about two KGB spies living in America, is real."

Quite possibly now the former UK Ambassador Craig Murry's admission of being the involved party to "leaks" should be looked at. " Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia . Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling."

[May 11, 2019] Whitney Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan

Highly recommended!
May 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Whitney: Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan

by Tyler Durden Sat, 05/11/2019 - 11:05 48 SHARES Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

Sometime in the next 4 weeks, the Justice Department's inspector general will release an internal review that will reveal the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Among other matters, the IG's report is expected to determine "whether there was sufficient justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place." Critics of the Trump-collusion probe believe that there was never probable cause that a crime had been committed, therefore, there was no legal basis for launching the investigation.

The findings of the Mueller report– that there was no cooperation or collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign– seem to underscore this broader point and suggest that the fictitious Trump-Russia connection was merely a pretext for spying on the campaign of a Beltway outsider whose political views clashed with those of the foreign policy establishment.

In any event, the upcoming release of the Horowitz report will formally end the the first phase of the long-running Russiagate scandal and mark the beginning of Phase 2, in which high-profile officials from the previous administration face criminal prosecution for their role in what looks to be a botched attempt at a coup d'etat.

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Here's a brief summary from political analyst, Larry C. Johnson, who previously worked at the CIA and U.S. State Department:

" The evidence is plain–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia. The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the US and UK and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign." ( "How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election" , Larry C. Johnson, Consortium News)

Bingo. Attorney General William Barr has already stated his belief that spying on the Trump campaign "did occur" and that, in his mind, it is "a big deal". He also reiterated his commitment to thoroughly investigate the matter in order to find out whether the spying was adequately "predicated", that is, whether the FBI followed the required protocols for such spying, or not. Barr already knows the answer to this question as he is fully aware of the fact that the FBI used information that they knew was false to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. Having no hard evidence of cooperation with the Kremlin, senior-level FBI officials and their counterparts at the Obama Justice Department used parts of an "opposition research" document (The Trump Dossier) that they knew was unreliable to procure warrants that allowed them to treat a presidential campaign the same way the intelligence agencies treat foreign enemies; using electronic surveillance, wiretapping, confidential informants and "honey trap" schemes designed to gather embarrassing or incriminating information on their target. Barr knows all of this already which is why the Democrats are doing everything in their power to discredit him and have him removed from office.

https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855

His determination to "get to the bottom of this" is not just a threat to the FBI, it's a threat to multiple agencies that may have had a hand in this expansive domestic espionage operation including the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the State Department and, perhaps, even the Obama White House. No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes, but Barr appears to be serious about finding out.

Here's Barr again:

"Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant .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."

In other words, Barr knows that the Trump campaign was riddled with spies and he is going to do his damnedest to find out what happened. He also knows that the FISA warrants were improperly obtained using the shabby disinformation from an opposition research "hit piece" (The Steele Dossier) that was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, just like he knows that government agents had concocted a strategy for leaking classified information to the media to fuel the public hysteria. Barr knows most of what happened already. It's just a matter of compiling the research in the proper format and delivering it in a way that helps to emphasize how trusted government agents abused their power by pursuing a vicious partisan plot to either destroy the president's reputation or force him from office. Like Barr said, that's a "big deal".

The name that seems to feature larger than all others in the ongoing Trump-Russia saga, is James Comey, the former FBI Director who oversaw the spying operations that are now under investigation at the DOJ. But was Comey really the central figure in these felonious hi-jinks or was he a mere lieutenant following directives from someone more powerful than himself? While the preponderance of new evidence suggests that the FBI was deeply involved, it does not answer this crucial question. For example, just this week, a report by veteran journalist John Solomon, showed that former British spy Christopher Steele admitted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec that his "Trump Dossier" was "political research", implying that the contents couldn't be trusted because they were shaped by Steele's political bias. Kavalec passed along this information to the FBI which shrugged it off and then, just days later, used the dossier to obtain warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign. Think about that for a minute. The FBI had "written proof . that Steele had a political motive", but went ahead and used the dossier to procure the warrants anyway. That's what I'd call a premeditated felony.

But evidence of wrongdoing is not proof that Comey was the ringleader, he was just the hapless sad sack who was left holding the bag. The truth is, Comey was just a reluctant follower. The real architect of the Trump-Russia treachery was the boss-man at the nation's premier intelligence agency, the CIA. That's where the headwaters of this shameful burlesque are located, in Langley. More on that in a minute, but first check out this excerpt from an article at The Hill which sums up Comey's role fairly well:

(There) "will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree head spin.

"There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA director.

In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence case." ( "James Comey is in trouble and he knows it" , The Hill)

Why is the Inspector General so curious as to whether Comey "was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director? And why did Comey draw from "a cast of characters " . that "all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources"??

Could it be that Comey was just an unwitting pawn in a domestic regime change operation launched by former CIA Director John Brennan, the one public figure who has expressed greater personal animus towards Trump than all the others combined? Could Trump's promise to normalize relations with Russia have intensified Brennan's visceral hatred of him given the fact that Russia had frustrated Brennan's strategic plans in Ukraine and Syria? Keep in mind, the CIA had been arming, training and providing logistical support to the Sunni militants who were trying to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Putin's intervention crushed the jihadist militias delivering a humiliating defeat to Generalissimo Brennan who, soon after, left office in disgrace. Isn't this at least part of the reason why Brennan hates Trump?

Regular readers of this column know that I have always thought that Brennan was the central figure in the Trump-Russia charade. It was Brennan who first referred the case to Comey, just as it was Brennan who "hand-picked" the analysts who stitched together the dodgy Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which said that "Putin and the Russian government aspired to help Trump's election chances.") It was also Brennan who persuaded Harry Reid to petition Comey to open an investigation in the first place. Brennan was chief instigator of the Trump-Russia fiasco, the omniscient puppet-master who persuaded Clapper and Comey to do his bidding while still-unidentified agents strategically leaked stories to the media to inflame passions and sow social unrest. At every turn, Brennan was there guiding the perfidious project along. According to journalist Philip Giraldi, the CIA may have even assisted in the obtaining of FISA warrants on Trump campaign aids as this excerpt from an article at The Unz Review indicates:

"Brennan was the key to the operation because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court refused to approve several requests by the FBI to initiate taps on Trump associates and Trump Tower as there was no probable cause to do so but the British and other European intelligence services were legally able to intercept communications linked to American sources. Brennan was able to use his connections with those foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, to make it look like the concerns about Trump were coming from friendly and allied countries and therefore had to be responded to as part of routine intelligence sharing. As a result, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Gen. Michael Flynn were all wiretapped. And likely there were others. This all happened during the primaries and after Trump became the GOP nominee." ( "The Conspiracy Against Trump" , Philip Giraldi)

Can you see how important this is? The FBI was having trouble getting warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, so Brennan helped them out by persuading his foreign intelligence allies (the British and other European intelligence services) to come up with bogus "intercepted communications linked to American sources," which helped to secure the FISA warrants. We have no idea of what these foreign agents heard on these alleged intercepted communications, all we know is that they were effectively used to achieve Brennan's ultimate objective, which was to acquire the means of taking down Trump via a relentless and expansive surveillance campaign.

According to a report in The Guardian (where the story first appeared.):

"GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016. One source called the British eavesdropping agency the "principal whistleblower". ("British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia ", The Guardian)

Okay, so Brennan twisted a few arms and got his foreign Intel buddies to make uncorroborated claims that got the investigative ball rolling, but then what? If there was any meat to Brennan's foreign intel, then Mueller would have dug it up and used it in his report, right? But he didn't. Why?

Because there was nothing there, the whole thing was a sham from the get go. Brennan probably "sexed up" the intelligence so it would sound like something it really wasn't. (Think: WMD) Again, if there was even a scintilla of hard evidence that Trump's campaign assistants were in bed with Russia, Mueller would have shrieked it from every mountaintop across America. But he didn't, because there wasn't any. There was no cooperation, no conspiracy and no collusion. Trump was falsely accused. End of story.

Here's more from the same article:

"The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team and Moscow ahead of the US election." (Guardian)

"The extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team and Moscow"???

Really? This is precisely the type of hyperventilating journalism that fueled the absurd conspiracy theory that the president of the United States was a Russian agent. It's hard to believe that we're even discussing the matter at this point.

There was an interesting aside in John Solomon's article that suggests that he might be thinking along the same lines. He says: "One legal justification cited for redacting the Oct. 13, 2016, email is the National Security Act of 1947, which can be used to shield communications involving the CIA or the White House National Security Council."

Why would Solomon draw attention to "to shielding communications involving the CIA or the White House", after all, the bulk of his article focused on the State Department and the FBI? Is he suggesting that the CIA and Obama White House may have been involved in these spying shenanigans, is that why Kavalec's damning notes (which stated that Steele's dossier could not be trusted.) have been retroactively classified?

Take a look at this email from the FBI's chief investigator in the Russia collusion probe, Peter Strzok, to his fellow agents in April 2017.

"I'm beginning to think the agency (CIA) got info a lot earlier than we thought and hasn't shared it completely with us. Might explain all those weird/seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as source of some leaks." -Peter Strzok.

Ha! So even the FBI's chief investigator was in the dark about the CIA's shadowy machinations behind the scenes. Clearly, Brennan wanted to prevent the other junta leaders from fully knowing what he was up to.

All of this is bound to come out in the inspector general's report sometime in the next month or so. Both Attorney General William Barr and IG Horowitz appear to be fully committed to revealing the criminal leaks, the illegal electronic surveillance, the improperly obtained FISA warrants, and the multiple confidential human sources (spies) that were placed in the Trump campaign. They are going to face withering criticism for their efforts, but they are resolutely moving forward all the same. Bravo, for that.

Bottom line : The agents and officials who conducted this seditious attack on the presidency never thought they'd be held accountable for their crimes. But they were wrong, and now their day of reckoning is fast approaching. The main players in this palace coup are about to be exposed, criminally charged and prosecuted. Some of them will probably wind up in jail.

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."

DocBerg , just now link

Please wake me up from my hibernation if any of these cretins are actually prosecuted effectively, much less punished, as they richly deserve.

JCW Industries , 3 minutes ago link

Nothing will happen. IG report will show nothing. Look who's doing it. (((Horowitz))).....the DS protects its own

notfeelinthebern , 18 minutes ago link

So we should probably be sanctioning GB, instead of Russia? It would be the right thing to do? No?

Gonzogal , 6 minutes ago link

There is ZERO evidence that Russia played ANY role in the 2016 USSA election and yet are sanctioned to the max, threatened with war etc. HOWEVER there IS proof of the UK/GCHQ involvement.

I am waiting to see if Trump still goes to the UK in June or if he tells them he is "busy with more important things at home" aka F...off.

Amy G. Dala , 2 minutes ago link

Remember when Gowdy asked Brennan for evidence, and Brennan does reply with a straight face:

"We don't deal in evidence."

Mister Brennan, thou has dost protest too loudly, for too long . . .

Idaho potato head , 19 minutes ago link

Apocalypse, I would say that word describes it pretty well.

Middle English Apocalipse "Revelation (the New Testament book)," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Late Latin apocalypsis "revelation, the Book of Revelation," borrowed from Greek apokálypsis "uncovering, disclosure, revelation," from apokalyp-, stem of apokalýptein "to uncover, disclose, reveal" (from apo- APO- + kalýptein "to cover, protect, conceal," of uncertain origin) + -sis -SIS

Joebloinvestor , 24 minutes ago link

Anyone notice NO ******* COMMENT from UK intelligence about their ex-spies being involved in a US election?

I kind of expected one "throwaway" to be found with a hole behind his ear.

Idaho potato head , 13 minutes ago link

'highly likely'. would be typical english understatement.

bh2 , 30 minutes ago link

"No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes"

Too kind. We all know it is impossible that Susan Rice did not know -- she would have to authorize the FBI to conduct any foreign spying operations.

And if Susan Rice knew, it is impossible that Barack Obama didn't know. And approved of it, if only by not putting a stop to it.

The string that hasn't been pulled yet is the role of British intelligence. Brennan is obviously not a very bright man. He's a post-turtle, so how a dull-witted former communist ended up as head of the CIA is yet another story that needs looking into.

Was he actually a British mole?

The intersection of British establishment political goals and donated assets in the operation of this plot is nakedly obvious. It will be for Barr to expose that "angle", with the distinct possibility the ultimate origin of this scheme was the Blairite UK civil service who wished to eliminate a potentially powerful political actor who repeatedly and strongly indicated his unreserved support for Brexit.

Philthy_Stacker , 45 minutes ago link

All the things you mentioned were obfuscated by Clinton, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Cheney, several Generals, heads of state, foreign intelligence. Do you think someone just snaps a finger and the MIC disappears?

You conflate 'past' leadership with the current. The deep state is crumbling. We need to keep digging and indicting until Rothschild takes a one way rocket off planet Earth.

It will only end when treasonous traitor hang by their necks. I'm still hoping and informing others.

joego1 , 36 minutes ago link

Only the wheels that grind the sheeple work right now.

wadalt , 50 minutes ago link

"I've talked to the members of the Israeli government at the highest levels. I know who they want elected here. It's not Hillary Clinton." – Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani

The TRUMP Collusion wasn't with the Russians , but with APARTHEID Israhell.

But NO ONE will investigate that.

M.A.G.A. is out

K.A.K.A. is in (Keep America Kabalah Again)

http://cufpa.wordpress.com/2018/01/07/trumps-jewish-agenda/

KJWqonfo7 , 34 minutes ago link

It's difficult to look at him with that repugnant grin on his rat face.

boring_man , 54 minutes ago link

"Some of them will probably wind up in jail."

"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all."

Henry Wadsworth Longellow

Patience is an integral part of of those interested in true "justice"

man will fail, and at times shirk his duty to God and each other,,,,,,,,,,,,,our Great Judge misses no thing,,,,,,,

- now there's yer dinner -

boring

Dumpster Elite , 1 hour ago link

I know what occurred...it was a coup attempt.

I won't believe that ANYTHING will be done about it. Prove me wrong, Barr. I remain a non-believer that anything bad happens to the Deep State.

Pa Kettle , 1 hour ago link

The definitive exposé:

"CIA Crimes: How John Brennan Weaponized the CIA and FBI, and Conspired with Russia and Harry Reid to Frame Trump"

PART A
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=1362

PART B
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=1443

PART C
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=1525

PART D
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=2241

PART E
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=2423

PART F
https://chaletbooks.com/chaletreports/?p=2463

Philthy_Stacker , 52 minutes ago link

Sorry Ashton, Dan Bongino figured it out 2 years ago. Your book is weak.
https://www.amazon.com/Spygate-Attempted-Sabotage-Donald-Trump/dp/1642930989
Ashton is a day late and a dollar short. Hats off to Dan Bongino, the real 'exposer'.
Investigative reporting by:
John Solomon and Sara Carter.

[May 11, 2019] Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Breaking news today, courtesy of the New York Times , is that a man with a long history of working with the CIA and a female FBI Informant, traveled to London in September of 2016 and tried unsuccessfully to entrap George Papadopolous. The biggest curiosity is that US intelligence or law enforcement officials fully briefed British intelligence on what they were up to. ..."
"... The FBI disingenuously claims they ran Azra Turk at Papadopolous because they were alarmed ostensibly by Russia's attempts to disrupt the 2016 election. But Papadopolous was not seeking out Russian contacts. He was being baited. It was Mifsud and others tied to British and US intelligence who were bringing up the "opportunity" to work with the Russians. ..."
"... The boomerang from the Democratic Party's failed attempt to connect Donald Trump to Russia's 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight path crosses right through Moscow's pesky neighbor, Ukraine. That is where there is growing evidence a foreign power was asked, and in some cases tried, to help Hillary Clinton . ..."
"... In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort 's dealings inside the country, in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress. ..."
"... It's not just the left. I listened to Michael Tracey's interview with George Papadopoulos and was stunned to learn about the web of Deep State actors and how our Five Eyes allies were intimately involved in subverting our Presidential election. Papadopoulos even talks about U.S. military attachés, DIA guys, in on this coup. Listen to this Michael Tracey* interview and you will be shaken: https://youtu.be/ZjGLCCP_lPg ..."
"... Neoliberals and neoconservatives (ie zionists) were behind it and continue to push it. Trump ran to the left of Clinton on both domestic and foreign policy. That's why he won, and why the establishment must present his election as de facto illegitimate, because otherwise they would be forced to admit that the bipartisan convergence around both finance driven economic policy and war on terror interventionism that has described elite politics since Clinton has been a disaster for most ordinary Americans -- of all types and political persuasions -- and needs to be destroyed root and branch. ..."
"... What's the likelihood that Carter Page was a plant in the Trump campaign? After all, he had a history with the US IC and was used as bait in an FBI case to prove Russian operatives' recruiting efforts. It's thought he's the Under Cover Employee alluded to in this case, which resulted in the successful prosecution of Russian spies: ..."
"... Here's a National Review exclusive report in which a transcript of FBI's Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa's testimony reveals several Confidential Human Sources (including Christopher Steele), and more interestingly foreign "liasons" (Mifsud?) were employed by the bureau in this operation: ..."
May 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson

The preponderance of evidence makes this very simple--there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia.

The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign.

Breaking news today, courtesy of the New York Times, is that a man with a long history of working with the CIA and a female FBI Informant, traveled to London in September of 2016 and tried unsuccessfully to entrap George Papadopolous. The biggest curiosity is that US intelligence or law enforcement officials fully briefed British intelligence on what they were up to. Quite understandable given what we now know about British spying on the Trump Campaign.

The Mueller investigation of Trump "collusion" with Russia prior to the 2016 Presidential election focused on eight cases:

  1. Proposed Trump Tower Project in Moscow
  2. George Papadopolous --
  3. Carter Page --
  4. Dimitri Simes --
  5. Veselnetskya Meeting at Trump Tower (June 16, 2016)
  6. Events at Republican Convention
  7. Post-Convention Contacts with Russian Ambassador Kislyak
  8. Paul Manafort

One simple fact emerges--of the eight cases or incidents of alleged Trump Campaign interaction with the Russians investigated by the Mueller team, the proposals to interact with the Russian Government or Putin originated with FBI informants, MI-6 assets or people paid by Fusion GPS, not Trump or his people. There is not a single instance where Donald Trump or any member of his campaign team initiated contact with the Russians for the purpose of gaining derogatory information on Hillary or obtaining support to boost the Trump campaign. Not one.

Simply put, Trump and his campaign were the target of an elaborate, wide ranging covert action designed to entrap him and members of his team as an agent of Russia.

Let's look in detail at each of the cases.

THE PROPOSED TRUMP TOWER PROJECT IN MOSCOW, according to Mueller's report, originated with an FBI Informant--Felix Sater.

Here's what the Mueller Report states:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov.

Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Mueller, as I have noted previously , is downright dishonest in failing to identify Sater as an FBI informant. Sater was not just a private entrepreneur looking to make some coin. He was a fully signed up FBI informant. Sater's status as an FBI snitch was first exposed in 2012. Sater also was a boyhood chum of Michael Cohen, the target being baited in this operation. Another inconvenient fact excluded from the Mueller report is that one of Mueller's Chief Prosecutors, Andrew Weissman, signed the deal with Felix Sater in December 1998 that put Sater into the FBI Informant business .

All suggestions for meeting with the Russian Government, including Putin, originated with Felix Sater. The use of Sater on this particular project started in September 2015.

[For more on Sater please see my previous posts, Felix Sater--The Rosetta Stone for the FBI/CIA Conspiracy Against Trump? , Felix Sater and the Steele Dossier .]

GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS

Papadopolous was targeted by British and U.S. intelligence starting in late December 2015, when he is offered out of the blue a job with the London Centre of International Law and Practice Limited (LCILP) . The LCILP has all of the hallmarks of an intelligence front company. LCILP began as an offshoot from another company  --  EN Education Group Limited  --  which describes itself as "a global education consultancy, facilitating links between students, education providers and organisations with an interest in education worldwide".

EN Education and LCILP are owned and run by Nagi Khalid Idris, a 48-year-old British citizen of Sudanese origin. For no apparent reason Idris offers Papadopolous a job as the Director of the LCILP's International Energy and Natural Resources Division. Then in March of 2016, Idris and Arvinder Sambei (who acted as an attorney for the FBI on a 9-11 extradition case in the UK), insist on introducing Joseph Mifsud to Papadopolous.

It is Joseph Mifsud who introduces the idea of meeting Putin following a lunch in London:

"The lunch is booked for March 24 at the Grange Holborn Hotel,. . . . "When I get there, Mifsud is waiting for me in the lobby with an attractive, fashionably dressed young woman with dirty blonde hair at his side. He introduces her as Olga Vinogradova." (p. 76)

"Mifsud sells her hard. "Olga is going to be your inside woman to Moscow. She knows everyone." He tells me she was a former official at the Russian Ministry of Trade. Then he waxes on about introducing me to the Russian ambassador in London." (p. 77)

"On April 12, "Olga" writes: "I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request. The embassy in London is very much aware of this. As mentioned, we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian Federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced."

And it is Mifsud who raises the possibility of getting dirt on Hillary:

"Then Mifsud returns from the Valdai conference. On April 26 we meet for breakfast at the Andaz Hotel, near Liverpool Street Station, one of the busiest train stations in London. He's in an excellent mood and claims he met with high-level Russian government officials. But once again, he's very short on specifics. This is becoming a real pattern with Mifsud. He hasn't offered any names besides Timofeev. Then, he leans across the table in a conspiratorial manner. The Russians have "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, he tells me. "Emails of Clinton," he says. "They have thousands of emails."

Here again we encounter the lying and obfuscation of the Mueller team. They falsely characterize Mifsud as an agent of Russia. In fact, he has close and longstanding ties to both British and US intelligence ( Disobedient Media lays out the Mifsud mystery in detail ).

Mifsud was not alone. The FBI and the CIA also were in the game of trying to entrap Papadopolous. In September of 2016, Papadopolous was being wined and dined by Halper (who has longstanding ties to the US intelligence community) and Azra Turk, an FBI Informant/researcher ( see NY Times ).

The FBI disingenuously claims they ran Azra Turk at Papadopolous because they were alarmed ostensibly by Russia's attempts to disrupt the 2016 election. But Papadopolous was not seeking out Russian contacts. He was being baited. It was Mifsud and others tied to British and US intelligence who were bringing up the "opportunity" to work with the Russians.

CARTER PAGE

The section of the Mueller report that deals with Carter Page is a total travesty. Mueller and his team, for example, initially misrepresent Page's status with the Trump campaign--he is described as "working" for the campaign, which implies a paid position, when he was in fact only a volunteer foreign policy advisor. Mueller also paints Page's prior experience and work in Russia as evidence that Page was being used by Russian intelligence, but says nothing about the fact that Page was being regularly debriefed by the CIA and the FBI during the same period. In other words, Page was cooperating with US intelligence and law enforcement. But this fact is omitted in the Mueller report.

Mueller eventually accurately describes Page's role in the Trump campaign as follows:

In January 2016, Page began volunteering on an informal, unpaid basis for the Trump Campaign after Ed Cox, a state Republican Party official, introduced Page to Trump Campaign officials. Page told the Office that his goal in working on the Campaign was to help candidate Trump improve relations with Russia. To that end, Page emailed Campaign officials offering his thoughts on U.S.-Russia relations, prepared talking points and briefing memos on Russia, and proposed that candidate Trump meet with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

In communications with Campaign officials, Page also repeatedly touted his high-level contacts in Russia and his ability to forge connections between candidate Trump and senior Russian governmental officials. For example, on January 30, 2016, Page sent an email to senior Campaign officials stating that he had "spent the past week in Europe and had been in discussions with some individuals with close ties to the Kremlin" who recognized that Trump could have a "game-changing effect . .. in bringing the end of the new Cold War. The email stated that " [t]hrough [his] discussions with these high level contacts," Page believed that "a direct meeting in Moscow between Mr. Trump and Putin could be arranged.

The Mueller presentation portrays Carter Page in a nefarious, negative light. His contacts with Russia are characterized as inappropriate and unjustified. Longstanding business experience in a particular country is not proof of wrong doing. No consideration is given at all to Page's legitimate concerns raising about the dismal state of US/Russia relations following the US backed coup in the Ukraine and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia.

Page's association with the Trump campaign was quite brief--he lasted seven months, being removed as a foreign policy advisor on 24 September. Page was not identified publicly as a Trump foreign policy advisor until March of 2016, but the evidence presented in the Mueller report clearly indicates that Page was already a target of intelligence agencies, in the US and abroad, long before the FISA warrant of October 2016.

While serving on the foreign policy team Page continued his business and social contacts in Russia, but was never tasked by the Trump team to pursue or promote contacts with Putin and his team. In fact, Page's proposals, suggestions and recommendations were either ignored or directly rebuffed.

The timeline reported in the Mueller report regarding Page's trip to Russia in early July raises questions about the intel collected on that trip and the so-called "intel" revealed in the Steele Dossier with respect to Page. Carter admits to meeting with individuals, such as Dmitry Peskov and Igor Sechin, who appear in the Steele Dossier. Page's meetings in Moscow turned out to be innocuous and uneventful. Nothing he did resembled clandestine activity. Yet, the Steele report on that visit suggested just the opposite and used the tactic of guilt by association to imply that Page was up to something dirty.

The bottomline for Mueller is that Page did not do anything wrong and no one in the Trump Campaign embraced his proposals for closer ties with Russia.

DMITRI SIMES

The targeting and investigation of Dmitri Simes is disgusting and an abuse of law enforcement authority. Full disclosure. I know Dmitri. For awhile, in the 2002-2003 time period, I was a regular participant at Nixon Center events. For example, I was at a round table in December 2002 on the imminent invasion of Iraq. Colonel Pat Lang sat on one side of me and Ambassador Joe Wilson on the other. Directly across the table was Charles Krauthammer. Dmitri ran an honest seminar.

The entire section on Dmitri Simes, under other circumstances, could be viewed as something bizarre and amusing. But the mere idea that Simes was somehow an agent of Putin and a vehicle for helping Trump work with the Russians to steal the 2016 election is crazy and idiotic. Those in the FBI who were so stupid as to buy into this nonsense should have their badges and guns taken away. They are too dumb to work in law enforcement.

Dmitri's only sin was to speak calmly, intelligently and rationally about foreign policy dealings with Russia. We now know that in this new hysteria of the 21st Century Russian scare that qualities such as reason and rationality are proof of one's willingness to act as a puppet of Vladimir Putin.

TRUMP TOWER MEETING (JUNE 9, 2016)

This is the clearest example of a plant designed to entrap the Trump team. Mueller, once again, presents a very disingenuous account:

On June 9, 2016, senior representatives of the Trump Campaign met in Trump Tower with a Russian attorney expecting to receive derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. The meeting was proposed to Donald Trump Jr. in an email from Robert Goldstone, at the request of his then-client Emin Agalarov, the son of Russian real-estate developer Aras Agalarov. Goldstone relayed to Trump Jr. that the "Crown prosecutor of Russia ... offered to provide the Trump Campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia" as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. immediately responded that "if it's what you say I love it," and arranged the meeting through a series of emails and telephone calls.

The meeting was with a Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

The Russian attorney who spoke at the meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had previously worked for the Russian government and maintained a relationship with that government throughout this period oftime. She claimed that funds derived from illegal activities in Russia were provided to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats. Trump Jr. requested evidence to support those claims, but Veselnitskaya did not provide such information.

Ignore for a moment that no information on Hillary was passed or provided (and doing such a thing is not illegal). The real problem is with what Mueller does not say and did not investigate. Mueller conveniently declines to mention the fact that Veselnitskaya was working closely with the firm Hillary Clinton hired to produce the Steele Dossier. NBC News reported on Veselnitskaya:

The information that a Russian lawyer brought with her when she met Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 stemmed from research conducted by Fusion GPS, the same firm that compiled the infamous Trump dossier, according to the lawyer and a source familiar with the matter.

In an interview with NBC News, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says she first received the supposedly incriminating information she brought to Trump Tower -- describing alleged tax evasion and donations to Democrats -- from Glenn Simpson , the Fusion GPS owner, who had been hired to conduct research in a New York federal court case.

Even a mediocre investigator would recognize the problem of the relationship between the lawyer claiming to have dirty, damning info on Hillary with the firm Hillary hired to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. This was another botched set up and the Trump folks did not take the bait.

EVENTS AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

This portion of the Mueller report is complete farce. Foreign Ambassdors, including the Russian (and the Chinese) attend Republican and Democrat Conventions. Presidential candidates and their advisors speak to those Ambassadors. So, where is the beef? Answer. There isn't any. That this "event" was considered something worthy of a counter intelligence investigation is just one more piece of evidence that law enforcement and intelligence were weaponized against the Trump campaign.

POST-CONVENTION CONTACTS WITH RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR KISLYAK

Ditto. As noted in the previous paragraph, trying to criminalize normal diplomatic contacts, especially with a country where we share important, vital national security interests, is but further evidence of the crazy anti-Russian hysteria that has infected the anti-Trumpers. Pathetic.

MANAFORT

If Paul Manafort had rebuffed Trump's offer to run his campaign, he would be walking free today and still buying expensive suits and evading taxes along with his Clinton buddy, Greg Craig. Instead, he became another target for DOJ and intel community and the DNC, which were desperate to portray Trump as a tool of the Kremlin. Thanks to John Solomon of The Hill, we now know the impetus to target Manafort came from the DNC :

The boomerang from the Democratic Party's failed attempt to connect Donald Trump to Russia's 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight path crosses right through Moscow's pesky neighbor, Ukraine. That is where there is growing evidence a foreign power was asked, and in some cases tried, to help Hillary Clinton .

In its most detailed account yet, Ukraine's embassy in Washington says a Democratic National Committee insider during the 2016 election solicited dirt on Donald Trump's campaign chairman and even tried to enlist the country's president to help.

In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort 's dealings inside the country, in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress.

Manafort was not colluding, but the Clinton campaign and the Obama Administration most certainly were.

Take these eight events as a whole a very clear picture emerges--US and foreign intelligence (especially the UK) and US law enforcement collaborated in a broad effort to bait the Trump team with ostensible Russian entreaties in order to paint Trump as a tool of the Kremlin. That effort is now being exposed and those culpable will hopefully face justice. This should sicken and alarm every American regardless of political party. Will justice be served?

notlurking , 03 May 2019 at 08:16 AM

we're not in Kansas anymore.....
Joe100 , 03 May 2019 at 08:43 AM
Great work!

I just read the following about special visas approved for some of the FBI "operatives" (from SD at CTH): "It wasn't just the CIA that was using spies to "dirty up" Trump associates. The FBI was doing it too. There was the infamous Natalia Veselnitskaya who is known for her part in the Trump Tower meeting. She had been banned from the country but got a special visa signed off by Preet Bahara of the FBI, Southern District of New York. Henry Greenburg, the known FBI informant who tried to entrap Roger Stone, also got a special visa. And I'm sure there are many more "

Gerard M , 03 May 2019 at 09:06 AM
IMO, there is no coming back from this. Apart from this Deep State coup attempt, we have seen that democracy is a shame, it's all theater. The Establishment (which includes GOP) is constantly working to undermine Trump and thwart his plans to do what the American people want and elected him for. What I've found quite disturbing is that the controlling puppet masters have not let up in trying to remove or neutralize Trump. As if they can't wait even 4 years to again fully stack the deck and regain total control. They are not willing to concede that 2016 was a political black swan event involving a celebrity billionaire American icon. And conceding and allowing this fluke to be rectified I'm 4 short years is worse than their pushback exposing the political system as a rigged game.

The events of the last 2.5 years have radically altered my views. I no longer have any faith in democracy (voting), the government, the federal courts, law enforcement, et al. And I can't see me regaining any faith in them. What I have seen in the past 2.5 years is kind of like finding out my wife of decades, whom I idolized, has been cheating with my friend from childhood, whom I would've laid down my life for. And all the other people close to me not telling me.

I now only have faith in only God and beagles.

Fred -> Gerard M... , 03 May 2019 at 10:40 AM
It's not the black swan event that concerns the guilty but the fear of just retribution by those who see just how black hearted the left has become.
Gerard M said in reply to Fred ... , 03 May 2019 at 12:25 PM
It's not just the left. I listened to Michael Tracey's interview with George Papadopoulos and was stunned to learn about the web of Deep State actors and how our Five Eyes allies were intimately involved in subverting our Presidential election. Papadopoulos even talks about U.S. military attachés, DIA guys, in on this coup. Listen to this Michael Tracey* interview and you will be shaken: https://youtu.be/ZjGLCCP_lPg

*Tracey, btw, is on the left. But like Glenn Greenwald and others on the left he is an honest journalist interested in the truth.

Ligurio said in reply to Fred ... , 03 May 2019 at 02:16 PM
The "left" was not behind and does not buy into this Russia psyop. Neoliberals and neoconservatives (ie zionists) were behind it and continue to push it. Trump ran to the left of Clinton on both domestic and foreign policy. That's why he won, and why the establishment must present his election as de facto illegitimate, because otherwise they would be forced to admit that the bipartisan convergence around both finance driven economic policy and war on terror interventionism that has described elite politics since Clinton has been a disaster for most ordinary Americans -- of all types and political persuasions -- and needs to be destroyed root and branch.

To see how and why the "left" differs from corporate identity-politicking liberals in the above regard consider how it is that Tulsi Gabbard is both the Dem candidate most respected by principled Trump supporters on this site and others and the Dem candidate most reviled, ignored, and slandered by DNC liberals and neocons alike.

The enemy to principled conservatives and the left in this country is the bipartisan establishment corporate neoliberalism of the RNC and DNC alike.

Fred -> Ligurio... , 03 May 2019 at 08:53 PM
That's as convenient a lie as any other.
akaPatience , 03 May 2019 at 11:56 AM
What's the likelihood that Carter Page was a plant in the Trump campaign? After all, he had a history with the US IC and was used as bait in an FBI case to prove Russian operatives' recruiting efforts. It's thought he's the Under Cover Employee alluded to in this case, which resulted in the successful prosecution of Russian spies:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/evgeny-buryakov-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-connection-conspiracy-work

Anonymous said in reply to akaPatience ... , 03 May 2019 at 04:05 PM
Page is just a goofball grifter. He's not a plant. That is silly. When they saw names like Page and Manafort the Democrats pounced because they knew the could cast aspersions.

I'm not sure about Mifsud. I think it would be hard for Mueller to knowingly indict Papadop if Mifsud were an asset of the US (or even known to be an asset of allies). I think it is more likely Mifsud was a free agent.

All these guys Mifsud, Page, Papadop were grifters, not doing real work. Just running around trying to make a buck by claiming to facilitate meetings. It's a shame it bit them and not a crime to do what they did. At the same time, I can't help but see some kharmic justice. GET A JOB, you poly sci lightweights!

walrus said in reply to Anonymous... , 03 May 2019 at 06:11 PM
This anonymous commentator has never spent time in senior levels of business or government. There is a whole class of people who do not see themselves as Grifters but more as "ideas men".

The best offer valuable perspectives on the world, can really open doors and otherwise add value. At the other end of the spectrum are con men. Political campaigns and large corporations of any sort attract these people in droves. The skill in management is to sort the wheat from the chaff. Trump is good at that.

akaPatience -> Anonymous... , 03 May 2019 at 06:56 PM
Yes, Page often comes off as a bit crazy and incoherent. But he may be crazy like a fox. In the end he was never charged with ANYTHING and it's my understanding he represented himself legally throughout the investigation, opting not to hire counsel. I find it odd that others were prosecuted for process crimes but he escaped even THAT fate.

His participation in the Trump campaign, limited as it was, was nevertheless KEY in finally obtaining a FISA warrant after other attempts failed.

Consider it silly if you want. I view him at least worthy of suspicion. His hapless demeanor could be his schtick , when his education, experience and IC connections are taken into consideration.

Anonymous said in reply to akaPatience ... , 04 May 2019 at 06:09 PM
Page represents himself poorly even when he knows a lot is on the line. Look at how frustrated Gowdy got with him. Clearly Page didn't learn much from plebe year in terms of 5 basic responses. Compare the difference with Barr for instance.

While the Trident program is a big deal, every now and then USNA has mids that are diligent about getting good grades but not very smart. I knew one my year. Page is clearly in that vein. Don't miss that he didn't get into any elite program after graduation (SWO is the default). And that he was a poly sci major. The saying is "poly sci, QPR high" (QPR is quality point rating or GPA). Of course this is not to say there aren't some good SWOs or poly sci majors. But there's a definite correlation I'm noting. It fits with what his reputation is.

Furthermore, the guy has had an uneventful career, bouncing around. He went to a lower bulge bracket (not Goldman) and didn't seem to stick. And his Russian colleagues said he was an idiot and a boaster. We're not talking i-banker smart. Wouldn't trust him to do an NPV or other economic analysis. And then after that we have the grifting and the shmoozing.

Kid is a lightweight. A slightly less coffee-boy coffee boy.

catherine said in reply to Bill H ... , 03 May 2019 at 07:02 PM
''They cannot convict based on a law that was passed after the act was committed''

Money laundering has always been against the law of course....the NY law just firmed up the due diligence that is suppose to be done in transactions. I don't think there is a statute of limitations on things like fraud, tax evasion and money laundering but I will check it out to see

walrus said in reply to catherine... , 03 May 2019 at 04:37 PM
Catherine, in current PC thinking, merely passing the salt to a Russian guest at a dinner party makes you "an unregistered foreign agent" of Russia bent on implementing Putin's evil plans.

As for certifying real estate deals, the same crowd would view buying someone a MacDonalds hamburger as attempted bribery.

catherine said in reply to walrus ... , 03 May 2019 at 07:34 PM
''As for certifying real estate deals, the same crowd would view buying someone a MacDonalds hamburger as attempted bribery.''

Hardly. 7 million dollar cash deals for a condo thru a shell company is a red flag however..as is buying property for 1 million and selling it unimproved the next year for 2 million...or buying a house in LA 11 million and selling it 9 months later for 8 million. That 'in between money" is someone's pay off....that's how it works.

Money laundering is epidemic in the US and Europe....Israeli mafia, Russian oligarchs, African dictators looting their country's treasury and running it through a real estate washing machine deal. Far be from me to sweep the fairy dust out of Trump supporters eyes but, as I said, Trump's troubles are far from over. We will see what comes out in the future.

VietnamVet , 03 May 2019 at 05:40 PM
The soft coup against Donald Trump failed. He has to run hard and sure to win in 2020 to avoid an indictment in NY State when he leaves the Presidency. Corporate Democrats will do their damnedst again to put forth their weakest pro war candidate like the aged, apparently demented, Joe Biden. This fiasco and the recent coup attempt in Venezuela make the Keystone Cops appear competent.

I put this all down to Washington DC being completely isolated inside their credentialed bubble. It is just like corporate CEOs, who think they know exactly what they are doing. But, in reality, they are destroying the stabilizing middle class by extracting and hording wealth and turning mid-America into their colony. Globalist and nationalist oligarchs are after each other's throat over who controls the flow of money.

We live on a very finite world dependent on one sun in an expanding universe. Just like Boeing, Bayer or Volkswagen, the splintering world is starting to crash all around them. Even as they deny it, this is a multi-polar world now. It is not going back without a world war which would destroy civilization and could make the world uninhabitable for humans.

Bill H -> VietnamVet... , 04 May 2019 at 01:26 AM
And the best that our government can do is warn us not to wash our chicken before cooking it because washing merely spreads the salmonella that our food industry is unable to prevent from infecting it.
English Outsider -> VietnamVet... , 04 May 2019 at 01:15 PM
The trouble is that those CEO's do know exactly what they are doing. Making money the only way possible in a business environment in which outsourcing can sometimes be the only thing that pays.

The idea was that Trump was going to change that environment. Bannon calls its "economic nationalism" but in truth it's now just economic survival. Survival for those whose jobs are outsourced. Survival for the country as a whole, ultimately. That was Trump's core programme. It was the programme that made him different from all other Western politicians, "populist" or status quo. Do you see any sign that it's being implemented, or has that programme too got bogged down in the swamp?

Mad Max_22 , 03 May 2019 at 06:44 PM
Will justice be served? A good question.

If we are speaking about criminal justice, there is some chance that we will see persons such as Jim Comey, who persists in his smug higher calling act, prosecuted for what was a clear cut violation in divulging classified material through a lawyer intermediary to the NYT. I suspect the higher calling bit has been prompted in part because he knows that he screwed up both on the facts and in law and he is justifying his screw up to himself, and possibly also rehearsing his defense, with the rationale that he was only trying to do the right thing. Yeah, he may have had the facts all wrong, the Russians, etc, etc, but the worst that can be said is that he had been competent, there was no intent. That defense doesn't do much for the FBI's once held reputation for competence, but that appears to be gone anyway.

With regard to what will be turned up concerning the actual roots of the travesty, the heavily politicized faux investigation into the Clinton e mails and targeting of the Trump campaign on a predicate that is somewhere between nebulous and non existant, I think a criminal prosecution arising from that investigation, even if it is serious, is unlikely for two main reasons. First, what will be the charged violations? As best I can see right now, they will have to entail some imaginative application of fraud statutes, defrauding the FISC, defrauding the US, informants and assets lying to their handlers, or process crimes like Bob Mueller's partisan posse relied upon (ugly); and second, something like the Comey defense will interpenetrate all the individuals and entities involved: we may have been incredible bunglers, but that is the worst of it. We really believed these charlatans who conned us into this debacle. Sorry, but we thought we were doing the right thing.

Now if we are talking about seeing some kind of political or moral justice, I'm not too optimistic we will get much satisfaction there either and we will probably have to wait for history. The reason is that Barr will conduct this investigation by the rule book. That means that what we see developed through the process, indictment, prosecution, etc, is likely all,that we will ever see. Barr is very unlikely to produce a politcized manifesto to be employed as a smear weapon like the once reputable Mueller did.

Anyway, until we see a special FGJ empanelled, some search warrants executed, some tactical immunities offered, everything is on the come.

Jack , 03 May 2019 at 08:26 PM
All,

What probability do you assign that any top official will be indicted and prosecuted? I mean Brennan, Clapper, Comey & Lynch.

Second, what probability do you assign that Trump will declassify the relevant documents and communications like the FISA application,the originating EC, the tasking orders for FBI/CIA spying, etc.

blue peacock said in reply to Jack... , 04 May 2019 at 12:27 PM
Jack,

The question really comes down to Trump. Does he really want to expose the Swamp and pay the price or just use it for rhetorical & political purposes? When considering probabilities and looking at his track record in office on foreign policy relative to his campaign stance, I would say the probability is less than 30% that Brennan & Clapper will be indicted.

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock... , 04 May 2019 at 03:07 PM
bp,

The question is only very partly what Trump wants, in some abstract sense. Situations like this commonly have a strong escalatory logic. So one needs to ask whether or not he has rational reason to believe that unless he can destroy those who have shown themselves prepared to stop at nothing to destroy him, they will eventually succeed.

If the answer is yes - and while I think it may very well be, I am not prejudging the issue - then a key question becomes whether Trump will conclude that his most promising loption is to go after the conspirators by every means possible.

Involved here are questions about who he is listening to, and how competent they are.

But the escalatory processes are not simply to do with what Trump decides. In particular, a whole range of legal proceedings are involved. The referral in relation to Nellie Ohr is likely to be the fist of a good few. In addition, Ed Butowsky's lawsuits, and those against Steele, have unpredictable potentialities.

blue peacock said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 May 2019 at 07:11 PM
David

The intelligence & law enforcement apparatus in collusion with the media and the establishment of both parties went after him hard. As Larry notes here, they went to considerable effort to entrap those related to his campaign to impugn him. Mueller spent $35 million trying to find an angle. Even after the Mueller report stated there was no collusion they're sill after him. So that's not going to end any time soon.

Trump may have good instincts but his judgment of people so far to staff his administration is not very inspiring. He had Jeff Sessions as his AG and he let him hang in there for nearly two years while Mueller ran riot. He's surrounded himself with neocons on foreign policy. It seems his only real advisor is Jared. Everyone else he's got around him are from the same establishment that's going after him. He hasn't taken advise from Devin Nunes, who has done more to uncover the sedition than anyone else. If he had he would have by now declassified all the documents & communications. The impression I have is his primary motivation is building his brand & less about governance and wielding power. Take for example his order to withdraw from Syria. Bolton & the Pentagon are thumbing their noses at him.

Well, there have been several criminal referrals prior to the recent one on Nellie Ohr. There's the McCabe referral and the 8 referrals by Devin Nunes. I've not read any report of the empaneling of a grand jury yet. I agree with you that these law suits have the potential for great embarrassment, however to hold those responsible for the sedition accountable will require iron will & intense focus on the part of Trump to get his AG to assign prosecutors who don't have the axe to "protect" the "institution" and to create an opportunity for public awareness of the extent that law enforcement & intelligence became a 4th branch of government. My opinion is that his skill is in his instinctual understanding of the current political zeitgeist and his ability to manipulate the media including social media to project his brand. He's not an operational leader making sure his team executes his vision & strategy.

akaPatience , 04 May 2019 at 07:11 PM
Here's a National Review exclusive report in which a transcript of FBI's Deputy Assistant Director Jonathan Moffa's testimony reveals several Confidential Human Sources (including Christopher Steele), and more interestingly foreign "liasons" (Mifsud?) were employed by the bureau in this operation:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/fbi-official-testimony-surveillance-trump-campaign/

[May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated]

Highly recommended!
This was clearly an attempt to entrap Trump in connections to Russia and fuel anti-Russian hysteria and defense spending. Both goals were accomplished under Trump without much resistance. Still Russiagate persists. Why?
Notable quotes:
"... 05/03/16 Email from DNC contractor Ali Chalupa states she connected Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News "to the Ukrainians" DNC https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/3962 ..."
"... 05/15/16 Crowdstrike claims it investigated DNC hacking and that Russians were responsible; FBI still denied access to server to confirm Crowdstrike https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ ..."
Jan 04, 2018 | directorblue.blogspot.com
  1. Date Description Source Link
  2. 07/23/14 House Select Committee on Benghazi reaches agreement with State Dept. to produce Clinton emails relevant to their investigation USNews https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/paul-combetta-computer-specialist-who-deleted-hillary-clinton-emails-may-have-asked-reddit-for-tips
  3. 07/24/14 Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta, using the alias "stonetear", requests assistance on Reddit for deleting VIP email addresses USNews https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/paul-combetta-computer-specialist-who-deleted-hillary-clinton-emails-may-have-asked-reddit-for-tips
  4. 10/15/14 Clinton team instructs Datto to begin purging emails from their backup storage devices, which they apparently failed to do Exam http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clintons-tech-firm-worried-about-involvement-in-cover-up/article/2573526
  5. 03/02/15 News that Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private email server for official State Dept. business is disclosed in the New York Times NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html
  6. 03/03/15 Clinton aides call Platte River Networks, which operated her email server, to confirm all emails were deleted per their 2014 order NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-investigation.html?_r=1&mtrref=undefined
  7. 03/09/15 Clinton associate Terry McCauliffe meets with Andrew McCabe's wife Jill to encourage her to run for office JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-fbi-records-show-fbi-leaderships-conflicts-interest-discussions-clinton-email-investigation/
  8. 03/12/15 Jill McCabe announces her candidacy for the state senate in Virginia JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-fbi-records-show-fbi-leaderships-conflicts-interest-discussions-clinton-email-investigation/
  9. 03/31/15 Clinton IT specialist Paul Combetta realizes he had not deleted all of Clinton's emails, uses BleachBit software to do so Politico https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/best-of-clinton-fbi-report-227692
  10. 05/19/15 DOJ official Peter Kadzik, writing from personal email account, emails John Podesta to warn of House probe into Clinton's emails Wikileaks https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150
  11. 06/24/15 Discovery of classified information on Clinton's private email server announced; the matter is referred to the FBI Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  12. 07/15/15 FBI opens criminal investigation into Clinton's email server and mishandling of classified data led by Andrew McCabe in DC office FBI https://vault.fbi.gov/october-2016-application-affidavit-and-search-warrant-related-to-email-server-investigation/October%202016%20Application%20Affidavit%20and%20Search%20Warrant%20Related%20to%20Email%20Server%20Investigation%20Part%2001%20of%2001
  13. 07/20/15 DOJ DAG Sally Yates writes to Inspector General, saying the National Security Division of DOJ is not subject to IG review DOJ https://www.ignet.gov/sites/default/files/files/OLC%20IG%20Act%20Opinion%20-%207-20-15%20.pdf
  14. 07/24/15 State Dept. and other officials make security referral related to classified information possessed by Clinton and associates WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  15. 07/24/15 After complaints from Clinton camp, New York Times edits story about email probe, removing "criminal" references TheWrap https://www.thewrap.com/new-york-times-alters-hillary-clinton-story-in-response-to-complaints-we-received-from-the-clinton-camp/
  16. 08/15/15 McCabe uses his official FBI email to promote his wife's candidacy for the State Senate in Virginia JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/jw-v-doj-mccabe-2-production-01494-pg-24-25/
  17. 10/01/15 FBI official Andrew McCabe's wife Jill starts receiving bulk of $700,000 from Clinton associate Gov. Terry McCauliffe's political entities Ballotopedia https://ballotpedia.org/Jill_McCabe https://truepundit.com/fbi-director-lobbied-against-criminal-charges-for-hillary-after-clinton-insider-paid-his-wife-700k/
  18. 10/03/15 FBI seizes the Platte River Networks server as well as the "Pagliano" server, which were used to host Clinton email services Thompson http://www.thompsontimeline.com/tag/david-kendall/
  19. 10/05/15 FBI's Strzok sends letter to Datto, Inc. demanding the newly discovered backup server be turned over DOJ https://twitter.com/TruthinGov2016/status/945115416736796673
  20. 10/06/15 FBI receives backup of Clinton emails held by Datto, Inc. (possibly claimed by Agent Strzok) McClatchy http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article37968711.html
  21. 10/15/15 On or around this date, McCabe emails investigators that Clinton will get an "HQ Special" (special or lenient treatment) Fox https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/944439946416340992
  22. 10/11/15 On 60 Minutes , President Obama absolves Hillary Clinton of blame for her private email server: did not pose "a national security problem" CNN http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/11/politics/barack-obama-60-minutes-hillary-clinton/index.html
  23. 01/15/16 John Giacalone, head of FBI's National Security Division, retires after reportedly seeing Clinton probe go "sideways" TruePundit https://truepundit.com/fbi-director-lobbied-against-criminal-charges-for-hillary-after-clinton-insider-paid-his-wife-700k/
  24. 01/19/16 Intelligence Community Inspector General reports Clinton's private email server had SAP (highest classification level) data on it Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/19/inspector-general-clinton-emails-had-intel-from-most-secretive-classified-programs.html
  25. 01/29/16 FBI director James Comey names Andrew McCabe deputy director, with responsibility for oversight of Clinton investigation FBI https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/andrew-mccabe-named-deputy-director-of-the-fbi
  26. 02/15/16 State Dept. finds that 2,115 of the 30,490 emails produced by Clinton were classified and therefore grossly mishandled FBI https://vault.fbi.gov/october-2016-application-affidavit-and-search-warrant-related-to-email-server-investigation/October%202016%20Application%20Affidavit%20and%20Search%20Warrant%20Related%20to%20Email%20Server%20Investigation%20Part%2001%20of%2001
  27. 03/04/16 FBI's Peter Strzok texts his mistress Lisa Page, an FBI attorney, calling Trump "an idiot", whose nomination would be "good for Hillary" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  28. 03/06/16 Former Hillary State Dept. representative George Papadopoulos learns he will join Trump campaign as a low-level foreign policy adviser DOJ https://www.justice.gov/file/1007346/download
  29. 03/15/16 Between this date and 9/15/16, Papadopoulos tries 6 times to arrange meetings between Trump campaign and Russians, all are rejected ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-russian-businessman-source-key-trump-dossier-claims/story?id=45019603
  30. 03/19/16 Hackers gain access to emails of Democrat operative John Podesta CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/politics/donald-trump-jr-wikileaks-timeline/index.html
  31. 03/28/16 Paul Manafort hired as Trump campaign manager (Fusion GPS's Simpson and wife had reported on Manafort's Russian ties in 2008) Tablet http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/251897/obama-steele-dossier-russiagate
  32. 04/05/16 FBI's Strzok interviews Clinton aide Huma Abedin DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  33. 04/09/16 FBI's Strzok interviews Clinton aide Cheryl Mills DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  34. 04/12/16 Law firm Perkins Coie, using money from the Clinton campaign and DNC, hires Fusion GPS to find incriminating data on Trump FEC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  35. 04/19/16 Wife of Fusion GPS founder Simpson, Mary Jacoby, visits White House and meets with Obama and/or Obama aides CTH https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/21/oh-dear-trail-of-russian-dossier-origination-now-directly-leads-to-the-obama-white-house/
  36. 04/25/16 Obama campaign organization makes first of its payments to Perkins Coie (OFA payments to firm would total $972,000) FEC http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/29/obamas-campaign-gave-972000-law-firm-funneled-money-fusion-gps/#.WjwY4L_iThg.twitter
  37. 04/25/16 FBI's James Baker and DOJ's FISA attorneys visit White House for two back-to-back meetings White House https://twitter.com/ckadoodldooUS/status/944982488497172482
  38. 04/26/16 Low-level Trump staffer George Papadopoulos meets with Russian contact in London and is reportedly offered "dirt" on Clinton NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453264/donald-trump-george-papadopoulos-indictment-exculpatory-trump
  39. 04/30/16 DNC IT staff reports suspected hacking on its server(s) to FBI, but fails to turn over the server to the agency, instead hires Crowdstrike Politico https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/russian-government-hackers-broke-into-dnc-servers-stole-trump-oppo-224315
  40. 05/02/16 FBI director Comey drafts statement exonerating Clinton before interviewing her or other key witnesses WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  41. 05/03/16 Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the office of president Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93Russia_dossier
  42. 05/03/16 Clinton IT specialist Paul Combetta admits lying to the FBI about erasing emails using BleachBit but is not charged for the crime WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  43. 05/03/16 Email from DNC contractor Ali Chalupa states she connected Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News "to the Ukrainians" DNC https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/3962
  44. 05/05/16 FBI's Lisa Page and James Baker meet with Obama deputy at White House, likely topic is forthcoming FISA request White House https://twitter.com/ckadoodldooUS/status/944982488497172482
  45. 05/05/16 Washington Post reports there is "scant evidence" of a crime committed by Clinton through her use of a private email server WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  46. 05/15/16 Crowdstrike claims it investigated DNC hacking and that Russians were responsible; FBI still denied access to server to confirm Crowdstrike https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/
  47. 05/16/16 Draft statement by FBI directory Comey exonerating Clinton, before key interviews, is circulated to FBI leadership WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  48. 05/15/16 Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ executive Bruce Ohr, is secretly hired by Fusion GPS, presumably to work on Russian "Dossier" Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/11/wife-demoted-doj-official-worked-for-firm-behind-anti-trump-dossier.html
  49. 05/21/16 According to Mueller investigation, Trump campaign official refuses Papadopoulos offer to broker meetings with Russian officials NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453264/donald-trump-george-papadopoulos-indictment-exculpatory-trump
  50. 05/23/16 Nellie Ohr applies for HAM radio license, presumably to create covert communication channel and avoid government surveillance FCC http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/LicArchive/license.jsp?archive=Y&licKey=12382876
  51. 06/04/16 Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post reports, via anonymous sources, that Russians hacked the DNC WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_no-name:page/breaking-news-bar&tid=a_breakingnews&utm_term=.94b04ef12773
  52. 06/09/16 Donald Trump Jr. meets with Russian attorney after being lured by the promise of opposition research NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html
  53. 06/09/16 After meeting with Bernie Sanders in White House, President Obama endorses Hillary Clinton USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/06/09/barack-obama-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-democratic-party/85639104/
  54. 06/12/16 Wikileaks' Assange warns that Clinton emails will be leaked ITV http://www.itv.com/news/update/2016-06-12/assange-on-peston-on-sunday-more-clinton-leaks-to-come/
  55. 06/15/16 Ex-MI-6 agent Christopher Steele is hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign through Fusion GPS, according to UK court filings UK https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzgzy2KXyxqtVUxEb2pwRmphOXM/view?usp=sharing
  56. 06/15/16 Romanian hacker "Guccifer" claims to have hacked DNC; analysis indicates faux "Russian" fingerprints were inserted into some files The Nation https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/guccifer-20-claims-credit-for-dnc-hack/2016/06/15/abdcdf48-3366-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?utm_term=.b2fbd3eadc9c
  57. 06/15/16 FBI agent Peter Strzok changes wording of Clinton charges from criminal designation "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless" Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/04/fbi-agent-fired-from-russia-probe-oversaw-flynn-interviews-changed-comey-memos-on-clinton-charges.html
  58. 06/20/16 Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele releases first memo related to Russian "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  59. 06/27/16 A.G. Loretta Lynch secretly meets with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac; they later deny discussing the investigation Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  60. 07/02/16 Clinton interviewed by FBI and Peter Strzok for 3.5 hours; she is not placed under oath nor recorded WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  61. 07/05/16 FISA Court denies FBI request for surveillance of Trump campaign NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443768/obama-fisa-trump-wiretap
  62. 07/05/16 Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele shares Russian "Dossier" with the FBI DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  63. 07/05/16 FBI director Comey announces he does not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for use of her email server Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  64. 07/05/16 Romanian hacker "Guccifer" claims to have hacked DNC again The Nation https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/guccifer-20-claims-credit-for-dnc-hack/2016/06/15/abdcdf48-3366-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?utm_term=.b2fbd3eadc9c
  65. 07/05/16 Date that forensics indicate that DNC emails were copied by an insider via USB and not hacked via external actors The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/
  66. 07/06/16 A.G. Loretta Lynch accepts Comey's recommendation not to charge Clinton for mishandling classified information USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/07/james-comey-testimony-a-timeline-fbi/102581874/
  67. 07/10/16 DNC staffer Seth Rich murdered in as yet unsolved case Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich
  68. 07/22/16 Wikileaks releases archive of emails stolen from Democrat National Committee (DNC) that show undermining of Sanders campaign Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak
  69. 07/24/16 Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigns as Chair of DNC due to Wikileaks revelations about Sanders WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hacked-emails-cast-doubt-on-hopes-for-party-unity-at-democratic-convention/2016/07/24/a446c260-51a9-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html?utm_term=.d6ba79f39f23
  70. 07/24/16 Clinton aide Robbie Mook claims Russians hacked DNC and Clinton campaign to aid Trump Politico https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/robby-mook-russians-emails-trump-226084
  71. 07/25/16 Wikileaks' Assange says he timed release of DNC emails to impact convention; says "no one" knows who provided emails NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html
  72. 07/25/16 FBI announces it will investigate the DNC hack revealed by Wikileaks, Peter Strzok handpicked to lead investigation Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak
  73. 07/30/16 FBI opens counterintelligence investigation into possible Russian "collusion" with Trump campaign led bt Peter Strzok DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  74. 08/06/16 FBI investigator Strzok texts mistress about a "menace", presumably meaning Trump DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  75. 08/10/16 Bernie Sanders reported to have purchased a $575,000 lakeside home WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2016/08/10/bernie-sanders-buys-a-half-million-dollar-vacation-home-and-the-internet-cries-hypocrisy/?utm_term=.63d263792364
  76. 08/10/16 Washington Post implies John Brennan may have shared "Dossier" with President Obama around this date WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/obama-putin-election-hacking/?utm_term=.fcda779022f5
  77. 08/15/16 FBI investigator Strzok texts mistress about needing an "insurance policy" against Trump CNN https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/12/politics/peter-strzok-texts-released/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
  78. 08/16/16 FBI writes Congress defending decision not to prosecute Clinton, stating it was 'extreme carelessness' and not 'gross negligence' WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  79. 08/17/16 On this day, NBC's Dilanian, Windrem, Arkin report claim M. Flynn clashed with intel officials during initial briefing with Trump team NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/u-s-official-donald-trump-s-body-language-claim-doesn-n644856
  80. 08/25/16 CIA director James Brennan informs Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid about possible Russian "collusion" with Trump campaign DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  81. 08/27/16 Reid sends a letter to Comey referencing allegations made about Carter Page in the dossier DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  82. 09/05/16 Hillary Clinton accuses Russia of interfering with U.S. election NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-russia.html
  83. 09/08/16 NYT reports that Paul Combetta, Clinton's IT specialist, mass-deleted emails from her server in spite of records preservation request NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/politics/hillary-clinton-emails-investigation.html?_r=1&mtrref=undefined
  84. 09/15/16 Papadoulos emails Russian contact Boris Epshteyn trying to connect him with Sergei Millian, author of much of the Fusion GPS "Dossier" WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-low-level-volunteer-papadopoulos-sought-high-profile-as-trump-adviser/2017/10/31/dc737a42-be5f-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html?utm_term=.19bfd4df75f5
  85. 09/15/16 FISA Court approves FBI request for surveillance of Trump campaign based upon Russian "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/03/report-trump-campaign-adviser-was-under-secret-surveillance-much-earlier-than-previously-thought/
  86. 09/21/16 New York Times, Washington Post, and Yahoo News verbally briefed by Steele on Russian "Dossier" according to court filings UK https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzgzy2KXyxqtVUxEb2pwRmphOXM/view?usp=sharing
  87. 09/23/16 Yahoo News publishes report based upon Russian "Dossier" and possible Russian collusion with Trump campaign Yahoo http://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_151322062469013&key=e7609c039c08d3ae00aebd97e6f0bffd&libId=jb5p32l3010110e3000DAbwwoz62t&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2017%2F10%2F28%2Ffinally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier%2F&v=1&out=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com%2Fnews%2Fu-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&title=Timeline%20Showing%20When%20Clinton%2C%20DNC%20Started%20Th%20%7C%20The%20Daily%20Caller&txt=an%20article
  88. 09/26/16 DOJ National Security Divison (NSD) admits to FISC that surveillance included Obama's political opponents FISC https://www.ignet.gov/sites/default/files/files/OLC%20IG%20Act%20Opinion%20-%207-20-15%20.pdf
  89. 09/27/16 John Carlin, head of DOJ National Security Division and involved with FISA requests, announces he is resigning WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/head-of-justice-departments-national-security-division-to-step-down/2016/09/27/59cb95c4-84e6-11e6-ac72-a29979381495_story.html?utm_term=.5b0c867c3a69
  90. 09/28/16 Comey claims his decision to exonerate Clinton was not made until after her interview with FBI agents WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/20/timeline-james-comeys-decision-making-on-the-clinton-probe/?utm_term=.0cead386f5ef
  91. 10/03/16 FBI agents seize computer of Anthony Weiner during investigation of his communications with underage females Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-fbi-emails-investigation-20161102-story.html
  92. 10/07/16 Access Hollywood releases graphic audiotape of Donald Trump bragging about hitting on women CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/politics/one-year-access-hollywood-russia-podesta-email/index.html
  93. 10/07/16 Wikileaks releases archive of emails stolen from Clinton operative John Podesta CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/politics/one-year-access-hollywood-russia-podesta-email/index.html
  94. 10/07/16 Obama administration officially accuses Russia of meddling in 2016 presidential election WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  95. 10/12/16 FBI agents tell McCabe and Strzok it's discovers 650,000 emails on Weiner's laptop, many of which were Huma Abedin's WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/laptop-may-include-thousands-of-emails-linked-to-hillary-clintons-private-server-1477854957
  96. 10/13/16 McCabe organizes FBI response to WSJ revelations that his wife's campaign was funded by Clinton associates JWS https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-fbi-records-show-fbi-leaderships-conflicts-interest-discussions-clinton-email-investigation/
  97. 10/14/16 Strzok's wife Melissa Hodgman given a major promotion to deputy director of SEC's Enforcement Division TP https://truepundit.com/insurance-policy-fbis-mccabe-and-strzok-concealed-damaging-hillary-clinton-evidence-for-weeks-just-before-the-election/
  98. 10/15/16 FBI meets with Fusion GPS contractor Steele and offers to pay him for more Russian "Dossier" material DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  99. 10/24/16 NSA director Rogers apprises FISA Court (FISC) of numerous cases where U.S. persons were improperly/illegally surveilled FISC http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Top-Secret-FISA-Court-Order.pdf
  100. 10/24/16 CBS reveals McCabe's wife received $700K in campaign donations from Clinton associate Gov. Terry McCauliffe CBS https://www.cbsnews.com/news/terry-mcauliffes-pac-donated-to-campaign-of-fbi-officials-wife/
  101. 10/27/16 During Comey staff meeting, McCabe and Strzok are asked why they're sitting on the Huma/Weiner email disclosure Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-fbi-emails-investigation-20161102-story.html
  102. 10/28/16 Comey announces he is reopening investigation into Clinton's email server due to information found on Anthony Weiner's computer Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  103. 10/30/16 Judge Kevin Fox grants a search and seizure warrant to the FBI for Clinton emails on Huma Abedin's laptop FBI https://vault.fbi.gov/october-2016-application-affidavit-and-search-warrant-related-to-email-server-investigation/October%202016%20Application%20Affidavit%20and%20Search%20Warrant%20Related%20to%20Email%20Server%20Investigation%20Part%2001%20of%2001
  104. 10/30/16 Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's writes to James Comey asking him to release "explosive" information on Russian "collusion" TPM http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-dossier-timeline-whats-known
  105. 10/31/16 FBI lead counsel James Baker leaks "Dossier" information to David Corn of Mother Jones that ties Trump to Russian "collusion" Mother Jones https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/22/trump-dossier-fbi-james-baker-david-corn-mother-jones-316157
  106. 10/31/16 Clinton campaign issues statement, citing Slate, about server in Trump Tower that secretly communicated with Russia Clinton https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233
  107. 11/01/16 In spite of numerous conflicts of interest, Andrew McCabe waits until this date before recusing himself from Clinton email probe JW https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-documents-show-fbi-deputy-director-mccabe-not-recuse-clinton-email-scandal-investigation-week-presidential-election/
  108. 11/06/16 Comey exonerates Clinton again after Weiner documents are reviewed "around the clock" WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  109. 11/08/16 Donald Trump is elected President of the United States Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  110. 11/15/16 DOJ official Bruce Ohr meets in secret with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele regarding Russian "Dossier" Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/top-doj-official-demoted-amid-probe-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm.html
  111. 11/15/16 FBI agrees to continue funding Steele and his "Dossier" TPM http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-dossier-timeline-whats-known
  112. 11/17/16 NSA Head Mike Rogers travels to Trump Tower (likely warning of illegal surveillance); Trump transition team immediate moves to NJ CTH https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/03/03/occams-razor-did-nsa-admiral-mike-rogers-warn-trump-on-november-17th-2016/
  113. 11/18/16 WaPo reports that James Clapper and other officials want Rogers removed from his post WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-and-intelligence-community-chiefs-have-urged-obama-to-remove-the-head-of-the-nsa/2016/11/19/44de6ea6-adff-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html?utm_term=.b82f16d866de
  114. 11/18/16 Sen. John McCain told of the Russian "Dossier"; a copy is sent to McCain and key aides DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  115. 12/09/16 CIA tells Congress that they believe the Russians hacked the DNC to help defeat Hillary Clinton's campaign WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html
  116. 12/09/16 McCain provides a copy of Russian "Dossier" to FBI director James Comey DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  117. 12/09/16 President Obama orders intelligence community to investigate Russian influence on U.S. election Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  118. 01/02/17 Wikileaks' Assange says he guarantees emails did not come from Russia; that Obama administration is trying to undermine Trump Time http://time.com/4620806/julian-assange-russia-hack-fox-hannity/
  119. 01/05/17 FBI says DNC refused to turn over server to determine nature of leaks CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/05/politics/fbi-russia-hacking-dnc-crowdstrike/index.html
  120. 01/06/17 Comey briefs President-Elect Trump on existence of "salacious and unverified" Russian "Dossier" CNS https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/comey-even-though-it-was-salacious-and-unverified-we-knew-media-was-about
  121. 01/06/17 Within hours of Comey's meeting with Trump, existence of "Dossier" leaked by CNN (James Clapper named as possible leaker) FNC https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/31/ron-desantis-nyt-papadopoulos-russia-probe-claim-not-what-fbi-and-doj-told-congressional-investigators/
  122. 01/10/17 U.S. intelligence chiefs Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Rogers brief Obama on Russian "Dossier" and attempts to "influence" Trump CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/index.html
  123. 01/10/17 BuzzFeed releases full Fusion GPS "Dossier" BuzzFeed https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.wao5vgDE6#.io8bXPQ9V
  124. 01/11/17 WSJ identifies author of Russian "Dossier" as Christopher Steele WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/christopher-steele-ex-british-intelligence-officer-said-to-have-prepared-dossier-on-trump-1484162553
  125. 01/12/17 DOJ IG Michael Horowitz announces probe into actions of FBI including McCabe's role in Clinton email scandal DOJ https://oig.justice.gov/press/2017/2017-01-12.pdf
  126. 01/19/17 NYT reports law enforcement officials "intercepted" communications of Trump officials, including Paul Manafort NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/us/politics/trump-russia-associates-investigation.html?
  127. 01/22/17 Michael Flynn sworn in as National Security Adviser Moyer http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/
  128. 01/24/17 Michael Flynn gives voluntary interview to FBI regarding Russian "collusion"; interviewer is Peter Strzok NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  129. 01/26/17 Acting A.G. Sally Yates and Bill Priestap inform White House counsel that Flynn was "compromised" by Russian actors NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  130. 01/27/17 Former Clinton State Dept. representative George Papadopoulos interviewed by FBI, which results in his eventual indictment DOJ https://www.justice.gov/file/1007346/download
  131. 01/30/17 Russian operative Sergei Millian named as source of information for "Dossier" fed to Steele and Fusion GPS ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-russian-businessman-source-key-trump-dossier-claims/story?id=45019603
  132. 01/30/17 Acting A.G. Sally Yates fired by President Trump for refusing to enforce his travel ban orders NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  133. 02/08/17 Jeff Sessions confirmed as Attorney General WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/18/10-things-to-know-about-sen-jeff-sessions-donald-trumps-pick-for-attorney-general/
  134. 02/13/17 Flynn fired by President after leaks claim that the aide has discussed sanctions with Russian actors, which Flynn denies NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  135. 02/14/17 In meeting with Trump, Comey says he was asked by President if he could see fit to "letting Flynn go" NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  136. 03/02/17 A.G. Jeff Sessions recuses himself from Russia "collusion" investigation, citing prior contacts with the Russian Ambassador NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/politics/jeff-sessions-russia-trump-investigation-democrats.html
  137. 03/20/17 Comey testifies before Congress that FBI secretly investigated potential Trump "collusion" and hid that fact from Congress Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  138. 03/20/17 Vanity Fair publishes puff piece on Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS and their work to create the "Dossier" Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/how-the-explosive-russian-dossier-was-compiled-christopher-steele
  139. 03/20/17 Comey denies accusations that the Trump campaign had been wiretapped by the U.S. government WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  140. 03/20/17 Press Secretary Sean Spicer strongly denounces surveillance and unmasking of Trump aides by Obama officials Exam http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/spicer-blasts-unmasking-of-flynn/article/2617884
  141. 03/27/17 Former Obama official Evelyn Farkas admits Obama administration spied on Trump to find Russian "collusion" ties MSNBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=gapRNpEjXUo
  142. 03/28/17 Sen. Chuck Grassley writes to Comey over concern that McCabe's investigation of Clinton was tainted by campaign donations SJC https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-examines-potential-conflicts-top-fbi-official%E2%80%99s-role-russia-collusion
  143. 05/09/17 Trump fires FBI director James Comey Time http://time.com/4774278/james-comey-fired-timeline/
  144. 05/10/17 Washington Post asserts Comey had requested additional funding and resources for Russia investigation before his firing WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/09/comey-timeline-everything-that-led-up-to-his-firing/?utm_term=.1d521047582b
  145. 05/10/17 Huma Abedin husband Anthony Weiner signs plea agreement for crime of transmitting obscene material to a minor Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/news/334255-anthony-weiner-pleads-guilty-i-have-a-sickness
  146. 05/12/17 Trump tweets that Comey better hope there are no tapes of their conversations "before he starts leaking to the press" Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333081-trump-warns-comey-better-hope-there-are-no-tapes-of-our-meeting
  147. 05/17/17 DOJ names Robert Mueller special counsel to investigate Russian influence on election NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/17/us/politics/robert-mueller-special-counsel-russia-investigation.html
  148. 06/08/17 Comey admits he leaked records of his conversation in order to spur the naming of a special counsel CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/james-comey-testimony-donald-trump/index.html
  149. 06/15/17 Former DHS head Jeh Johnson tells Congress that the DNC refused to turn over its server so it could throughly investigate "hack" Times https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/5/dnc-email-server-most-wanted-evidence-for-russia-i/
  150. 06/24/17 Wife of Fusion GPS founder Simpson, Mary Jacoby, writes on Facebook that her husband deserves the credit for "Russia-gate" Tablet http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/251897/obama-steele-dossier-russiagate
  151. 07/07/17 Comey asserts "Dossier" was "salacious and unverified", but was important because media was prepared to report it CNS https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/comey-even-though-it-was-salacious-and-unverified-we-knew-media-was-about
  152. 07/13/17 CNN reports Strzok is working for Mueller's special counsel investgiation CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/13/politics/peter-strzok-special-counsel-russia-fbi/index.html
  153. 07/14/17 DNC contractor Ali Chalupa denies working with Ukrainians to undermine Trump in spite of her leaked email from 5/3/16 CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/14/politics/dnc-contractor-ukraine-alexandra-chalupa-trump/index.html
  154. 07/20/17 DOJ Inspector General receives compromising texts of Mueller investigator Peter Strzok from FBI DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/new-details-emerge-about-discovery-of-fbi-agents-anti-trump-texts/
  155. 07/24/17 Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (VIPS) reports that there is no evidence that Russians hacked DNC (see 7/5/16) VIPS https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/
  156. 07/27/17 DOJ Inspector General meets with Mueller and Rosenstein to inform them of Strzok's text messages DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/new-details-emerge-about-discovery-of-fbi-agents-anti-trump-texts/
  157. 08/09/17 The Nation reports evidence that DNC insiders, not Russian hackers, compromised Democrat IT systems The Nation https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/
  158. 08/10/17 DOJ Inspector General requests all communications between Strzok and Page DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/new-details-emerge-about-discovery-of-fbi-agents-anti-trump-texts/
  159. 08/22/17 Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson meets with Senate committee for 10 hours, but refuses to divulge who funded "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/finally-a-definitive-timeline-showing-when-clinton-dnc-started-the-russian-dossier/
  160. 08/24/17 House Intel Chair Nunes subpoenas DOJ and FBI for documents related to "Dossier", which Strzok is believed to be behind DC http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/13/politics/peter-strzok-special-counsel-russia-fbi/index.html
  161. 09/01/17 NBC's Dilanian, believed to be a Fusion GPS flack, misreports on Trump Jr.'s 6/9 meeting with Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya Federalist http://thefederalist.com/2017/12/04/fusion-gps-scandal-implicates-media-possible-pay-publish-scheme/
  162. 09/14/17 Susan Rice admits she surveilled Trump administration after the election and later unmasked the identities of key aides Times https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/14/susan-rice-reveals-why-she-unmasked-trump-campaign/
  163. 10/18/17 Two Fusion GPS officials plead the Fifth Amendment during House Intelligence Committee interviews DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/18/fusion-gps-partners-plead-the-fifth-during-house-intel-appearance/
  164. 10/24/17 Washington Post reveals Clinton campaign and DNC funded Fusion GPS and Russian "Dossier" TPM http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-dossier-timeline-whats-known
  165. 10/29/17 NBC's Delanian reports upon an illegal leak from the Mueller investigation that the first indictment will be issued Monday NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/grand-jury-approves-first-charges-mueller-s-russia-probe-report-n815246
  166. 10/30/17 Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos indicted as part of Mueller's investigation NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/politics/special-counsel-indictments.html
  167. 10/31/17 FBI refuses House Intel Committee (chaired by Nunez) request to interview Strzok DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/strzoks-texts-and-the-clinton-trump-investigations-a-definitive-timeline/
  168. 11/30/17 Flynn signs please agreeement with special counsel, admitting he lied about sanctions conversations NPR https://www.npr.org/2017/12/05/568319589/the-10-events-you-need-to-know-to-understand-the-michael-flynn-story
  169. 12/02/17 Washington Post reveals existence of incriminating messages between Peter Strzok revealing anti-Trump biases WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/two-senior-fbi-officials-on-clinton-trump-probes-exchanged-politically-charged-texts-disparaging-trump/2017/12/02/9846421c-d707-11e7-a986-d0a9770d9a3e_story.html?utm_term=.2fa2cb13cf0c
  170. 12/04/17 CNN reveals Strzok changed wording of Clinton investigation to avoid criminal charges CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/peter-strzok-james-comey/index.html?sr=twCNNp120417peter-strzok-james-comey0420PMStory&CNNPolitics=Tw
  171. 12/06/17 DOJ executive Bruce Ohr demoted after revelations he secretly met with Fusion GPS, which had secretly employed his wife Nellie Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/top-doj-official-demoted-amid-probe-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm.html
  172. 12/06/17 Rep. Adam Schiff accused of leaking privileged notes of meeting between Trump. Jr and House Intelligence Committee to CNN Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/house/365470-republicans-call-for-an-inquiry-into-house-intel-panel-russia-investigation
  173. 12/07/17 Fox News reveals Ohr was in contact with Fusion GPS at the same time the FISA application was submitted and granted Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/top-doj-official-demoted-amid-probe-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm.html
  174. 12/07/17 Rep. Jim Jordan grills FBI director Wray: was Dossier used to secure FISA warrant? Wray refuses to answer RCP https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/12/07/rep_jim_jordan_grills_fbi_director_wray_about_peter_strzok.html
  175. 12/07/17 Judge presiding over Michael Flynn criminal case, Rudolph Contreras, is recused, according to court statement for reasons unknown Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-flynn/judge-presiding-over-michael-flynn-criminal-case-is-recused-court-idUSKBN1E202V
  176. 12/11/17 Fox News reveals Ohr's wife was hired by Fusion GPS to create opposition research against Trump Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/11/wife-demoted-doj-official-worked-for-firm-behind-anti-trump-dossier.html
  177. 12/12/17 375 text messages between Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page are released CNN https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/12/politics/peter-strzok-texts-released/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
  178. 12/12/17 Deputy FBI director Anrew McCabe cancels testimony before Congress after revelations about Nellie and Bruce Ohr's ties to Fusion GPS Breitbart http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/12/deputy-fbi-director-delays-testimony-after-report-reveals-fusion-gps-paid-officials-wife/
  179. 12/13/17 Deputy A.G. Rosenstein refuses to tell Congress whether the FBI paid for the Fusion GPS "Dossier" DC http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/deputy-ag-wont-say-whether-the-fbi-paid-for-dossier/
  180. 12/14/17 Rep. Jim Jordan states DOJ/FBI leadership attempted to fix the presidential election by inventing a "Russian Collusion" narrative Fox http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/boom-gop-rep-jim-jordan-proof-fbi-worked-republican-party-election-video/
  181. 12/18/17 Demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr fails to appear before Congress FoxBiz http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/12/just-incredible-tom-fitton-stunned-bruce-ohr-ditches-senate-intel-committee-hearing-video/
  182. 12/18/17 GOP lawmakers call for investigation into leaks of privileged interview between Trump Jr. and House Intelligence Committee Hill http://thehill.com/homenews/house/365470-republicans-call-for-an-inquiry-into-house-intel-panel-russia-investigation
  183. 12/18/17 Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley calls for the firing of FBI's McCabe Fox http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/19/fbi-s-mccabe-faces-gop-calls-for-ouster-ahead-closed-door-testimony.html
  184. 12/19/17 FBI's McCabe testifies in private to House Intel Commitee a day after and is unable to answer questions about the "Dossier" Exam http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-frustrated-lawmakers-pressed-fbis-mccabe-for-answers-on-trump-dossier-they-got-nothing/article/2644225
  185. 12/21/17 FBI's top General Counsel -- James A. Baker -- said to have leaked "Dossier" to Mother Jones, is reassigned by FBI Director Wray WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbis-top-lawyer-said-to-be-reassigned/2017/12/21/2ac76640-e6b5-11e7-833f-155031558ff4_story.html?utm_term=.418ee85e094c
  186. 12/29/17 State Dept. releases cache of emails found on Weiner-Abedin laptop, several of which contained classified information CNN https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/12/29/politics/huma-abedin-state-department-email-release/index.html
  187. 12/30/17 Sen. Lindsey Graham cites major concern over how "Dossier" was used by the DOJ, implying it was disguised and presented to FISC Fox http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/12/lindsey-graham-doj-used-anti-trump-dossier-in-court.php?
  188. 12/30/17 DNC-linked NYT's Haberman markets narrative that FBI opened Trump investigation due to George Papadopoulos, not "Dossier" NYT https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/947185141306101760.html
  189. 12/31/17 NY Times reports Clinton associates offered up to $500,000 to females to report sexual harrassment by Trump NYT http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/31/hillary-clinton-backer-paid-500g-to-fund-women-accusing-trump-sexual-misconduct-before-election-day-report-says.html
  190. 01/02/18 Fusion GPS founders write NYT op-ed asserting "Dossier" claims; fail to address funding sources, Nellie Ohr involvement, etc. NYT http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/02/fusion-gps-partners-make-first-public-comments-about-the-dossier/
  191. 01/03/18 Senate Judiciary Chair Grassley writes DAG Rosenstein: did Comey leak classified info to Columbia Professor Daniel Richman? SJC https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-presses-justice-department-about-classification-comey-memos
  192. 01/15/18 Date that DOJ Inspector General expected to turn over 1.2 million documents related to DOJ/FBI handling of Clinton probe CTH https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/28/intelligence-committee-chairman-devin-nunes-gives-doj-until-january-3rd-to-produce-documents/

[May 11, 2019] Christopher Steele, FBI s Confidential Human Source by Publius Tacitus

Highly recommended!
A foreign intelligence asset was used to justify surveillance of Trump[ and some of his associates
Notable quotes:
"... 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? ..."
"... The 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"). ..."
"... The 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... Don'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. ..."
"... From 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered. ..."
"... 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? ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... 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 ..."
"... '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.' ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... Apparently 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. ..."
"... Thinking 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: ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... One 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...? ..."
"... What role did Stefan Halper and Mifsud play as Confidential Human Sources in all this? ..."
"... Why 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? ..."
"... British 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. ..."
"... British Intelligence is verifiably the foreign source with the most extensive and effective meddling in the 2016 election. Perfidious Albion. ..."
"... Or, 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? ..."
"... 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, ..."
"... 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, ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... Here 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 ..."
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?

richardstevenhack , a day ago

Indeed we do need more information.

The 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.

chris chuba , 5 hours ago
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'.

The 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.

Leonardo Facchin , 20 hours ago
Thanks for the explanation.

What 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?

Publius Tacitus -> Leonardo Facchin , 17 hours ago
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 ago
Don'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.

From 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.

Paul M -> Leonardo Facchin , 16 hours ago
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.

Of 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.

David Habakkuk , 4 hours ago
PT,

Fascinating.

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.

Jack -> David Habakkuk , 2 hours ago
David

Apparently 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.

Keith Harbaugh , 19 hours ago
Thanks for this informative article.

Thinking 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:

Seems rather surprising to me. Anyone have any comment on this?

TTG , an hour ago
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 ago
One 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...?

Even 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...

Wally Courie , 4 hours ago
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 ago
What role did Stefan Halper and Mifsud play as Confidential Human Sources in all this?
akaPatience , 19 hours ago
Why 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 ago
British 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 ago
British 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 ago
Or, 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 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,

" 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?.

richardstevenhack -> Biggee Mikeee , 13 hours ago
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.

Only a matter of time until someone figured out the same method could be used to "meddle" in national affairs.

akaPatience -> Biggee Mikeee , 15 hours ago
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 ago
Here 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.

[May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos

Highly recommended!
The public's tax dollars were spent on creating fake "evidence" to tie Trump with Russia, a false narrative that put the planet at heightened risk for nuclear war, for the sake of the Clinton's hurt feelings.
Notable quotes:
"... In other words, the public's tax dollars were spent on creating fake "evidence" to tie Trump with Russia, a false narrative that put the planet at heightened risk for nuclear war, for the sake of the Clinton's hurt feelings. ..."
"... Even more interesting is the close relationship Isikoff had with the DNC during the 2016 Presidential election. According to an email from the DNC released by Wikileaks , Isikoff attended the "Open World Society's forum" as the guest of DNC official Ali Chalupa. In the email, Chalupa states that she was invited to the forum to speak specifically about Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump. Chalupa goes on to state that she has been working with Isikoff for the past few weeks and that at the event, she was able to get him "connected him to the Ukrainians." She adds: ..."
"... "I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of." ..."
Feb 05, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Disobedient Media

On Friday, the much anticipated "Nunes Memo" was finally released to the general public. Disobedient Media previously reported on the push to prevent the memo from being released. While there is much contained in the four pages, the most glaring issue contained in the memo is the FBI's willful concealment of pertinent details of which they were required by law to turn over to the FISA court when seeking the initial surveillance warrant on Carter Page , a former volunteer foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign.

According to the memo, former director James Comey signed three FISA applications on behalf of the FBI. Additionally, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, and acting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, each signed one or more applications on behalf of the DOJ.

Under 50 U.S.C. § 1805(d)(1) , a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) every 90 days. In order to protect the rights of Americans, each subsequent renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. This means that the in order to be granted a renewal, the government is required to produce all material and relevant facts to the court, including any information which may be potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application.

On four separate occasions the Obama administration essentially claimed before the FISA court that Page had betrayed his country by working for a hostile foreign nation, and therefore it was necessary that the government violate his Fourth Amendment rights. However, in this case, the government purposely withheld relevant information from the government not once, but four separate times.

According to the memo, at no time during the initial application process for the warrant to surveil Page, or in any of the three renewals of that application, did the government disclose to the FISA Court the nature of their relationship with Christopher Steele, his relationship with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), or his relationship with the Clinton campaign. Instead, the memo simply, yet vaguely states that, "Steele was working for a named U.S. person."

Instead, the government purposefully withheld information from the court that the "dossier" compiled by Steele was done so on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was further withheld from the court that the DNC had paid Steele over $160,000 for his work in compiling this "dossier", and that the money was funneled to Steele through the law firm Perkins Coie, which represents both the Hillary Clinton campaign as well as the DNC in legal matters. According to the National Review , the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid at least $9.1 million to Perkins Coie from mid-2015 to late 2016.

The government further held from the court the fact that the FBI had authorized payments to Steele. According to the New York Post , in October 2016 the FBI contracted to pay Steele $50,000 to "help corroborate the dirt on Trump."

In March of 2017, CNN also reported that the FBI had entered into an arrangement with Steele, whereby they agreed to cover all of his expenses.

While it is extremely disconcerting that the government willfully concealed the existence of their financial relationship with Steele, a foreign national, what is more troubling is the fact that the government used tax payer dollars to do so. In other words, every single American who did not vote for Hillary Clinton, whether they voted for Trump or a third party candidate or did not vote at all – were forced to finance the Clinton campaign-funded opposition research.

In other words, the public's tax dollars were spent on creating fake "evidence" to tie Trump with Russia, a false narrative that put the planet at heightened risk for nuclear war, for the sake of the Clinton's hurt feelings.

Why the media refuses to mention or cover this fact, this author does not know. But this is an extremely important fact that every American, whether left, right, up, down, should remember, as it is the perfect example of the corruption which exists within our tax payer-funded institutions, which we are told to have nothing but the utmost respect for.

According to the memo, in an effort to corroborate Steele's dossier, the FBI extensively cited a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, titled " U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin ", which focuses on Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow. However, when presenting this article to the court the FBI falsely assessed that Steele did not provide this information directly to Isikoff. Meaning that the FBI was aware that the article they presented to the court was not corroborating evidence from a separate source, because the information in the article was provided to Isikoff by Steele himself. In fact, as the memo points out, Steele himself has stated in British court filings that in September 2016 he met with Yahoo News , as well as several other outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New Yorker.

What's more, in an article published on January 12, 2017, Isikoff reports on a story by the Wall Street Journal in which Christopher Steele is identified as the author of the infamous dossier, and even notes that Steele was an " FBI asset ". However, what is most striking about this article is the fact that despite receiving the underline information which served as the basis for his own article in September, Isikoff pretends have not known that Steele was the source of the dossier.

Even more interesting is the close relationship Isikoff had with the DNC during the 2016 Presidential election. According to an email from the DNC released by Wikileaks , Isikoff attended the "Open World Society's forum" as the guest of DNC official Ali Chalupa. In the email, Chalupa states that she was invited to the forum to speak specifically about Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump. Chalupa goes on to state that she has been working with Isikoff for the past few weeks and that at the event, she was able to get him "connected him to the Ukrainians." She adds:

"I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of."

According to the memo, Steele's relationship with the FBI as a source continued until late October 2016, when he was terminated for what the FBI defines as the most serious violations, "an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI". This unauthorized disclosure occurred in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jones article by David Corn, the reporter who broke the infamous Mitt Romney "47 Percent" story.

Again, the FBI did not notify the court that Steele was leaking information to media outlets, or that he was terminated by the FBI after doing so for the second time.

Before and after his termination, Steele maintained contact with then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie Ohr, was employed by Fusion GPS. Ohr would later tell the FBI in an interview in September 2016, that Steele had stated that he, "was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president."

Lastly, the memo also reveals that the Steele dossier was so crucial to the investigation, that Deputy Director McCabe testified in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information. This admission by the former Deputy Director is damning, as it proves that, if it were not for the Clinton campaign and DNC funded dossier created by a foreign national, there would have been no surveillance of Page, and ultimately there would have never been a special counsel appointed.

At the end of the day, every American, regardless of their position on the political spectrum, should be worried about the fact that the FBI and DOJ sought and were granted a warrant to spy on an opposing political campaign based on a document that the FBI itself had neither verified or corroborated. If the FISA court does in fact employ strict "safeguards" and procedures in order to ensure that the rights of American citizens are not being systematically violated, how is it that the FBI and DOJ were able to obtain a surveillance warrant based on unverified allegations? And why did Congress overwhelmingly vote to reauthorize Section 702? Vote up! 15 Vote down! 0

VWAndy Feb 4, 2018 4:18 PM Permalink

This whole ball of wax should be in the public hands. Straight up clear cut case for a real civilian grand jury. As far removed from the government control as possible. Its a corruption issue. Nobody in government has clean hands.

IvannaHumpalot Feb 4, 2018 6:36 PM Permalink

This is a problem because across the 5-eyes intel agencies are being given extra-judicial powers to do basically whatever they want without oversight and without legal boundaries. This assumes the agencies will never become politicised, and that no individual within the agencies will ever have an axe to grind against an ex, or a petty hatred to pursue, or political agendas of their own. What FISA-gate shows is that this is clearly not the case. We need the reimposition of free speech, transparency and of civilian rule of government.

Only an informed public can really be in charge of its elected government. We need to be in charge again because civilians are fast being kettled into a snare where we have no say in the decisions that our governments take. It's being decided by the deep state bureaucracy

Rex Andrus Feb 4, 2018 6:39 PM Permalink

Start thinking about how, at the grass roots level, to catch them red handed stealing this election.

Joebloinvestor Feb 4, 2018 6:55 PM Permalink

No action(s) from the FISA court about being deceived shows we are all fucked.

Rex Andrus Feb 4, 2018 7:04 PM Permalink

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/7v7avg/i_find_you_guilty_o

Bondo Feb 4, 2018 7:17 PM Permalink

trump needs to appoint a special prosecutor outside of the swamp to investigate the fbi/doj. at this point, I trust Judge Judy more than anyone in dc

Reaper Feb 4, 2018 8:07 PM Permalink

Who protects us from our FBI protectors? The power to lie in court with impunity makes Kangaroo courts our system

Northern Flicker Feb 4, 2018 8:28 PM Permalink

It's a joke the FBI didn't want the memo released to protect their methods and sources.. no wonder, they just make things up.

Arctic Frost Feb 4, 2018 9:23 PM Permalink

WHY DID CONGRESS OVERWHELMINGLY VOTE TO REAUTHORIZE SECTION 702?

bh2 Feb 5, 2018 12:21 AM Permalink

The word "assess" is a spook term of art which means they are either "guessing" or "lying", depending on context.

cwsuisse Feb 5, 2018 1:36 AM Permalink

The FBI can't be considered to be a trustworthy institution.

[May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross

Highly recommended!
This "shadowy Russian" might well be Sergey Skripal. This suggests that Steele dossier was CIA operation with British MI6 as transfer mechanism and Steele as a cover. And implicates Brennan. So this is next level of leaks after "Stormy Daniel"...
Another NYT leak out of a set of well coordinated leans from anonymous intelligence officials ;-) Poor Melania...
Notable quotes:
"... But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to a fascinating report from The New York Times. ..."
"... If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries. ..."
"... More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia is still being stoked no matter what. ..."
"... Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine, McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down. ..."
"... the CIA has to turn America into a criminal totalitarian regime in order to make the world safe for democracy ..."
"... How much you wanna bet that Brennan, Obama's CIA Director, was behind ..."
"... You mean the same Brennan who is the godfather of ISIS? ..."
"... "U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can call off the hounds. ..."
"... Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it... ..."
"... Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big bad russkies tricked us. ..."
"... 'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope. Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a long shot. ..."
"... i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds. this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to trump. ..."
"... Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a cloth." ..."
"... And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works ..."
"... So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers for procurers of hosebags for him to screw? ..."
Feb 10, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

by Chuck Ross of Daily Caller

When they said "Russian collusion", few expected it to be between the CIA and a "shadowy Russian operative." And yet, according to a blockbuster NYT report, that's precisely what happened.

* * *

The CIA paid $100,000 last year to a Russian operative who claimed to have derogatory information about President Trump, including a video tape of the Republican engaged with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. If the video showed Trump, it would support claims made in the infamous Steele dossier, the salacious opposition research report financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC.

But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to a fascinating report from The New York Times.

American spies made contact with the Russia early in 2017 after he offered to sell the Trump material along with cyber hacking tools that were stolen from the NSA that year, according to The Times. U.S. intelligence officials told The Times they were so desperate to retrieve those tools that they negotiated with the operative for months despite several red flags, including indications that he was working in concert with Russian intelligence.

Another red flag was the Russian's financial request. He initially sought $10 million for the information but dropped the asking price to $1 million.

After months of negotiations, American spies handed over $100,000 in cash in a brief case to the Russian during a meeting in Berlin in September.

The operative also offered documents and emails that purported to implicate other Trump associates, including former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But The Times viewed the documents and reported that they were mostly information that is already in the public domain.

The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers, showed the video purported to be Trump to a Berlin-based American businessman who served as his intermediary to the CIA. But according to the Times, the footage and the location of the viewing raised questions about its authenticity.

The 15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was Trump, and there was no audio. The Russian also showed the video to his American partner at the Russian embassy in Berlin, a sign that the operative had ties to Russian intelligence.

The Russian stonewalled the production of the cyber tools, and U.S. officials eventually cut ties, according to The Times. After the payout in Berlin, the man provided information about Trump and his associates of questionable veracity.

The Americans gave him an ultimatum earlier in 2018 to either play ball, leave Western Europe, or face criminal charges. He left, according to The Times, which interviewed U.S. officials, the American intermediary and the Russian for its article.

The Times' U.S. sources -- who appear to paint the American side in a positive light -- said that they were reluctant to purchase information because they did not want to be seen buying dirt on the president.

The officials also expressed concern that the Russian operative was planting disinformation on behalf of the Russian government. U.S. officials were worried that the Russian government has sought to sow discord between U.S. intelligence agencies and Trump. The revelation that the CIA purchased dirt on him would likely do the trick.

The Times report also has other new details.

Four other Russians with ties to the spy world have surfaced over the past year offering to sell dirt on Trump that closely mirrors allegations made in the dossier, according to the article. But officials have reason to believe that some of sellers have ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

The Times also provides new details on Cody Shearer, a notorious operative close to the Clintons. Shearer was recently revealed to have shopped around a so-called "second dossier" prior to the campaign which mirrored the sex allegations of the Steele report.

According to The Times, he has criss-crossed Europe over the past six months in an attempt to find video footage of Trump from the Moscow hotel room. Shearer claimed to have information from the FSB, Russia's spy service, that a video existed of Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.

He shared a memo making the allegations with his friend and fellow Clinton fixer, Sidney Blumenthal. Blumenthal in turn passed the memo to his friend, Jonathan Winer, a Department of State official. Winer then gave the information to Steele who provided it to the FBI in October 2016.

Steele also provided information to Winer, who wrote up a two-page memo that was circulated within the State Department.

Trump has denied allegations that he used prostitutes in Moscow. He has called the dossier a "hoax" and "crap."

* * *

On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted that "according to the @nytimes, a Russian sold phony secrets on "Trump" to the U.S. Asking price was $10 million, brought down to $1 million to be paid over time. I hope people are now seeing & understanding what is going on here. It is all now starting to come out - DRAIN THE SWAMP!

Of course, if Trump really wants to "drain the swamp", any such decision would have originate with him. Tags Politics Commercial Banks

InjectTheVenom -> Global Hunter Feb 10, 2018 11:47 AM Permalink

DRAIN. THE. SWAMP.

Billy the Poet -> InjectTheVenom Feb 10, 2018 12:04 PM Permalink

Release the pee pee video now! No one pee peed in the $100,000 video in question. The 15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was Trump, and there was no audio. And how can anyone be more fascinated by the prospect of pee pee than by the fact that US intelligence agencies were buying bad information from extremely shady foreigners in an attempt to overthrow the President of the United States?

caconhma -> Billy the Poet Feb 10, 2018 12:42 PM Permalink

Trump is the swamp. If zio-Banking Mafia did not have enough dirt of Trump, he would not be elected.

gatorengineer -> caconhma Feb 10, 2018 1:05 PM Permalink

Trump is starting to assume that the people are dumber than Obowel did. Earth to Don, you sir have the drain pump, you sir have surrounded yourself with Swamp creatures.... You sir are.............

Arrowflinger -> InjectTheVenom Feb 10, 2018 12:18 PM Permalink

According to this, the Russians stole the hacking tools needed to cut through the Swamp levee, which were developed by the NSA, and now the CIA cannot buy them back. Now, since the USA wanted its Swamp, the Russians are more than happy to let the USA drown in its swamp.

What a country!

gatorengineer -> Arrowflinger Feb 10, 2018 1:06 PM Permalink

Anyone have a link for the Qanon posts. I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks since he left 8chan where he was posting. I don't want the Youtube BS, I just want the link... anyone got one. Its strangely not googleable... LOLZ.

El Oregonian -> Global Hunter Feb 10, 2018 11:53 AM Permalink

If you think that the CIA is a U.S. intelligence agency working on the best interests of the United States, you better wake up and smell the treason. They only work for the best interests of themselves.

Bula_Vinaka -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:10 PM Permalink

They are parasites and nothing more.

BurningFuld -> Bula_Vinaka Feb 10, 2018 12:40 PM Permalink

Here is a question. Why does the CIA not come out and clear the air re: Trump?

I mean they were even paying people to come up with dirt. He is now your president and the country is a fucking mess. Should the CIA not come out and say we tried but we got nothing? They do have the ability to fix all this Trump shit and yet crickets.

Ahmeexnal -> caconhma Feb 10, 2018 1:03 PM Permalink

CIA is the covert dirty dealing arm of the VATICAN.

MarshalJimDuncan -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:12 PM Permalink

ooohh... they release this questionable information for all to hear and paid a lot of money for it too. this fucking government is a joke

Posa -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:56 PM Permalink

And the best interests of clients. The CIA started out is the muscle for the Dulles Brothers clients who were being booted out of various countries they were super-exploiting. The Agency hasn't looked back since.

Alfred -> El Oregonian Feb 10, 2018 12:59 PM Permalink

Seems wrong to call them 'intelligence' agencies. There must be a more descriptive name we can use... Anyone?

Guitarilla -> Global Hunter Feb 10, 2018 12:35 PM Permalink

Nobody got whizzed on. That lurid fantasy came soley out of the head of Hillary Clinton, given to Blumenthal, passed around and made to look like it came from Russia.

DownWithYogaPants -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 11:47 AM Permalink

CIA killed Kennedy. This pretty much removes all doubt. They are willing to do anything.

Killtruck -> shimmy Feb 10, 2018 12:51 PM Permalink

"Oswald killed Kennedy. That's it."

It IS remarkable the stuff people believe when all logic goes against it. Like Oswald firing magic bullets from an old Italian Carcano...and jet fuel melting steel beams...and a building collapsing through the path of greatest resistance into its own footprint after NOT being hit by an airplane...and Kennedy being shot from behind, but his head snapping backwards from the impact...and Oswald picking the worst possible shooting location, but in front of Kennedy were two intersecting highways going in any direction...and terrorist passports floating gently down from the sky.

It sure is remarkable.
#letsroll

possible band name
OswaldandtheMagicBullets

Able Ape -> shimmy Feb 10, 2018 12:57 PM Permalink

What was Oswald's reason to kill JFK? And yeah, he picked the very building he worked at to commit the crime. He wasn't THAT stupid!...

Posa -> shimmy Feb 10, 2018 1:05 PM Permalink

RFK and Nixon knew immediately the assassination of JFK was a CIA hit job because they had CHAIRED those hit squad operations themselves for Cuban Operations. They saw the CIA- Cuban hit squad fingerprints all over the kill. RFK had personally fired Wm Harvey, Dulles' chief of assassinations. However, RFK was silenced because he and Jack had been tag-teaming Marilyn Monroe.

The reason JFK was killed was a) his openly stated determination to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces so they could no longer operate as a dangerous, renegade private army; and b) in the Spring of '63 JFK delivered his famous American U address calling for the end of the Cold War...

Oswald was always a patsie... the WC documents how his rifle was inoperable... scope needed parts just to be be sited and take aim... even after parts installed the rifle attributed to Oswald remained highly inaccurate... Military sharpshooters couldn't even hit stationary targets reliably.

mobius8curve -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 11:49 AM Permalink

If there is a video you can be sure it was manufactured using these tools:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Nx404VLzw

Lawlessness is arising exponentially:

https://sumofthyword.com/2017/01/18/the-mystery-of-lawlessness/

oDumbo -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 12:19 PM Permalink

Drain the swamp! Townsquare justice for Odumbo and Hitlery! George Soros to bathe in the Amazon River with 1 million Piranha Fish until it completely disappears. Drain the evil Dumorat swamp. Drain the banana republic CIA and FBI. Our tax dollars and constitution did not pay for this shit.

Kelley -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 12:34 PM Permalink

With today's technology, the CIA is most likely working on a fake video for you right now. They might release it on Vimeo or Netflix to cover the costs and give themselves plausible deniability. To add a finishing touch they will make a fake video of Julian Assange claiming he is releasing it. You'll be in hog heaven. Which is where folks like you go just before being slaughtered by your owners and turned into spam.

shovelhead -> Dr. Acula Feb 10, 2018 12:55 PM Permalink

10 Million...

1 million...

Ok, How about $9.99

algol_dog Feb 10, 2018 11:38 AM Permalink

Move along. Nothing to see here ...

DosZap -> algol_dog Feb 10, 2018 11:40 AM Permalink

What a load of camel dung, if there was a sex tape of Trump w/Russian hookers, it would have been out while he was RUNNING for the job, FAKE NEWS.

SRV -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 11:54 AM Permalink

Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...

And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!

vulcanraven -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 12:08 PM Permalink

No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.

So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency? You can't have it both ways.

We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all day, where would we be without them?

silvermail -> algol_dog Feb 10, 2018 11:55 AM Permalink

I propose impeachment to any US president for eating, drinking and visiting toilets!

TheWholeYearInn Feb 10, 2018 11:38 AM Permalink

What's the difference between prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room, or prostitutes in the FBI/DOJ?

Global Hunter -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 11:47 AM Permalink

I can't confirm price, so I will go with hotter (can't really confirm that either but Slavic chicks usually seem hot to me).

SRV -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 11:54 AM Permalink

Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...

And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!

turkey george palmer -> SRV Feb 10, 2018 1:09 PM Permalink

Fuckin eh right. That's probably the closest thing .

A Sentinel -> SRV Feb 10, 2018 1:21 PM Permalink

Damn good point. And the dates are off too. A 6+/- month zh article about the dark web had the nsa software downloadable long before 2017.

Gee. Why would someone date that hack into 2017? What was different between 2016 and 2017?

SMH Trying to figure that out.

vulcanraven -> DosZap Feb 10, 2018 12:08 PM Permalink

No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.

So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency? You can't have it both ways.

We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all day, where would we be without them?

Winston Churchill -> buzzsaw99 Feb 10, 2018 12:02 PM Permalink

More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia is still being stoked no matter what.

Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine, McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down.

H-O-W Feb 10, 2018 11:46 AM Permalink

The more we learn,

The more it looks like the Russians set this up perfectly.

  • Set Hillary up.
  • Set Obama up.
  • Set the DNC up.
  • Set the media up.

They know these scumbags better than we do!

buzzsaw99 Feb 10, 2018 11:48 AM Permalink

the CIA has to turn America into a criminal totalitarian regime in order to make the world safe for democracy.

Give Me Some Truth Feb 10, 2018 11:49 AM Permalink

Good point in the last sentence. If someone is going to "drain the swamp" it is going to have to be the president of the United States. I think I'm correct that he can fire anyone that works in the executive department for cause. He can also order investigations or hire people who will launch real investigations.

Mr. President, if you want to "drain the swamp," drain it.

P.S. You can start with an audit of The Fed.

desertboy -> Give Me Some Truth Feb 10, 2018 12:16 PM Permalink

That last sentence assumes a rather critical fantasy.

Anunnaki -> Thordoom Feb 10, 2018 12:24 PM Permalink

The Tripod of Evil

  1. Deep State
  2. Presstitutes
  3. Corporate Democrats
Dre4dwolf Feb 10, 2018 12:11 PM Permalink

If there was a video it would of been leaked during the election, they have nothing that sticks on the guy.

All the evidence thus far states

Obama Hillary the FBI, DNC, CIA all spied on Trump and colluded with foreign governments (U.K. , Ukraine , Russia) to try and dig up dirt to use against Trump (and they more or less failed).

They turned over every rock they could, look at that stupid hot-mic video in the bus, how many hours of video did they have to go through to dig up that crumb? they went back searching through 30+ years of content and thats all they could come up with.... some locker room talk lol

People have to just face it.

Your government was and still is corrupt and its a weaponized system of control, Your government colluded with the enemy in a desperate attempt to stop Trump from becoming president. Your government started a sham "Russia investigation" to cover up its own crimes. Your government applied a different standard of justice to the clintons than it would have to you or anyone else.

To date ZERO evidence has been brought forward that Trump or anyone in his campaign did anything wrong, and the only people that have done anything wrong so far were picked by "the swamp" to fill positions..... all the others fell into petty perjury Traps on meaningless topics and insignificant factoids.

Lord Raglan Feb 10, 2018 12:12 PM Permalink

How much you wanna bet that Brennan, Obama's CIA Director, was behind buying this and thus, Obama and Hillary?

navy62802 -> Lord Raglan Feb 10, 2018 12:16 PM Permalink

You mean the same Brennan who is the godfather of ISIS?

Kelley Feb 10, 2018 12:16 PM Permalink

Isn't it lovely to find out that your money and mine is being used by government agents to give us the government they want?

It's sort of like a thug robbing you and using part of your money to pay another thug to rough you up from time time to time if you ask any questions with the thugs believing it's for our own good.

Thanks, Hillary, for looking out for us. You and your best buds are the best. Such bighearted givers! Meanwhile, give our regards to your partner in slime Obama, although it must pain you to have been bested by 'Beavis' who thinks so much of himself to balance out how little he impresses anyone who knows him.

desertboy Feb 10, 2018 12:20 PM Permalink

"U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can call off the hounds.

Consuelo Feb 10, 2018 12:22 PM Permalink

Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it...

Kelley Feb 10, 2018 1:05 PM Permalink

As taxpayers can we sue the CIA for misusing our funds? Pretty sure that buying sex videos for commercial release isn't part of the CIA's lawful mandate even at bargain prices.

indaknow Feb 10, 2018 1:13 PM Permalink

Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big bad russkies tricked us.

It's not going to work.

hooligan2009 Feb 10, 2018 11:49 AM Permalink

my sauces tell me that pink pussyhat wearing hollywood types have been called in because they have a doppelganger for trump and access to 30,000 sexually abused victims that can act as Russian prostitutes for just ten bucks each. snapchat has a trump emoji that can be transplanted onto any porn video star - male or female - thus confirming that trump is a serial (serious?) user of ladies of the night

my sauces also tell me that the CIA offers a reward of 100,000 bucks (or 10 BTC) for every photo-shopped (snap-shopped or porn-shopped) material.

of course, the CIA already owns many many porn movie studios and films, but it would prefer third "party" movies - not from epstein's island where its operatives choose to rela with a pizza.

the CIA "pink" budget for such movies is limited to just 5,000 clips or 5 billion of taxpayers funds, whichever is the higher.

awesome sauce hey?

MusicIsYou Feb 10, 2018 1:14 PM Permalink

For only $100,000 that's all? Now I know it's probably not true.

Robert A. Heinlein Feb 10, 2018 1:17 PM Permalink

'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope. Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a long shot.

hannah Feb 10, 2018 1:33 PM Permalink

i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds. this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to trump.

i call bullshit.

RKae -> hannah Feb 10, 2018 1:47 PM Permalink

Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a cloth."

And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works.

Quantify Feb 10, 2018 1:38 PM Permalink

The CIA is at the head of the shadow government.

RKae Feb 10, 2018 1:39 PM Permalink

So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers for procurers of hosebags for him to screw?

I mean if they're so concerned about Trump and a couple of hookers... Better put some ice on that, CIA.

vofreason Feb 10, 2018 1:39 PM Permalink

You all are so ridiculous and fooled with your "drain the swamp" bs. It's a great idea but Trump doing it is a joke, I mean just look at who he has hired, what's wrong with you all are you blind?!!

He can't even fill 1/3 of the government positions he's supposed to and the ones he has have no business holding the positions given to them and are so incompetent, downright criminal or just personally horrendous humans that they can't stay in office more than a few months. All their blatant and moronically concocted lies are backing them into corners every day that they just try and lie out of again. America is over if we really have gotten to the point that a group like Trump's has support, it's just astonishing.

[May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com
Biden, Obama Officials Stood to Gain From Ukraine Influence By Jeff Carlson ( April 26, 2019 Updated: May 2, 2019 )

Newly released evidence suggests Ukraine played key role in creating Trump–Russia collusion narrative at behest of Obama officials

As Ukraine underwent dramatic changes in 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden played a critical role in the Obama administration's involvement in the revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Following the revolution, Biden would use his influence to help force the creation of the troubled National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Notably, during the 2016 election campaign, information leaked from NABU about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that helped to create the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the election.

Biden also would use the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor general. At the time, the prosecutor had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas giant that had appointed Biden's son, Hunter, as a board member.

President Donald Trump 's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently said, "Keep your eye on Ukraine." In his comments to the Washington Examiner , Giuliani highlighted the "plot to create an investigation of President Trump, based on a false charge of conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016 elections."

Obama Administration's 2014 Involvement

On or shortly before Feb. 4, 2014, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department, had a conversation with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, which was intercepted and leaked .

In the call, Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be discussing the ouster of Yanukovych and the installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister.

Nuland favored opposition leader Yatsenyuk over his main rivals Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok, telling Pyatt: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitschko and Tyahnybok on the outside."

Toward the end of the conversation , then-Vice President Biden was discussed as being willing to help cement the changeover in Ukraine:

Geoffrey Pyatt: "We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych, but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place."

Victoria Nuland: "So, on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [Biden's national security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need Biden, and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's willing."

Nuland and Pyatt met with Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko and Yatsenyuk, along with then-President Yanukovych, just days later on Feb. 7, 2014.

Events then moved swiftly. On Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was removed as president of Ukraine and fled to Russia. On Feb. 27, 2014, Yatsenyuk, the candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister of Ukraine. Klitschko was left out. Notably, Yatsenyuk would later resign in April 2016 amid corruption accusations.

Biden's Involvement in Ukraine

In April, Biden would get personally involved, as would his son, Hunter. On April 18, 2014, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of directors for Burisma–one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine.

Four days later, on April 22, 2014, Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine , offering his political support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government. Poroshenko, a billionaire politician, was elected as president of Ukraine on May 25, 2014.

Biden became close to both men and helped Ukraine obtain a four-year, $17.5 billion IMF package in March 2015.

In October 2016, Foreign Policy wrote a lengthy article, " What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe ," which described Biden's role in the removal of Ukraine's general prosecutor, Victor Shokin. Shokin, the choice of Poroshenko, was portrayed as fumbling a major corruption case and "hindering an investigation into two high-ranking state prosecutors arrested on corruption charges."

The United States pushed for Shokin's removal, and Biden led the effort by personally threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. In an interview with The Atlantic, Biden recalled telling Poroshenko: "Petro, you're not getting your billion dollars. It's OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand -- we're not paying if you do." Shokin was removed by Poroshenko shortly thereafter, in early 2016.

But according to reporting by The Hill, at the time of his firing, Shokin had been investigating Burisma. Shokin's investigation into Burisma had previously been disclosed in June 2017, by Front News International.

Burisma is owned by Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola Zlochevsky), the former minister of ecology for Ukraine. According to Front News , Zlochevsky issued a "special permit for the extraction of a third of the gas produced in Ukraine" to his own company, Burisma.

According to the Ukrainian nonprofit Anti Corruption Action Center, Zlochevsky owns 38 permits held by 14 different companies -- with Burisma accounting for the majority with 33 of the permits. Zlochevsky left Ukraine after Yanukovych fled to Russia during the Ukrainian Revolution known as Euromaidan.

Investigation Into Burisma

In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation at the behest of the UK prosecutors office, which was investigating money laundering allegations against Zlochevsky and had just frozen $23.5 million in assets allegedly belonging to him in early April 2014. Shokin, who wasn't appointed as general prosecutor until February 2015, wasn't yet involved in the case.

Ukrainian prosecutors refused to provide the UK with needed documents, and in January 2015, a British court ordered the assets unfrozen. This action was pointedly called out in a speech by Pyatt, who stated, "In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the UK authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people."

Instead of receiving cooperation from Ukrainian prosecutors, they "sent letters to Zlochevsky's attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was freed by the UK court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus."

On Feb. 10, 2015, Shokin was appointed prosecutor general of Ukraine, and he picked up the investigation into Burisma, which reportedly continued until his formal resignation in February 2016.

Around the same time that Zlochevsky's assets were being frozen in the UK, Burisma appointed Hunter Biden to its board on April 18, 2014. Hunter's compensation had never been disclosed by Burisma, which is a private company, but Ryan Toohey, a Burisma spokesman, told The New York Times that Biden's compensation was "not out of the ordinary" for similar board positions.

However, according to The Hill's reporting , Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular payments -- "usually more than $166,000 a month" -- from Burisma. The payments ran from the spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million.

The Hill article included a written answer from Shokin, who told Solomon that his investigation into Burisma had included plans for "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden."

According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, following Shokin's forced dismissal, the Burisma investigation was transferred to Sytnyk's NABU, which then reportedly closed the investigation sometime in 2016.

The Kyiv Post on March 27 published an editorial written by three members of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv that disputed Lutsenko's interview with The Hill. They claim that two cases relating to Burisma are still being investigated by NABU:

"Two cases regarding the extraction of licenses by Zlochevsky's companies and embezzlement of public funds at the ministry's procurements during Zlochevsky's Ministerial tenure remain active and are investigated by NABU."

They also claim that "none of the criminal proceedings against Burisma were closed by NABU." They acknowledged that the case concerning illegal issuance of licenses to extract natural resources were transferred to NABU in December 2015, but claim that SAP missed procedural deadlines for a lawsuit on canceling those licenses.

The politics within Ukraine are extremely complicated, and corruption is endemic, often leading to conflicting accounts of events.

US Pressure to Investigate Manafort

In January 2016, top Ukrainian corruption prosecutors and officials from Obama's National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) met in Washington, according to an April 26 article by The Hill.

The meeting, which was reportedly billed as "training," apparently also touched on two other matters -- the revival of a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine's Russia-backed Party of Regions and the closure of an ongoing Ukrainian investigation into Burisma.

According to The Hill's reporting, the Ukrainian Embassy confirmed that meetings were held, but said it "had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings."

A Jan. 22, 2016, NABU press release confirmed that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk was in Washington from Jan. 19 to 21.

At the same time as the NABU meeting with Obama officials, Vice President Biden also met with senior Ukrainian officials. On Jan. 21, 2016, Biden met with Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine. According to the White House release , the two leaders agreed "to continue to move forward on Ukraine's anti-corruption agenda."

Just six days earlier, on Jan 15, 2016, Biden had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, promising to commit $220 million in new assistance to Ukraine that year.

Notably, several months later, Sytnyk and Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko would publicly disclose the contents of the Ukrainian "black ledger" to the media, which implicated Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The revelation would force Manafort from the campaign.

Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael Isikoff and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition, Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS -- and its researcher, former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.

Another Ukrainian-related meeting also took place in January 2016 when Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American, informed an unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump campaign. Notably, this theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign in the summer of 2016. Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort's involvement in the Trump campaign.

How Chalupa knew to expect Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign in January remains unknown, but her forecast proved prescient, as Manafort reached out to the Trump campaign shortly after, on Feb. 29, 2016, through a mutual acquaintance, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. According to Manafort, he and Trump hadn't been in communication for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manafort's offer.

As The Epoch Times previously reported , on May 30, 2016, Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr sent an email to her husband, high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and three other DOJ officials to alert them of the discovery of the "Reported Trove of Documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' 'Black Cashbox.'" It was this discovery that led to Manafort's resignation from the Trump campaign in August 2016.

On Aug. 14, 2016, The New York Times published an article alleging that payments to Manafort had been uncovered from the Party of Regents' "black box" -- the 400-page handwritten ledger released by Leshchenko. The article proved to be a fatal blow for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign just days later.

NABU Ties to FBI

Following the successful overthrow of Yanukovych, Joe Biden had a direct hand in the formation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), as he personally "pushed for the creation of an independent anti-corruption bureau to combat graft," according to an Oct. 30, 2016, article by Foreign Policy .

NABU was formally established in October 2014 in response to pressure from not only the U.S. State Department and Biden, but also by the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.

Despite the international push, the fledgling anti-corruption unit took more than a year to actually become a functioning unit. During this time, NABU officials began establishing a relationship with the FBI. In early 2016, NABU Director Sytnyk announced that his bureau was very close to signing a memorandum of cooperation with the FBI and by February 2016 , the FBI had had a permanent representative onsite at the NABU offices.

On June 5, 2016, Sytnyk met with U.S. Ambassador Pyatt to discuss a more formalized relationship with the FBI and, on June 30, 2016, NABU and the FBI entered into a memorandum of understanding that allowed for an FBI office onsite at NABU offices to focus on international money laundering cases. The relationship was renewed for an additional two years in June 2017.

NABU has repeatedly refused to make the memorandum of understanding with the FBI public and went to court in 2018 to prevent its release. After receiving an unfavorable opinion from the Kyiv District Administrative Court, NABU appealed the ruling, which was overturned in its favor by the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal.

Sytnyk, along with parliamentarian Leshchenko, became the subject of an investigation in Ukraine and in December 2018, a Kyiv court ruled that both men "acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort's surname and signature were found in the so-called black ledger of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions," the Kyiv Post reported on Dec. 12, 2018.

The court noted the material was part of a pre-trial investigation and its release "led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state."

Leshchenko had publicly adopted a strong anti-Trump stance, telling the Financial Times in August 2016 that "a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy" and that it was "important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world." Leschenko noted that the majority of Ukrainian politicians were "on Hillary Clinton's side."

In December 2017, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko accused Sytnyk of allowing the FBI to conduct illegal operations in Ukraine, claiming that the "U.S. law enforcers were allegedly invited without the permission required and in breach of the necessary procedures." Lutsenko continued by asking, "Who actually let the foreign special service act in Ukraine?"

Taras Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst, also questioned the FBI's activities, writing that "some kind of undercover operations are being conducted in Ukraine with direct participation (or even under control) of the FBI. This means the FBI operatives could have access to classified data or confidential information."

Lutsenko called for an audit of NABU, claiming to "possess information of interest to the auditors" and was pushing for Sytnyk's resignation, along with that of Nazar Kholodnitskiy, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP). According to reporting by Euromaidan Press, Lutsenko's efforts failed "thanks to the reaction from Ukraine's American partners."

Michael Carpenter, an adviser to Joe Biden, personally issued a public warning to Lutsenko and others pushing for Sytnyk's removal, stating, "If the Rada votes to dismiss the head of the Anticorruption Committee and the head of the NABU, I will recommend cutting all U.S. government assistance to #Ukraine , including security assistance."

Sytnyk remains in his position as NABU's director.

Pinchuk's Ties to Leshchenko, Clintons

On April 11, 2019, Greg Craig, Obama's former White House counsel and a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, was indicted for lying about and concealing his work in Ukraine. Craig, who reportedly worked closely with Manafort, was paid more than $4 million to produce an "independent" report justifying Ukraine's trial and conviction of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Notably, Craig's name was not included in the "Black Ledger" leak from Leshchenko and Sytnyk.

The indictment notes that "a wealthy private Ukrainian" was fully funding the report. In a recent YouTube video , Craig publicly stated that "it was Doug Schoen who brought this project to me, and he told me he was acting on behalf of Victor Pinchuk, who was a pro-western, Ukrainian businessman who helped to fund the project."

"The Firm understood that its work was to be largely funded by Victor Pinchuk," Skadden wrote in recent FARA filings .

Pinchuk put out a statement on Jan. 21, denying any financial involvement:

"Mr. Pinchuk was not the source of any funds used to pay fees of Skadden in producing their report into the trial and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was in no way responsible for those costs. Neither Mr. Pinchuk nor companies affiliated with him have ever been a client of Skadden. Mr. Pinchuk and his team had no role in the work done by Skadden, including in the preparation or dissemination of the Skadden report."

Pinchuk is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He owns Credit Dnipro Bank, several ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Pinchuk has been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at severely below-market prices through political favoritism.

Between April 4 and April 12, 2016, Ukrainian parliamentarian Olga Bielkova had four meetings , with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Department), and David Kramer (McCain Institute).

FARA documents filed by Schoen showed that he was paid $40,000 a month by Pinchuk (page 5) -- in part to arrange these meetings.

Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with congressmen and media (page 10). It's unknown how many of these meetings, if any, took place.

Schoen also helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street Journal reported on March 19, 2015, how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko–a political rival of Yanukovych–from jail. And the relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons continued. According to the Kyiv Post :

"Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist."

Although exact numbers aren't clear, reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk's donations went to the Clinton organization.

Pinchuk also has ties to Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked the information on Manafort. Leshchenko had been a frequent speaker at the Ukrainian Breakfast , a traditional private event held at Davos, Switzerland, and hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and has also been pictured with Pinchuk at multiple other events.

[May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review. ..."
"... The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016. ..."
"... After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target. ..."
"... On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. ..."
"... Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant. ..."
"... The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. ..."
"... While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director. ..."
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 )

FISA Abuse

Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page

Highly recommended!
The insurance policy was the false flag operation directed at establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. The key part was the appointment of Special Prosecutor in which McCabe played an important if not the decisive role.
Notable quotes:
"... The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation. ..."
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 )

The Insurance Policy

Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe. ..."
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 )

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recluses himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day.

McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president."

An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job.

On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

[May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI 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 Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS) by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.

The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.

One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.

This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this. For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow. Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:

In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).

Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant.

By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:

" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: " Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."

The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research. This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets-- Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump.

Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums. . . .

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "

I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI 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 Times reported.

Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive:

But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

Posted at 05:33 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink | Comments (9)

turcopolier , 07 May 2019 at 09:53 AM

Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
blue peacock said in reply to turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 11:19 AM
Col. Lang

I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock... , 07 May 2019 at 01:31 PM
bp,

The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but, there again, they may 'compose', which is not.

Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.

Alcatraz, perhaps?

blue peacock said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 08 May 2019 at 12:17 AM
David,

Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution" to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance. But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.

I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/things-fall-apart-pt-1/

akaPatience -> turcopolier ... , 07 May 2019 at 05:27 PM
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos' ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved. No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Rick Merlotti , 07 May 2019 at 12:14 PM
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front.
O'Shawnessey , 07 May 2019 at 02:44 PM
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
sandra adie , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
akaPatience , 07 May 2019 at 03:01 PM
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
"... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
"... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC) writes:

"I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind. Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy, arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:

https://youtu.be/E96084YuYyE?t=812 .

His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).

I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"

"The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed doing in the Golan Heights!

"P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT

THE WHOLE MUELLER INVESTIGATION WAS A SCAM.

The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats, Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called contacts with Russians.

They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens before the election, so it is illegal.

What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?

They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was allegedly broken itself is illegal.

It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act

This law is a joke, because Trump never “negotiated” with any foreign govt. on behalf of the USA, and Russia is not having a dispute with the USA.

Most importantly, the Logan Act is unconstitutional.

That is why nobody has been prosecuted under it–for decades!

So any American who posts on rt.com or on an Iranian website suggesting peace is technically violating the Logan Act.

Any newspapers that publishes articles about Iran or Russia or Syria and suggesting peace or war is technically violating the Logan Act.

So why are all they not in jail?

Because the Logan Act is unconstitutional and it violates the first amendment.

Go, say, “I will talk to the Russian govt. all I want and promote world peace.”

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
ADDENDUM: NOBODY HAS EVER BEEN CONVICTED UNDER THE LOGAN ACT.

This is stated in the wikipedia article I put the link for above.

In fact, the wikipedia article also talks about its unconstitutionality.

Sin City Milla , says: May 2, 2019 at 5:11 am GMT
@Rational

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been ‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.

One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being ‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”

The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say.

[May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
"... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
"... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
"... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
"... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
"... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
"... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
"... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
"... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
"... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

tom p , 2 months ago (edited)

FBI agents selling books about their sedition. Only in America.

TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.

TradeBasedOnNaturalResourcesAndClimateNotSlaveLabor , 2 months ago

Anybody who has read the Strzok-Page text messages can see why Trump was investigated... The reason was BIAS.

Unknown Texan , 2 months ago

Conspiracy to overthrow a setting President and nothing will happen.

XIEXIE , 2 months ago

Why he didn't think the same about Hilary about all the obvious evidences! Such a embarrassment of FBI and DOJ!

G1 Sokool , 2 months ago

The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI.

Master Of Darkness , 2 months ago

HIGH TREASON !!!

R Coyote , 2 months ago (edited)

Bunch of narcissists in charge running a mock!

c17360 , 2 months ago

McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within!

ryvr madduck , 2 months ago (edited)

When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own.

Mile high P , 2 months ago

Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours.

SanAntonioSlim , 2 months ago (edited)

The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.

Keith McCormick , 2 months ago

America's first attempted coup. Pure sedition.

Steve Jones , 2 months ago

Time to sweep the leg of the corruption in the FBI

Ronald Cates , 2 months ago

IT All LEADS BACK TO HILLARY

MegaRudyray , 2 months ago

When you fire the director, then tell people "I believe Putin".....yes, they are going to start investigating you.

Phillip Sumpter , 2 months ago

May the pendulum finally, please swing the other way into combating the true collusion happening on the Left.

billsd13 , 2 months ago

No questions from 60 Minutes regarding the FISA warrant and how that was a product of the Clinton campaign, and no questions along those lines.

tmc che , 2 months ago (edited)

Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.

MWV , 2 months ago (edited)

Well, I believe McCabe was questioned during hearings and didn't he deny all this under oath??? How has he not been Roger Stoned yet?

Brian P , 2 months ago

Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts.

James Christianson , 2 months ago

Former deep state Berryboma crony. One of many slated for hanging. One of many. Along with Berryboma.

noemi barrios , 2 months ago

oh so we should believe the liar McCabe who lied to congress and is under grand jury indictment! throw him in jail with comey!

tamimerkaz , 2 months ago

McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe, Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.

bigwaverider , 2 months ago

McCabe is still at it. He's got Russian derangement syndrome.

Otie Brown , 2 months ago

So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? That is dangerous to a demoncracy. It is not legal at all.

Tobias Forge , 2 months ago

Just image if Hillary was able to steal the election ... We'd still have an FBI and Justice Department full of traitors to America.

[May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor

Highly recommended!
McCabe came out of this interview as pretty capable and dangerous person
This is a soft-gloves interview by NYT presstitute who was instrument in sustaining Russiagate color revolution.
McCabe in this interview admits that he pushed for the appointment of the special prosecutor.
McCabe applied double standard to Hillary investigation. Before that he run politically charges investigation of FIFA
This can be classified as McCabe led coup d'état. See also Alan Dershowitz Talks about Andrew McCabe's 60 Minuets Interview - YouTube
Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Andrew McCabe intervied by NYT´s Adam Goldman After Words C-span Feb 26 2019 - YouTube

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.

[May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move...

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Mr. Barr's stolid demeanor during the Wednesday session was a refreshing reminder of what it means to be not insane in the long-running lunatic degeneration of national politics. ..."
"... In short and in effect, the Democratic Party itself is headed to trial on a vector that takes it straight into November next year. How do you imagine it will look to voters when Mr. Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, his NSA Director James Clapper, a baker's dozen of former Obama top FBI and DOJ officials, including former AG Loretta Lynch, and sundry additional players in the great game of RussiaGate Gotcha end up 'splainin' their guts out to a whole different cast of federal prosecutors? It's hardly out of the question that Barack Obama himself and Mrs. Clinton may face charges in all this mischief and depravity. ..."
"... It's a further irony of the moment that the suddenly leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, is neck-deep in that spilled garbage, the story unspooling even as I write that then-Veep Uncle Joe strong-armed the Ukraine government to fire its equivalent of Attorney General to quash an investigation of his son, Hunter, who received large sums of money from the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, which had mystifyingly appointed the young American to its board of directors after the US-sponsored overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

"Impeachment is too good for him," Nancy Pelosi declared of the president on Thursday after "his lapdog" - as she styled Attorney General William Barr - refused to be whipped by grandstanding Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. What did Madam Speaker have in mind then? Dragging Mr. Trump behind a Chevy Tahoe over four miles of broken light bulbs? Staking him onto a nest of fire ants? How about a beheading at the capable hands of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)?

Mr. Barr's stolid demeanor during the Wednesday session was a refreshing reminder of what it means to be not insane in the long-running lunatic degeneration of national politics.

Of course, the reason for the continued hysteria among Democrats is that the two-year solemn inquiry by the august former FBI Director, Mr. Mueller, is being revealed daily as a mendacious fraud with criminal overtones running clear through Democratic ranks beyond even the wicked Hillary Clinton to the sainted former president Obama, who may have supervised his party's collusion with foreign officials to interfere in the 2016 election.

Mr. Barr's hints that he intends to tip this dumpster of political subterfuge, to find out what was at the bottom of it, is being taken as a death threat to the Democratic Party, as well it should be. A lot of familiar names and faces will be rolling out of that dumpster into the grand juries and federal courtrooms just as the big pack of White House aspirants jets around the primary states as though 2020 might be anything like a normal election.

In short and in effect, the Democratic Party itself is headed to trial on a vector that takes it straight into November next year. How do you imagine it will look to voters when Mr. Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, his NSA Director James Clapper, a baker's dozen of former Obama top FBI and DOJ officials, including former AG Loretta Lynch, and sundry additional players in the great game of RussiaGate Gotcha end up 'splainin' their guts out to a whole different cast of federal prosecutors? It's hardly out of the question that Barack Obama himself and Mrs. Clinton may face charges in all this mischief and depravity.

It's surely true that the public is sick of the RussiaGate spectacle. (I know readers of this blog complain about it.) But it's no exaggeration to say that this is the worst and most tangled scandal that the US government has ever seen, and that failing to resolve it successfully really is an existential threat to the project of being a republic. I was a young newspaper reporter during Watergate and that was like a game of animal lotto compared to this garbage barge of malfeasance.

It's a further irony of the moment that the suddenly leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, is neck-deep in that spilled garbage, the story unspooling even as I write that then-Veep Uncle Joe strong-armed the Ukraine government to fire its equivalent of Attorney General to quash an investigation of his son, Hunter, who received large sums of money from the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, which had mystifyingly appointed the young American to its board of directors after the US-sponsored overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych.

That nasty bit of business comes immediately on top of information that the Hillary campaign was using its connections in Ukraine -- from her years at the State Department -- to traffic in political dirt on Mr. Trump, plus an additional intrigue that included payments to the Clinton Foundation of $25 million by Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. That was on top of contributions of $150 million that the Clinton Foundation had received earlier from Russian oligarchs around 2012.

Did they suppose that no one would ever notice? Or is it just a symptom of the desperation that has gripped the Democratic Party since the stunning election loss of 2016 made it impossible to suppress this titanic, bubbling vessel of fermented misdeeds? It seems more than merely possible that the entire Mueller Investigation was a ruse from the start to conceal all this nefarious activity. It is even more astounding to see exactly what a lame document the Mueller Report turned out to be. It was such a dud that even the Democratic senators and congresspersons who are complaining the loudest have not bothered to visit the special parlor set up at the Department of Justice for their convenience to read a much more lightly redacted edition of the report.

The mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. The wheels are in motion now and it's unlikely they will be stopped by mere tantrums. But the next move by the desperate Resistance may be to create so much political disorder in the system that they manage to delegitimize the 2020 election before it is even held, and plunge the nation deeper into unnecessary crisis just to try and save their asses.

[May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain

Highly recommended!
May 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Will Chamberlain via HumanEvents.com,

In June 2018, Bill Barr, then in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis, wrote a detailed legal memorandum to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This memo came to light in December, when Barr was nominated for Attorney General.

Reading Barr's June 2018 memo alongside the last twenty pages of the Mueller Report is a curious experience.

Together, they read like dueling legal briefs on the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) ; the type of material one would expect to see from adversarial appellate litigators.

So-why did Robert Mueller dedicate 20 pages of his report to a seemingly obscure question of statutory interpretation? Why did Bill Barr write a detailed legal memorandum to Rod Rosenstein about that very same statute?

And how, exactly, did Bill Barr know that that § 1512(c)(2) was central to Mueller's obstruction theory – in June 2018, when he was still in private practice at Kirkland?

After some consideration, I arrived at a theory that I believe answers these three questions, and others as well. For example – why was AG Jeff Sessions asked for his resignation the day after the midterms? Why was Bill Barr the only name ever seriously floated for AG? And is it merely a coincidence that six weeks after Barr's confirmation, the Mueller probe came to an end?

...

This is a story about a legal chess match played for the highest stakes imaginable: Trump's Presidency – and whether it would be under the cloud of an endless special counsel investigation – hinged on the result.

John Dowd, Ty Cobb, Jay Sekulow, and the rest of President Trump's personal legal team were on one side. Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, and the Special Counsel's office were on the other.

The dispute was a year-long struggle over the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).

No judge ever ruled on who was right about the meaning of this obstruction statute. No formal decision was ever rendered.

All the same, Trump's legal team prevailed on February 14, 2019.

That's the day William Pelham Barr was confirmed as United States Attorney General.

So why, exactly, was the interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) so contested?

Let's start by looking the statute, excerpted here:

(c) Whoever corruptly --

(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

(2) otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so [is guilty of the crime of obstruction]. (Emphasis added).

Why was this so important to Mueller?

...

In hindsight, however, it's clear that Barr was the assassin Democrats feared.

Within six weeks of his confirmation, the Mueller probe was over...

Read the full story here...

[Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté

Highly recommended!
"Russiagate without Russia" actually means "Isrealgate". This individual points that he mentions below does not matter. Russiagate was a carefully planned and brilliantly executed false flag operation run by intelligences agencies (with GB agencies playing an important in some episodes decisive role) and headed probably by Obama himself via Brennan. There were two goals: (1) to exclude any possibility of detente with Russia and (2) to block any Trump attempts to change the USA foreign policy including running foreign war that enrich Pentagon contractors and justify supersized budget for intelligence agencies. As such is was a great success.
The fact that no American was indicted and that Mueller attempt to prosecute Russian marketing agneces failed does not matter. The atmosphere is now posoned for a generation. Americans are brainwashed and residue of Russiagate will stay for a long, long time. Neocons Bolton and Pompeo now run Trump administration foreign policy with Trump performing most ceremonial role in foreign policy domain.
In this sense Skripals poisoning was another false flag operation, which was the logical continuation of Russiagate. And Magnitsky killing (with Browder now a primary suspect) was a precursor to it. Both were run from Great Britain.
It is actually interesting how Mueller report swiped under the carpet the role of Great Britain in unleashing the Russiagate hysteria.
Two important foreign forces in the 2016 US Presidential elections was the Israel lobby and Great Britain. Trump proved to be a marionette not of Russia but of Israeli lobby. so sad...
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later). ..."
Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible to believe that " The Walls Are Closing In " on the traitor / puppet / asset in the White House .

The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative -- and the expectations it fueled -- to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction. It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton, and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.

1. Russiagate Without Russia

The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two parties doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the report's release, The New York Times noted that among the "outstanding questions" that Mueller would answer were the nature of "contacts between Kremlin intermediaries and the Trump campaign."

Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later).

It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call. These powerful Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect." If top Russians did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they supposedly conspired with, perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.

To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a "Russiagate without Russia." Instead we have a series of interactions where Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to the Russian government. But none of these "links," "ties," or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting with a Kremlin intermediary. Russiagate promoters have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track every known instance in which someone in Trump's orbit interacted with " the Russians ," or someone who can be linked to them . There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian national -- but there is something xenophobic about implying as much.

2. Russiagate's Predicate Led Nowhere

The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation. During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos that "the Russians" had obtained "thousands of emails" containing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That information made its way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an intermediary between Trump and Russia .

But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says that Papadopoulos "understood Mifsud to have substantial connections to high-level Russian government officials," it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections. Since Mifsud's suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBI's initial Trump-Russia investigation, that is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators when they interviewed him in February 2017 -- but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. Thus, even the interaction that sparked the Russia-collusion probe did not reveal collusion.

3. Sergey Kislyak Had "Brief and Non-Substantive" Interactions With the Trump Camp

Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyak's interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events "were brief, public, and non-substantive." As for Kislyak's much – ballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it "included any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign." When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention, Mueller "did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."

The same goes for Kislyak's post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making "false statements and omissions" in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an election-related payoff or " quid pro quo " with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynn's indictment: What Flynn hid from agents was that he had "called Kislyak to request Russian restraint" in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration, and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting the absence of evidence that Flynn "possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive to end the FBI's inquiry into Flynn's conduct."

4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow

The November 2018 indictment of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy, for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trump's personal knowledge of his company's failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohen's admitted lies were proof that " Trump is compromised by Russia ," " full stop ."

But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen, the report notes, "requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with financing." The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, spoke with Cohen by phone after he e-mailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, "Cohen could not recall any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsel's] Office identify any evidence of direct follow-up."

5. and Trump Didn't Ask Cohen to Lie About It

The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also rejects a related impeachment-level "bombshell." In January, BuzzFeed News reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump "directed" Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to Mueller, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony," and that Cohen himself testified "that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow project would be or was false." In a de-facto retraction, BuzzFeed updated its story with an acknowledgment of Mueller's conclusion .

6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a "Waste of Time"

The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was widely dubbed the " Smoking Gun ." An e-mail chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." But the pitch did not come from the meeting's Russian participants, but instead from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented "publicist puff" to secure the meeting, because in reality, as he told NPR , "I had no idea what I was talking about."

Mueller noted that Trump Jr.'s response "showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]." The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a "waste of time," and requested that his assistants "call him to give him an excuse to leave." Accordingly, when "Veselnitskaya made additional efforts to follow up on the meeting," after the election, "the Trump Transition Team did not engage."

7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election

In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and discussing a Ukraine peace plan with a Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller, the FBI "assesses" that Kilimnik has unspecified "ties to Russian intelligence." To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed " the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion " and even the " Russian collusion smoking gun ."

Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling data and Russia's interference in the election," and, moreover, "did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts." Mueller noted that he "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing" the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated by proving his financial value to former and future clients.

Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First, Mueller did not join media pundits in asserting such about Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, "ties to Russian intelligence," Mueller offered up a list of " pieces of the Office's Evidence" that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him.

8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction

The Steele dossier -- a collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia criminal relationship -- played a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent politicians , pundits , and media outlets promoted it as credible .

The Mueller report, The New York Times noted last week , has "underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove." Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it "believes that [Russia's] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with" the Trump campaign. The Mueller report, however, could "not establish that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."

The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy reported to much fanfare that Mueller's team "has evidence" that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen "never traveled to Prague."

After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report "did not establish that" the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was "undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia."

9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks

In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Mueller's indictment actually showed that Stone had no communications with WikiLeaks before the election and no privileged information about its releases . Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stone -- a fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its e-mail dumps.

Mueller's final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stone's pending trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign, and Stone -- and came up empty. New reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far their farcical efforts went. The Mueller team devoted time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Mueller's prosecutors "spent weeks coaxing, cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories," the Post reports. "At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself." It is unsurprising that this led Mueller's prosecutors to ultimately declare, according to Corsi's attorney, "We can't use any of this."

10. There Was No Cover-Up

The Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years; it puts to rest the most popular, recent one: that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a cover-up . According to the dominant narrative, Barr was somehow concealing Mueller's damning evidence , while Mueller, even more improbably, stayed silent.

One could argue that Barr's summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Mueller's report does "not exonerate" Trump. It was Mueller's decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees, it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Mueller's office assisted with Barr's redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged, extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the report's contents.

In the end, Mueller's report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and media establishments to be a work of fiction . The American public was presented with a far different picture from what was expected, because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of others. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day.

It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy theory ultimately collapsed. The scale of the wreckage, confirmed by Mueller's report, may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal.

[Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
"... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
"... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
"... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
"... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
"... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
"... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
"... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
"... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
"... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
"... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
"... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
"... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
"... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
"... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
"... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
"... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019 20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States, including to this day, will be exposed.

The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.

"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."

The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians. It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth, or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.

Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done.

A New Cultural Paradigm

The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.

The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:

"I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the working level are great."

There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects for world peace, stated:

"Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."

This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.

It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.

The Truth Set Free

President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free.

The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence,

"The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."

DOCUMENTATION

While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.

The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here can be found on our website.

The Russian Hack That Wasn't

The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak, rather than a hack conducted over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency, becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0, who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.

Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.

The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab (DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.

The British Target Trump

According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence, the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's direction.

This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control.

Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum. Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.

In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.

In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend" of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.

A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations, and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.

Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier. They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing could be further from the truth.

MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare

On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst. He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the friend were having coffee.

The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.

Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.

As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.

Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia.

The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.

This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.

Sign the Petition: President Trump, Declassify the Docs on the British Role in Russiagate

Robert , April 24, 2019 at 14:35

"in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"

Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.

David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14

"This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."

Absolutely correct.

Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University, my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent that dark "art".

Eileen Kuch , April 24, 2019 at 18:13

Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University – his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.

CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15

Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.

There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since she could be bought. Trump can't.

What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.

Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.

Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly as possible.

So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.

The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.

They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.

In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they needed to try and hide what really happened.

So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.

'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.

Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.

The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.

1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.

2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.

Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with the elections. NONE.

They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.

So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion, Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..

Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?

Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.

There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.

That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!

So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?

He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.

The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.

His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.

Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.

They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.

The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.

It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.

The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

"Russia'.

So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?

A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.

And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)

B: Russians hacked the DNC.

That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.

Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.

It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the Presidency.

That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!

In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.

That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.

Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump Campaign'.

Let's go a bit deeper still.

Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?

After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.

If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP the real crime', what would happen?

They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.

They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all THEY were the criminals.

They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.

That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all that.

They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created LIE.

That LIE = the Insurance Policy.

What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.

Although true, that is only A.

They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying on him!

The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.

What's the punishment for Treason?

About Assange and Seth Rich.

Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.

Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.

If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.

No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.

Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48

While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.

Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.

boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13

RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
:::

Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
JUL 30, 2007

I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:

O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed, O'Neal said

In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:

News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.

If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.

Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as snipers, too.

If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire until the family forced them to do otherwise.
This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:

As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself, but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like, 'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'

(Maybe the Congress can )

////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force / and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.

\\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life" they've been alleged/assigned.

/// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
(WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???

!!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????

AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover

Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.

"Capitalism and Altruism
are incompatible
capitalism and altruism
cannot coexist in man,
or in the same society".

President Trump represents
Stark & Total Capitalism
Just as "Conservative Party"
Core is in The Confederacy
AKA; The RIGHT WING

The Right Wing of US Gov't
Is All About PRESERVING
Confederate States' Laws
Written by Thomas Jefferson

Prior to The Constitution, which
became the Received/Judicial
Constitutional Law of the Land in
The Republic of the "United States"

Elizabeth K. Burton , April 23, 2019 at 12:50

It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them down? They get weapons and start killing people.

There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit. Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation". Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.

The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters, the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."

In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.

Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14

Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner

Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38

Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know:
1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the campaign.

-daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.

Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36

The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.

It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.

War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.

Herman , April 22, 2019 at 11:09

The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory truth effect will include this truth.

Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00

>>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."

The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.

Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?

Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55

That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers.

All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.

Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21

I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.

[Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney

Highly recommended!
It's a dog & pony show. Trump folded very quickly, in april 2017 or three moth after inauguration. He proved to be no fighter, a weakling, a marionette. Appointment of Bolton and Pompeo just added insult to injury. this is classic bait and switch similar to what was executed by Obama after then election. In a way Trump is a Republican version of Obama.
I wonder if he did not want to fight to the death and sacrifice himself for the course, why he entered the Presidential race at all ? He is not stupid enough not to understand the he will be covered with dirt and all skeletons in his closet will be dug out for display by the US intelligence agencies, which protect that interest of Wall Street and MIC (Israel is a part of the US MIC -- its biggest lobbyist and beneficiary) , not the USA as a sovereign state.
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. ..."
"... To help sabotage Trump's political agenda ..."
"... To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election ..."
"... And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia. ..."
"... These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor. ..."
"... The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington. ..."
"... "We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will." ..."
"... Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., ..."
"... Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her? ..."
"... War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!" ..."
"... Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face? ..."
"... Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"? ..."
"... There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized. ..."
"... Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose. ..."
"... It's a dog & pony show. ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

Why did Robert Mueller end the Russia investigation when he did? He could have let it drag it out for another year or so and severely hurt Trump's chances for reelection. But he didn't do that. Why?

Of course, we're assuming that the investigation was never intended to uncover the truth. If it was, then Mueller would have interviewed Julian Assange, Craig Murray and retired members of the Intelligence Community (Ray McGovern, Bill Binney) who have shown that the Podesta emails were leaked by an insider (on a thumbdrive) not hacked by foreign agents. Mueller would have also seized the servers at DNC headquarters and done the necessary forensic investigation, which he never did.

He also would have indicted senior-level agents at the FBI and DOJ who improperly obtained FISA warrants by withholding critical information from the FISA court. He didn't do that either.

Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. So, here they are:

  1. To help sabotage Trump's political agenda
  2. To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election
  3. And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia.

These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor.

The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington.

My question is simply this: Why did Mueller give up all that power when he did?

I think I can answer that, but first, we need a little more background. Check out this quote from candidate Trump in 2016:

"We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will."

Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., and now this upstart, New York real estate tycoon is promising to do a complete 180 and move in another direction altogether. No more destabilizing coups, no more bloody military interventions, instead, we're going to work collaboratively with countries like Russia and China to see if we can settle regional disputes and fight terrorism together? Really?

At the same time Trump was promising this new era of "peace, understanding, and good will," Hillary Clinton was issuing her war whoop at every opportunity. Here's candidate Hillary trying to drum up support for taking on the Russians in Syria:

"The situation in Syria is catastrophic. And every day that goes by, we see the results of the Assad regime in partnership with the Iranians on the ground, and the Russians in the air When I was Secretary of State, I advocated and I advocate today a no-fly zone and safe zones."

Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her?

"We have to work more closely with our partners and allies on the ground," boomed Hillary, meaning that she fully supported the continued use of jihadist proxies in the fight against Assad. "I do think the use of special forces, the use of enablers and trainers in Iraq, which has had some positive effects, are very much in our interests, and so I do support what is happening."

War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!"

So, what changed? Trump changed.

Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face?

The same thing happened in Korea. For a while it looked like Trump was serious about cutting a deal with Kim Jong un. But then, sometime after the first summit, he began to backpeddle. He never honored any of his commitments under the Panmunjom Declaration and he never reciprocated for Kim's cessation of all nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing. Trump has made no effort to "build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula" or to strengthen trust between the two leaders. Then, at the Hanoi Summit, Trump blindsided Kim by making demands that had never even been previously discussed. Kim was told that the North must destroy all of its chemical and biological weapons as well as its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs before the US will take reciprocal steps. In other words, Trump demanded that Kim completely and irreversibly disarm with the feint hope that the US would eventually lift sanctions.

Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"?

Yes, that was Trump's campaign promise. So, what happened?

There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized.

Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose.

Is that why Mueller let Trump off the hook? Was there a quid pro quo: "You follow our foreign policy directives and we'll make Mueller disappear?

It sure looks like it. play_arrow 2 Reply Report

Ajax-1 , 24 minutes ago link

Why? Because logical clear thinking Americans have Russia fatigue. The Deep State knows that the longer the Witch Hunt lasts, the stronger Trump gets.

stant , 24 minutes ago link

the report was finished last august. hed got all the juice in that squeeze. but i also guess he got a call from somebodys in the GOG mafia[continuity of .gov] deepstate after all is their little bitch

youshallnotkill , 27 minutes ago link

Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook? Why did Epstein only get a slap on the wrist? Why is his lawyer defending Trump on air ? Why did the MSM never look into the credible allegations against Clinton and Trump with regards to Epstein ?

I have an inkling that the answer to these questions is all one and the same.

PopeRatzo , 30 minutes ago link

Donald Trump sure isn't acting like someone who's been "let off the hook".

Francis Marx , 38 minutes ago link

Maybe it just worked out the way it did and there is no conspiracy on Mueller's part.

nmewn , 28 minutes ago link

Likely.

He had to stop before he implicated himself. For instance, still waiting on "the why" he never put Steele or McCabe or Hillary or Perkins Coie or Rosenstein or Comey etc under oath when it was...THEY... who supplied false evidence to a FISA court , "evidence gathered" (according to Steele) from...ta daaah!...Russians ;-)

LetThemEatRand , 36 minutes ago link

You can drive yourself crazy wondering whether it was all theater from the start, or whether they put a gun to the head of the guy who was going to expose it was theater until he started playing along. End result, theater.

Stop buying tickets.

Lord Raglan , 2 minutes ago link

exactly. Just like you can wonder why Justice John Roberts turned on Obamacare and **** on conservatives. Was he sincere or did he get a 3:00 am phone call that if he didn't uphold it, his wife and kids would die in an unfortunate accident?

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 38 minutes ago link

If you have to ask...perhaps you're a moron. It's a dog & pony show.

nmewn , 33 minutes ago link

"Let Him Off The Hook?"

Oh, I dunno...maybe because even with a crack team of demoncraft operatives, Deep State Hillary deadenders and a limitless supply of federal funding even they couldn't come up with "Russian collusion" because...none ever existed? ;-)

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
"... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
"... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
"... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School, are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's cooperation with it."

Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale and basically ineffective.

One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would be taking a very hard line against Moscow.

The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be sentenced tomorrow .

Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy. Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.

Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and return home.

FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing."

Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment, hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities, turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal investigators before and after her guilty plea.

Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.

Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.

Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.

Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it.

As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel. Noam Chomsky described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."

Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .

[Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda

Highly recommended!
"Carnage needs to destroyed" mentality is dominant among the USA neoliberal elite and drives the policy toward Russia.
They all supported neoconservative extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda directed on weakening Russian and establishing of world dominance. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
Notable quotes:
"... There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this. ..."
"... This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya. ..."
"... And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. ..."
"... Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky. ..."
"... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
"... I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence". ..."
"... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
"... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
"... Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ..."
"... They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040 ..."
"... In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. ..."
"... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union ..."
"... About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS ..."
"... No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming. ..."
"... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
"... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
"... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
"... IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war. ..."
"... The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. ..."
"... A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella. ..."
"... Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear. ..."
Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'

In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background, which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.'

There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.

This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.

And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area.

Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.

The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.

In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry – the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.

Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier, which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.

(See http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/20/what-really-happened-robert-levinson-cia-iran-454803.html .)

Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio 4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets, backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.

The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available – evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.

Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.

What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest a sale had been completed.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.

All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder. For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.

(On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews both with Mogilevich and Levinson at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_06_12_99.txt )

In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.

Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions north of the Litani.

These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.

What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.

Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking 'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.

Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.

So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster.

All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate Russia in supplying materials.

There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)

It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional, Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.

It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here, a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.

Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.

In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.

Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain, but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)

That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:

'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear limited life components and you can read for weeks).'

(For this and other articles by Kaszeta, as also his bio, see http://strongpointsecurity.co.uk ')

What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility, in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of ones which lasted longer.

For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.

What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.

In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'

According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?

As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.

In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties, and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another day.

A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.

Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.

Posted at 03:42 PM in As The Borg Turns , Habakkuk , Russia , Russiagate | Permalink

james , 03 February 2018 at 04:33 PM

thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..

it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..

JohnB , 03 February 2018 at 05:17 PM
David,

Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.

turcopolier , 03 February 2018 at 06:02 PM
james

It is the closest of all international intelligence relationships. It started in WW2. Before that the Brits were though of as a potential enemy. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 03 February 2018 at 06:10 PM
I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One.
The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
catherine , 03 February 2018 at 06:22 PM
That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.

Re: Levinson

# Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.

# Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson went to Jablonski with it.

# And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson? The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing came of it.

I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.

Ishmael Zechariah , 03 February 2018 at 06:54 PM
DH,

As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.

I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".

Be safe.

Ishmael Zechariah

Rd , 03 February 2018 at 07:31 PM
Babak Makkinejad said in reply to turcopolier...

The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
..and US is the one who has been paying for it since 1979!!!

kooshy said in reply to Ishmael Zechariah... , 03 February 2018 at 08:21 PM
IZ
My guess is, that he is unpredictable, instantaneous and therefore can't be consistent and reliable, useful idiot needs to be predictable.
kooshy , 03 February 2018 at 08:43 PM
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. "

David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making. Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

different clue , 03 February 2018 at 08:49 PM
Ishmael Zechariah,

( reply to comment 6),

I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.

It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate.

And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.

So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

Jack , 03 February 2018 at 08:54 PM
David,

Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.

In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.

Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century endorsed her.

Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in. Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling the Borg pundits.

SmoothieX12 -> kooshy... , 03 February 2018 at 09:51 PM
So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. This swamp (Borg, deep state, etc.) still thinks that it can use Cold War 1.0 Playbook and address very real and dangerous American economic issues. They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with.

Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:10 PM
They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:24 PM
You are right CWII is very much desired and on agenda, but i am not sure of setup, the setup/board has been changed tremendously and IMO benefits the Asian side of Bosphorus, for one thing technology is no longer exclusive, and financial burden is heavier on atlantic side.
catherine said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:21 AM
''Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ''

The locust keep trying and trying, destruction is their life's work.

'1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'

In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241, 251 - 256]

'November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union'

State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union

aleksandar , 04 February 2018 at 04:41 AM
David,

About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS.

Fred said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 08:40 AM
Babak,

"they got US to bail them out during WWII" And how would things have worked out had we not done so?

Fred , 04 February 2018 at 08:46 AM
David,

"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time."

Yes, that is what appears to be just what is coming to light. I wonder just what position Trey Gowdy is going to have since he won't be running for re-election. The rage from the left is palpable. I'm sure the next outraged guy on the left will know how to shoot straighter than the ones who shot up Congressman Scalise or the concert goers at Mandalay Bay.

Anna said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 08:48 AM
"They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with."
-- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
turcopolier , 04 February 2018 at 08:54 AM
Anna

The powerful are often remarkably ignorant. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> Fred... , 04 February 2018 at 10:08 AM
England preferred NAZI Germany to USSR, this is well known. As to what would have happened, the outcome of the war, in my opinion, did not depend on US participation in the European Theatre. All of Europe would have become USSR satellite or joined USSR.
jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 11:53 AM
"unsentimental empirical people"? Absolutely disagree with you. Now the Iranians, they strike me as a singularity unsentimental people. Just general impressions, mind you.
Kooshy said in reply to catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
Yes, US was the first country to proudly deliver Manpads to be used by "rebels" (Mojahadin later Taleban) against USSR in Afghanistan back in 80s. And, as per the architect of support for the rebels (Zbigniew Brzezinski) very proud of it with no regret. With that in mind, I don't see how western politicians, the western governments and their related proxy war planers, will be regretting, even sadden, once god forbid we see passenger planes with loved ones are shot down taking off or landing at various western airports and other places around the word. Just like how superficialy with crocodile tears in their eyes they acted in aftermath of the terrorist events in various western cities in this past 16 years. Gods knows what will happens to us if the opposite side start to supply his own proxies with lethal anti air weapons. "Proudly", I don't think anybody in west cares or will regret of such an escalation.
Phodges said in reply to turcopolier ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:23 PM
Sir

It seems we are being defeated by Cicero's enemy within. Zion is achieving what no one could hope to achieve by force of arms.

David Habakkuk -> catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 01:17 PM
catherine,

In response to comment 5.

I think it likely that what Meier produces is only a 'limited hangout', and am hoping that when the book arrives it will contain more pointers.

It is important to be clear that one is often dealing with people playing very complicated double games.

An interesting document is the 'Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus' made on behalf of Khodorkovsky's close associate Alexander Konanykhin back in 1997,when the Immigration and Naturalization Service were – apparently at least – cooperating with Russian attempts to get hold of him. An extract:

'During the immigration hearing FBI SA Robert Levinson, an INS witness, confirmed that in 1992 Petitioner was kidnapped and afterwards pursued by assassins of the Solntsevskaya organized criminal group. This organized criminal group is reportedly the largest and the most influential organized criminal group in Russia, and operates internationally.'

(See http://defiancethebook.com/legal/habeas/petition.htm .)

Note the similarities between the 'StratCom' that Khonanykin and his associates were producing in the 'Nineties, and that which Simpson and his associates have been producing two decades later.

Another useful example is provided by a 2004 item in the 'New American Magazine', reproduced on Konanykhin's website:

'One of those who testified on behalf of Konanykhine was KGB defector Yuri Shvets, who declared: "I have a firsthand knowledge on similar operations conducted by the KGB." Konanykhine had brought trouble on himself, Shvets continued, when he "started bringing charges against people who were involved with him in setting up and running commercial enterprises. They were KGB people secretly smuggling from Russia hundreds of millions of dollars . This is [a] serious case, and I know that KGB ... desperately wants to win this case, and everybody who won't step to their side would face problems."'

(See http://konanykhin.com/news/the-konanykhine-case.html .)

So – 'first hand knowledge', from a Ukrainian nationalist – look at what the Chalupas have been doing, it seems not much has changed.

For a rather different perspective on what Konanykhin had actually been up to, from someone in whose honesty – if not always judgement – I have complete confidence, see the testimony of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson to the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services hearings on Russian Money Laundering. In this, she described how she had been approached by him in 1993:

'"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [Ł1bn] in assets and investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent political and social elite," she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and asked her to help buy foreign passports for its "very, very special clients".

'In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that it believed Mr Konanykhine and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials".

(For a 'Guardian report, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/23/julianborger ; for the actual testimony, see http://archives-financialservices.house.gov/banking/92299ger.pdf .)

Coming back to Steele's 'StratCom', in July 2008, an item appeared on the 'Newnight' programme of the BBC – which some of us think should by then have been rechristened the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – in which the introduction by the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, read as follows:

'Good evening. The New Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, was all smiles and warm words when he met Gordon Brown today. He said he was keen to resolve all outstanding difficulties between the two countries. Yada yada yada. Gordon Brown smiled, but he must know what Newsnight can now reveal: that MI5 believes the Russian state was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive poisoning. They also believe that without their intervention another London-based Russian, Boris Berezovsky, would have been murdered. Our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, has this exclusive report.'

(For the transcript presented in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, see http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ )

When Urban repeated the claims on his blog, there was a positive eruption from someone using the name 'timelythoughts', about the activities of someone she referred to as 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist' – when I came across this later, it was immediately clear to me that she was Karon von Gerhke, and he was Shvets.

(For the first part of the exchanges of comments, the second apparently having become unavailable, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/markurban/2008/07/litvinenko_killing_had_state_i.html )

She then described a visit by Scaramella to Washington, details of which had already been unearthed by my Italian collaborator, David Loepp. Her claim to have e-mails from Shvets, from the time immediately prior to Litvinenko's death, directly contradicting the testimony he had given, fitted with other evidence I had already unearthed.

Later, we exchanged e-mails over a quite protracted period, and a large amount of material that came into my possession as a result was submitted by me to the Inquest team, with some of it being used in posts on the 'European Tribune' site.

What I never used publicly, because I could only partially corroborate it from the material she provided, was an extraordinary claim about Shvets:

'He was responsible for bringing in a Kremlin initiative that was walked Vice President Cheney's office on a US government quid pro quo with the Kremlin FSB SVR involving the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – a cease and desist on allegations of a politically motivated arrest of Khodorkovsky, violations of rules of law and calls from Russia's expulsion from the G 8 in exchange for favorable posturing of U.S. oil companies on Gazprom's Shtokman project and intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria, all documented in reports I submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and MI6.

'Berezovsky's DS could not be on both sides on that isle. His Kremlin FSB SVR sources had been vetted by the CIA and by the National Security Council. They proved to be as represented. As we would later learn, however, he was on Berezovsky's payroll at same time. The FSB SVR general he was coordinating the Kremlin initiative through was S. R. Subbotin, the same FSB SVR general who was investigating Berezovsky's money laundering operations in Switzerland during the same timeframe. His FSB SVR sources surrounding Putin were higher than any Lugovoy could have ever hoped to affiliate with.

'R. James Woolsey (former CIA DCI), Marshall Miller (former law partner of the late CIA DCI William Colby), who I coordinated the Kremlin initiative through that Berezovsky's DS had brought in were shocked to learn that he was affiliated with Berezovsky and Litvinenko. He was in Berezovsky's inner circle and engaged in vetting Russian business with Litvinenko. He operated Berezovsky's Ukraine website, editing and dubbing the now infamous Kuchma tapes throughout the lead up to the elections in the Ukraine. Berezovsky contributed $41 million to Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, which he used in an attempt to force Yushchenko to reunite with Julia Tymoschenko. It failed but would succeed later after Berezovsky orchestrated a public relations initiative through Alan Goldfarb in the U.S. on behalf of Tymoschenko.'

Having got to know Karon von Gerhke quite well, and also been able to corroborate a great deal of what she told me about many things, and discussed these matters with her, it is absolutely clear to me that she was neither fabricating nor fantasising. What later became apparent, both to her and to me, was that in the 'double game' that Shvets was playing, he had succeeded in fooling her as to the side for which he was working.

It seems likely however that the reason Shvets could do what he did was that quite precisely that many high-up people in the Kremlin and elsewhere were playing a 'double game.' In this, Karon von Gerhke's propensity for indiscretion – of which I, like others, was both beneficiary and victim – could be useful.

An exercise in 'positioning', which could be used to disguise the fact that Shvets was indeed 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist', could be used to make it appear that 'intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria' was actually credible.

This could have been used to try to rescue Cheney, Bush and their associates from the mess they had got into as a result of the failure of the invasion to provide any evidence whatsoever supporting the case which had been made for it. It could also have been used to provide the kind of materials justifying military action against Iran for which Levinson and Jablonski were looking, and for similar action against Syria.

Among reasons for bringing this up now is that we need to make sense of the paradox that Simpson – clearly in collusion with Steele – was using Mogilevich and the 'Solnsetskaya Bratva' both against Manafort and Trump and against Browder.

There are various possible explanations for this. I do not want to succumb to my instinctive prejudice that this may have been another piece of 'positioning', similar to what I think was being done with Shvets, but the hypothesis needs to be considered.

A more general point is that people in Washington and London need to 'wise up' to the kind of world with which they are dealing. This could be done quite enjoyably: reading some of Dashiell Hammett's fictions of the United States in the Prohibition era, or indeed buying DVDs of some of the classics of 'film noir', like 'Out of the Past' (in its British release, 'Build My Gallows High') might be a start.

Very much of the coverage of affairs in the post-Soviet space since 1991 has read rather as though a Dashiell Hammett story had been rewritten by someone specialising in sentimental children's, or romantic, fiction (although, come to think of it, that is really what Brigid O'Shaughnessy does in 'The Maltese Falcon.')

The testimony of Glenn Simpson seems a case in point. The sickly sentimentality of these people does, rather often, make one feel as though one wanted to throw up.

Thomas , 04 February 2018 at 01:24 PM
"They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.}

No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming.

SmoothieX12 -> Anna... , 04 February 2018 at 01:39 PM
- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.

My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.

Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.

Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.

james said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 February 2018 at 03:01 PM
there seems to be no shortage of money for these blatant propaganda exercises..
Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 04:14 PM
I think the failure of Deciders is nothing new - Fath Ali Shah attacking Russia, or the abject failure of the Deciders in 1914. Europe is still not where she was in 1890.
begob , 04 February 2018 at 05:20 PM
I read the post and responses early on, so forgive me if this point has been addressed in the meantime. If the memo information on non-disclosure of material evidence to the warrant issuing court is accurate, as soon as that information came to the attention of the authorities (clearly some time ago) there was a duty on them (including the judge(s) who issued the warrants) to have the matter brought back before the court toot sweet. If that had happened it would surely be in the public domain, so on the assumption the prosecutors and maybe even the judge didn't see the need to review the matter, even purely on a contempt/ethics basis, the memo information only seems convincing if the FISA system is a total sham. I really doubt that.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 06:20 PM
IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war.

The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. As I remember that wasn't the case at the end of VN war when i first landed here. At that time even though the war was on the other side of the planet and away from homeland, still people, especially young ones in colleges were paying more attention to the cost of war.

spy killer , 04 February 2018 at 06:55 PM
Diana West has uncovered some interesting "Red Threads" (6 part article at dianawest-dot-net) on all the Fusion GPS folks. Seems ole Russian speaking Nellie Ohr got herself a ham radio license recently. Wonder why she would suddenly need one of those? They are all Marxists with potential connections back to Russia.
English Outsider -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 07:23 AM
Been there. I am also a latecomer to SST. You have to read the back numbers. How? My IT expertise dates from the dawn of the internet and was lamentable then but I find Wayback sometimes allows easier searches than the SST search engine. A straight search on google also allows searches with more than one term. This link -

https://twitter.com/pat_lang

- gets you to a chronological list and for recent material is sometimes quicker than fiddling around with search engines. "Categories" on the RH side is useful but then you don't get some very informative comments that cross-refer.

If those sadly elementary procedures fail resort to the nearest infant. There's a blur of fingers on the keyboard and what you want then usually appears. Never ask them how they did it. They get so fed up when you ask them to explain it again.

"Who is David Habakkuk?" That's a quantum computer sited, from internal evidence you pick up from time to time, somewhere in the Greater London area. Cross references like you wouldn't believe and over several fields, so maybe he's two quantum computers.

The "Borg"?. Try Wittgenstein. Likely a prog but you can't be choosy these days. Early on in "Philosophical Investigations" (hope I get this right) he discusses the problem of how you can view as an entity something that has ill-defined or overlapping boundaries. The "Borg" is that "you know it when you see it" sort of thing. A great merit of this site is that the owner and many of the contributors know it from inside.

In general you may regard your new found site as a microcosm of the great battle that is raging in the West. It's a battle between the (probably apocryphal but adequately stated) Roveian view of reality that regards truth as an adjunct to or as a by-product of ideology and Realpolitik and the objective view of reality as something that is damned difficult to get at, and sometimes impossible, but that has a truth in it somewhere that is independent of the views and convictions of the observer. It's a battle that's never going to be won but unless it tilts back closer to common sense it can certainly be lost and the West with it.

jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 08:11 AM
Clearly the Labor Party in the UK preferred the USSR to Nazi Germany. (cepting that short interlude where the Soviets signed the Agreement with Hitler, and the Left Organized Leadership all across Europe, for the most part, lined up with Hitler). But for the most part, Labor was Left.
Elements (the ones that won out in the end) of the Conservative Party loathed both Hitler and Stalin. An element of the Conservative Party was sympathetic, but only up to a certain point, with the Nazis. This ended in 1939, sept.

So I don't think it fair, or accurate, to say 'England prefered the Nazis....and even if it not those things, it certainly not "well known", except to the people who have used the false premise to butter their wounds from supporting Stalin in his Pact with Hitler. Or are inclined to bash the British in general.

Babak Makkinejad -> jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 08:29 AM
All right, perhaps I should have said "The English Government". Google "Litvinov", you may discover how the English Government pushed Stalin to make a deal with Hitler to buy USSR time.
Sid Finster said in reply to Jack... , 05 February 2018 at 10:26 AM
Witness the infamous State Department protest memo calling for more war on Syria.

The State Department employees that signed that memo were sure that HRC would win and that their diligent work in pushing the Deep State agenda would sure be rewarded.

Since entering office, Trump appears to have taken the line that if he gives the Deep State everything it demands, he will be allowed to remain in office, even if he is not allowed to remain in power.

Sid Finster said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 05 February 2018 at 10:31 AM
Explain Marshall Miller's role in this, please. He is someone I know quite well. I also know one of the Chalupas.
begob said in reply to jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 10:56 AM
jonst That's broadly accurate, but specifically Attlee brought the motion of no confidence in Chamberlain, which the conservative appeasers won but which led to Churchill's opportunity. Attlee was essential in cabinet to Churchill's resistance after the retreat of the BEF.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 11:18 AM
FM
What are you doing here? You said you dislike the military. Are you really in the Spanish Basque country? Bilbao maybe? break - David Habakkuk is a private scholar of the Litvinenko murder and Soviet/Russian politics and intelligence affairs. His surname comes from Wales where in the 18th (?) Century the ancestral village were all "chapel" and changed their surnames to Old Testament names. His father was master of one of the Cambridge colleges and David is himself a graduate of Cambridge. pl
Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 11:19 AM
Yes, I am Iranian. All "Babak"s are Iranians - except some obscure ones that are Rus - Babakov.
Anna , 05 February 2018 at 02:07 PM
The hard, blinding truth: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/05/will-conspiracy-trump-american-democracy-go-unpunished/
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Thomas said in reply to turcopolier ... , 05 February 2018 at 02:08 PM
Colonel,

This troll showed up recently at b's place doing the same accusations. There is group that is running sacred and pulling out all the stops in "info ops" side of the spectrum. The damn fools don't or, most probably, won't get thru their thick heads and even thicker hearts that it is a failed strategy that turns bystanders into their opponents.

Richardstevenhack , 05 February 2018 at 02:36 PM
Here for your edification is the definitive analysis of the GOP memo by Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran.

And it is a masterpriece - and quite long, possibly his longest analysis of anything so far. He buries the counterarguments being passed around by the Democratic opposition and the anti-Trump media.

Mercouris writes on legal affairs alongside his foreign policy stuff and he writes with a lawyer's precision. And in this article he points out that the GOP memo is writter as a legal document - probably by Trey Gowdy - with additional political insertions by Nunes. So it should properly be referred to as the "GOP memo" or the "Gowdy memo", not the Nunes memo."

Why this is important is that the GOP memo is basically written as a defense lawyer would in contesting a case -- this case being the FISA warrant application. Which means its orientation is proving failure to disclose relevant and material information to the FISA court and in some cases rising to the point of contempt of court.

Seriously, read this! The whole thing!

Rampant abuse and possible contempt of Court: what you need to know about the GOP memo
http://theduran.com/rampant-abuse-contempt-court-analysis-gop-memorandum/

blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 03:25 PM
Sen Grassley releases memo heavily redacted by DOJ/FBI.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-05/grassley-graham-blast-fbi-censoring-memo-calling-criminal-probe-trump-dossier

"Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging," Grassley said in a statement after posting a heavily redacted version of the criminal referral that he and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent to the Justice Department last month. " The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn't secret. "

I suppose DOJ/FBI believe that by obstructing, stalling and obfuscating they can buy time and that the Republicans in Congress will get tired of the games and go home. This seems like a pretty straightforward memo, highlighting the discrepancy between Steele's court filings and the FBI's version of Steele's discussions with them. Grassley is pointing out that either Steele or the FBI is lying.

What is interesting is the difference in process and ability between the House & Senate. The House can release their memos on its own, even if not declassified by the Executive, whereas the Senate requires the Executive to declassify it's memos that are based on classified documents.

turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 04:38 PM
FM

We have not had a self declared communist on SST before although LeaNder in her youth may have come close to that exalted status. You might want to read the wiki on me and the CV I have posted on the blog to avoid tedious accusations of this or that. I am thought by some to have some knowledge of the ME so please do not try to lecture me about how much you love the Arabs. I speak their language and have lived with them for a long time. There are people who write to SST who are pro-Trump and some who are anti-Trump. I seek a mixture of views so long as personal insult and invective are eschewed. Personally, I do not belong to a political party and would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Trump is the constitutionally and legally elected president of the United States. Your descriptors with regard to him are, in my opinion, only plausible if seen from the point of view of various kinds of leftist including Marxist-Leninists like you. You sound very smug and self-satisfied but we will see if you can have an open mind at all. pl

Kooshy said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 04:46 PM
Found him, Ali Babacan XVPM, XFM and M of finance. Yes god forbid, if he is a decendent of Ardisher Babakan and another claimant to Iranian throne, which CIA and Soros can jump on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Babacan MBA from Northeestern
blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 04:55 PM
...would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Aye. Aye. Sir!

+1

That is why some of us believe the Patriot Act and FISA are both unpatriotic and unconstitutional. SCOTUS disagrees with the few of us.

Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 05:03 PM
I do not believe Trump is a misogynists - he stated publicly that he likes beautiful women. I also do not think he is a racist. I think he is the first US leader in many decades who has been willing to publicly talk about US problems. For most other US politicians - they largely live in "the best of all possible worlds".
English Outsider , 05 February 2018 at 06:31 PM
Colonel - sincere apologies if my comment above disrupted the discussion on a fascinating article.

David Habakkuk - I should say that "Quantum Computer" referred solely to the ability to gather and collate great amounts of material. It's an ability I admire. On Steele, you are among other things setting out something that is unfamiliar to me though not to most others here, I imagine, and that is the milieu in which he is or was working as a UK Intelligence operative. That you have also done in previous articles; it doesn't seem to be a particularly savoury milieu. As far as Steele's US activities are concerned, from you I'm not getting the picture of a lone operative, all ties with MI6 neatly severed, working solo in the States on some chance assignment in 2016. I'm getting the picture of someone still very much in the swim and selected because of that.

The only problem with that second picture is the dossier, or the 30% or so of it - what Comey, I think it was, described as "salacious and unverified". Surely that's got to be amateur night. Not something that a practised professional working with other professionals would put his hand to. Does that not support the picture of an ex-operative who's gone off the rails and is fumbling around unsupervised?

The Steele affair touched a nerve. One is always I suppose aware that IC professionals are getting up to all sorts and it doesn't seem improbable that "all sorts" includes political stuff and smear campaigns. But it's not heaps of corpses in Syria or farm boys being sent to certain death in the Ukraine. And even within the UK Intelligence Community and their contractors or whatever they're called, compared with what our IC people have done in the ME or compared with what one fears Hamish de Bretton Gordon might have got himself involved in, Christopher Steele's just a choirboy. Nevertheless there's something deeply repellent about what he did. Whatever your view of Trump there he was, newly elected, obviously wanting to make a go of it, and already faced with difficulties. Then some chancer throws "Golden Showers" in his face and makes his position, not maybe for the insiders but for the general public, that bit more untenable.

So from a UK perspective the question of whether Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK becomes important. If he was truly working solo then that from a UK point of view is regrettable but one of those things. In that case MI6 would just have to tighten up its controls on what ex-operatives get up to, put out the appropriate disclaimers, and that's the end of it as far as the UK is concerned. But if Golden Showers and the rest of it was a "Welcome Mr President" from UK IC professionals as a group then those professionals should be hung drawn and quartered together with whoever set them on.

I've read your article several times now and apart from the fact that much of what you pull together isn't material I'm up on, it doesn't seem to me that you're definitely coming to one conclusion or the other. There are many more facts to come out so perhaps this question is premature, but do you think Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK or was he, at least as far as the UK is concerned, working solo?

kooshy , 05 February 2018 at 07:49 PM
Most Iranian females Named Fatima/ Fatimah after prophet' daughter, call themselves Fati, and if they are of aristocrat type, they are called Bibi Fati Khanam, which is honorable lady Fati and if they are westernized they become Fay or Fifi.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 07:59 PM
EO

Much of your commentary seems directed to David Habakkuk and PT rather than I. I don't think the FBI would have started to pay him until he left UK service. pl

English Outsider , 06 February 2018 at 05:10 AM
Colonel - Further apologies - I should have submitted comment 79 as two items.

Yes, the question about Steele was in response to DH's article. The UK side of the affair is I suppose only a small part of the question you and your Committee are examining but it's a dubious part however one looks at it. Although it's early days yet I was hoping DH, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK intelligence scene, might feel able to cast more light on that UK side.

English Outsider -> Cortes... , 06 February 2018 at 05:53 AM
Cortes - " ... where, exactly, do you expect the great public to look beyond the initial scabrously defamatory storytelling about the "golden showers"? "

I don't think one can expect the public, at least in the UK, to look very far beyond the initial scandal. The investigations and enquiries presently under way in the US are complex and are taking place in a different system. This member of the UK public wouldn't be able to give you a coherent account of those enquiries and I doubt many of my fellows could.

So we have to take on trust, most of us, what we're told. As far as I can tell the underlying theme from the BBC and the media is generally that Trump is subverting the American Justice system in order to ensure his own misdemeanours aren't investigated.

Some of us take that as gospel. Others of us assume that the politicians and the media are untrustworthy and ignore them. I doubt many of us go into much more detail than that. Therefore the original story will stick in our minds.

But for some in the UK there are questions in there as well. How come the UK got mixed up in all this? How much did the UK get mixed up in it?

David Habakkuk -> Sid Finster... , 06 February 2018 at 06:19 AM
Sid Finster,

In response to comment 53.

When I belatedly started looking at the Litvinenko mystery, as a result of a strange email provoked by comments of mine on SST which arrived in my inbox in March 2007 from someone who turned out to be a key protagonist, it was rather obvious that improvised and chaotic 'StratCom' operations had been put into place on both the Russian and British sides to cover up what had happened.

A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella.

When I started delving, I came across some very interesting pieces on Scaramella and related matters posted on the 'European Tribune' website by a Rome-based blogger using the name 'de Gondi' in the period after the story broke.

His actual name is David Loepp, by profession he is an artisan jeweller specialising in ancient and traditional goldsmith techniques, and I already knew and respected his work from his contributions to the transnational internet investigation into the Niger uranium forgeries – an earlier MI6 clusterf**ck.

So in May 2008 I posted a longish piece on that site, setting out the problems with the evidence about the Litvinenko case as I saw them, in the hope of reactivating his interest. This paid off in spades, when he linked to, and translated a key extract from, the request from Italian prosecutors to use wiretaps of conversations with Senator Paolo Guzzanti in connection with their prosecution of Scaramella for 'aggravated calumny.'

The request, which up to not so long ago was freely available on the website of the Italian Senate, was denied, but the extensive summaries of the transcripts provided a lot of material.

(This initial post by me, and later posts by me on that site, are at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/uid:1857/diary. Three posts David Loepp and I produced jointly in December 2012, which have a lot on Scaramella and Shvets, are on his page there, at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/de%20Gondi/diary .)

The extract from the wiretap request which David Loepp posted, which like Litvinenko's letter containing the claims he and Yuri Shvets had concocted about Putin using Mogilevich to attempt to supply Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb' is dated 1 December 2005, contains key pointers to the conspiracy. It concludes:

'A passage on Simon Moghilevic and an agreement between the camorra to search for nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War to be consigned to Bin Laden, a revelation made by the Israeli. According to Scaramella the circle closes: camorra, Moghilevic- Russian mafia- services- nuclear bombs in Naples.'

Subsequent conversations make clear that Scaramella left on 6 December 2005 for Washington, on a trip where he was to meet Shvets. The summary of a report on this to Guzzanti reads:

'12) conversation that took place on number [omissis] on December 18, 2005, at 9:41:51 n. 1426, containing explicit references to the authenticity of the declarations of Alexander Litvinenko acquired by Scaramella, to the trustworthiness of the affirmations made by Scaramella in his reports to the commission and to the meetings Scaramella had with Talik after having denounced them [presumably Talik and his alleged accomplices]. (They can talk with HEIMS thanks to the help of MILLER. SHVEZ says that he had been a companion of CARLOS at the academy; SHVEZ has already made declarations and is willing to continue collaboration. Guzzanti warns that a document in Russian arrived in commission in which the name of SCARAMELLA appears several times, these [sic] say that directives to the contrary had been given to Litvinenko. Scaramella says that he went to the meeting with TALIK in the company of two treasury [police] and a cop, Talik spoke of a person from the Ukrainian GRU who would be willing to talk and a strange Chechen ring in Naples. Assassination attempt against the pope, CASAROLI was a Soviet agent.)'

The summary of a later conversation also refers to 'MILLER':

'conversation that took place on number [omissis] on January 13, 2006, at 11:22:11 n. 2287, containing references to Scaramella's sources in relation to facts referred in the Commission, the means by which they were obtained by Scaramella from declarations made abroad, the role of Litvinenko, also on the occasion of declarations made by third parties and the credibility of the news and theses given by Scaramella to the commission (Scaramella reads a text in English on the relation between the KGB and PRODI. Guzzanti asks if its credibility can be confirmed and if the taped declarations can be backed up; Scaramella answers that there were two testimonies, Lou Palumbo and Alexander (Litvinenko), and that the registration made in London at the beginning of the assignment [Scaramella's?] had been authenticated by a certain BAKER of the FBI. As he translates the text from English, Scaramella notes that the person testifying does not say he knows Prodi but only that he thinks that Prodi ...; all those who worked for the person testifying in Scandinavia said that Prodi was "theirs." The affair in Rimini, Bielli is preparing the battle in Rimini. Meetings with MILLER for the three things that are needed. Polemic about Pollari over the pressure exerted on Gordievski.)'

In the exchanges on my May 2008 post, I mentioned and linked to some extraordinary comments on a crucial article by Edward Jay Epstein, in which Karon von Gerhke claimed that his sceptical account fitted with what her contacts in the British investigation had told her. When that July I came across her equally extraordinary claims in response to the BBC's Mark Urban piece of stenography – which Steele may also have had a hand in organising – I found she was referring to precisely that visit to Washington by Scaramella which had been described in the wiretap request.

As you can perhaps imagine, the fact that 'Miller' had featured in the conversations with Guzzanti both as a key contact, who could introduce Scaramella to Aldrich Ames (which is who 'Heims' clearly is), and with whom there had been meetings about 'the three things that are needed' made me inclined to take seriously what Karon von Gerhke said about his role.

In December 2008, I put up another post on 'European Tribune', putting together the material from David Loepp and that from Karon von Gerhke – but not discussing the references to 'Miller.' As I had hoped, this led to her getting in touch.

Among the material with which she supplied me, which I in turn supplied to the Solicitor to the Inquest, were covers of faxes to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel of the CIA. From a fax dated 23 October 2005.

'John: See attached email to Chuck Patrizia. Berezovsky alleges he is in possession of a copy of a classified file given to the CIA by Russia's FSB, which he further alleges the CIA disseminated to British, French, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies implicating him in business associations with the Mafia and to ties with terrorist organizations. Yuri Shvets was authorised/directed by Berezovsky to raise the issue with Bud McFarlane scheduled for Thursday. McFarlane is unaware the issue will be raised with him.'

From a fax dated 7 November 2005:

'John: I am attaching an email exchange between Yuri Shvets and me re: 1) article he published on his Ukraine website on alleged sale of nuclear choke to Iran, which I reproached him on as having been planted by Berezovsky and 2 the alleged FSB/CIA document file that Berezovsky obtained from Scaramella, which Yuri acknowledges in his e-mail to me. Like extracting wisdom teeth to get him to put anything on paper, especially in an e-mail! [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is the source McFarlane referred Yuri to re: Berezovsky's visa issue. She proposed meeting Berezovsky in London. Alleged it would take a year to clear up USG issues and even then could not guarantee him a visa. She too has access to USG intelligence on Berezovsky. Open book.'

From a fax dated 5 December 2005:

'John. From Mario Scaramella to Yuri Shvets to my ears, the DOJ has authorised Mario Scaramella to interview Aldrich Ames with regard to members of the Italian Intelligence Service agent recruited by Ames for the KGB. Scaramella, as you may recall, is who gave Boris Berezovsky's aide, a former FSB Colonel [LITVINENKO – DH], that alleged document number to the FSB file that the CIA disseminated on Berezovsky – a file that Bud McFarlane's "Madam Visa" [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is alleged is totting off to London for a meeting with Berezovsky, who has agreed to retain her re: his visa issue. Quid pro quo's with Berezovsky and Scaramella on the CIA agent currently facing kidnapping charges for the rendition of the Muslim cleric? Scott Armstrong has a most telling file on Scaramella. Not a single redeeming quality.'

In the course of very extensive exchanges with Karon von Gerhke subsequently, we had some rather acute disagreements. It was unfortunate that her filing was a shambles – a crucial hard disk failed without a backup, and the 'hard copies' appeared to be in a chaotic state.

However, the only occasion when I can recall having reason to believe that was deliberately lying to me was when David Loepp unearthed a cache of documentation including the full Italian text of the letter from Litvinenko containing the 'StratCom' designed to suggest that Putin had attempted to supply a 'mini nuclear bomb' to Al Qaeda. Having been asked to keep this between ourselves for the time being, Karon insisted on immediately sending it to her contacts in Counter Terrorism Command, and then produced bogus justifications.

Time and again, moreover, I found that I could confirm statements that she made – see for example the two posts I put up on the legal battles following the death in February 2008 of Berezovsky's long-term partner Arkadi 'Badri' Patarkatsishvili in June and July 2009, which were based on careful corroboration of what she told me.

(I should also say that I acquired the greatest respect for her courage.)

And while Owen and his team suppressed all the evidence from her, and almost all of that from David Loepp, which I had I provided to them, the dossier about Berezovsky is described in a statement made by Litvinenko in Tel Aviv in April 2006, presented in evidence in the Inquiry.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

Other evidence, moreover, strongly inclines me to believe that there were overtures for a 'quid pro quo', purporting to come from Putin, but that this was a ruse orchestrated by Berezovsky.

Part of the purpose of this would almost certainly have been to supply probably bogus 'evidence' about arms sales in the Yeltsin years to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moreover, I think there was an article on the second 'Fifth Element' site run by Shvets about the supposed sale of a nuclear 'choke' – whatever that is – to Iran.

The likelihood of the involvement of elements in the FBI in these shenanigans seems to quite high, given what has already emerged about the activities of Levinson. Also relevant may be the fact that the 'declaration' which was part of the attempt to frame Romano Prodi was authenticated, in London, by 'a certain BAKER of the FBI.')

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 09:40 AM
Thank you David Habakkuk. Truly sordid and deplorable. WWIII to be initiated on basis of lies.
Jack , 06 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
David

You may already know this but Steele was a no show in a UK court for a deposition on the libel suit.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/05/christopher-steele-is-no-show-in-london-court-in-civil-case-over-dossier.amp.html

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 01:18 PM
I know something of spectroscopy. The critical issue here is the provenance of the samples and not the sophistication of the techniques used in the analysis itself or its instrumentation. The paragraph that you have quoted:

"To figure out signatures based on various synthetic routes and conditions, Chipuk says that the synthetic chemists on his team will make the same chemical threat agent as many as 2,000 times in an ..." reeks of intellectual intimidation - trying to brow-beat any skeptic by the size of one's instrument - as it were."

And then there is a little matter of confidence level in any of the analysis - such things are normally based on prior statistics - which did not and could not exist in this situation.

LeaNder , 07 February 2018 at 09:16 AM
David, it's no doubt interesting to watch how attention on Victor Ivanov in another deficient inquiry on the British Isles, was managed in that inquiry. If I may, since he pops up again in the Steele dossier. You take what's available? Is that all there is to know?

I know its hard to communicate basics if you are deeply into matters. Usually people prefer to opt out. It's getting way too complicated for them to follow. You made me understand this experience. But isn't this (fake) intelligence continuity "via" Yuri Svets what connects your, no harm meant I do understand your obsession with the case, with what we deal with now in the Steele Dossier? Again, one of the most central figures is Ivanov.

Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear.

By the way, babbling mode, I found your Tom Mangold transcription. It felt it wasn't there on the link you gave. I used the date, and other search terms. Maybe I am wrong. Haven't looked at what the judge ruled out of the collection. Yes, cozy session/setting.

According to Google search there are no other links then your articles here:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf

**********

JAN RICHARD BĆRUG
The Collapsing Wall. Hybrid Journalism. A Comparative Study of Newspapers and Magazines in Eight Countries in Europe

Available online. Haven't read it yet, but journalism as hidden public relations transfer belt would be one of my minor obsessions. ...

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 07 February 2018 at 11:23 AM
I wonder too; their command of the English idiom is very au currant - noticed "opt in/opt out" reference? Too American.

They clearly are not native speakers of German.

LeaNder said in reply to kooshy... , 07 February 2018 at 12:30 PM
why California, Kooshy #18? California among other things left this verbal trace, since I once upon time thought a luggage storage in SF might be free/available now: this is my home, lady.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_Island#Economy

Tourists from many -- but not all -- foreign nations wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to obtain any visa prior to travel. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.

Who are the not all? Can we assume Britain is not one of those? The German link is different. How about the Iranian? or isn't this the Kish we are talking about?

LeaNder said in reply to LeaNder... , 07 February 2018 at 01:14 PM
correcting myself #94:

another Ivanov. I struggled with names (...) in Russian crime novels, admittedly. But that's long ago from times Russian crime and Russian money flows and rogues getting hold of its nuclear material surfaced more often in Europe. 90s

I see Sergei seems to share my interest in the literary genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Ivanov#Personal

[Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender. That would explain Sater's early attempts at apparent entrapment. Since that didn't work, a different strategy had to be devised to deny the presidency to someone over whom the intelligence services lacked sufficient leverage. ..."
"... Hillary gladly cooperated and raised the specter of collusion with Russia, which she trumpeted in the debates, downplaying other issues that could have resonated more with voters. Since she thought she was a slam dunk, she thought she could afford to cooperate. It could only help ingratiate her with the borg. ..."
"... On the other hand, Brennan and others in the borg used their allies in the media to promote and propagate the story, which mushroomed when Trump defied the odds and won. Hillary was eager to play the victim as a way to excuse her failure. And the borg began hyping the story to cripple Trump unless he heeled. Initially Trump resisted, firing Comey. But with Bolton now ensconced as the National Security Advisor, it is clear that the borg has won, and the lack of any conspiracy could now be revealed. ..."
"... IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position. ..."
"... Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss. ..."
"... Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation. ..."
"... both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference. ..."
"... It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team. ..."
"... The most farcical thing in the Mueller report is that he did not fill obstruction charges or even recommend that it should be filled, but yet he did not "exonerate" Trump. ..."
"... In other words, Mueller did not think that he had enough to make an obstruction case in the courts of justice, and keep in mind that an indictment requires only "probable cause", not the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction, but nevertheless he went out of his way to leave the obstruction sword hanging over Trump`s head so the political infighting does not end. ..."
Apr 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
JohnH , 21 April 2019 at 12:38 AM
Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender. That would explain Sater's early attempts at apparent entrapment. Since that didn't work, a different strategy had to be devised to deny the presidency to someone over whom the intelligence services lacked sufficient leverage.

Hillary gladly cooperated and raised the specter of collusion with Russia, which she trumpeted in the debates, downplaying other issues that could have resonated more with voters. Since she thought she was a slam dunk, she thought she could afford to cooperate. It could only help ingratiate her with the borg.

On the other hand, Brennan and others in the borg used their allies in the media to promote and propagate the story, which mushroomed when Trump defied the odds and won. Hillary was eager to play the victim as a way to excuse her failure. And the borg began hyping the story to cripple Trump unless he heeled. Initially Trump resisted, firing Comey. But with Bolton now ensconced as the National Security Advisor, it is clear that the borg has won, and the lack of any conspiracy could now be revealed.

Such a scenario would explain why Sater, Mufid, Steele and apparent attempts at entrapment got buried. And, with obstruction still hanging over Trump's head, the borg's leverage is still there if needed.

turcopolier , 20 April 2019 at 10:44 PM

IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position.
falcemartello , 20 April 2019 at 11:28 PM
Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss.

It was obvious from way back in June 2016 when most of the fabricated /novella known as the Steele Dossier was floating around and the role Fusion GPS played in the Clinton POTUS machine. There is a lot out there but as per usual smokey mirrors and deception.

I live you with this one thought.

Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation.

THe IRGC being labeled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference.

Mahmood Saadi said in reply to falcemartello ... , 21 April 2019 at 07:53 AM
Indeed, dishonesty seems somewhat institutionalized at this height.. https://twitter.com/JonathanLalon12/status/1119251603716894720

Trump is not free from illegal use of US institutions against political "opponents", see the last by Wayne Madsen.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/21/trump-attempt-weaponize-nsa-against-his-enemies.html

Rick Merlotti , 20 April 2019 at 11:51 PM
The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson.
English Outsider -> Rick Merlotti ... , 21 April 2019 at 09:32 AM
Special Relationship? All it's possible for the outsider to see in that are questions.

The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with the US in repelling the Russian threat. Also, along with France, helps with any R2P that needs doing. That's a consistent if by now bedraggled story.

But Europe, including the UK, is now going hell for leather at the "European Army" project. How long will it be before that becomes a respectable independent force? A decade?

https://www.dw.com/en/limited-number-of-weapons-in-german-military-ready-for-action-report/a-42752070

In the meantime all recognise that the US is the only significant European defence force. It's not just the money. The US ties the European components of NATO together and provides the big reserves of men and equipment. Even Mr Blair accepts that reality. I've been listening to his talk at the Munich Security Conference.

So the US is to hold the fort in Europe while the Europeans prepare to supplant NATO? Do the Europeans plan to be a military superpower themselves eventually?

And where does Trump fit in? Trumpphobia is as strong as Russophobia in the UK and stronger than Russophobia in continental Europe. So Trump is supposed to sit there placidly defending Europe until the Europeans are strong enough to dispense with the American alliance, and that while the Europeans, including the UK, throw mud at him?

Neither in neocon terms nor in terms of sensible defence are these various stories compatible. Is there any sort of coherent defense policy in this respect on either side of the Atlantic? Or are they all just winging it and ignoring the inconsistencies?

likbez , 21 April 2019 at 12:24 AM
Bravo ! One word "Bravo!!!" This is a very good, probably the best so far in depth analysis of Mueller's final report. And your phase "disingenuous and dishonest" is like a stamp on Mueller's hatchet job:
A careful reading of the report reveals that Mueller has issued findings that are both disingenuous and dishonest. The report is a failed hatchet job.

Part of the failure can be attributed to the amount of material that Attorney General Barr allowed to be released.

It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team.

Alves , 21 April 2019 at 04:00 AM
The most farcical thing in the Mueller report is that he did not fill obstruction charges or even recommend that it should be filled, but yet he did not "exonerate" Trump.

In other words, Mueller did not think that he had enough to make an obstruction case in the courts of justice, and keep in mind that an indictment requires only "probable cause", not the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction, but nevertheless he went out of his way to leave the obstruction sword hanging over Trump`s head so the political infighting does not end.

IMO, that is the biggest evidence that the whole thing was an attempt at facilitating a political power grab instead of a serious criminal investigation.

[Apr 21, 2019] 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

Highly recommended!
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.

[Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.

Highly recommended!
Apr 21, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , April 20, 2019 2:30 am

"Within approximately five hours of Trump's statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton's personal office. "
The report shows that Russia coordinated with Trump even if he was unaware of it.

Do you understand that you implicate Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.

So all our three letter agencies with their enormous budgets and staff including NSA which intercepts all incoming/outgoing communications (and probably most internal communications) can't protect the USA elections from interference that they knew about ? Why they did not warn Trump?

Or NSA assumed that it was yet another CIA "training exercise" imposing as Russian hackers?

It not clear why Russia need such a crude methods as, for example, hacking Podesta email via spearfishing (NSA has all the recodings in this case), as you can buy, say a couple of Google engineers for less then a million dollars (many Google engineers hate Google with its cult of performance reviews and know that they are getting much less then their Facebook counterparts, so this might well be not that difficult) and get all you want without extra noise.

Historically Soviet and, especially, East German intelligence were real experts in utilizing "humint". With the crash of neoliberal ideology that probably is easier for Russians now then it was for Soviets or East Germans in 60th-80th.

For example, from my admittedly nonprofessional point of view, the most logical assumption about DNC hack is that it was a mixture of the internal leak (download of the files to the UCB drive) and Crowdstrike false flag operation (cover up operation which included implanting Russian (or Ukrainian) malware from Vault 7 to blame Russians.

And that Gussifer 2.0 was most probably a fake personality created specifically to increase credibility of this false flag operation (see for example http://g-2.space/ and https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/guccifer-2-clinton-foundation-hack-leak/ )

likbez , April 20, 2019 1:12 pm

Arne,

April 20, 2019 11:15 am

"Do you understand that you implicate Obama administration"

They did screw up.

Wrong. The fact that they did not warn/brief Trump suggests that this was an a deliberate and pre-planned attempt to entrap him by initiating Russian contacts by FBI/CIA/MI6 moles

We have some cursory evidence of at least four attempts to link Trump to Russians supposedly conducted by intelligence services ( https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/russiagate/ ):

  1. Moscow Trump Tower set up (via FBI mole Felix Saters), https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/04/the-fbi-tried-and-failed-to-entrap-trump-by-larry-c-johnson.html
  2. DNC email setup (via CIA and FBI contractor Crowdstrike ) https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/04/test-it-yourself-the-2-second-rounding-fact-pattern-in-the-dnc-emails-by-william-binney-and-larry-jo.html
  3. Veselnitskaya Trump tower meeting set up (via MI6 mole Rob Goldstone). https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/04/httpstruepunditcomexclusive-six-u-s-agencies-conspired-to-illegally-wiretap-trump-british-intel-used-as-fr.html
  4. Papadopoulos set up ( via Josef Misfud (MI6) and Stefan Halper (CIA) ). At the time Halper probably was reporting to the current CIA director Gina Haspel who was at this time CIA station chief in GB. She is a Brennan protégé, of recent Skripals dead ducks hoax fame.

Surveillance was specifically established to collect compromising material on Trump and his associates with high level official in Obama administration (and probably Obama himself) playing coordinating role.

Colonel Lang's blog is a good source of information on those issues with posts by former intelligence specialists.

And please note that I am not a Trump supporter. I resent him and his policies.

[Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... As I noted in my previous piece-- The FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Trump --Sater was an active FBI undercover informant. ..."
"... An honest prosecutor would have and should have disclosed this fact. He, Sater, was the one encouraging the Trump team to cozy up to Russia. Mueller does not disclose one single instance of Trump or Cohen or any of the Trump kids calling Sater on the carpet and chewing his ass for not bringing them deals and not opening doors in Russia. Omitting this key fact goes beyond simple disingenuity. It is a conscious lie. ..."
"... The circumstantial evidence indicates that Sater was doing this at the behest of FBI handlers. We do not yet know who they are. ..."
"... We also have the case of Michael Caputo and Roger Stone being approached by a Russian gangster named Henry Greenberg. ..."
"... How does a guy like Vorkretsov/Greenberg, with an extensive criminal record and circumstantial ties to the Russian mob gain entrance into the United States? Very simple answer. He too was an FBI informant : ..."
"... Please take time to read the full dossier at democrat dossier . This is more than an odd coincidence. This is a pattern. The FBI was targeting the Trump campaign and personnel in a deliberate effort to implicate them in wanting to work with Russians. ..."
"... 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 . ..."
"... 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].” ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss. ..."
"... Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation . THe IRGC being labelled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. ..."
"... You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference. ..."
"... The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson. ..."
Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

While President Trump is correct to celebrate the Mueller Report’s conclusion that no one on Trump’s side of the ledger attempted to or succeeded in collaborating or colluding with the Russian Government or Russian spies, there remains a dark cloud behind the silver lining. And I am not referring to the claims of alleged obstruction of justice. A careful reading of the report reveals that Mueller has issued findings that are both disingenuous and dishonest. The report is a failed hatchet job. Part of the failure can be attributed to the amount of material that Attorney General Barr allowed to be released. It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team.

Let us start with the case of trying to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. If you were to believe that the Steele Dossier accurately reported Vladimir Putin's attitude towards Trump, then a Trump real estate deal in Moscow was a slam dunk. According to one of Steele's breathless reports:
The Kremlin's cultivation operation on TRUMP also had comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development business deals in Russia, especially in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament. How ever, so far, for reasons unknown, TRUMP had not taken up any of these.
Then there is reality. The impetus, the encouragement for the Moscow project came from one man--Felix Sater.
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert), a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov.J07 Sater had known Rozov since approximately 2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City.30S Sater later contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
To reiterate--if the Steele Dossier was based on truthful intelligence then the Trump organization only had to sit back, stretch out their hands and seize the moment. Instead, little Felix Sater keeps coming back to the well. In January 2016, according to the Mueller report,
Sater then sent a draft invitation for Cohen to visit Moscow to discuss the Trump Moscow project,along with a note to "[t]ell me if the letter is good as amended by me or make whatever changes you want and send it back to me."

After a further round of edits, on January 25, 2016, Sater sent Cohen an invitation -- signed by Andrey Ryabinskiy of the company MHJ -- to travel to "Moscow for a working visit" about the "prospects of development and the construction business in Russia," "the various land plots available suited for construction of this enormous Tower," and "the opportunity to co-ordinate a follow up visit to Moscow by Mr. Donald Trump..

This produced nothing. No deal, no trip. But Sater persisted:

Beginning in late 2015, Sater repeatedly tried to arrange for Cohen and candidate Trump, as representatives of the Trump Organization, to travel to Russia to meet with Russian government officials and possible financing partners. . . .

Into the spring of 2016, Sater and Cohen continued to discuss a trip to Moscow in connection with the Trump Moscow project. On April 20, 2016, Sater wrote Cohen, " [t)he People wanted to know when you are coming?,,

On May 4, 2016, Sater followed up:

“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 he 2 big guys where [sic) the question. I said I would confirm and revert.”

On May 5, 2016, Sater wrote to 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 will be there as well.”

On June 14, 2016, Cohen met Sater in the lobby of the Trump Tower in New York and informed him that he would not be traveling at that time.

Why was Felix Sater the one repeatedly identified pushing to arrange deals with the Russians and yet did not face any subsequent charges by the Mueller team? Sater had been working as part of the Trump team since 2003. Why is it that the proposed deals and travel to Moscow came predominantly from Felix Sater?

As I noted in my previous piece--The FBI Tried and Failed to Entrap Trump--Sater was an active FBI undercover informant. He had been working with the FBI since 1998. When he agreed to start working as an undercover informant aka cooperator in December 1998 guess who signed off on the deal? Andrew Weissman. You can see the deal here. It was signed 10 December 1998.

An honest prosecutor would have and should have disclosed this fact. He, Sater, was the one encouraging the Trump team to cozy up to Russia. Mueller does not disclose one single instance of Trump or Cohen or any of the Trump kids calling Sater on the carpet and chewing his ass for not bringing them deals and not opening doors in Russia. Omitting this key fact goes beyond simple disingenuity. It is a conscious lie.

The circumstantial evidence indicates that Sater was doing this at the behest of FBI handlers. We do not yet know who they are.

But Sater's behavior and status as an FBI Informant was not an isolated incident. We also have the case of Michael Caputo and Roger Stone being approached by a Russian gangster named Henry Greenberg. According to democratdossier.com:

Greenberg's birth name is Gennady Vasilievich Vostretsov, the son of Yekatrina Vostretsova and Vasliy Vostretsov. He later adopted new names twice as a result of two different marriages and became Gennady V. Arzhanik and later Henry Oknyansky. Henry Greenberg is not a legal alias, but he uses it quite commonly in recent years.
But you would not know this from reading the Mueller report. Mr. Disingenuous strikes again:
In the spring of 2016, Trump Campaign advisor Michael Caputo learned through a Florida-based Russian business partner that another Florida-based Russian, Henry Oknyansky (who also went by the name Henry Greenberg), claimed to have information pertaining to Hillary Clinton . Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky.

Oknyansky and Stone set up a May 2016 in-person meeting. 260 Oknyansky was accompanied to the meeting by Alexei Rasin, a Ukrainian associate involved in Florida real estate. At the meeting, Rasin offered to sell Stone derogatory information on Clinton that Rasin claimed to have obtained while working for Clinton. Rasin claimed to possess financial statements demonstrating Clinton's involvement in money laundering with Rasin's companies. According to Oknyansky, Stone asked if the amounts in question totaled millions of dollars but was told it was closer to hundreds of thousands. Stone refused the offer, stating that Trump would not pay for opposition research.

How does a guy like Vorkretsov/Greenberg, with an extensive criminal record and circumstantial ties to the Russian mob gain entrance into the United States? Very simple answer. He too was an FBI informant:

In an affidavit, Vostretsov explained to an immigration judge he worked for the FBI for 17 years throughout the world, including in the US, Iran and North Korea. He explained in the same paperwork the FBI granted him several temporary visas to visit the US in exchange for information about criminal activities.

Please take time to read the full dossier at democrat dossier. This is more than an odd coincidence. This is a pattern. The FBI was targeting the Trump campaign and personnel in a deliberate effort to implicate them in wanting to work with Russians.

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.

When you put these facts together it is clear that there is real meat on the bone for Barr's upcoming investigation of the "spying" that was being done on the Trump campaign by law enforcement and intelligence. These facts must become a part of the public consciousness. The foreign country that worked feverishly to meddle in the 2016 Presidential election and the subsequent rule of Donald Trump is the United Kingdom. Russia is the patsy.

turcopolier, 20 April 2019 at 10:44 PM

IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position.

falcemartello, 20 April 2019 at 11:28 PM

Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss.

It was obvious from way back in June 2016 when most of the fabricated /novella known as the Steele Dossier was floating around and the role Fusion GPS played in the Clinton POTUS machine. There is a lot out there but as per usual smokey mirrors and deception.

I live you with this one thought.

Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation . THe IRGC being labelled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism.

You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference.

Rick Merlotti

The Special Relationship is hopefully entering the divorce stage. None too soon. Great work, Mr. Johnson.

[Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It is quite distressing that in may so called “progessive” or “left liberal” – self designated of course – circles in the USA and the UK such a statement will lead to your being labelled a Russian Troll or the suggestion you are being on Putin’s payrol ..."
"... “…In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons -- Putin announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they’re real -- that can elude any missile defense. .. ..."
"... Russia has now thwarted us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to missiles. And Putin has said, ‘It’s time to negotiate an end to this new arms race,’ and he’s 100 percent right. ..."
"... So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had already become convinced… ..."
"... When I see the right-of-center DNC supporters saying, “Our democracy has been attacked,” I an reminded of the interview Hermann Goering gave while he was waiting to be executed. ..."
"... Perhaps the assumption of Russia meddling in our election is a simple case of projection. As has been documented, the USA has frequently meddled in other countries’ elections or election outcomes (Iran, Russia, Chile, Central America). ..."
"... To paraphrase the late Leona Helmsley, “Democracy is for little people”, not for the meddling-in-foreign-democracies policymakers of the Boston-Washington corridor. ..."
"... We live in a multi-polar world and if Washington can’t get used to it, we are the ones who may pay for their willful stubborn blindness, their inability to come to terms with a perfectly obvious developing reality. ..."
"... The neocons have not had a new idea in 30 years. I continue to be baffled by their obsession with Iran. Iran is a fact; the enmity goes back to our support for the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 and only made worse by our support of the Shah as our-guy-in-Tehran. ..."
"... The USA is in disarray internally and in its approach to the rest of the world. ..."
Apr 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

flora , , April 19, 2019 at 10:38 am

The DNC had the biggest influence on the 2016 outcome; they insisted on running a disliked candidate who was a terrible campaigner so disliked the DNC cleared the field for her ahead of time (got Biden and others to not declare in 2016) and had to club dissenters in their own party to make sure she got the nomination. imo. But sure, blame "those guys over there". That's the ultimate "the dog ate my homework" excuse. meh.

Susan the other` , April 19, 2019 at 10:43 am

Good analysis. This even makes the insanity of “Russiagate” seem strategic. (But as overwrought as saying ‘give us liberty or give us death’. The solution to everything is somewhere in the middle.) We know that such dedicated souls as the very fatuous Mr. Brennan cooked it all up and pretended it was because Trump was “treasonous”.

Brennan in his dotage might actually be thinking that.

I’ve always thought that Putin, like Yeltsin, was pro West. Possibly an atlanticist. Tho’ being as chauvinistic as an atlanticist today is a little offensive to the rest of the world. Cohen’s statement that Putin is pro Russian-anti communism might be a simplification. Russia is certainly positioning itself to be safe from our aggression. I think there are remnants of good social management that the commies learned over the years that Russia/Putin still employs.

It’s too simplistic to say Putin is anti-communist. He’s just a realist. And he’s a nationalist. Being a nationalist-protectionist is the worst sin against neoliberal advancement. That’s another propaganda bullet point – you never hear a rational discussion of nationalism – it’s all trash, “Marine LePen is a fascist” exaggeration.

Peter , April 19, 2019 at 11:04 am

It is quite distressing to see the Mueller report take up as if it were settled fact the idea that Russia influenced the 2016 Presidential election, particularly since his investigation didn’t provide any information that supported this theory.

It is quite distressing that in may so called “progessive” or “left liberal” – self designated of course – circles in the USA and the UK such a statement will lead to your being labelled a Russian Troll or the suggestion you are being on Putin’s payroll. That is the level of rational discussion in many those circles today when it comes to the discussion about the west's relationship to Russia.

This of course led in Russia to the conclusion that to engage with the west at present in an attempt to ease the tensions is futile and rather counterproductive.

juliania , April 19, 2019 at 11:15 am

I think Professor Cohen has a real point in the following statements:

“…In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons -- Putin announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they’re real -- that can elude any missile defense. ..

Russia has now thwarted us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to missiles. And Putin has said, ‘It’s time to negotiate an end to this new arms race,’ and he’s 100 percent right.

So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had already become convinced…

So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment–that would have been probably around the summer of 2016–just on this one point, because none of the other candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia…”

Then, when he goes on to elaborate on China’s weaponry and posit including them in the next round of draw-down negotiations, as far off as that may look – that to me is what Trump can use for his re-election. I do believe his attitude towards Russia won him his first term.

Those Russia-gate kooks need to focus on the American people, not on Trump. Well, maybe they did, and still do. It’s really about us, not him.

Procopius , April 19, 2019 at 7:56 pm

When I see the right-of-center DNC supporters saying, “Our democracy has been attacked,” I an reminded of the interview Hermann Goering gave while he was waiting to be executed.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

John Wright , April 19, 2019 at 11:20 am

Perhaps the assumption of Russia meddling in our election is a simple case of projection. As has been documented, the USA has frequently meddled in other countries’ elections or election outcomes (Iran, Russia, Chile, Central America).

One recent Democratic presidential candidate was taped asserting “we should not have held the election unless we could determine the outcome” in another foreign country.

If Russia did not meddle significantly in the US election, the political class may have had to ponder that possibly the Russians believed that the decline of the US in the world stage did not merit the effort.

To paraphrase the late Leona Helmsley, “Democracy is for little people”, not for the meddling-in-foreign-democracies policymakers of the Boston-Washington corridor.

John , April 19, 2019 at 11:45 am

The thrust of Cohen’s position is correct. Quibble all you wish with the details. We live in a multi-polar world and if Washington can’t get used to it, we are the ones who may pay for their willful stubborn blindness, their inability to come to terms with a perfectly obvious developing reality.

The neocons have not had a new idea in 30 years. I continue to be baffled by their obsession with Iran. Iran is a fact; the enmity goes back to our support for the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 and only made worse by our support of the Shah as our-guy-in-Tehran.

The Russians really do have a new generation of weapons. The Chinese are re-assuming a leading position in the world that has been theirs most of the time for two thousand years.

Europe is not a rising power.

The USA is in disarray internally and in its approach to the rest of the world. I do not consider these to be opinions but objective statements. I am not prepared to suffer for illusions and vanity among the “elite.”

[Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation

Highly recommended!
Intelligence agencies, once created, has their own development dynamics and tend to escape from the control of civilians and in turn control them. Such an interesting dynamics. In any case, the intelligence agencies and first of all top brass of those agencies constitute the the core of the "deep state". Unlike civiliant emplorres they are protected by the veil of secrecy and has access to large funds. Bush the elder was probably the first deep state creature who became the president of the USA, but "special relationship" of Obama and Brennan is also not a secret.
Another problem is that secrecy and access to surveillance, Which gives intelligence agencies the ability to blackmail politicians.
Availability of unaccounted financial resources make them real kingmakers. In a sense, as soon as such agencies were created the tail started waging the dog.
Notable quotes:
"... Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry Truman (1943-53) reportedly characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five decades – as the nation's top law enforcer? ..."
"... One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb. ..."
"... JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ. Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ into the White House. ..."
"... However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald – a cover-up that persists to this day. ..."
"... But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career. ..."
"... Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others ..."
Feb 23, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org

No other individual in modern US history has a more sinister legacy than John Edgar Hoover, the founder and lifetime director of the FBI. He founded the bureau in 1924 and was its director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77.

Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry Truman (1943-53) reportedly characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five decades – as the nation's top law enforcer?

J Edgar Hoover and his henchmen kept files on thousands of politicians, judges, journalists and other public figures, according to biographer Anthony Summers. Hoover ruthlessly used those files on the secret and often sordid private lives of senior public figures to control their career conduct and official decisions so as to serve his interests.

And Hoover's interests were of a rightwing, anti-communist, racist bigot.

Ironically, his own suppressed homosexuality also manifested in witch-hunts against homosexuals in public life.

It was Hoover's secret files that largely informed the McCarthyite anti-communist inquisitions of the 1950s, whose baleful legacy on American democracy, foreign policy and freedom of expression continues to this day.

One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb.

Absurdly, the FBI chief maintained that there was "no such thing as the Mafia" in public statements.

Two notorious cases of how FBI wiretapping worked under Hoover can be seen in the presidencies of John F Kennedy (1961-63) and Richard Nixon (1969-74).

As recounted by Laurent Guyénot in his 2013 book , 'JFK to 9/11: 50 Years of Deep State', Hoover made a point of letting each new president know of compromising information he had on them. It wouldn't be brandished overtly as blackmail; the president would be briefed subtly, "Sir, if someone were to have copies of this it would be damaging to your career". Enough said.

JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ. Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ into the White House.

However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald – a cover-up that persists to this day.

As for Richard Nixon, it is believed that "Tricky Dicky" engaged in secret communications with the US-backed South Vietnamese regime on the cusp of the presidential elections in 1968. Nixon promised the South Vietnamese stronger military support if they held off entering peace talks with communist North Vietnam, which incumbent President Johnson was trying to organize. LBJ wanted to claim a peace process was underway in order to boost the election chances of his vice president Hubert Humphrey.

Nixon's scheming prevailed. The Vietnam peace gambit was scuttled, the Vietnam war raged on, and so the Democrat candidate lost. Nixon finally got into the White House, which he had long coveted from the time he lost out to JFK back in 1960.

But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career.

These are but only two examples of how Deep State politics works in controlling and subverting American democracy. The notion that lawmakers and presidents are free to serve the people is a quaintly naive one. For the US media to pretend otherwise, and to hail the FBI as some kind of benign bastion of justice, while also deprecating claims of "Deep State" intrusion as "conspiracy theory", is either impossibly ignorant of history – or a sign of the media's own compromised complicity.

Nonetheless, to blame this culture of institutionalized blackmail and corruption on one individual – J Edgar Hoover – is not fair either.

Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others.

Once formed, the Deep State – as an alternate, unaccountable, unelected government – does not surrender its immense power willingly. It has learnt to hold on to its power through blackmail, media control, incitement of wars, and, even ultimately, assassination of American dissenters.

The illegal tapping of private communications is an oxygen supply for the depredations of the American Deep State.

Thinking that such agencies are not actively warping and working the electoral system to fix the figurehead in the White House is a dangerous delusion.

So too are claims that American democracy is being "influenced" by malign Russian enemies, as the US intelligence chiefs once again chorused in front of the Senate this past week. The consummate irony of it!

The real "influence campaigns" corrupting American democracy are those of the "All-American" agencies who claim to be law enforcers and defenders of national security.

US citizens would do well to refresh on the untold history of their country to appreciate how they are being manipulated.

We might even surmise that a good number of citizens are already aware, if only vaguely, of the elite corruption – and that is why Washington DC is viewed with increasing contempt by the people.

[Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene: ..."
"... 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: ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked. ..."
"... The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him: ..."
"... The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. ..."
"... The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men. ..."
"... The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead. ..."
"... It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing. ..."
"... Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter. ..."
"... Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss. ..."
"... Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War. ..."
"... after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative.. ..."
"... once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible. ..."
"... Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians. ..."
"... The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both. ..."
"... Haspel will not be fired. ..."
"... It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). .. ..."
"... The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. ..."
Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

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.

In March 2018 the British government asserted, without providing any evidence, that the alleged 'Novichok' poisoning of Sergej and Yulia Skripal was the fault of Russia. It urged its allies to expel Russian officials from their countries.

The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene:
President Trump seemed distracted in March as his aides briefed him at his Mar-a-Lago resort on the administration's plan to expel 60 Russian diplomats and suspected spies.

The United States, they explained, would be ousting roughly the same number of Russians as its European allies -- part of a coordinated move to punish Moscow for the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil.

"We'll match their numbers," Trump instructed, according to a senior administration official. "We're not taking the lead. We're matching."

The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials -- far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on.

The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia.

The expulsion marked a turn in the Trump administration's relation with Russia:

The incident reflects a tension at the core of the Trump administration's increasingly hard-nosed stance on Russia: The president instinctually opposes many of the punitive measures pushed by his Cabinet that have crippled his ability to forge a close relationship with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

The past month, in particular, has marked a major turning point in the administration's stance, according to senior administration officials. There have been mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, sanctions on oligarchs that have bled billions of dollars from Russia's already weak economy and, for the first time, a presidential tweet that criticized Putin by name for backing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

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.)

If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked.

The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him:

The outcome was an example, officials said, of how Ms. Haspel is one of the few people who can get Mr. Trump to shift position based on new information.

Co-workers and friends of Ms. Haspel push back on any notion that she is manipulating the president. She is instead trying to get him to listen and to protect the agency, according to former intelligence officials who know her.

The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in the game:

Ms. Haspel won the trust of Mr. Pompeo, however, and has stayed loyal to him. As a result, Mr. Trump sees Ms. Haspel as an extension of Mr. Pompeo, a view that has helped protect her, current and former intelligence officials said.

Posted by b on April 16, 2019 at 08:37 AM | Permalink

Russ , Apr 16, 2019 9:02:41 AM | link

I don't see how it's possible to manipulate someone (and especially the US president) into doing something they don't want to do with lies like the ones described here. On the contrary presidents, CEOs etc. favor the staffers who tell them the kind of lies they want to hear in order to reinforce what they wanted to do in the first place.

I've never seen any reason to alter my first position on Trump, that like any other president he does what he wants to do.

Jerry , Apr 16, 2019 9:14:30 AM | link
The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men.

The joke 7in the final scene Robert Redford tells See Eye A man Cliff Robertson that he gave all the evidence to the NY Times. What a joke. The NY Times and the Wash Post are the mouthpieces for the SEE Eye A. The AP news sources most of their stories from those two papers and other lackey See Eye A newspapers.

One final criticism in moon's story. The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead.

manny , Apr 16, 2019 9:15:16 AM | link
Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director

After this, she got the top job, so what is the real lesson here? Sociopathic liars get promoted....or you can tell the truth, try to be honorable and fade into obscurity.. In a nest of psychos, you have to really be depraved to become the top psycho...

Nuke it for orbit, it's the only way to be sure...

Sally Snyder , Apr 16, 2019 9:35:40 AM | link
Here is an article that looks at whether nations around the world regard the United States or Russia as the greater threat to their nation:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/03/which-is-greater-threat-russia-or.html

It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing.

donkeytale , Apr 16, 2019 9:40:06 AM | link
b

Backing up Russ's point, when will you realise the "buck stops" on Trump's desk for any and all departments he oversees, which are run by his appointees? Trump is dedicated to creating a neoconservative foreign policy melded to a neoliberal economic policy favouring his corporate fascist sponsors. Recently, you've been all over the Assange indictment, Trump's relationship with Nuttyahoo and the related rollback of JCPOA. Is this what you want to see continued into a second term?

There is much evidence to show Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy" where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the point where no one can tell the difference.

They haven't got there quite yet but once the judiciary is controlled by GOP ideologues it's game over. And McConnell is dedicating his life to make that the reality ASAP.

Meanwhile back at the ranch we are dedicated to knocking down any and all potential opposition to this GOP hostile takeover for some reason I've yet to fathom.

BM , Apr 16, 2019 9:42:46 AM | link
Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in the game[Pompeo]

Hopefully yes to all four propositions. Why am I sceptical though (except conceivably the first)?

Mataman , Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM | link
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. He's the first POTUS in decades I believe to not even pretend to like dogs by having an official White House dog and every policy his Administration can take against animals, they have taken. I'm not even sure I buy the spin that he cared about dead kids either. And NYT readers know this about him, so I don't understand what the point of peddling this fiction is other than to paint Torture Queen in some kind of good light (and we KNOW that she certainly doesn't care about dead anything).
the pair , Apr 16, 2019 10:08:18 AM | link
another example of trump's stupidity and pathological inability to think for himself. he gets his views from fox and his policy from bolton. his equally vapid daughter and kushner whine to him about sooper sad syria pictures they saw in a sponsored link while googling for new tmz gossip.

even worse that this is the twat in charge of one of russiagate's main instigating "deep state" agencies. he spent the entirety of his presidency railing against their various lies then takes this wankery at face value. it's just like the "chinese soldiers in venezuela"; if those pictures were legit they'd have been splattered over every front page and permanently attached to screeching cnn and msnbc segments demanding trump "finally get tough" on "putin's russia".

my only surprise is that she didn't tell him about british babies ripped from incubators and dipped in anthrax powder.
the nyt shilling for a soCIopAth? not that surprising.

Twiki , Apr 16, 2019 10:43:11 AM | link

The consultant in emergency medicine at Salisbury hospital wrote to The Times, shortly after the Skripal incident. His choice of words was odd, and some have said they indicate no novichok poisoning occurred. Leaving that to one side, his letter certainly puts paid to the idea that more than three people (the Skripals and the policeman, DCI Bailey) were poisoned. https://www.onaquietday.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DocSaysNoNerveAgentInSalisbury.jpg
bjd , Apr 16, 2019 10:43:51 AM | link
" the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, "

There was no attack on the Skripals. or on anyone else. The Russophobia in whose context it falls, is of a higher order, in which a fabricated narrative of a Skripal-like attack had an important function. The Skripals were perfectly happy to lend their name to the fabrication, and are living happily, probably in New Zealand.

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 10:59:48 AM | link
The Daily Beast article that b linked to describes how many serious, well-informed people felt that Haspel was unsuitable to lead the CIA. Even more strange and troubling was that Haspel was supported by Trump's nemesis, John Brennan.

Despite all that, MAGA Trump still nominated her. Any notion that Trump is at odds with, or "manipulated" by, Haspel, Bolton, or Pompeo is just propaganda. We've seen such reporting before (esp. wrt Bolton) and Trump has taken no action.

Babyl-on , Apr 16, 2019 11:04:28 AM | link
I see that Trump derangement is alive and well here at MoA. Commenters talk as if Trump is the first president stupid enough to be manipulated by the security agencies and shadow government sometimes referred to as a "deep state". People don't have to be historians or look back to Rome, just read the books about how the great general who "won WWII" was used by the oligarchy which had full control of US foreign policy throughout Eisenhower's term in office.

Works produced after WWII, C. Wright Mills, The Power elite was written in 1956,The Brothers and The Divil's Chessboard each about the Dulles Brothers and how they operated US foreign policy for the interests of the oligarchy, and the work Peter Phillips, GIANTS: The Global Power Elite and the work of David Rothkopf which thoroughly describes the feudal system under which the Western cultures are ruled.
The US government is a pantomime it is a show it has no power.

How many here can honestly say they understand that the US dollar itself and the ENTIRE GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM is privately owned. Why do you think the "banks were bailed out"? because the banks were in power not the government. The US is 22 trillion in debt - the oligarchy is the creditor - take over the US gov. and you have a powerless pile of debt.

Around 6,000 people control 85% of global assets until that changes nothing will change. The oligarchy won virtually all the mines and control the price of all basic commodities necessary for modern life, the internet, oil of course and more.

What is failing and what has failed over and over for 500 years is Western Civilization and its three "great religions" which preach obedience, oppression, domination by a one god suffocating mythology.

But the oligarchy doesn't own just the basic commodities, it owns the religions and it owns the drugs and all illegal trade as well.

Western "civilization" is really nothing more than one vast feudal kingdom, with royal courts in DC, Tel Aviv and Ryiadh. Wheather there is a god or not, religion is made of flesh and blood not miracles. No Rabbi or Priest or Imam claims visitations by god to instruct them on doctrine - they are flesh and blood and they want power so they behave like sycophants to the money they need to expand their power...all for the good souls under their care.

Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 11:16:08 AM | link
Correction @13 Trump's supposed nemesis. Trump has brought several friends and associates of his enemies into his Administration:
  • VP Pence: John McCain's buddy
  • Bolton: a neocon (neocons were "Never Trump", remember?)
  • Wm Barr: close with Mueller
  • Haspel: Brennan's gal at CIA
And Trump himself was close to the Clintons.
lysias , Apr 16, 2019 12:00:59 PM | link
Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter.
Jose Garcia , Apr 16, 2019 12:08:01 PM | link
What can we expect from a tv personality who became a US president? A man who ran with an advertisement worthy of a business man like him, "Make America Great Again." How does he go about doing it? Giving more money to the military industrial-Congressional complex, even though we are really flat broke. Using aggressive tactics used by Wall Street in hostile company takeovers to really intimidate other nations. And hire and place those he really agrees with in important positions who really reflect his true feelings. I'm sure when he spoke with Haspel before offering her the job, he brought up the topic of torture and agreed with her on its use on terrorists.
Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 12:24:11 PM | link
lysias @18: conspired to stop Trump's candidacy

I think there's a reasonable case to be made that they conspired not to stop Trump but to further speculation of Trump's "collusion" with Russia (what would later be known as Russiagate). The "collusion" and "Russia meddled" accusations are what fueled the new McCarthyism.

juliania , Apr 16, 2019 12:28:54 PM | link
I'll just add to Jerry's comment at #3 that the final line in the movie "Day of the Condor" is something like "But will they print it?" which really spoke to the message of the film in its entirety. The condor being an endangered bird for whom the hero is named, and the beginning outrage being the brutal murder of book lovers researching useable plot details for the 'company'makes this message current and applicable to what we see in the Skripal case. And instead of librarians, we now have online commenters, a doughty breed, and we have Assange.

Instead of 'Will they print it?' I am wondering 'Will they make another movie about it?'

"Day of the Condor: Part Two." Some Day.

Ross , Apr 16, 2019 12:41:17 PM | link
Remind me, where is Yulia Skripal these days? Well and truly 'disappeared' it seems. The mask is off. the snarling face of the beast is there for all to see.
Kiza , Apr 16, 2019 12:49:37 PM | link
What a total waste of an article discussing a story published in NYT or WaPo.

b, the World has divided itself into those who consume alternative media such as this and stupidos who consume MSM. There is nothing in-between that you are attempting to discuss and dissect here. NYT = cognitive value zero.

Fake News not worth one millisecond of our time, not even to decode what the regime wants us to know, we know all that already. Personally, I am only interested in the new methods of domestic repression, what is next after the warning of Assange arrest, future rendition and torture. The Deep Stare appears to be coming out into open, will it soon get rid of the whole faux democracy construct and just use iron fist to rule? It already impose its will as the rule of law. All of the Western block is heading in this direction.

jayc , Apr 16, 2019 1:00:38 PM | link
Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss.
Piotr Berman , Apr 16, 2019 1:11:24 PM | link
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. Mataman | Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM

This assumes that Trump would primarily care about the ducks (and children) when he approved a massive expulsion, rather that his image and "ah, in that case it would look bad if we do not do something really decisive".

In any case, I was thinking why NYT would disclose something like that. The point is that readers of Craig Murray (not so few, but mostly Scottish nationalists who are also leftist and have scant possibilities and/or inclination to vote in USA) and MoonOfAlabama would quickly catch a dead fish here, but 99.9% of the public is blissfully unaware of any incongruences in the "established" Skripal narrative.

Piotr Berman , Apr 16, 2019 1:22:03 PM | link
BTW, it is possible that the journalist who scribbled fresh yarn obtained from CIA did it earnestly. Journalists do not necessarily follow stories that they cover -- scribbling from given notes does not require overtaxing the precious attention span that can be devoted to more vital cognitive challenges. I am lazy to find the link, but while checking for news on Venezuela, I stumbled on a piece from Express, a British tabloid, where Guaido was named a "figurehead of the oposition" supported by "450 Western countries". My interpretation was that more literate journalists were moved for to more compelling stories as Venezuela went to the back burner.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , Apr 16, 2019 1:28:11 PM | link
Yes, indeed, the Skripal Affair is one of the obviously contrived stunts we've seen. Just outrageous in its execution. On a par with the US having a man who didn't even run for president of Venezuela swear himself in and then pressure everyone to accept him as president.

Interesting, I had no idea Gina Haspel - aka, The Queen of Blood - played a role. I thought it was all original dirty work by Britain's Theresa May. Boy, I hope people are through with the false notion that if women just get into leadership, the world will become a better gentler place.

Here's some interesting background:

Noirette , Apr 16, 2019 1:28:44 PM | link
Macron was (afaik?) the only EU 'leader' who was quoted in the MSM as bruiting re. the Skripal affair a message like:

.. no culpability in the part of Russia has been evidenced .. for now...

I suppose he was enjoined to shut his gob right quick (have been reading about brexit so brit eng) as nothing more in that line was heard.

Hooo, the EU expelled a lot of Russ. diplomats, obeying the USuk, which certainly created some major upsets on the ground.

Some were expelled, went into other jobs, other places, but then others arrived, etc. The MSM has not made any counts - lists - of names numbers - etc. of R diplos on the job - anywhere. As some left and then others arrived.

Once more, this was mostly a symbolic move, if extremely nasty, insulting, and disruptive.

Theresa May's speech re. Novichok, Independent 14 March 2018:

.. on Monday I set out that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Novichok: a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia. Based on this capability, combined with their record of conducting state sponsored assassinations – including against former intelligence officers whom they regard as legitimate targets – the UK Government concluded it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for this reckless and despicable act. ..

https://ind.pn/2XcAIk4

Cost her a consequent amount of political capital. - Everyone knows the Skripal story is BS.

semiconscious , Apr 16, 2019 1:31:34 PM | link
@25 & @26:

imo, the media has, once again, simply taken its lead from trump himself, & started making things up completely. & you're absolutely correct in pointing out that, much like trump's true believers, the msm's targeted audience never even notices...

karlof1 , Apr 16, 2019 1:53:44 PM | link
Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War.
james , Apr 16, 2019 2:03:20 PM | link
after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative..

what i didn't know is what @18 lysias pointed out.."Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter." ditto jr's speculation @20 too...

so gaspel shows trump some cheap propaganda that she got from who??

my main problem with b's post - i tend to see it like kiza @23) is maintaining the idea trump isn't in on all of this.. the thought trump is being duped by his underlings.. if he was and it mattered, he would get rid of them.. the fact he doesn't says to me, he is in on it - get russia, being the 24/7 game plan of the west here still..

c1ue , Apr 16, 2019 2:03:56 PM | link
Please stop listening to idiot libertarians and their "US is flat broke" meme. The reality is that: so long as Americans transact in dollars, the United States government can tax anytime it feels like by issuing new dollars via the Fed.

Equally, so long as 60% of the world's trade is conducted in dollars, this is tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of additional taxation surface area. The MMT people - I don't agree 100% with everything they say, but they do understand the actual operation of fiat currency.

The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy.

Michael Droy , Apr 16, 2019 2:12:37 PM | link
Well this could be Syria, not Salisbury!

I doubt Haspel knew the ducks were fake - she was probably just given stuff to pass up the chain. It is a lot like John Kerry who was shown convincing satellite data of the BUK launch that hit MH17 - but no one could be bothered to pass on even the launch site coordinates to the JIT. I'm sure this stuff goes on all the time, and of course, once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible.

Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians.

bjd , Apr 16, 2019 2:25:23 PM | link
The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both.
fastfreddy , Apr 16, 2019 2:48:31 PM | link
Haspel will not be fired.
Russ , Apr 16, 2019 3:02:51 PM | link
@c1ue | Apr 16, 2019 2:03:56 PM | 32

"The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy."

The useful idiocy is most surprising among US farmers. In the 19th century they broadly understood that fiat money was good for chronic low-wealth debtors like themselves, while hard money was bad and a gold standard lethal. This was the basis of the Populist movement. Nothing has changed financially, but today's farmers, and the low-wealth debtor class in general, seem more likely to be goldbuggers than to have any knowledge of economics or of their own political history.

karlof1 36

Once a faction becomes submerged in the Mammon theocracy and becomes nothing but mercenary nihilists, thinking is no longer necessary or desirable, except to come up with attractive, pseudo-plausible lies.

This certainly characterizes "the right" (including liberals), but they have no monopoly on it. By now "the left" is nearly as thoughtless and instrumental on behalf of Mammon, except to the extent that a few people are starting to really grapple with what it means to have an intrinsically ecocidal and therefore suicidal civilization. That's really the only thought frontier left, all else has been engulfed in Mammon, productionism, scientism and technocracy.

snake , Apr 16, 2019 3:29:24 PM | link
@7 ..Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy" where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the point where no one can tell the difference. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/04/15/593529/Ecuadoran-president-sold-off-Assangeto-America-Ron-Paul

I remind that Mussolini wasted his legislature.. 1 balmy after noon @ a roadside spot. it made his government stronger.?

It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). ..

The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Everyone in the government is covering for the behaviors of someone else in government, the MSM has raised the price of a pencil to just under a million, stock markets are bags of hot thin air, and everyone in side and outside of the centers of power at all levels of government have lied thru their teeth so much that their teeth are melting from the continuous flow of hot deceitful air.

Corrupt is now the only qualification for political office, trigger happy screwball the only qualification for the police and the military and . making progress is like trying to conduct a panty raid at a female nudist camp.

John Anthony La Pietra , Apr 16, 2019 3:47:03 PM | link
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/quotes?ref_=m_tt_trv_qu

Higgins: Hey, Turner! How do you know they'll print it? You can take a walk, but how far if they don't print it?

Joe Turner: They'll print it.

Higgins: How do you know?

[Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

John, says: April 13, 2019 at 3:18 am

With all due respect, Iraq didn't wreck you. The US wrecked Iraq, and the US wrecked you.
Uncle Billy , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:00 am
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
JohnT , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:06 am
@Ken Zaretzke.

For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???

I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.

Bob , says: April 13, 2019 at 9:57 am
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send someone else's sons to war."
Ken Zaretzke , says: April 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm
@JohnT,

You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.

You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.

To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president.

More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that as well as a special counsel's report.

Sarto , says: April 13, 2019 at 5:02 pm
Remember, 75% of Americans wanted Bush to invade Iraq. War is the force that gives America its meaning.
Lee Green , says: April 13, 2019 at 8:11 pm
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.

The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors.

Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.

George Hoffman , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:09 pm
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
Talltale , says: April 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands."

Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?

The navel gazing never stops.

Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side.

Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times!

Craig Morris , says: April 14, 2019 at 1:59 am
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible.

[Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

Highly recommended!
Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
Notable quotes:
"... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
"... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
"... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
"... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
"... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
"... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
"... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
"... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
"... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
"... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
"... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
"... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
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."

chris chuba , a day ago

OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.

Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were going to be mass defections.

It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
[not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]

Karl Kolchak -> chris chuba , a day ago
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 ago
Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens the US.
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.
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.

Jack , 15 hours ago
David

In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?

There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting. Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.

john fletcher , a day ago

I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.

And yet the chatterati continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was no more.

I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.

VietnamVet , 12 hours ago
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.

[Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Nice group shot of the three stooges. The most dishonest, disloyal, dipshitted psychopaths a country should never have to endure. ..."
"... The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies are buried. ..."
"... There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc. ..."
"... This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time. ..."
Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Rep. Devin Nunes, op-ed via The Washington Examiner,

As the Russia collusion hoax hurtles toward its demise, it's important to consider how this destructive information operation rampaged through vital American institutions for more than two years , and what can be done to stop such a damaging episode from recurring.

While the hoax was fueled by a wide array of false accusations, misleading leaks of ostensibly classified information, and bad-faith investigative actions by government officials, one vital element was indispensable to the overall operation: the Steele dossier.

<

Funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee, which hid their payments from disclosure by funneling them through the law firm Perkins Coie, the dossier was a collection of false and often absurd accusations of collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials. These allegations, which relied heavily on Russian sources cultivated by Christopher Steele, were spoon-fed to Trump opponents in the U.S. government, including officials in law enforcement and intelligence.

The efforts to feed the dossier's allegations into top levels of the U.S. government, particularly intelligence agencies, were championed by Steele, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, and various intermediaries. These allegations were given directly to the FBI and Justice Department, while similar allegations were fed into the State Department by long-time Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal.

Their efforts were remarkably effective. Officials within the FBI and DOJ, whether knowingly or unintentionally, provided essential support to the hoax conspirators, bypassing normal procedures and steering the information away from those who would view it critically. The dossier soon metastasized within the government, was cloaked in secrecy, and evaded serious scrutiny.

High-ranking officials such as then-FBI general counsel James Baker and then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr were among those whose actions advanced the hoax. Ohr, one of the most senior officials within the DOJ, took the unprecedented step of providing to Steele a back door into the FBI investigation. This enabled the former British spy to continue to feed information to investigators, even though he had been terminated by the FBI for leaking to the press and was no longer a valid source. Even worse, Ohr directly briefed Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad, two DOJ officials who were later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. In short, the investigation was marked by glaring irregularities that would normally be deemed intolerable.

According to Ohr's congressional testimony, he told top-level FBI officials as early as August or September 2016 that Steele was biased against Trump, that Steele's work was connected to the Clinton campaign, and that Steele's material was of questionable reliability. Steele himself confirmed that last point in a British court case in which he acknowledged his allegations included unverified information. Yet even after this revelation, intelligence leaders continued to cite the Steele dossier in applications to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

It is astonishing that intelligence leaders did not immediately recognize they were being manipulated in an information operation or understand the danger that the dossier could contain deliberate disinformation from Steele's Russian sources . In fact, it is impossible to believe in light of everything we now know about the FBI's conduct of this investigation, including the astounding level of anti-Trump animus shown by high-level FBI figures like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as well as the inspector general's discovery of a shocking number of leaks by FBI officials.

It's now clear that top intelligence officials were perfectly well aware of the dubiousness of the dossier, but they embraced it anyway because it justified actions they wanted to take - turning the full force of our intelligence agencies first against a political candidate and then against a sitting president.

The hoax itself was a gift to our nation's adversaries, most notably Russia. The abuse of intelligence for political purposes is insidious in any democracy. It undermines trust in democratic institutions, and it damages the reputation of the brave men and women who are working to keep us safe. This unethical conduct has had major repercussions on America's body politic, creating a yearslong political crisis whose full effects remain to be seen.

Having extensively investigated this abuse, House Intelligence Committee Republicans will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in these matters.

These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future. The men and women of our intelligence community perform an essential service defending American national security, and their ability to carry out their mission cannot be compromised by biased actors who seek to transform the intelligence agencies into weapons of political warfare.

-320 for Money , 2 hours ago link

Nice group shot of the three stooges. The most dishonest, disloyal, dipshitted psychopaths a country should never have to endure.

I certainly do not know the cure for all the nations ills, but these 3 ***** could do more by dying than they ever did by living.

Fall on your swords swine, save a smidgen of face, you are a disgrace.

Real Estate Guru , 2 hours ago link

All 3 of them have been confirmed to by lying through their teeth by their own people. They are all going down. We just need the Mueller report to come out to get the ball rolling. Can't do it before the report comes out as they would call it obstruction. So we wait another 9 days, or less, according to AG Barr.

Jackprong , 4 hours ago link

Could be, PapaGeorge. Maybe this time it's different because it could be argued that the TPTB don't want Trump pulling the same thing on the DNC--and get away with it like the Usual Suspects just did. In legal terms, a bar has been set. BARR? Get it? Buwhahahahahahahahahha!!!

The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies are buried. There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc.

This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time

papageorgeo , 5 hours ago link

The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies are buried.

There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc.

This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time.

Fred box , 5 hours ago link

<<<House Intelligence Committee Republicans will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in these matters<<< We shall see now, won't we? I won't believe this, till I see It!

[Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader

Highly recommended!
Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader?

by Tyler Durden Thu, 04/04/2019 - 21:25 550 SHARES Authored by Monica Crowley, op-ed via The Washington Times,

The best defense, the saying goes, is a good offense.

The key orchestrators of the Big Trump-Russia Collusion Lie seem to have hewed tightly to that tactical advice.

Over the past two years, one of their biggest "tells" has been their hyper-aggressive and gratuitous attacks on the president. Given that special counsel Robert Mueller 's investigation found no collusion or obstruction of justice, their constant broadsides now look, in retrospect, like calculated pre-emptive strikes to deflect attention and culpability away from themselves.

By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

We now know that former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, are hip-deep in the conspiracy. Both wrote supposed "tell-all" books and carpet-bombed the media with interviews in which they regularly flung criminal accusations against the president. Whenever asked about their own roles, they reverted to denouncing Mr. Trump .

With Mr. Mueller 's findings, Mr. Comey 's and Mr. McCabe's media benders look increasingly suspicious.

As do those of their comrades in the Obama national security apparatus, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and his partner in possible crime, former CIA Director John Brennan , who, apart from former President Barack Obama himself, may be the biggest player of them all.

Any investigation into the origins and execution of the Big Lie must focus on Mr. Brennan , whose job as the nation's chief spook would have prohibited him, by law, from engaging in any domestic political spy games.

Of course, the law didn't stop him from illegally spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by hacking into its computers and lying repeatedly about it, prompting Democratic senators to call for his resignation.

Once out of Langley, Mr. Brennan tore into Mr. Trump, accusing him of "treason" (among other crimes) in countless television appearances and bitter tweets. It got so vicious that Mr. Trump pulled his security clearance.

Consider a few critical data points.

The Obama Department of Justice and FBI targeting of two low-level Trump aides, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, was carried out in the spring of 2016 because they wanted to spy on the Trump campaign but needed a way in. They enlisted an American academic and shadowy FBI informant named Stefan Halper to repeatedly sidle up to both Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page. But complementing his work for the FBI , Mr. Halper had a side gig as an intelligence operative with longstanding ties to the CIA and British intelligence MI6.

Another foreign professor, Joseph Mifsud, who played an important early part in targeting Papadopoulos, also had abiding ties to the CIA , MI6 and the British foreign secretary.

A third operative, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, targeted Mr. Papadopoulos in a London bar. It was Mr. Downer's "tip" to the FBI that provided the justification for the start of Russia counterintelligence investigation, complete with fraudulently-obtained FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

All of these interactions reek of entrapment. Mr. Papadopoulos now says, "I believe Australian and UK intelligence were involved in an active operation to target Trump and his associates." Like Mr. Halper and Mr. Mifsud, Mr. Downer had ties to the CIA , MI6 and (surprise!) the Clintons.

Given the deep intelligence backgrounds of these folks, it's difficult to believe that former DOJ/ FBI officials such as Peter Strzok or even James Comey and Andrew McCabe on their own devised the plan to deploy them.

So: who did? How did the relationships with Messrs. Halper, Mifsud and Downer come about? Who suggested them for these tasks? To whom did they report? How were they compensated?

Any investigation must follow the money -- and the personnel. There were plenty of DOJ/ FBI officials involved, but what about intelligence officials? Was Mr. Brennan a central player in the hoax, which would help explain the participation of Mr. Halper, Mr. Mifsud and Mr. Downer? Intel officials are likely to draw on other intelligence operatives.

There is also a glimpse of a paper trail.

Fox News' Catherine Herridge reported last week that "in a Dec. 12, 2016 text, [ FBI lawyer Lisa] Page wrote to McCabe: "Btw, Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just FYSA [for your situational awareness ]."

"Within a minute, McCabe replied, "OK."

Ms. Herridge notes that those named are likely Peter Strzok and Mr. Brennan 's then-deputy, David Cohen. Ms. Herridge also notes that while we don't yet know what was discussed during the dinner, government sources thought it "irregular" for Mr. Clapper to be in contact with the more junior-level Mr. Strzok. She also points out that the text came "during a critical time for the Russia probe."

Indeed. It was right before the publication of the ICA, the official Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian 2016 election interference.

As Paul Sperry has reported, "A source close to the House investigation said Brennan himself selected the CIA and FBI analysts who worked on the ICA, and that they included former FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok.

"Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan and Comey , and he was one of the authors of the ICA," according to the source." Recall that the dossier-based ICA was briefed to Obama , Trump and Congress ahead of Trump's inauguration.

Post- Mueller report, Mr. Brennan is spinning wildly that perhaps his early condemnations of Mr. Trump were based on "bad information."

These are just some of the threads suggesting Mr. Brennan may be one of the Masters of the Big Lie, requiring full investigation.

If the devil is in the details, Mr. Brennan is all over the details.

No wonder he -- and his fellow caballers -- have been so loud. They doth protest too much.

Luau , 6 minutes ago link

Obama was the ringleader. Brennan's just the fall guy.

Yars Revenge , 7 minutes ago link

Trying to frame a sitting President is treason.

Which under the law is punishable by death.

outofnowhere , 12 minutes ago link

Yes, yes he was. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Brennan was and is the darkest of evil. He is insane.

MoreFreedom , 27 minutes ago link

By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.

Hillary setup a unsecured server and had confidential government information on it, including 20 emails with Obama suspiciously using an alias. If you're in law enforcement, and get a tip that Papadopolous may get some of those emails from Russians, what crime has been committed by Papadopolous? Isn't Papadopolous doing the US a favor by obtaining those emails from those who hacked her server?

If you believe Hillary that her server wasn't hacked (and you don't have any evidence because Obama's people allowed practically all the evidence to be destroyed) then there's no reason to investigate Papadopolous. If you think Hillary's server was hacked, shouldn't you be investigating her and examining her server to see who hacked her and what damage was done, such as blackmailing her and Obama into appeasement and flexibility, like selling 20% of the US's uranium reserves to Russians just before an election?

... ... ...

American2 , 1 hour ago link

John Brennan, James Clapper, Strozk, Ohr, Page were only some of Obama's political pythons operating in the jungle of Washington. Obama orchestrated a symphony of harmful actions that will take the US a generation to recover from. That is if Obama's criminal actions can be undone and then we get to recover.

[Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting the Democratic leadership too. ..."
"... Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed in the content of the DNC emails. ..."
"... What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate. ..."
"... Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness ..."
"... The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait, just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump, prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They care much less whether the pig's face remains painted. ..."
"... Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the political cul-de-sac of identity politics. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges. ..."
"... Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org
Here are three important lessons for the progressive left to consider now that it is clear the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russiagate is never going to uncover collusion between Donald Trump's camp and the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election.

Painting the pig's face

The left never had a dog in this race. This was always an in-house squabble between different wings of the establishment. Late-stage capitalism is in terminal crisis, and the biggest problem facing our corporate elites is how to emerge from this crisis with their power intact. One wing wants to make sure the pig's face remains painted, the other is happy simply getting its snout deeper into the trough while the food lasts.

Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism.

The leaders of the Democratic party are less terrified of Trump and what he represents than they are of us and what we might do if we understood how they have rigged the political and economic system to their permanent advantage.

It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Mired in corruption

What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting the Democratic leadership too.

An anti-corruption investigation would have run much deeper and exposed far more. It would have highlighted the Clinton Foundation, and the role of mega-donors like James Simons, George Soros and Haim Saban who funded Hillary's campaign with one aim in mind: to get their issues into a paid-for national "consensus".

Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed in the content of the DNC emails. It was the leaking / hacking of those emails that provided the rationale for Mueller's investigations. What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate.

So, in short, Russiagate has been two years of wasted energy by the left, energy that could have been spent both targeting Trump for what he is really doing rather than what it is imagined he has done, and targeting the Democratic leadership for its own, equally corrupt practices.

Trump empowered

But it's far worse than that. It is not just that the left wasted two years of political energy on Russiagate. At the same time, they empowered Trump, breathing life into his phony arguments that he is the anti-establishment president, a people's president the elites are determined to destroy.

Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness. And he is doing so not because he wants to reform or overthrow turbo-charged capitalism but because he wants to remove the last, largely cosmetic constraints on the system so that he and his friends can plunder with greater abandon – and destroy the planet more quickly.

The other wing of the neoliberal establishment, the one represented by the Democratic party leadership, fears that exposing capitalism in this way – making explicit its inherently brutal, wrist-slitting tendencies – will awaken the masses, that over time it will risk turning them into revolutionaries. Democratic party leaders fear Trump chiefly because of the threat he poses to the image of the political and economic system they have so lovingly crafted so that they can continue enriching themselves and their children.

Trump's genius – his only genius – is to have appropriated, and misappropriated, some of the language of the left to advance the interests of the 1 per cent. When he attacks the corporate "liberal" media for having a harmful agenda, for serving as propagandists, he is not wrong. When he rails against the identity politics cultivated by "liberal" elites over the past two decades – suggesting that it has weakened the US – he is not wrong. But he is right for the wrong reasons.

TV's version of clickbait

The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait, just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate.

The handful of corporations that own the US media – and much of corporate America besides – are there both to make ever-more money by expanding profits and to maintain the credibility of a political and economic system that lets them make ever more money.

The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump, prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They care much less whether the pig's face remains painted.

So Trump is right that the "liberal" media is undemocratic and that it is now propagandising against him. But he is wrong about why. In fact, all corporate media – whether "liberal" or not, whether against Trump or for him – is undemocratic. All of the media propagandises for a rotten system that keeps the vast majority of Americans impoverished. All of the media cares more for Trump and the elites he belongs to than it cares for the 99 per cent.

Gorging on the main course

Similarly, with identity politics. Trump says he wants to make (a white) America great again, and uses the left's obsession with identity as a way to energize a backlash from his own supporters.

Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the political cul-de-sac of identity politics.

Just as Mueller put the left on standby, into waiting-for-the-Messiah mode, so simple-minded, pussy-hat-wearing identity politics has been cultivated in the supposedly liberal bastions of the corporate media and Ivy League universities – the same universities that have turned out generations of Muellers and Clintons – to deplete the left's political energies. While we argue over who is most entitled and most victimised, the establishment has carried on raping and pillaging Third World countries, destroying the planet and siphoning off the wealth produced by the rest of us.

These liberal elites long ago worked out that if we could be made to squabble among ourselves about who was most entitled to scraps from the table, they could keep gorging on the main course.

The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges.

The Corbyn experience

3. But the most important lesson of all for the left is that support among its ranks for the Mueller inquiry against Trump was foolhardy in the extreme.

Not only was the inquiry doomed to failure – in fact, not only was it designed to fail – but it has set a precedent for future politicised investigations that will be used against the progressive left should it make any significant political gains. And an inquiry against the real left will be far more aggressive and far more "productive" than Mueller was.

If there is any doubt about that look to the UK. Britain now has within reach of power the first truly progressive politician in living memory, someone seeking to represent the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent. But Jeremy Corbyn's experience as the leader of the Labour party – massively swelling the membership's ranks to make it the largest political party in Europe – has been eye-popping.

I have documented Corbyn's travails regularly in this blog over the past four years at the hands of the British political and media establishment. You can find many examples here.

Corbyn, even more so than the small, new wave of insurgency politicians in the US Congress, has faced a relentless barrage of criticism from across the UK's similarly narrow political spectrum. He has been attacked by both the rightwing media and the supposedly "liberal" media. He has been savaged by the ruling Conservative party, as was to be expected, and by his own parliamentary Labour party. The UK's two-party system has been exposed as just as hollow as the US one.

The ferocity of the attacks has been necessary because, unlike the Democratic party's success in keeping a progressive leftwinger away from the presidential campaign, the UK system accidentally allowed a socialist to slip past the gatekeepers. All hell has broken out ever since.

Simple-minded identity politics

What is so noticeable is that Corbyn is rarely attacked over his policies – mainly because they have wide popular appeal. Instead he has been hounded over fanciful claims that, despite being a life-long and very visible anti-racism campaigner, he suddenly morphed into an outright anti-semite the moment party members elected him leader.

I will not rehearse again how implausible these claims are. Simply look through these previous blog posts should you be in any doubt.

But what is amazing is that, just as with the Mueller inquiry, much of the British left – including prominent figures like Owen Jones and the supposedly countercultural Novara Media – have sapped their political energies in trying to placate or support those leading the preposterous claims that Labour under Corbyn has become "institutionally anti-semitic". Again, the promotion of a simple-minded identity politics – which pits the rights of Palestinians against the sensitivities of Zionist Jews about Israel – was exploited to divide the left.

The more the left has conceded to this campaign, the angrier, the more implacable, the more self-righteous Corbyn's opponents have become – to the point that the Labour party is now in serious danger of imploding.

A clarifying moment

Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be.

That is not because a leftwing US president would be more corrupt or more likely to have colluded with a foreign power. As the UK example shows, it would be because the entire media system – from the New York Times to Fox News – would be against such a president. And as the UK example also shows, it would be because the leaderships of both the Republican and Democratic parties would work as one to finish off such a president.

In the combined success-failure of the Mueller inquiry, the left has an opportunity to understand in a much more sophisticated way how real power works and in whose favour it is exercised. It is moment that should be clarifying – if we are willing to open our eyes to Mueller's real lessons.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are " Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and " Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair " (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jonathan-cook.net/

[Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson

Highly recommended!
This is probably the most comprehensive outline of the color revolution against Trump. Bravo, simply bravo !!!
Reads like Agatha Christi Murder on the Orient Express ;-) Rosenstein role is completely revised from a popular narrative. Brennan role clarifies and detailed. Obama personal role hinted. Victoria Nuland role and the role of the State Department in Russiagate is documented for the first time, I think.
Notable quotes:
"... The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered. ..."
"... Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier. ..."
"... The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission. ..."
"... Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken. ..."
"... The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time. ..."
"... The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents? ..."
Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] How America's most powerful agencies were weaponized against President Donald Trump

Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate -- the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign -- remains surprisingly simple:

  1. CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community.
  2. The FBI became the handler of Brennan's intelligence and engaged in the more practical elements of surveillance.
  3. The Department of Justice facilitated investigations by the FBI and legal maneuverings, while providing a crucial shield of nondisclosure.
  4. The Department of State became a mechanism of information dissemination and leaks.
  5. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided funding, support, and media collusion.
  6. Obama administration officials were complicit, and engaged in unmasking and intelligence gathering and dissemination.
  7. The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted.

Let's start with a simple premise: The candidacy of Trump presented both an opportunity and a threat.

Initially not viewed with any real seriousness, Trump's campaign was seen as an opportunistic wedge in the election process. At the same time, and particularly as the viability of his candidacy increased, Trump was seen as an existential threat to the established political system.

The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment. Here was a true political outsider who held no traditional allegiances. He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't care what others thought of him -- he trusted himself.

Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried. Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy, regulations, and the power of special interests. He challenged Congress. He challenged the United Nations and the European Union. He questioned everything.

Brennan played a crucial role in the creation of the Russia-collusion narrative and the spying on the Trump campaign. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

Brennan became the point man in the operation to stop a potential Trump presidency. It remains unclear whether his role was self-appointed or came from above. To embark on such a mission without direct presidential authority seems both a stretch of the imagination and particularly foolhardy.

Brennan took unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates -- primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia.

Individuals in official positions in UK intelligence, such as Robert Hannigan -- head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) -- partnered with former UK foreign intelligence members. Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove , former Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, and private UK intelligence firm Hakluyt all played a role.

In the summer of 2016, Hannigan traveled to Washington to meet with Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. On Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration -- Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement. The Guardian openly speculated that Hannigan's resignation was directly related to the sharing of UK intelligence.

One method used to help establish evidence of collusion was the employment of "spy traps." Prominent among these were ones set for Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The intent was to provide or establish connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. The content and context mattered little as long as a connection could be established that could then be publicized. The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting was another such attempt.

Western intelligence assets were used to initiate and establish these connections, particularly in the cases of Papadopoulos and Page.

Ultimately, Brennan formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency (NSA) handled foreign and intelligence aspects.

Brennan's inter-agency task force is not to be confused with the July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation, which was formed later at Brennan's urging.

During this time, Brennan also employed the use of reverse targeting , which relates to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen. This effort was uncovered and made public by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a March 2017 press conference :

"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the president-elect and his team were monitored and disseminated out in intelligence-reporting channels. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign-intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.

"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying to get to the bottom of it."

As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. Brennan repeatedly noted this during a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :

"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."

Brennan also admitted that his intelligence helped establish the FBI investigation:

"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."

This admission is important, as no official intelligence was used to open the FBI's investigation.

Once the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, Brennan shifted his focus. Through a series of meetings in August and September 2016, Brennan informed the congressional Gang of Eight regarding intelligence and information he had gathered. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts to block the release of the transcripts from each meeting remain ongoing.

The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports and greater participation from Clapper. The first report, the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017.

This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump. Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/bMcNbum93cU?wmode=transparent&wmode=opaque

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Although the FBI is technically part of the DOJ, it is best for the purposes of this article that the FBI and DOJ be viewed as separate entities, each with its own related ties.

The FBI itself was comprised of various factions, with a particularly active element that has come to be known as the "insurance policy group." It appears that this faction was led by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and comprised other notable names such as FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and FBI general counsel James Baker.

The FBI established the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russia collusion with the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016. Comey initially refused to say whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. He would continue to refuse to provide answers until March 20, 2017, when he disclosed the existence of the FBI investigation during congressional testimony.

Comey also testified that he did not provide notification to the Gang of Eight until early March 2017 -- less than one month earlier. This admission was in stark contrast to actions taken by Brennan, who had notified members of the Gang of Eight individually during August and September 2016. It's likely that Brennan never informed Comey that he had briefed the Gang of Eight in 2016. Comey did note that the DOJ "had been aware" of the investigation all along.

Comey opened the counterintelligence investigation into Trump on the urging of CIA Director John Brennan.
Following Comey's firing on May 9, 2017, the FBI's investigation was transferred to special counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation remains ongoing.

The FBI's formal involvement with the Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016, when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.

Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance to the FBI's investigation into the FIFA corruption scandal .

Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele several weeks earlier. "In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information started to reach the bureau in Washington."

It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.

For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources."

In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting included several other FBI officials as well. According to a House Intelligence Committee minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's September trip to Rome.

The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.

Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office, finally expiring in September 2017.

Former volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Nov. 2, 2017. The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant on Page.

After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were two prominent members of the FBI's "insurance policy" group. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was the deputy assistant director of FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, served as special counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. He helped FBI Director James Comey draft the statement exonerating Clinton and was personally responsible for changing specific wording within that statement that reduced Clinton's legal liability. Specifically, Strzok changed the words "grossly negligent," which could be a criminal offense, to "extremely careless."

Strzok also personally led the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Trump–Russia collusion and signed the documents that opened the investigation on July 31, 2016. He was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Trump's national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Strzok met multiple times with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and received information from Steele at those meetings.

Following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Strzok would join the team of special counsel Robert Mueller. Two months later, he was removed from that team after the DOJ inspector general discovered a lengthy series of texts between Strzok and Page that contained politically charged messages. Strzok would be fired from the FBI in August 2018.

Both Strzok and Page engaged in strategic leaking to the press. Page did so at the direction of McCabe, who directly authorized Page to share information with Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett. That information was used in an Oct. 30, 2016, article headlined "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe ." Page leaked to Barrett thinking she had been granted legal and official authorization to do so.

McCabe would later initially deny providing such authorization to the Office of Inspector General. Page, when confronted with McCabe's denials, produced texts refuting his statement. It was these texts that led to the inspector general uncovering the texts between Strzok and Page.

The two exchanged thousands of texts, some of them indicating surveillance activities, over a two-year period. Texts sent between Aug. 21, 2015, and June 25, 2017, have been made public . The series comes to an end with a final text by Page telling Strzok, "Don't ever text me again."

On Aug. 8, 2016, Stzrok wrote that they would prevent candidate Trump from becoming president:

Page: "[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"

Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."

On Aug. 15, 2016, Strzok sent a text referring to an "insurance policy":

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way [Trump] gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered.

Department of Justice

The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.

However, a series of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject to prosecution.

The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.

DOJ Official Bruce Ohr on Aug. 28, 2018. Ohr passed on information from Christopher Steele to the FBI.

The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security Division, was actively involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.

To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.

David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean, the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high school. McLean was also employed by the FBI for 24 years.

Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a key role in Spygate. Ohr held two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney general's drug strategy."

Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.

According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least 12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October or early November 2016.

John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.

The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text message.

McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.

On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.

Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day. McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for the permanent position.

On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.

In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.

Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.

On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.

The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president." An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"

Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job. On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.

The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.

Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would have retained control.

On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI director.

Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.

That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely neutralized.

On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.

State Department

The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

Clinton Campaign and the DNC

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.

The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.

Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser to the campaign, took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.

Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence Committee's final report on Russian active measures , in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article "Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the Trump Tower.

The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a tweet on the same day the article was published:

"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."

Attached to her tweet was a statement from Sullivan:

"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.

"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."

These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.

This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from the Clinton campaign.

Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia. Chalupa began investigating Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January 2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.

Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff published a story on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff -- the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama administration.

Perkins Coie

International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.

Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.

Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele. Sussmann personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.

Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann. Sussmann transmitted information to FBI chief counsel James Baker and several journalists. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)

According to a letter dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign. Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.

Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele. During this same period, Fusion also reportedly hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016, and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.

Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI. Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.

The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."

Obama Administration

The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.

Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.

The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.

An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017, MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:

"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'

"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Evelyn Farkas on May 6, 2014. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the attorney general's office. According to congressional testimony by Horowitz:

"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going to give us that information."

These new restrictions were put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015, with a 58-page memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters.

The New York Times recently disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.

At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The Intelligence Community assessment was released internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email documenting the meeting.

The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.

Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview why:

"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."

Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The significance of the meeting was material, as Comey noted in a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:

"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material."

Clapper leaked information to CNN, after which he publicly condemned the leaks. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey briefed Trump that CNN reported on the dossier. It was later revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.

The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of intelligence unmaskings , the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.

The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division, led that effort .

Executive Order 13762

President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ. The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.

Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.

Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership. The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.

Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips, after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming under intense scrutiny.

The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian ambassador.

Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.

Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.

On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings appear to have been unexpected.

Media

In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a series of payments to several as-of-yet- unnamed reporters .

The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In September 2016 , he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.

In mid-October 2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.

On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article " A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in court documents relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, " FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA warrant.

The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.

Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application. According to the indictment , Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call. The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.

In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.

Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly stated that evidence within the FISA application shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.

Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit their complicity.

Foreign Intelligence

UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.

Britain's GCHQ was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to meet personally with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.

Former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in this file photo. Hannigan transmitted information regarding Donald Trump to John Brennan in the summer of 2016. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)

Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.

As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.

Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove.

Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend.

Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services.

Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books.

Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.

The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.

Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.

In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.

Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?

Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.

Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele

Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.

The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.

Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele maintains contact with British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove , and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.

Steele appears to have been represented by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:

"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort. I will be with him next tuesday for a week."

Steele also appears to have lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently disclosed by the Washington Examiner:

"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool' of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."

Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler, who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, at which she discussed the Magnitsky Act .

Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.

A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.

Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.


Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.

Bruce and Nellie Ohr have known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr before and after the 2016 election.

Bruce Ohr had been in contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s -- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.

Spy Traps

In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.

Papadopoulos and Mifsud both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around November 2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly joined LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths until March 14, 2016, in Italy.

Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.

Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.

Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed as a chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.

Papadopoulos was introduced to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened to be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit remains unknown.

The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.

Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."

Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.

Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017, BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended target of these failed FISAs.

Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.

Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.

After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct. 21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.

Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.

Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case.

Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia.

FBI informant Stefan Halper approached Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.

If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.

Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.

FISA Abuse

Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page unsealed FISA court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:

"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.

"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.

"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."

The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:

"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."

The FISA Court disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.

In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of improper contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."

On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors working for the FBI.

Then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on May 23, 2017. Rogers uncovered widespread abuse of FISA data by the FBI. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.

After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target.

On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISA Court.

At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit.

The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.

Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.

The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.

The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA Court.

The Insurance Policy

Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.

Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the text.

The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.

It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign.

The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.

The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.

The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.

This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.

Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.

Spygate

Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread intelligence community leaks as facts.

But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern extending back decades?

The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as Spygate.

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

[Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy. ..."
"... Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic]

The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.

Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.

Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":

"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."

Steele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:

"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."

In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)

Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK, reportedly funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.

"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018, article .

If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.

Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the first memo written by Steele on June 20, 2016:

"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."

[Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
"... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
"... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
"... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
"... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
"... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
"... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
"... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
"... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
  1. President Trump was not indicted, nor did Mueller recommend an indictment against him for collusion or obstruction.
  2. There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
  3. The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
  4. While nearly three dozen people were charged , including a few close to the president or who worked for his campaign, no one in proximity to the president was formally charged with colluding with Russia. Most, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn or campaign adviser George Papadopoulos , were charged with process crimes or felonies unrelated to the main case, as in Paul Manafort 's secretive, multimillion-dollar foreign lobbying spree through Ukraine.

*********

  • the "Steele dossier" that was the main FISA evidence was paid for with funds from Hillary Clinton 's campaign and the Democratic Party;
  • Christopher Steele, the dossier's author, had told a senior DOJ official he was desperate to defeat Trump;
  • most of the dossier was not verified before it was used as evidence of alleged Trump-Russia collusion; and
  • agents collected statements from key defendants such as Papadopoulos and Carter Page during interactions with an FBI informant that strongly suggested their innocence.

Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.

An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill

------------

Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been defeated.

The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections.

At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.

The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search through Trump's life trying to find criminality.

AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin. pl

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/435394-the-wisdom-of-trumps-lawyers-and-the-accountability-that-must-follow

Posted at 09:00 AM in government , Justice , Politics | Permalink | 20 Comments

David Habakkuk , 14 hours ago

I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy.

It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.

The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this side.

In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.

Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years it patently has not been.

Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.

English Outsider -> David Habakkuk , 12 hours ago
Mr Habakkuk,

I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -

"They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. "

What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?

Mark Logan -> David Habakkuk , 9 hours ago

The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated. The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
English Outsider -> Mark Logan , 6 hours ago
I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.

Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.

With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.

Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 6 hours ago
Ex?
Mad_Max22 , 11 hours ago
An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC 1001.

The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would figure it out.

Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.

They couldn't know that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted" positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."

Perhaps this defense could be overcome by demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible be so stupid... maybe.

And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings, all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.

So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the country is so uncertain.

I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right. It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!

Eric Newhill , 12 hours ago
I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or somehow intimated by Trump.

The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;

and that + all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the criminal cases under way?

robt willmann , 3 hours ago
seesee2468,

On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6 minute, 5 second mark, he says--

"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result."

https://www.c-span.org/vide...

Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.

However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.

Divadab Newton , 10 hours ago
It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)

I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?

Walrus , 13 hours ago
Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?

I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs to be restitution.

To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in suicide or worse - so far.

ugluk2 , 3 hours ago
Matt Taibbi on how the press has destroyed its credibility.

https://taibbi.substack.com...

Taras77 , 8 hours ago
I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.

I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!

Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.

And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.

MP98 , 12 hours ago
Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting? The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the Democrat-media party. Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
Greco , 12 hours ago
The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
Fred W , 12 hours ago
Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report. It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the campaign.

That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp of the real nature of normal political process.

Fred -> Fred W , 4 hours ago
"The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."

Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?

seesee2468 -> Fred W , 6 hours ago
Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
Pat Lang Mod -> seesee2468 , 6 hours ago
I cannot.
peter hodges , 12 hours ago
Nothing will happen. In fact, the way things have been going, Trump will make Mueller the next AG.

[Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
"... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
"... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
"... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
"... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ken , Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | link

Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?

The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup.

This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.
https://consentfactory.org/2019/03/21/mueller-dammerung/

GeorgeV , Mar 23, 2019 2:13:42 PM | link

It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be barred from public office or the media forever.

As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!

the pair , Mar 23, 2019 2:14:43 PM | link
sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.

i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.

ger , Mar 23, 2019 2:16:08 PM | link
I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends). No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM | link
@dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)

Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)

Nathan Mulcahy , Mar 23, 2019 2:31:06 PM | link
"very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".

I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit (about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is chanting "give me more, give me more...".

Disgusting! sorry for the pessimistic rant.

renfro , Mar 23, 2019 2:56:18 PM | link
The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.

However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC, EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn.

The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and political circles.

The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.

BraveNewWorld , Mar 23, 2019 3:00:34 PM | link
b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing this.

I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.

Lozion , Mar 23, 2019 3:09:29 PM | link
One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis, etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM | link
The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier, moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
dh-mtl , Mar 23, 2019 3:11:13 PM | link
Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.

Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole, are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.

Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason of the highest order.

Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved. None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved. Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually societal collapse.

In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:

- The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent 737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry, in an industry where reputation is everything.

- The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover from that crisis.

- This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions, (the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and the ability to maintain peace.

The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears, and societal decline sets in.

It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators.

English Outsider , Mar 23, 2019 3:27:38 PM | link
The pair @ 3.

Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of the BBC news, we're in information control territory.

But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.

In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media. Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the shifting currents within that political elite.

So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think. In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing and what they intend to do.

worldblee , Mar 23, 2019 3:28:20 PM | link
The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty, supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their daily fodder for conversation...
ben , Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | link
renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."

Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues the
American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an infrastructure
plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.

The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to distract, and they've done it well.

The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same ilk.

Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | link
I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.

2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary for over 25 years.

3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.

When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card industry.

4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her campaign.

5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters activist; and she called whites "deplorables".

Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.

6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.

IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:

> hiring Manafort;

> calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;

> talking about Putin in a admiring way.

And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:

> served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;

> distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;

> served as a device for settling scores:

- Assange isolated
(Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");

- Michael Flynn forced to resign
(because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).

hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM | link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
Jen , Mar 23, 2019 4:01:43 PM | link
BraveNewWorld @ 11:

If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases. This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 - 2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.

The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.

As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.

james , Mar 23, 2019 4:16:03 PM | link
thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath @2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."

the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance.. instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is still on track...

@19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..

WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 4:36:17 PM | link
What Difference Does it Make?
They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their deals for civilian projects in the Med.
Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:37:43 PM | link
What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes about Trump, Russia.
Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!

But remember folks, we here was always right...
The Mueller Report Is In. They Were Wrong. We Were Right.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-mueller-report-is-in-they-were-wrong-we-were-right-a915d23a6d82

iv> also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

Posted by: Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

also, there is a big risk that the media, deep state will create new accusations coming days.

Posted by: Zanon | Mar 23, 2019 4:39:30 PM | link

Russ , Mar 23, 2019 4:41:30 PM | link
People are forgetting to call Dembot agent Wheeler "FBI rat Wheeler", or just Rat Wheeler. Or EmptySqueal.
karlof1 , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:23 PM | link
Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!

During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen. Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.

Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM | link
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.

Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room yelling that the house is on fire.

Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?

Zanon , Mar 23, 2019 4:52:41 PM | link
Scotch Bingeington

Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing happend:

If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves

defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity. Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.


https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1109235461430657026
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:00:23 PM | link
Who will say that the King has no clothes?

The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong.

Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already know.

It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.

And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.

WDDiM , Mar 23, 2019 5:08:16 PM | link
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years

Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4

You people don't get it do you?
'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell swoop....

steve , Mar 23, 2019 5:11:08 PM | link
Deep state makes the warren commish seem authoritative
john , Mar 23, 2019 5:13:37 PM | link
the rot in DC is palpable. this whole russiagate fiasco's been like some kind of really bad audition for deeper state kabuki...what's next?

keeping brand Trump alive.

Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 5:22:08 PM | link
Matt Taibbi:

It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD
The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million

Pft , Mar 23, 2019 5:38:41 PM | link
Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel) and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.

That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want something covered up? Put Mueller on it.

To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont believe. Lol

Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China trademarks .

The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.

tuyzentfloot , Mar 23, 2019 5:46:31 PM | link
The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it onto cable tv?
It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will become true after all.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , Mar 23, 2019 5:48:55 PM | link

"Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.

When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight, you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar, one with a great deal of blood on her hands.

My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new credibility.

The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.

And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.


https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/john-chuckman-comment-americas-democrats-launch-lawsuit-against-trump-and-russia-and-wiki-leaks-over-election-hilarious-this-is-a-country-fit-to-dominate-the-earth-they-cant-manage-their-own/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/john-chuckman-comment-yet-more-ignorant-gossip-and-innuendo-about-trump-and-russia-this-all-reminds-me-of-insane-past-american-campaigns-against-procter-gamble-or-harry-potter-charging-devil/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/08/john-chuckman-comment-what-americas-neocons-represent-for-arms-control-agreements-such-as-the-inf-with-russia-and-heres-the-deadly-weakness-in-trumps-psychology-that-has-allowed-neocons-to-ta/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/john-chuckman-comment-a-comment-rightly-asks-with-trump-doing-everything-the-establishment-wants-why-do-they-still-want-to-get-rid-of-him-i-think-these-are-the-essential-reasons/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/john-chuckman-comment-some-very-dark-thoughts-of-where-america-is-going-in-its-relations-with-russia-and-iran-i-do-think-we-live-in-dangerous-times-and-they-are-deliberately-manufactured/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/john-chuckman-comment-complete-degradation-of-a-self-styled-great-nation-which-allows-paid-thugs-to-use-poison-gas-to-give-it-an-excuse-for-still-more-killing-the-dark-place-we-are-brought-to-by-tr/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/john-chuckman-comment-more-on-the-strange-phenomenon-of-trump-and-americas-neocons-a-man-who-imagines-himself-a-great-leader-leading-nothing-and-he-still-has-pathetic-followers-who-think-hes-fi/

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/john-chuckman-comment-new-phony-book-on-trump-and-russia-whats-really-going-on-with-all-the-mumbo-jumbo-insanity-in-america-the-real-target-aint-trump-neocons-and-russia/


Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 5:59:03 PM | link
Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.

No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.

It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.

So funny.

Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his Administration.

Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.

The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate. Lets just blame it all on Hillary.

Welcome to the rabbithole.

Copeland , Mar 23, 2019 6:23:41 PM | link
Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have succumbed.

As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."

Jonathan , Mar 23, 2019 7:02:54 PM | link
@37 Jackrabbit,

Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for .

Arioch , Mar 23, 2019 7:06:26 PM | link
Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment, then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!

It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited from it", highly likely!

Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly likely.

fast freddy , Mar 23, 2019 7:12:20 PM | link
There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
Peter , Mar 23, 2019 7:16:00 PM | link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHo6cW0HVkQ DISGRACEFUL WILL WE EVER SAY NO?
vk , Mar 23, 2019 7:24:32 PM | link
@ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 23, 2019 3:48:10 PM | 18

We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.

It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win because the DNC threw all its weight against him.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one: if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the bits you want.

I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment" acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American people (or a signficant part of it).

But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.

It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and can be balkanized.

Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 7:30:58 PM | link
counterpoint: If the Mueller report does not EXPLICITLY exonerate Trump, it does NOT exonerate Trump.
wagelaborer , Mar 23, 2019 7:43:06 PM | link
There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only spun onto new hysteria.
Rob , Mar 23, 2019 7:58:15 PM | link
As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and Republicans.
Sandwichman , Mar 23, 2019 8:08:59 PM | link
"...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."

Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.

Sunny Runny Burger , Mar 23, 2019 8:10:36 PM | link
Ben nails it in "Mar 23, 2019 3:32:48 PM | 17".

Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.

A case of divide and conquer against the population

This time it was a fabricated scandal.

Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements, wearing down relations.

The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like that).

Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.

Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and effort.

Management by crisis

The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through spam.

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 8:11:22 PM | link
Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.

Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.

I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was (mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

And we have seen other 'shows' also, like:

> White Helmets;

>> Skripal;

>> the Kavanaugh hearings;

>> pulling troops out of Syria.

aspnaz , Mar 23, 2019 8:19:24 PM | link
My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 8:50:48 PM | link
Jackrabbit @18
So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do nationalist.
I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
Cortes , Mar 23, 2019 8:51:27 PM | link
As usual, a fine essay. Thank you.

A couple of suggestions?

The headline would be better worded "Russiagate really is finished."

And the reaction at Colonel Lang's site makes interesting reading.

Les , Mar 23, 2019 8:55:52 PM | link
They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration, the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
paul , Mar 23, 2019 8:56:02 PM | link
The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:00:35 PM | link
vk @43

We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns). Bernie refused.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:02:11 PM | link
Sorry, here's a more readable version:

We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?

If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?

Have you read this: Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016 ?

Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?

The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.

Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of returns) . Bernie refused.

Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.

What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.

Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").

And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that even a little bit strange?

mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:06:00 PM | link
Jonathan @39
Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.
Jackrabbit , Mar 23, 2019 9:13:59 PM | link
mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not voters.

Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a thin margin.

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 23, 2019 9:14:04 PM | link
Gosh and Blimey!
Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...

From Xymphora March 21, 2019.

"Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):

"Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34 percent from gentiles.
Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50 donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from Jewish givers.
So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about it: 76 percent is a lot."

Erelis , Mar 23, 2019 9:35:12 PM | link
Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state. And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in 2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is not confronting Putin"...
daffyDuct , Mar 23, 2019 9:40:02 PM | link

Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow, troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.

mourning dove , Mar 23, 2019 9:54:13 PM | link
Jackrabbit,

I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.

I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other problems, but it still wasn't enough.

I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.

jadan , Mar 23, 2019 9:56:37 PM | link

Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove.

It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.

It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better.

[Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there. ..."
"... And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless. ..."
"... They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. ..."
"... The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion." ..."
"... It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. ..."
"... If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb. ..."
"... If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate. ..."
"... And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us. ..."
"... Hillary is the epitome of evil. ..."
"... I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. ..."
"... Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected. ..."
"... Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected". ..."
"... HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH ..."
"... It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible ..."
"... When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Luongo,

During most of the RussiaGate investigation against Donald Trump I kept saying that all roads lead to Hillary Clinton.

Anyone with three working brain cells knew this, including 'Miss' Maddow, whose tears of disappointment are particularly delicious.

Robert Mueller's investigation was designed from the beginning to create something out of nothing. It did this admirably.

It was so effective it paralyzed the country for more than two years, just like Europe has been held hostage by Brexit. And all of this because, in the end, the elites I call The Davos Crowd refused to accept that the people no longer believed their lies about the benefits of their neoliberal, globalist agenda.

Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Presidency was to be their apotheosis along with the Brexit vote. These were meant to lay to rest, once and for all time, the vaguely libertarian notion that people should rule themselves and not be ruled by philosopher kings in some distant land.

Hillary's failure was enormous. And the RussiaGate gambit to destroy Trump served a laundry list of purposes to cover it:

  1. Undermine his legitimacy before he even takes office.
  2. Accuse him of what Hillary actually did: collude with Russians and Ukrainians to effect the outcome of the election
  3. Paralyze Trump on his foreign policy desires to scale back the Empire
  4. Give aid and comfort to hurting progressives and radicalize them further undermining our political system
  5. Polarize the electorate over the false choice of Trump's guilt.
  6. Paralyze the Dept. of Justice and Congress so that they would not uncover the massive corruption in the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
  7. Isolate Trump and take away every ally or potential ally he could have by turning them against him through prosecutor overreach.

Hillary should have been thrown to the wolves after she failed. When you fail the people she failed and cost them the money she cost them, you lose more than just your funding. What this tells you is that Hillary has so much dirt on everyone involved, once this thing started everyone went along with it lest she burn them down as well.

Burnin' Down da House

Hillary is the epitome of envy. Envy is the destructive sin of coveting someone else's life so much they are obsessed with destroying it. It's the sin of Cain. She envies what Trump has, the Presidency. And she was willing to tear it down to keep him from having it no matter how much damage it would do. She's worse than the Joker from The Dark Knight.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/efHCdKb5UWc

Because while the Joker is unfathomable to someone with a conscience there's little stopping us from excising him from the community completely., even though Batman refuses.

Hillary hates us for who we are and what we won't give her. And that animus drove her to blackmail the world while putting on the face of its savior.

And that's what makes what comes next so obvious to me. RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there.

Mueller thought all he had to do was lean on corrupt people and threaten them with everything. They would turn on Trump. He would resign in disgrace from the public outcry. It didn't work. In the end Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone all held their ground or perjured themselves into the whole thing falling apart.

Andrew Weissman's resignation last month was your tell there was nothing. Mueller would pursue this to the limit of his personal reputation and no further. Just like so many other politicians.

Vote Your Pocketbook

With respect to Brexit I've been convinced that it would come down to reputations. Would the British MP's vote against their own personal best interests to do the bidding of the EU? Would Theresa May eventually realize her historical reputation would be destroyed if she caves to Brussels and betrays Brexit in the end? Always bet on the fecklessness of politicians. They will always act selfishly when put to the test. While leading RussiaGate, Mueller was always headed here if he couldn't get someone to betray Trump.

And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless.

They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. The progressives that were convinced of Trump's treason are bereft; their false hope stripped away like standing in front of a sandblaster. They will be raw, angry and looking for blood after they get over their denial.

Everyone else who was blackmailed into going along with this lunacy will begin cutting deals to save their skins. The outrage over this will not end. Trump will be President when he stands for re-election.

The Wolves Beckon

The Democrats do not have a chance against him as of right now. When he was caving on everything back in December it looked like he was done. That there was enough meat on the RussiaGate bones to make Nancy Pelosi brave. Then she backed off on impeachment talk. Oops....

... ... ...

The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion."

It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. There is only one answer. And Obama's people are still in place to protect him. I said last fall that " Hillary would indict herself. " And I meant it. Eventually her blackmail and drive to burn it all down led to this moment.

The circumstances are different than I expected back then, Trump didn't win the mid-terms. But the end result was always the same. If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb.

Because the bigger project, the erection of a transnational superstate, is bigger than any one person. Hillary is expendable. Lies are expensive to maintain. The truth is cheap to defend. Think of the billions in opportunity costs associated with this. Once the costs rise above the benefits, change happens fast. If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate.

We all know it's the truth. So, the cheapest way out of this mess for them is to give the MAGApedes what they want, Hillary.

And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us.

Jdhank , 27 minutes ago link

Hillary ain't enough!

We demand Comey, Brennan, Bill, the Podesta's, and the prancing little effiminate pony himself.

consider me gone , 29 minutes ago link

I'm surprised Donna Brazier and Pedo Podesta are still breathing. Maybe Hillary got God. Or gin.

Koba the Dread , 32 minutes ago link

Hillary is the epitome of envy.

Your spelling is atrocious. Let me correct it.

Hillary is the epitome of evil.

There, that does it.

KnitDame , 1 hour ago link

I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. Think of the taxpayer money wasted on this ridiculous Mueller investigation! The Roger Stone arrest was an outrage. Who tipped off CNN? Who ordered it? What was with the attack dogs and machine guns?

And now we have Nadler trying to destroy anyone and everyone who ever did business with Trump. All those 80 people who got letters from him asking for documents will now be bankrupted by legal fees.

According to Scott Adams, one recipient is refusing to cooperate -- he's saying "I can't afford for me and family to be destroyed." He put the request for documents in a drawer. He has no money for lawyers.

This insanity and abuse of power has got to stop. Meanwhile, nothing gets done in Congress. We're all looking at censorship, tilted search engines, de-monetization, being beat up on campus for trying to express an opinion, being accosted in a restaurant (or, VP Pence, from the stage ("Hamilton"), getting sucker-punched for wearing a MAGA hat, having elections stolen through myriad Dem cheating methods, and NOTHING is being done.

2willies , 1 hour ago link

You forgot Rachel

TeraByte , 1 hour ago link

"all roads lead to Hillary Clinton"

Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected.

Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected".

Dragon HAwk , 1 hour ago link

Hillary is expendable.

God I Love Feel Good Stories.

East Indian , 1 hour ago link

And, oh, I almost forgot.

HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH

Neochrome , 1 hour ago link

It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible.

When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself.

[Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

Highly recommended!
Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: `[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.' |"

From page one of the Barr letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. https://www.scribd.com/document/402973432/AG-March-24-2019-Letter-to-House-and-Senate-Judiciary-Committees#from_embed Some call this merely the "end of the beginning." Further revelations will be emerging, including from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. " J ustice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday his office is still investigating possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and FBI in their investigation into President Trump and associates of his 2016 campaign," reported the Washington Examiner this week.

Decameron , 32 minutes ago

However, AG Barr's letter retells the tale of Russian Interference in our elections, according to Mr. Mueller and his team's investigation and indictments. So, the anti-Trump camp will undoubtedly continue to question the 2016 election results, and blame the defeat of HRC on the "Reds." One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

[Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies

Highly recommended!
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from an article at the excellent Medialens

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060303_hacks_and_spooks.php

HACKS AND SPOOKS

By Professor Richard Keeble

And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...

I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources) on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.

As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:

"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."

Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.

And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.

In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.

As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career".

Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.

A brief history

Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.

Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.

The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.

According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.

And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.

In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives' Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.

And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.

David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody in every office in Fleet Street"

Leaker King

And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".

Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".

Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.

Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.

David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Maxwell and Mossad

According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the 1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.

In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6 were equally as strong.

Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks were fascinating.

For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse during the Cold War."

The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms of first-hand knowledge."

And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.

Lawson strongly denied the allegations.

Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)

Growing power of secret state

Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.

But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.

Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.

According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by the Rockingham cell within the MoD.

A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.

Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.

Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group, the Iraqi National Congress.

Sexed up – and missed out

During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government (in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.

The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition? But those facts will be forever secret.

Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was ignored by the inquiry.

Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.

Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures, especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."

Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.

~

Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.

[Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians. ..."
"... Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation. ..."
"... What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? ..."
"... Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. ..."
"... We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks. ..."
"... This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune. ..."
"... Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020. ..."
"... Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c ..."
"... Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. ..."
"... Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. ..."
"... Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm ..."
"... It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray! ..."
"... Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished. ..."
Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

O Society , March 16, 2019 at 7:55 am

The Truth is Out There. I Want to Believe!

Same old scams, different packaging. That's New & Improved for you.

http://opensociet.org/2019/03/16/the-return-of-the-hidden-persuaders

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:35 pm

I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have watched the news daily about Mueller's Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.

For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!

The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA. Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER'S SINGING CANARYS! Mueller should be jailed.

Bogdan Miller , March 15, 2019 at 11:04 am

This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing, we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an effort to harm President Trump.

It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians.

B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector

vinnieoh , March 15, 2019 at 8:17 am

Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these days to US governance?) to "urge" the new AG to release the complete Mueller report.

A non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can't see the diesel locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And taxation without representation takes a new twist.

... ... ...

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:38 pm

What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE Party which Represents DEEP STATE".

DWS , March 15, 2019 at 5:58 am

Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation.

Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:47 pm

EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA' plan to continue to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their Criminal Governments tell them.

Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!

KiwiAntz , March 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm

What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse?

If you can't get him out via a Election, try & try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts absolutely?

Brian Murphy , March 15, 2019 at 10:33 am

Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation.

If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely sold out. If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some vestige of his balls.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm

By last June or July the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did not support the Clinton wing's anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to "find something." presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.

mike k , March 14, 2019 at 12:57 pm

From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump's electoral victory, it was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump's election. My sincere hope is that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party's neck, that will carry them down into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:26 pm

Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we'll go through this all over again.

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:00 pm

The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.

LJ , March 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm

Agreed!!!! and don't forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head's up before they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words 'gross negligence' had a occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the FBI's investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a barf bag.

Jane Christ , March 14, 2019 at 6:51 pm

Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 10:50 am

Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at "so as not to divide the American people." Dividing the people hasn't been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the collusion theory, Pelosi would I'm sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like Pence as opposition for 2020.

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:17 am

We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks.

We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:18 pm

Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange's long-standing position is NOT to reveal his sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.

Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:15 am

It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth's murder. In one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn't take much of a logical leap to connect A to B.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:30 pm

Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class, for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn't made it go away.

hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:24 pm

Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi's recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms this and the split you're talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is discouraging impeachment on "dividing the Party" (already divided, of course, as you say), whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent ordinary people's interests.

Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:21 am

She said "dividing the country", not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump's heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right "conclusions" by Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a "bombshell" conclusion by Mueller. One must never forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a "mistake" to be controlled or eliminated.

Cindy Haddix , March 14, 2019 at 8:04 am

Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It's so disgusting that his democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!

torture this , March 14, 2019 at 7:29 am

According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow's show. I can't wait to read how she responds. I'd watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect on me as ipecac.

Zhu , March 14, 2019 at 3:37 am

People will cling to "Putin made Trump President!!!" much as many cling "Obama's a Kenyan Muslim! Not a real American!!!". Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what the historical facts are. Many Americans just can't admit their mistakes and blaming a scapegoat is a way out.

O Society , March 14, 2019 at 2:03 am

Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of intelligence and computer forensics.

This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune.

It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic journalists at every turn.

DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm

But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts their claims.

O Society , March 15, 2019 at 3:50 pm

Oh, we're well beyond your "Blame the middle class Dems" stage.

The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine's sprung a leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red quite like the Three Little Pigs, isn't it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what we've got here is a purple puddle of piss.

Everyone's more than glad to project all our problems on "THEM" though, aren't we?

Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.

T'would be comic except what's so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe, oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear, there's an app for that or is it a pill?

I don't know, don't ask me, I'm busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.

https://opensociet.org/2018/12/18/the-disneyfication-of-america/

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 6:45 pm

Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the transmission speeds.

Minor corrections: "The emails were copied from the network" should be "from the much faster local network" because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the internet network, which most readers will equate with "network." Also "reportedin" should be "reported in."

Michael , March 13, 2019 at 6:25 pm

It is likely that New Knowledge was actually "the Russians", possibly working in concert with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/ determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not sure of their punishment?). Occam's razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent to mimic/ pretend to be "Russians" after the fact of wikileaks' publication of emails. New Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?) Hillary, and were the "outside" agency hired to evaluate and report on the "Russian" hacking of the DNC emails/ servers.

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:48 pm

Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150 indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political) crimes. This wasn't kept secret. It simply wasn't what Democrats wanted to hear, so although it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.

Billy , March 13, 2019 at 11:11 pm

Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.

Realist , March 14, 2019 at 3:22 am

You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh Those Catholics, Jews, "ethnics" and sundry "deviants" used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the "undeveloped" world. As Clapper "authoritatively" says, only this vile lineage still carries the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary's glorious plans for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren't so funny.

And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some "free stuff" the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods for the American public! So there!

As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They've proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller won't read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats won't care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.

Joe Tedesky , March 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm

Realist,

I have posted this article 'the Russia they Lost' before and from time to time but once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you've been saying. It's an article written by a Russian who in they're youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But . Starting with Kosovo this Russian's youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the plan anyway.

https://slavyangrad.org/2014/09/24/the-russia-they-lost/

Realist , March 15, 2019 at 10:38 pm

right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose. that's not being a leader, it's being a dick.

i'm gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with my right hand clears up–it's like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry on, sir.

Brian James , March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm

Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm

Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.

Howard , March 13, 2019 at 4:36 pm

Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for "shining light into dark places", you are national resources for objectivity in critical survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS' MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued leadership!

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:28 am

Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, "falling down stairs" within a week of FOX news exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.

DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 6:03 pm

Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the "Russian collusion" allegations -- the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of convictions to date -- none of which had anything to do with the election results.

Hank , March 13, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton's sordid history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or investigations don't. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED information. That's a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled media!

I know this won't ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you more-than-likely can be considered an "island in a sea of ignorance".

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:13 pm

We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to handle the evidence. Wasnt it a crime scene? The evidence was tampered with And we will never know what was on the servers.

Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm

As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:

The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th – after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.

And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was Seth Rich. This could explain Rich's subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.

https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/muellers-new-indictment-do-the-feds-take-us-for-idiots-5406ef955406

https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/how-did-crowdstrike-guccifer-2-0-know-that-wikileaks-was-planning-to-release-dnc-emails-42e6db334053

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:06 pm

Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was, as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich. Perhaps he doesn't know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows that it was not Rich.

James Clooney , March 14, 2019 at 11:40 am

View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.

Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich's murders capture.

Abby , March 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm

Another mistaken issue with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump's command" is that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, "Russia if you 'find' Hillary's missing emails let us know." He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn't be turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that they were personal.

But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI office because they are on Weiner's laptop. Why? Because Hillary's aid Huma Abedin, Weiner's wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days before the election. If Comey hadn't done that then the FBI would have.

But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama's decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server. This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in for her to get off.

robert e williamson jr , March 13, 2019 at 3:26 pm

I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things "ONE WAY". They are the facilitators for the rogue government known as the "DEEP STATE"!

Just ask billy barr.

More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community because of blackmail. They can't come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.

Apparently the rule of law is not!

You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a dogdamned side and stand for something,.

Thank You VIPS!

Joe Tedesky , March 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm

Hats off to the VIP's who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn't a hacking for without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller's never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that's even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.

Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn't conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort's case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn't it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn't charged with concluding with any Russians in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.

I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel Maddow's tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It's all a game and yet there are many of us who just don't wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that gets ignored keep up the good work VIP's some of us are listening.

Andrew Thomas , March 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm

The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray "lacks credibility ", or some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so ludicrous I can't even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.

Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm

Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm

Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:18 pm

A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source, but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.

And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a complete sham.

Ian Brown , March 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm

It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!

LJ , March 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm

A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, """ former FBI head """ to examine and validate if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report, It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go?

After Bill and Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well, Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough.

Mueller looks just like what he is. He has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting themselves. This has already gone on way too long.

Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 11:59 am

Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians.

Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump, which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?

So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.

Jack , March 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm

You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would Mueller have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a divisive idiot.

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm

Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished.

Drew Hunkins , March 13, 2019 at 2:12 pm

@Jack,
Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there's nothing of substance to one of the most potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me divisive? Mueller's now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and disinformation campaign. It's all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and feed half-truths to the people.

You're failing Jack, in more ways than you know.

Gregory Herr , March 13, 2019 at 9:13 pm

https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/liberals-are-digging-their-own-grave-with-russiagate-2019-03-08

Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Realist , March 15, 2019 at 3:38 am

Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats, have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president. This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to violate Trump's confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct. The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though, even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.

Tom , March 14, 2019 at 12:30 pm

Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on America and tortured some folks.

George Collins , March 13, 2019 at 2:02 pm

QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang wasn't there litigation involving the Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.

I'd say it's game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.

Kiers , March 13, 2019 at 11:47 am

How can we expect the DNC to "hand it " to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the "principled" two party system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am

"We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions."

I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi's recent statement regarding pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy's statement was just a feint before throwing the knockout punch.

If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the perfidy that the so-called "Intelligence" Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily, I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of venues like CN.

I pray to God I'm wrong.

Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:32 pm

My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98% of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone, deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond any real evidence.

Eric32 , March 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm

As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above you.

The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA, FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil service careers.

Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little idea of where to go from there.

Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 11:09 am

I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to establish truth in reporting

Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 10:41 am

Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don't expect this to make a difference. The US has moved into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove's declaration: "we're an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality." What Mr. Rove in his arrogance fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else's. Thus Pompous can claim that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he's never been elected .

Gary Weglarz , March 13, 2019 at 10:21 am

Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and utters anymore of the "but, RUSSIA" nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values the truth.

Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD's, Gaddafi's viagra fueled rape camps, Assad can't sleep at night unless he's gassing his own people, to the latest, "Maduro can't sleep at night unless he's starving his own people."

The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with "Russiagate," which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.

Marc , March 13, 2019 at 10:13 am

I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive? And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive? That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was under the control of some faraway agent?

Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 11:12 am

Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX). The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it's writing to a storage device using FAT, it'll round the numbers. To get to your real question, yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates wouldn't line up.

Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 8:05 am

Jeff-

Which dates wouldn't line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata for the most recent move?

David G , March 13, 2019 at 12:22 pm

Marc asks: "[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks?"

I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that question elsewhere.

To my knowledge, it hasn't been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)

Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:07 pm

I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up everything. If there had been a hack, they'd know it, and they wouldn't only have had "moderate" confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig Murray.

David G , March 13, 2019 at 3:31 pm

Respectfully, that's a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.

But I think the question Marc posed stands.

Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 7:59 am

Hi David-

I don't see how it's separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they'd have solid evidence of the hack, and wouldn't have only had "moderate" confidence, which Bill Binney says is equivalent to them saying "we don't have squat". They wouldn't even have needed Mueller at all, except to possibly build a "parallel case" due to classification issues. Also, the FBI not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.

As for the technical aspect of Marc's question, I agree that I'd like to see Bill Binney directly answer it.

[Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

Highly recommended!
Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

The final Mueller report should be graded "incomplete," says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

Executive Summary

Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump. If Mueller gives you his "completed" report anytime soon, it should be graded "incomplete."

Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We stand ready to help.

We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story, we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.

There is an overabundance of "assessments" but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions. We know only too well -- and did our best to expose -- how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

We have scrutinized publicly available physical data -- the "trail" that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media -- an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.

This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below -- as a kind of aide-memoire -- a discussion of some of the key factors related to what has become known as "Russia-gate." And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data associated with WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails.

We do not claim our conclusions are "irrefutable and undeniable," a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments, however, are based on the scientific method -- not "assessments." We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring that you hear that directly from us.

If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work -- or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.

In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "to ensure a full and thorough investigation," when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again, we are at your disposal.

Discussion

The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin "interference" in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light, rump report misleadingly labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)." Prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only three of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed "high confidence" in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their "assessment."

The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type caveats included in the assessment itself -- such as:

" When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong."

To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution." They noted: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber operation -- malicious or not -- leaves a trail." [Emphasis added.]

Forensics

The imperative is to get on that "trail" -- and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to "sources and methods" is normally not a problem.

Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement -- the more so when an intrusion is termed "an act of war" and blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, "best practices" dictate direct access.

In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had "access to the actual hardware that was hacked." Comey answered, "In the case of the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. " Sen. Burr followed up: "But no content? Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" Comey: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."

The "private party/high-class entity" to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.

Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension between Russia and the U.S. -- it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic "trail" to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens that conclusion.

We Do Forensics

Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive, before WikiLeaks posted them.

FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.

Why is that important? The evidence lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the DNC files on WikiLeaks' site ends in an even number.

We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the World Wide Web.

This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks -- not electronically via a hack.

Role of NSA

For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so. We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA's dragnet, collect-it-all approach -- including "cast-iron" coverage of WikiLeaks -- to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to "assessments") as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.

Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show the routes that trace the packets.)

The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI's curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a "high-class entity."

Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the "Intelligence Community Assessment," which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, "The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to how 'the DNC emails that were leaked' got to WikiLeaks.

Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?

There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS' two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.

There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: "We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication." On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement, claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."

Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a "hack" of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS reported in a wrap-up Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled "Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence)," forensic examination of the July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish from the DNC, by "showing" it came from a "Russian hack." WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three days before the Democratic convention.

As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S. This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.

Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained -- from a data center in New Jersey to a data center in the UK -- was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb drive.

The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5, 2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.

Presidential Interest

After VIPS' July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo's office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: "You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you."

Binney warned Pompeo -- to stares of incredulity -- that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump's attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA. Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.

Confronting James Clapper on Forensics

We, the hoi polloi, do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo -- and still less to the former intelligence chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during the Q&A about Russian "hacking" and NSA, Clapper said:

" Well, I have talked with NSA a lot And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever." [Emphasis added]

Clapper added: " as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn't have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election."

(A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found here and a commentary on Clapper's performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is here .)

Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens. In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: "James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance. To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand."

The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12, 2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that Russia's history shows that Russians are "typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."

Clapper ought to be asked about the "forensics" he said were "overwhelming about what the Russians had done." And that, too, before Mueller completes his investigation.

For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

  • William Binney , former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA's Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
  • Richard H. Black , Senator of Virginia, 13th District; Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)
  • Bogdan Dzakovic , former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
  • Philip Girald i, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
  • Mike Gravel , former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
  • James George Jatras , former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)
  • Larry C. Johnson , former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
  • John Kiriakou , former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
  • Karen Kwiatkowski , former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
  • Edward Loomis , Cryptologic Computer Scientist, former Technical Director at NSA (ret.)
  • David MacMichael , Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
  • Ray McGovern , former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
  • Elizabeth Murray , former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA political analyst (ret.)
  • Todd E. Pierce , MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
  • Peter Van Buren , US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
  • Sarah G. Wilton , CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
  • Kirk Wiebe , former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
  • Ann Wright , retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington's justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

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Tags: Bill Binney Donald Trump Hillary Clinton James Clapper James Comey Mike Pompeo Robert Mueller Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity VIPS WikiLeaks


[Mar 14, 2019] Manafort's Ukrainians were actually pro-West? - Habakkuk

Highly recommended!
Mar 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Habakkuk

Unfortunately, I have been taken up with the doings of another Christopher – surnamed Donnelly – whose antics with the 'Institute for Statecraft' and 'Integrity Initiative' seem just as ludicrous as those of Steele, and equally destructive.

I hope to come back to the implications of what has been coming out on your side about the dossier attributed to Steele in more depth in the none-too-distant future, particular if in fact the depositions made by him and David Kramer are unsealed reasonably promptly, but some background remarks may be worth throwing into the discussion.

It cannot be repeated often enough that an enormous amount of damage has been done as a result of people forming their impressions of MI6 from David Cornwell, aka John Le Carré, rather than Graham Greene.

A critical point is that, while if 'humint' is pursued by competent people, it can be invaluable, if pursued by incompetents, like so many of those Greene had known in his time in the wartime MI6, and portrayed so marvellously in 'Our Man in Havana', it is common for an 'echo chamber' to be set up, where people are told what they want to hear.

Those providing the 'echo' may genuinely share the delusions involved – or they may cynically exploit these, as part of a deliberate strategy of making the incompetents instruments of their own agendas (as MI5 and the Naval Intelligence Division did with the Abwehr during the war. MI6, largely incompetent apart from the section Philby ran, was marginal.)

That precisely this kind of 'echo chamber' had been set up by the Berezovsky group with people like Steele was the thrust of a pointed remark made by Andrei Lugovoi in the press conference on 31 May 2007 where he responded to the Crown Prosecution Service request for his extradition.

[Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson

Highly recommended!
Looks like Orr was one of the central figures of the conspiracy against Trump in Justice Department. And it was Orr wife who probably had written parts of the dossier at the request of CIA Brennan and other conspirators in CIA (who were acting via controlled by them counterintelligence division at FBI)
Notable quotes:
"... Christopher Steele, a "former" MI-6 officer, had been a paid FBI informant for several years. ..."
"... Bruce Ohr met with Glenn Simpson in August 2016, which totally contradicts Simpson's previous sworn testimony that he did not meet with Ohr until after the 2016 election. ..."
"... Ohr informed FBI and senior DOJ officials, who signed off on the FISA application in October 2016 to spy on Carter Page, that the "dossier" had a tainted political history. ..."
"... What is truly remarkable about Ohr's testimony is that his explanation for repeated meetings and contacts with Christopher Steele do not make sense. I am referring specifically to Ohr's claim that Steele wanted him, Ohr, to pass info to the FBI. ..."
"... This guy is a senior DOJ official. He is a former prosecutor. He knows that the minute he accepts anything from Steele and then passes it on to the FBI that he, Ohr, became a fact witness. He is part of the chain of custody. More importantly, Ohr, knowing that Steele is on the FBI payroll, should have refused to accept any information and direct Steele to talk to his Agent/handler. Period. ..."
"... One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes (i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies. ..."
"... In light of all of this one can only conclude that Bruce Ohr is lying about the real reason for meeting with Steele or that he is a complete moron. There is no other possible explanation or excuse. I do not think that Ohr is a moron. He does not strike me as a man of limited intelligence. I think he is lying. I believe that the reason Steele approached Ohr was to provide some insulation to the FBI, which was engaged in an act of sedition. The FBI was interfering in the 2016 election and working to destroy Donald Trump. ..."
"... As more transcripts and documents come into the sunlight, we will get a clearer picture of the corruption at both the FBI and the DOJ. The FISA applications to spy on a US citizen, Carter Page, are without foundation. I am sure that William Barr appreciates this point and will press for action against those who willingly engaged in such despicable actions. ..."
Mar 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Sorry to have been out of pocket (I've fled the wintry north for a new home in Florida). I am back, so to speak, and ready to write a bit. Last week's release by Congressman Collins of the interview transcript of Bruce Ohr, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last year is quite damning of the FBI and the DOJ. If our system of justice is truly blind and committed to fairness, there is little doubt that former FBI and DOJ officials--Comey, McCabe, Yates and Rosenstein--will be facing serious legal jeopardy. They have lied.

The biggest "revelations" from Ohr are as follows:

  1. Christopher Steele, a "former" MI-6 officer, had been a paid FBI informant for several years.
  2. Bruce Ohr met with Glenn Simpson in August 2016, which totally contradicts Simpson's previous sworn testimony that he did not meet with Ohr until after the 2016 election.
  3. Ohr informed FBI and senior DOJ officials, who signed off on the FISA application in October 2016 to spy on Carter Page, that the "dossier" had a tainted political history.

I put "revelations" in quotations because we already knew most of this--specifically Steele's status as a paid informant and the failure of the FBI and DOJ to verify the accuracy of the so-called dossier. The new meat on the bone is Ohr's claim that he met with Simpson in August 2016. Simpson swore under oath that no such meeting took place. That's a substantive lie and, if the Flynn case is a guide, Mr. Simpson will be looking at prison.

What is truly remarkable about Ohr's testimony is that his explanation for repeated meetings and contacts with Christopher Steele do not make sense. I am referring specifically to Ohr's claim that Steele wanted him, Ohr, to pass info to the FBI. Think about this for a moment--Ohr knows that Steele is a paid FBI informant. That means Steele has an FBI agent who is his conduit into the FBI. That Agent handles interviews and writes up reports. Why in the hell would Steele approach Ohr and not his FBI handler? Because Steele did not want to create a record, i.e., a 302, that would have been generated if he had followed protocol and gone thru normal channels.

And Ohr? This guy is a senior DOJ official. He is a former prosecutor. He knows that the minute he accepts anything from Steele and then passes it on to the FBI that he, Ohr, became a fact witness. He is part of the chain of custody. More importantly, Ohr, knowing that Steele is on the FBI payroll, should have refused to accept any information and direct Steele to talk to his Agent/handler. Period.

One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes (i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies. Christopher Steele's employ with the FBI violates this policy.

In light of all of this one can only conclude that Bruce Ohr is lying about the real reason for meeting with Steele or that he is a complete moron. There is no other possible explanation or excuse. I do not think that Ohr is a moron. He does not strike me as a man of limited intelligence. I think he is lying. I believe that the reason Steele approached Ohr was to provide some insulation to the FBI, which was engaged in an act of sedition. The FBI was interfering in the 2016 election and working to destroy Donald Trump.

As more transcripts and documents come into the sunlight, we will get a clearer picture of the corruption at both the FBI and the DOJ. The FISA applications to spy on a US citizen, Carter Page, are without foundation. I am sure that William Barr appreciates this point and will press for action against those who willingly engaged in such despicable actions.

[Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry

Highly recommended!
Feb 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

That's a natural reaction to the revelation of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy FBI director, that top Justice Department officials, alarmed by Donald Trump's firing of former Bureau director James Comey, explored a plan to invoke the 25th Amendment and kick the duly elected president out of office.

According to New York Times reporters Adam Goldman and Matthew Haag, McCabe made the statement in an NBC 60 Minutes interview to be aired on Sunday. He also reportedly said that McCabe wanted the so-called Russia collusion investigation to go after Trump for obstructing justice in firing Comey and for any instances they could turn up of his working in behalf of Russia.

The idea of invoking the 25th Amendment was discussed, it seems, at two meetings on May 16, 2017. According to McCabe, top law enforcement officials pondered how they might recruit Vice President Pence and a majority of cabinet members to declare in writing, to the Senate's president pro tempore and the House speaker, that the president was "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." That would be enough, under the 25th Amendment, to install the vice president as acting president, pushing aside Trump.

But to understand what kind of constitutional crisis this would unleash and the precedent it would set, it's necessary to ponder the rest of this section of the 25th Amendment. The text prescribes that, if the president, after being removed, transmits to the same congressional figures that he is indeed capable of discharging his duties, he shall once again be president after four days. But if the vice president and the cabinet majority reiterate their declaration within those four days that the guy can't govern, Congress is charged with deciding the issue. It then takes a two-thirds vote of both houses to keep the president removed, which would have to be done within 21 days, during which time the elected president would be sidelined and the vice president would govern. If Congress can't muster the two-thirds majority within the prescribed time period, the president "shall resume the powers and duties of his office."

It's almost impossible to contemplate the political conflagration that would ensue under this plan. Citizens would watch those in Washington struggle with the monumental question of the fate of their elected leader under an initiative that had never before been invoked, or even considered, in such circumstances. Debates would flare up over whether this comported with the original intent of the amendment; whether it was crafted to deal with physical or mental "incapacitation," as opposed to controversial actions or unsubstantiated allegations or even erratic decision making; whether such an action, if established as precedent, would destabilize the American republic for all time; and whether unelected bureaucrats should arrogate to themselves the power to set in motion the downfall of a president, circumventing the impeachment language of the Constitution.

For the past two years, the country has been struggling to understand the two competing narratives of the criminal investigation of the president.

One narrative -- let's call it Narrative A -- has it that honorable and dedicated federal law enforcement officials developed concerns over a tainted election in which nefarious Russian agents had sought to tilt the balloting towards the candidate who wanted to improve U.S.-Russian relations and who seemed generally unseemly. Thus did the notion emerge, quite understandably, that Trump had "colluded" with Russian officials to cadge a victory that otherwise would have gone to his opponent. This narrative is supported and protected by Democratic figures and organizations, by adherents of the "Russia as Threat" preoccupation, and by anti-Trumpers everywhere, particularly news outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post , and The New York Times .

Trump, the FBI, and the Final Debasement of American Politics Unlike Nixon, Trump Will Not Go Quietly

The other view -- Narrative B -- posits that certain bureaucratic mandarins of the national security state and the outgoing Obama administration resolved early on to thwart Trump's candidacy. After his election, they determined to undermine his political standing, and particularly his proposed policy toward Russia, through a relentless and expansive investigation characterized by initial misrepresentations, selective media leaks, brutal law enforcement tactics, and a barrage of innuendo. This is the narrative of most Trump supporters, conservative commentators, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, notably columnist Kimberley Strassel.

The McCabe revelation won't affect the battle of the two narratives. As ominous and outrageous as this "deep state" behavior may seem to those who embrace Narrative B, it will be seen by Narrative A adherents as evidence that those law enforcement officials were out there heroically on the front lines protecting the republic from Donald J. Trump.

And those Narrative A folks won't have any difficulty tossing aside the fact that McCabe was fired as deputy FBI director for violating agency policy in leaking unauthorized information to the news media. He then allegedly violated the law in lying about it to federal investigators on four occasions, including three times while under oath.

Indeed, Narrative A people have no difficulty at all brushing aside serious questions posed by Narrative B people. McCabe is a likely liar and perjurer? Doesn't matter. Peter Strzok, head of the FBI's counterespionage section, demonstrated his anti-Trump animus in tweets and emails to Justice official Lisa Page? Irrelevant. Christopher Steele's dossier of dirt on Trump, including an allegation that the Russians were seeking to blackmail and bribe him, was compiled by a man who had demonstrated to a Justice Department official that he was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and passionate about him not being president"? Not important. The dossier was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party? Immaterial. Nothing in the dossier was ever substantiated? So what?

Now we have a report from a participant of those meetings that top officials of the country's premier law enforcement entity sat around and pondered how to bring down a sitting president they didn't like. The Times even says that McCabe "confirmed" an earlier report that deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire in meetings with Trump to incriminate him and make him more vulnerable to the plot.

There is no suggestion in McCabe's interview pronouncements or in the words of Scott Pelley, who conducted the interview and spoke to CBS This Morning about it, that these federal officials ever took action to further the aim of unseating the president. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that they approached cabinet members or the vice president about it. "They were speculating, 'This person would be with us, this person would not be,' and they were counting noses in that effort," said Pelley. He added, apparently in response to Rosenstein's insistence that his comments about wearing a wire were meant as a joke, "This was not perceived to be a joke."

What are we to make of this? Around the time of the meetings to discuss the 25th Amendment plot, senior FBI officials also discussed initiating a national security investigation of the president as a stooge of the Russians or perhaps even a Russian agent. These talks were revealed by The New York Times and CNN in January, based on closed-door congressional testimony by former FBI general counsel James Baker. You don't have to read very carefully to see that the reporters on these stories brought to them a Narrative A sensibility. The Times headline: "F.B.I. Opened Inquiry into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia." CNN's: "Transcripts detail how FBI debated whether Trump was 'following directions' of Russia." And of course, whoever leaked those hearing transcripts almost surely did so to bolster the Narrative A version of events.

The independent journalist Gareth Porter, writing at Consortium News, offers a penetrating exposition of the inconsistencies, fallacies, and fatuities of the Narrative A matrix, as reflected in how the Times and CNN handled the stories that resulted from what were clearly self-interested leaks.

Porter notes that a particularly sinister expression in May 2017 by former CIA director John O. Brennan, a leading Trump antagonist, has precipitated echoes in the news media ever since, particularly in the Times . Asked in a committee hearing if he had intelligence indicating that anyone in the Trump campaign was "colluding with Moscow," Brennan dodged the question. He said his experience had taught him that "the Russians try to suborn individuals, and they try to get them to act on their behalf either wittingly or unwittingly."

Of course you can't collude with anybody unwittingly. But Brennan's fancy expression has the effect of expanding what can be thrown at political adversaries, to include not just conscious and nefarious collaboration but also policy advocacy that could be viewed as wrongheaded or injurious to U.S. interests. As Porter puts it, "The real purpose is to confer on national security officials and their media allies the power to cast suspicion on individuals on the basis of undesirable policy views of Russia rather than on any evidence of actual collaboration with the Russian government."

That seems to be what's going on here. There's no doubt that McCabe and Rosenstein and Strzok and Brennan and Page and many others despised Trump and his resolve to thaw relations with Russia. They viewed him as a president "who needed to be reined in," as a CNN report described the sentiment among top FBI officials after the Comey firing.

So they expanded the definition of collusion to include "unwitting" collaboration in order to justify their machinations. It's difficult to believe that people in such positions would take such a cavalier attitude toward the kind of damage they could wreak on the body politic.

Now we learn that they actually sat around and plotted how to distort the Constitution, just as they distorted the rules of official behavior designed to hold them in check, in order to destroy a presidential administration placed in power by the American people. It's getting more and more difficult to dismiss Narrative B.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Alternative Facts at the NYT James Polk's Realpolitik Hide 52 comments 52 Responses to Do You Believe in the Deep State Now? ← Older Comments

Ken Zaretzke February 16, 2019 at 4:57 pm

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/trump-russia-collusion-investigation-criminalization-policy-disputes/

Also very good is the blunt force trauma inflicted on the FBI in yesterday's Wall Street Journal by Kimberly Strassel.

Fran Macadam , , February 15, 2019 at 2:19 pm
You're right, it didn't change a thing in the full-throated support to depose an elected President they disagree with. The bureaucratic cabal has long had a more informal absolute veto over who can even run for President. This guy challenged that hegemony of insider power brokers, and caused the revelation that we have morphed into a Potemkin-style, managed democracy, in which we don't choose who gets to run, just which of their choices we are allowed to approve.

Such is the decadent trajectory, of republics that transition into empires, where democratic accountabilty to the governed, domestic and foreign, decays in favor of empire administrators and their elite beneficiaries and their sinecures at the expense of the majority.

People rail against Trump as some sort of would-be Caesar, but he is elected, while those permanent unaccountable "national security" czars acting in secrecy they are willing to transfer all power to, are not.

No form of popular government can survive when secret police recording everything and spying on the population become the real power.

This is a coup, in slow motion.

Kent , , February 15, 2019 at 2:26 pm
"It's difficult to believe that people in such positions would take such a cavalier attitude toward the kind of damage they could wreak on the body politic."

What we don't want to recognize is that people in such positions are, in fact, just that dumb. It is unfortunately true. While not a Trump supporter, I would be out on the streets with them if these jacka$$es had tried to pull this off. They should ALL be immediately terminated and any benefits revoked.

Kurt Gayle , , February 15, 2019 at 2:32 pm
Last night (Feb 14, 2019) Tucker Carlson interviewed retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz (1:04-3:36):

Carlson: "Professor, thanks very much for coming on. So now the suspicions of many are confirmed by one of the players in it. The Department of Justice discussed trying to remove the President using the 25 Amendment. What's your reaction to that?

Dershowitz: "Well, if that's true, it is clearly an attempt at a coup d'état. Relating to what your former guest said, let's take the worst case scenario: Let's assume the President of the United States was in bed with the Russians, committed treason, committed obstruction of justice -- the 25 Amendment simply is irrelevant to that. That's why you have an impeachment provision. The 25th amendment is about Woodrow Wilson having a stroke. It's about a president being shot and not being able to perform his office. It's not about the most fundamental disagreements. It's not about impeachable offenses. And any Justice Department official who even mentioned the 25th Amendment in the context of President Trump has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution. The framers of the 25th amendment had in mind something very specific. And trying to use the 25th amendment to circumvent the impeachment provisions, or to circumvent an election is a despicable act of unconstitutional power-grabbing. And you were right when you said it reminded me of what happens in third world countries. Look, these people may have been well-intentioned. They may believe that they were serving the interests of the United States. But you have to obey the law and the law is the Constitution and the 25th Amendment is as clear as could be: incapacity, unable to perform office. That's what you need. That's why you need 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate agreeing. And it has to be on the basis of a medical or psychological incapacity. Not on the basis of even the most extreme crimes -- which there is no evidence were committed -- but even if they were, that would not be basis for invoking the 25th Amendment. And I challenge any left-wing person to get on television and to defend the use of the 25th Amendment. I challenge any of my colleagues who are in the "Get Trump At Any Cost" camp to come on television and justify the use of the 25 Amendment other than for physical or psychiatric incapacity.

Carlson: I bet they're doing that right now. This is an attack on our system, I would say, not just the President. Alan Dershowitz, thank you very much.

Dershowitz: It is an attack on our system. It's an attack on the constitution. Thank you.

Carlson: Scary.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q9OlUaeiQjQ?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

Bluestem , , February 15, 2019 at 2:42 pm
How many millions of dollars did Bill and Hill receive from Russians? How much of America's uranium deposits did Hillary sell to Russians during her time in the Obama administration? The New York Times informs us:

" . . . the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One's chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

"And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

"At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company's assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show."

(end of NY Times excerpt. Full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html )

I wonder how much howling and how many allegations of "collusion" with Russia we'd be hearing if the name Clinton were removed from the NY Times article and the name Trump were inserted?

curri , , February 15, 2019 at 3:08 pm

Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency.

Oh, they just knew . Maybe they just knew he wasn't an obvious reliable puppet like W and Obama.

Sid Finster , , February 15, 2019 at 3:16 pm
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/11/27/leaked-transcript-proves-russiagaters-have-been-right-all-along/

About Those Russians.

Stephen J. , , February 15, 2019 at 4:01 pm
The article states: " top officials of the country's premier law enforcement entity sat around and pondered how to bring down a sitting president they didn't like."
-- -- -- --
Which makes one wonder if "The rule of law" is becoming the rule of outlaws? When the non-elected in the justice profession appear to have their own agenda.
WorkingClass , , February 15, 2019 at 4:10 pm
Y'all Never Trump Republicans have NO future in American electoral politics.
Gerard , , February 15, 2019 at 4:22 pm
Trump is an idiot, but his enemies in the lib-Dem-media Establishment are far worse: corrupt, deceitful, arrogant, and lawless. Exhibit A is Andrew McCabe.

That's why I'll vote for the Idiot-in-Chief (again) in 2020. Because the alternative makes me vomit.

polistra , , February 15, 2019 at 4:43 pm
FBI has been destroying and paralyzing unwanted presidents forever. Lady Edgar did it far more effectively than her modern successors.
aristotle , , February 15, 2019 at 5:19 pm
"The pages of this publication drift further and further into utter insanity and despicable defense of Trump. Stand up for the values of the Constitution, or something, but not for this man who is no more than a self-enriching demagogue with no understanding of the reactionary politics he uses to delude the rubes and attract asinine threadbare pieces like this one."

Actually no. Consider me the inverse of Peter. I didn't vote for Trump due to the character weaknesses Peter describes. However, what I see is a seriously flawed man who has served the useful purpose of revealing an echo chamber of flawed and self-serving biases shared by the media and political establishment of this country. I see CNN, the NY Times, the Washington Post, and even some key leaders of our security services in a completely different light than I did two years ago. I am thankful for the clarity. I consider Merry's article to be a contribution in that direction.

Kouros , , February 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm
Cannot agree more with Fran Macadam.

On that note an interesting article by one of Mr. Putin's ideologues about Putinism and why Putinism might have more viability than the smoke and mirror exercise provided in established democracies:
https://russia-insider.com/en/vladislav-surkovs-hugely-important-new-article-about-what-putinism-full-translation/ri26259

The article admits that these bureaucracies are at times a nuisance and need to be dealt with appropriately...

Arthur Sido , , February 15, 2019 at 5:38 pm
"Peter" sez: "Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency."

Weird but no one has shown any actual criminal behavior by said President. Two years later still no charges. But Peter and these "career law enforcement officials" KNEW he was a criminal. Then Peter appeals to the Constitution, apparently oblivious to the fact that the Constitution doesn't make any provisions for plotting to remove the lawfully elected President because you don't like just because you "know" he is a "criminal", in spite of any actual evidence.

JeffK , , February 15, 2019 at 5:53 pm
"After his election, they (the deep state) determined to undermine his political standing, and particularly his proposed policy toward Russia, through a relentless and expansive investigation characterized by initial misrepresentations, selective media leaks, brutal law enforcement tactics, and a barrage of innuendo. This is the narrative of most Trump supporters, conservative commentators, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, notably columnist Kimberley Strassel."

The trouble with that is it completely ignores the ton of evidence pointing to really nefarious stuff.

Lots of times, when there's smoke, there's fire. And when the smoke is overwhelming there probably is a fire. A big one.

Sid , , February 15, 2019 at 9:19 pm
Trump has been going after the Russians since his inauguration. Therefore, those trying to remove him from office are likely the actual Russian agents. Of course they would need smoke and mirrors to hide that fact and deflect attention from themselves. It just so happens that Russian spies are trained by the FSB to accuse others of being a spy, for just this purpose. I'm looking at you, John O. (Oleg?) Brennan
Sheila , , February 15, 2019 at 11:03 pm
No matter who the President is, there is some group of people in Washington is ALWAYS trying to bring him down. Who those people are, and how large and powerful the group is, depends on a variety of factors. But a competent president manages to enact his agenda while staying one step ahead of his intriguers. Obama and GWB accomplished both, more or less because they were intelligent men of good character (though Obama was much smarter and better man than W)

While Bill Clinton's character was too low to avoid impeachment he was a smart and able administrator. Trump has both low character and low intellect so it is not surprising A. that many people want to bring him down and B. that they have been pretty effective.

Politics may be a blood sport in Washington but that's not the same as a "deep state". And Trump can't compete and win with anyone in Washington who doesn't grovel before him like the supine Senate Republicans. And that is no one's fault but his.

You wanting Trump to be a Russian agent does not make him one. It never will. Get over it. , , February 16, 2019 at 12:08 am
"If it turns out that Trump IS a Russian asset, will you apologize, Robert Merry? Because he certainly acts like one. And, as REAL Republicans used to say, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, maybe it's a duck."

@One Guy Yeah, because sending deadly aid to Ukraine is so pro-Russian. What an idiot you are!

VikingLS , , February 16, 2019 at 12:10 am
"Can't imagine why career law enforcement officials were concerned with a guy they knew to be a criminal taking over the office of the presidency. Shame on them!"

They also "knew" Martin Luther King Jr. was a Soviet agent.

Just Curiosity , , February 16, 2019 at 12:38 am
This article must have hit a nerve. Media Matters/Soros have sent out their "goons".

{BTW, isn't it amazing that Media Matters/Soros never have to worry about having any advertisers boycotted.}

{smirk}

JK , , February 16, 2019 at 3:14 am
The issue with the 25th amendment, is that the President's character flaws or mental deficiency were known and very visible before the election. Is it constitutionally proper for Congress to suspend a President for a preexisting condition that was known to and unhidden from voters? If Congress did that, it means Congress has a veto over who the public is allowed to vote in as President.
Frank LaSaracina , , February 16, 2019 at 10:19 am
Clear and convincing evidence of a silent coup by rogue IC / law enforcement community, the genesis of which was the Obama admin. Prima facie
Oleg Gark , , February 16, 2019 at 10:40 am
Forget the Covington students, Andrew McCabe and his lady co-workers have some pretty punchable faces. (Ok, I'm enough of a sexist to not punch a lady. I'd use eye-rolling and mocking gestures instead.)
tjoe , , February 16, 2019 at 11:18 am
These are the peeps that did 9.11 and took down 3 towers with 2 planes. or maybe you believe guys with box-cutters did it.
Contra1789 , , February 16, 2019 at 12:07 pm
The problem is not the existence of the deep state. It's inevitable that there will be unelected officials who will continue to shape policy regardless of who is elected President. The problem is that the deep state is blatantly working to undermine its elected leadership. If you can't in good conscience work with your President, the honorable thing to do is resign as some undoubtedly have. It's not an excuse for insubordination.

[Feb 16, 2019] Death Of Russiagate: Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud s Network

Highly recommended!
Looks like all of them were Brennan men. CIA used FBI counterintelligence and counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal.
Notable quotes:
"... We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn's insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members of Mueller's investigation. ..."
"... If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice ..."
"... A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations, doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal." ..."
"... Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation, saying: "It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos' activities look like they were something else. ..."
"... It's more likely that the CIA played the FBI with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency." ..."
"... Zainab Ahmad , a member of Mueller's legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed out by Blackburn , Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event in 2017 ..."
"... "Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ..."
"... I don't think it's a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller's team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as special counsel is also troubling ..."
"... Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic and linked to the Clintons ..."
"... Last year, Blackburn noted the connection between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei , writing: "LCILP director and FBI counsel, works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud's London Academy. Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US State too." ..."
"... Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share 'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that " The Guardian reported Hannigan's announcement that he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017. ..."
"... Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing "deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner." ..."
"... There are more and more articles saying that the FBI, CIA, M14 15,16 yada yada, were overly concerned about Trump. Their sin...caring too much for the USA. They attempted a coup de'etat for "our" own good...we... being "we the people". To quote Abe Lincoln "You will find that all the arguments in favour of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, -- not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden." Lincoln did not mince words ..."
Jan 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Disobedient Media

In April last year, Disobedient Media broke coverage of the British involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, asking why All Russiagate Roads Lead To London , via the quasi-scholar Joseph Mifsud and others.

The issue was also raised by WikiLeaks's Julian Assange , just days before the Ecuadorian government silenced him last March. Assange's Twitter thread cited research by Chris Blackburn , who spoke with Disobedient Media on multiple occasions covering Joseph Mifsud's ties to British intelligence figures and organizations, as well as his links to Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign, the FBI, CIA and the private cyber-security firm Crowdstrike.

We return, now, to this issue and specifically the research of Chris Blackburn, to place the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-Russia collusion charade. Blackburn's insights are incredible not only because they return us to the earliest reporting on the role of British intelligence figures in manufacturing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, but because they also implicate members of Mueller's investigation. What we are left with is an indication of collusion between factions of the US and UK intelligence community in fabricating evidence of Trump-Russia collusion: a scandal that would have rocked the legacy press to its core, if Western establishment-backed media had a spine.

In Disobedient Media's previous coverage of Blackburn's work, he described his experience in intelligence:

"I've been involved in numerous investigations that involve counter-intelligence techniques in the past. I used to work for the 9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism , one of the biggest tort actions in American history. I helped build a profile of Osama bin Laden's financial and political network, which was slightly different to the one that had been built by the CIA's Alec Station , a dedicated task force which was focused on Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Alec Station designed its profile to hunt Osama bin Laden and disrupt his network. I thought it was flawed. It had failed to take into account Osama's historical links to Pakistan's main political parties or that he was the figurehead for a couple of organizations, not just Al-Qaeda."

"I also ran a few conferences for US intelligence leaders during the Bush administration. After the 9/11 Commission published its report into the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon it created a public outreach program. The US National Intelligence Conference and Exposition ( Intelcon ) was one of the avenues it used. I was responsible for creating the 'View from Abroad' track. We had guidance from former Senator Slade Gorton and Jamie Gorelick, who both sat on the 9/11 Commission. We got leaders such as Sir John Chilcot and Baroness Pauline Neville Jones to come and help share their experiences on how the US would be able to heal the rifts after 9/11."

"The US intelligence community was suffering from severe turf wars and firewalls, which were hampering counter-terrorism efforts. They were concentrating on undermining each other rather than tackling terrorism. I had mainly concentrated on the Middle East, but in 2003 I switched my focus to terrorism in South Asia."

Counter Terrorism, Not Counter Intelligence, Sparked Probe

In an article published by The Telegraph last November, the paper acknowledged the following:

"It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI's investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin... Mr. Trump's allies and former advisers are raising questions about the UK's role in the start of the probe, given many of the key figures and meetings were located in Britain... One former top White House adviser to Mr. Trump made similar insinuations, telling this newspaper: "You know the Brits are up to their neck." The source added on the Page wiretap application: "I think that stuff is going to implicate MI5 and MI6 in a bunch of activities they don't want to be implicated in, along with FBI, counter-terrorism and the CIA. " [Emphasis Added]

The article cites George Papadopoulos, who asked why the "British intelligence apparatus was weaponized against Trump and his advisers." Papadopoulos has also addressed the issue at length via Twitter. In response to the Telegraph's coverage of the issue, Chris Blackburn wrote via Twitter :

"The Telegraph story on Trump Russia acknowledges that activities involving counter-terrorism are at the heart of the scandal...not counter-intelligence. If the [London Centre for International Law Practice] was British state, not private, some Commonwealth countries are going to be seriously pissed off."

Blackburn spoke with Disobedient Media, saying:

" If you factor in the dreadful reporting to discredit Joseph Mifsud and leaks, it is pretty clear something rather strange happened to George Papadopoulos during the campaign while he was shuttling around Europe and the Middle East. He was working with people who have intelligence links at the London Centre of International Law Practice.

A recent article in The Telegraph also alludes to MI5, MI6, and CIA using counter-terrorism assets which would tie into the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP), and its sister organizations, doing counter-terrorism work for the Australian, UK and US governments. They quote anonymous officials who believe that their intelligence agencies used counter-terrorism personnel to kick start the investigation/scandal." [Emphasis Added]

Blackburn discussed this differentiation with Disobedient Media:

"Counter-terrorism is obviously involved in more kinetic, violent political actions-concerning mass casualty events, bombings, assassinations, poisonings, and hacking. But, the lines are blurring between them. Counter-intelligence cases have been known to stretch for decades- often relying on nothing more than paranoia and suspicion to fuel investigations. Counter-terrorism is also a broader discipline as it involves tactical elements like hostage rescue, crime scene investigations, and explosive specialists. Counter-Terrorism is a collaborative effort with counter-terrorism officers working closely with local and regional police forces and civic organizations. There is also a wider academic field around countering violent, and radical ideology which promotes terrorism and insurgencies. Cybersecurity has become the third major discipline in intelligence. The London Center of International Law Practice, the mysterious intelligence company that employed both Papadopoulos and Mifsud , had also been working in that area."

Continuing, Blackburn pinpointed the significance of defining counter-terrorism as the starting point of the investigation, saying: "It shows that there is a high probability that intelligence was deliberately abused to make Papadopoulos' activities look like they were something else.

As counter-terrorism and counterintelligence are close in tactics and methods, it would seem that they were used because they share the same skill sets - covert evidence gathering and deception. It's basically sleight of hand. A piece of theatre would be more precise. However, we don't know if the FBI knew it was real or make-believe. It's more likely that the CIA played the FBI with the help of close allies who were suspicious and frightened of a Trump presidency."

Mueller's Team And Joseph Mifsud

Zainab Ahmad , a member of Mueller's legal team, is the former Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York. As pointed out by Blackburn , Ahmad attended a Global Center on Cooperative Security event in 2017. In recent days, Blackburn wrote via Twitter :

"Zainab Ahmad is a major player in the Russiagate scandal at the DOJ. Does she work for SC Mueller? She was at a GCCS event in May 2017. Arvinder Sambei, a co-director of the [London Centre of International Law Practice], worked with Joseph Mifsud, [George Papadopoulos] and [Simona Mangiante]. She's a GCCS consultant."

Blackburn told this author:

"Zainab Ahmad was one of the first DOJ prosecutors to have seen the Steele dossier. In May 2017, she attended a counter-terrorism conference in New York with the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), an organization which Joseph Mifsud, the alleged Russian spy, had been working within London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia."

Zainab Ahmad (AHMAD). Image via the Combatting Terrorism Center, West Point

"Richard Barrett, the Former Chief of Counter-Terrorism at MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence department traveled with Mifsud to Saudi Arabia to give a talk on terrorism in 2017. Ex-CIA officers, US Defense, and US Treasury officials were also there. The London Centre of International Law Practice's relationship to the Global Center had been established in 2014. The Global Center on Cooperative Security made Martin Polaine and Arvinder Sambei consultants, they then became directors at the London Centre of International Law Practice."

"The Global Center on Cooperative Security's first major UK conference was at Joseph Mifsud's London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD). Mifsud then followed Arvinder Sambei and Nagi Idris over to the London Centre of International Law Practice. Sources have told me that Mifsud was moonlighting as a specialist on counter-terrorism and Islamism while working at LAD which explains why he went to work in counter-terrorism after LAD folded."

"I don't think it's a coincidence that Global Center on Cooperative Security is connected to various elements that popped up in the Papadopoulos case. The fact that a prosecutor on Mueller's team was at Global Center before Mueller was appointed as special counsel is also troubling."

Days ago, The Hill reported on Congressional testimony by Bruce Ohr, revealing that when served as a DOJ official, he warned FBI and DOJ figures that the Steele dossier was problematic and linked to the Clintons. Critically, The Hill writes:

"Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ's fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ's international operations, and Zainab Ahmad , an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor. Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe." [Emphasis Added]

This point is essential, as it not only describes Ahmad's role in Mueller's team but places her at a crucial pre-investigation meeting.

Last year, Blackburn noted the connection between Mifsud and Arvinder Sambei , writing: "LCILP director and FBI counsel, works with Mike Smith at the Global Center. They ran joint counter-terrorism conferences and training with Mifsud's London Academy. Sambei then brought Mifsud over to the [London Centre of International Law Practice]. [Global Center works with Aussies, UK and US State too."

Sambei has been described elsewhere as a "Former practising barrister, Senior Crown Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service of England & Wales, and Legal Adviser at the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), Ministry of Defence." [British spelling has been retained]

Arvinder Sambei. Image via the Public International Law Advisory Group

That Sambei has been so thoroughly linked to organizations where Mifsud was a central figure is yet another cause of suspicion regarding allegations that Joseph Mifsud was a shadowy, unknown Russian agent until the summer of 2016 . She is also a direct link between Robert Mueller and Mifsud.

Blackburn wrote via Twitter : "Arvinder Sambei helped to organize LCILP's counter-terrorism and corruption events. She used her contacts in the US to bring in Middle Eastern government officials that were seen to be vulnerable to graft. Lisa Osofsky, former FBI Deputy General Counsel, was working with her." Below, Arvinder is pictured at a London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) event.

Arvinder Sambei, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

As Chris Blackburn told this author:

" Mifsud and Papadopoulos's co-director Arvinder Sambei was also the former FBI British counsel working 9/11 cases for Robert Mueller. She also runs a consultancy which deals with Special Investigative Measure (SIMs) which is just a posh description for covert espionage and evidence gathering. She has worked for major intelligence and national law agencies in the past. She wore two hats as a director of London Centre and a consultant for the Global Center on Cooperative Security (GCCS), a counter-terrorism think tank which is sponsored by the Australia, Canada, UK and US governments. Alexander Downer's former Chief of Staff while at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now works for the Global Center. Mifsud was also due to meet with Australian private intelligence figures in Adelaide in March 2016. So. Australia is certainly a major focus for the investigation." [Emphasis Added]

Below, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Lisa Osofsky is pictured at a London Centre for International Law Practice event . Osofsky also served as the Money Laundering Reporting Officer with Goldman Sachs International. Since 2018, she has served as the Director of the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

Lisa Osofsky, pictured at an LCILP event. Image via Chris Blackburn, Twitter

An Embarrassment For John Brennan?

Disobedient Media previously reported that Robert Hannigan, then head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share 'director-to-director' level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. This writer noted that " The Guardian reported Hannigan's announcement that he would step down from his leadership position with the agency just three days after the inauguration of President Trump, on 23 January 2017.

Jane Mayer, in her profile of Christopher Steele published in the New Yorker, also noted that Hannigan had flown to Washington D.C. to personally brief the then-CIA Director John Brennan on alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. What is so curious about this briefing "deemed so sensitive it was handled at director-level" is why Hannigan was talking director-to-director to the CIA and not Mike Rogers at the NSA, GCHQ's Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner."

Blackburn told Disobedient Media:

"Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, who has seen most of the information gathered by Congress from the intelligence community concerning the Russia investigation, said that if President Trump were to declassify files and present the truth to the American public, it would " embarrass John Brennan ." I think that is pretty concrete for me, but it's not definitive. I know the polarization and spin in Washington has become perverse, but that statement is pretty specific for me. If Brennan is involved, it is most probably through Papadopoulos who sparked off the 'official' investigation at the FBI. He also made sure the Steele dossier was spread through the US government."

Blackburn added: "Chris Steele was also working on FIFA projects, and a source has told me that he was working to investigate the Russian and Qatari World Cup bids. The London Centre of International Law Practice has been working with Majed Garoub, the former Saudi legal representative of FIFA, the world governing body for soccer. He's also been working against the Qatari bid. Steele likes to get paid twice for his investigations."

"Mifsud has also been associated with Prince Turki the former Saudi intelligence chief, Mifsud and the London Academy of Diplomacy used to train Saudi diplomats and intelligence figures while Turki was the Saudi Ambassador to London. Turki is a close friend of Bill Clinton and John Brennan. Nawaf Obaid was also courting Mifsud and tried to get him a cushy job working with CNN's Freedom Project at Link Campus in Rome. He also knows John Brennan. Intelligence agencies like to give out professional gifts like this plum academic position for completing missions. In the US, it is widely known that intelligence agencies gift the children of assets to get them into prestigious Ivy League schools."

At minimum, we can surmise that Mifsud was not a Russian agent, but was an asset of Western intelligence agencies. We are left with the impression that the Mifsud saga served as a ploy, whether he participated knowingly or not. It seems reasonable to conclude that the gambit was initially developed with participation of John Brennan and UK intelligence. Following this, Mueller inherited and developed the Mifsud narrative thread into the collusion soap opera we know today.

Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power.

snodgrass , 2 hours ago link

What ********. Britain was part of the group pulling of 911 along with the American and Jewish establishment. Blackburn was the inside guy, posing as an outsider, to deflect attention from the real perpetrators. These people always have agents on both sides of every issue in the same way they fund two "opposing" political parties and fund two "opposing" sides in the media.

freedommusic , 3 hours ago link

Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency , and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power .

It's called TREASON .

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies , giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere , is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years

Jung , 3 hours ago link

SteeleGate---his mate Skripal, boss Pablo Miller----novichok---Porton Down---anything to blame Russia in the end. After 30 dys of shutdown personnel of CIA, FBI and DOJ can be changed legally: draining of the swamp and DECLAS can begin with proper Military Tribunals in place. This according to Q who shared all of this, so it was not a conspiracy theory that the Q team exposed, but just MSM and Deep State in their last panic mode. Justice will now be able to follow: maybe rel end of endless wars too!

boooyaaaah , 3 hours ago link

There are more and more articles saying that the FBI, CIA, M14 15,16 yada yada, were overly concerned about Trump. Their sin...caring too much for the USA. They attempted a coup de'etat for "our" own good...we... being "we the people". To quote Abe Lincoln "You will find that all the arguments in favour of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, -- not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden." Lincoln did not mince words

So now we have an international conspiracy of care. Not one power grubber in the group. A syndicate of misunderstood do gooders.

But not having the consent of the people, but rather trying to undo, and foil the consent of the people.

This part of the Declaration applies

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Last of the Middle Class , 4 hours ago link

Ultimately, we are faced with the reality that British and US interests worked together to fabricate a collusion scandal to subvert a US Presidency, and in doing so, intentionally raised tensions between the West and a nuclear-armed power..."

Why do you not call it a coup d'etat? That is what it is, nothing less. If it were about something Trump did you would use the harshest possible language. Why not tell the truth here. Let the American people know what happened.

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions. ..."
"... At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start. ..."
Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

RJJCDA , says: February 9, 2019 at 12:26 am GMT

Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books. Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.

At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.

Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.

[Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald

Highly recommended!
Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Glenn Greenwald via The Intercept,

Buzzfeed was once notorious for traffic-generating "listicles" , but has since become an impressive outlet for deep investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story that, like so many others of its kind, blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the extremely rare step to label its key claims "inaccurate."

But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets (particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end with (dis)honorable mention status.

Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors" went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script:

10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false :

9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S. electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:

8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."

Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note in memory appended to the top of the article (but not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the media ecosystem):

7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)

On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network.

6. Russia Attacked U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)

On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea what to make of it.

But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds" the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean male cricket during mating season.

5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)

4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)

On November 27, 2018, the Guardian published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators exploded.

Seven weeks later, no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged; the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:

3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)

On July 27, 2018, CNN published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that "contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however, to this date has refused to do either:

2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)

1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)

The morning of December 9, 2017, launched one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public. Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC videos here ).

There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before. Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all got the date of the email wrong.

To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple, independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating – and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.

Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously is:

Dishonorable Mention:

  • ABC News' Brian Ross is fired for reporting Trump told Flynn to make contact with Russians when he was still a candidate; in fact, Trump did that after he won.
  • The New York Times c laimed Manafort provided polling data to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a person "close to the Kremlin"; in fact, he provided them to Ukrainians, not Russians.
  • Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked Ukrainian artillery apps; they then retracted it .
  • Bloomberg and the WSJ reported Mueller subpoenaed Deustche Bank for Trump's financial records; the NYT said that never happened .
  • Rachel Maddow devoted 20 minutes at the start of her show to very melodramatically claiming a highly sophisticated party tried to trick her by sending her a fake Top Secret document modeled after the one published by the Intercept, and said it could only have come from the U.S. Government (or the Intercept) since the person obtained the document before it was published by us and thus must have had special access to it; in fact, Maddow and NBC completely misread the metadata on the document ; the fake sent to Maddow was created after we published the document, and was sent to her by a random member of the public who took the document from the Intercept's site and doctored it to see if she'd fall for an obvious scam. Maddow's entire timeline, on which her whole melodramatic conspiracy theory rested, was fictitious.
  • The U.S. media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all "17 intelligence agencies" agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally retracted that in June, 2017: "The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies -- the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community."
  • AP claimed on February 2, 2018, that the Free Beacon commissioned the Steele Dossier; they thereafter acknowledged that was false and noted, instead: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until after Democratic groups had begun funding it."
  • The national media have offered multiple, conflicting accounts of how and why the FBI investigation into Trump/Russia began.
  • Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered "sex for favors" were totally false (and scurrilous).
  • After a Russian regional jet crashed on February 11, 2018, shortly after it took off from Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard, Harvard Law Professor and frequent MSNBC contributor Laurence Tribe strongly implied Putin purposely caused the plane to go down in order to murder Sergei Millian, a person vaguely linked to George Papadopoulos and Jared Kushner; in fact, Millian was not on the plane nor, to date, has anyone claimed they had any evidence that Putin ordered his own country's civilian passenger jet brought down.
Special mention:

As I've said many times, the U.S. media has become quite adept at expressing extreme indignation when people criticize them; when politicians conclude that it is advantageous to turn the U.S. media into their main adversary; and when people turn to "fake news" sites.

If, however, they were willing to devote just a small fraction of that energy to examining their own conduct, perhaps they would develop the tools necessary to combat those problems instead of just denouncing their critics and angrily demanding that politicians and news consumers accord them the respect to which they believe they are entitled.

[Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever.

Highly recommended!
Now it looks like all this scene was staged by British government and is connected to the Integrity initiative... Poor cat and guinea pigs ...
See also The desperate efforts of the Western neoliberal establishment to build a new propaganda machine by globinfo freexchange
Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
PavewayIV , Jan 20, 2019 11:15:51 AM | 1 ">link

And, one last bit from the BBC report on March 8, 2018:

"...Meanwhile, a doctor who was one of the first people at the scene has described how she found Ms Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench, vomiting and fitting. She had also lost control of her bodily functions.

The woman, who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved Ms Skripal into the recovery position and opened her airway, as others tended to her father.

She said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical agent on Ms Skripal's face or body.

The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, but added that she "feels fine"

Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43326734

[Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... But Abby's mum now feels the time is right for her daughter to be recognised for the "incredible" way she dealt with the scenario. Alison nominated her for the Lifesaver Award at Spire FM's Local Hero Awards, and the judges were unanimous in their decision that Abigail was a very worthy winner. ..."
"... Colonel McCourt was appointed Chief Nursing Officer on February 1 2018, just one month before the Skripal incident happened. Colonel McCourt lives in Larkhill, a garrison town some 11 miles from Salisbury. She is known to visit elsewhere. ..."
"... That is such a great article b. I have had a great wry chuckle at the folly of human hubris. Fancy setting up your own daughter for an award. Certainly looks less and less like novichok and more like novifraud with every passing day. ..."
"... Not only is the military mother Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola , she is also the last line of defence for the Army medics and other healthcare workers fighting the deadly disease ..."
"... what a stroke of luck Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola was there, arguably the most qualified person in all of Britain to attend to the Skripals. ..."
"... The story of the heroic Abigail McCourt in helping to save the Skripals must be too good for the likes of The Fraudian and other so-called "progressive" MSM outlets to resist. Strange that such a narrative was not brought up until now, coming close to the anniversary of the poisoning and the deadline for Britain's exit from the EU. ..."
"... Curious that Abigail McCourt received basic first aid training at school (in which she would have been taught CPR) yet when Spire FM hosts spoke to her, she says that her training was not needed. In almost the same sentence, she says Julia Skripal was not breathing. ..."
"... Off-Guardian on Twitter wonders if Alison McCourt had been involved in Exercise Toxic Dagger (chemical weapons training exercise) staged by The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Royal Marines in February 2018: ..."
"... The main area for shoppers to park in Salisbury is just north of the Maltings (site of the alleged attack) so it's not surprising that someone shopping in Salisbury would pass the bench the Skripals were found on. What is surprising it that none of the family seems to have suffered any effects from the Novichok. ..."
"... The Skirpal case, the Maidan coup and the related MH17 downing, the various gas attacks in Syria, the most recent bombing incident also in Syria, the Mueller investigation in its entirety - the sheer incompetence shown by the US and British deep states is simply staggering, and in sharp contrast to the investigative ability of this and other sites. ..."
"... It all adds up to stasi state bullshit. They are so arrogant and cocksure of the controlled media that they can even draw attention to the provocation by seeking an award for a family member despite the prominence of the mother and her role in the power structure. Knowledge, of course, will remain limited to those who are canny enough not to believe the received propaganda wisdom of the five eyes spy state. ..."
"... So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army? ..."
"... Even though this could have gone a long, long way to explaining the biggest discrepancy in the government narrative (i.e. Novicock is way, way deadly only, err, umm, they didn't die). How odd. How very, very odd. You'd almost think that the government considered that acknowledging that fact would open up more questions than it would answer. Hard to see why..... ..."
"... Recall that it was recently established and published that the Steele Dossier was compiled to act as an Insurance Policy in the event Trump won the election. See here . I posted this news as a comment and b picked up on it too, but that aspect of the Dossier is omitted from his essay above. We can see that the Dossier--like Blair's Dodgy Dossier to sell the illegal war on Iraq--has had a massive impact on Trump's presidency, which, whether you like Trump or not, is a matter of grave concern for the institutions of governance of the USA, and IMO is very close to treason. ..."
"... Sure, the nurse revelation is curious to say the least, but I'm far more interested in the entire disinformation network built by the British along with previous and current versions operated by CIA here in USA. Think back to what Bill Casey said, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," then Rove's boast: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ..."
"... Add those to all the 100% evidence free accusations made against Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria, other nations and private individuals--the "universal sports doping" by Russian athletes was a massive smear proven to be 100% false--and you can understand why I call it BigLie Media. Clearly, the Skripal story's utter fantasy. But the Brits will kill their own to insure the story isn't compromised--Dr. David Kelly, Dawn Sturgess, and quite likely Sergei Skripal, and likely others from incidents in the further past. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative was also heavily involved in promoting an anti-Russian agenda such as the Skripal affair. ..."
"... reminds me of the kuwaiti ambassador's daughter in the runup to the first gulf war. ..."
"... 'So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army?' And how embarrassing for our 'fearless' journalists and tabloid truth seekers! Let the crowd cry out 'shame'! ..."
Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

On March 4 2018 the British/Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found incapacitated on a bench in Salisbury. The British government asserts that they were affected by a chemical poison of the so called Novichok group. The case led to a diplomatic conflict as Britain accused Russia of an attempt to kill the Skripals. No evidence was provided by the British government to support those accusations. The Skripals have since been vanished.

Today an intriguing new detail of the case came to light. Spire FM , a local radio station in Salisbury, reports of a young woman, Abigail McCourt, who was given a 'Lifesaver Award' for her involvement in the Skripal case:

The 16 year old, from Larkhill, was the first to spot two people collapsed on a bench in the Maltings on March 4th and didn't hesitate to help. Abigail quickly alerted her mum, a qualified nurse, who was nearby and together they gave first aid to the victims until paramedics arrived.

It soon became clear this was no ordinary medical incident, but the poisoning of a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, with Novichok.

...

Immediately following the incident and with the world's media focused on Salisbury, the pair didn't want any want press attention and kept their involvement quiet.

But Abby's mum now feels the time is right for her daughter to be recognised for the "incredible" way she dealt with the scenario. Alison nominated her for the Lifesaver Award at Spire FM's Local Hero Awards, and the judges were unanimous in their decision that Abigail was a very worthy winner.

Earlier reports mentioned that a 'military nurse' had attended to the Skripals. Following the above report Elena Evdokimova checked the name of the young women's mothers and found a curiosity:

Elena Evdokimova @elenaevdokimov7 - 10:50 utc - 19 Jan 2019

We were right, it was Alison McCourt who was that"unknown military nurse" who, absolutely randomly, happened to be near the bench where #Skripals collapsed . Spire FM alleges that it was her daughter Abigail alerted her, but no one mentioned her before ...

Here is the thing. Alison McCourt is not just one random 'military nurse'. She is the Chief Nursing Officer for the British Army in the rank of Colonel:

Colonel A L McCourt OBE ARRC QHN - Assistant Head Health Strategy / Chief Nursing Officer (Army) - Senior Health Advisor (Army) Department.

Colonel McCourt was appointed Chief Nursing Officer on February 1 2018, just one month before the Skripal incident happened. Colonel McCourt lives in Larkhill, a garrison town some 11 miles from Salisbury. She is known to visit elsewhere.

Petri Krohn , Jan 19, 2019 3:12:45 PM | link

Dig deep enough and you will find that Alison McCourt is married to Pablo Miller

c1ue , Jan 19, 2019 3:16:12 PM | link

Lark Hill - as in "V for Vendetta" Lark Hill? Hrmph.
Zachary Smith , Jan 19, 2019 3:17:00 PM | link
As I read this I had two thoughts. The first one is that the Brits have lost the competence they once had with this stuff. "Operation Mincemeat" was, according to all accounts, a marvel in planning, execution, and getting the desired reactions from the German High Command. The "Double-Cross System" turned the extremely risky invasion at Normandy into a success. The recent stuff is a comedy by comparison.

... ... ...

Jetpack , Jan 19, 2019 3:39:34 PM | link
Here's one way she could have made it on time:
https://mobile.twitter.com/RoyalNavy/status/1086623282831523840?s=09
snake , Jan 19, 2019 3:39:49 PM | link
excellent reporting.. still we have little written collaborative evidence.. just as in 9/11 just top dogs saying improbable things.

What seems to me important now is to develop as you have done a set of hypotheses. and to hack at them until we hit the ones which all evidence cannot dispute. Using your summary I rewrite in hypothesis form,

  • hypothesis 1: Steele's dirty dossier is not related to the Skripal case.
  • hypothesis 2: Steele's dossier is not the result of an integrity initiative.
  • hypothesis 3: Downing street personnel were not involved in integrity initiative
  • hypothesis 4: media reported only supportable facts.
  • hypothesis 5: Neither the USA or any of its agencies were involved
  • hypothesis 6: Neither Israel or any of its agencies were involved
  • hypothesis 7: Neither Saudi Arabia or any of its Arab partners were involved
  • hypothesis 6: Neither Republicans or Democrats in America were involved.
  • hypothesis 8: the FBI had no part in this.
  • hypothesis 9: Developing sufficient misinformation to justify attacking Nord 2 pipeline was not one of the objectives of the integrity initiative.
  • hypothesis 10: No private interest supported organizing a false flag op against Russia
uncle tungsten , Jan 19, 2019 3:44:37 PM | link
Too good. That is such a great article b. I have had a great wry chuckle at the folly of human hubris. Fancy setting up your own daughter for an award. Certainly looks less and less like novichok and more like novifraud with every passing day.
annie , Jan 19, 2019 4:06:54 PM | link
from the Daily Mail:
Not only is the military mother Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola , she is also the last line of defence for the Army medics and other healthcare workers fighting the deadly disease.

what a stroke of luck Britain's most senior soldier on the virulent battlefield against ebola was there, arguably the most qualified person in all of Britain to attend to the Skripals.

brook trout , Jan 19, 2019 4:10:57 PM | link
Coincidence? Probably like most here, I think not. But isn't this something of an own goal? If indeed things are as we suspect, why would you put the daughter up for an award? Wouldn't you want the can of worms this presents to remain unopened? Can they be this incompetent? Well, looking at the Brexit process, I guess we know the answer to that last by now rhetorical question.
Jen , Jan 19, 2019 4:22:07 PM | link
The story of the heroic Abigail McCourt in helping to save the Skripals must be too good for the likes of The Fraudian and other so-called "progressive" MSM outlets to resist. Strange that such a narrative was not brought up until now, coming close to the anniversary of the poisoning and the deadline for Britain's exit from the EU.

Curious that Abigail McCourt received basic first aid training at school (in which she would have been taught CPR) yet when Spire FM hosts spoke to her, she says that her training was not needed. In almost the same sentence, she says Julia Skripal was not breathing.
https://www.spirefm.co.uk/news/local-news/2782928/exclusive-teenage-girl-describes-moment-she-found-collapsed-skripals/

Off-Guardian on Twitter wonders if Alison McCourt had been involved in Exercise Toxic Dagger (chemical weapons training exercise) staged by The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Royal Marines in February 2018:
https://twitter.com/OffGuardian0
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/exercise-toxic-dagger-the-sharp-end-of-chemical-warfare

Bobby Peru , Jan 19, 2019 4:29:53 PM | link
Say cheese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MGsqbRXuRc
Bobby Peru , Jan 19, 2019 4:40:30 PM | link
My dog barks some https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9SrbPkpQHA
Robert Snefjella , Jan 19, 2019 5:10:41 PM | link
b, you are too suspicious. Nothing to see here. Clearly way beyond a serious matter, this dastardly attack on Skripals by the Soviets, er, the Russians, er, Putin.

In Canada our eloquent foreign Minister, in a barrage of outraged talking the talk that was accompanied by making four Russian diplomats walk the walk home, said in words that will surely take their high place in the history of inspired speeches, along with Churchill's 'Never have so many done so much for so few', and MLK's 'I have a nightmare':

Robert Snefjella , Jan 19, 2019 5:11:39 PM | link
And her words re the March 4 nerve agent attack on a close ally and partner of Canada "a despicable, heinous and reckless act" that potentially endangered the lives of hundreds"
Ghost Ship , Jan 19, 2019 5:26:11 PM | link
Strange - no military hospital in Salisbury but then there aren't military hospitals in Britain anymore. Instead the military use civilian hospitals with a Ministry of Defence Hospital Unit attached but none near Salisbury. The Ministry of Defence Hospital Units do not treat operational casualties who are treated at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Birmingham. You'd think the Chief Nursing Officer for the British Army, Colonel McCourt would work out off the most important site for defence medicine in the UK (QEH in Birmingham) but instead she's based at Larkhill which from memory is where the Royal Artillery is located.

Not so strange - The area inhabited by the British Army north of Salisbury (more specifically north of the A303 road was classified as deprived because of the lack of shopping facilities, so most residents of this area do their shopping in Salisbury which has the best shopping in the area. There are now a Tesco superstore and a branch of Lidl in Tidworth so perhaps it's not so deprived anymore.

The main area for shoppers to park in Salisbury is just north of the Maltings (site of the alleged attack) so it's not surprising that someone shopping in Salisbury would pass the bench the Skripals were found on. What is surprising it that none of the family seems to have suffered any effects from the Novichok.

Hal Duell , Jan 19, 2019 5:39:14 PM | link
The Skirpal case, the Maidan coup and the related MH17 downing, the various gas attacks in Syria, the most recent bombing incident also in Syria, the Mueller investigation in its entirety - the sheer incompetence shown by the US and British deep states is simply staggering, and in sharp contrast to the investigative ability of this and other sites.

The US is fracturing, the EU is fracturing, and therein lies the greatest danger. With the overplayed sanctions only making the sanctioned effect work arounds to the point that the primacy of the US dollar is threatened, with the contain China train having left the station and recently pulling into a station purpose built on the dark side of the moon, their only options look to be to either go nuclear or go away.

2019 looks to be a most interesting year!

exiled off mainstreet , Jan 19, 2019 6:05:32 PM | link
It all adds up to stasi state bullshit. They are so arrogant and cocksure of the controlled media that they can even draw attention to the provocation by seeking an award for a family member despite the prominence of the mother and her role in the power structure. Knowledge, of course, will remain limited to those who are canny enough not to believe the received propaganda wisdom of the five eyes spy state.
Yeah, Right , Jan 19, 2019 6:12:12 PM | link
So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army?

Even though this could have gone a long, long way to explaining the biggest discrepancy in the government narrative (i.e. Novicock is way, way deadly only, err, umm, they didn't die). How odd. How very, very odd. You'd almost think that the government considered that acknowledging that fact would open up more questions than it would answer. Hard to see why.....

somebody , Jan 19, 2019 6:17:21 PM | link
Posted by: Ghost Ship | Jan 19, 2019 5:26:11 PM | 20

She lives in Aldershot like Sergeant Bailey. There is a field hospital based there, she is the chief officer

somebody , Jan 19, 2019 6:37:39 PM | link
Posted by: somebody | Jan 19, 2019 6:17:21 PM | 26

Bailey lives in Alderholt. Aldershot is an hour by car from Salisbury.

Tom Welsh , Jan 19, 2019 6:38:44 PM | link
I am beginning to wonder if Sir Humphrey Appleby and some of his colleagues are conducting a deliberate hoax, piling impossibility upon impossibility and contradiction upon contradiction, just to see how long it takes the unbelievably gullible British public to get the joke and start throwing cabbages and rotten fruit. Not so funny for the poor woman who died - but then, as Sir Humphrey has often been heard to remark, one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.
karlof1 , Jan 19, 2019 6:57:19 PM | link
Recall that it was recently established and published that the Steele Dossier was compiled to act as an Insurance Policy in the event Trump won the election. See here . I posted this news as a comment and b picked up on it too, but that aspect of the Dossier is omitted from his essay above. We can see that the Dossier--like Blair's Dodgy Dossier to sell the illegal war on Iraq--has had a massive impact on Trump's presidency, which, whether you like Trump or not, is a matter of grave concern for the institutions of governance of the USA, and IMO is very close to treason.

Sure, the nurse revelation is curious to say the least, but I'm far more interested in the entire disinformation network built by the British along with previous and current versions operated by CIA here in USA. Think back to what Bill Casey said, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," then Rove's boast: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Add those to all the 100% evidence free accusations made against Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria, other nations and private individuals--the "universal sports doping" by Russian athletes was a massive smear proven to be 100% false--and you can understand why I call it BigLie Media. Clearly, the Skripal story's utter fantasy. But the Brits will kill their own to insure the story isn't compromised--Dr. David Kelly, Dawn Sturgess, and quite likely Sergei Skripal, and likely others from incidents in the further past.

So, while it seems comical, this is all deadly serious.

Krollchem , Jan 19, 2019 7:03:58 PM | link
The Integrity Initiative was also heavily involved in promoting an anti-Russian agenda such as the Skripal affair.

Either Chris Donnelly of the Institute for Statecraft (IoS), (formally of the British Army's Soviet Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst), or UK General Sir Richard Barrons reportedly stated that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political space."

UK: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/01/07/inte-j07.html

james , Jan 19, 2019 7:51:44 PM | link
great coverage b.. thank you... it's either a coincidence theory, or a conspiracy theory... no other choices, until the uk gets down to doing an open investigation on integrity initiative...the investigators investigating the investigators.. ain't going to happen... similar deal in the usa now.. basically this will be when hell freezes over - a very long time if ever.. meanwhile the skripals are persona non grata... it would be very interesting to find out where they are kept... it looks like their is no chance for any type of normal life for them here on out... even if the novihoax didn't kill them, the uk has done the equivalent.. it is hard not to tie operation toxic dagger into all of this... the coincidences are just too great..

@ petri.. thanks for the that.. how did you manage to figure that one out? does that mean that allison mccourt is the daughter of pablo miller, or was allison from another relationship/marriage? of course m16 and some folks know the answer to this amazing coincidences and probably are unable to openly say..

psychohistorian , Jan 19, 2019 7:58:50 PM | link
@ Glen Brown and bevin with their correction to my comment.....thanks

I was not in my best of mind and along with misspelling his name I projected my desire for more movement by the UK opposition in light of having the government paying folks to work against them.....my bad idealism........

If it is true that Alison McCourt is married to Pablo Miller as Petri Kohn asserts in comment #1 then it looks like the daughter is being groomed for big things in the UK government.....16 years old and already an award for criminal complicity.

pretzelattack , Jan 19, 2019 8:02:08 PM | link
reminds me of the kuwaiti ambassador's daughter in the runup to the first gulf war.
PavewayIV , Jan 19, 2019 8:10:51 PM | link
Petri Krohn@1 - ? Only thing I could find is a reference to her husband Hugh - a prison officer - and her two kids, Abagail (now 16) and Cameron (now 14). That was from a DailyMail article (I know...) from Dec. 20, 2014. She was spending time away from them during Christmas when she was sent to Sierra Leone for the Ebola outbreak. The article also mentions time away from Hugh and Abagail in 2003 when she was deployed to Iraq. Couldn't find anything about Pablo Miller being married or having kids, but many mentions of his home in Salisbury.
karlof1 , Jan 19, 2019 8:11:20 PM | link
bevin @32--

Nice conjecture, except that those who devised the Dossier specifically said it was to be used as insurance in case Trump won. Please see article I linked to in my comment.

Bart Hansen , Jan 19, 2019 8:30:25 PM | link
The daughter is what's know as a "cutout". You can't have the "nurse of all nurses" be the first on the scene. But, they didn't even bother with the daughter having to call mama at home. She was luckily "nearby", presumably lurking behind a tree.
Ghost Ship , Jan 19, 2019 8:43:51 PM | link
>>>>: somebody | Jan 19, 2019 6:17:21 PM | 26

She might have been the commanding officer of 22 Field Hospital but now she's moved on.

From the QARANC website:

Following promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in 2011, Alison attended the Advanced Command and Staff Course. Her initial SO1 appointment was as Chief of Staff, Headquarters 2nd Medical Brigade in York in Aug 2012. Alison assumed Command of 22 Field Hospital in July 2013 and deployed the Unit to Sierra Leone on Op GRITROCK in Oct 14. She was awarded an OBE for her leadership of 22 Field during Op GRITROCK.

On promotion to Colonel in Dec 2015 she assumed an appointment in the newly established Senior Health Advisors department and has been the lead for Assurance and now Health Strategy in that area.

Alison assumed the appointment of Chief Nursing Officer for the Army on 1 Feb 18.

james , Jan 19, 2019 8:57:41 PM | link
@1 petri... unless they hooked up after 2014, your theory doesn't look very likely...

further to @36 paveways comment from the daily mail dec 20 2014 article - Even though Lieut Col McCourt is a veteran of campaigns in Iraq and the Balkans, she admits this tour of duty has taken a toll, and that she has depended on the support of her husband Hugh, a prison officer, to help her through it. While this is her first Christmas apart from her children, she is accustomed to leaving them and her husband behind. In 2003, she left Abigail, then aged just eight months, in Hugh's arms while she went to Iraq to treat British soldiers wounded in the Gulf War. She returned there in 2008 for a second tour of duty.

Lieut Col McCourt said: 'I have a very supportive husband. On both occasions I went to Iraq he took sabbaticals from his job to ensure that our family life was maintained. Yes, it was hard to say goodbye so soon after having my first child but you immerse yourself in your work, and on an operational tour everyone is missing someone. This Christmas he'll be with the children and my mum will join them at the family home in Aldershot. Of course I miss them all but our focus has to be saving lives here.'

ADKC , Jan 19, 2019 8:58:24 PM | link
brook trout @11

Suppose you were Russian and believed that the west would not attack because of the checks and controls that exist in western democracy. Suppose a deadly incident occurred and Russia was blamed and an attack became more likely. Suppose that (as a Russian) you knew Russia wasn't involved and that the evidence was very sketchy and didn't make sense. Suppose this was was all in the public domain but instead of the incident being questioned it was just accepted and Russia was sanctioned and other western and allied countries (despite knowing it was nonsense) joined in.

You might as a Russian come to believe that evidence didn't matter, that the west could manipulate their populations at will and the idea that there was some "restraint" on western attacks would be shown to be fanciful. You might, as a Russian, become very concerned that you might be attacked and there was a lack of restraint on the west.

The west are blaming Russia for something they didn't do but, also, showing that they know that Russia didn't do it and, more, letting Russia know they framed them, and showing Russia that the evidence doesn't matter. Perhaps, not UK incompetence, maybe, it's all psyops.

...

Ric G , Jan 19, 2019 9:23:12 PM | link
Mr Moon, you have excelled yourself! A brilliant article, worthy of a standing ovation!

'So in all the police press briefings and all of the political posturing it was not deemed to be important to mention that the Skripals-on-the-park-bench were attended to by the Chief Nurse Of the British Army?' And how embarrassing for our 'fearless' journalists and tabloid truth seekers! Let the crowd cry out 'shame'!

Tom , Jan 19, 2019 9:50:14 PM | link
John Helmer raises an important question, why does the roof of Sergei's house need to be removed? Tongue firmly planted in cheek. The air leakage through the front door of Sergei's house must be through the roof! How else does the fumes from novichok get from the front door handle to the roof? Sure hope they do a proper energy efficient rebuild. Can't go wasting that soon to be arriving at Perfidious Albion's shores horror of horrors, Russian gas. North Sea gas wont last much longer.

http://johnhelmer.net/british-government-demolishes-skripal-house-because-sergei-skripal-poisoned-himself-roof-falls-in-on-theresa-may/

Roy G , Jan 19, 2019 10:53:35 PM | link
So, where are the Skirpals these days? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

Highly recommended!
All links are going to Brennan and CIA. Rosenstein was just a tool, necessary to appoint the Special Prosecutor. And launching the prove was the meaning of "insurance" that Strock mentioned to his mistress. Both Strzok and McCabe have their liasons (read bosses) at CIA, so in essence they were "CIA infiltration group" within the FBI. And it is also important to understand that Obama was just a CIA snowperson.
There is Stalin's NKVD chief Beria shadow over CIA and FBI now. He famously said "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime."
Notable quotes:
"... The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation. ..."
"... Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe ..."
"... As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump. ..."
Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

As FBI Ramped Up "Witch Hunt" When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

A Friday report in the New York Times revealing that the FBI supercharged its Trump-Russia collusion investigation after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey appears to have backfired - especially when one reviews internal FBI communications from the time period in question.

The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation.

Nine days after Comey was fired and the DOJ "sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia," Strzok texted Page on May 18, 2017: "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there. "

It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation. The article suggests that the FBI had long considered the move and that Comey's firing and Trump's subsequent comments marked a tipping point.

...

A source close to Strzok told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Jan. 26, 2018, shortly after the text was released, that the message reflected Strzok's concern that the FBI would not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia . - Daily Caller

The Times' explanation for the FBI's rationale that Trump may have been a Russian asset consists of Trump's call for Moscow to release Hillary Clinton's emails an election debate, and allegations contained within the unverified Steele Dossier. The Times was also quick to note that Trump may have "unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence," to temper the accusation that he was an agent of a foreign power. In short, weak sauce.

It's no wonder Strzok was hesitant to join Mueller's team.

Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe.

As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump.

" And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok texted Page the day Comey was fired, referring to then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.

Meanwhile, Page - who served as McCabe's deputy, provided some additional color on the text messages during her July 2018 congressional testimony, suggesting that the "case we've been waiting on" text referred to an investigation separate of the obstruction probe we already knew about.

"Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?" one lawmaker asked Page in her interview, details of which were published by The Epoch Times on Friday.

" I can't answer that, sir. I'm sorry ," she replied.

"If I was able to explain in more depth why the Director firing precipitated this text, I would," she continued while declining to say if the text message referred to an obstruction of justice investigation or something more. - Daily Caller

That said, Page admitted that Comey's firing prompted the text exchange.

"So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event as opposed to the occupant of the Director's office?" asked one lawmaker.

"Yes, that's correct," replied Page.

Meanwhile, The Times went to great lengths to imply that the FBI was justified in their ratcheted-up collusion investigation - failing to mention who started the probe, who led it, and more importantly - waiting until the 9th paragraph to mention the fact that it turned up nothing .

"No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel's office both declined to comment."

VideoEng_NC

"It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation."

Should be pretty simple with one question. "Was it Hillary who was the responsible party to open an investigation on Trump?". About as direct as it gets & we already know the answer.

adampeart

TDS sufferers hate Trump so bad that they have become (at 70%) pro-warmonger. Pathetic. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised. They were fine with Black Jesus starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing brown people for 8 years.

Teeter

McCabe initiated the investigation. Nobody likes McCabe, so he is likely to be the one guy that gets thrown under the bus. Of course what he knows may protect him to some extent... they won't want a trial.

Duc888

Sedition? Treason?

Yippie21

7 Days in May.... except for current version we use the DOJ and FBI! Interesting times.

[Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project

The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US.

A bombshell domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert UK state military-intelligence psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting "Russian disinformation."

The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of a group called "Integrity Initiative" to shape domestic opinion -- and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government, including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the US. Hacked documents reveal that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top DC think tanks, the FBI and the DHS, where it has gained access to Katharine Gorka and her husband, the fascist-linked cable news pundit Sebastian Gorka .

The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the US, meddling in American politics and recruiting "a new generation of Russia watchers" behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the most notorious American "perception management" specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships with the media.

Back in the UK, Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative's abuse of public money.

In a recent editorial , Williamson drew a direct parallel between the group's collaboration with journalists and surreptitious payments the CIA made to reporters during the Cold War.

"These tactics resemble those deployed by the CIA in Operation Mockingbird that was launched at the height of the cold war in the early 1950s. Its aims included using the mainstream news media as a propaganda tool," Williamson wrote.

"They manipulated the news agenda by recruiting leading journalists to write stories with the express purpose of influencing public opinion in a particular way," the Labour parliamentarian continued. "Now it seems the British Establishment have dusted off the CIA's old playbook and is intent on giving it another outing on this side of the Atlantic."

Unmasking a British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine

The existence of the Integrity Initiative was virtually unknown until this November, when the email servers of a previously obscure British think tank called the Institute for Statecraft were hacked, prompting allegations of Russian intrusion. When the group's internal documents appeared at a website hosted by Anonymous Europe, the public learned of a covert propaganda network seed-funded to the tune of over $2 million dollars by the Tory-controlled UK Foreign Office, and run largely by military-intelligence officers.

Through a series of cash inducements, off the record briefings and all-day conferences, the Integrity Initiative has sought to organize journalists across the West into an international echo chamber hyping up the supposed threat of Russian disinformation -- and to defame politicians and journalists critical of this new Cold War campaign.

A bid for funding submitted by the Integrity Initiative in 2017 to the British Ministry of Defense promised to deliver a "tougher stance on Russia" by arranging for "more information published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures."

The Integrity Initiative has also worked through its fronts in the media to smear political figures perceived as a threat to its militaristic agenda. Its targets have included a Spanish Department of Homeland Security appointee, Pedro Banos, whose nomination was scuttled thanks a media blitz it secretly orchestrated; Jeremy Corbyn, whom the outfit and its media cutouts painted as a useful idiot of Russia; and a Scottish member of parliament, Neil Findlay, whom one of its closest media allies accused of adopting "Kremlin messaging" for daring to protest the official visit of the far-right Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy -- the founder of two neo-Nazi parties and author of a white nationalist memoir, "View From The Right."

These smear campaigns and many more surreptitiously orchestrated by the Integrity Initiative offer a disturbing preview of the reactionary politics it plans to inject into an already toxic American political environment.

Lessons from "The Man Who Sold the War"

A newly released Integrity Initiative document reveals that the outfit plans an aggressive expansion across the US.

The Integrity Initiative claims to have already established a "simple office" in Washington DC, though it does not say where. It also boasts of partnerships with top DC think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, CNA, and close relationships with US officials.

A major hub of Integrity Initiative influence is the State Department's Global Engagement Center, a de facto US government propaganda operation that was established by President Barack Obama to battle online ISIS recruitment, but which was rapidly repurposed to counter Russian disinformation following the election of Trump.

The Integrity Initiative has also recruited one of the most infamous American PR men to organize its clusters of journalists and political figures.

He is John Rendon, best known as "The Man Who Sold The War" -- several wars, in fact, but most notoriously the Iraq invasion. Rendon was the self-described "information warrior" who planted fake news in the major US-UK media about non-existent WMD threats. With deep ties to the CIA and other military-intelligence agencies, his PR firm was paid $100 million to organize and sell Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. In 2002, the New York Times exposed a Pentagon program using Rendon to plant "disinformation" -- including "false stories" and "the blackest of black PR" -- in media outlets around the world, in order to shape public opinion and sell the Iraq invasion.

John Rendon (left) with Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, US Africa Command Chief of Staff (photo by US Africom Public Affairs)

Journalist James Bamford outlined a catalogue of disinformation feats Rendon performed for the Pentagon, such as identifying "the biases of specific journalists and potentially obtain an understanding of their allegiances, including the possibility of specific relationships and sponsorships." Bamford also found proposals and programs Rendon was involved in that aimed to "'coerce' foreign journalists and plant false information overseas [and] find ways to 'punish' those who convey the 'wrong message.'"

These tactics seem particularly relevant to his work with the Integrity Initiative, especially considering the internal documents that reveal further Rendon-style plans to produce reports and studies to be "fed anonymously into local media." (Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily.)

Keeping Up with the Gorkas

Internal documents also refer to interactions between Integrity Initiative Director Chris Donnelly and top Trump officials like Katharine Gorka , a vehemently anti-Muslim Department of Homeland Security official, as well as her husband, Sebastian, who earned right-wing fame during his brief tenure in Trump's White House.

The latter Gorka is an open supporter of the Hungarian Vitezi Rend, a proto-fascist order that collaborated with Nazi Germany during its occupation of Hungary. Following Trump's election victory in 2016, Gorka appeared for televised interviews in a black Vitezi Rend uniform.

Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb, with his wife, Katharine, on Election Night

Gorka was among the first figures listed on an itinerary for Donnelly to Washington this September 18 to 22. The itinerary indicates that the two had breakfast before Donnelly delivered a presentation on "Mapping Russian Influence Activities" at the federally funded military research center, CNA .

According to the itinerary, Donnelly was granted access to Pentagon officials like Mara Karlin , an up-and-coming neoconservative cadre , and John McCain Institute executive director Kurt Volker , another neoconservative operative who also serves as the US Special Representative for Ukraine. Numerous meetings with staffers inside the State Department's Office of Global Engagement were also detailed.

A Foreign Agent in the State Department?

Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal. Leventhal has been a staffer at the State Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative memo, he is listed as a current team member:

Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with "counter-propaganda," the State Department's Global Engagement Center has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My old job at the State Department was as chief propagandist," confessed former Global Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and I don't necessarily think it's that awful."

Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world. Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the messenger.

Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract.

While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.

As a cut-out of the British Foreign Office and Defense Ministry, the Integrity Initiative's work with current and former US officials and members of the media raises certain legal questions. For one, there is no indication that the group has registered under the Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act, as most foreign agents of influence are required to do.

Grants from the Neocons' Favorite Foundation

An Integrity Initiative memo states that the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation has also committed to ponying up funding for its US network as soon as the group receives 501 c-3 non-profit status. The foundation has already provided it with about $56,000 for covert propaganda activities across Europe.

The Smith Richardson Foundation has old ties to the US intelligence community and controversial cold war influence operations. According to reporter Russ Bellant , the foundation was secretly bankrolling radical right-wing "indoctrination campaigns for the American public on cold war and foreign policy issues" -- programs that got the attention of Senator William Fulbright, who warned then-President Kennedy of their dangers. At one of these indoctrination seminars, a Smith Richardson Foundation director "told attendees that 'it is within the capacity of the people in this room to literally turn the State of Georgia into a civil war college,' in order to overcome their opponents."

Smith Richardson has funded a who's who of the neoconservative movement, from hyper-militaristic think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War. "To say the [Smith Richardson] foundation was involved at every level in the lobbying for and crafting of the so-called global war on terror after 9/11 would be an understatement," wrote journalist Kelley Vlahos.

Besides Smith Richardson, the Integrity Initiative has stated its intention to apply for grants from the State Department "to expand the Integrity Initiative activities both within and outside of the USA." This is yet another indicator that the US government is paying for propaganda targeting its own citizens.

The "Main Event" in Seattle

An Integrity Initiative internal document argues that because "DC is well served by existing US institutions, such as those with which the Institute [for Statecraft] already collaborates," the organization should "concentrate on extending the work of the Integrity Initiative into major cities and key State capitals [sic] across the USA."

This December 10, the Integrity Initiative organized what it called its "main event" in the US. It was a conference on disinformation held in Seattle, Washington under the auspices of a data firm called Adventium Labs. Together with the Technical Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Integrity Initiative listed Adventium Labs as one of its "first partners outside DC."

Adventium is Minneapolis-based research and development firm that has reaped contracts from the US military, including a recent $5.4 million cyber-security grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Inside a modest-sized hotel conference room, the Adventium/Integrity event began with a speech by the Integrity Initiative's Simon Bracey-Lane. Two years prior, Bracey-Lane appeared on the American political scene as a field worker for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential primary run, earning media write-ups as the "Brit for Bernie." Now, the young operator was back in the US as the advance man for a military-intelligence cut-out that specialized in smearing left-wing political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader widely regarded as the British version of Sanders.

Bracey-Lane opened his address by explaining that Integrity Initiative director Chris Donnelly had been unable to appear at the event, possibly because he was bogged down in the scandal back home. He proceeded to read remarks prepared by Donnelly that offered a window into the frighteningly militaristic mindset the Integrity Initiative aims to impose on the public through their media and political allies.

According to Donnelly's comments, the West was no longer in a "peace time, rules based environment." From the halls of government to corporate boardrooms to even the UK's National Health System, "the conclusion is that we have to look for people who suit a wartime environment rather than peacetime."

During Q&A, Bracey-Lane remarked that "we have to change the definition of war to encompass everything that war now encompasses," referring vaguely to various forms of "hybrid warfare."

"There is a great deal to be done in communicating that to young people," he continued. "When we mean being at war we don't mean sending our boys off to fight. It's right here in our homes."

The emphasis on restructuring society along martial lines mirrored the disturbing thinking also on display in notes of a private meeting between Donnelly and Gen. Richard Barrons in 2016. During that chat, the two officers decided that the British military should be removed from democratic supervision and be able to operate as "an independent body outside politics."

While Bracey-Lane's presentation perfectly captured the military mindset of the Integrity Initiative, the speakers that followed him offered a diverse array of perspectives on the concept of disinformation, some more nuanced than others. But one talk stood out from the rest -- not because of its quality, but because of its complete lack thereof.

Reanimating the "Red-Brown" Grifter

Alexander Reid Ross (left) and Emmi Bevensee at the Integrity Initiative's "main event" in Seattle

The presentation was delivered by Alexander Reid Ross, a half-baked political researcher who peddles computer-generated spiderweb relationship charts to prove the existence of a vast hidden network of "red-brown" alliances and "syncretic media" conspiracies controlled by puppeteers in Moscow.

Ross is a lecturer on geography at Portland State University with no scholarly or journalistic credentials on Russia. His students have given him dismal marks at Rate My Professors, complaining about his "terrible monotone lectures" and his penchant for "insert[ing] his own ideologies into our class." But with a book, "Against the Fascist Creep," distributed by the well-known anarchist publishing house, AK Press, the middling academic has tried to make his name as a maverick analyst.

Before the Integrity Initiative was exposed as a military-intelligence front operation, Ross was among a small coterie of pundits and self-styled disinformation experts that followed the group's Twitter account. The Integrity Initiative even retweeted his smear of War Nerd podcast co-host John Dolan.

In a series of articles for the Southern Poverty Law Center last year, Ross attempted to bring his warmed-over Cold War theories to the broader public. He wound up trashing everyone from the co-author of this piece, Max Blumenthal, to Nation magazine publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel to Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen Walt as hidden shadow-fascists secretly controlled by the Kremlin.

The articles ultimately generated an embarrassing scandal and a series of public retractions by the editor-in-chief of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen. And then, like some Dr. Frankenstein for discredited and buried journalism careers, the British Ministry of Defense-backed Integrity Initiative moved in to reanimate Ross as a sought-after public intellectual.

Before the Integrity Initiative-organized crowd, Ross offered a rambling recitation of his theory of a syncretic fascist alliance puppeteered by Russians: "The alt right takes from both this 'red-brown,' it's called, or like left-right syncretic highly international national of nationalisms, and from the United States' own paleoconservative movement, and it's sort of percolated down through college organizing, um, and anti-interventionism meets anti-imperialism. Right?"

In a strange twist, Ross appeared on stage at the Integrity Initiative's Seattle event alongside Emmi Bevensee , a contributor to the left-libertarian Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) think tank, whose tagline, "a left market anarchist think-tank" expresses its core aim of uniting far-left anarchists with free-market right-libertarians.

Bevensee , a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona and self-described "Borderlands anarcho into tech and crypto," concluded her presentation by asserting a linkage between the alternative news site, Zero Hedge, and the "physical militarized presence in the borderlands" of anti-immigrant vigilantes. Like Bevensee, Ross has written for C4SS in the past.

The irony of contributors to an anarchist group called the "Center for a Stateless Society" auditioning before The State – the most jackbooted element of it, in fact – for more opportunities to attack anti-war politicians and journalists, can hardly be overstated.

But closer examination of the history of C4SS veers from irony into something much darker and more unsettling.

Pedophile Co-Founder, White Nationalist Associates

C4SS was co-founded in 2006 by a confessed child rapist and libertarian activist, Brad Spangler, who set the group up to promote "Market anarchism" to "replace Marxism on the left."

When Spangler's child rape confessions emerged in 2015, the Center for Stateless Society founder was finally drummed out by his colleagues.

There's more: Spangler's understudy and deputy in the C4SS, Kevin Carson -- currently listed as the group's "Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory" -- turned out to be a longtime friend and defender of white nationalist Keith Preston. Preston's name is prominently plastered on the back of Kevin Carson's book, hailing the C4SS man as "the Proudhon of our time" -- a loaded compliment, given Proudhon's unhinged anti-Semitism . Carson only disowned Preston in 2009, shortly before Preston helped white nationalist leader Richard Spencer launch his alt-right webzine, Alternative Right.

The C4SS group currently participates in the annual Koch-backed International Students For Liberty conference in Washington DC, LibertyCon, a who's who of libertarian think-tank hacks and Republican Party semi-celebrities like Steve Forbes, FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and Alan Dershowitz.

In 2013, C4SS's Kevin Carson tweeted out his dream fantasy that four Jewish leftists -- Mark Ames, Yasha Levine, Corey Robin, and Mark Potok -- would die in a plane crash while struggling over a single parachute. Potok was an executive editor at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which last year retracted every one of the crank articles that Alexander Reid Ross published with them and formally apologized for having run them.

For some reason, the super-sleuth Ross conveniently failed to investigate the libertarian group, C4SS, that he has chosen to partner with and publish in. That ability to shamelessly smear and denounce leftists over the most crudely manufactured links to the far-right -- while cozying up to groups as sleazy as C4SS and authoritarian as the Integrity Initiative -- is the sort of adaptive trait that MI6 spies and the Rendon Group would find useful in a covert domestic influence operation.

Ross did not respond to our request for comment on his involvement with the Integrity Initiative and C4SS.

Disinformation for Democracy

As it spans out across the US, the Integrity Initiative has stated its desire to "build a younger generation of Russia watchers." Toward this goal, it is supplementing its coterie of elite journalists, think tank hacks, spooks and State Department info-warriors with certifiable cranks like Ross.

Less than 24 hours after Ross's appearance at the Integrity Initiative event in Seattle, he sent a menacing email to the co-author of this article, Ames, announcing his intention to recycle an old and discredited smear against him and publish it in the Daily Beast -- a publication that appears to enjoy a special relationship with Integrity Initiative personnel.

Despite the threat of investigation in the UK, the Integrity Initiative's "network of networks" appears to be escalating its covert, government-funded influence operation, trashing the political left and assailing anyone that gets in its way -- all in the name of fighting foreign disinformation.

"We have to win this one," Integrity Initiative founder Col. Chris Donnelly said , "because if we don't, democracy will be undermined."

Disturbed Voter , January 10, 2019 at 4:26 am

This is why you don't put spooks in charge. They are paid to be paranoid.

pretzelattack , January 10, 2019 at 5:18 am

making up lies to get paid. james angleton was paranoid (not that it seemed to make him more effective in counterintelligence)–these people are just con artists, paid to be con artists.
i'm just waiting for "we have to undermine democracy in order to save it".

Pym of Nantucket , January 10, 2019 at 5:46 pm

Agreed. Not only are they paid to make things up, but they have an ingenious scheme for paying themselves from narcotics and arms dealing.

The most amazing feat of confidence artistry (apart from maybe the TARP bailout (c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program ) is their remarkable ability to convince the population they are needed and working on our behalf instead of being in jail where they belong.

nobody , January 10, 2019 at 6:06 am

I first heard about this enterprise/outfit from 21st Century Wire .

Peter , January 10, 2019 at 6:40 am

hat story has been around since at least December 17. https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/12/17/inside-the-temple-of-covert-propaganda-the-integrity-initiative-and-the-uks-scandalous-information-war/
maybe you should change your sources

Richard H Caldwell , January 10, 2019 at 6:52 am

Gotta love Mark Ames

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 6:55 am

b at Moon of Alabama posted on this on the 4th.

David , January 10, 2019 at 7:01 am

I submitted a long comment on this about an hour ago, which seems to have been eaten by the system. I won't repost it now, but I'll do so later if it doesn't surface.

PlutoniumKun , January 10, 2019 at 7:58 am

This is something that has repeatedly happened to me too recently – it often takes 2 or more hours for most of my recent posting to surface on the site. It rarely disappears altogether, so I would assume your post will eventually arrive.

hemeantwell , January 10, 2019 at 9:25 am

Same here on the delays. Keep a copy.
But anyway, very glad you posted this piece. Whatever we make of Patreon, it's one way to support Mark Ames' work.

flora , January 10, 2019 at 9:13 pm

Me, too. Though not on this post. Me thinks much sp@m and tr0llery happening behind the scenes that the mods have to wade through comment by comment.

jCandlish , January 10, 2019 at 7:50 am

Sir Alan Duncan, responding on behalf of the Government to Emily Thornberry's urgent question (Dec 12) on recent allegations that the Foreign Office funded a company which carried out a smear campaign against the official Opposition.

Chilling indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBOwO-MAPKI

RBHoughton , January 10, 2019 at 10:06 pm

What a frightful fellow that Alan Duncan is eh? Talks like a Mafia lawyer and he's supposed to be a national leader. He reminds that other MP, the POS who interrogated David Kelly on TV, they both use the same style. Is it a qualification for legislator?

The Rev Kev , January 10, 2019 at 8:23 am

Just a minor note to start off. That image of "Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb". I think that Vitezi Rend actually refers to the medal he wears on the left. The jacket itself more resembles the patrol jacket that British officers wore in the 19th century. Moving on! Notice how the same players keep on coming up again and again in all these stories of skulduggery? John Rendon, the Atlantic Council, Ajit Pai and Alan Dershowitz – the same scum-bags with a few new wannabe players. As an example.
The penchant that Brad Spangler, C4SS co-founder, has for under-age girls is disgusting of course but you have to put it into the context of the people that you are talking about. If Spengler was more rich or more powerful, you might see his name on a manifest for the "Lolita Express" but his activities would not be splashed about in an article like this one. That sort of activity is given a level of protection if you are in the right group. And it is a good thing that that British General Richard Barrons is retired as his comments are deserving of being cashiered.
Funny how a group that claims to be about protecting democracy wants to push it aside and install propaganda on a "1984" level in the pursuit of their aims. I cannot decide if their target of Russia is a means or an end. If it is a means, that means using the boogy-man of Russia to radically restructure western society to their tastes. If it is an end, well, it is true that Russia has about $75 trillion in resources, mostly in Siberia and the east, so if it was broken up eventually, that would be a bonanza of wealth appropriation.
I was thinking about the activities of this group and how they go about their activities, especially the smearing of anybody that talks truth to power. I wonder if anybody here made the connection with this story and the PropOrNot website that came out of nowhere about two years ago and that had the stamp of approval of the Washington Post. I would not be surprised if it turns out to be that PropOrNot was a trial balloon in the United States for the Integrity Initiative to establish what it was capable of. Just a thought.

Martin Finnucane , January 10, 2019 at 9:39 am

Vitezi Rend garb

He looks like an extra from Star Wars – one of those nazi guys working the bridge of the Death Star. The "look and feel" of a lot of pre-war fascism strikes us as silly in retrospect, though it really wasn't at the time.

EoH , January 10, 2019 at 10:35 am

That tailored black jacket Sebastian wears looks like something Winston Churchill would have changed out of before that last cavalry charge at Omdurman. It seems intentionally designed to mimic 19th century great power imperial army officer garb. Nostalgia for the good times, apparently. Goes with his fascist priorities.

bob , January 10, 2019 at 11:36 am

" my father was Moonraker and that is part of my origin story "

NSFW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbQx0NTV4TU

Tomonthebeach , January 10, 2019 at 9:25 pm

Let us not get carried away with the exuberance of discovering skulduggery among fascist elements of the media and politics. This does not mean that the conspiracy means Russia is thereby a Goodie Twoshoes. It also does not mean that Russia is any less a pain in the ass than it has heretorfore be characterized.

It does mean that there is less reason (any?) than ever to put much faith in FoxNews (already a mere propaganda machine) or other orgs. I am uncomfortable hearing CNA is caught up in this as they are a pseudo government thinktank with some Pentagon influence.

If true, the story should be used to clear out some journalists and analyst riffraff. However, this story is surely not going to restore, much less create, any integrity among the Beltway Punditry.

Off The Street , January 10, 2019 at 8:56 am

The article and related matters may also shed more light on the abrupt resignation of Robert Hannigan from the leadership of GCHQ in January 2017 a few days after Trump's inauguration. Given previous revelations about GCHQ and NSA spying on each other's citizens, what else is next in the UK and in the US and elsewhere?

After reading about that Carson character and others I am ready for a shower to try to wash off the disgust.

DJG , January 10, 2019 at 9:01 am

Yves Smith: Thanks for this. I am wondering about two stories that have been flapping around here for a few days: That odd New Knowledge company that produced the report about Russian influence on the elections as well as the story about the case before the Supreme Court of the US in which a company is invoking claims of sovereign immunity.

I have a feeling that New Knowledge definitely fits into the framework outlined by Ames above. A contractor that appears out of nowhere with a "distinguished" board of concerned semi-liberals (at the trough)?

But what do I know? Some guy named Volodya showed up at my house and bought my vote in 2016 for two bottles of pickled mushrooms

diptherio , January 10, 2019 at 9:32 am

Kevin Carson is always showing up in my twitter feed. I knew there was something I didn't like about that guy, anarchist or no.

jfleni , January 10, 2019 at 9:38 am

Perfideus Albion is not just a neat saying, but a truth that the Irish, French and
Germans (etc.) have known forever, the people don't deserve it, but the
jumped up Tories do in spades.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 9:48 am

Thank you for highlighting this article! It names names and connects some dots, including some connections reaching into the U.S. It also describes propaganda mechanisms that have been around forever but have become pervasive today. A few protruding tips of a massive iceberg, in my view. I'm sure *this* "bombshell" story will get the massive coverage it deserves in the MSM -- not!

diptherio , January 10, 2019 at 10:43 am

Here's the response from C4SS, if anyone is interested:
https://c4ss.org/content/51563

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 1:11 pm

That was interesting. Well argued all the way through I thought, but they could take a closer look at the unwinding of Yugoslavia; what Serbia and Syria have in common is having been targeted by outside state powers for dissolution, responses did vary.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 2:27 pm

Thank you diptherio for posting the C4SS response. Such responses are helpful in evaluating issues like this, and we should always be open to the other side when they take the time to reply. However, I can't agree that the response was "well argued." The author does make some valid points, but mainly she resorts to ad hominem attacks on Ames (based on some juvenile antics at eXile that are often used to smear him), or on both authors because they may have agreed with "Assadists" like Ambassador Peter Ford or "9/11 Truthers" like Piers Robinson, whose claims about Syria or the White Helmets are, of course, Kremlin propaganda. Which brings up why Blumenthal would have changed his position on Syria; it was not because of his gradual understanding of what was really happening there. Rather, while he had once grasp the truth of the "revolution," he made the mistake of going to a Kremlin gala and the Rooskies (and RT) got to him. Now he is just another propagandist. Nowhere that I can see does the author discuss the major claims made in Ames and Blumenthal's article, or the evidence cited (except to say that if it was in RT or Sputnik, we can ignore it anyway as propaganda). Nor does she address the actual defamation made by Alexander Ross-Reid through the SPLC that pissed off Blumenthal in the first place. There are other problems (don't get me started on the "red-brown" smear), but that's enough.

Having said all that, I do think that in their criticism of C4SS, Ames and Blumenthal perhaps did some unnecessary punching down. They could have made clearer the distinction between organizations like the Integrity Initiative, that are pretty clearly intelligence operatives or cut-outs, versus groups like C4SS that function more like "useful idiots" because of their ideological position (e.g. equating U.S. and Russian imperialism in this case in their "anarchist" appeal). The latter are in no way as evil as the former, in my mind.

jsn , January 10, 2019 at 3:18 pm

You are clearly much more engaged with the related debates than I. I read the piece as a response to the punching down you mention in your last paragraph and felt like I got a respectable read on someone still developing their arguments. I'm not informed enough to argue with much of it, but having read Diana Johnstone's "Fools Crusade", the Syria/Serbia bit stuck in my craw.

I had thought about commenting on the ad hominems directed at Ames, but didn't want to get into the whole identity argument embedded in much of the language of the post. While I disagree with many of her positions and attitudes on the state actions she criticizes without, in my opinion, adequate grounding, I judged it a mostly good faith effort trying to find solid footing in a world increasingly thick with distorted narratives.

It's hard to argue now, from anywhere with out power, without being someone's "useful idiot": trust has decayed to the point where language impedes communication in the political sphere.

pjay , January 10, 2019 at 5:01 pm

It's funny you should mention Johnstone's book. I normally would not use the derogatory term "useful idiot" for the very reason you imply; most such people are acting in good faith. I admit that her comments on Syria irritated me. But the reason I sometimes overreact to that sort of narrative is because of my own experiences as a useful idiot, starting with Yugoslavia. I fell for the liberal "humanitarian" argument hook, line, and sinker in the 1990s, even though I considered myself a knowledgeable progressive at the time. It wouldn't be the last time I was duped, but I'd like to think I'm a little wiser today.

I appreciate your comment. We definitely need to distinguish empire propagandists from the beliefs of people honestly trying to find their way.

rojo , January 10, 2019 at 6:41 pm

I thought the later part of Ames' piece was unnecessary. It's kind of the same sort of guilt-by-attending-same-conference thing that I find annoying about the Russophobes.

Keep focused on government malfeasance, not basement brown-shirts.

Ignacio , January 10, 2019 at 11:00 am

Oh well, there would be a lot to argue here. In one side it is nice to see that the "Initiative" is being exposed although it doesn't appear yet to trigger any significant response from supposedly democratic institutions like, let's say the english parliament (at ransom by brexit).

Just to demonstrate how this article is well focused and pointed I wanted to comment on this bit:

(Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily .)

YES! iIt is so true that the former "center-left" –if you wish– daily that years ago was a must read but has been degraded to levels that I wouldn't have imagined, in a case that makes the Guardian as the "guardian of reporting-as-it should-be". One has to bear in mind that the current most important shareholder of Grupo Prisa (owner of El Pais) is an english hedge fund Amber Capital whose CEO, Joseph Oughorlian is chairman at Grupo Prisa and probably responsible for the Russia!Russia!Russia! campaign observed in this medium that surprised me so much. You don't find nothing similar in Spain even in rigth and rigth of the rigth news outlets.

I believe this UK-based shareholder is clearly associated with the peculiar Russia!Russia!Russia! stance of the supposedly centre-left daily.

juliania , January 10, 2019 at 12:24 pm

For those of us from way back way back, these kooks relate to offshoots of the Watergate scandal, the original one, where people working on those burglaries of psychiatrist's offices and Democratic headquarters got their start organizing small gangs of crooks to infiltrate what was then a porous but trustable system of government – on they went to propose surveillance and collection of data that was at first publicly laughed about but on they went. On they went. Technology with all its pluses has these minuses we at first were able to counter (Church hearings) but the rats have scurried into all the back alleys and secretive pathways that need a thorough cleanup. It can be done, but it needs to be done periodically. Hopefully this is finally the year when that will happen.

Thank you, Yves. I believe these folk don't end up in a good place, but meanwhile they are wreaking havoc. The place to start, after the brooms and mops, is to get money OUT of politics and restore a verifiable voting system that happens methodically and is trustworthy. The citizenry will be behind this. We the people don't care how long it takes to vote or to find out who won. We don't! Haste makes waste in more ways than we know.

Let's do this. And please, judges, do your duty or go to jail yourselves.

Andrew Watts , January 10, 2019 at 1:37 pm

It's obvious that neither Ames or Blumenthal read the actual documents they're quoting from. Which is a shame considering the relevant one involving the CIA's Operation Mockingbird comparison was only seven pages long. The CIA were merely imitating British intelligence during the war and it is clearly stated as such when one of the replies involving General Sir Richard Barrons states that they've done this before during the 1930s. The US didn't possess a foreign intelligence agency at the time and I'd fervently argue that we still don't to this day.

but I've already commented about British Security Coordination in the aftermath of PropOrNot though and I'm reluctant to beat a dead horse.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/links-12312016.html#comment-2736471
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/100755.html#comment-2737564
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/links-11217.html#comment-2742827
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/05/links-5-21-18.html#comment-2971759

It's hard to be modest when you're this good.

Roady , January 10, 2019 at 4:02 pm

I wish I could be like Andrew Watts

Chauncey Gardiner , January 10, 2019 at 3:27 pm

Ah, the smell (or should we say stench) of domestic propaganda in the morning, ironically by some of the same individuals who brought us Iraq WMDs. While First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and other civil rights must be protected, it seems to me that a careful balance can be drawn under new legislation that insulates us from such government-sponsored propaganda. We should be able to rely on our government's representations. Instead, as with a former president who openly acknowledged, "My job is to catapult the propaganda," the reverse, together with a related loss of trust, unfortunately seems to be increasingly the case. Stop lying! What part of "of the People, by the People, for the People," is difficult to understand?

[Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior. ..."
"... That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did. ..."
"... So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether. ..."
"... Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. ..."
Jan 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:

"Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a glorious end!"

The tweet was warmly received and celebrated by Trump's supporters, despite the fact that it says essentially nothing since "eventually" could mean anything.

Indeed, it's looking increasingly possible that nothing will come of the president's stated agenda to withdraw troops from Syria other than a bunch of words which allow his anti-interventionist base to feel nice feelings inside. Yet everyone laps it up, on both ends of the political aisle, just like they always do:

  • Trump supporters are acting like he's a swamp-draining, war-ending peacenik...
  • ...his enemies are acting like he's feeding a bunch of Kurds on conveyor belts into Turkish meat grinders to be made into sausages for Vladimir Putin's breakfast, when in reality nothing has changed and may not change at all.

How are such wildly different pictures being painted about the same non-event? By the fact that both sides of the Trump-Syria debate have thus far been reacting solely to narrative.

This has consistently been the story throughout Trump's presidency: a heavy emphasis on words and narratives and a disinterest in facts and actions. A rude tweet can dominate headlines for days, while the actual behaviors of this administration can go almost completely ignored. Trump continues to more or less advance the same warmongering Orwellian globalist policies and agendas as his predecessors along more or less the same trajectory, but frantic mass media narratives are churned out every day painting him as some unprecedented deviation from the norm. Trump himself, seemingly aware that he's interacting entirely with perceptions and narratives instead of facts and reality, routinely makes things up whole cloth and often claims he's "never said" things he most certainly has said. And why not? Facts don't matter in this media environment, only narrative does.

Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior.

That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did.

So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. With the nuclear brinkmanship this administration has been playing with its only nuclear rival on the planet, it would be so incredibly easy for Trump's opposition to attack him on his insanely hawkish escalation of a conflict which could easily end all life on earth if any little thing goes wrong, but they don't. Because this is all about narrative and not facts, Democrats have been paced into supporting even more sanctioning, proxy conflicts and nuclear posturing while loudly objecting to any sign of communication between the two nuclear superpowers, while Republicans are happy to see Trump increase tensions with Moscow because it combats the collusion narrative. Now both parties are supporting an anti-Russia agenda which existed in secretive US government agencies long before the 2016 election .

And this to me is the most significant thing about Trump's presidency. Not any of the things people tell me I'm supposed to care about, but the fact that the age of Trump has been highlighting in a very clear way how we're all being manipulated by manufactured narratives all the time.

Humanity lives in a world of mental narrative . We have a deeply conditioned societal habit of heaping a massive overlay of mental labels and stories on top of the raw data we take in through our senses, and those labels and stories tend to consume far more interest and attention than the actual data itself. We use labels and stories for a reason: without them it would be impossible to share abstract ideas and information with each other about what's going on in our world. But those labels and stories get imbued with an intense amount of belief and identification; we form tight, rigid belief structures about our world, our society, and our very selves that can generate a lot of fear, hatred and suffering. Which is why it feels so nice to go out into nature and relax in an environment that isn't shaped by human mental narrative.

This problem is exponentially exacerbated by the fact that these stories and labels are wildly subjective and very easily manipulated. Powerful people have learned that they can control the way everyone else thinks, acts and votes by controlling the stories they tell themselves about what's going on in the world using mass media control and financial political influence, allowing ostensible democracies to be conducted in a way which serves power far more efficiently than any dictatorship.

So now America has a president who is escalating a dangerous cold war against Russia , who is working to prosecute Julian Assange and shut down WikiLeaks , who is expanding the same war on whistleblowers and Orwellian surveillance network that was expanded by Bush and Obama before him, who has expanded existing wars and made no tangible move as yet to scale them back, who is advancing the longstanding neocon agenda of regime change in Iran with starvation sanctions and CIA covert ops , and yet the two prevailing narratives about him are that he's either (A) a swamp-draining, establishment-fighting hero of peace or that he's (B) a treasonous Putin lackey who isn't nearly hawkish enough toward Russia.

See how both A and B herd the public away from opposing the dangerous pro-establishment agendas being advanced by this administration? The dominant narratives could not possibly be more different from what's actually going on, and the only reason they're the dominant narratives is because an alliance of plutocrats and secretive government agencies exerts an immense amount of influence over the stories that are told by the political/media class.

The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether.

Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. It is possible that this is what it looks like when a thinking species evolves into a sane and healthy relationship with thought. Perhaps the cracks that are appearing all over official narratives today are like the first cracks appearing in an eggshell as a bird begins to hatch into the world.

* * *

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .

[Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the Skripal attack? -- ..."
"... The Skripal Files ..."
Jan 08, 2019 | sputniknews.com

Hacking syndicate Anonymous has just released its fourth tranche of documents hacked from the internal servers of the Institute for Statecraft and its subsidiary, the Integrity Initiative. Several explosive files raise serious questions about the shadowy British state and NATO-funded 'think tank' and its connections with the Skripal affair.

The files were released just after 2:30pm GMT on January 4 -- I've barely scratched the surface of the content, but what I've seen so far contains a panoply of bombshell revelations -- to say the least, the organization(s) now have serious questions to answer about what role they played in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in March, and its aftermath both nationally and internationally.

Sinister Timeline

One file apparently dating to "early 2015" -- "Russian Federation Sanctions" -- written by the Institute's Victor Madeira outlines "potential levers" to achieve Russian "behaviour change", "peace with Ukraine", "return [of] Crimea", "regime change" or "other?". The suggested "levers" span almost every conceivable area, including "civil society", "sports", "finance" and "technology".

In the section marked "intelligence", Madeira suggests simultaneously expelling "every RF [Russian Federation] intelligence officer and air/defense/naval attache from as many countries as possible". In parentheses, it references 'Operation Foot' , the expulsion of over 1000 Soviet officials from the UK in September 1971, the largest expulsion of intelligence officials by any government in history.

The section on sports also suggests "advocating the view [Russia] is unworthy of hosting [sporting] events" -- and the section marked "information" recommends the sanctioning of 'Russian' media "in West for not complying with regulators' standards".

2015 File Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions 2015 File Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions

In April that year, Institute for Statecraft chief Chris Donnelly was promoted to Honorary Colonel of SGMI (Specialist Group Military Intelligence), and in October he met with General Sir Richard Barrons. Notes from the meeting don't make clear who said what, but one despaired that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political space."

"We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. We did this in the 1930s. My conclusion is it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside government. We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right? Do we have the national capabilities [and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is not a moment to be lost," they said.

Operation IRIS Begins

On 4 March 2018, former Russian military officer and double agent for MI6 Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England.

Within days, the Institute had submitted a proposal to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, "to study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.

The bid was accepted, and the Initiative's 'Operation Iris' was launched. Under its auspices, the Institute employed 'global investigative solutions' firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity related to Skripal the world over.

It also conducted media monitoring of its own, with Institute 'research fellow' Simon Bracey-Lane producing regular 'roundups' of media coverage overseas, based on insights submitted by individuals connected to the Initiative living in several countries. One submission, from an unnamed source in Moldova, says they "cannot firmly say" whether the country's media had its "own point of view" on the issue, or whether news organizations had taken "an obvious pro-Russian or pro-Western position", strongly suggesting these were key questions for the Initiative.

Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal Incident Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal Incident

Moreover though, there are clear indications the Institute sought to shape the news narrative on the attack -- and indeed the UK government's response. One file dated March 11 appears to be a briefing document on the affair to date, with key messages bolded throughout.

It opens by setting out "The Narrative" of the incident -- namely "Russia has carried out yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in Britain".

"Use of the nerve agent posed a threat to innocent British subjects, affecting 21 people and seriously affecting a police officer. This is not the first time such an attack has been carried out in the UK 14 deaths are believed to be attributable to the Kremlin Russia has poisoned its enemies abroad on other occasions, most notably then-candidate for the Presidency of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2004. Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been poisoned twice; and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also poisoned and later shot dead. Since Putin has been running Russia, the Kremlin has a history of poisoning its opponents in a gruesome way," the "narrative" reads.

The file goes on to declare the British response has been "far too weak it's essential the government makes a much stronger response this time" -- and then lists "possible, realistic, first actions", including banning RT and Sputnik from operating in the UK, boycotting the 2018 World Cup, withdrawing the UK ambassador from Moscow and expelling the Russian ambassador to the UK, and refusing/revoking visas to leading Russians within Vladimir Putin's "circle", and their families.

Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative

It's not clear who the document was distributed to -- but it may have been given to journalists within the Initiative's UK 'cluster', if not others. This may explain why the Institute's "narrative", and its various recommended "responses" utterly dominated mainstream media reporting of the affair for months afterwards, despite the glaring lack of evidence of Russian state involvement in the attack.

It's extremely curious so many of the briefing document's recommendations almost exactly -- if not exactly -- echo several of the suggested "levers" outlined in the 2015 document. It's also somewhat troubling the "Global Operation Foot" spoken of in that file duly came to pass on March 28 2018, with over 20 countries expelling over 100 Russian diplomats.

Likewise, it's striking Victor Madeira, the Institute staffer who made the recommendations in 2015, made many media appearances discussing the poisoning following the incident routinely documented by the Institute. Security consultant Dan Kaszeta also wrote a number of articles for the Integrity Initiative website about chemical weapons following the attack -- including a July 14 article, How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the Skripal attack? -- receiving 40 pence per word .

Invoice submitted to Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Invoice submitted to Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections

The Institute's bizarrely intimate connections with the incident don't end there. Another document apparently dating to July 2018 contains the contact details of Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and -- unbelievably -- neighbor in Salisbury. Anonymous claims the document is an invitee list for a meeting the Institute convened between a number of individuals and Syria's highly controversial White Helmets group, but this is yet to be verified.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the latest document dump raises yet further questions about how and why it was BBC Diplomatic and Defense Editor Mark Urban -- who was in the same tank regiment as Miller after leaving University -- came to meet with Skripal in the year before his poisoning. When I attended the launch of his book on the affair in October -- The Skripal Files -- he was evasive on whether he played a role in connecting him with Skripal, and denied Miller was Skripal's recruiter.

The latest trove also raises yet further questions about the activities of the Institute for Statecraft and Integrity Initiative. In light of these revelations, reading the record of Donnelly's meeting with General Barrons takes on an acutely chilling quality. It may be that purely serendipitously the pair got their "catastrophe", their "something dreadful", which "[woke] people up" and made the government "realise the problem" posed by Russia -- or it could be they one way or another played a facilitative role of some kind.

After months of refusing to answer the vast number of questions I and thousands of others have submitted to the paired organizations, it's high time for them to break cover, and be honest with the public.

[Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative

Highly recommended!
Images removed. Please brose the original to view them.
Notable quotes:
"... "Russian disinformation." ..."
"... "network of networks" ..."
"... It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence. ..."
"... "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" ..."
"... "global investigative solutions" ..."
"... What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow.... ..."
"... "pro-Russia troll accounts" ..."
"... "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case." ..."
"... Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" ..."
"... These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK." ..."
"... "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" ..."
"... "threat Russia poses." ..."
"... This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning ..."
"... One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot. ..."
"... "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history." ..."
"... "Makes you think " ..."
"... The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute. ..."
"... It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair. ..."
"... Ł2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019 ..."
"... It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance. ..."
Jan 05, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

The Integrity Initiative, a UK-funded group exposed in leaked files as psyop network, played a key role in monitoring and molding media narratives after the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, newly-dumped documents reveal. Created by the NATO-affiliated, UK-funded Institute for Statecraft in 2015, the Integrity Initiative was unmasked in November after hackers released documents detailing a web of politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics involved in purportedly fighting "Russian disinformation."

The secretive, government-bankrolled "network of networks" has found itself under scrutiny for smearing UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a Kremlin stooge – ostensibly as part of its noble crusade against anti-Russian disinformation. Now, new leaks show that the organization played a central role in shaping media narratives after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were mysteriously poisoned in Salisbury last March.

It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence.

Operation Iris

Days after the Skripals were poisoned, the Institute solicited its services to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, offering to "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.

After receiving the government's blessing, the Integrity Initiative (II) launched 'Operation Iris,' enlisting "global investigative solutions" firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity related to Skripal.

Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg

What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow....

264 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

However, Harod's confidential report did more than just parse social media reactions to the Skripal affair: It compiled a list of alleged "pro-Russia troll accounts" accused of "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case."

Among those who found themselves listed as nefarious thought-criminals were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and a gentleman from Kent who goes by Ian56 on Twitter.

Ian56 @Ian56789 · Jan 4, 2019 # IntegrityInitiative "

Top Kremlin Trolls" aka Truth Tellers. Congratulations if you made the list.

https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring/appendix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring.pdf

Neocon Fascist, al-Qaeda Supporting Treasonous Scumbag @ Benimmo is having a laugh with Ł2m of Taxpayers money. Nimmo should be IN JAIL for Fraud & Treason

Ian56 @Ian56789 # IntegrityInitiative

examples of Logical, Critical Thinking & Objective Analysis by yours truly Ian56.

https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-r---ian56789-example-tweets/appendix-r---ian56789-example-tweets.pdf

They didn't even include my best ones and they didn't show the pic that went with each tweet. I wonder why?

# Skripal # Novichok # FalseFlag pic.twitter.com/Zq8W9iJshk 41 1:39 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

34 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy
Moon of Alabama @MoonofA · Jan 4, 2019 @ Ian56789 @ MarkSleboda1 @ Malinka1102 @ ValLisitsa @ NinaByzantina

Folks, you are all noted as "trolls" in some of the files of the new # IntegrityInitiative release

https://www. cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation -integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all-part-4/ https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring/appendix-o---russian-propaganda-troll-sites-for-monitoring.pdf https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-p---troll-accounts-mutual-connections-graph/appendix-p---troll-accounts-mutual-connections-graph.pdf https://www. pdf-archive.com/2018/12/28/app endix-q---troll-geolocation-graph/appendix-q---troll-geolocation-graph.pdf

Operation 'Integrity Initiative': British informational war against all. Part 4

Greetings! We are Anonymous.We have warned the UK government that it must conduct an honest and transparent investigation into the activity of the Integrity Initiative and the Institute for Statec cyberguerrilla.org

Ruslana Boshirova @ValLisitsa

Wanna see something funny?

"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and Petrovas GRU agents" - has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French yellow jackets. I kid you not.

https:// twitter.com/Antifake_Russi a/status/1073112488072437760?s=19 Antifake @Antifake_Russia СМИ выдали за манифест "желтых жилетов" твиты украинской пианистки с ником "Руслана Боширова" https:// theins.ru/antifake/131804 116 3:21 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

94 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

Pushing a narrative

Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" of the Skripal incident, which blames Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally, as well as containing a number of recommended actions.

These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK."

Other suggestions included propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" and getting members of parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses." It's not clear who the document was drawn up for, but it may have been provided to II-affiliated journalists in the UK and other countries.

This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning – which the UK and its allies unanimously blamed on Moscow.

Ahead of its time?

One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot.

Coincidentally, more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from 20 Western countries in an apparently show of solidarity with the UK following the Skripal attack. At the time, UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed what she said was "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history."

Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents, written long before the Salisbury events, also call for the arrest of RT and Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding: "Makes you think "

George Galloway ✔ @georgegalloway

So: # IntegrityInitiative funded by the British Govt called for the arrest of people like me like @ afshinrattansi @ JohnWight1 @ NeilClark66 et al in the event of an "incident" like the # Skripal affair.

Written incidentally before the # Salisbury events. Makes you think...

@ RT_com 688 12:53 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

606 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

A curious connection

The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute.

Moon of Alabama @MoonofA

It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair.

# SergeiSkripal # Disinformation # Propaganda # InformationWar 283 2:38 PM - Jan 4, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy

241 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy
Fvnk @WhatTheFvnk

EXPLOSIVE: @ DanKaszeta of @ Strongpoint_UK invoiced @ InitIntegrity # IntegrityInitiative

Ł2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019

188 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance.

Read also:

[Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another. ..."
"... The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.' ..."
"... There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech. ..."
"... I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome. ..."
Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Pat Lang Mod -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago

After contemplating the likely intelligence and propaganda efforts of HMG over the last 15 years or so I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little to do with the welfare of Britain. Why? I suppose that the same question can be asked for the US and I have.

In re "Our man in Havana" I think there are many issues raised in the work that apply directly to the trade of espionage.

David Habakkuk -> Pat Lang , 2 months ago
Colonel Lang,

The question why? is a very interesting but also very dispiriting one, but also one which it is quite hard to get one's head round. I hope to have something more coherent to say about it.

Among many reasons, however, there has been a kind of intellectual disintegration.

If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another.

The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.'

Subsequently, of course, he set about colluding in the process. And, sixteen years later, Dearlove is still at it, with 'Russiagate' -- and the product being actually accepted much more uncritically by the MSM than it was then.

And that is one of the problems -- nobody any longer pays any penalty for failure, or indeed feels any sense of shame about it..

johnf -> David Habakkuk , 2 months ago
DH

I agree with this.

There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech.

As the Colonel eloquently asks:

"I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little todo with the welfare of Britain. Why?"

I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome.

(I don't include the Maurice Cowling-ites in this fandango because they strike me as more Little Englanders. Though Peterhouse is of course, shamefully, the HQ of the Henry Jackson Society).

[Dec 21, 2018] Virtually no one in neoliberal MSM is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... What Are the Democrats Hiding?" http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/what-are-the-democrats-hiding-by-publius-tacitus.html "Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) demanded that Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa return equipment belonging to her office that was seized as part of the investigation -- or face "consequences." ..."
"... "FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's information technology (IT) administrator, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back." ..."
"... This is not your phony Russia-gate or McCain-commissioned funny dossier on Trump. This is the documented "serious, potentially illegal, violations of the House IT network," which is a case of a free access to classified information by a group of the proven blackmailers. Would this matter be treated with the same urgency of "patriotism" as the cases of Manning and Assange? ..."
Jul 25, 2017 | www.unz.com

annamaria , says: July 25, 2017 at 2:09 pm GMT

@zzzzzzz

" but the Deep State knows how to box"

Let's see: "What Are the Democrats Hiding?" http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/what-are-the-democrats-hiding-by-publius-tacitus.html "Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) demanded that Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa return equipment belonging to her office that was seized as part of the investigation -- or face "consequences."

Virtually no one [from MSM] is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani Muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter."

http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/23/exclusive-fbi-seized-smashed-hard-drives-from-wasserman-schultz-it-aides-home/

"FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's information technology (IT) administrator, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back."

This is not your phony Russia-gate or McCain-commissioned funny dossier on Trump. This is the documented "serious, potentially illegal, violations of the House IT network," which is a case of a free access to classified information by a group of the proven blackmailers. Would this matter be treated with the same urgency of "patriotism" as the cases of Manning and Assange?

[Dec 14, 2018] MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam worked like this: ..."
"... They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA court a spying campaign on Trump ..."
"... the Obama regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the record to the right people ..."
"... They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama. ..."
"... The government takes CCTV footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2) laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much worse. ..."
"... And don't forget the Skripals' affair and the relationships (via M16) between Mr. Steele and Mr. Skripal: https://thedeepstate.com/steele-skripal/ ..."
Dec 08, 2018 | www.unz.com

anon [178] Disclaimer , says: December 4, 2018 at 11:43 am GMT

"You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections."

MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam worked like this:

They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA court a spying campaign on Trump (the FBI illegally withheld the source of the document); they found nothing proving any Russian connection but they kept the spy program going; they tried justifying the spy program with a fake story involving a reliable asset that once passed information from Jimmy Carter's campaign to George H.W. Bush in an effort to help Reagan win the 1980 election; they later paid the asset nearly a quarter million dollars for his efforts using a fake "India-China" grant despite the grant running to 2018, the asset attempted to get a job in the Trump administration so he could act as a mole ; the Obama regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the record to the right people

They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama. They also ran interference through CIA guys like Mark Warner in an effort to cover up the mole they planted; they falsely asserted this was a national security issue when the man's identity was well-known to the press and he was never an undercover spy like Jarret was, at least not in recent history.

To put this all into perspective, imagine the following scenario:

The government takes CCTV footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2) laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much worse.

annamaria , says: December 7, 2018 at 2:45 pm GMT
@anon

"MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. "

– And don't forget the Skripals' affair and the relationships (via M16) between Mr. Steele and Mr. Skripal: https://thedeepstate.com/steele-skripal/

[Dec 10, 2018] One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did by declassifying all the documents and communications among them. In your opinion what is he trying to accomplish with his method here? ..."
Dec 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock , 12 hours ago

Col. Lang

I believe you are spot on in your analysis of the Trump methods. No doubt based on your personal observations up close of similar sole proprietor business hustlers. I think one problem that Trump methods face is that he needs people around him who can make things happen despite the byzantine ways of the vast federal bureaucracy who have their own agenda.

One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did by declassifying all the documents and communications among them. In your opinion what is he trying to accomplish with his method here?

[Dec 05, 2018] Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly against a Trump threat to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Rather, they seem to appear to reveal a plot by the British intelligence and security services working in collusion with then CIA Director John Brennan to subvert the course of the 2016 election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that one work out? ..."
Dec 05, 2018 | www.unz.com
121 Comments Reply

And there are other friends in unlikely places. Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly against a Trump threat to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate. The real problem is that the documents apparently don't expose anything done by the Russians.

Rather, they seem to appear to reveal a plot by the British intelligence and security services working in collusion with then CIA Director John Brennan to subvert the course of the 2016 election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that one work out?

So how about it? Teenagers who get in trouble often have to ditch their bad friends to turn their lives around. There is still a chance for the United States if we keep our distance from the bad friends we have been nurturing all around the world, friends who have been convincing us to make poor choices. Get rid of the ties the bind to the Saudis, Israelis, Ukrainians, Poles, and yes, even the British. Deal fairly with all nations and treat everyone the same, but bear in mind that there are only two relationships that really matter – Russia and China. Make a serious effort to avoid a war by learning how to get along with those two nations and America might actually survive to celebrate a tricentennial in 2076.

The Alarmist , says: December 4, 2018 at 10:39 am GMT
You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections. Why, if the beneficiary was anyone other than a Democrat, much less one named Clinton, someone might actually appoint a Special Counsel to look into it, not to mention the misdeeds of the various agencies and departments who aided and abetted it.
anon [178] Disclaimer , says: December 4, 2018 at 11:43 am GMT
"You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections."

MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam worked like this:

They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA court a spying campaign on Trump (the FBI illegally withheld the source of the document); they found nothing proving any Russian connection but they kept the spy program going; they tried justifying the spy program with a fake story involving a reliable asset that once passed information from Jimmy Carter's campaign to George H.W. Bush in an effort to help Reagan win the 1980 election; they later paid the asset nearly a quarter million dollars for his efforts using a fake "India-China" grant despite the grant running to 2018, the asset attempted to get a job in the Trump administration so he could act as a mole ; the Obama regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the record to the right people

They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama. They also ran interference through CIA guys like Mark Warner in an effort to cover up the mole they planted; they falsely asserted this was a national security issue when the man's identity was well-known to the press and he was never an undercover spy like Jarret was, at least not in recent history.

To put this all into perspective, imagine the following scenario:

The government takes cctv footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2) laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much worse.

Johnny Walker Read , says: December 4, 2018 at 1:38 pm GMT
Like a friends divorce lawyer told him: You go to bed with a nasty bitch, you wake up with a nasty bitch.
Johnny Rottenborough , says: Website December 4, 2018 at 1:46 pm GMT
a plot by the British intelligence and security services to subvert the course of the 2016 election in favor of the Deep State and Establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. How did that one work out?

Deep State and Establishment stooge Donald Trump.

There is still a chance for the United States if we

declare independence from the Jewish Empire.

[Dec 02, 2018] Muller investigation has all the appearance of an investigation looking for a crime

Highly recommended!
Essentially Mueller witch hunt repeat the trick invented by Bolsheviks leadership during Stalin Great Terror: the accusation of a person of being a foreign agent is a 'slam dank" move that allows all kind to nasty things to be performed to convict the person no matter whether he is guilty of not.
Consolidation of power using Foreign Counter Intelligence as a tool is a classic and a very dirty trick.
Notable quotes:
"... It would be of great value to know what the underlying predicate crime(s) are that are sustaining Mueller's scorched earth approach to what looks to be 'all things Trump,' whether the crimes relate to counter intelligence jurisdiction (treason, espionage), illicit overseas business transactions relating to sanctions violations or something of that sort, or election law violations, the smoke of which got the whole Mueller jihad underway ..."
"... This would not be unusual in a Foreign Counter Intelligence case which are almost by definition open ended; it would be very unusual, in fact prohibited, in a criminal case where a factual predicate needs to be articulated that constitutes reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed. ..."
"... It seems Mueller has been riding the FCI horse whither he pleases to round up interviews, compare them, and then take the chicken shit route of charging 1001 violations to leverage his way forward. If that seems to smell bad, it is because it does. ..."
"... IMO, Trump is not helping himself or the American people get to the objective truth by declassifying all the documents and communications. Unless all the documents are released unredacted, all we have are theories and speculation. And Trump will be on the losing end of that as the news media and their Deep State collaborators have all the means to drive the narrative and attempt to convict in the court of public opinion through constant innuendo. ..."
"... In the mean time the Mueller investigation itself creates the crimes as pretty much most Trump associates have been indicted for perjury. Even Manafort was prosecuted for money laundering that took place over a decade ago ..."
"... Trump has stated that he doesn't want to declassify as the American people shouldn't know how corrupt their government is. This seems to contradict his Drain the Swamp rhetoric. ..."
"... Mueller may have created more crimes than existed before his inquiry. ..."
Dec 01, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Mad_Max22 , 12 hours ago

Very informative post.

It would be of great value to know what the underlying predicate crime(s) are that are sustaining Mueller's scorched earth approach to what looks to be 'all things Trump,' whether the crimes relate to counter intelligence jurisdiction (treason, espionage), illicit overseas business transactions relating to sanctions violations or something of that sort, or election law violations, the smoke of which got the whole Mueller jihad underway .

It certainly does give every appearance, at least from the outside perspective, of an investigation looking for a crime.

This would not be unusual in a Foreign Counter Intelligence case which are almost by definition open ended; it would be very unusual, in fact prohibited, in a criminal case where a factual predicate needs to be articulated that constitutes reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

It seems Mueller has been riding the FCI horse whither he pleases to round up interviews, compare them, and then take the chicken shit route of charging 1001 violations to leverage his way forward. If that seems to smell bad, it is because it does.

Precisely the same approach could have been taken vis a vis the Uranium mattter or any of the Clinton Foundation speaker forays into foreign lands and almost certainly a boatload of 1001 violations would have come into port.

kievite -> Mad_Max22
So Muller reinvented the tactics used by Bolsheviks during the Great Purge period ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... )

Most Stalin's political enemies were liquidated using the "foreign agent" charge.

Might be a good time to reread a book on "Moscow show trials" like

The prosecutor and the prey: Vyshinsky and the 1930s' Moscow show trials Arkadii V̆aksberg.

https://www.amazon.com/pros...

The quote "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce" might be applicable here.

blue peacock , 21 hours ago

IMO, Trump is not helping himself or the American people get to the objective truth by declassifying all the documents and communications. Unless all the documents are released unredacted, all we have are theories and speculation. And Trump will be on the losing end of that as the news media and their Deep State collaborators have all the means to drive the narrative and attempt to convict in the court of public opinion through constant innuendo.

In the mean time the Mueller investigation itself creates the crimes as pretty much most Trump associates have been indicted for perjury. Even Manafort was prosecuted for money laundering that took place over a decade ago .

There have been no claims from Mueller that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

Trump has stated that he doesn't want to declassify as the American people shouldn't know how corrupt their government is. This seems to contradict his Drain the Swamp rhetoric. With the Democrats gonna run the House come January. I think Trump will come under increased pressure from all sides. I don't believe the Mueller investigation will ever wind down until Trump is defeated either via impeachment or loss of the next presidential election.

Pat Lang Mod -> blue peacock , 15 hours ago
I heard Dershowitz (my new hero) say the other day that Mueller may have created more crimes than existed before his inquiry.

[Nov 24, 2018] MI6 Scrambling To Stop Trump From Releasing Classified Docs In Russia Probe

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Telegraph adds that the UK's dispute with the Trump administration is so politically sensitive that staff within the British Embassy in D.C. have been barred from discussing it with journalists. Theresa May has also "been kept at arms-length and is understood to have not raised the issue directly with the US president ." ..."
"... In September , we reported that the British government "expressed grave concerns" over the material in question after President Trump issued an order to the DOJ to release a wide swath of materials, "immediately" and "without redaction." ..."
"... Trump walked that order back days later after the UK begged him not to release them. ..."
"... MI6 agents have a reputation for writing fiction. Ian Fleming comes to mind. Its is interesting to reflect on the similarities of fiction and so called intelligence. ..."
"... Six U.S. agencies created a stealth task force, spearhead by CIA's Brennan, to run domestic surveillance on Trump associates and possibly Trump himself. ..."
"... To feign ignorance and to seemingly operate within U.S. laws, the agencies freelanced the wiretapping of Trump associates to the British spy agency GCHQ ..."
"... The decision to insert GCHQ as a back door to eavesdrop was sparked by the denial of two FISA Court warrant applications filed by the FBI to seek wiretaps of Trump associates. ..."
"... GCHQ did not work from London or the UK. In fact the spy agency worked from NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, MD with direct NSA supervision and guidance to conduct sweeping surveillance on Trump associates. ..."
"... The illegal wiretaps were initiated months before the controversial Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. ..."
"... The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump's associates appear compromised. ..."
"... Following the Trump Tower sit down, GCHQ began digitally wiretapping Manafort, Trump Jr., and Kushner. ..."
"... After the concocted meeting by the Deep State, the British spy agency could officially justify wiretapping Trump associates as an intelligence front for NSA because the Russian lawyer at the meeting Natalia Veselnitskaya was considered an international security risk and prior to the June sit down was not even allowed entry into the United States or the UK, federal sources said. ..."
"... By using GCHQ, the NSA and its intelligence partners had carved out a loophole to wiretap Trump without a warrant. While it is illegal for U.S. agencies to monitor phones and emails of U.S. citizens inside the United States absent a warrant, it is not illegal for British intelligence to do so. Even if the GCHQ was tapping Trump on U.S. soil at Fort Meade. ..."
"... The wiretaps, secured through illicit scheming, have been used by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election, even though the evidence is considered "poisoned fruit. ..."
"... Add: GCHQ (UK NSA) was in agreement with HilBarry Inc to block the US 2016 election for U.K. candidate Hillary aka Clinton 'Rhodes scholar' Brit colonial agent. Study who 'Rhodes' was. CIA and MI6 are UK siblings. Note nickname for CIA is "Langley" = 'The English' in French L'Anglai. Trump Tower - Russkie atty Natalia met with Simpson GPS Fusion to debrief before & after meeting. Natalia was granted US entry by Mueller Spec Counsel teamster Preet Baharara (conflict in that Preet is compromised witness and also SC "investigator"). Russkie Ahkmedishin met with Obama WH in prep for meeting (see Jan 2016 WH log). The 'translator' at meeting was Obama WH translator. ..."
"... The evidence for false Trump Russkie bank connections is a phony server set up by CIA agent McMullen that robo scammed Russian Alfa Bank to robo talk to the phony server the CIA named with miss-spell Trump OrGAINization. See godaddy domain registration. Hillary slandered Trump with this scam on Twitter Oct 31, 2016 - her witchy day. ..."
"... Obama used the intelligence agencies to spy on all political opponents, not just the Trump campaign and eventually the administration. NSA databases were being queried by Democrat contractors with content feed to Obama's National Security staff where communications were "unmasked" by Rice and others. Rodgers shut down the scheme. So much Marxist criminality and fraud left unpunished. ..."
"... George Papadopoulos was not the reason the FBI opened their 2016 Counterintelligence Investigation into the Trump Campaign. John Brennan was the reason. ..."
"... Brennan was the man pushing the entire Russian Narrative that consumed Washington D.C. – and ultimately led to the Mueller Investigation. He did this based on little or no evidence. The Electronic Communication should prove interesting. John Brennan's Role in the FBI's Trump-Russia Investigation ..."
"... In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with then-CIA Head John Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump Campaign and Moscow. ..."
"... @Chupacabra-322 URL s/b " https://themarketswork.com/2018/04/09/john-brennans-role-in-the-fbis-trump-russia-investigation/ " ..."
"... The Trump Team was being surveiled the entire time by Breanan via the GCHQ. The CIA are Analysts. That's it. They had to involve the FBI to begin the Surveillance & Criminal Investigation into the Counter Intelligence Operation. Thus, Criminal at Large Breanan's trip up to Capital Hill to meet with Harry Reid to brief him on Steele. Brennan the "Puppet Master" has been quarter backing the entire Deep State Intelligence Psychological Operation & Parallel Construction Surveillance from the very start. ..."
"... They've been reverse engineering their lies ever since they lost the election to cover their tracks and use the excuse of "Plausible Deniability" as the Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Psychopaths at the CIA always claim. ..."
"... Why get a FISA warrant for Cater Paige after he left the Trump Team? Because folks, the FISA Warrant is RETROACTIVE. ..."
Nov 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation, according to The Telegraph , stating that any disclosure would "undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers."

Trump's allies, however, are fighting back - demanding transparency and suggesting that the UK wouldn't want the documents withheld unless it had something to hide.

The Telegraph has talked to more than a dozen UK and US officials, including in American intelligence, who have revealed details about the row.

British spy chiefs have "genuine concern" about sources being exposed if classified parts of the wiretap request were made public, according to figures familiar with discussions.

" It boils down to the exposure of people ", said one US intelligence official, adding: " We don't want to reveal sources and methods ." US intelligence shares the concerns of the UK.

Another said Britain feared setting a dangerous "precedent" which could make people less likely to share information, knowing that it could one day become public. - The Telegraph

The Telegraph adds that the UK's dispute with the Trump administration is so politically sensitive that staff within the British Embassy in D.C. have been barred from discussing it with journalists. Theresa May has also "been kept at arms-length and is understood to have not raised the issue directly with the US president ."

In September , we reported that the British government "expressed grave concerns" over the material in question after President Trump issued an order to the DOJ to release a wide swath of materials, "immediately" and "without redaction."

Trump walked that order back days later after the UK begged him not to release them.

Mr Trump wants to declassify 21 pages from one of the applications. He announced the move in September, then backtracked, then this month said he was "very seriously" considering it again. Both Britain and Australia are understood to be opposing the move.

Memos detailing alleged ties between Mr Trump and Russia compiled by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer , were cited in the application, which could explain some of the British concern. - The Telegraph

The New York Times reported at the time that the UK's concern was over material which " includes direct references to conversations between American law enforcement officials and Christopher Steele ," the former MI6 agent who compiled the infamous "Steele Dossier." The UK's objection, according to former US and British officials, was over revealing Steele's identity in an official document, "regardless of whether he had been named in press reports."

We noted in September, however, that Steele's name was contained within the Nunes Memo - the House Intelligence Committee's majority opinion in the Trump-Russia case.

Steele also had extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie , who - along with Steele - was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump called for the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly reveal more about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of Justice for lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS.

Perhaps the Brits are also concerned since much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016 . Recall that Trump aid George Papadopoulos was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who Strzok flew to London to meet with).

Also recall that CIA/FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper met with both Carter Page and Papadopoulos in London.

Halper, a veteran of four Republican administrations, reached out to Trump aide George Papadopoulos in September 2016 with an offer to fly to London to write an academic paper on energy exploration in the Mediterranean Sea.

Papadopoulos accepted a flight to London and a $3,000 honorarium. He claims that during a meeting in London, Halper asked him whether he knew anything about Russian hacking of Democrats' emails.

Papadopoulos had other contacts on British soil that he now believes were part of a government-sanctioned surveillance operation. - Daily Caller

In total, Halper received over $1 million from the Obama Pentagon for "research," over $400,000 of which was granted before and during the 2016 election season.

Papadopoulos, who was sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying about his conversations with a shadowy Maltese professor and self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation , has publicly claimed he was targeted by UK spies, and told The Telegraph that he demands transparency. Trump's allies in Washington, meanwhile, have suggested that the facts laid out before us mean that the ongoing Russia investigation was invalid from the start .

In short, it's understandable that the UK would prefer to hide their involvement in the "witch hunt" of Donald Trump since much of the counterintelligence investigation was conducted on UK soil. And if the Brits had knowledge of the operation, it will bolster claims that they meddled in the 2016 US election by assisting what appears to have been a set-up from the start .

Steele's ham-handed dossier is a mere embarrassment, as virtually none of the claims asserted by the former MI6 agent have been proven true.

Steele, a former MI6 agent, is the author of the infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier. He worked as a confidential human source for the FBI for years before the relationship was severed just before the election because of Steele's unauthorized contacts with the press.

He shared results of his investigation into Trump's links to Russia with the FBI beginning in early July 2016.

The FBI relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier to fill out applications for four FISA warrants against Page. Page has denied the dossier's claims, which include that he was the Trump campaign's back channel to the Kremlin. - Daily Caller

That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious.

Anunnaki , 3 minutes ago link

Trump talks the talk but so far no walking of the walk. Not falling for it anymore, Tyler. No Swamp Draining from Pres. Cheeto anymore than we got Hope or Change from Superfly

Kefeer , 28 minutes ago link

When fraud is coming to light, the cockroaches scramble. The so-called intelligence agencies have run amuck for way too long and leave a trail of lies, murder and deception.

custard , 1 hour ago link

That is the reason Obama and Clinton went to New Zealand and Australia. They have access to the Five Eyes network in New Zealand and Australia without their requests being recorded whereas if they had asked in the US their requests and all documents given to them would have been recorded. . They are both traitors to not only the sitting President and the US people but also to the United States.

Synoia , 1 hour ago link

That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious.

MI6 agents have a reputation for writing fiction. Ian Fleming comes to mind. Its is interesting to reflect on the similarities of fiction and so called intelligence.

STONEHILLADY , 1 hour ago link

I think we all know now that the UK not Russia was the dirtbags working for Obama/HRC to trap Trump. Release the declass Trump and let's start cleaning up the swamp. Let the SHTF those Brits have never been friends to freedom.

fleur de lis , 1 hour ago link

@European American,

If they released audio-video evidence of public officials indulging in cannibalistic pedophilia at their state desks, they would still get off the hook.

Their MSM fiends oops I meant friends would scramble to the rescue and create another AV to counter the actual one, and their idiot Democrat audiences would fall for it.

No matter what is exposed on 5 December the perps will get off the hook.

Chupacabra-322 , 2 hours ago link
  • Six U.S. agencies created a stealth task force, spearhead by CIA's Brennan, to run domestic surveillance on Trump associates and possibly Trump himself.
  • To feign ignorance and to seemingly operate within U.S. laws, the agencies freelanced the wiretapping of Trump associates to the British spy agency GCHQ.
  • The decision to insert GCHQ as a back door to eavesdrop was sparked by the denial of two FISA Court warrant applications filed by the FBI to seek wiretaps of Trump associates.
  • GCHQ did not work from London or the UK. In fact the spy agency worked from NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, MD with direct NSA supervision and guidance to conduct sweeping surveillance on Trump associates.
  • The illegal wiretaps were initiated months before the controversial Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
  • The Justice Department and FBI set up the meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner with controversial Russian officials to make Trump's associates appear compromised.
  • Following the Trump Tower sit down, GCHQ began digitally wiretapping Manafort, Trump Jr., and Kushner.
  • After the concocted meeting by the Deep State, the British spy agency could officially justify wiretapping Trump associates as an intelligence front for NSA because the Russian lawyer at the meeting Natalia Veselnitskaya was considered an international security risk and prior to the June sit down was not even allowed entry into the United States or the UK, federal sources said.
  • By using GCHQ, the NSA and its intelligence partners had carved out a loophole to wiretap Trump without a warrant. While it is illegal for U.S. agencies to monitor phones and emails of U.S. citizens inside the United States absent a warrant, it is not illegal for British intelligence to do so. Even if the GCHQ was tapping Trump on U.S. soil at Fort Meade.
  • The wiretaps, secured through illicit scheming, have been used by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election, even though the evidence is considered "poisoned fruit."
StarGate , 1 hour ago link

Add: GCHQ (UK NSA) was in agreement with HilBarry Inc to block the US 2016 election for U.K. candidate Hillary aka Clinton 'Rhodes scholar' Brit colonial agent. Study who 'Rhodes' was. CIA and MI6 are UK siblings. Note nickname for CIA is "Langley" = 'The English' in French L'Anglai. Trump Tower - Russkie atty Natalia met with Simpson GPS Fusion to debrief before & after meeting. Natalia was granted US entry by Mueller Spec Counsel teamster Preet Baharara (conflict in that Preet is compromised witness and also SC "investigator"). Russkie Ahkmedishin met with Obama WH in prep for meeting (see Jan 2016 WH log). The 'translator' at meeting was Obama WH translator.

GPS Fusion wrote the Dossier with UK spy Steele and was paid by Hillary/DNC.

The evidence for false Trump Russkie bank connections is a phony server set up by CIA agent McMullen that robo scammed Russian Alfa Bank to robo talk to the phony server the CIA named with miss-spell Trump OrGAINization. See godaddy domain registration. Hillary slandered Trump with this scam on Twitter Oct 31, 2016 - her witchy day.

https://mobile.twitter.com/hillaryclinton/status/793234169576947712?lang=en

WorkingFool , 1 hour ago link

Obama used the intelligence agencies to spy on all political opponents, not just the Trump campaign and eventually the administration. NSA databases were being queried by Democrat contractors with content feed to Obama's National Security staff where communications were "unmasked" by Rice and others. Rodgers shut down the scheme. So much Marxist criminality and fraud left unpunished.

Chupacabra-322 , 2 hours ago link

George Papadopoulos was not the reason the FBI opened their 2016 Counterintelligence Investigation into the Trump Campaign. John Brennan was the reason.

Brennan was the man pushing the entire Russian Narrative that consumed Washington D.C. – and ultimately led to the Mueller Investigation. He did this based on little or no evidence. The Electronic Communication should prove interesting. John Brennan's Role in the FBI's Trump-Russia Investigation

April 9, 2018 by Jeff Carlson, CFA

In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with then-CIA Head John Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump Campaign and Moscow.

That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at "director level", face-to-face between the two agency chiefs. The meeting between Hannigan and Brennan appears somewhat unusual.

The US and the UK are two of the so-called Five Eyes -- along with Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- that share a broad range of intelligence through a formalized alliance.

The GCHQ is responsible for Britain's Signals Intelligence. The NSA is responsible for the United States' Signals Intelligence. Hannigan's U.S. counterpart was not CIA Director Brennan. Hannigan's U.S. counterpart was NSA Director Mike Rogers. Luke Harding of the Guardian originally reported the meeting in an April 13, 2017 article on Britain's spy agencies early role in the Trump-Russia investigation:

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious "interactions" between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information

Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump's inner circle and Russians.

https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/04/09/john-brennans-role-in-the-fbi

StarGate , 1 hour ago link

See above about phony robot "suspicious communications" set up by CIA McMullen to smear Trump with Trump Tower falsely named server and data created in robo call response with Russian Alfa bank.

Russian "communications" was e-data of the Russkie Bank and the non-Trump server named "Trump OrGAINization". It was just two robo-computers pinging back and forth.

smacker , 1 hour ago link

@Chupacabra-322 URL s/b " https://themarketswork.com/2018/04/09/john-brennans-role-in-the-fbis-trump-russia-investigation/ "

Chupacabra-322 , 2 hours ago link

The Trump Team was being surveiled the entire time by Breanan via the GCHQ. The CIA are Analysts. That's it. They had to involve the FBI to begin the Surveillance & Criminal Investigation into the Counter Intelligence Operation. Thus, Criminal at Large Breanan's trip up to Capital Hill to meet with Harry Reid to brief him on Steele. Brennan the "Puppet Master" has been quarter backing the entire Deep State Intelligence Psychological Operation & Parallel Construction Surveillance from the very start.

They've been reverse engineering their lies ever since they lost the election to cover their tracks and use the excuse of "Plausible Deniability" as the Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Psychopaths at the CIA always claim.

Feb 13th, Don Bongino Podcast.

"I'll include an article from NPR. NPR, not a by any stretch a right Wing outlet. Ok? But it's actually a decent piece. Now, it describes the three hop rule. It's from 2013, but it describes it very shortly & ce scintillating in about 400 words. And it's done well so I'll include it in todays show notes.

Remember, It's now the "Two Hop Rule" but you just have to know what a "Hop" is to understand how dangerous this is.

Here's how they explain it.

It says, "testimony before Congress on Wednesday, remember this is written in 2013 Joe. Showed how easy it is for Americans, with no connection to Terrorism to unwittingly have their calling patterns analyzed by the Government." This is really wacko stuff. It hinges on what is known as a "Hop."

Or chain analysis. When the NSA identifies a suspect, it can look not just at his phone records Joe, but also the records of everyone he calls, everyone who calls those people and everyone who calls those people." Chain Migration.

You ain't kidding! Right!? Chain spying!

It goes on...though....this is good.

"If the average person Joe, called 40 unique people. "Three Hop Analysts" would allow the Government to mine the records....this is a staggering number...of 2.5 Million Americans when investigating one suspected terrorist."

"Holy Moly!" Holly Moly is right.

Why get a FISA warrant for Cater Paige after he left the Trump Team? Because folks, the FISA Warrant is RETROACTIVE.

All the the emails he sent in the past to Trump Team members, combine that with "Two Hops" you basically have everybody in the known universe that could of ever contacted the Trump Team.

Paige sends an email, whatever to Kushner. I don't know who he sends emails to. He probably didn't. But you get the point. Then you go to another "Hop." Kushner, who'd he send an email to? Now you got the while Trump Team.

That's the whole point. That's why I constantly say to you that they were trying to put a legal face on this thing after they realized the election was coming up and they could lose.

They were like. Man, we've been spying on these people the whole time. We already got most of their emails and their communications. How do we legally do it now?

Oh, we get a FISA Warrant, we use couple of "Hops" and we're Golden."

[Nov 24, 2018] Anonymous Exposes UK-Led Psyop To Battle Russian Propaganda

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Operating on a budget of Ł1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway, Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region ..."
"... The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government agencies." ..."
Nov 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The hacking collective known as "Anonymous" published a trove of documents on November 5 which it claims exposes a UK-based psyop to create a " large-scale information secret service " in Europe in order to combat "Russian propaganda" - which has been blamed for everything from Brexit to US President Trump winning the 2016 US election.

The primary objective of the " Integrity Initiative " - established in 2015 by the Institute for Statecraft - is "to provide a coordinated Western response to Russian disinformation and other elements of hybrid warfare."

And while the notion of Russian disinformation has become the West's favorite new bogeyman to excuse things such as Hillary Clinton's historic loss to Donald Trump, we note that "Anonymous" was called out by WikiLeaks in October 2016 as an FBI cutout, while the report on the Integrity Initiative that Anonymous exposed comes from Russian state-owned network RT - so it's anyone's guess whose 400lb hackers are at work here.

Operating on a budget of Ł1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics. The team is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs , while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim.

The UK establishment appears to be conducting the very activities of which it and its allies have long-accused the Kremlin, with little or no corroborating evidence. The program also aims to "change attitudes in Russia itself" as well as influencing Russian speakers in the EU and North America, one of the leaked documents states. - RT

The Integrity Initiative "clusters" currently operate out of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Norway, Lithuania and the netherlands. According to the leak by Anonymous, the Integrity Initiative is working to aggressively expand its sphere of influence throughout eastern Europe, as well as the US, Canada and the MENA region .

The work done by the Initiative - which claims it is not a government body, is done under "absolute secrecy via concealed contacts embedded throughout British embassies," according to the leak. It does, however, admit to working with unnamed British "government agencies."

The initiative has received Ł168,000 in funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy and Ł250,000 from the US State Department , the documents allege.

Some of its purported members include British MPs and high-profile " independent" journalists with a penchant for anti-Russian sentiment in their collective online oeuvre, as showcased by a brief glance at their Twitter feeds. - RT

Noted examples of "inedependent" anti-Russia journalists:

Spanish "Op"

In one example of the group's activities, a "Moncloa Campaign" was successfully conducted by the group's Spanish cluster to block the appointment of Colonel Pedro Banos as the director of Spain's Department of Homeland Security. It took just seven-and-a-half hours to accomplish, brags the group in the documents .

"The [Spanish] government is preparing to appoint Colonel Banos, known for his pro-Russian and pro-Putin positions in the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts, as Director of the Department of Homeland Security, a key body located at the Moncloa," begins Nacho Torreblanca in a seven-part tweetstorm describing what happened.

Others joined in. Among them – according to the leaks – academic Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, who wrote that "Mr. Banos is to geopolitics as a homeopath is to medicine." Appointing such a figure would be "a shame." - RT

The operation was reported in Spanish media, while Banos was labeled "pro-Putin" by UK MP Bob Seely.

In short, expect anything counter to predominant "open-border" narratives to be the Kremlin's fault - and not a natural populist reflex to the destruction of borders, language and culture.

[Nov 24, 2018] British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" ..."
"... "The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016." ..."
"... "Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..." ..."
"... this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war ..."
"... Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the UK. ..."
"... The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth ..."
"... British hypocrisy publicly called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me ..."
"... It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint does not bode well for such relations ..."
"... A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants? ..."
"... I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins. ..."
"... The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's explicit approval. ..."
"... Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda ..."
"... This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap. ..."
"... Pat Lang posted a report that strongly implies that charges of Russian influence on Trump are a deliberate falsification ..."
"... It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6 meddling ..."
"... As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was the best candidate for the job. ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love? ..."
"... They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass psychological pathology among the elites. ..."
"... The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist "order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation. ..."
"... Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is Strength." The three pillars of political power. ..."
"... Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK government. ..."
"... William Browder ..."
Nov 24, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns Steveg , Nov 24, 2018 11:43:44 AM | link

In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.

We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.

The ' Integrity Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.

On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media smear campaign (pdf) against him.


bigger

The Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and posted them under the 'Anonymous' label at cyberguerrilla.org .

The Initiative is nominally run under the (government financed) non-government-organisation The Institute For Statecraft . Its internal handbook (pdf) describes its purpose:

The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.

It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" and promises that:

Cluster members will be sent to educational sessions abroad to improve the technical competence of the cluster to deal with disinformation and strengthen bonds in the cluster community. [...] (Events with DFR Digital Sherlocks, Bellingcat, EuVsDisinfo, Buzzfeed, Irex, Detector Media, Stopfake, LT MOD Stratcom – add more names and propose cluster participants as you desire).

The Initiatives Orwellian slogan is 'Defending Democracy Against Disinformation'. It covers European countries, the UK, the U.S. and Canada and seems to want to expand to the Middle East.

On its About page it claims: "We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and agencies who share our aims." The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the Initiative's funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State Department. All the 'contact persons' for creating 'clusters' in foreign countries are British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British government that hides behind a 'civil society' NGO.

The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who receives (pdf) £8,100 per month for creating the smear campaign network.


Chris Donnelly - Pic via Euromaidanpress

From its 2017/18 budget application (pdf) we learn how the Initiative works:

To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence in Europe by: expanding the knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build national capacities to counter it .

The Initiative has a black and white view that is based on a "we are the good ones" illusion. When "we" 'educate the public' it is legitimate work. When others do similar, it its disinformation. That is of course not the reality. The Initiative's existence itself, created to secretly manipulate the public, is proof that such a view is wrong.

If its work were as legit as it wants to be seen, why would the Foreign Office run it from behind the curtain as an NGO? The Initiative is not the only such operation. It's applications seek funding from a larger "Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme" run by the Foreign Office.

The 2017/18 budget application sought FCO funding of £480,635. It received £102,000 in co-funding from NATO and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The 2018/19 budget application shows a planned spending (pdf) of £1,961,000.00. The co-sponsors this year are again NATO and the Lithuanian MoD, but also include (pdf) the U.S. State Department with £250,000 and Facebook with £100,000. The budget lays out a strong cooperation with the local military of each country. It notes that NATO is also generous in financing the local clusters.

One of the liberated papers of the Initiative is a talking points memo labeled Top 3 Deliverable for FCO (pdf):

  • Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology, setting up clusters in a range of countries with different circumstances
  • Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack by Russia
  • Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of the "golden minute"

Under top 1, setting up clusters, a subitem reads:

- Connects media with academia with policy makers with practitioners in a country to impact on policy and society: ( Jelena Milic silencing pro-kremlin voices on Serbian TV )

Defending Democracy by silencing certain voices on public TV seems to be a self-contradicting concept.

Another subitem notes how the Initiative secretly influences foreign governments:

We engage only very discreetly with governments, based entirely on trusted personal contacts, specifically to ensure that they do not come to see our work as a problem, and to try to influence them gently, as befits an independent NGO operation like ours, viz;
- Germany, via the Zentrum Liberale Moderne to the Chancellor's Office and MOD
- Netherlands, via the HCSS to the MOD
- Poland and Romania, at desk level into their MFAs via their NATO Reps
- Spain, via special advisers, into the MOD and PM's office (NB this may change very soon with the new Government)
- Norway, via personal contacts into the MOD
- HQ NATO, via the Policy Planning Unit into the Sec Gen's office.
We have latent contacts into other governments which we will activate as needs be as the clusters develop.

A look at the 'clusters' set up in U.S. and UK shows some prominent names.


bigger

Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person of interest is Andrew Wood who handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC.


bigger - bigger

A ' Cluster Roundup ' (pdf) from July 2018 details its activities in at least 35 countries. Another file reveals (pdf) the local partnering institutions and individuals involved in the programs.

The Initiatives Guide to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It lists the downing of flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun and the Skripal Affair as examples for "Russian disinformation". But at least two of these events, Khan Sheikun via the UK run White Helmets and the Skripal affair, are evidently products of British intelligence disinformation operations.

The probably most interesting papers of the whole stash is the 'Project Plan' laid out at pages 7-40 of the 2018 budget application v2 (pdf). Under 'Sustainability' it notes:

The programme is proposed to run until at least March 2019, to ensure that the clusters established in each country have sufficient time to take root, find funding, and demonstrate their effectiveness. FCO funding for Phase 2 will enable the activities to be expanded in scale, reach and scope. As clusters have established themselves, they have begun to access local sources of funding. But this is a slow process and harder in some countries than others. HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations. Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow.

The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from a cross society (think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is proving to be mutually reinforcing . Creating the network of networks has given each national group local coherence, credibility and reach, as well as good international access. Together, these conditions, plus the growing awareness within governments of the need for this work, should guarantee the continuity of the work under various auspices and in various forms.

The third part of the budget application (pdf) list the various activities, their output and outcome. The budget plan includes a section that describes 'Risks' to the initiative. These include hacking of the Initiatives IT as well as:

Adverse publicity generated by Russia or by supporters of Russia in target countries, or by political and interest groups affected by the work of the programme, aimed at discrediting the programme or its participants, or to create political embarrassment.

We hope that this piece contributes to such embarrassment.

Posted by b on November 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM | Permalink

Comments Perfidious ALbion!

When will we learn?

pretzelattack , Nov 24, 2018 11:44:00 AM | link

Coincidentally, or not, i just saw this article at the guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/23/robert-mueller-profile-donald-trump-russia-investigation.
Anya , Nov 24, 2018 11:57:00 AM | link
The British government has been running a serious meddling into the US affairs:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-23/mi6-scrambling-stop-trump-releasing-classified-docs-russia-probe

"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016."

A Steele & Skrupal's anti-Russian / anti-Trump saga: https://spectator.org/big-dots-do-they-connect/

"Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..."

For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.

james , Nov 24, 2018 11:58:02 AM | link
thanks b....

this movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war.. i guess the idea is to get the ordinary people to think in terms of hating another country based on lies and that this would be a good thing... it is very sad what uk / usa leadership in the past century has come down to here.... i can only hope that info releases like this will hasten it's demise...

Ingrian , Nov 24, 2018 12:03:55 PM | link
Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the UK.

The UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth

james , Nov 24, 2018 12:15:31 PM | link
@6 ingrian... things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit Russia fully, as they'd intended...
et Al , Nov 24, 2018 12:20:09 PM | link

Let the Doxx wars begin! Sure, Anonymous is not Russian but it will surely now be targeted and smeared as such which would show that it has hit a nerve. British hypocrisy publicly called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me.

I think we've all noticed the euro-asslantic press (and friends) on behalf of, willingly and in cooperation with the British intelligence et al 'calling out' numerous Russians as G(R)U/spies/whatever for a while now yet providing less than a shred of credible evidence.

It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint does not bode well for such relations.

Meanwhile in Brussels they are having their cake and eating it, i.e. bemoaning Europe's 'weak response' to Russian propaganda:

https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/experts-lament-underfunding-of-eu-task-force-countering-russian-disinformation/

BTW, did anyone read Wired UK's current advertorial (nov 14) by Carl Miller for Brigade 77?

Forthestate , Nov 24, 2018 12:26:09 PM | link
"A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants?
worldblee , Nov 24, 2018 12:33:05 PM | link
Yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be black at all; it's just the pot making up things. "These Russian criminals are using propaganda to show (truths) like the fact the DNC and Clinton campaigns colluded to prevent Sanders from being nominated, so we need to establish a clandestine propaganda network to establish that the Russians are running propaganda!"
psychohistorian , Nov 24, 2018 12:34:32 PM | link

....full cluster of smear merchants". May all the clusters of smear merchants be exposed to the public as the acolytes of evil they are.

plantman , Nov 24, 2018 12:36:48 PM | link
"In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream."

I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins.

The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's explicit approval.

Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda

BUT...the author assures us that the "deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow" Huh?? In other words, the fix is in. Mueller will pardon Trump on collusion charges but the propaganda campaign against Russia will continue...with the full support of both parties. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it...

m , Nov 24, 2018 12:40:07 PM | link
This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap.

A lot of sour grapes with this so-called 'integrity initiative', IMO. BP was behind a lot of this, I would also think. When Assad pulled the plug on the pipeline through the Levant in 2009, the Brits hacked up a fur ball. It's gone downhill for them ever since. Couldn't happen to a nicer lot. If you can't invade or beat them with proxies, you can at least call them names.

Jackrabbit , Nov 24, 2018 12:40:58 PM | link
Anya

Pat Lang posted a report that strongly implies that charges of Russian influence on Trump are a deliberate falsification: THE CHIMERA OF DONALD TRUMP, RUSSIAN MONEY LAUNDERER :

If Trump was taking dirty money or engaged in criminal activity with Russians then he was doing it with Felix Sater, who was under the control of the FBI... And who was in charge of the FBI during all of the time that Sater was a signed up FBI snitch? You got it -- Robert Mueller (2001 thru 2013) ...

It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6 meddling, including:

Steele dossier: To create suspicion in government, media, and later the public

Leaking of DNC emails to Wikileaks (but calling it a "hack"): To help with election of Trump and link Wikileaks (as agent) to Russian election meddling

Cambridge Analytica: To provide necessary reasoning for Trump's (certain) win of the electoral college.

Note: We later found that dozens of firms had undue access to Facebook data. Why did the campaign turn to a British firm instead of an American firm? Well, it had to be a British firm if MI6 was running the (supposed) Facebook targeting for CIA.

As I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was the best candidate for the job.
Cyril , Nov 24, 2018 1:10:13 PM | link
The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love?
Russ , Nov 24, 2018 1:16:21 PM | link
Posted by: james | Nov 24, 2018 12:15:31 PM | 7

"things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of russia after the fall of the soviet union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit russia fully, as they'd intended..."

They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass psychological pathology among the elites.

The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist "order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation.

GeorgeV , Nov 24, 2018 1:34:08 PM | link
Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is Strength." The three pillars of political power.
Sasha , Nov 24, 2018 1:38:39 PM | link
Since UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK government...and in this context, new empowerished sovereign governemts into the EU should consider the possibility expelling these traitors as spies of the UK....

http://www.voltairenet.org/article204051.html

Some of the "clusters" unmasked here....some, like Ignacio Torreblanca in Spain, are related to the CFR....

https://www.rt.com/news/444737-uk-funded-campaign-russia-leaks/

Zanon , Nov 24, 2018 2:12:45 PM | link
Country list of agents of influence according to the leak:
  • Germany: Harold Elletson ,Klaus NaumannWolf-Ruediger Bengs, Ex Amb Killian, Gebhardt v Moltke, Roland Freudenstein, Hubertus Hoffmann, Bertil Wenger, Beate Wedekind, Klaus Wittmann, Florian Schmidt, Norris v Schirach
  • Sweden, Norway, Finland: Martin Kragh , Jardar Ostbo, Chris Prebensen, Kate Hansen Bundt, Tor Bukkvoll, Henning-Andre Sogaard, Kristen Ven Bruusgard, Henrik O Breitenbauch, Niels Poulsen, Jeppe Plenge, Claus Mathiesen, Katri Pynnoniemi, Ian Robertson, Pauli Jarvenpaa, Andras Racz
  • Netherlands: Dr Sijbren de Jong, Ida Eklund-Lindwall, Yevhen Fedchenko, Rianne Siebenga, Jerry Sullivan, Hunter B Treseder, Chris Quick
Zanon , Nov 24, 2018 2:13:28 PM | link
  • Spain: Nico de Pedro, Ricardo Blanco Tarno, Eduardo Serra Rexach, Dionisio Urteaga Todo, Dimitri Barua, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Marta Garcia, Abraham Sanz, Fernando Maura, Jose Ignacio Sanchez Amor, Jesus Ramon-Laca Clausen, Frances Ghiles, Carmen Claudin, Nika Prislan, Luis Simon, Charles Powell, Mira Milosevich, Daniel Iriarte, Anna Bosch, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi, Tito, Frances Ghiles, Borja Lasheras, Jordi Bacaria, Alvaro Imbernon-Sainz, Nacho Samor
  • US, Canada: Mary Ellen Connell, Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Paul Goble, David Ziegler Evelyn Farkas, Glen Howard, Stephen Blank, Ian Brzezinski, Thomas Mahnken, John Nevado, Robert Nurick, Jeff McCausland Todd Leventhal
  • UK: Chris Donnelly Amalyah Hart William Browder John Ardis Roderick Collins, Patrick Mileham Deborah Haynes Dan Lafayeedney Chris Hernon Mungo Melvin Rob Dover Julian Moore Agnes Josa David Aaronovitch Stephen Dalziel Raheem Shapi Ben Nimmo Robert Hall Alexander Hoare Steve Jermy Dominic Kennedy Victor Madeira Ed Lucas Dr David Ryall Graham Geale Steve Tatham Natalie Nougayrede
    Alan Riley [email protected] Anne Applebaum Neil Logan Brown James Wilson Primavera Quantrill Bruce Jones David Clark Charles Dick Ahmed Dassu Sir Adam Thompson Lorna Fitzsimons Neil Buckley Richard Titley Euan Grant Alastair Aitken Yusuf Desai Bobo Lo Duncan Allen Chris Bell Peter Mason John Lough Catherine Crozier Robin Ashcroft Johanna Moehring Vadim Kleiner David Fields Alistair Wood Ben Robinson Drew Foxall Alex Finnen Orsyia Lutsevych Charlie Hatton Vladimir Ashurkov Giles Harris Ben Bradshaw Chris Scheurweghs James Nixey Charlie Hornick Baiba Braze J Lindley-French Craig Oliphant Paul Kitching Nick Childs Celia Szusterman James Sherr Alan Parfitt Alzbeta Chmelarova Keir Giles Andy Pryce Zach Harkenrider Kadri Liik Arron Rahaman David Nicholas Igor Sutyagin Rob Sandford Maya Parmar Andrew Wood Richard Slack Ellie Scarnell Nick Smith Asta Skaigiryte Ian Bond Joanna Szostek Gintaras Stonys Nina Jancowicz Nick Washer Ian Williams Joe Green Carl Miller Adrian Bradshaw Clement Daudy Jeremy Blackham Gabriel Daudy Andrew Lucy Stafford Diane Allen Alexandros Papaioannou Paddy Nicoll
cresty , Nov 24, 2018 2:18:30 PM | link
Thank you very much for going through all the files, b. Will share far and wide

[Nov 24, 2018] When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots psyops, you tend to come up with plots for psyops . The word entrapment comes to mind. Probably self-serving also.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also. ..."
"... Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. ..."
"... This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the WEST? This is nuts. ..."
Nov 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

HowdyDoody , 7 hours ago link

One of the documents lists a series of propaganda weapons to be used against Russia. One is use of the church as a weapon. That has already been started in Ukraine with Poroshenko buying off regligious leader to split Ukraine Orthodoxy from Russian Orthodoxy. It also explicitly states that the Skripal incident is a 'Dirty Trick' against Russia.

activisor , 10 hours ago link

The British political system is on the verge of collapse. BREXIT has finally demonstrated that the Government/ Opposition parties are clearly aligned against the interests of the people. The EU is nothing more than an arm of the Globalist agenda of world domination.

The US has shown its true colours - sanctioning every country that stands for independent sovereignty is not a good foreign policy, and is destined to turn the tide of public opinion firmly against global hegemony, endless wars, and wealth inequity.

The old Empire is in its death throes. A new paradigm awaits which will exclude all those who have exploited the many, in order to sit at the top of the pyramid. They cannot escape Karma.

smacker , 11 hours ago link

The Western world needs to come to terms with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its aftermath. Today, Russia is led by Putin and he obviously has objectives as any national leader has.

Western "leaders" need to decide whether Putin:

  1. Is trying to create Soviet Union 2.0, to have a 2nd attempt at ruling the world thru communism and to do this by holding the world to ransom over oil/gas supplies. OR
  2. Is wanting Russia to become a member of the family of nations and of a multi-polar world to improve the lives of Russian people, but is being blocked at every twist and turn by manufactured events like Russia-gate and the Skripal affair and now this latest revelation of anti-Russian propaganda campaigns being coordinated and run out of London.

Both of the above cannot be true because there are too many contradictions. Which is it??

Lokiban , 13 hours ago link

Yes because imagine that that we lived in 1940 without any means to inform ourselves and that media was still in control over the information that reaches us. We would already be in a fullblown war with Russia because of it but now with the Internet and information going around freely only a whimpy 10% of we the people stand behind their desperately wanted war. Imagine that, an informed sheople.
Can't have that, they cannot do their usual stuff anymore.... good riddance.

LOL123 , 14 hours ago link

"250,000 from the US State Department , the documents allege."....... Interesting.

"During the third Democratic debate on Saturday night, Hillary Clinton called for a "Manhattan-like project" to break encrypted terrorist communications. The project would "bring the government and the tech communities together" to find a way to give law enforcement access to encrypted messages, she said. It's something that some politicians and intelligence officials have wanted for awhile,"........

***wasn't the Manhatten project a secret venture?????? Hummmmm"

Hillary Clinton has all of our encryption keys, including the FBI's . "Encryption keys" is a general reference to several encryption functions hijacked by Hillary and her surrogate ENTRUST. They include hash functions (used to indicate whether the contents have been altered in transit), PKI public/private key infrastructure, SSL (secure socket layer), TLS (transport layer security), the Dual_EC_DRBG NSA algorithm and certificate authorities.

The convoluted structure managed by the "Federal Common Policy" group has ceded to companies like ENTRUST INC the ability to sublicense their authority to third parties who in turn manage entire other networks in a Gordian knot of relationships clearly designed to fool the public to hide their devilish criminality. All roads lead back to Hillary and the Rose Law Firm."- patriots4truth

artistant , 14 hours ago link

But, but some people keep getting away with it.

hooligan2009 , 15 hours ago link

When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots "psyops", you tend to come up with plots for "psyops". The word "entrapment" comes to mind. Probably "self-serving" also.

larryriedel , 15 hours ago link

FBI/Anonymous can use this story to support a narrative that social media bots posting memes is a problem for everybody, and it's not a partisan issue. The idea is that fake news and unrestricted social media are inherently dangerous, and both the West and Russia are exploiting that, so governments need to agree to restrict the ability to use those platforms for political speech, especially without using True Names.

Baron Samedi , 15 hours ago link

Oilygawkies in the UK and USSA seem to be letting their spooks have a good-humored (rating here on the absurd transparency of these ops) contest to see who can come up with the most surreal propaganda psy-ops.

But they probably also serve as LHO distractions from something genuinely sleazy.

headless blogger , 15 hours ago link

Anti-Russian is just a code word for Globalist, Internationalist. Anything that is remotely like Nationalism is the true enemy of these Globalist/Internationalists, which is what the Top-Ape Bolshevik promoted: see Vladimir Lenin and his quotes on how he believed fully in "internationalism" for a world without borders. Ironic how they Love the butchers of the Soviet Union but hate Russia. It is ALL ABOUT IDEOLOGY to these people and "the means justify the ends".

They are frightening people.

Push , 15 hours ago link

Basically, if one acquires factual information from an internet source, which leads to overturning the propaganda to which we're all subjected, then it MUST have come from Putin. This is the direction they're headed. Anyone speaking out against the official story is obviously a Russian spy.

Xena fobe , 15 hours ago link

"Instutute for Statecraft"? Seriously?

OverTheHedge , 11 hours ago link

"Substitute for Statecraft"

Fify ;-)

koan , 16 hours ago link

The UK is waging psyop against their own people using the Russians as an excuse to further oppress the population, especially the white population.

FIFY.

East Indian , 16 hours ago link

Never thought Putin would be the symbol of free speech! The totalitarian EU and Deep State can come out of closet and denounce their predecessors.

brewing_it , 17 hours ago link

If you call ******** on the whole Russia cyberscare, you will be labeled a puppet of Putin.

The establishment is afraid of free thinking men and women that can call ******** when they see and hear it.

AriusArmenian , 17 hours ago link

Better to call it the Anti-Integrity Initiative. UK cretins up to their usual dirty tricks - let them choke on their poison. The judgement of history will eventually catch up with them.

Mike Rotsch , 17 hours ago link

A good 'ole economic collapse will give western countries a chance to purge their crazy leaders before they involve us all in a thermonuclear war. Short everything with your entire accounts.

RealistDuJour , 17 hours ago link

This is such BS. Since when does Russia have the resources to pull all this off? They have such a complex program that they need the coordinated efforts of all the resources of the WEST? This is nuts.

Isn't it just as likely someone in the WEST planted this cache, intending Anonymous to find it?

HRClinton , 18 hours ago link

When two sides fight - especially white v white - the hidden 3rd party (((instigator))) wins.

How dumb and mallaleable can these goys be? Pretty dumb and mallaleable, it seems.

J S Bach , 18 hours ago link

Any propaganda coming from the UK or US is strictly zionist. EVERYTHING they put out is to the benefit of Israel and the "lobby". Russia isn't perfect, but if they're an enemy of the latter, then they should NOT be considered a foe to all thinking and conscientious people.

OverTheHedge , 11 hours ago link

Yesterday, the BBC had a thing on Thai workers in Israel, and how they keep dying of accidents, their general level of slavery etc. Very odd to have a negative Israel story, so I wonder who upset whom, and what the ongoing status will be.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-middle-east-46311922/thai-labourers-in-israel-tell-of-harrowing-conditions

Thai labourers in Israel tell of harrowing conditions

A year-long BBC investigation has discovered widespread abuse of Thai nationals living and working in Israel - under a scheme organized by the two governments.

Many are subjected to unsafe working practices and squalid, unsanitary living conditions. Some are overworked, others underpaid and there are dozens of unexplained deaths.

Herdee , 18 hours ago link

England and the U.S. don't like their very poor and rotten social conditions put out for the public to see. Both countries have severely deteriorating problems on their streets because of bankrupt governments printing money for foreign wars.

Quadruple_Rainbow , 18 hours ago link

More of the same fraudulent duality while alleged so called but not money etc continues to flow (everything is criminal) and the cesspool of a hierarchy pretends it's business as usual.

This isn't about maintaining balance in a lie this is about disclosing the truth and agendas (Agenda 21 now Agenda 2030 = The New Age Religion is Never Going To Be Saturnism). The layers of the hierarchy are a lie so unless the alleged so called leaders of those layers are publicly providing testimony and confession then everything that is being spoon fed to the pablum puking public through all sources is a lie.

Herdee , 18 hours ago link

They're afraid of stories like this: https://www.rt.com/news/444737-uk-funded-campaign-russia-leaks/

HRClinton , 17 hours ago link

Operating on a budget of £1.9 million (US$2.4 million), the secretive Integrity Initiative consists of "clusters" of (((local politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics))).

The (((team))) is dedicated to searching for and publishing "evidence" of Russian interference in European affairs, while themselves influencing leadership behind the scenes, the documents claim.

gatorengineer , 18 hours ago link

Do Neocons get time and half for Overtime, they sure have been putting in a bunch lately.

[Nov 12, 2018] Obama s CIA Secretly Intercepted Congressional Communications About Whistleblowers

Highly recommended!
So the USA Congress operates under CIA surveillance... Due to CIA access to Saudi money the situation is probably much worse then described as CIA tried to protect both its level of influence and shadow revenue streams.
Notable quotes:
"... The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch, is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing. ..."
"... I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community Inspector General 2014 ..."
"... The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly," wrote Grassley in a statement. ..."
"... According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with "bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper." ..."
"... Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications ..."
"... CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director ..."
"... During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance," said Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016. ..."
Nov 02, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Sharyl Attkisson,

  • CIA intercepted Congressional emails about whistleblowers in 2014
  • The Inspector General expressed concern about "potential compromise to whistleblower confidentiality" and "chilling effect"

Newly-declassified documents show the CIA intercepted sensitive Congressional communications about intelligence community whistleblowers.

The intercepts occurred under CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The new disclosures are contained in two letters of "Congressional notification" originally written to key members of Congress in March 2014, but kept secret until now.

In the letters, then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough tells four key members of Congress that during "routing counterintelligence monitoring of Government computer systems," the CIA collected emails between Congressional staff and the CIA's head of whistleblowing and source protection. McCullough states that he's concerned "about the potential compromise to whistleblower confidentiality and the consequent 'chilling effect' that the present [counterintelligence] monitoring system might have on Intelligence Community whistleblowing."

The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch, is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing.

"Most of these emails concerned pending and developing whistleblower complaints," McCullough states in his letters to lead Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees at the time: Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia); and Representatives Michael Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland). McCullough adds that the type of monitoring that occurred was "lawful and justified for [counterintelligence] purposes" but

"I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community Inspector General 2014

The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly," wrote Grassley in a statement.

According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with "bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper."

Grassley adds that he repeated his request to declassify the letters under the Trump administration, but that Trump intelligence officials failed to respond. The documents were finally declassified this week after Grassley appealed to the new Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

History of alleged surveillance abuses

Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications. A Congressional staffer involved at the time says Clapper's response seemed to imply that if Congressional communications were "incidentally" collected by the CIA, the material would not be saved or reported up to CIA management.

"In the event of a protected disclosure by a whistleblower somehow comes to the attention of personnel responsible for monitoring user activity," Clapper wrote to Grassley and Wyden on July 25, 2014, "there is no intention for such disclosure to be reported to agency leadership under an insider threat program."

However, the newly-declassified letters indicate the opposite happened in reality with the whistleblower-related emails:

"CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director."

Clapper has previously come under fire for his 2013 testimony to Congress in which he denied that the national Security Agency (NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Weeks later, Clapper's statement was proven false by material leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

"During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance," said Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016.

"Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them."

Clapper has repeatedly denied lying, and said that any incorrect information he provided was due to misunderstandings or mistakes.

Clapper and Brennan have also acknowledged taking part in the controversial practice of "unmasking" the protected names of U.S. citizens - including people connected to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump - whose communications were "incidentally" captured in US counterintelligence operations. Unmaskings within the US intelligence community are supposed to be extremely rare and only allowed under carefully justified circumstances. This is to protect the privacy rights of American citizens. But it's been revealed that Obama officials requested unmaskings on a near daily basis during the election year of 2016.

Clapper and Brennan have said their activities were lawful and not politically motivated. Both men have become vocal critics of President Trump.

* * *

Order the New York Times bestseller "The Smear" today online or borrow from your library

Keter , 5 hours ago link

"ah, ah, ah, em, not intentionally." Clapper - ROFL

numapepi , 9 hours ago link

Can you imagine what kind of place the US would have been under Clinton?!!!!!!

All the illegality, spying, conniving, dirty tricks, arcancides, selling us out to the highest bidder and full on attack against our Constitution would be in full swing!

Chaotix , 9 hours ago link

When intel entities can operate unimpeded and un-monitored, it spells disaster for everyone and everything outside that parameter. Their operations go unnoticed until some stray piece of information exposes them. There are many facilities that need to be purged and audited, but since this activity goes on all over the world, there is little to stop it. Even countries that pledge allegiance and cooperation are blindsiding their allies with bugs, taps, blackmails, and other crimes. Nobody trusts nobody, and that's a horrid fact to contend with in an 'advanced' civilization.

numapepi , 9 hours ago link

Almost sounds like the Praetorian guard?

The real power behind the throne.

Rhys12 , 10 hours ago link

Forget the political parties. When the intelligence agencies spy on everyone, they know all about politicians of both parties before they ever win office, and make sure they have enough over them to control them. They were asleep at the switch when Trump won, because no one, including them, believed he would ever win. Hillary was their candidate, the State Department is known overseas as "the political arm of the CIA". They were furious when she lost, hence the circus ever since.

iAmerican10 , 11 hours ago link

From its founding by the Knights of Malta the JFK&MLK-assassinating, with Mossad 9/11-committing CIA has been the Vatican's US Fifth Column action branch, as are the FBI and NSA: with an institutional hiring preference for Roman Catholic "altared boy" closet-queen psychopaths "because they're practiced at keeping secrets."

Think perverts Strzok, Brennan, and McCabe "licked it off the wall?"

Smi1ey , 11 hours ago link

We need to bring back FOIA.

Too much secrecy.

And how is that Pentagon audit doing, btw?

Chaotix , 9 hours ago link

I agree with you 100%. Problem is, tons of secret technology and information have been passed out to the private sector. And the private sector is not bound to the FOIA requests, therefore neutralizing the obligation for government to disclose classified material. They sidestepped their own policies to cooperate with corrupt MIC contractors, and recuse themselves from disclosing incriminating evidence.

archie bird , 12 hours ago link

Everyone knows that spying runs in the fam. 44th potus Mom and Gma BOTH. An apple doesn't fall from the tree. If ppl only knew the true depth of the evil and corruption we would be in the hospital with a heart attack. Gilded age is here and has been, since our democracy was hijacked (McCain called it an intervention) back in 1963. Unfortunately it started WAY back before then when (((they))) stole everything with the installation of the Fed.

Dornier27 , 15 hours ago link

The FBI and CIA have long since slipped the controls of Congress and the Constitution. President Trump should sign an executive order after the mid terms and stand down at least the FBI and subject the CIA to a senate investigation.

America needs new agencies that are accountable to the peoples elected representatives.

greasyknees , 16 hours ago link

Not news. The CIA likely has had access to any and all electronic communication for at least a decade.

Lord JT , 19 hours ago link

what? clapper and brennan being dirty hacks behind the scenes while parading around as patriots? say it aint so!

Racin Rabitt , 20 hours ago link

A determined care has been used to cultivate in D.C., a system that swiftly decapitates the whistleblowers. Resulting in an increasingly subservient cadre of civil servants who STHU and play ostrich, or drool at what scraps are about to roll off the master's table as the slide themselves into a better position, taking advantage to sell vice, weapons, and slaves.

Westcoastliberal , 21 hours ago link

What the hell does the CIA have to do with ANYTHING in the United States? Aren't they limited to OUTSIDE the U.S.? So why would they be involved in domestic communications for anything? These clowns need to be indicted for TREASON!

5onIt , 22 hours ago link

Clapper and Brennan, Brennan and Clapper. These two guys are the damn devil.

It makes me ill.

MuffDiver69 , 22 hours ago link

I'll take " Police State" for five hundred Alex

[Oct 25, 2018] DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Now there is new information, courtesy of the National Security Agency aka NSA, that confirms that the NSA has Top Secret and Secret documents that are responsive to a FOIA request for material on Seth Rich and his contacts with Julian Assange. While the content of these documents remain classified for now, they may provide documentary proof that Seth Rich "dropped boxed" the emails to Julian. If these documents are declassified, a big hole could be blown in the claim that Russia hacked the DNC. ..."
"... Another case of "Arkancide"? ..."
"... I came to this summary today after I had turned my T.V. off since all the news is now about the "bombs" being mailed to the Clintons and Obamas. (I was afraid a story line would soon continue that the bombs were from Russia via the White House. I can no longer feel certain that anything reported in the "news" is true and wonder what part of it is made up from thin air. ..."
"... And I am sad that such a huge number of American citizens simply no longer care what is true or what is not true. They believe only what they want to believe. Mostly I am sad that Seth Rich lived and died and few seem to want to know the facts surrounding his death. ..."
"... Guccifer 2.0 was nothing but an elaborate joke. ..."
Oct 25, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Tacitus01

If Russia had actually "hacked" the DNC emails then the National Security Agency would have had proof of such activity. In fact, the NSA could have tracked such activity. But they did not do that. That lack of evidence did not prevent a coordinated media campaign from spinning up to pin the blame on Russia for the "theft" and to portray Donald Trump as Putin's lackey and beneficiary.

Any effort to tell an alternative story has met with stout opposition. Fox News, for example, came under withering fire after it published an article in May 2017 claiming that Seth Rich, a young Democrat operative, had leaked DNC emails to Julian Assange at Wikileaks. The family of Seth Rich reacted with fury and sued Fox, Malia Zimmerman and Ed Butowsky, but that suit subsequently was dismissed.

Now there is new information, courtesy of the National Security Agency aka NSA, that confirms that the NSA has Top Secret and Secret documents that are responsive to a FOIA request for material on Seth Rich and his contacts with Julian Assange. While the content of these documents remain classified for now, they may provide documentary proof that Seth Rich "dropped boxed" the emails to Julian. If these documents are declassified, a big hole could be blown in the claim that Russia hacked the DNC.

Walrus , a day ago

Another case of "Arkancide"?
jnewman -> Walrus , 12 hours ago
Vince Foster?
DianaLC , 13 hours ago
PT, thank for the very detailed description of the entire story surrounding the supposed Russian hack of the DNC emails.

I always find myself screaming at the T.V. whenever a supposed reporter mentions the supposed Russian hack of the DNC computers as if such an event is settled history.

I came to this summary today after I had turned my T.V. off since all the news is now about the "bombs" being mailed to the Clintons and Obamas. (I was afraid a story line would soon continue that the bombs were from Russia via the White House. I can no longer feel certain that anything reported in the "news" is true and wonder what part of it is made up from thin air.

And I am sad that such a huge number of American citizens simply no longer care what is true or what is not true. They believe only what they want to believe. Mostly I am sad that Seth Rich lived and died and few seem to want to know the facts surrounding his death.

Snow Flake -> Lefty , 12 hours ago
Ellipsis, linguistically? Don't you automatically add what is omitted? ... Russia had (n't) anything ...

Guccifer 2.0 was nothing but an elaborate joke.

[Oct 08, 2018] British intelligence now officially is a by-word for organized crime by John Wight

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... And what about the possibility of MI5's involvement in, dare we use the term, false flag operations? ..."
"... As someone who abhors the premise of conspiracy theory on principle, the fact that more and more are turning to its warm embrace as an intellectual reflex against what is politely described as the 'official narrative' of events, well this is no surprise when we learn of the egregious machinations of Western intelligence agencies such as Britain's MI5. ..."
"... If any such investigation is to be taken seriously, however, it must include in its remit the power to investigate all possible links between Britain's intelligence community and organisations such as, let's see, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group ? ..."
"... The deafening UK mainstream media and political class silence over the trail connecting 2017 Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi and MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency, leaves a lingering stench of intrigue that will not out. The work of investigative journalist Mark Curtis on this sordid relationship is unsurpassed. ..."
"... "The evidence suggests that the barbaric Manchester bombing, which killed 22 innocent people on May 22nd, is a case of blowback on British citizens arising at least partly from the overt and covert actions of British governments." ..."
"... "The evidence points to the LIFG being seen by the UK as a proxy militia to promote its foreign policy objectives. Whitehall also saw Qatar as a proxy to provide boots on the ground in Libya in 2011, even as it empowered hardline Islamist groups." ..."
"... "Both David Cameron, then Prime Minister, and Theresa May – who was Home Secretary in 2011 when Libyan radicals were encouraged to fight Qadafi [Muammar Gaddafi] – clearly have serious questions to answer. We believe an independent public enquiry is urgently needed." ..."
"... In words that echo down to us from ancient Rome, the poet Juvenal taunts our complacency with a question most simple and pertinent: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who will guard the guards themselves? ..."
Oct 08, 2018 | www.rt.com

An intelligence service given free rein to commit 'serious crimes' in its own country is an intelligence service that is the enemy of its people. The quite astounding revelation that Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, has enjoyed this very freedom for decades has only just been made public at a special tribunal in London, set up to investigate the country's intelligence services at the behest of a coalition of human rights groups, alleging a pattern of illegality up to and including collusion in murder.

The hitherto MI5 covert policy sanctioning its agents to commit and/or solicit serious crimes, as and when adjudged provident, is known as the Third Direction. This codename has been crafted, it would appear, by someone with a penchant for all things James Bond within an agency whose average operative is more likely to be 5'6" and balding with a paunch and bad teeth than any kind of lantern-jawed 007.

The Pat Finucane Centre , one of the aforementioned human rights groups involved in bringing about this tribunal investigation (Investigatory Powers Tribunal, to give it its Sunday name) into the nefarious activities of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, issued a damning statement in response to the further revelation that former Prime Minister David Cameron introduced oversight guidelines with regard to the MI5 covert third direction policy back in 2012.

Cameron's decision to do so, the group claims, was far from nobly taken:

"It can be no coincidence that Prime Minister David Cameron issued new guidelines, however flawed, on oversight of MI5 just two weeks before publication of the De Silva report into the murder of Pat Finucane. The PM was clearly alive to the alarming evidence which was about to emerge of the involvement of the Security Service in the murder. To date no-one within a state agency has been held accountable. The latest revelations make the case for an independent inquiry all the more compelling."

Pat Finucane, a Belfast Catholic, plied his trade as a human rights lawyer at a time when the right to be fully human was denied the minority Catholic community of the small and enduring outpost of British colonialism in the north east corner of Ireland, otherwise known as Northern Ireland. He was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989, back when the decades-long conflict euphemistically referred to as the Troubles still raged, claiming victims both innocent and not on all sides.

Unlike the vast majority of those killed and murdered in the course of this brutal conflict, Finucane's murder sparked a long and hard fought struggle for justice by surviving family members, friends and campaigners. They allege – rather convincingly, it should be said – that it was carried out with the active collusion of MI5.

Stepping back and casting a wider view over this terrain, the criminal activities of Britain's intelligence services constitute more than enough material for a book of considerable heft. How fortunate then that just such a book has already been written.

In his 'Dead Men Talking: Collusion, Cover Up and Murder in Northern Ireland's Dirty War', author Nicholas Davies "provides information on a number of the killings [during the Troubles], which were authorized at the highest level of MI5 and the British government."

But over and above the crimes of MI5 in Ireland, what else have those doughty defenders of the realm been up to over the years? After all, what is the use of having a license to engage in serious criminal activity, including murder and, presumably, torture, if you're not prepared to use (abuse) it? It begs the question of how many high profile deaths attributed to suicide, natural causes, and accident down through the years have been the fruits of MI5 at work?

And what about the possibility of MI5's involvement in, dare we use the term, false flag operations?

As someone who abhors the premise of conspiracy theory on principle, the fact that more and more are turning to its warm embrace as an intellectual reflex against what is politely described as the 'official narrative' of events, well this is no surprise when we learn of the egregious machinations of Western intelligence agencies such as Britain's MI5.

What we are bound to state, doing so without fear of contradiction, is this particular revelation opens up a veritable Pandora's Box of grim possibilities when it comes to the potential crimes committed by Britain's domestic intelligence agency, ensuring that a full and vigorous investigation and public inquiry is now both necessary and urgent.

If any such investigation is to be taken seriously, however, it must include in its remit the power to investigate all possible links between Britain's intelligence community and organisations such as, let's see, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group ?

The deafening UK mainstream media and political class silence over the trail connecting 2017 Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi and MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency, leaves a lingering stench of intrigue that will not out. The work of investigative journalist Mark Curtis on this sordid relationship is unsurpassed.

As Curtis writes,

"The evidence suggests that the barbaric Manchester bombing, which killed 22 innocent people on May 22nd, is a case of blowback on British citizens arising at least partly from the overt and covert actions of British governments."

In the same report he arrives at a conclusion both damning and chilling:

"The evidence points to the LIFG being seen by the UK as a proxy militia to promote its foreign policy objectives. Whitehall also saw Qatar as a proxy to provide boots on the ground in Libya in 2011, even as it empowered hardline Islamist groups."

Finally: "Both David Cameron, then Prime Minister, and Theresa May – who was Home Secretary in 2011 when Libyan radicals were encouraged to fight Qadafi [Muammar Gaddafi] – clearly have serious questions to answer. We believe an independent public enquiry is urgently needed."

In words that echo down to us from ancient Rome, the poet Juvenal taunts our complacency with a question most simple and pertinent: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who will guard the guards themselves?

Edward R Murrow puts it rather more bluntly: "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."

Sooner or later, people in Britain are going to have to wake up to who the real enemy is.

Read more

John Wight has written for a variety of newspapers and websites, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal.

[Oct 04, 2018] Brett Kavanaugh's 'revenge' theory spotlights past with Clintons by Lisa Mascaro

Highly recommended!
Oct 03, 2018 | www.chicagotribune.com

But in blaming "revenge on behalf of the Clintons" for the sexual misconduct allegations against him, the Supreme Court nominee is drawing new attention to his time on the Kenneth Starr team investigating Bill Clinton. And in doing so, he's shown he can deliver a Trump-like broadside against detractors even if it casts him in a potentially partisan light.

As a young lawyer, Kavanaugh played a key role on Starr's team investigating sexual misconduct by then-President Bill Clinton, helping to shape one of the most salacious chapters in modern political history.

Kavanaugh spent a good part of the mid-1990s jetting back and forth to Little Rock, Arkansas, digging into the Clintons' background, according to documents that were made public as part of his nomination to the Supreme Court

[Oct 02, 2018] Recovered memory is a Freudian voodoo. Notice how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Their testimony was usually highly emotional and impassioned, leaving an impression very similar to that conveyed last night by Dr. Ford. ..."
"... The "Recovered" (or "False") Memory Syndrome movement emerged in the midst of the steadily radicalizing Feminist Movement in the United States, probably at the very apogee of its extreme evolution, and was a movement in which Freudian therapy was central and Freudian therapists came to play the leading role. ..."
"... It was only after they had been subjected to extensive pseudo-scientific Freudian "therapy," in which sex always lay prominently at the center, that virtually all of these women came forward with these stories. ..."
"... nd, in this dispute the American ultra-Feminists chose to believe and preach the worst, most salacious, and most vicious possible interpretation of Dr. Freud's highly speculative, evidence-less, and – as subsequent study has overwhelmingly shown – completely contrived diagnoses. ..."
"... Beginning with a conviction that cocaine could provide a substantial therapeutic base for solving psychological problems, Freud seems himself to have become for a period a regular consumer of that drug, but subsequently altered the focus of his therapy to hypnosis. After realizing certain limitations to this approach, he shifted again, turning to the so-called "Talking Cure" rooted in provoking word associations, which provided the basis for the classic Freudian method of popular imagination – with the patient reclining on a couch and the good Dr. seated behind with his notebook and pen in hand. This is the method he retained for the rest of his life. ..."
"... The primary fault which has been cited for Freud's methods generally, but which has been particularly critiqued in both hypnosis and the "Talking Cure" as a reason for their invalidation, is the claim that both – at least inadvertently – incorporate the high probability of suggestion from the therapist. ..."
"... Analysis thus follows a circular course, the analyst's theoretical surmise being first subtly communicated to the patient, then confirmed by the patient's casting of his (or, more often her) own ideas within the framework which had been suggested by the analyst. In the end, nothing new is actually discovered. The patient merely replicates the expressed Freudian doctrine. ..."
"... Those women patients, and a few men, became their victims, but in turn became the perpetrators in the savaging of numerous men's lives, as these men were subjected to the most vicious accusations imaginable. Most of these accusations were, in retrospect, clearly fantasies in a ruthless mid-20th century male-witch hunt. ..."
"... Into this popular intellectual desert walks Dr. Ford, both whose personal history and her strange physical mannerisms in testimony before the Senate clearly indicate she has unfortunately suffered some form of serious psychological disturbance. ..."
"... Seemingly alienated from her own parents and most immediate family members, she has made her home as far away from the Washington, DC area ..."
"... In 2012 she underwent some sort of psychological counseling with her husband, though the details as far as I know have not emerged. But, it hardly seems likely coincidental that her first documentable expressions of antipathy to Judge Kavanaugh occurred in that year, when it was announced that Judge Kavanaugh was considered the likely Supreme Court appointee should Mit Romney win the Presidential election. Her expressions of antipathy to him have only grown from there. ..."
"... Use of weapons and tactics, of which the defender is unprepared for, is a good offense. ..."
"... Are Republicans et al. unable to understand basic military strategy? Do we lack the ability to conceive of new tactics and weapons to use against Democrats and Globalists? ..."
"... I realize that it is unacceptable to attack this poor helpless victim so the "it can't be corroborated" card has to be played. However, who else notices how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged. ..."
"... She always takes everybody on some emotional ride right up to the point where she could be exposed but never with enough information so somebody could come out of the woodwork and prove she is a liar. ..."
"... We also have the infamous letter where we are repeatedly reminded she mailed it BEFORE Kavanaugh was picked. Of course, we only have Feinstein's word for that since nobody saw it until after this crap started. The delay was used to push up the story with new revelation about Mike Judge in a grocery store that shied away from her – again with no specific date so Judge could prove she is a liar. ..."
"... We also have all of our own recollections of high school insecurities and male-female interactions. What freshman or sophomore girl didn't get all giddy at the thought of the older guys hitting on her so she could tell all her friends about her older boyfriend ..."
"... Outside doors enter public areas kitchen sunroom living rooms not bedrooms. An outside door into a master bedroom with attached bathroom is a red flag that it's intended for an illegal what's called in law apartment ..."
"... Your post is very perceptive and just might be how it all went down. With the complications of couples' counseling over her demand for the bizarre double main entry doors. (lulz) Though I would think any family that built an illegal in-law apartment into their Palo Alto house and deployed it, would be ratted out by their neighbors. ..."
Oct 02, 2018 | www.unz.com

Nicephorus says: September 29, 2018 at 7:58 am GMT 2,000 Words

We still have to wait to see whether Judge Kavanaugh's appointment will go through, so the most important practical consequence of this shameful exercise in character assassination is as yet unknown. I'm pretty sure he'll eventually be appointed.

But, I think some critical theoretical aspects of the context in which this battle was waged were definitively clarified in the course of this shameful and hugely destructive effort by the Democrat leadership to destroy Judge Kavanaugh's reputation in pursuit of narrow political advantage. On balance, although Judge Kavanaugh and his family were the ones who had to pay the price for this bitter learning experience, all of us should be the long-term beneficiaries of this contest's central but often hidden issues being brought to light and subjected to rational analysis. I want to show what I think these hidden issues are.

What this sordid affair was all about was the zombie-like return-from-the-dead of a phenomenon exposed and pretty much completely invalidated more than thirty years ago, which never should have been permitted to raise its ugly head before an assembly of rational, educated Americans: the "Recovered Memory" (aka "False Memory") Syndrome movement of the 1980s, in which numerous troubled, frequently mentally off-balance, women (and a few men) came forward to declare that they had been the victims of incestual sexual abuse – most often actual sexual intercourse – at the hands of mature male family members; usually fathers but sometimes uncles, grandfathers, or others.

Their testimony was usually highly emotional and impassioned, leaving an impression very similar to that conveyed last night by Dr. Ford. Many hearers were completely convinced that these events had occurred. I recall having a discussion in the 1990s with two American women who swore up and down that they believed fully 25% of American women had been forced into sexual intercourse with their fathers. I was dumbfounded that they could believe such a thing. But, vast numbers of American women did believe this at that time, and many – perhaps most – may never have looked sufficiently into the follow-up to these testimonials to realize that the vast majority of such bizarre claims had subsequently been definitively proven invalid.

The "Recovered" (or "False") Memory Syndrome movement emerged in the midst of the steadily radicalizing Feminist Movement in the United States, probably at the very apogee of its extreme evolution, and was a movement in which Freudian therapy was central and Freudian therapists came to play the leading role.

It was only after they had been subjected to extensive pseudo-scientific Freudian "therapy," in which sex always lay prominently at the center, that virtually all of these women came forward with these stories. A major controversy, which arose within the ranks of the Freudians themselves over what was the correct understanding of the Master's teachings, lay at the core of the whole affair. A nd, in this dispute the American ultra-Feminists chose to believe and preach the worst, most salacious, and most vicious possible interpretation of Dr. Freud's highly speculative, evidence-less, and – as subsequent study has overwhelmingly shown – completely contrived diagnoses.

It's now known that Dr. Freud's journey to the theoretical positions which had become orthodoxy among his followers by the mid-20th century had followed a strange, little known, possibly deliberately self-obscured, and clearly unorthodox course. Beginning with a conviction that cocaine could provide a substantial therapeutic base for solving psychological problems, Freud seems himself to have become for a period a regular consumer of that drug, but subsequently altered the focus of his therapy to hypnosis. After realizing certain limitations to this approach, he shifted again, turning to the so-called "Talking Cure" rooted in provoking word associations, which provided the basis for the classic Freudian method of popular imagination – with the patient reclining on a couch and the good Dr. seated behind with his notebook and pen in hand. This is the method he retained for the rest of his life.

The primary fault which has been cited for Freud's methods generally, but which has been particularly critiqued in both hypnosis and the "Talking Cure" as a reason for their invalidation, is the claim that both – at least inadvertently – incorporate the high probability of suggestion from the therapist. In this view, patient testimony moves subtly, and probably without the patient's awareness, from whatever his or her own understanding might originally have been to the interpretation implicitly propounded by the analyst. Analysis thus follows a circular course, the analyst's theoretical surmise being first subtly communicated to the patient, then confirmed by the patient's casting of his (or, more often her) own ideas within the framework which had been suggested by the analyst. In the end, nothing new is actually discovered. The patient merely replicates the expressed Freudian doctrine.

The particular doctrine at hand was undergoing a critical reworking at this very time, and this important reconsideration of the Master's meaning almost certainly constituted a major, likely the predominating, factor which facilitated the emergence of the Recovered Memory Syndrome movement. Freudian orthodoxy at that time included as an important – seemingly its key – component the conviction of a child's (even an infant's) sexuality, as expressed through the hypothesized Oedipus Complex for males, and the corresponding Electra Complex for females. In these complexes, Freud speculated that sexually-based neuroses derived from the child's (or infant's) fear of imagined enmity and possible physical threat from the same-sex parent, because of the younger individual's sexual longing for the opposite-sex parent.

This Freudian idea, entirely new to European, American, and probably most other cultures, that children, even infants, were the possessors of an already well-developed sexuality had been severely challenged by Christian and some other traditional authorities, and had been met with repugnance from many individuals in Western society. But, the doctrine, as it then stood, was subject to a further major questioning in the mid-1980s from Freudian historical researcher Jeffrey Masson, who postulated, after examining a collection of Freud's personal writings long kept from popular examination, that the Child Sexual Imagination thesis itself was a pusillanimous and ethically-unjustified retreat from an even more sinister thesis the Master had originally held, but which he had subsequently abandoned because of the controversy and damage to his own career its expression would likely cause. This was the belief, based on many of his earlier interviews of mostly women patients, that it wasn't their imaginations which lay behind their neuroses. They had told him that they had actually been either raped or molested as infants or young girls by their fathers. This was the secret horror hidden away in those long-suppressed writings, now brought into the light of day by Prof. Masson.

Masson's research conclusions were initially widely welcomed within the psychoanalytical fraternity/sorority and shortly melded with the already raging desire of many ultra-Feminist extremists to place the blame for whatever problems and dissatisfactions women in America were encountering in their lives upon the patriarchal society by which they claimed to be oppressed. The problem was men. Countless fathers were raping their daughters. Wow! What an incentive to revolutionary Feminist insurrection! You couldn't find a much better justification for their man-hate than that. Bring on the Feminist Revolution! Men are not only a menace, they are no longer even necessary for procreation, so let's get rid of them entirely. This is the sort of extreme plan some radical Feminists advocated. Many psychoanalysts became their professional facilitators, providing the illusion of medical validation to the stories the analysts themselves had largely engendered. Those women patients, and a few men, became their victims, but in turn became the perpetrators in the savaging of numerous men's lives, as these men were subjected to the most vicious accusations imaginable. Most of these accusations were, in retrospect, clearly fantasies in a ruthless mid-20th century male-witch hunt.

This radical ideology is built upon the conviction that Dr. Freud, in at least this one of his several historical phases of interpretative psychological analysis, was really on to something. But, subsequent evaluation has largely shown that not to be the case. The same critique which had been delivered against the Child Sexual Imagination version of Freud's "Talking Cure" analytical method was equally relevant to this newly discovered Father Molestation thesis: all such notions had been subtly communicated to the patient by the analyst in the course of the interview. Had thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of European and American women really been raped or molested by their fathers? Freud offered no corroborating evidence of any kind, and I think it's the consensus of most competent contemporary psychoanalysts to reject this idea. Those few who retain a belief in it betray, I think, an ideological commitment to Radical Feminism, for whose proponents such a view offers an ever tempting platform to justify their monstrous plans for the future of a human race in which males are subjected to the status of slaves or are entirely eliminated.

But, the judicious conclusions of science often – perhaps usually – fail to promptly percolate down to the comprehension of common humanity on the street, and within the consequent vacuum of understanding scheming politicians can frequently find opportunity to manipulate, obfuscate, and distort facts in order to facilitate their own devious and often highly destructive schemes. Such, I fear, is the situation which has surrounded Dr. Ford. The average American of either sex has absolutely no familiarity with the history, character, or ultimate fate of the Recovered Memory Syndrome movement, and may well fail to realize that the phenomenon has been nearly entirely disproved.

Into this popular intellectual desert walks Dr. Ford, both whose personal history and her strange physical mannerisms in testimony before the Senate clearly indicate she has unfortunately suffered some form of serious psychological disturbance.

Seemingly alienated from her own parents and most immediate family members, she has made her home as far away from the Washington, DC area where she was born as possible within the territorial limits of the continental United States. The focus of her professional research and practice in the field of psychology has lain in therapeutic treatment to overcome mental and emotional trauma, a problem she has acknowledged has been her own disturbing preoccupation for many decades. In 2012 she underwent some sort of psychological counseling with her husband, though the details as far as I know have not emerged. But, it hardly seems likely coincidental that her first documentable expressions of antipathy to Judge Kavanaugh occurred in that year, when it was announced that Judge Kavanaugh was considered the likely Supreme Court appointee should Mit Romney win the Presidential election. Her expressions of antipathy to him have only grown from there.

Dr. Ford is clearly an unfortunate victim of something or someone, but I don't believe it was Judge Kavanaugh. Almost certainly she has been influenced in her denunciations against him by both that long-term preoccupation with her own sense of psychological injury, whatever may have been its cause, and her professional familiarization with contemporary currents of psychological theory, however fallacious, likely mediated by the ministrations of that unnamed counselor in 2012. Subsequently, she has clearly been exploited mercilessly by the scheming Democratic Party officials who have viciously plotted to turn her plight to their own cynical advantage. As in so many cases during the 1980s Recovered Memory movement, she has almost certainly been transformed by both the scientifically unproven doctrines and the conscienceless practitioners of Freudian mysticism from being merely an innocent victim into an active victimizer – doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the pain inherent in her own tragic situation and aggressively projecting it upon helpless others, in this case Judge Kavanaugh and his entire family. She is not a heroine.

PiltdownMan , says: September 29, 2018 at 9:01 am GMT

A recovered memory from more than five decades ago. Violet Elizabeth, a irritating younger child who tended to tag along, often wore expensive Kate Greenaway dresses. Her family was new money. William was no misogynist, though. He liked and respected Joan, who was his friend. The second William book is online.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17125/17125-h/17125-h.htm

Coemgen , says: September 29, 2018 at 10:35 am GMT
Rules-of-thumb
-- -- -- -- -- -- -
1. A good offense is the best defense.
2. An ambush backed up by overwhelming force is a good offense.
3. Use of weapons and tactics, of which the defender is unprepared for, is a good offense.

Are Republicans et al. unable to understand basic military strategy? Do we lack the ability to conceive of new tactics and weapons to use against Democrats and Globalists?

MarkinLA , says: September 29, 2018 at 12:49 pm GMT
I realize that it is unacceptable to attack this poor helpless victim so the "it can't be corroborated" card has to be played. However, who else notices how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged.

She always takes everybody on some emotional ride right up to the point where she could be exposed but never with enough information so somebody could come out of the woodwork and prove she is a liar.

We also have the infamous letter where we are repeatedly reminded she mailed it BEFORE Kavanaugh was picked. Of course, we only have Feinstein's word for that since nobody saw it until after this crap started. The delay was used to push up the story with new revelation about Mike Judge in a grocery store that shied away from her – again with no specific date so Judge could prove she is a liar. This all reeks of testimony gone over and coached by a team of lawyers.

We also have all of our own recollections of high school insecurities and male-female interactions. What freshman or sophomore girl didn't get all giddy at the thought of the older guys hitting on her so she could tell all her friends about her older boyfriend and possibility of going to the prom as a lower classman? All he had to do (assuming he wasn't repulsive physically and he was a bit of a jock) was make the usual play of pretending to be interested and he likely would have been at least getting to first base at the party.

From her pictures she was no Pamela Anderson and would likely have been flattered. The idea that you rape someone without trying to get the milk handed to you on a silver platter is ridiculous.

This is another female driven hysteria based on lies like the child molestation and satanic cult hysterias of years past. Those were all driven by crazy or politically motivated women who whipped up the rest of the ignorant females.

Clyde , says: September 29, 2018 at 12:58 pm GMT
@Anon

Outside doors enter public areas kitchen sunroom living rooms not bedrooms. An outside door into a master bedroom with attached bathroom is a red flag that it's intended for an illegal what's called in law apartment

Your post is very perceptive and just might be how it all went down. With the complications of couples' counseling over her demand for the bizarre double main entry doors. (lulz) Though I would think any family that built an illegal in-law apartment into their Palo Alto house and deployed it, would be ratted out by their neighbors.

[Oct 02, 2018] I m puzzled why CIA is so against Kavanaugh?

Highly recommended!
An interesting hypothesis. CIA definitly became a powerful political force in the USA -- a rogue political force which starting from JFK assasination tries to control who is elected to important offices. But in truth Cavanaugh is a pro-CIA candidate so to speak. So why CIA would try to derail him.
Notable quotes:
"... I think I've figured out why they had to go to couples counseling about an outside door and why she came up with claim that she needed an outside bedroom door because she'd been assaulted 37 years ago. The Palo Alto building codes for single family homes were created to make sure single family homes remained single family and weren't chopped up into apartments. ..."
"... An outside door into a master bedroom with attached bathroom is a red flag that it's intended for an illegal what's called in law apartment ..."
"... So she wants the door. Husband says waste of money and trouble. Contractor says call me when you're ready. So they go to counseling Husband explains why the door's unreasonable. Therapist asks wife why she " really deep down" needs the door. Wife makes up the story about attempted rape 35 years ago flashbacks If only there were 2 doors in that imaginary bedroom she could have escaped. ..."
"... Kacanaugh was nominated. CIA searched for sex problems in his working life. Found nothing Searched law school and college found nothing. In desperation searched high school found nothing. Searched CIA personnel records which go back to grade school and found one of their own employees was about Kavanaugh's age and attended a high school near his and the students socialized. ..."
"... She's 3rd generation CIA. grandfather assistant director. Father CIA contractor who managed CIA unofficial band accounts. And she runs a CIA recruitment office. ..."
Oct 02, 2018 | www.unz.com

Anon [257] Disclaimer says: September 29, 2018 at 8:28 am GMT 400 Words

I think I've figured out why they had to go to couples counseling about an outside door and why she came up with claim that she needed an outside bedroom door because she'd been assaulted 37 years ago. The Palo Alto building codes for single family homes were created to make sure single family homes remained single family and weren't chopped up into apartments.

Outside doors enter public areas kitchen sunroom living rooms not bedrooms. An outside door into a master bedroom with attached bathroom is a red flag that it's intended for an illegal what's called in law apartment

There's a unit It's a stove 2 ft counter space and sink. The stoves electric and plugs into an ordinary household electricity. It's backed against the bathroom wall. Break through the wall, connect the pipes running water for the sink. Add an outside door and it's a small apartment.

Assume they didn't want to make it an apartment just a master bedroom. Usually the contractor pulls the permits routinely. But an outside bedroom door is complicated. The permits will cost more. It might require an exemption and a hearing They night need a lawyer. And they might not get the permit.

So she wants the door. Husband says waste of money and trouble. Contractor says call me when you're ready. So they go to counseling Husband explains why the door's unreasonable. Therapist asks wife why she " really deep down" needs the door. Wife makes up the story about attempted rape 35 years ago flashbacks If only there were 2 doors in that imaginary bedroom she could have escaped.

Kacanaugh was nominated. CIA searched for sex problems in his working life. Found nothing Searched law school and college found nothing. In desperation searched high school found nothing. Searched CIA personnel records which go back to grade school and found one of their own employees was about Kavanaugh's age and attended a high school near his and the students socialized.

She's 3rd generation CIA. grandfather assistant director. Father CIA contractor who managed CIA unofficial band accounts. And she runs a CIA recruitment office.

I'm puzzled why CIA is so against Kavanaugh?

[Sep 24, 2018] Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If Trump backs the British looneys in the UN security council in a day or two we can all be sure he is now a puppet on a British string and that point will be seen by USA voters. ..."
"... Any leader that lets a foreign nation, Britain, try to destroy his family, presidential campaign and now presidency by assembling and publishing a dirt dossier without response is a coward. If Trump wont stand up to Hillary Clinton, Theresa May, or any of the dossier conspirators, then he is useless. The USA voters see that no matter what the spin but the swing voters more than any other actually discriminate and make judgements based on actions ..."
"... They are in a quandary and only Trump can cement their support by going after the perpetrators NOW and telling the EU loonies like Britain and France to F off with their belligerent war mongering. I wouldn't count on it. ..."
Sep 22, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Sep 22, 2018 6:34:26 PM | 32

More notions on USA election so excuse a repeat post all. I figure an enormous number of voters reeled in horror at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton president and voted for Trump. Will that horror revert to more democrat support now?

Are those swing voters now uncertain if the $hillary will stage a come back. Nothing absolute has been stated and the demoncrats go through the motions of 'thinking about' another stooge like creepy Joe Biden. The USA is not liberated from the 'Clinton option' yet.

More to the point though is that repeatedly implied and sometimes stated 'certainty' that the DOJ/FBI under its new Trumpian management has a thousand grand jury indictments pending to be actioned in October or something. The Trumpers are certain that their hero is about to slay the many headed dragon and they have been anticipating that move for some time. Sure there appears to be sufficient evidence to draw and quarter a couple of seriously stupid clowns.

Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues. If Trump backs the British looneys in the UN security council in a day or two we can all be sure he is now a puppet on a British string and that point will be seen by USA voters.

Any leader that lets a foreign nation, Britain, try to destroy his family, presidential campaign and now presidency by assembling and publishing a dirt dossier without response is a coward. If Trump wont stand up to Hillary Clinton, Theresa May, or any of the dossier conspirators, then he is useless. The USA voters see that no matter what the spin but the swing voters more than any other actually discriminate and make judgements based on actions .

They are in a quandary and only Trump can cement their support by going after the perpetrators NOW and telling the EU loonies like Britain and France to F off with their belligerent war mongering. I wouldn't count on it.

[Sep 23, 2018] UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited Grave Concerns Over Steele Involvement

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Steele also had extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie, who - along with Steele - was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump called for the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly reveal more about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of Justice for lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS. ..."
"... Perhaps the Brits are also concerned since much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016 . Recall that Trump aid George Papadopoulos was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who Strzok flew to London to meet with). ..."
"... Papadopoulos accepted a flight to London and a $3,000 honorarium. He claims that during a meeting in London, Halper asked him whether he knew anything about Russian hacking of Democrats' emails. ..."
"... Papadopoulos had other contacts on British soil that he now believes were part of a government-sanctioned surveillance operation. - Daily Caller ..."
"... In total, Halper received over $1 million from the Obama Pentagon for "research," over $400,000 of which was granted before and during the 2016 election season. ..."
"... In short, it's understandable that the UK would prefer to hide their involvement in the "witch hunt" of Donald Trump since much of the counterintelligence investigation was conducted on UK soil. And if the Brits had knowledge of the operation, it will bolster claims that they meddled in the 2016 US election by assisting what appears to have been a set-up from the start . ..."
"... Steele's ham-handed dossier is a mere embarrassment, as virtually none of the claims asserted by the former MI6 agent have been proven true. ..."
"... Steele, a former MI6 agent, is the author of the infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier. He worked as a confidential human source for the FBI for years before the relationship was severed just before the election because of Steele's unauthorized contacts with the press. ..."
"... That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious. ..."
"... I find it interesting that the Theresa May Govt in UK has the temerity to interfere with US politics (until they got caught out!), yet can't find the spine to stand up to the EU. ..."
"... THE UNITED KINGDOM along with ISRAEL & SAUDI ARABIA have always been the ones behind US Politics making, pulling the strings behind the curtains since the Petrodollar Inception, The Greater Israel project & the NWO initiative - only this time around Trump was not the UK's pick... ..."
"... England dominates the offshore money laundering havens where the super rich hide their money and evade taxes. They need to be brought down. No more African dictators looting their nation's resources and hiding the money first in offshore banks and then in JP Morgan and Brit banks. ..."
"... It is a test. If Trump doesn't go ahead with declassification, we know for sure he is no better than the globalists and neocons whose goal has always been to destroy and depopulate America. ..."
"... 'focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious' ..."
"... Not at all. It's obvious - the problem ISN'T Steele. They're living in fear, as are many in DC and elsewhere, that Trump is going to pry the lid open and reveal at least some of their activities. If killing him would fix the problem, they would. It's too late, considering what Trump is threatening to do. I wonder if he'll back down, at least some? ..."
"... U.K. does not want the jurisdiction. U.S. spies lure you overseas then...compromise you. ..."
"... Duh. This Started In London! Britain is the "foreign country" involved in our elections. Wake up everyone. It's LONDONGATE ..."
"... May gonna owe Vlad an apology when Skripal is revealed to be Steele's source. Steele himself hadn't been to Russian in 15 years. Will he get life in prison for attempted murder? ..."
"... "t's hard to tell who's telling the truth and who isn't in this whole Russia narrative. Fact is, NOBODY is telling the truth. That is what I've determined after doing my own research.": https://youtu.be/2AA5BIfGj3g ..."
"... Trump made promises before being elected, then lied and sold America out, just like every other corrupted assklown politician. he is no different than clinton bush obama, just as arrogant, just as corrupt, and just as much a traitor. ..."
Sep 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited "Grave Concerns" Over Steele Involvement

by Tyler Durden Sun, 09/23/2018 - 11:15 4.6K SHARES

The British government "expressed grave concerns" to the US government over the declassification and release of material related to the Trump-Russia investigation, according to the New York Times . President Trump ordered a wide swath of materials "immediately" declassified "without redaction" on Monday, only to change his mind later in the week by allowing the DOJ Inspector General to review the materials first.

The Times reports that the UK's concern was over material which "includes direct references to conversations between American law enforcement officials and Christopher Steele," the former MI6 agent who compiled the infamous "Steele Dossier." The UK's objection, according to former US and British officials, was over revealing Steele's identity in an official document, "regardless of whether he had been named in press reports."

We would note, however, that Steele's name was contained within the Nunes Memo - the House Intelligence Committee's majority opinion in the Trump-Russia case.

Steele also had extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie, who - along with Steele - was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump called for the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly reveal more about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of Justice for lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS.

Perhaps the Brits are also concerned since much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016 . Recall that Trump aid George Papadopoulos was lured to London in March, 2016, where Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud fed him the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was later at a London bar that Papadopoulos would drunkenly pass the rumor to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer (who Strzok flew to London to meet with).

Also recall that CIA/FBI "informant" (spy) Stefan Halper met with both Carter Page and Papadopoulos in London.

Halper, a veteran of four Republican administrations, reached out to Trump aide George Papadopoulos in September 2016 with an offer to fly to London to write an academic paper on energy exploration in the Mediterranean Sea.

Papadopoulos accepted a flight to London and a $3,000 honorarium. He claims that during a meeting in London, Halper asked him whether he knew anything about Russian hacking of Democrats' emails.

Papadopoulos had other contacts on British soil that he now believes were part of a government-sanctioned surveillance operation. - Daily Caller

In total, Halper received over $1 million from the Obama Pentagon for "research," over $400,000 of which was granted before and during the 2016 election season.

In short, it's understandable that the UK would prefer to hide their involvement in the "witch hunt" of Donald Trump since much of the counterintelligence investigation was conducted on UK soil. And if the Brits had knowledge of the operation, it will bolster claims that they meddled in the 2016 US election by assisting what appears to have been a set-up from the start .

Steele's ham-handed dossier is a mere embarrassment, as virtually none of the claims asserted by the former MI6 agent have been proven true.

Steele, a former MI6 agent, is the author of the infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier. He worked as a confidential human source for the FBI for years before the relationship was severed just before the election because of Steele's unauthorized contacts with the press.

He shared results of his investigation into Trump's links to Russia with the FBI beginning in early July 2016.

The FBI relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier to fill out applications for four FISA warrants against Page. Page has denied the dossier's claims, which include that he was the Trump campaign's back channel to the Kremlin. - Daily Caller

That said, Steele hasn't worked for the British government since 2009, so for their excuse focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious.

StychoKiller , 54 minutes ago

I find it interesting that the Theresa May Govt in UK has the temerity to interfere with US politics (until they got caught out!), yet can't find the spine to stand up to the EU. If I were Trump, not only would the shoe be dropping re: UK Govt involvement in US politics, but said shoe would be making an imprint across her face! (stoopid twat!)

texantim , 1 hour ago

I say release the docs and put sanctions on UK.

BitchesBetterRecognize , 1 hour ago

So the Motherland ******* up with the ex-colony yet again, huh?

THE UNITED KINGDOM along with ISRAEL & SAUDI ARABIA have always been the ones behind US Politics making, pulling the strings behind the curtains since the Petrodollar Inception, The Greater Israel project & the NWO initiative - only this time around Trump was not the UK's pick...

Oh, but those "civilized" Allies backstabbing each other for more power grip on the USA....

Baron von Bud , 2 hours ago

England dominates the offshore money laundering havens where the super rich hide their money and evade taxes. They need to be brought down. No more African dictators looting their nation's resources and hiding the money first in offshore banks and then in JP Morgan and Brit banks.

Many hedge funds are deep into this game. I'd wager on Carlyle Group and the Bush clan. Billions of people can't get ahead because the super rich are ******* crooks running the banks and governments. They don't pay taxes but force a small dry cleaner to pay 45% in fed/state taxes. These criminals include Hillary Clinton and many members of congress. Feinstein, Pelosi, Maxine and many more of both parties need to be investigated. How do they get so rich on a congressman's salary. Deep into tax evasion and payoffs? Release the documents and let MI6 hang.

Malvern Joe , 3 hours ago

It is a test. If Trump doesn't go ahead with declassification, we know for sure he is no better than the globalists and neocons whose goal has always been to destroy and depopulate America. It would represent the biggest sellout of this country since the creation of the Fed in 1913, He will go down as the biggest fraud ever and his base will deport his *** to the sums of India where he can defecate in public.

Bricker , 3 hours ago

You dont get to supply a rogue agent, that was probably told to do it in the first place, and then tell Trump not to do it out of harm, harm is all you BRIT DEEP STATES deserve

Moving and Grooving , 3 hours ago

'focusing on the former MI6 agent while ignoring the multitude of events which occurred on UK soil, is curious'

Not at all. It's obvious - the problem ISN'T Steele. They're living in fear, as are many in DC and elsewhere, that Trump is going to pry the lid open and reveal at least some of their activities. If killing him would fix the problem, they would. It's too late, considering what Trump is threatening to do. I wonder if he'll back down, at least some?

The sheer corruption of the Global Government is on display here, revealing itself, if you watch for it. Whether planned or not, the last 6 months or so have been astonishing to watch. The entire media has been shown to be liars, academia is shown to be an expensive provider of unprepared students, the corporate world is furiously rent-seeking and finding new ways to destroy humanity, and government is too busy selling Americans out to write a budget. In all countries around the world, adjusting for national status. Lawsuits in the west, machetes in the third world.

Ban KKiller , 4 hours ago

U.K. does not want the jurisdiction. U.S. spies lure you overseas then...compromise you.

John C Durham , 4 hours ago

Duh. This Started In London! Britain is the "foreign country" involved in our elections. Wake up everyone. It's LONDONGATE .

Anunnaki , 4 hours ago

May gonna owe Vlad an apology when Skripal is revealed to be Steele's source. Steele himself hadn't been to Russian in 15 years. Will he get life in prison for attempted murder?

PeaceForWorld , 4 hours ago

"t's hard to tell who's telling the truth and who isn't in this whole Russia narrative. Fact is, NOBODY is telling the truth. That is what I've determined after doing my own research.": https://youtu.be/2AA5BIfGj3g

I really like this woman "Shut the **** up!". She is a former Bernie supporter just like me. She has turned against Democrats just like me. She doesn't trust any of the Establishment parties.

Buddha71 , 4 hours ago

Trump made promises before being elected, then lied and sold America out, just like every other corrupted assklown politician. he is no different than clinton bush obama, just as arrogant, just as corrupt, and just as much a traitor. he has broken the promises upon which he was elected, just like all the other fkn liars before him. no different. just a pos. he has not made america great again, just more of the same, unemployment is a lie, it is closer to 17%.

[Sep 16, 2018] Looks like the key players in Steele dossier were CIA assets

Highly recommended!
'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that a wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.
'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'
All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.
Notable quotes:
"... A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would seem to me unlikely that Steele was. ..."
"... And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely, without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims. ..."
"... But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts. ..."
"... It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also Christopher Steele and Alex Younger. ..."
"... It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation', while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM. ..."
"... My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate measures to cover their backsides. ..."
"... There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win. ..."
"... The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ. ..."
"... Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. ..."
"... Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. ..."
"... You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. ..."
"... Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's golf course in NJ. ..."
"... In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media personalities for a quid pro quo ..."
"... There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele. Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. ..."
"... At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience in spookdom. ..."
"... I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time. ..."
"... I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised" mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop? ..."
"... I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers. ..."
"... I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media, the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump. Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class. ..."
"... I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history' crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing. ..."
"... In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not binding on the elect. ..."
"... It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse. ..."
"... 'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.' ..."
"... And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain, or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities. ..."
"... So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources, and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin. ..."
"... All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko. ..."
"... All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele. ..."
"... Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017. ..."
"... That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins. ..."
"... To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ. ..."
"... I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner will be very interesting to pursue. ..."
"... The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice. ..."
"... No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's good friend Benjamin Wittes. ..."
"... In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.' ..."
"... Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest' an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See https://nationalinterest.or... .) ..."
"... Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology of Eastward Turn.' ..."
"... I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me, are global. ..."
"... I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and that was that. ..."
"... Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically? If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains? What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their racket? ..."
"... It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated? Was each element separate? ..."
"... Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents. ..."
"... The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was acting as an agent of MI6. ..."
"... An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core. ..."
"... It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor at Orbis and Hakluyt.' ..."
"... That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove. When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries. ..."
"... In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was read. ..."
"... Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it. ..."
"... At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public. ..."
"... Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins. ..."
"... My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it. ..."
"... So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him. ..."
"... 'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgűls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ and state.' ..."
"... This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.' ..."
"... In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards', to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version, the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia. ..."
"... Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism – makes clear it is justified. ..."
"... Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost of Boris Berezovsky. ..."
"... But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption. ..."
"... The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.' ..."
"... One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report" to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy. ..."
"... I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion was undermined. ..."
"... Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before the election ..."
"... Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate. ..."
"... Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him ..."
"... One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.) ..."
"... I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about the legal ramifications. ..."
"... This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant or fan the media flames. ..."
"... I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS. ..."
"... I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms. ..."
"... If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury. ..."
Aug 23, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

My strong impression is that nobody on the British side vetted the dossier for publication. A striking feature of the early news coverage is that there appeared to be total confusion, with some of the reporting suggesting that the sources quoted wanted to hang him out to dry, others that they wanted to defend him.

An interesting aspect is that not only were anonymous sources linked to MI6 quoted on both sides of the argument -- which could have been explained by disagreements within the organisation: in different stories, not however far apart in date, its head, Sir Alex Younger, was portrayed as holding radically different views.

When CNN publicised the existence of the dossier on 10 January 2017, the same day that it was published by 'BuzzFeed', it suggested that the author was British. The following day, the WSJ named Steele.

On 13 January, Martin Robinson, UK Chief Reporter for 'Mail Online', published a report whose headlines seem worth quoting in full:

'I introduced him to my wife as James Bond': Former spy Chris Steele's friends describe a "show-off" 007 figure but MI6 bosses brand him "an idiot" for an "appalling lack of judgement" over the Trump "dirty dossier": Intelligence expert Nigel West says friend is like Ian Fleming's famous character; He said: "He's James Bond. I actually introduced him to my wife as James Bond'; Mr West says Steele dislikes Putin and Kremlin for ignoring rules of espionage; Angry spy source calls him 'idiot' and blasts decision to take on the Trump work; Current MI6 boss Sir Alex Younger is said to be livid about reputation damage.'

(See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/... . )

On 15 January, however, Kim Sengupta, Defence Editor of the 'Independent', produced a report headlined: 'Head of MI6 used information from Trump dossier in first public speech; Warnings on cyberattacks show ex-spy's work is respected.'

(See https://www.independent.co.... .)

A great deal of evidence, I think, suggests that practically all those involved in 'Russiagate' were caught totally unprepared by Trump's victory, that they then went rushing around like headless chickens, and that part of this process involved a decision being taken to publish the dossier, without consulting British intelligence. If people like Younger were not consulted, then it would seem to me unlikely that Steele was.

This leads me on to another puzzle about the dossier to which I have been having a difficulty finding a solution. Long years ago I was reasonably familiar with libel law in relation to journalism. Anyone who 'served indentures', as very many of us did in those days, had to study it. Later, I got involved in a protracted libel suit -- successfully, I hasten to add -- in relation to a programme I made, and had the sobering experience of having a top-class libel barrister requiring me to justify every assertion I had made.

In the jargon then, a crucial question when an article, or programme, was being 'vetted' before publication was whether it represented a 'fair business risk.' This involved both the technical legal issues, and also judgements as to whether people were likely to sue, and how if they did the case would be likely to pan out.

On the face of things, one would not have expected that people at 'BuzzFeed' would have gone ahead and make the dossier public, without having it 'vetted' by competent lawyers. And I have difficulty seeing how, if they did, the advice could have been to publish what they published.

I have some difficulty seeing how the advice could have been to include the memorandum with the claims about the Alfa Group oligarchs, unless either these could be seriously defended or it was assumed that contesting them effectively would involve revealing more 'dirty linen' than these wanted to see aired in public.

And I have immense difficulty seeing how any competent media lawyer would not have recommended, at the minimum, the redaction of the names of Aleksej Gubarev and his company from the final December 2016 memorandum. This would have made legal action unlikely, without greatly diminishing the effect of the claims.

Trying to make sense of why such an obvious precaution was not taken, I find myself wondering whether, in fact, the reason may have been that the people responsible for the dossier may have actually believed this part of it at least.

If that is so, however, the most plausible explanation I can see is that while other claims in the dossier may well be total fabrication, either by the people at Fusion and Steele or by some of their questionable contacts, this information at least did come from what Glenn Simpson, Nellie Ohr et al thought were reliable Russian government sources.

But if this was so, and if what they thought was accurate information was actually disinformation, the likely conduit would not have been through Steele, but from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts.

I think that the cases involving Karim Baratov and Dmitri Dokuchaev and his colleagues may be much more complex than is apparent from what looks to me like patent disinformation put out both on the Western and Russian sides.

It it is I think material that intelligence agencies commonly include a great variety of people, ranging from very able analysts and operators to complete dolts. So, the CIA has employed both Philip Giraldi and John Brennan, MI6 both Alastair Crooke and also Christopher Steele and Alex Younger.

It is however somewhat revealing that one now finds Giraldi and Crooke appearing on a Russian site, 'Strategic Culture Foundation', while Brennan and Younger are treated as authoritative figures by the MSM.

If you want to get a clear picture of quite how low-grade the latter figure is, incidentally, it is worth looking at the speech to which Kim Sengupta refers.

(See https://www.sis.gov.uk/medi... .)

A favourite line of mine comes in Younger's discussion of the -- actually largely mythical -- notion of 'hybrid warfare': 'In this arena, our opponents are often states whose very survival owes to the strength of their security capabilities; the work is complex and risky, often with the full weight of the State seeking to root us out.'

Leaving aside the fact that this is borderline illiterate, what it amazing is Younger's apparent blindness to clearly unintended implications of what he writes. If indeed, the 'very survival' of the Russian state 'owes to the strength of [its] security capabilities', the conclusions, seen from a Russian point of view, would seem rather obvious: vote Putin, and give medals to Patrushev and Bortnikov.

My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort to desperate measures to cover their backsides.

Posted at 01:19 PM in Habakkuk , Intelligence | Permalink

Jack , 4 days ago

David

There are many aspects to this story that don't make any sense to me if one looks at it from a rational perspective. One of course being concerns about libel litigation and the related legal discovery that you note. The second being no real contingency planning in the event Hillary loses the election. Admittedly they must have bought the media line and Nate Silver's forecast of a greater than 75% probability of a Hillary win.

The purported "arms length" relationships don't make any sense. There's Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson playing a central role. They hire Nellie Ohr, a possible CIA asset and the wife of Bruce Ohr, the 4th highest ranking official at the DOJ.

Glenn Simpson also hires Christopher Steele who he knows from previous "spook" associations. Steele had numerous and continuous communications including telephone, Skype, email and personal meetings with Bruce and Nellie Ohr during all this. They even have discussions about Deripaska and about his visa application to visit the US. Bruce is a conduit to Strzok at FBI. Glenn Simpson also is part of these discussions with Steele and the Ohrs.

Simpson also arranges for Steele to brief "reporters" like David Corn and others at the NY Times, WaPo, WSJ, Politico and others. Then there is Mifsud and Halper. Apparently both are CIA and FBI assets. They are communicating with Carter Page and Papadopolous, who in turn is drinking and yapping with Aussie ambassador Downer.

You have Brennan ginning up concerns giving super secret and individual briefings to the Gang of 8 in Congress. There's Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the minority leader on the Senate Intelligence Committee texting and calling Adam Waldman, Deripaska's US attorney about setting up clandestine meetings with Steele. There's Sen. Harry Reid passing on the Steele "dossier" to Comey.

Not to be left behind there's Sen. McCain doing the same. His top aide even travels to London to meet Steele. And then there's Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page busily spending every waking moment texting each other about every twist and turn in all the political games being played. Of course there's Admiral Rogers investigating unusual searches by FBI officials and contractors on the NSA database. And he briefs President-elect Trump at Trump Tower which prompts the entire transition team to move to Trump's golf course in NJ.

Oh, there is also Nellie Ohr setting up ham radio to avoid detection in her communications with Steele. Then we have everyone leaking and spinning to their "cohorts" in the premier media like the NY Times, CNN and WaPo.

Comey even has his buddy a professor and ostensibly his legal counsel on the payroll of the FBI as a contractor with access to all the sensitive databases leaking to the media.

Andy McCabe has his legal counsel Lisa Page spin stories around his wife's huge campaign contributions from Clinton consigliere McAuliffe.

In fact the IG report on the Clinton "investigation" states that many at the FBI were accepting "gifts" from various media personalities for a quid pro quo.

As if all this was not enough there's AG Loretta Lynch, meeting with Bill Clinton on a tarmac ostensibly to discuss their grandkids. Not to forget there were these "unmaskings" of surveillance information by Susan Rice, Samantha Power.

There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele. Of course he knew nothing but signed the FISA application on Carter Page. Then there are the FISC judges who never believed their mandate required them to verify the evidence before issuing sweeping surveillance warrants. Now all this is what I as an old farmer and winemaker have read. Those more in tune would easily add to these convoluted machinations.

I don't know how to make sense of all this. All I see is the extent of effort to prevent Donald Trump from being elected and after he won from governing. The most obvious observation is that the leadership in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies are so busy politicking spinning and leaking they have neither the time or the inclination let alone competence to do their real job for which they get paid a handsome wage and sterling benefits.

At this point I don't buy that Christopher Steele dug up real intelligence from his contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government, which caught Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Lynch's pants on fire, who then launched a formal investigation of Russia collusion with Trump. Many things just don't pass the smell test. Now of course I have no qualifications nor experience in spookdom.

If you have any speculative theories that connects some of the dots it would be my great pleasure to read.

Patrick Armstrong -> Jack , 3 days ago

I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time.

Confident that their horse is going to win the race and that the media will cover it all up and nobody will ever hear anything about anything. Now that the unexpected happened, they're just spinning and denying faster hoping the Dems win in Nov and stop all the investigations. And, they're getting nervous wondering who's going to sell out whom next. Up and down, around and around. Gerbils -- there really isn't anything very consistent, planned or thought-out.

In this respect, this piece attempts to make sense (on a very large scale) of their panic. https://www.strategic-cultu...

English Outsider -> Patrick Armstrong , a day ago

"I agree that it (and Skripalmania) are almost impossible to make sense of unless you think of a bunch of highly politicised not very bright people sinking deeper and deeper into what looked like a bright idea at the time."

I believe your summary of what's happening is more accurate than Alastair Crooke's as set out in the article linked to.

But bright or not, what are these people in the IC doing being "highly politicised"? Does that not render them considerably less efficient?

I ask because, if one tries to look at it in a non-partisan way, the Western IC seemed to be a failure when it came to predicting Russian reactions in the Donbass, the Crimea, and it seems in Syria. I link this to various comments from Colonel Lang indicating that true experts were replaced over the years by less experienced and knowledgeable people. Does being "highly politicised" mean that they're not up to much when it comes to minding the shop?

Patrick Armstrong -> English Outsider , 5 hours ago

I thought I detected a protest against the politicisation of the US in the world some years ago. And we must not forget that Gen Flynn (DIA) and Adm Rogers (NSA) acted strongly against this. Flynn was the first casualty of the Trump/Russia hysteria and the Clapper claque tried to fire Rogers.

https://russia-insider.com/...

Jack -> Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Patrick

Usually the incumbent party loses the mid-term election. The Democrats lost big in Obama's first mid-term. The Republicans won the House and gained six senators. While the punditry claims a Blue Wave and Nate Silver is giving the Dems the odds. I'm not so sure. I think the GOP will increase their majority in the Senate putting any conviction of Trump out of question.

I was born in the Depression and have seen vitriolic politics but never have seen such a massive opposition by the media, the pundits and the establishment of both parties. Over 500 print publications endorsed Hillary. Only some 20 endorsed Trump. Yet he confounds the pundits by winning the election. Clearly many voters are at odds with the political media class.

Patrick Armstrong -> Jack , 2 days ago

Yeah. My bet is that the Repubs hold onto both. 1) the economy is getting better 2) what do the Dems have to offer other than this crazy Trump/Russia thing?

Rob -> Patrick Armstrong , a day ago

Economy will slow down sharply in 2019 but there should be enough momentum to help with the mid-terms. Trump needs to stop with the endless sanction stuff. The House does look like a close one.

Pat Lang Mod -> Rob , a day ago

what is the evidence for a slowdown in 2019?

Rob -> Pat Lang , a day ago

With all the caveats that apply to financial forecasting copper, monetary indicators and equity markets are all flagging a slowdown is upon us.

David Habakkuk -> Jack , 3 days ago

Jack,

At a very general level, a 'speculative theory' which I have been mulling over for some time was rather well set out in a commentary in 'The Hill' on 9 August by Sharyl Attkisson, which opens:

'Let's begin in the realm of the fanciful.

'Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the intelligence community and in politics worried that a wildcard Trump presidency, unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable practices. Disrupt long-established money channels. Reveal secret machinations that could arguably land some people in prison.

'What exactly might an "insurance policy" against Donald Trump look like?'

And Attkisson goes on to outline precisely the developments that appear to have happened.

(See http://thehill.com/opinion/... .)

I think there is an ideological background to this, on which the piece by Alastair Crooke – himself former MI6 – to which Patrick Armstrong links, and the piece by James George Jatras to which Crooke links, are both to the point. The 'end of history' crowd thought they were inhabiting a realised utopia, and cannot cope with the fact that their dream is collapsing.

In relation to the millenarian undercurrents on which Crooke focuses, however, it is also worth noting that a traditional conservative suspicion has been that millenarianism is naturally linked to antinomianism: the belief that the moral law is not binding on the elect. And in turn, according to a familiar skeptical view, antinomianism can easily end up in in straightforward rascality.

On the rascality – to which Attkisson is pointing – I am working on how parts of the picture can be fleshed out. A few preliminary points raised by your remarks.

As you note, 'There's Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr's direct boss who testifies he knew nothing about Ohr being a conduit to Strzok for Steele.' So, we know that Ohr and Steele were conspiring together to ensure that the latter could continue to be intimately involved in the Mueller investigation, despite the FBI termination,

It is obviously possible that Ohr did not report up the chain of command, and if so, he and his wife become pivotal figures in the conspiracy. Alternatively, it could be that Rosenstein is lying – in which case, we have large questions about who else is implicated, and specifically whether the termination of Steele by the FBI was anything more than a ruse.

If, as seems to me likely, although not certain, the second possibility is closer to the truth than the former, then before Ohr testifies on 28 August before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees he will have to consider whether he is prepared to 'take the rap' for his superiors, or 'sing sweetly.'

The fact that in a report in 'The Hill', I think on the same day as the Attkisson piece, John Solomon was quoting from Ohr's handwritten notes of a meeting with Glenn Simpson in December 2016 makes me wonder whether he may not already have made a decision. A key paragraph from the report:

'Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. "Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.," Ohr scribbled in his notes.'

(See http://thehill.com/hilltv/r... .)

There is I think a need for caution here. There is no guarantee that Simpson was telling the literal truth to Ohr, or indeed the latter reproducing with absolute accuracy with he was told (handwritten notes can be disposed of easily, but they can also be rewritten.)

One is I think on firmer ground in relation to what it suggests was not the case – that there is any substance whatsoever in the ludicrous story of someone running a private security company in London sending out hired employees who then gain access to top Kremlin insiders, with these, of course, telling them precisely what they actually think.

And it confirms my strong suspicion that the dossier is actually a composite product, much of it assembled at Fusion, which could indeed contain material from a range of people from the former Soviet space, who could living in the United States, Britain, or elsewhere – Ukraine and the Baltics being obvious possibilities.

So Sergei Skripal and Sergei Millian, neither of whom fit the description by Simpson, have been mentioned as possible sources, and there is also the very curiously ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin.

All these people, obviously, could simply have fabricated material or retailed gossip, and Steele himself was involved in fabricating material on an industrial scale to cover up what actually happened to Alexander Litvinenko.

That said, I continue to think it possible that both the second and final memoranda may incorporate some 'glitter', as well as 'chickenfeed' fed from FSB cybersecurity people to their FBI counterparts, to hark back to George Smiley says to the Minister, quite possibly included in the hope that the BS involved would be reproduced in contexts where it could provoke legal action.

All this leads me back to the suspicion that Steele's involvement may have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with Steele.

It could then be that Steele has been, in effect, hoist with his own petard, in that he is having to sustain the fiction that he had some kind of grounds for making the claims about Aleksej Gubarev and XBT. How far this matters, at least in relation to the action bought against 'BuzzFeed' in Florida, remains moot at the moment.

Apparently that organisation is doing rather well in sustaining the claiming that 'fair report privilege' could circumvent any requirement to prove truth – and a key question now is whether documents which the DOJ is being forced to produce will establish that the dossier was being used by officials in ways that would trigger the privilege as of 10 January 2017.

That said, what Ohr reports Simpson as telling him raises fundamental questions about how anyone could have relied upon the dossier for anything – and should push people back to actually asking hard questions about its origins.

fanto -> David Habakkuk , 2 days ago

Mr Habakkuk, you mention "ambiguous role of Rinat Akhmetshin" - I am not sure if you meant Akhmetov.

I am surprised and curious about you mentioning him - if you meant Akhmetov - because that is one name among all the oligarchs which has so far not been prominent. Thank you for your posts, these posts and the SST comments could and should serve as help to the congressional investigations and hearings.

blue peacock -> Jack , 4 days ago

Jack

To add: Steele was on the FBI's payroll, in addition to being on Fusion GPS's payroll. And on the payroll of Her Majesty's Government. After he got caught leaking to the media he was apparently "fired" by the FBI. But he was continuing to communicate and brief through Bruce Ohr at the DOJ.

I think the circle of Glenn Simpson. Chris Steele, Bruce & Nellie Ohr, Adam Waldman. Peter Strzok, and Sen. Mark Warner will be very interesting to pursue.

The other circle that should be investigated is the Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Comey, Yates, Susan Rice.

No investigation can exclude the active participation of key people from the media complex including people like Comey's good friend Benjamin Wittes.

Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Younger isn't the brightest bulb in the box, is he?

"If you doubt the link between legitimacy and effective counter-terrorism, then – albeit negatively – the unfolding tragedy in Syria will, I fear, provide proof. I believe the Russian conduct in Syria, allied with that of Assad's discredited regime, will, if they do not change course, provide a tragic example of the perils of forfeiting legitimacy. In defining as a terrorist anyone who opposes a brutal government, they alienate precisely that group that has to be on side if the extremists are to be defeated. Meanwhile, in Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace. The human tragedy is heart-breaking"

David Habakkuk -> Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Patrick,

Those were indeed some of the most inane comments in an inane piece.

But then, if you read an interview given to Jay Elwes of 'Prospect' magazine in May last year by Younger's predecessor Sir Richard Dearlove, who looks to have been a significant background presence in what has been going on, you will find that, although he is much more coherent than than his successor, it is almost as inane.

(See https://www.prospectmagazin... . )

As it happens, Dearlove was one of the signatories of the 'Statement of Principles' of something called the 'Henry Jackson Society.'

This was founded in 2005, in Cambridge, by a group in whom acolytes of an historian called Maurice Cowling were prominent – Dearlove is himself a graduate in history from that university.

In its original version, the 'Statement of Principles' explained, among other things, that the Society: 'Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organization which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.'

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... .)

Ironically, it was shortly after the publication of the dossier that Anatol Lieven published in the 'National Interest' an article entitled 'Is America Becoming a Third World Country?' (See https://nationalinterest.or... .)

Among other things, he harked back to the way that, in 1648, a century and a half of bloody ideological strife in Europe had been ended with a recognition that the legitimacy of different state forms had to be accepted, if a kind of 'war of all against all' was to be avoided.

And Lieven went on to reflect on the way that, at what was then widely seen as the end of the Cold War, the abandonment of universalisitic pretensions by Russia and China was interpreted as justifying an embrace of these by the the West.

This, he went on to argue, had actually had the paradoxical effect of relegitimising 'régimes' which do not conform to Western 'democratic' models, concluding by noting what appears to our new, quasi-Soviet, preference for not letting experience interfere with ideological dogma:

'Finally – even after the catastrophes of Iraq and Libya – there is almost no awareness among US policymakers of the fact that US attempts to change the regimes of other countries are likely to be seen not only by the elites of those countries but also by their populations as leading to – and intended to lead to – the destruction of the state itself, leading to disaster for its society and population. When the Communist regime in the USSR collapsed (though only in part under Western pressure), it took the Soviet state with it. The Russian state came close to following suit in the years that followed, Russia was reduced to impotence on the world stage, and large parts of the Russian and other populations suffered economic and social disaster. Remembering their own past experiences with state collapse, warlordism, famine and foreign invasion, Chinese people looked at this awful spectacle and huddled closer to the Chinese state – one that they may dislike in many ways, but which they certainly trust more than anything America has to offer – especially given the apparent decay of democracy throughout the West.'

( https://nationalinterest.or... .)

I read with interest your piece back in June entitled 'Putin Once Dreamed the American Dream', reprinting Charles Heberle's account of the 'Transforming Subjects Into Citizens' project, and the attitude of some people close to Putin to it.

(See https://patrickarmstrong.ca... .)

One of the things which struck me was that the question why the American Revolution succeeded, and so many others failed, which was concerning the intellectuals to whom Heberle talked, is one of the central questions of modern political thought, from Tocqueville on.

(Indeed, the question of the preconditions for what might be called 'constitutional' government, has been central to 'republican' thought, ever since it was revived by Italian thinkers, including prominently Machiavelli, when the 'Renaissance' made them reactivate and rework debates from ancient Rome and Greece.)

However, to hark back to the anxieties expressed by Lieven, nothing in the analysis of the great French thinker necessary guarantees that the success of 'Democracy in America' is stable and permanent, or indeed that the relatively civilised order of the post-war 'Pax Americana' is necessarily durable in Western Europe.

Also in June, Sergei Karaganov published a piece in 'Russia in Global Affairs', of which he is publisher, entitled 'Ideology of Eastward Turn.' A paragraph that struck me:

'Russian society should by no means abdicate from its mostly European culture. But it should certainly stop being afraid, let alone feel ashamed, of its Asianism. It should be remembered that from the standpoint of prevailing social mentality and society's attitude to the authorities Russia, just as China and many other Asian states, are offspring of Chengiss Khan's Empire. This is no reason for throwing up hands in despair or for beginning to despise one's own people, contrary to what many members of intelligencia sometimes do. It should be accepted as a fact of life and used as a strength. The more so, since amid the harsh competitive environment of the modern world the authoritarian type of government – in the context of a market economy and equitable military potentials – is certainly far more effective than modern democracy. This is what our Western partners find so worrisome. Of course, we should bear in mind that authoritarianism – just like democracy – may lead to stagnation and degradation. Russia is certainly confronted with such a risk.'

Unlike you, I cannot claim serious expertise on Russia. But, as a reasonably alert generalist television current affairs producer, I took note of the indications which were emerging in the course of 1987 that the Gorbachev 'new thinking' was underpinned by a realisation that Soviet institutions and ideas had become fundamentally dysfunctional, to which you have referred repeatedly over the years.

And, after long tedious months trying interest the powers that were in British broadcasting in what was happening, I ended up producing a couple of programmes for BBC Radio in February/March 1989 in which we interviewed some of the leading 'new thinkers', among them Karaganov's then immediate superior at the Institute of Europe, Vitaly Zhurkin.

At the Institute for the USA and Canada, by contrast, we did not interview its head, Georgiy Arbatov, but his deputy, Andrei Kokoshin, and one of the latter's mentors on military matters and collaborators General-Mayor Valentin Larionov, who I later realised had earlier been one of the foremost Soviet nuclear strategists. (At the Institute for World Economy and International Relations, we interviewed Arbatov's son, Alexei.)

Talking to these people we got a sense, although it had to be fleshed out later, of the scale of the disillusion with Soviet models, and indeed – which began to frighten me not long after – of the way many of them were romanticising the West.

What Karaganov now writes is I think a hardly very surprising reaction to the way that the Western powers responded to the 'new thinking.' Moreover, it seems to me that the disillusionment involved is in no sense particular Russian, but rather global.

If one regards 'democracy' as though it were quoted on the stock exchange, before 1914 there were very many buyers, including among the Russian élite. By 1931, in very many places, including large sections of the 'intelligentsia' in Western countries, it was a sellers' market, to put it mildly.

After 1945, a kind of long 'bull market' in 'democracy' started: for very good reasons.

The – largely but very far from entirely – peaceful retreat and collapse of Soviet power was to a very significant extent the product of this. The subsequent behaviour of Western élites has generated a vicious 'bear market', a fact they appear unable to understand.

I do not think Karaganov's article is simply a reflection of changes in Russian attitudes. The changes, it seems to me, are global.

Patrick Armstrong -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

I do think that we in the West really blew it. In 1990, we could have said, in all humility, that our way of life (IMO the key word is pluralism) had proven more survivable. So we should welcome the others into the tent. Instead, we were right and that was that.

PS, in light of the Henry Jackson society and all Younger's references to "values" this one rather stands out "A vital lesson I take from the Chilcot Report is the danger of group think."

Yeah. Group think, the very opposite of what I mean by pluralism.

Jack -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

David,

Sharyl Atkinson describes well the conspiracy. When one steps back and look at all the machinations we know now, it seems incredible.

Just as you're asking about the origins of the dossier I wonder if it was orchestrated or something that evolved organically? If it was orchestrated, then who was the mastermind? Did Brennan, Clapper and Come sit down and hatch it or was Simpson the brains? What is astounding is the scale. So many people involved. Were they all motivated by ideology or by the need to protect their racket?

It seems there are many sub-plots. There's the Deripaska, Steele, Waldman, Mueller, Sen. Warner angle. Then there's the Simpson, Steele, Ohr, Strzok, Page, McCabe angle. There's also the Simpson, Steele, media reporters angle. Then there's the whole Mifsud, Halper, Carter Page, Papadopolous, Downer bit. There's the Comey, Rosenstein, Yates, Strzok FISA application piece. Then there's all the stuff happening in the UK including Hannigan's resignation as soon as Trump is elected. Of course the whole Mueller appointment and the obstruction of justice thread to tie Trump's hand. There are so many elements. Who initiated and coordinated? Was each element separate?

There's no doubt a political thriller movie could be made.

FB -> Patrick Armstrong , 3 days ago

Thanks for the quote...LOL

I guess the comedy part is that there actually exist people with medically functioning brains, who are somehow able to contort such a worldview...Aleppo as peaceful 'desert' indeed...who knew that having bearded fanatics in charge is somehow 'better'...[and not 'heart-breaking']...

Michael Regan , 2 days ago

Some here may find blogpost from March of this year interesting as it speaks to the production of the Steele dossier. I have not seen it mentioned here before and a site search produced no results. https://apelbaum.wordpress.... Some sections seem to have gotten David Cay Johnston's hackles up.

David Habakkuk -> Michael Regan , a day ago

Michael Regan,

I had seen Yaacov Apelbaum's piece referred to by Clarice Feldman in a post on the 'American Thinker' site a few days back, but not looked at it properly.

It is indeed fascinating, and clearly repays a closer study than I have so far had time to give it. I was however relieved to find that what Apelbaum writes 'meshes' quite well with my own views of the likely authorship of the dossier.

A question I have is whether the monumental amount of labour involved in producing it can really be the work of a single IT person – however wide-ranging his abilities and interests. My suspicion is that there may be input from Russian intelligence.

This is not said in order to discredit Apelbaum's work. In matters where I have had occasion critically to examine claims from official Russian sources, I have found several unsurprising, but recurring, patterns. Sometimes, the information provided can be shown to be essentially accurate, and it is reasonably clear how it has been obtained.

At other times, claims are made which information from other sources suggests either are, or may well be, true, but the 'sources and methods' involved are deliberately obscured, making evaluation more difficult.

And then, there are many occasions when what one gets is quite patently a mixture of accurate information and disinformation. Analysing these can be very productive, if one can both sift out the accurate information, and attempt to see what the disinformation is designed to obscure.

One thing of which I am absolutely certain is that the networks which are outlined by Apelbaum are precisely those which Russian intelligence will have spent a great deal of time and ingenuity penetrating.

This will have been attempted by 'SIGINT' and surveillance methods, and also through infiltrating agents and turning people. (There are often grounds to suspect that some of those most vociferously denouncing Putin are colluding with Russian intelligence.)

Together, these methods are likely to have produced a mass of information. It is important to remember, for example, that at the time of his mysterious death on 23 March 2013 Boris Berezovsky was negotiating to return to Russia, and that his head of security, Sergei Sokolov did return, with a 'cache' of documents.

Some of these were used back in April 2016 in a 'Vesti Nedeli' edition presented by Dmitry Kiselyov, who manages Russia's informational programming resources, and an accompanying documentary on the 'Pervyi Kanal' station.

The purpose was to demonstrate that Alexei Navalny was the instrument of a 'régime change' plot in which William Browder was acting as an agent of MI6.

There is a good discussion of this, which highlights some of the problems with the documents, by Gilbert Doctorow, and Sokolov appears to have been involved in some murky activities since.

(See https://russia-insider.com/... ; https://en.crimerussia.com/... .)

But whatever the credibility or lack of it of the material, its appearance illustrates a general pattern, where the political disintegration of the London-based opposition to Putin has meant that more and more people involved in it have been supplying information to the Russians.

If, as I strongly suspect, there is fire beneath the smoke in those Russian television programmes, and if a great part of a series of projects of a related kind orchestrated in conjunction by elements in American and British intelligence were actually large run from this side, this will be creating headaches for people in Washington, as well as London.

An important role in the Apelbaum piece is played by the private security company Hakluyt. A quick look at the entries on Wikipedia and Powerbase will make clear that, if there is a British 'deep state', this is likely to be at its core.

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... ; http://powerbase.info/index... .)

It is against this background that on has to see a specific claim which Apelbaum makes, for which I do not think any evidence is produced, about two figures whose role in 'Russiagate' is clearly central. So Luke Harding is described as 'A Guardian reporter and a Hakluyt and Orbis contractor' (note word.) Meanwhile, Edward Baumgartner is described as 'Co-founder of Edward Austin. Contractor at Orbis and Hakluyt.'

That Harding is corrupt, as also Sir Robert Owen's 'Inquiry' into the death of the late Alexander Litvinenko, I can prove. When Owen's report was published in January 2016, a preliminary response by me was posted here on SST, which among other things listed some of the evidence establishing that the interviews supposedly recorded with Litvinenko by Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt immediately before his death were blatant forgeries.

If this is the case, then questions are raised about how much of the apparently compelling forensic evidence is forged – and close examination suggests that key parts of it are.

(See http://turcopolier.typepad.... .)

In relation to that part of the evidence discussed in my January 2016 post which exposes the fumbling attempts by Steele and his colleagues to cover up the truth about when and how Litvinenko travelled into central London on the day he was supposedly killed, most of this had been among a mass of material submitted by me to the Inquiry Team, which I have e-mails to prove was read.

Likewise, also in January 2016, I sent the key relevant evidence on this crucial matter to Harding and senior figures at the 'Guardian', and have reason to believe it was read.

Further study of Owen's report has confirmed my suspicion that a strong 'prima facie case' of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice exists against very many of those involved in it.

At the same time, materials produced on the Russian side have confirmed my suspicion that the reason why Steele and others have been able to get away with their cover-up is that the Russian intelligence services are no more enthusiastic than their British counterparts about having anything like the whole truth about how Litvinenko lived and died made public.

Given the central role which Steele has now assumed in what looks like one of the biggest political scandals in American history, and the fact that in his book 'Collusion' Harding was again coming out in support of him, it would be of the greatest possible interest if indeed the latter had combined being a senior 'Guardian' correspondent with being paid by both Orbis and – even more important – Hakluyt.

And, particularly given the peculiar ambiguities of the role both of Fusion GPS and Baumgartner in the 'Trump Tower' meeting, it would be of great interest if the latter could be tied not only to Fusion, but to Orbis and – again even more important – Hakluyt.

This in turn might be relevant in trying to make sense of whether the fact that he and Simpson appear to have been working against Trump and Browder at the same time was or was not part of an elaborate ploy to give credibility to 'information operations' against the former.

There are accordingly two possibilities. It may be that, while much else in the Apelbaum material can be shown to be accurate, such accurate information is being used to give credibility to disinformation.

Alternatively, he is being used as a conduit for accurate and really explosive information about the British end of 'Russiagate', which he is unlikely to have unearthed all by himself, and the actual sources of which are – for very understandable reasons – being obscured.

Michael Regan -> David Habakkuk , a day ago

Mr Habakkuk-

Thank you for your reply. You have given me much to think about and I am very grateful that you took the time to respond in such a comprehensive manner, and that you have provided me and others here with some really compelling information and notions.

In particular, the issue of sources and methods you note seems spot on. The author(s)'s information gathering methodologies and expertise are certainly not those of the laiety. In fact in the comments below his post YA mentions intelligence work.

Additionally, the text itself displays an odd parallelism with his assertion regarding the Steele Dossier- that is, the likelihood of multiple authors, of diverse origins.

One thing that did catch my eye was a response he made to David Cay Johnston's pissy request for a retraction about Jacoby involvement. YA included a quote in Latin from Cicero's accusations against Cataline. Here is the English: What is there that you did last night, what the night before -- where is it that you were -- who was there that you summoned to meet you -- what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?

While this sort of riposte isn't exactly hyper-erudite, it ain't chopped liver either. What I mean to say is that exceptional cyber skills, algorithm coding (I'm guessing crawlers) are not commonly coupled with that sort of classical formation. His recourse to various biblical quotes suggests an unusual level of education as well. And no way is he younger than 38 or so.

At any rate, thank you for the article and your kind and informative reply.

David Habakkuk -> Michael Regan , a day ago

Michael Regan,

Thanks. I have now read both a good few of Apelbaum's earlier posts, and also the comments on his discussion of the dossier. Given the importance of his analysis of that document closer study is clearly needed of all this material, but I have some preliminary reactions.

My curiosity about who Apelbaum might be is reinforced by the fact that the intimations he gives about his background in his responses to comments, while not incompatible with what he has said in the past, do not sit so easily with it.

In a July 2010 post, he explained that: 'In my previous life, I was a civil engineer. I worked for a large power marine construction company doing structural design and field engineering.' According to the account he gave then, he subsequently shifted to software development.

(See https://apelbaum.wordpress.... .)

What he now tells us is that: 'As far as how I first started, I do have an intelligence background and have been developing OSINT/cyber/intelligence platforms for many years.'

That makes sense in terms of the analysis, which – whatever other inputs there may or may not have been – looks to me like the work of someone who has a serious background in these kinds of methodology, and moreover, is clearly not any kind of 'Fachidiot.'

So, questions naturally arise about Apelbaum's intelligence career, in particular, who he is likely to have been employed by, and associated with, in the past, and whether he is still involved with any of those agencies which have employed him.

Even if he is not, questions would obviously rise about present connections arising from past work. This is in addition to the possibility that the logic of events may have provoked him to collaborate with those who might earlier have been his adversaries.

Reading Apelbaum's work, I am reminded of another interesting intervention in an embittered argument relating to the Middle East and the post-Soviet space, from what turned out to be an unexpected source.

In the period following the 'false flag' sarin attack at Ghouta on 21 August 2013 an incisive demolition of the conventional wisdom was provided in the 'crowdsourced' investigation masterminded by one 'sasa wawa' on a site entitled 'Who Attacked Ghouta?'

(See http://whoghouta.blogspot.com .)

And then, in December 2016, an Israeli high technology entrepreneur called Saar Wilf, a former employee of Unit 8200, that country's equivalent of the NSA or GCHQ, who had subsequently made a great deal of money when he and his partner sold their company to Paypal, co-founded a site called 'Rootclaim.'

(See https://www.rootclaim.com .)

The site, it was explained, was dedicated to applying Bayesian statistics to 'current affairs' problems. This is a methodology, whose modern form owes much to work done at Bletchley Park in the war, which is invaluable in 'SIGINT' analysis and also combating online fraud.

At the outset, 'Rootclaim' posted a recycled version of some of the key material from the 'Who Attacked Ghouta?' investigation. So, it seems likely, if not absolutely certain, that Saar Wilf and 'sasa wawa' are one and the same.

Following the Salisbury incident on 4 March, a blogger using the name 'sushi' produced a series of eleven posts under the title 'A Curious Incident' on the 'Vineyard of the Saker' blog.

(See https://thesaker.is/tag/sushi/ .)

Again, there are some very clear resemblances to 'sasa wawa' and Saar Wilf, which made me wonder whether the same person may be reappearing under yet another 'moniker.'

While the 'flavour' of Apelbaum seems to be different, the combination of what looks like serious technical expertise in IT techniques relating to intelligence with broad general intellectual interests looks to me similar.

I was amused by the combination of his quotation of the words from John 8:32 etched into the wall of the original CIA headquarters – 'And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free' – and the following remarks:

'The June 2016 start date of Steele's contract with Fusion GPS is the start of the "billable" activity, not the beginning of the research. Steele and Simpson/Jacoby have been collaborating on Trump/Russia going back to 2009.

'Also, there is a large Hakluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US that regularly services political and federal agencies and has the power to summon Nazgűls the likes of John Brennan. So Steele is not the new kid on the block, he has been doing this type of work long before 2016. This is also why he has such a cozy relationship with the brass at the DOJ and state.'

As it happens, I think that many of the collaborations involved may have started significantly earlier than this. In his response to David Cay Johnston, Apelbaum links to an April 2007' WSJ' article by Simpon and Jacoby which, among other things, deals with Semyon Mogilevich.

This is behind a paywall, but, fortunately, the fact that Ukrainian nationalists have had an obvious interest in treating it as a source of reliable information has meant that it is easily accessible.

(See www.madcowprod.com/wp-conte... )

It should I think be clear from my January 2016 post why I find this particularly interesting, in that it has to be interpreted in the context of a crucial 'key' to the mystery of the death of Alexander Litvinenko.

This is that he, the Ukrainian nationalist former KGB person Yuri Shvets, the convicted Italian disinformation peddler Mario Scaramella, and quite possibly the sometime key FBI expert on Mogilevich, Robert 'Bobby' Levinson, were involved in trying to suggest that Mogilevich was an instrument of a plot by Putin to equip Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb.'

So, I then come back to the question of whether this notion of a 'large Haluyt/Orbis "commercial intelligence" network in the US', playing the role of Sauron with Brennan, perhaps, as the 'Witch-king of Angmar', does or does not have substance.

If it does, there would be very good reasons for a variety of people, with a range of different attitudes to events in the post-Soviet space and the Middle East, to think that they had an interest in collaborating with Russian intelligence against a common enemy.

If it does not, then there is a real possibility that Apelbaum may be involved in using accurate intelligence to disseminate inaccurate. (It seems to me that he is much too intelligent to be a plausible candidate for the role of 'useful idiot.')

One further point that may, or may not, be relevant. Many of the most influential American and British Jews, for reasons which I find somewhat hard to understand, seem to have decided that the heirs of the architects of the Lvov pogrom are nice and cuddly.

So, for example, Chrystia Freeland, the unrepentant granddaughter of the notorious Nazi collaborator Michael Chomiak, has been able to end up as Canadian Foreign Minister because made a successful journalistic career on the London 'Financial Times', a paper with a strong Jewish presence.

That the editorial staff of such a paper thought it appropriate to have someone like Freeland as their Moscow correspondent gives you a good insight into how moronic British élites have become. This may well be relevant, in trying to evaluate claims about Hakluyt and other matters.

In relation to Apelbaum, it may be quite beside the point that other Jews from a Russian/East European background, both in Russia, Israel, and the United States, have very different views on Ukraine, Russia, and the dangers posed – not least to Israel – by jihadists. It is however a fact which needs to be born in mind, when one comes across people whose views cut across conventional dividing lines in the United States and Britain.

Beside the point in relation to Apelbaum, I am confident, but also needing to be kept in mind, is the possibility that elements in the United States 'intelligence community', seeing the 'writing on the wall', may think it appropriate to shift from trying to pass the buck by blaming the Russians to doing so by blaming the Brits.

Michael Regan -> David Habakkuk , a day ago

It seems apparent that Putin's reordering of the Russian economy after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, Republic Bank's difficulites and the death of Edmund Safra left a bitter taste in the mouths of many who had hoped to exercise rentier rights over the Russian economy and resources. Why so much US resources and energy have been committed to recovering a contested deed is a real conundrum.

I was unaware of Freeland's grandfather and his lamentable CV. Thank you. It's funny that you mentioned both the Ghouta post and the Vineyard of the Saker. I recall reading those and thinking- this is not like common fare on the intertubes.

Your last points about failings in the quality of elite decision-making is extremely important. This dynamic of the dumb (US, UK, EU) at the wheel is, for me, the most frightening feature of the current state of play. In the worst moments I fear we are all on a bus driven by a drunk monkey, careening through the Andes. It's going to hurt all the way to the bottom.

Again, I am very grateful for your replies and all the great information and thought.

David Habakkuk -> Michael Regan , 2 hours ago

Michael Regan,

I think the question of why large elements in both American and British élites got so heavily invested, in essence, in supporting the oligarchs who refused Putin's terms in what turned into a kind of 'bare knuckles' struggle they were always likely to lose is a very interesting one.

It has long seemed to me that, even if one looked at matters from the most self-interested and cynical point of view, this represented a quite spectacular error of judgement. And, viewing the way in which 'international relations' are rearranging themselves, I am reasonably confident that this was one matter on which I got things right.

A central reason for this, I have come to think, is that Berezovsky and the 'information operations' people round him – Litvinenko is important, but the pivotal figure, the 'mastermind', if you will, was clearly Alex Goldfarb, and Yuri Shvets and Yuri Felshtinsky both played and still play important supporting roles – were telling people in the West what these wanted to hear.

It is a truth if not quite 'universally acknowledged', at least widely recognised by those who have acquired some 'worldly wisdom', that intellectually arrogant people, with limited experience of the world and a narrow education, can commonly be 'led by the nose' by figures who have more of the relevant kinds of intelligence and experience, and few scruples.

This rather basic fact is central to understanding the press conference on 31 May 2007 where the figure whom the Berezovsky group and Christopher Steele had framed in relation to the death of Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi, responded to the Crown Prosecution Service request for his extradition.

In his prepared statement, Lugovoi claimed that his supposed victim used to say that everyone in Britain were ''retards', to use the translation submitted in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, or 'idiots', to use that by RT. And according to this version, the British believed in everything that 'we' – that is, the Berezovky group – said was happening in Russia.

(For the RT translation, see https://www.rt.com/news/and... .)

Whether or not Litvinenko expressed this cynical contempt, the credulity with which the claims of the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky have been accepted – well illustrated by Owen's report and perhaps most ludicrous in Harding's journalism – makes clear it is justified.

What moreover became very evident, when Glenn Simpson testified to the House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary Committees, was that he was once again recycling the Berezovsky's group's version of Putin 'sistema' as the 'return of Karla.'

Given what has been emerging on the ways in which Fusion GPS and Steele were both integrated into networks involving top-level people in the FBI, DOJ, State Department and CIA, it seems clear that the 'retards'/'idiots' label is as applicable to people on your side as to people on ours.

Perhaps then, cartoons about Trump as a puppet, with the strings pulled by another puppet representing Manafort, whose strings are in turn pulled by Putin, should be replaced by ones in which Mueller is seen as a puppet manipulated by the ghost of Boris Berezovsky.

But that is the irony. The relationship with Berezovsky blew up in the faces of all concerned, when in the wake of the successsful corruption of the investigation into the death of Litvinenko by him and his 'information operations' people, he attempted to recoup his fortunes by suing Roman Abramovich, and got taken to pieces by Lord Sumption.

As to what happened next, a recent item on 'Russian Insider', providing a link to and transcript of a more recent piece presented by Dmitry Kiselyov on 'Vesti Nedeli is a good illustration of where accurate information and disinformation can be mixed in material from Russian sources.

(See https://russia-insider.com/... .)

The piece, which appeared in July, discusses, and quotes from, an interview given the previous month to Dmitry Gordon, who runs a Ukrainian nationalist site, by Berezovsky's daughter Elizaveta. Among other things, this deals with Berezovsky's death.

(See https://gordonua.com/public... . A little manipulation will get you a reasonably serviceable English translation, although it becomes comic because Berezovsky is referred to as 'pope'.)

The 'Vesti Nedeli' piece uses what Elizaveta Berezovskaya says in support of the claim that Berezovsky was murdered by British 'special forces', because he was planning to return to Russia, and he 'knew too much about them.'

As it happens, this is a patently tendentious reading of what she says. However, interesting features of the actual text of the interview are 1. that it does provide what to my mind is compelling evidence that her father was murdered, and 2. while she clearly suggests that this was covered up by the British, she is not suggesting that they were responsible – but also not making Putin 'prime suspect.'

Whether the suggestion by his daughter that her father might have been murdered by people who knew that by so doing they might get control of assets he might otherwise recoup has any merit I cannot say: I doubt it but cannot simply rule the possibility out.

What remains the case is that at that point there were very many people, including but in no way limited to elements in Western intelligence agencies, who had strong interests in avoiding a return by Berezovsky to Russia.

And the same people had the strongest possible interest in avoiding his being treated at the Inquest into Litvinenko's death by a competent barrister representing the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in the way he had been treated by Lord Sumption.

Ironically, it may have been partly because Lugovoi had made a dramatic announcement that he was withdrawing from the proceedings less than a fortnight before Berezovsky's death that before this happened a lot of people were staring at an absolutely worst-case scenario.

Time and again, in Owen's report, one finds matters where he recycles patent disinformation, which a well-briefed barrister acting for the ICRF could have easily ripped to shreds. At the same time, in this situation, the Russians could most probably have made a reasonable fist of coping with the multiple contradictions in claims made on their own side.

And, crucially, their patent weak suit – the need to obscure the actual role of Russian intelligence in the smuggling of the polonium into London, which had nothing to do with any murder plot – could have been reasonably well 'covered.'

Precisely because of these facts, the one scenario which can very easily be completely ruled out is that which is basic to the 'information operations' now coming out of London and Washington. In this, Berezovsky's death is portrayed as a key element in a systematic attempt by the Putin 'sistema' to eradicate the supposedly heroic opposition, much of it located in London.

That sustaining this fable is critical to defending the credibility of Steele, and therefore of the whole 'Russiagate' narrative, is quite evident from the 'From Russia With Blood' materials published by 'BuzzFeed' in July last year.

(See https://www.buzzfeed.com/he... .)

This, however, leads on to a paradox, which is highlighted by a piece posted by James George Jatras on the 'Strategic Culture Foundation' site on 18 August, entitled 'Have You Committed Your Three Felonies Today?'

(See https://www.strategic-cultu... .)

Among the points Jatras – who I think is an Orthodox Christian – makes is that the logic of contesting the 'Russiagate' narrative has had some strange consequences. Among these, there is one on which the actual history of the activities of Berezovsky and his 'information operations' people bears directly:

'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative: Among the President's defenders, on say Fox News, no less than among his detractors, Russia is the enemy who (altogether now!) "interfered in our elections" in order to "undermine our democracy." Mitt Romney was right! The only argument is over who was the intended beneficiary of Muscovite mendacity, Trump or Hillary – that's the variable. The constant is that Putin is Hitler and only a traitor would want to get along with him. All sides agree that the Christopher Steele dossier is full of "Russian dirt" – though there's literally zero actual evidence of Kremlin involvement but a lot pointing to Britain's MI6 and GCHQ.'

(See https://www.strategic-cultu... .)

For reasons I have already discussed, I think what while Jatras is substantially right, 'zero evidence' is only partially correct: It seems to me that disinformation supplied by elements in Russian intelligence could quite possibly have found its way into the second and final memoranda.

That said, Jatras has pointed to a fundamental feature of the current situation, which involves multiple ironies.

The total destruction of Steele's credibility could easily be achieved by anyone who was interested in looking at the evidence about the life and death of the late Alexander Litvinenko seriously. However, because a central tactic of most of those who are attacking the 'Russiagate' narrative has generally been 'Flipping the "Russians did it" narrative', they are like people who ought to be able to see Steele's 'Achilles' heel', but in practice, often end up attacking him where his armour is, without being, not at its weakest.

Meanwhile, as I have already stressed, the ability of the Russian authorities to undermine the 'narrative' produced by the 'information operations' people around Berezovsky, of whom the most important are Alex Goldfarb and Yuri Shvets, is compromised by their fear of having to 'own up to' their actual role in the smuggling of the polonium into London in October-November 2007.

The person who had a strong interest in blowing this structure of illusion to pieces was actually Lugovoi. But it seems to me at least possible that there has been a kind of disguised covert conspiracy by elements in Western and Russian intelligence to ensure there was no risk of him doing so.

Steve Smith , 3 days ago

One of the things I've never understood about the Trump Dossier story is the lack of any forensic analysis of its content and style anywhere in the media, even the alt media. Who was supposed to have actually written it? Steele? The style does not match someone of his background and education, and the formatting and syntax were atrocious. The font actually varied from "report" to "report." It certainly did not give me the impression of being the product of a high-end, Belgravia consultancy.

I wonder whether it was produced by an American of one sort or another and then "laundered" by being accorded association with the UK firm. Given that Steele just happened to be hired by the USG to help in the anti-FIFA skulduggery, he and his firm seem very much to be a concern that does dirty little jobs that need discretely to be done, though in this case, the discretion was undermined.

Paul M , 3 days ago

Most of the memos were issued before October and Fusion/Simpson authorized Steele to release information to the FBI starting in July. The question is why the memos were released after the election when a release before the election would have been enough to sink Trump. Instead the FBI and presumably those paying Fusion on Hillarys behalf sat on it, and Comey comes out days before the election

Saying he was reopening the HC email investigation.

Kind of looks like they all wanted Trump in office and the disclosure was to give Trump the excuse needed to back track on his promises to improve relations with Russia and blame that on pressure from the Deep State and Russia Gate.

Looking at Trumps history with Sater (FBI/CIA asset) and his political aspirations that began following his Moscow visit in 1987 it seems likely Trump has been a Deep State asset for 30 years and fed intelligence to CIA/FBI on Russian oligarchs and mafia . Indeed he may well have duped Russians into believing he was working for them when in fact it was the CIA/FBI who had the best Kompromat with US RICO laws that could have beggared him

richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

One thing to remember about the FBI is Sy Hersh. Hersh claims the FBI has been sitting on a report for two years that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the Wikileaks DNC email leaker (or one of them, at least.)

Now can we imagine that not everyone in a senior position at the FBI knows about that report? I can't. Literally everyone from the supervisor of the Special Agent or computer forensic investigator who examined Rich's computer right up to the Director HAD to know that report exists - and covered it up.

That right there is obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Literally everyone at the FBI who can't PROVE he didn't know about that report will be going to jail. The entire top administration of the FBI is going to go down.

And how many people at the Department of Justice are aware of that report? Did Rosenstein know? Who else in the Obama administration knew?

That would be motivation for a lot of desperate maneuvering. Add to that who was really behind the Steele Dossier and even more people are likely to end up in jail.

Pat Lang Mod -> richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

What is the link for Hersh saying that?

richardstevenhack -> Pat Lang , 3 days ago

You haven't heard that yet? It's the infamous audio tape that Hersh was caught on discussing it. He's since obfuscated what he said, but the tape stands on its own, and he has never said that anything he said on the tape wasn't true, despite that a lot of Democrats and Trump-bashers claim he has.

Here's one source on Youtube:

Seymour Hersh discussing Wikileaks DNC leaks Seth Rich & FBI report

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FgYzB96_EK7s%3Ffeature%3Doembed&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DgYzB96_EK7s&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FgYzB96_EK7s%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=21d07d84db7f4d66a55297735025d6d1&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

Pat Lang Mod -> richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

I have told you several times and I will tell you again probably hopelessly that Hersh PERSONALLY has told me that the "tape" was made without his permission or knowledge when he was aimlessly speculating on possibilities.

richardstevenhack -> Pat Lang , 3 days ago

I am unaware of your explicitly telling me that he personally told you that the tape was "aimless speculation." My apologies if I missed that response.

Of course the tape was made without his permission. We all know that. It's irrelevant to what he said on the tape.

What I'm saying is that despite what he may have told you, nothing on that tape sounds like "aimless speculation".

When you consider that he has four good reasons for dissembling about the tape, I view it as far more likely that everything he said was true.

1) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his FBI contact. Not good for his line of work.

2) If what he said is true, compromising that contact may well make all his other contacts wary about talking to him in the future - a bad deal for a journalist who relies on his contacts.

3) If what he said is true, he may have compromised his ability to get his "long form journalism" article published - a problem he already has had in the past.

4) If what he said is true, he's accusing the FBI of sitting on that report for two years, which might well make him a target of retaliation in some way.

If you believe that everything he said on the tape is untrue and that is what he explicitly told you, fine. I'm waiting for his "long form journalism" report to explain it. So far everything he has said publicly about it has not contradicted what he said on the tape, but merely waved his hands about it.

Pat Lang Mod -> richardstevenhack , 3 days ago

Sy Hersh talks a lot both loudly and profanely. He never intended to tell Buttowski that there was more than a possibility that the FBI held more than a rumor that this might be true. He talked to Buttowski because a mutual friend of him and me asked him to do so for no good reason. Please go talk to all the other people you pester and not on SST. You are an argumentative nuisance.

Aukuu Makule -> Pat Lang , 3 days ago

I have no stake in the debate about Rich, DNC, wikileaks.
But I do notice some loose ends. Hersh may well have engaged in speculation, but it is interesting speculation:
quote:
55. During his conversation with Butowsky, Mr. Hersh claimed that he had received information from an "FBI report." Mr. Hersh had not seen the report himself, but explained: "I have somebody on the inside who will go and read a file for me. And I know this person is unbelievably accurate and careful. He's a very high level guy."

56. According to Mr. Hersh, his source told him that the FBI report states that, shortly after Seth Rich's murder, the D.C. police obtained a warrant to search his home. When they arrived at the home, the D.C. police found Seth Rich's computer, but were unable to access it.The computer was then provided to the D.C. police Cyber Unit, who also were unable to access the computer. At that point, the D.C. police contacted the Cyber Unit at the FBI's Washington D.C. field office. Again, according to the supposed FBI report, the Washington D.C. field office was able to get into the computer and found that in "late spring early summer [2016], [Seth Rich][made] contact with Wikileaks." "They found what he had done. He had submitted a series of documents, of emails. Some juicy emails from the DNC." Mr. Hersh told Butowsky that Seth Rich "offered a sample [to WikiLeaks][,] an extensive sample, you know I'm sure dozens, of emails, and said I want money."
. . .
"I hear gossip," Hersh tells NPR on Monday. "[Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it."
. . .
The clip is definitely worth listening to in its entirety if you haven't already. Hersh is heard telling Butowsky that he had a high-level insider read him an FBI file confirming that Seth Rich was known to have been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death, which is not even a tiny bit remotely the same as having "heard rumors". Hersh's statements in the audio recording and his statement to NPR cannot both be true.
endquote
https://medium.com/@caityjo...

blue peacock , 3 days ago

All

An interview of Rep. John Ratcliffe who will lead the questioning of Bruce Ohr.

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2Fqn23H0vMCsM%3Ffeature%3Doembed&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dqn23H0vMCsM&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Fqn23H0vMCsM%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=21d07d84db7f4d66a55297735025d6d1&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

Rob , 3 days ago

I suspect Buzzfeed were in the grip of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and perhaps you overestimate their professionalism.

David Habakkuk -> Rob , 3 days ago

Rob,

You may very well be right. There may be a large element of 'amateur night out' about this.

But then I come back to the question of who decided that the dossier be published, and who, if anyone, was consulted before the decision was made. For the reasons I gave, I am reasonably confident that those on this side who had been in one way or another complicit in its production and covert dissemination were taken aback by the publication.

It is not clear to me whether anything significant can be inferred from the publicly available evidence about whether those on your side who had been complicit were involved in the decision to publish without taking even elementary precautions, or whether the 'Buzzfeed' people just had a rush of blood to the head.

blue peacock -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

David

I suspect the decision to publish the dossier was political. It was required to enable Clapper, Brennan, and others to opine on national media and create further media hysteria prior to the vote as well as to justify the counter-intelligence investigations underway. They were throwing the kitchen sink to sink Trump's electoral chances. I don't think a lot of thought was given about the legal ramifications.

This seems to be a pattern. Leak information. Then use the leaked story to justify actions like apply for a FISA warrant or fan the media flames.

Cynthia Anne , 4 days ago

And now they are turning on one another. Hayden just slammed Clapper for making too much of losing the security clearance the he abuse for political reasons.

Pat Lang Mod -> Cynthia Anne , 4 days ago

Looks like both Clapper and Haydon made the same comment about Brennan. they said "his rhetoric was becoming a problem. Ah, the USAF intel rats are swimming for the shore. Lets see how many others (not all USAF) decide to try to save themselves.

blue peacock -> Pat Lang , 4 days ago

Col. Lang

I find it incredulous that former leaders of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have gained paid access to powerful media platforms and they have used it to launch vicious attacks on a POTUS.

I find it amazing that McCabe and Peter Strzok are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media platforms.

IMO, everyone on the list that Sarah Sanders noted, should not just lose their clearance but should be testifying to a grand jury.

MP98 -> blue peacock , 3 days ago

Not really incredulous. Just expected behavior from swamp creatures whose self-assumed importance and "rights" (that the rest of us peasants don't have) are coming under threat.

David Habakkuk -> blue peacock , 3 days ago

blue peacock

It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central role in all this.

One question. It seems to me that if what seems likely to be true does prove true, a range of these people must have committed very serious offences indeed.

However, I am too ignorant to know what precisely those offences might be. If you, or anyone else, had a clear understanding, I would be interested.

English Outsider -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

"It seems to me absolutely appalling, and I am also appalled that people on this side appear to have been playing a central role in all this."

That says it all. We got the more discreditable side of the affair outsourced to us. Ugh. Is that all we're fit for now in the UK? White helmets and Khan Sheikhoun and Steele, all the scrubby stuff? Is that what the famous "Special Relationship" now consists of? We get to do the scrubby stuff because it's what we're fit for and we can be relied upon to keep it quiet?

Because at least on the American side there are people concerned about the political/PR involvement of parts of their own Intelligence Community, and seeking to have it looked into. Here - am I right? - it's dead silence.

I've been permitted to say before on SST that I don't think the Americans are going to resolve this affair satisfactorily until more light is cast on the UK side. But I also think that, for our own sakes, we should be looking at what exactly our IC does, and in particular, how much UK political involvement there was in what is now clear was a direct PR attack on an American President.

Pat Lang Mod -> English Outsider , 3 days ago

I strongly suspect that Steele has a future as a novelist.

blue peacock -> David Habakkuk , 3 days ago

David

I'm not a lawyer and have no experience with the federal criminal statutes. Having said that I suspect that the following could be considered crimes:

  • intentionally misleading FISC
  • perjury
  • leaking classified information
  • launching investigations on the basis of known false information
  • surveillance of US citizens on the basis of false information
  • conspiracy to subvert the constitution
  • sedition/treason

There may also be certain professional agreements with the government that may have been violated. The only way any of these people will face a grand jury is if Donald Trump chooses to take action. Left to the natural devices of the law enforcement institutions nothing will happen and they will sweep everything under the rug. The intensity of Trump's tweets and the accusations therein are rising. If the GOP retains the House and Jim Jordan becomes speaker, then there may be a possibility that Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray may be fired and another special counsel appointed who will then convene a grand jury.

Considering what has been uncovered by Congressional investigators and the DOJ IG, I am truly surprised that Sessions has resisted the appointment of a special counsel. But of course that could go the way of the Owens inquiry in your country.

[Sep 15, 2018] BBC is skanky state propaganda

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The myth of BBC being some standard for news reporting died with the advent of the availability of international and independent news in Western countries ..."
"... Ironic when the BBC has been ceaselessly pushing fake news for at least 15 years, with disastrous results. (Iraq; Libya; what caused the deficit and who should be forced to pay it down; Russia/Syria false flags; Corbyn A/S.) ..."
"... I find it impossible to watch BBC News, primarily because most of the editorial staff and senior correspondents seem to be working for MI5/6 and are more interested in disseminating Geo-political propaganda than upholding their journalistic responsibilities as defined in the BBC charter. ..."
"... The book is obviously part of a propaganda campaign. It seems hugely fortuitous that Mark Urban should have had "hours" of interviews with Skripal before the poisoning incident. ..."
"... Isn't it much more likely that the Urban "interviews" would have happened after the event? But Urban can't say that because that would lead to demands from other journalists or news bodies to have access to Skripal. ..."
"... I'm open to alternative hypotheses but right now I think the most likely explanation for Urban's pre-poisoning contact with Sergei Skripal is that, at the time, it was assumed the Orbis dossier would be a key component of the successful takedown of Trump and Urban was putting together a mutually flattering account by interviewing the main players. ..."
"... With regard to your tongue-in-cheek point. Urban could have interviewed Skripal anytime after Trump was gone, unless he believed Skripal might be unavailable (for some reason). The fact he interviewed Skripal before does indicate foresight. If Urban really did interview Skripal before the event then he would be wiser to pull the book and burn every copy in existence (as well as all his notes). ..."
"... Urban pretends to research a book exposing Russia and part of his research is to interview Skripal. His objective is to find dirt on Putin in order to swing the war in Syria in favour of USUKIS bombing Assad to smithereens, bayonets bums etc. ..."
"... Interestingly Mark Urbans' book on Sergei Skripal was available to purchase on Amazon in July. I added it to my Amazon wishlist on 28/7/18. I've just looked at my wishlist and was rather surprised to find it is no longer available. It has been pulled. ..."
"... Can't help thinking that the answer to all this lies in Estonia. Sergei went to Estonia in June 2016, Pablo was in Estonia, the Estonians passed on sigint about Trump-Russian collusion in the summer of 2016. A Guardian article of 13 April 2017 said: ..."
"... No doubt in my mind that the Skripal affair is a planned operation carried out by US/UK intelligence. What has actually taken place is still to be determined, but the propaganda operation itself is clear. ..."
"... I know about Ireland, and I agree, it was NOT a nerve agent. That said, I don't believe anyone was 'attacked', including the Skripals. ..."
"... All foreign correspondents of major newspapers too work with MI6. Nobody who is close to them has any kind of doubt about this. ..."
"... I despise everyone who says that free markets are the solution for the problems of the third world. What they mean is mass starvation and an enormous population cull. There are international "foundations" that pay academics and politicians large amounts of money to spout this obscene line. One of them is called the John Templeton Foundation. They have had their fangs in to British universities for a long time. ..."
"... When the Tories talk about 'free markets', they are talking about markets free from democracy. ..."
Aug 30, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

Dave , August 28, 2018 at 17:41

BBC is skanky state propaganda. The myth of BBC being some standard for news reporting died with the advent of the availability of international and independent news in Western countries. The main thing that BBC used to have which propped up the illusion of it being a respectable news source is that there was no competition or alternative to compare its narratives against. Since that time is over, so is BBC's masquerading as an impartial or accurate news source.

Xavi , August 28, 2018 at 18:40

Agree, Dave. That's what's informing the push to rubbish dissenting sites as fake news and eventually have them removed.

Ironic when the BBC has been ceaselessly pushing fake news for at least 15 years, with disastrous results. (Iraq; Libya; what caused the deficit and who should be forced to pay it down; Russia/Syria false flags; Corbyn A/S.)

Ken Kenn , August 28, 2018 at 21:49

Well I was convinced of fake BBC news during 9/11 and not for the reasons of building 7 coming down too early but the fact that the female journalist was facing a camera standing in front of a glass window and there was no reflection of her or the camera person from the glass. Not even a faint shadow.

That's when I knew the BBC were employing vampires and have been ever since.

Green Screen technology I discovered later. All the On the spot reporters are at it apparently. Or repeating Reuters or PA.

Deb O'Nair , August 28, 2018 at 00:52

I find it impossible to watch BBC News, primarily because most of the editorial staff and senior correspondents seem to be working for MI5/6 and are more interested in disseminating Geo-political propaganda than upholding their journalistic responsibilities as defined in the BBC charter. People should not only boycott the BBC but refuse to pay the license fee on the grounds that it's a compulsory political subscription.

frankywiggles , August 28, 2018 at 09:48

Careful, Craig

BBC world affairs editor 'fed up' with complaints directed at the corporation's news output

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/aug/28/bbc-news-is-not-biased-in-brexit-reporting-says-john-simpson

D_Majestic , August 28, 2018 at 14:35

Of course BBC News is not biased. Most of the time it is not even factual.

Brendan , August 28, 2018 at 10:34

Dear Mark,
In a BBC article on 4 July 2018, you wrote: "I have not felt ready until now to acknowledge explicitly that we had met, but do now that the book is nearing completion."

Could you please explain that comment? I do not see why your acknowledgement of your meetings with Sergei Skripal should be delayed until your book is nearing completion.

If you felt that it was right to reveal those meetings in July, then why was it not right to do so in March, soon after the poisoning occurred? What difference would it have made if you had done so four months earlier?

I cannot think of any negative consequences of an earlier acknowledgement of the meetings. In fact, disclosures of any possible conflict of interest are generally considered to be desirable in journalism, regardless of whether the conflict of interest is real.

ADHD , August 28, 2018 at 11:00

The book is obviously part of a propaganda campaign. It seems hugely fortuitous that Mark Urban should have had "hours" of interviews with Skripal before the poisoning incident.

Isn't it much more likely that the Urban "interviews" would have happened after the event? But Urban can't say that because that would lead to demands from other journalists or news bodies to have access to Skripal.

And that can't happen because either Skripal would be asked about what happened on the day of the poisoning, or can't be guaranteed to stick to the script, or is no longer alive. And that leads to a suspicion that whatever Skripal is supposed to have said in his interviews with Urban has really just been made up by the British security services.

Kay , August 28, 2018 at 14:42

I'm open to alternative hypotheses but right now I think the most likely explanation for Urban's pre-poisoning contact with Sergei Skripal is that, at the time, it was assumed the Orbis dossier would be a key component of the successful takedown of Trump and Urban was putting together a mutually flattering account by interviewing the main players.

Tongue in cheek, it'd be worth asking Urban if his decision to cover the Skripal poisoning in his new book was made before or after the Skripals were actually poisoned.

ADHD , August 28, 2018 at 15:59

The consensus seems to be that it was an anti-Russia book, but that doesn't conflict with what you say (there is overlap, your view is just more specific). But, I just find it hard to believe that Urban and the conspirators would waste their time "counting their chickens ". Not least because such a book would form a handy list of traitors (together with confessions) if Trump were to prevail and it fell into the right hands. This is "101 – How to Organise a Revolution" (secrecy / don't put anything in writing); surely British security services know that?

With regard to your tongue-in-cheek point. Urban could have interviewed Skripal anytime after Trump was gone, unless he believed Skripal might be unavailable (for some reason). The fact he interviewed Skripal before does indicate foresight. If Urban really did interview Skripal before the event then he would be wiser to pull the book and burn every copy in existence (as well as all his notes).

Regardless, it looks like the master of the universe are losing their ability to create reality.

Brendan , August 28, 2018 at 10:37

Last month, Mark Urban was promoting the reports that the Russian assassins had been identified from CCTV footage:

"There are now subjects of interest in the police Salisbury investigation. ( ) analytic and cyber techniques are now being exploited against the Salisbury suspects by people with a wealth of experience in complex investigations."
https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1020366761848385536

That story originated with a report by PA, which Security Minister Ben Wallace called "ill informed and wild speculation". https://mobile.twitter.com/BWallaceMP/status/1019906962786484225

Or as Craig Murray put it, "Unnamed source close to unnamed British police officers tells unnamed Press Association journalist Britain knows the unnamed Russian agents ".
https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1019854966327005184

Even Urban's colleagues had to admit that "The BBC has not been able to independently confirm the story."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44883803

Still, that didn't stop Mark Urban from reporting the story almost as fact.

Tom , August 28, 2018 at 10:38

The BBC relies on it's interpretation of the Act because it is held for the purposes of 'journalism, art or literature.' but this relies on a usually unrelated precedent and the opinions of a number of Judges which contradict this view. I'm in the process of challenging this with ICO but don't expect anything will change until another supreme court ruling:

https://medium.com/@tomcoady/bbc-foi-exemption-for-the-purposes-of-art-journalism-or-literature-c39e4fa3e36

Ian Fantom , August 28, 2018 at 10:41

I've put in a Freedom of Information request regarding meetings with Skripal other than any that were for the purpose of BBC news journalism. (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mark_urbans_non_journalistic_mee )

Made By Dom , August 28, 2018 at 11:04

Can I play Devil's Advocate ?

I can see the value in asking writers, journalists and artists to pose exactly the same questions as Eccles' original letter but I'm not convinced about Craig's email.

A quick google shows me that a man named Mark Urban has written a book on the Skripals. Isn't it likely that Urban was keeping the interviews to himself in order to keep his book alive?

It wouldn't surprise me if Urban cares far more about his writing career than his job at the BBC. I'm sure most journalists would rather be authors. He's written a number of books on war and military intelligence. If his sources have nothing to do with the BBC then why should he answer to an on line mob?

craig Post author , August 28, 2018 at 11:18

" Isn't it likely that Urban was keeping the interviews to himself in order to keep his book alive?"
No, entirely unlikely. a chance to plug his forthcoming book and his Skripal contacts to a massive worldwide televion audience was eschewed.
The book is now about the Skripal attack. Presumably that was not the original subject he was researching, as it hadn't happened yet. The book will just be a rehash of the "noble defector – Putin revenge" line and none of the questions I asked about the genesis of his involvement will be answered in it.

SA , August 28, 2018 at 11:29

"Presumably that was not the original subject he was researching, as it hadn't happened yet." Or it was prescience ie that it was part of the planning for the incident?

Chris Hemmings , August 28, 2018 at 14:41

@BBC, Summer 2017, in an executive office:
"Hey Mark, why don't you go down to have a chat with this guy in Salisbury. I have a hunch that a story might be going to happen involving him, you know, as an ex-Soviet spy. Spend time with him, get to know him, be able to write in depth about him. Say it's for a book ."

giyane , August 28, 2018 at 11:46

Urban is never one-sided in his BBC reports on the Middle East. I would rather have him as Foreign Secretary than a bumbling idiot like Hubris Johnson or a Tory racketeer Hunt, because however clunky the formula of BBC balance Urban is at least pretending to be governed by normal rules. After Thatcher went anyone with half a brain left the Conservative party, leaving dolts like Johnson and nasties like May and Cameron to pick up the pieces after Blair and Brown.

There's money to be made from Russian billionaires and tory shit will follow the money like flies on d**t**d.

Urban pretends to research a book exposing Russia and part of his research is to interview Skripal. His objective is to find dirt on Putin in order to swing the war in Syria in favour of USUKIS bombing Assad to smithereens, bayonets bums etc.

Tory shit Hubris Johnson finds this political research floating around the Foreign Office and decides to twist it into Russia murders Skripal by Novichok. Unfortunately Johnson is already known to be a liar and gravy-trainer Tory and nobody believes him at all. Mrs May , realising that Johnson, Fox, Rees-Mogg and Hunt are completely bonkers, does Chequers her own way.

ZigZag Wanderer , August 28, 2018 at 12:26

Interestingly Mark Urbans' book on Sergei Skripal was available to purchase on Amazon in July. I added it to my Amazon wishlist on 28/7/18. I've just looked at my wishlist and was rather surprised to find it is no longer available. It has been pulled.

From memory the books description said that Mark had interviewed Skripal 'extensively' during 2017 and also mentioned the 'new' spying war now happening between Britain and Russia.

A quick search revealed a new version of the book ( with an altered title ) will be available in early October .. details here. https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/mark-urban/the-skripal-files

Oh dear . panic stations !

Sharp Ears , August 28, 2018 at 11:16

Salisbury poisoning: Skripals 'were under Russian surveillance'
Mark Urban Diplomatic and defence editor, Newsnight

4 July 2018

'My meetings with Sergei Skripal

I met Sergei on a few occasions last summer and found him to be a private character who did not, even under the circumstances then prevailing, wish to draw attention to himself.

He agreed to see me as a writer of history books rather than as a news journalist, since I was researching one on the post-Cold War espionage battle between Russia and the West.

Information gained in these interviews was fed into my Newsnight coverage during the early days after the poisoning. I have not felt ready until now to acknowledge explicitly that we had met, but do now that the book is nearing completion.

As a man, Sergei is proud of his achievements, both before and after joining his country's intelligence service.

He has a deadpan wit and is remarkably stoical given the reverses he's suffered in his life; from his imprisonment following conviction in 2006 on charges of spying for Britain, to the loss of his wife Liudmila to cancer in 2012, and the untimely death of his son Alexander (or Sasha) last summer.'

...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44717835

Agent Green , August 28, 2018 at 12:27

Laughable given that the whole world and virtually all heads of State were under US surveillance by the NSA – at least until Edward Snowden made all his revelations.

KEVIN GLENNIE , August 28, 2018 at 11:18

I have pasted and copied your Email regarding the above with a few slight alterations, it will be interesting to see the response I receive if any being just a concerned citizen of the U.

Niki Henry , August 28, 2018 at 11:21

Is this not a matter for the Police? (Even if you're not too sure if they'd do anything about it) These would be files that are to do with an attempted murder case. And definitely not Journalism if the story is fabricated.

Paul Baker , August 28, 2018 at 11:28

It feels as if you are moving in the right direction in linking Sergei to Steele. I'm intrigued by the very early media references to Sergei wanting to return home to see his elderly mother for perhaps the last time. He had apparently written to Putin making his request but again according to newspapers hadn't received a reply.

I would suggest Julia was bringing the answer via her own secret services contacts, her boyfriend and his mother, apparently Senior in the Russian Intelligence Agency. Perhaps a sentimental man Sergei was aware his mother couldn't travel so the plea to Putin was his best bet.

Such a request must have disturbed MI6 if Sergei had anything at all to do with the Steele dossier because inevitably if he returned to Russia he'd be debriefed by his old colleagues. But how can you rely on a mercenary double agent? If he decided he might want to stay in Russia with his family that might well have been attractive, away from the lonely existence in a Salisbury cul de sac with only spies for company. But the Steele dossier has great potential to turn sour on the British.

It's author was a Senior spy and Head of the Russian Desk for some years. It is – perhaps you'd agree? – inconceivable that he didn't require permission to prepare it, especially as much of it was based on his experience as a spy in Russia. Yet it's equally inconceivable that the Agency bosses didn't know the identity of the commissioners or the use to which it would be put in the US election – to boost Clinton's bid. If she'd won everything would have been fine but as it is any discussion of foreign interference in that election would have to include MI6 leading the list (they probably didn't tell any politician?) To have Sergei supporting and highlighting that embarrassment would be problematic for US-UK relations. Of course Sergei may have had other nuggets to expose as well as Steele.

Soon after Julia's arrival the pair fell ill. They both survived but are now locked away, presumably for life and never able to explain their side of the story.

It was a bodged job with a poor cover story from the start and could only be carried because of D Notices and media complicity. Is his mother still alive? Would he still like to see her before she dies? Would Russia allow it? Would MI6 allow it? I think that's 3 yeses and a resounding No.

Sharp Ears , August 28, 2018 at 11:39

Following the deaths of 55 Palestinians on the Gaza 'border' and the wounding of thousands, in this video, Urban asks the questions but the Israeli government spokesman, David Keyes, is allowed to spout all the usual propaganda against Hamas.

Gaza deaths: Who's to blame? – BBC Newsnight
Published on 15 May 2018
Subscribe 256K
Fresh protests against Israel are expected in the Palestinian territories, a day after Israeli troops killed 58 people in the Gaza Strip.
David Keyes is the spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mark Urban asked him whether it was appropriate for the US to open their embassy on the 70th anniversary of Israel's creation, a day that is hugely controversial for the Palestinian people.

Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme – with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.
Website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1dec5XO53k

Mr Keyes' pronounced American accent was heard. The Occupation was not mentioned. A Palestinian voice was not heard.

This is another of his videos. On the same subject and on the opening of the Israeli Embassy in Jerusalem. This time, Jonathan Conricus spoke for the IDF.

Israel says. Same old. Same old. BBC. ZBC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WdqoPKKkD8

Charles Bostock , August 28, 2018 at 15:58

"Urban asks the questions but the Israeli government spokesman, David Keyes, is allowed to spout all the usual propaganda against Hamas."

Yes indeed : Urban asked the questions and allowed the interviewee to answer. Perhaps you would have preferred him to interrupt the interviewee continually 'a la Today programme, or to have shouted at him similarly to the way I understand some people shout at customers inside or outside supermarkets?

Peter , August 28, 2018 at 11:39

This may or may not be relevant regarding Russia, chemical weapons and BBC/MSM bovine effluent:

"US Poised to Hit Syria Harder: The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement on Aug. 25 stating that the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham militants had brought eight containers of chlorine to Idlib in order to stage a false-flag attack with the help of UK intelligence agencies. A group of Tahrir al-Sham fighters trained to handle chemical warfare agents by the UK private military company Olive arrived in the suburbs of the city of Jisr ash-Shugur, Idlib, 20 km. from the Turkish border."

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/27/us-poised-to-hit-syria-harder.html

Jeremn , August 28, 2018 at 11:42

Can't help thinking that the answer to all this lies in Estonia. Sergei went to Estonia in June 2016, Pablo was in Estonia, the Estonians passed on sigint about Trump-Russian collusion in the summer of 2016. A Guardian article of 13 April 2017 said:

"Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump's inner circle and Russians, sources said. The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland."

Perhaps not the Dossier, as such, but some material on collusion?

Paul Greenwood , August 28, 2018 at 12:00

John Paul Jones also fought for the Russians and was a Rear-Admiral. He was buried in Paris 1792 and disinterred 1905 and relocated to USA

wonky , August 29, 2018 at 10:29

..then he met Jimmy Page in the 1960s and the rest is history..

Agent Green , August 28, 2018 at 12:11

No doubt in my mind that the Skripal affair is a planned operation carried out by US/UK intelligence. What has actually taken place is still to be determined, but the propaganda operation itself is clear.

Paul Carrom , August 28, 2018 at 12:12

Definitely done by the UK.

Doodlebug , August 28, 2018 at 14:53

What did the UK have against Dawn and Charlie? (Please don't say you subscribe to all that bottle-finding bullshit).

mark golding , August 28, 2018 at 17:40

Catch my last post Doodlebug, sadly MI6 diabolical elements can be traced back to Ireland in the 70's early 80's assassinations theRealTerror (theRealElvis) understands.

Doodlebug , August 28, 2018 at 18:06

I know about Ireland, and I agree, it was NOT a nerve agent. That said, I don't believe anyone was 'attacked', including the Skripals.

Jo , August 29, 2018 at 11:59

Being used as practice and to establish more "evidence"

N_ , August 28, 2018 at 12:24

Often it's been open. There was the BBC monitoring station at Caversham Park. The BBC's Foreign Broadcast Information Service split the world into two parts with the CIA.

All foreign correspondents of major newspapers too work with MI6. Nobody who is close to them has any kind of doubt about this.

N_ , August 28, 2018 at 12:20

Theresa May says a no deal Brexit "wouldn't be the end of the world".

  1. This is not a negotiating strategy. This is not a pantomime where one giant on the stage can wink to his supporters (using the British media) without his opponent (EU27) noticing.
  2. The subconscious doesn't work well with negation. Whatever you do, please DON'T imagine an elephant at this time.
  3. I would love to know what the preparations are at Trinity College, Cambridge, for food shortages. They own the port of Felixstowe, which handles more than 40% of Britain's containerised trade. They also own a 50% stake in a portfolio of Tesco stores. Soon food distribution will be what everyone is talking about. I am never going to stop making the point that the god of the Tory party is Thomas Malthus.
N_ , August 28, 2018 at 12:38

Oh dear.. Theresa May in Africa:

" As a Prime Minister who believes both in free markets and in nations and businesses acting in line with well-established rules and principles of conduct, I want to demonstrate to young Africans that their brightest future lies in a free and thriving private sector. "

I despise everyone who says that free markets are the solution for the problems of the third world. What they mean is mass starvation and an enormous population cull. There are international "foundations" that pay academics and politicians large amounts of money to spout this obscene line. One of them is called the John Templeton Foundation. They have had their fangs in to British universities for a long time.

They are keen on Prince Philip, the guy who said he wanted to come back as a virus so he could kill a large part of the population. Never trust anyone who has received a Templeton scholarship or prize or who has anything to do with these people or with the message that free markets and the private sector are the key to "development"

Nuno Strybes , August 28, 2018 at 12:43

When the Tories talk about 'free markets', they are talking about markets free from democracy.

May's rhetoric is laughable .basically all her speeches read : 'the sky is green, the snow is black etc etc' -- totally detached from reality and a spent political force, as their recent membership numbers showed, with more revenues from legacies left in wills than from actual living members.

Ros Thorpe , August 28, 2018 at 12:30

I agree with the Skripal relatives that Sergei is dead. He hasn't been seen or heard of and would have called his mother. Mind boggling deception at all levels and I struggle to believe any of it.

N_ , August 28, 2018 at 12:47

Sergei Skripal could be in US custody, either in the US itself or in a US facility somewhere.

If he is dead, then the rehospitalisation of Charlie Rowley may be to assist with the narrative. "Once you've had a drop of Novvy Chockk, you may recover but you can fall down ill at any time, and here's an Expert with a serious voice to confirm it."

Nuno Strybes , August 28, 2018 at 12:38

I follow this blog closely, particularly in relation to the Skripal case, but this is my first comment. I just watched Sky News piece on 'super recognisers' and couldn't help but wonder why, in an age of powerful facial recognition technology, the police and security services seem to have drawn such a blank. The surveillance state in the UK is known to be one of the most advanced in the world but when it comes to this highly important geopolitical crisis our technological infrastructure seems to be redundant to the point where 'human eyes' are deemed to be more accurate than the most powerful supercomputers available. Psychologically, all humans have an inherent facial recognition ability from a very young age, but the idea that some police officers have this ability developed to such an extent that they supercede computer recognition is, i feel, laughable. To me this announcement through the ever subservient Sky News reeks of desperation on the part of the ;official story'. Are we about to be shown suspects who, although facial recognition technology fails to identify them, a 'super recogniser' can testify that it actually is person A or person B and we are all supposed to accept that? Seems either a damning indictment of the judicial process, or a damning indictment of the ŁŁŁŁŁ's of taxpayers money that is spent on places like GCHQ etc whose technology is now apparently no better than a highly perceptive human brain. Give me a break !

Trowbridge H. Ford , August 28, 2018 at 13:08

Why no interest in how the Coopers died in Egypt? We will soon be told by HMG that the Russians somehow dd it too., thanks to Urban's research?

giyane , August 28, 2018 at 13:49

People do die Trowbridge. I know you haven't, but you have the motivation of outliving your persecutors. With Muckin about with Isis gone and covert operations isn't social work Kissinger looking as though he's on daily blood transfusions, you have rejected Trump for some reason. But Trump has undone much of John McCain's worst mischief in one year. If McCain was an example of a politician, we don't need politicians.

Trowbridge H. Ford , August 28, 2018 at 14:16

Give me an example, other than the Coopers. of a healthy couple one day that is found dying the next day like the Skripals.

And while i tried on another site to be generous about McCain. he got Navy Secretary John Lehman, Jr. to scare the Soviets for prevailing in the Vietnam War so much about what NATO was up to in the fallout from shooting Swedish PM Olof Palme that Moscow gave up the competition for fear that it would blow up the world, helping bring on the crappy one we have.

McCain was a continuing Cold Warrior who we don't need since we still have Trump who is just trying to do it another way.

Trowbridge H. Ford , August 28, 2018 at 15:03

Oh, I forget that couple in Amesbury. Looks like the Porton Down Plague is spread overseas.

Posting on this site in like playing bridge online – the cards are stacked against you.

Doodlebug , August 28, 2018 at 15:26

"Give me an example, other than the Coopers. of a healthy couple one day that is found dying the next day like the Skripals."

Will a 17 year old and his step-father do?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6918378/brit-lad-17-in-a-coma-on-family-holiday-in-spain-may-have-been-poisoned-by-cockroach-pesticide/

They both survived, but one or other (quite possibly both) would have died without medical intervention.

[Sep 09, 2018] DNC Papadopoulos s UK contact may be dead

Highly recommended!
Dead men tell no tales, especially about their role in trying to set up and take down U.S. President Donald Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... DNC lawyers wrote in court filings Friday that Joseph Mifsud, who spoke to Papadopoulos during the 2016 presidential election, "is missing and may be deceased," Bloomberg News reported. The lawyers did not elaborate. ..."
"... "The DNC's counsel has attempted to serve Mifsud for months and has been unable to locate or contact him. In addition, public reports have said he has disappeared and hasn't been seen for months," DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said. ..."
Sep 09, 2018 | thehill.com
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday raised the prospect that the London-based professor who told former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton may be dead.

DNC lawyers wrote in court filings Friday that Joseph Mifsud, who spoke to Papadopoulos during the 2016 presidential election, "is missing and may be deceased," Bloomberg News reported. The lawyers did not elaborate.

The DNC stood by its claim in a statement to The Hill on Friday. The committee indicated that an investigator had been used to find Mifsud, who has been missing for months, and was told the Maltese professor may be dead.

"The DNC's counsel has attempted to serve Mifsud for months and has been unable to locate or contact him. In addition, public reports have said he has disappeared and hasn't been seen for months," DNC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.

Mifsud was reportedly teaching at a private university in Rome before he vanished late last year , shortly after his name emerged as a key figure in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The professor had reportedly not been in contact with prosecutors in Italy seeking to question him over allegations of financial wrongdoing and his fiancée told Business Insider earlier this year that she could not reach him.

The DNC's revelation came in court filings Friday in their lawsuit against Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. According to Bloomberg, the DNC said it believed all of the defendants in the case had been served, with the exception of Mifsud.

[Sep 07, 2018] New York Times Undermining Peace Efforts by Sowing Suspicion by Diana Johnstone

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The letter by Mister or Ms Anonymous is very well written. By someone like, say, Thomas Friedman. That is, someone on the NYT staff. It is very cleverly composed to achieve quite obvious calculated aims. It is a masterpiece of treacherous deception. ..."
"... This anonymous enemy of amorality claims to approve of all the most extreme right-wing measures of the Trump administration as "bright spots": deregulation, tax reform, a more robust military, "and more" – cleverly omitting mention of Trump's immigration policy which could unduly shock the New York Times' liberal readers. The late Senator John McCain, the model of bipartisan bellicosity, is cited as the example to follow. ..."
"... The "resistance" proclaimed is solely against the facets of Trump's foreign policy which White House insiders are said to be working diligently to undermine: peaceful relations with Russian and North Korea. ..."
"... Trump's desire to avoid war is transformed into "a preference for autocrats and dictators". (Trump gets no credit for his warlike rhetoric against Iran and close relations with Netanyahu, even though they must please Anonymous.) ..."
"... The purpose of this is stunningly obvious. The New York Times has already done yeoman service in rounding up liberal Democrats and left-leaning independents in the anti-Trump lynch mob. But now the ploy is to rally conservative Republicans to the same cause of overthrowing the elected President. The letter amounts to an endorsement of future President Pence. ..."
"... This is the Iago ploy. Shakespeare's villain destroyed Othello by causing him to distrust those closest to him, his wife and closest associates. Like Trump in Washington, Othello, the "Moor" of Venice, was an outsider, that much easier to deceive and betray. ..."
"... The New York Times is playing Iago, whispering that Putin in the Kremlin is surrounded by secret "informants", and that Trump in the White House is surrounded by people systematically undermining his presidency. Putin is not likely to be impressed, but the trick might work with Trump, who is truly the target of open and covert enemies and whose position is much more insecure. There is certainly some undermining going on. ..."
"... Was the New York Times oped written by the paper's own writers or by the CIA? It hardly matters since they are so closely entwined. ..."
"... The military-industrial-congressional-deep state-media complex is holding its breath to breathe that great sigh of relief. The intruder is gone. Hurrah! Now we can go right on teaching the public to hate and fear the Russian enemy, so that arms contracts continue to blossom and NATO builds up its aggressive forces around Russia in hopes that this may frighten the Russians into dumping Putin in favor of a new Boris Yeltsin, ready to let the United States pursue the Clintonian plan of breaking up the Russian Federation into pieces, like the former Yugoslavia, in order to take them over one by one, with all their great natural resources. ..."
"... When dialogue is impossible, all that is left is force and violence. That is what is being promoted by the most influential media in the United States. ..."
Sep 07, 2018 | ronpaulinstitute.org

The New York Times continues to outdo itself in the production of fake news. There is no more reliable source of fake news than the intelligence services, which regularly provide their pet outlets (NYT and WaPo) with sensational stories that are as unverifiable as their sources are anonymous. A prize example was the August 24 report that US intelligence agencies don't know anything about Russia's plans to mess up our November elections because "informants close to Putin and in the Kremlin" aren't saying anything. Not knowing anything about something for which there is no evidence is a rare scoop.

A story like that is not designed to "inform the public" since there is no information in it. It has other purposes: to keep the "Russia is undermining our democracy" story on front pages, with the extra twist in this case of trying to make Putin distrustful of his entourage. The Russian president is supposed to wonder, who are those informants in my entourage?

But that was nothing compared to the whopper produced by the "newpaper of record" on September 5. (By the way, the "record" is stuck in the same groove: Trump bad, Putin bad – bad bad bad.) This was the sensational oped headlined "I am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration", signed by nobody.

The letter by Mister or Ms Anonymous is very well written. By someone like, say, Thomas Friedman. That is, someone on the NYT staff. It is very cleverly composed to achieve quite obvious calculated aims. It is a masterpiece of treacherous deception.

The fictional author presents itself as a right-wing conservative shocked by Trump's "amorality" – a category that outside the Washington swamp might include betraying the trust of one's superior.

This anonymous enemy of amorality claims to approve of all the most extreme right-wing measures of the Trump administration as "bright spots": deregulation, tax reform, a more robust military, "and more" – cleverly omitting mention of Trump's immigration policy which could unduly shock the New York Times' liberal readers. The late Senator John McCain, the model of bipartisan bellicosity, is cited as the example to follow.

The "resistance" proclaimed is solely against the facets of Trump's foreign policy which White House insiders are said to be working diligently to undermine: peaceful relations with Russian and North Korea.

Trump's desire to avoid war is transformed into "a preference for autocrats and dictators". (Trump gets no credit for his warlike rhetoric against Iran and close relations with Netanyahu, even though they must please Anonymous.)

The purpose of this is stunningly obvious. The New York Times has already done yeoman service in rounding up liberal Democrats and left-leaning independents in the anti-Trump lynch mob. But now the ploy is to rally conservative Republicans to the same cause of overthrowing the elected President. The letter amounts to an endorsement of future President Pence. Just get rid of Trump and you'll have a nice, neat, ultra-right-wing Republican as President.

The Democrats may not like Pence, but they are so demented by hatred of Trump that they are visibly ready to accept the Devil himself to get rid of the sinister clown who dared defeat Hillary Clinton. Down with democracy; the votes of deplorables shouldn't count.

That is treacherous enough, but even more despicable is the insidious design to destabilize the presidency by sowing distrust. Speaking of Trump, Mr and/or Ms Anonymous declare: "The dilemma – which he does not fully grasp – is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations" (meaning peace with Russia).

This is the Iago ploy. Shakespeare's villain destroyed Othello by causing him to distrust those closest to him, his wife and closest associates. Like Trump in Washington, Othello, the "Moor" of Venice, was an outsider, that much easier to deceive and betray.

The New York Times is playing Iago, whispering that Putin in the Kremlin is surrounded by secret "informants", and that Trump in the White House is surrounded by people systematically undermining his presidency. Putin is not likely to be impressed, but the trick might work with Trump, who is truly the target of open and covert enemies and whose position is much more insecure. There is certainly some undermining going on.

Was the New York Times oped written by the paper's own writers or by the CIA? It hardly matters since they are so closely entwined.

No trick is too low for those who consider Trump an intolerable intruder on THEIR power territory. The New York Times "news" that Trump is surrounded by traitors is taken up by other media who indirectly confirm the story by speculating on "who is it?" The Boston Globe (among others) eagerly rushed in, asking:

"So who's the author of the op-ed? It's a question that has many people poking through the text, looking for clues. Meanwhile, the denials have come thick and fast. Here's a brief look at some of the highest-level officials in the administration who might have a motive to write the letter."

Isn't it obvious that all this is designed to make Trump distrust everyone around him? Isn't that a way to drive him toward that "crazy" where they say he already is, and which is fallback grounds for impeachment when the Mueller investigation fails to come up with nothing more serious than the fact that Russian intelligent agents are intelligent agents?

The White House insider (or insiders, or whatever) use terms like "erratic behavior" and "instability" to contribute to the "Trump is insane" narrative. Insanity is the alternative pretext to the Mueller wild goose chase for divesting Trump of the powers of the presidency. If Trump responds by accusing the traitors of being traitors, that will be final proof of his mental instability. The oped claims to provide evidence that Trump is being betrayed, but if he says so, that will be taken as a sign of mental derangement. To save our exemplary democracy from itself, the elected president must be thrown out.

The military-industrial-congressional-deep state-media complex is holding its breath to breathe that great sigh of relief. The intruder is gone. Hurrah! Now we can go right on teaching the public to hate and fear the Russian enemy, so that arms contracts continue to blossom and NATO builds up its aggressive forces around Russia in hopes that this may frighten the Russians into dumping Putin in favor of a new Boris Yeltsin, ready to let the United States pursue the Clintonian plan of breaking up the Russian Federation into pieces, like the former Yugoslavia, in order to take them over one by one, with all their great natural resources.

And when this fails, as it has been failing, and will continue to fail, the United States has all those brand new first strike nuclear weapons being stationed in European NATO countries, aimed at the Kremlin. And the Russian military are not just sitting there with their own nuclear weapons, waiting to be wiped out. When nobody, not even the President of the United States, has the right to meet and talk with Russian leaders, there is only one remaining form of exchange. When dialogue is impossible, all that is left is force and violence. That is what is being promoted by the most influential media in the United States.

[Sep 07, 2018] Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a legitimate request to neoliberal MSM - Stop Bugging Me About The New York Times' Trump Op-Ed

Highly recommended!
Actually the reaction of neoliberal MSM to the op-ed reminds me Wolff's book. They try to amplify the effect to cause the most damage.
Sep 07, 2018 | www.huffingtonpost.com

Sara h Huckabee Sanders has a tiny request: Please stop asking her about that pesky little New York Times op-ed written by an anonymous White House official.

... ... ...

On Thursday, Sanders tweeted a message addressed to all the people "asking for the identity of the anonymous coward" (basically, everyone).

The media's wild obsession with the identity of the anonymous coward is recklessly tarnishing the reputation of thousands of great Americans who
proudly serve our country and work for President Trump. Stop. If you want to know who this gutless loser is, call the opinion desk of the failing NYT at 212-556-1234, and ask them. They are the only ones complicit in this deceitful act.

We stand united together and fully support our President Donald J.Trump.

[Aug 24, 2018] The priorities of the deep state and its public face the MSM

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding the deep state elites and social engineering. ..."
Aug 24, 2018 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

PATIENT OBSERVER August 23, 2018 at 5:19 pm

Here is my take on the priorities of the deep state and its public face – the MSM:

  1. stopping the deplorable rebellion
  2. cutting off the head of the rebellion – perceived as Trump
  3. reinstating the Cold War in an effort to derail Rusisa's recovery and international leadership role
  4. bitch slapping China

The rest involves turning unsustainable debt into establishment of a feudal world comprised of elites living on Mount Olympus, legions of vassals and a vast sea of cerebrally castrated peasants to serve as a reservoir for any imaginable exploitation.

Won't happen, not even close.

PATIENT OBSERVER August 23, 2018 at 7:29 pm

Upon further reflection, Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding the deep state elites and social engineering.

[Aug 18, 2018] Pentagon Whistleblower Demoted After Exposing Millions Paid To FBI Spy Halper, Clinton Crony

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... "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. ..."
"... 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 . ..."
"... And as the Daily Caller reported, Halper used a decades-old association with Paul Manafort to break the ice with Page. ..."
"... 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. ..."
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 informant spy 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."

[Aug 18, 2018] MoA - John Brennan Is No Match For Trump

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Most important was " Brennan's ringleader role in the so-far unsuccessful attempts to derail Trump , both before and after the 2016 election. As far as we can tell it was Brennan who concocted and launched the conspiracy to insinuate that Trump is connected with alleged Russian influence. Brennan bet that Hillary Clinton would win the election. He lost his bet and is now out in the cold. He fears that his role, especially his conspiring with British security services and with the Steele dossier, will come to light. ..."
"... [R]unning against the deep state provides Trump a rhetorical crutch. It's a built-in excuse for failing to deliver on his 2016 campaign promises. Sitting presidents usually have to run as incumbents. Trump can try to run for re-election as an outsider. And is there a better poster boy for the alleged deep state than Brennan? ..."
"... The idiots who express solidarity with Brennan by offering up their security clearances confirm, simply by doing so, that there IS a deep state cabal that is opposed to Trump. Attacking Brennan and them will help Trump to get reelected. ..."
"... By colluding against me, the fake media proved once and for all, that they are in cahoots with the Democrats and have declared themselves to be my true political opposition ..."
"... Trump is excellent in playing his domestic opponents. Brennan made a huge mistake in publicly opposing him. He is now standing in the limelight and people will only dig further into his role in the "Russian collusion" campaign. Yesterday Brennan authored a New York Times ..."
"... Director Brennan's recent statements purport to know as fact that the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power. If Director Brennan's statement is based on intelligence he received while still leading the CIA, why didn't he include it in the Intelligence Community Assessment released in 2017? If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the Special Counsel, not The New York Times . ..."
"... It is doubtful that Trump will let go of the issue. Brennan is a too juicy target to stop shooting at it. Currently Brennan is still too valuable as an enemy for Trump to destroy him. But once that is over Brennan's day of judgment will come. Here are high hopes that Brennan will finally have to pay for at least one of his many crimes. ..."
"... If the Democrats jump to defend Brennan, they will have fallen into another Trump Trap. They are assuredly tone-deaf and stupid enough to take the bait. ..."
"... You are a Trump supporter because you supposedly believe Trump is an insurgent fighting the deep state for a democratic world order, or some such, perhaps more discreetly phrased. But this is nonsense ..."
"... Trump, whatever maybe said against him, is a legitimately, constitutionally elected president. The people like Brennan working against him were not elected. I didn't vote for Trump. I voted for Jill Stein. But, if there is a civil war, I will have to fight for Trump's side. The oath that I swore as a naval officer was to the Constitution. ..."
"... he's a nasty neocon that is of course protected by liberal MSM ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no limit on the numbers of despicable, warmongering, money-grubbing, craven, destructive, maniacal creatures in government. Brennan is one such specimen. Brennan belongs in prison for subverting the Constitution. ..."
"... Look, Brennan has now had enough time, with his 'hit-team' to clear much of his record and trail of criminality, and he believes that he has enough backing to go after Trump. The key is obviously the Uranium1 scam, which Mueller and Sessions appear to be stalling on big-time. And then there's the Imran Awan / Debbie Washerwoman Shultz bonanza about to break big-time - and you're trying to tell me that Brennan being charged or sued would be 'quite extreme, and an evil precedent'? ..."
"... Just my 2 cents worth. Trump's a stooge, and nearly 100% of what he does is solely and only to bully someone whom Trump perceives has having stood up to him (Trump). It's not so much about Trump taking on BigSpy, Inc, in any meaningful or substantive way. It's about Trump being a big-assed bully and throwing his considerable weight around... without accomplishing much other than smacking down Brennan - deservedly but with no real ongoing lasting useful effect. ..."
"... Democrats are not collectively smart enough or politically astute enough to run away from Brennan. What fools they are! ..."
"... Why did Trump nominated Gina Haspel as CIA Director? Her nomination was supported by former CIA directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Michael Morell, former Director of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. ..."
"... Haspel was CIA chief of station in London in 2016, when the plot against Trump was hatched. She must have known what Steele et al. were up to. ..."
"... Trumps connections with the Russian Mafia were certainly reason for concern. Too bad the DeepState Media downplayed this angle and some other angles , perhaps that would have prevented Trump from winning. ..."
"... Post Brennan the Trump administration is not only expanding the use of drones, it is also obscuring the facts about how many drones are being used, how many people are being killed by them, and where. His CIA Director Gina Haspel is certainly just as evil as Brennan and even better versed in water boarding. ..."
"... And we should not forget Brennan's role in the coup in Ukraine....does CIA still have an office on the 4th floor of SBU building in Kiev? ..."
"... If the intelligence agencies are so hostile to him, then why nominate Haspel? How does Haspel who, is connected to torture, help MAGA? How is Trump "draining the swamp" when he nominates a swamp creature (the 'choice' of the Deep State) for CIA Director? ..."
"... When "populist" Presidents (both Obama and Trump) serve the establishment instead of the people then we are, simply, being played. In fact, the American political system is organized to prevent a real popul ..."
Aug 18, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

John Brennan Is No Match For Trump

U.S President Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.

Good. It is probably the best things Trump has ever done. Brennan is one of the most despicable former U.S. officials alive. He should rot in hell instead of making money off his former status.

Besides that there is no sound reason why anyone who does not work for the government, directly or indirectly, should have a clearance and thereby access to state secrets. ACLU and others are wrong in this. Revoking or keeping a security clearance has nothing to do with free speech or first amendment rights.

Abu Jihad Brennan was the CIA's station chief in Saudi Arabia when the Khobar Towers were bombed. Al-Qaeda did it , but Brennan was helpful in blaming the attack on Hizbullah and Iran. He was deputy executive director of the CIA on 9/11. That 9/11 happened was an intelligence failure or, as some have it, an incident arranged by the deep state. Brennan was CIA chief of staff while the agency concocted false stories about Iraqi WMD. He was within the command line that ran the CIA torture program. It was Brennan who conspired with the Gulf dictators to hire Jihadis to destroy Libya and to attempt the same in Syria. In short - the man was always ruthless, incompetent and dishonest.

When Obama became president he wanted to make Brennan Director of the CIA. The Democrats in Congress were opposed to that. Obama then made him his high priest of targeted killings . After Obama's reelection, Brennan finally became director. He ordered the CIA to spy on the Congress committee investigating CIA torture. He lied to Congress under oath when he denied that it had happened. When it was proven that the CIA did what it did, he had to apologize.

At that time a Washington Post editorial headlined Obama should fire John Brennan . Today the Post calls the revocation of a security clearance of a former official, who -it had opined- should have long been fired, a "political vendetta against a career intelligence officer". Hypocrites.

Most important was " Brennan's ringleader role in the so-far unsuccessful attempts to derail Trump , both before and after the 2016 election. As far as we can tell it was Brennan who concocted and launched the conspiracy to insinuate that Trump is connected with alleged Russian influence. Brennan bet that Hillary Clinton would win the election. He lost his bet and is now out in the cold. He fears that his role, especially his conspiring with British security services and with the Steele dossier, will come to light.

Since Trump became president Brennan publicly opposed him. That was a huge mistake. He is no match for Trump. Be revoking Brennan's clearance Trump is now elevating him to 'hero' of the so called 'resistance' against him which he connects to the deep state. This is the Trump playbook :

[R]unning against the deep state provides Trump a rhetorical crutch. It's a built-in excuse for failing to deliver on his 2016 campaign promises. Sitting presidents usually have to run as incumbents. Trump can try to run for re-election as an outsider. And is there a better poster boy for the alleged deep state than Brennan?

The idiots who express solidarity with Brennan by offering up their security clearances confirm, simply by doing so, that there IS a deep state cabal that is opposed to Trump. Attacking Brennan and them will help Trump to get reelected.

Trump uses the same playbook when he attacks the "fake news media" for opposing him. He is right in that nearly all U.S. and international editors favored Hillery Clinton over Trump. This week 200 U.S. papers united to write editorials against Trump's attacks against the "freedom of the press". They fell for his trick :

Most journalists agree that there's a great need for Trump rebuttals. I've written my share. But this [Boston] Globe -sponsored coordinated editorial response is sure to backfire: It will provide Trump with circumstantial evidence of the existence of a national press cabal that has been convened solely to oppose him. When the editorials roll off the press on Thursday, all singing from the same script, Trump will reap enough fresh material to whale on the media for at least a month. His forthcoming speeches almost write themselves: By colluding against me, the fake media proved once and for all, that they are in cahoots with the Democrats and have declared themselves to be my true political opposition ...

Trump is excellent in playing his domestic opponents. Brennan made a huge mistake in publicly opposing him. He is now standing in the limelight and people will only dig further into his role in the "Russian collusion" campaign. Yesterday Brennan authored a New York Times Op Ed headlined President Trump's Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash. It does not provide any evidence for the "hogwash" claim. Brennan can not show that there was a Trump campaign collusion with Russia or anyone else.

Richard Burr, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, gave a somewhat salty and fitting response :

"Director Brennan's recent statements purport to know as fact that the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power. If Director Brennan's statement is based on intelligence he received while still leading the CIA, why didn't he include it in the Intelligence Community Assessment released in 2017? If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the Special Counsel, not The New York Times .

"If, however, Director Brennan's statement is purely political and based on conjecture, the president has full authority to revoke his security clearance as head of the Executive Branch."

In short: "Nut up or shut up."

It is doubtful that Trump will let go of the issue. Brennan is a too juicy target to stop shooting at it. Currently Brennan is still too valuable as an enemy for Trump to destroy him. But once that is over Brennan's day of judgment will come. Here are high hopes that Brennan will finally have to pay for at least one of his many crimes.

fastfreddy , Aug 17, 2018 3:30:26 PM | 1

If the Democrats jump to defend Brennan, they will have fallen into another Trump Trap. They are assuredly tone-deaf and stupid enough to take the bait.
steven t johnson , Aug 17, 2018 3:55:46 PM | 2
Indeed, Brennan is scum

That said, there is no deep state, there is just the state. There are factions in the ruling class, but arbitrarily deciding one is evil is just working for the other. You are a Trump supporter because you supposedly believe Trump is an insurgent fighting the deep state for a democratic world order, or some such, perhaps more discreetly phrased. But this is nonsense. The idea that people hate John Brennan so much they'll vote for Trumpery in the midterm and 2020 because Trump is kicking the ass of their enemy...did you actually read what you wrote here?

As far as the free speech rights of Brennan are concerned, the question is whether any contacts with other security officials, and any other research for article, books and speeches can be deemed as pursuing information he is not cleared for. That he could be criminally charged or sued. This would be quite extreme, and an evil precedent when such repressive tactics are used even within the upper ranks. What they do to each other, they'll do to us, faster, harder and more often.

howard in nyc , Aug 17, 2018 3:57:50 PM | 3
b wrote, above:
Good. It is one of the best things Trump has ever done. Brennan is one of the most despicable former U.S. officials alive. He should rot in hell.

but, but, Nancy Pelosi said in a twit:

Revoking the security clearance of an honorable patriot is a stunning abuse of power & a pathetic attempt to silence critics.

Whom am I to believe? (um, trick question) Thank you for the brief summary of this horrible person's career lowlites. Now I can just point people to this piece when they ask me how can I speak against such an 'honorable patriot'. Jeesh, these times we live.

lysias , Aug 17, 2018 4:35:05 PM | 4
Trump, whatever maybe said against him, is a legitimately, constitutionally elected president. The people like Brennan working against him were not elected. I didn't vote for Trump. I voted for Jill Stein. But, if there is a civil war, I will have to fight for Trump's side. The oath that I swore as a naval officer was to the Constitution.
Bardi , Aug 17, 2018 4:38:41 PM | 5
"Brennan is one of the most despicable former U.S. officials alive. He should rot in hell." Neither of those are reasons to remove someone's security clearance. The reasons are documented. Try to stay on topic.
Zanon , Aug 17, 2018 4:41:06 PM | 6
" Brennan is one of the most despicable former U.S. officials alive. He should rot in hell."

Great summary, he's a nasty neocon that is of course protected by liberal MSM.

gogaijin , Aug 17, 2018 4:41:57 PM | 7
I think this is the right move and it may indeed turn out to be a political win. But before giving Trump all the credit, it should be noted that Senator Rand Paul, a man who has consistently been critical of US foreign policy, publicly proposed the idea of canceling Brennan's security clearance last month.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article216755630.html

Zanon , Aug 17, 2018 4:46:21 PM | 8
After clearance pull, Democrats rush to back Brennan – who spied on them https://www.rt.com/usa/436065-democrats-forget-brennan-spied/
fastfreddy , Aug 17, 2018 4:46:39 PM | 9
Unfortunately, there is no limit on the numbers of despicable, warmongering, money-grubbing, craven, destructive, maniacal creatures in government. Brennan is one such specimen. Brennan belongs in prison for subverting the Constitution.
lysias , Aug 17, 2018 4:47:22 PM | 10
Accusing Trump of treason for what he did in Helsinki is surely sufficient reason for losing a clearance.
fredjc , Aug 17, 2018 4:49:16 PM | 11
@2 steven

"That said, there is no deep state, there is just the state. There are factions in the ruling class, but arbitrarily deciding one is evil is just working for the other. You are a Trump supporter because you supposedly believe Trump is an insurgent fighting the deep state for a democratic world order, or some such, perhaps more discreetly phrased. "

What a strange opening gambit? There obviously is a deep state - who do you think Trump has been battling with if it is not 'hangers on' to political power and influence, the MIC, the Corporations, Wall St, the Fed and the Bankers (spelt with a 'W')?

Look, Brennan has now had enough time, with his 'hit-team' to clear much of his record and trail of criminality, and he believes that he has enough backing to go after Trump. The key is obviously the Uranium1 scam, which Mueller and Sessions appear to be stalling on big-time. And then there's the Imran Awan / Debbie Washerwoman Shultz bonanza about to break big-time - and you're trying to tell me that Brennan being charged or sued would be 'quite extreme, and an evil precedent'?

Jeez, what are they feeding the trolls with these days...

RUKidding , Aug 17, 2018 4:57:57 PM | 12
Brennan is disgusting scum. May he rot. I would prefer for all who are Ex-BigSpy,Inc to have their security clearances revoked as soon as they become "ex." Sadly, that's apparently not how it's done. I fully disagree with a policy of letting these "ex" types keep their security clearance as "a matter of courtesy." Perhaps this whole kerfuffle will lead to a review of this practice and a change but not holding my breath.

Although I kinda personally "like" it that Trump revoked Brennan's clearance, I am also troubled by it. I don't think Trump followed proper channels, and the way it was done -- and for the reasons stated -- are questionable. IMO, it has at least a bit of a stink of Dictatorship about it.

Ergo, I'm not all "down" with what Trump did. Yeah, yeah, he fired a shot across the bow of BigSpy, Inc. In some ways, that's a good thing. But as usual, Trump does this in such a stupidly dumb and ham-handed way that it pretty much negates the potential "good" this might do.

Just my 2 cents worth. Trump's a stooge, and nearly 100% of what he does is solely and only to bully someone whom Trump perceives has having stood up to him (Trump). It's not so much about Trump taking on BigSpy, Inc, in any meaningful or substantive way. It's about Trump being a big-assed bully and throwing his considerable weight around... without accomplishing much other than smacking down Brennan - deservedly but with no real ongoing lasting useful effect.

fastfreddy , Aug 17, 2018 4:58:38 PM | 13
7

Democrats are not collectively smart enough or politically astute enough to run away from Brennan. What fools they are!

They abandoned their "working persons" base a long time ago. That, and Obama embraced (rescued) the Republican Party after it was nearly torn asunder by Dubya Bush. Recall that Republican affiliation was at an historic low. They needed a boot on their throats and instead they got a hand up. A seat at the table, and often, the head of the table.

Completely revived, they (the R Party) now have carte blanche to destroy public institutions at will.

Jackrabbit , Aug 17, 2018 4:59:17 PM | 14
Why did Trump nominated Gina Haspel as CIA Director? Her nomination was supported by former CIA directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Michael Morell, former Director of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Draining the swamp? If Trump had taken on Brennan sooner, Haspel's nomination and confirmation might've been moot.

Watch what they DO not what they SAY.

lysias , Aug 17, 2018 5:08:45 PM | 15
Haspel was CIA chief of station in London in 2016, when the plot against Trump was hatched. She must have known what Steele et al. were up to.
Pft , Aug 17, 2018 5:12:59 PM | 19
Trumps connections with the Russian Mafia were certainly reason for concern. Too bad the DeepState Media downplayed this angle and some other angles , perhaps that would have prevented Trump from winning.

Post Brennan the Trump administration is not only expanding the use of drones, it is also obscuring the facts about how many drones are being used, how many people are being killed by them, and where. His CIA Director Gina Haspel is certainly just as evil as Brennan and even better versed in water boarding.

Anyways, big whoop that Brennan lost his security clearance . I doubt he needs Food Stamps now.

Mark2 , Aug 17, 2018 5:23:27 PM | 20
Personally I hope this gets right out of control. Drone strikes and cruse missile style ! Freandly rebels, white helmets the whole deal. bring it on and pass the popcorn !!! Dirty scum.
hopehely , Aug 17, 2018 7:04:33 PM | 31
And we should not forget Brennan's role in the coup in Ukraine....does CIA still have an office on the 4th floor of SBU building in Kiev?
Jackrabbit , Aug 17, 2018 7:59:19 PM | 39
lysias @27: Trump was meant to win? Obviously not by the intelligence agencies...

If the intelligence agencies are so hostile to him, then why nominate Haspel? How does Haspel who, is connected to torture, help MAGA? How is Trump "draining the swamp" when he nominates a swamp creature (the 'choice' of the Deep State) for CIA Director?

When "populist" Presidents (both Obama and Trump) serve the establishment instead of the people then we are, simply, being played. In fact, the American political system is organized to prevent a real popul

Rob , Aug 17, 2018 8:02:56 PM | 40
As far as I am concerned, every CIA director, living or dead, is/was guilty of heinous crimes and deserves to rot in hell. Yet it is just plain nonsense to believe that Donald Trump can outsmart them...
NemesisCalling , Aug 17, 2018 8:22:30 PM | 43
@25 jackrabbit

Trump is...

"a deep state asset." How do you know that? It could be just as well that Trump is fighting this group by outsmarting them with the long game, a la Putin. (i.e. mixed signals and not acting too brashly in undoing the cabal)

"a faux populist." Even if he was a faux populist, which he might exhibit shades of, how does this make him a bad president at this current juncture in US history? Would you accept that a good president could not be a populist? IMO, he appears to be scrambling the cohesive unity and appearance of America's FP and putting the pressure on the seams of NATO and the UN so that they may eventually tear. Whatever your opinion of the UN, one can not argue against its ineffectual weight in ongoing atrocity (Syria, Yemen), but one COULD argue that it has been an agent of or has at least been coopted by the NWO.

I believe you are proceeding from these two points in your thinking that need to be reevaluated.

In your prior post @13, you equate selecting Gina Haspel as director of the CIA as further proof of Trump's assured malfeasance. Have you considered that:

1) she may be ineffectual and so on Trump's leash at the CIA
2) in her prior years under the shadow of Brennan, her promotions might have been politically-motivated and so it is understandable that a globalist like Brennan would vote in lockstep their approval of Haspel because "GIRL POWER!" .
3) it might not be as simple as that to say that just because one is brought up in Brennan's CIA and then ascends to its heights that she will do globalist/Brennan bidding as a sleeper-agent in her position.

Circe , Aug 17, 2018 10:48:00 PM | 62
I agree with everything expressed here about Brennan but while Trump is getting rid of one war criminal, he's bedding another; oligarch friend Erik Prince aka Blackwater ceo, aka exCIA operative who he wants to put in charge in Afghanistan. Trump could care less of your noble reasons for hating Brennan. Trump is no genius who gives a damn about human rights violations. Trump only cares about number one; HIMSELF.

So what's the difference between Brennan and Prince? Only the size of their bank account. When Trump does something right as in Brennan's case you can always thank his big fat ego; self-promotion or self-preservation; SELF being the operative word. To compensate for that accidental right move he'll make a collosal dumb move as in North Korea vs Iran as in Brennan vs Erik Prince. I rest my case.

jadan , Aug 17, 2018 11:15:05 PM | 67
The enemy of my enemy is also an enemy in this case. It pains me to agree with Trump on any issue. Brennan is a thug. His physiognomy gives him away at a glance. To say he is no match for Trump is not correct. He is no match for the power of the presidency. Trump can't handle this power, either, which is why he is going down for laundering money for Russians and for colluding with them to win the election, which is not to say the Russians rigged the election. Nor is not to say the Russians are enemies, as Obama and the CIA have struggled to establish. This is to say that Trump is impulsive, ignorant, solipsistic, and corrupt to the bone.
Jen , Aug 18, 2018 12:16:37 AM | 69
I have heard rumour that while he was CIA Station Chief in Saudi Arabia in the late 1990s, John Brennan converted to Wahhabi Islam. Is anyone able to say if this is true?

The only sources of information on this rumour are a former FBI counter-terrorism agent John Guandolo and a retired CIA senior official Brad Johnson (who has admitted that he has never heard Brennan say the shahada - the profession of faith, that the only God is Allah and Muhammad is his prophet - but knows people in the CIA who apparently have heard Brennan say the shahada in front of Saudi and US government officials).

https://www.acunewsdaily.com/2017/06/29/cia-confirms-john-brennan-converted-to-islam/

Cyril , Aug 18, 2018 1:08:08 AM | 71
Brennan is one of the most despicable former U.S. officials alive.

Indeed. It's possible that the misdeeds listed in the article have not begun to measure the man's wickedness.

I think it's a good time to mention The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred McCoy. (I am not posting a link as the URL is too long.) As the title says, the book is about how deeply the CIA is involved in the global drug trade.

What are the chances that former CIA Director Brennan is/was one of the gangsters causing the current opioid and heroin epidemic in the U.S.?

Emily , Aug 18, 2018 6:15:28 AM | 78
Why would he have a security clearance if he was no longer a member of the government?
None of them should
I cannot understand the logic of it all,
Hillary Clinton for example - she has one I believe.
Rather bizarre isn't it?
Just asking.

[Aug 14, 2018] US Intelligence Community is Tearing the Country Apart from the Inside by Dmitry Orlov

Highly recommended!
This is an interesting analysis shedding some light on how the US intelligence services have gone rogue...
Notable quotes:
"... Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence. ..."
"... the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough. ..."
"... That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment. ..."
"... He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail? ..."
"... The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance -- which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US "intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit up." ..."
"... The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on. ..."
"... "What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task." ..."
"... "The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact." ..."
"... But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts. ..."
"... Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. ..."
Jul 28, 2018 | russia-insider.com
In today's United States, the term "espionage" doesn't get too much use outside of some specific contexts. There is still sporadic talk of industrial espionage, but with regard to Americans' own efforts to understand the world beyond their borders, they prefer the term "intelligence." This may be an intelligent choice, or not, depending on how you look at things.

First of all, US "intelligence" is only vaguely related to the game of espionage as it has been traditionally played, and as it is still being played by countries such as Russia and China. Espionage involves collecting and validating strategically vital information and conveying it to just the pertinent decision-makers on your side while keeping the fact that you are collecting and validating it hidden from everyone else.

In eras past, a spy, if discovered, would try to bite down on a cyanide capsule; these days torture is considered ungentlemanly, and spies that get caught patiently wait to be exchanged in a spy swap. An unwritten, commonsense rule about spy swaps is that they are done quietly and that those released are never interfered with again because doing so would complicate negotiating future spy swaps.

In recent years, the US intelligence agencies have decided that torturing prisoners is a good idea, but they have mostly been torturing innocent bystanders, not professional spies, sometimes forcing them to invent things, such as "Al Qaeda." There was no such thing before US intelligence popularized it as a brand among Islamic terrorists.

Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence.

There are unlikely to be any more British spy swaps with Russia, and British spies working in Russia should probably be issued good old-fashioned cyanide capsules (since that supposedly super-powerful Novichok stuff the British keep at their "secret" lab in Porton Down doesn't work right and is only fatal 20% of the time).

There is another unwritten, commonsense rule about spying in general: whatever happens, it needs to be kept out of the courts, because the discovery process of any trial would force the prosecution to divulge sources and methods, making them part of the public record. An alternative is to hold secret tribunals, but since these cannot be independently verified to be following due process and rules of evidence, they don't add much value.

A different standard applies to traitors; here, sending them through the courts is acceptable and serves a high moral purpose, since here the source is the person on trial and the method -- treason -- can be divulged without harm. But this logic does not apply to proper, professional spies who are simply doing their jobs, even if they turn out to be double agents. In fact, when counterintelligence discovers a spy, the professional thing to do is to try to recruit him as a double agent or, failing that, to try to use the spy as a channel for injecting disinformation.

Americans have been doing their best to break this rule. Recently, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it's been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet. Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn't have been done by anyone working remotely from Russia.

Furthermore, it is an exercise in futility for a US official to indict Russian citizens in Russia. They will never stand trial in a US court because of the following clause in the Russian Constitution: "61.1 A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of Russia or extradited to another state."

Mueller may summon a panel of constitutional scholars to interpret this sentence, or he can just read it and weep. Yes, the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough.

That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment.

He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail?

Since there exists an agreement between the US and Russia to cooperate on criminal investigations, Putin offered to question the spies indicted by Mueller. He even offered to have Mueller sit in on the proceedings. But in return he wanted to question US officials who may have aided and abetted a convicted felon by the name of William Browder, who is due to begin serving a nine-year sentence in Russia any time now and who, by the way, donated copious amounts of his ill-gotten money to the Hillary Clinton election campaign.

In response, the US Senate passed a resolution to forbid Russians from questioning US officials. And instead of issuing a valid request to have the twelve Russian spies interviewed, at least one US official made the startlingly inane request to have them come to the US instead. Again, which part of 61.1 don't they understand?

The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance -- which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US "intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit up."

The "intelligence" the US intelligence agencies provide can be anything but; in fact, the stupider it is the better, because its purpose is allow unintelligent people to make unintelligent decisions. In fact, they consider facts harmful -- be they about Syrian chemical weapons, or conspiring to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders, or Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden -- because facts require accuracy and rigor while they prefer to dwell in the realm of pure fantasy and whimsy. In this, their actual objective is easily discernible.

The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on.

One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag operations, à la 9/11, to fake false flag operations, à la fake East Gouta chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story is perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were harmed in the process of concocting this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips. It is now a pure confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a conspiracy theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.

Trump was recently questioned as to whether he trusted US intelligence. He waffled. A light-hearted answer would have been:

"What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task."

A more serious, matter-of-fact answer would have been:

"The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact."

And a hardcore, deadpan answer would have been:

"The US intelligence services swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, according to which I am their Commander in Chief. They report to me, not I to them. They must be loyal to me, not I to them. If they are disloyal to me, then that is sufficient reason for their dismissal."

But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts.

Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria.

The total cost of wars so far this century for the US is reported to be $4,575,610,429,593. Divided by the 138,313,155 Americans who file tax returns (whether they actually pay any tax is too subtle a question), it works out to just over $33,000 per taxpayer. If you pay taxes in the US, that's your bill so far for the various US intelligence "oopsies."

The 16 US intelligence agencies have a combined budget of $66.8 billion, and that seems like a lot until you realize how supremely efficient they are: their "mistakes" have cost the country close to 70 times their budget. At a staffing level of over 200,000 employees, each of them has cost the US taxpayer close to $23 million, on average. That number is totally out of the ballpark! The energy sector has the highest earnings per employee, at around $1.8 million per. Valero Energy stands out at $7.6 million per. At $23 million per, the US intelligence community has been doing three times better than Valero. Hats off! This makes the US intelligence community by far the best, most efficient collapse driver imaginable.

There are two possible hypotheses for why this is so.

First, we might venture to guess that these 200,000 people are grossly incompetent and that the fiascos they precipitate are accidental. But it is hard to imagine a situation where grossly incompetent people nevertheless manage to funnel $23 million apiece, on average, toward an assortment of futile undertakings of their choosing. It is even harder to imagine that such incompetents would be allowed to blunder along decade after decade without being called out for their mistakes.

Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars."

[Aug 08, 2018] Sergei Skripal was linked to a consultant with former UK spy Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence

Highly recommended!
"Door handle" theory is dead on arrival. the main theory now is that UK government gave Skripals different agent BX (similar to LSD and which caused hallucinations) and they voluntarily took it in order to start preplanned Skripal false flag provocation. That's why military nurse accidentally appeared near Skripals soon after poisoning.
Notable quotes:
"... Following the attack on the Skripals, European and US allies took Britain's side on the attack, ordering the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War, reports Reuters . In response, Russia retaliated by expelling Western diplomats, while the Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks - while accusing the UK intelligence agencies of staging the attack in order to inflame anti-Russia tensions. ..."
"... Prior to the investigation's focus on the door handle, for a period of almost three weeks there were at least nine other theories proposed by the authorities as to where the Skripals came into contact with the poison. These included the restaurant, the pub, the bench, the cemetery, the car, the flowers, the luggage, the porridge and even a drone. During that time, police officers and investigators were entering and leaving the house, by the door, since it was not known to be the place where the poison was located. ..."
"... Once the door handle theory was established, those who had been in and out of the property during the previous three weeks would naturally have been concerned about the possibility that they had been contaminated. ..."
"... Every officer who entered the house after 4th March, and before the door handle became an object of interest, should have been given a medical examination to check for signs of poisoning. ..."
"... Initial reports about Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey stated that he was poisoned at the bench, after coming to the aid of Mr Skripal and Yulia. However, on 9th March, Lord Ian Blair stated that D.S. Bailey had actually become poisoned after visiting Mr Skripal's house. Since he was thought to have been poisoned with a military grade nerve agent, and since it was thought that this had occurred at Mr Skripal's house, the immediate next step should have been to seal off the house and set up a mobile decontamination unit outside. However, numerous photographs show officers in normal uniforms standing close to the door long after Lord Blair's claim ..."
"... Can the authorities explain how these decisions did not put the health and even the lives of those officers in jeopardy? ..."
"... Before the door handle theory was settled on, the majority of competing theories put out by the authorities tended to assume that Mr Skripal was poisoned long before he went to Zizzis. For example, the flowers, the cemetery, the luggage, the porridge and the car explanations all assume this to be the case. What this means is that according to the assumptions of police at that time, when Mr Skripal fed the ducks near the Avon Playground with a few local boys, at around 1:45pm, he was already contaminated. Yet although this event was caught on CCTV camera, it was more than two weeks before the police contacted the parents of these boys. ..."
"... Can the authorities comment on why they did not air the CCTV footage on national television, in an effort to appeal to the boys or their parents to come forward, and whether the delay in tracking them down might have put them in danger? ..."
"... If the door handle was the place of poisoning, it is extremely likely that the bread handed by Mr Skripal to the boys would have been contaminated. Certainly, areas that he visited after this incident were deemed to be so much at risk that they were either closed down (for example, The Mill and Zizzis, which are both still closed), or destroyed (for instance, the restaurant table, the bench and – almost certainly – the red bag near the bench have all been destroyed). ..."
"... It has been said that one of the reasons the Government is/was so sure that the ultimate culprit behind the poisoning was the Russian state, is the apparent existence of an "FSB handbook" which, amongst other things, allegedly features descriptions of how to apply nerve agent to a door handle. Given that the Prime Minister first made a formal accusation of culpability on 12th March in her speech to the House of Commons, the Government must therefore have been in possession of this manual prior to that day. However, claims about the door handle being the location of the poison did not appear until late March (the first media reports of it were on 28th March). What this means is there was a delay of several weeks between the Government making its accusation, based partly on the apparent existence of the "door handle manual", and the door handle of Mr Skripal's house being a subject of interest to investigators. ..."
"... "We are learning more about Sergei and Yulia's movements but we need to be clearer around their exact movements on the morning of the incident. We believe that at around 9.15am on Sunday, 4 March, Sergei's car may have been in the areas of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road. Then at around 1.30pm it was seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards the town centre. We need to establish Sergei and Yulia's movements during the morning, before they headed to the town centre. Did you see this car, or what you believe was this car, on the day of the incident? We are particularly keen to hear from you if you saw the car before 1.30pm. If you have information, please call the police on 101." ..."
"... Now that Sergei and Yulia Skripal have been awake and able to communicate for around four months, these details are presumably now all known to investigators. In the normal course of such a high profile investigation, details such as these would be relayed to the public in the hope of jogging memories to prompt more information. And in fact, many such details have been released to the public in this case. Yet, confirmation of Mr Skripal's and Yulia's movements that day remain conspicuous by their absence. ..."
"... These questions have nothing to do with any conspiracy theory. On the contrary, they are all based on the assumption that the two central claims made by the authorities regarding the mode and the method used in this incident are correct. They are, however, very serious and perfectly legitimate questions about the way the authorities have dealt with this incident, on their own terms and on the basis of their own claims . ..."
"... "Reports that the United Kingdom is planning to ask Russia to extradite suspects in a Salisbury poisoning incident are nothing more than a "speculation," a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office told Sputnik on Monday. ..."
Aug 06, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The British government has prepared an extradition request to Moscow for two Russians they claim carried out the Salisbury nerve agent attack, according to The Guardian , citing Whitehall and security sources.

Former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench in Salisbury in early March - which UK authorities believe was due to a nerve agent called Novichok.

Months later on June 30, nearby residents Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother of three, were subsequently treated for exposure to the nerve agent. Rowley recovered while Sturgess died.

Authorities are operating on the assumption that the Skripals were poisoned using a novichok-laced perfume bottle or a door handle smeared with the nerve agent, while Rowley may have picked up said bottle and given to Sturgess, who applied it to her wrists.

Sturgess received a much higher dose than the other three after apparently smearing the substance on her wrists, having sprayed it from the bottle. Rowley's recovery was helped, according to a source, by one of the first responders being familiar with the nerve agent, having been involved in helping the Skripals.

The Porton Down military defence laboratory near Salisbury has examined the novichok found on the Skripals' doorknob and the perfume bottle, but police have not yet said whether they are from the same batch. - The Guardian

UK authorities believe they have pieced together the movements of the two Russians, from their entry into the UK to their departure after the alleged assassination attempt.

Following the attack on the Skripals, European and US allies took Britain's side on the attack, ordering the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War, reports Reuters . In response, Russia retaliated by expelling Western diplomats, while the Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks - while accusing the UK intelligence agencies of staging the attack in order to inflame anti-Russia tensions.

Oddly, Sergei Skripal was linked by The Telegraph to a consultant with former UK spy Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence, who he reportedly had repeated contacts with.

The motive for trying to assassinate the 66-year-old skripal is unknown. Skripal moved to the UK in a Kremlin-approved "spy swap" in 2010, causing many to question why they would suddenly try to take him out a decade later.

In July, journalist Rob Slane compiled 10 questions for the UK authorities on the ever-confusing Skripal case:

***

The two most basic claims made by the Government and investigators regarding the method and the mode in the Salisbury poisoning are these:

  1. That military grade nerve agent was used to poison Mr Skripal
  2. That it was applied to the door handle of his house

These claims raise a number of very obvious questions. For example, how did the assassin(s) apply such a powerful chemical without wearing protective clothing? How did the people who are said to have come into contact with the substance not die immediately, or at the very least suffer irreparable damage to their Central Nervous Systems? How did this military grade nerve agent manage not only to have a delayed onset, but also managed to affect a large 66-year-old man and his slim 33-year-old daughter, both of whom would have vastly different metabolic rates, at exactly the same time?

These are perfectly reasonable questions that deserve reasonable answers. I am aware, however, that no matter how obvious and rational such questions might be, doing so places one – at least in the eyes of the authorities – in the camp of the conspiracy theorist. This is disingenuous. One of the marks of a true conspiracy theorist is that he is someone who refuses to accept an explanation for an event, even after being presented with facts which fit and explain it coherently . But when the "facts" presented in a case do not fit the event they are supposed to explain, and are neither rational nor coherent -- as in the Salisbury case -- then calling the person who raises legitimate questions a "conspiracy theorist" is a bit rich, is it not?

Nevertheless, for the purposes of this piece, what I'd like to do is work on the assumption that the "Military Grade Nerve Agent on the Door Handle" claim is correct. And working from this assumption, I want to ask some questions about how the authorities have handled the case. The point is this: These questions are not really intended to challenge the official claims; rather the intention is to ask whether the authorities have handled the case correctly on their own terms .

1. Prior to the investigation's focus on the door handle, for a period of almost three weeks there were at least nine other theories proposed by the authorities as to where the Skripals came into contact with the poison. These included the restaurant, the pub, the bench, the cemetery, the car, the flowers, the luggage, the porridge and even a drone. During that time, police officers and investigators were entering and leaving the house, by the door, since it was not known to be the place where the poison was located.

Can the authorities explain how these officers and investigators were not poisoned?

2. Once the door handle theory was established, those who had been in and out of the property during the previous three weeks would naturally have been concerned about the possibility that they had been contaminated.

Can the authorities tell us what steps were taken to reassure these officers?

3. Every officer who entered the house after 4th March, and before the door handle became an object of interest, should have been given a medical examination to check for signs of poisoning.

Can the authorities confirm that this took place for every officer?

4. Initial reports about Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey stated that he was poisoned at the bench, after coming to the aid of Mr Skripal and Yulia. However, on 9th March, Lord Ian Blair stated that D.S. Bailey had actually become poisoned after visiting Mr Skripal's house. Since he was thought to have been poisoned with a military grade nerve agent, and since it was thought that this had occurred at Mr Skripal's house, the immediate next step should have been to seal off the house and set up a mobile decontamination unit outside. However, numerous photographs show officers in normal uniforms standing close to the door long after Lord Blair's claim.

Can the authorities confirm why the house was not sealed off and a decontamination unit set up immediately after it became known that D.S. Bailey had been there, and why officers with no protective clothing on were allowed to continue standing guard outside the house for the next few weeks?

5. Can the authorities explain how these decisions did not put the health and even the lives of those officers in jeopardy?

6. Before the door handle theory was settled on, the majority of competing theories put out by the authorities tended to assume that Mr Skripal was poisoned long before he went to Zizzis. For example, the flowers, the cemetery, the luggage, the porridge and the car explanations all assume this to be the case. What this means is that according to the assumptions of police at that time, when Mr Skripal fed the ducks near the Avon Playground with a few local boys, at around 1:45pm, he was already contaminated. Yet although this event was caught on CCTV camera, it was more than two weeks before the police contacted the parents of these boys.

Can the authorities explain why it took more than two weeks to track down the boys, who – as the CCTV apparently shows – were given bread by Mr Skripal?

7. Can the authorities comment on why they did not air the CCTV footage on national television, in an effort to appeal to the boys or their parents to come forward, and whether the delay in tracking them down might have put them in danger?

8. If the door handle was the place of poisoning, it is extremely likely that the bread handed by Mr Skripal to the boys would have been contaminated. Certainly, areas that he visited after this incident were deemed to be so much at risk that they were either closed down (for example, The Mill and Zizzis, which are both still closed), or destroyed (for instance, the restaurant table, the bench and – almost certainly – the red bag near the bench have all been destroyed).

Can the authorities comment on how the boys, who were handed bread by Mr Skripal, managed to avoid contamination?

9. It has been said that one of the reasons the Government is/was so sure that the ultimate culprit behind the poisoning was the Russian state, is the apparent existence of an "FSB handbook" which, amongst other things, allegedly features descriptions of how to apply nerve agent to a door handle. Given that the Prime Minister first made a formal accusation of culpability on 12th March in her speech to the House of Commons, the Government must therefore have been in possession of this manual prior to that day. However, claims about the door handle being the location of the poison did not appear until late March (the first media reports of it were on 28th March). What this means is there was a delay of several weeks between the Government making its accusation, based partly on the apparent existence of the "door handle manual", and the door handle of Mr Skripal's house being a subject of interest to investigators.

Can the authorities therefore tell us whether the Government's failure to pass on details of the "door handle manual" put the lives of the officers going in and out of Mr Skripal's house from 5th March to 27th March in jeopardy?

10. On 17th March, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said:

"We are learning more about Sergei and Yulia's movements but we need to be clearer around their exact movements on the morning of the incident. We believe that at around 9.15am on Sunday, 4 March, Sergei's car may have been in the areas of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road. Then at around 1.30pm it was seen being driven down Devizes Road, towards the town centre. We need to establish Sergei and Yulia's movements during the morning, before they headed to the town centre. Did you see this car, or what you believe was this car, on the day of the incident? We are particularly keen to hear from you if you saw the car before 1.30pm. If you have information, please call the police on 101."

Now that Sergei and Yulia Skripal have been awake and able to communicate for around four months, these details are presumably now all known to investigators. In the normal course of such a high profile investigation, details such as these would be relayed to the public in the hope of jogging memories to prompt more information. And in fact, many such details have been released to the public in this case. Yet, confirmation of Mr Skripal's and Yulia's movements that day remain conspicuous by their absence.

Can the authorities confirm that the movements of the Skripals that day are now understood, and that they will be made known shortly, in order that more information from the public might then be forthcoming?

These questions have nothing to do with any conspiracy theory. On the contrary, they are all based on the assumption that the two central claims made by the authorities regarding the mode and the method used in this incident are correct. They are, however, very serious and perfectly legitimate questions about the way the authorities have dealt with this incident, on their own terms and on the basis of their own claims .

We await their explanations.

besnook Mon, 08/06/2018 - 14:22 Permalink

the brits want to embarrass themselves.

EuroPox -> besnook Mon, 08/06/2018 - 14:25 Permalink

They already have - that was just more lies:

"Reports that the United Kingdom is planning to ask Russia to extradite suspects in a Salisbury poisoning incident are nothing more than a "speculation," a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office told Sputnik on Monday.

"This is just more speculation. The police investigation is ongoing and anything on the record will need to come from the Police," the spokesperson said."

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201808061067000089-uk-no-request-salisbu

[Jul 31, 2018] Is not the Awan affair a grave insult to the US "Intelligence Community?

Highly recommended!
Jul 31, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

Nik , July 28, 2018 at 9:22 am

Is not the Awan affair a grave insult to the US "Intelligence Community?" http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/what-are-the-democrats-hiding-by-publius-tacitus.html

For several years, a family of foreign nationals (and not only Wassermannn-Schultz) has been surfing the congressional computers while having no security clearance.

Then there was a criminal negligence by H. Clinton who made her emails, filled with the highest-level classified information, available to Chinese (not the Russians). http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/07/httpstruepunditcomfbi-lisa-page-dimes-out-top-fbi-officials-during-classified-house-testimony-bureau-bos.html

Both Debbie and Hillary should be in federal prison already. Clinton used to be fond of droning Assange for divulging the criminal and illegal activities of the state. What Debbie and Hillary did has been much more dangerous to the US national security.

[Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax

Highly recommended!
So British were involved in fabricating of 'Guccifer 2.0' persona. Nice...
Notable quotes:
"... It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata' of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the 'WP.' ..."
"... 'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.' ..."
"... As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security', which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London underground, perhaps? ..."
"... The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment for the office. ..."
"... He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May. ..."
"... However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on the 'Lawfare' site: ..."
"... Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.' ..."
"... Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but before and after. ..."
"... Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual "Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test. ..."
"... One quick way to know their bias is the AC test. Google their name plus "Atlantic Council". Ridd fails badly. ..."
"... The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues. The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive. Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer, when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be 100 to the 50th power. ..."
"... There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note. ..."
"... It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda. ..."
"... What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats. ..."
"... I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous. ..."
"... You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia. ..."
"... Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition), is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain. ..."
"... I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British! ..."
"... So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax. ..."
Jul 20, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

As some commenters on SST seem still to have difficulty grasping that the presence of 'metadata' alluding to 'Iron Felix' in the 'Guccifer 2.0' material is strong evidence that the GRU were being framed over a leak, rather than that they were responsible for a hack, an update on the British end of the conspiracy seems in order.

If you look at the 'Lawfare' blog, in which a key figure is James Comey's crony Benjamin Wittes, you will find a long piece published last Friday, entitled 'Russia Indictment 2.0: What to Make of Mueller's Hacking Indictment.'

Among the authors, in addition to Wittes himself, is the sometime GCHQ employee Matt Tait. It appears that the former head of that organisation, the Blairite 'trusty' Robert Hannigan, who must know where a good few skeletons are buried, is a figure of some moment in the conspiracy.

(See https://www.lawfareblog.com... .)

It was Matt Tait who, using the 'Twitter' handle @pwnallthethings, identified the name and patronymic of Dzerzhinsky in the 'metadata' of the 'Guccifer 2.0' material on 15 June 2016, the day after Ellen Nakashima first disseminated the BS from 'CrowdStrike' in the 'WP.'

The story was picked up the following day in a report on the 'Ars Technica' site, and Tait's own account appeared on the 'Lawfare' site, to which he has been a regular contributor, on 28 July.

(See https://arstechnica.com/inf... ; https://www.lawfareblog.com... .)

According to the CV provided in conjunction with the new article:

'Matt Tait is a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously he was CEO of Capital Alpha Security, a consultancy in the UK, worked at Google Project Zero, was a principal security consultant for iSEC Partners, and NGS Secure, and worked as an information security specialist for GCHQ.'

As I have noted before on SST, a cursory examination of records at 'Companies House' establishes that 'Capital Alpha Security', which was supposed to have provided Tait with an – independent – source of income at the time he unearthed this 'smoking gun' incriminating the GRU, never did any business at all. So, a question arises: how was Tait making ends meet at that time: busking on the London underground, perhaps?

(See https://beta.companieshouse... .)

Actually, there has been a recent update in the records. Somewhat prematurely perhaps, there is an entry dated 24 July 2018, entitled 'Final Gazette dissolved via compulsory strike-off. This document is being processed and will be available in 5 days.'

The document, when available, may clarify a few loose ends, but the general picture seems clear. Last November, Tait filed 'dormant company accounts' for the company's first year in existence, up until February 2017. One can only do this if one has absolutely no revenue, and absolutely no expenditure. Not even the smallest contract to sort out malware on someone's computer, or to buy equipment for the office.

He then failed to file the 'Confirmation statement', which every company must is legally obliged to produce annually, if it is not to be struck off. This failure led to a 'First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off' in May.

It is, of course, possible that at the time Tait set up the company he was genuinely intending to try to make a go of a consultancy, and simply got sidetracked by other opportunities.

However – speaking from experience – people who have set up small 'one man band' companies to market skills learnt in large organisations, and then go back into such organisations, commonly think it worth their while to spend the minimal amount of time required to file the documentation required to keep the company alive.

If one sees any realistic prospect that one may either want to or need to go back into the big wide world again, this is the sensible course of action: particularly now when, with the internet, filing the relevant documentation takes about half an hour a year, and costs a trivial sum.

However, Tait may well anticipate that there is there will never be any call for him to go back into the big wide world, as the large organisation in which he has now found employment is part of a 'Borgist' network. So much is evident from another entry on the 'Lawfare' site:

'Bobby Chesney is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School of Law. He also serves as the Director of UT-Austin's interdisciplinary research center the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. His scholarship encompasses a wide range of issues relating to national security and the law, including detention, targeting, prosecution, covert action, and the state secrets privilege; most of it is posted here. Along with Ben Wittes and Jack Goldsmith, he is one of the co-founders of the blog.'

(See https://www.lawfareblog.com... .)

Also relevant here is the fact that, rather transparently, this placing of the GRU centre stage is bound up with the attempt to suggest that there is some kind of 'Gerasimov doctrine', designed to undermine the West by 'hybrid warfare.' Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed. In March, he published a piece on the 'Foreign Policy' site, under the title: 'I'm Sorry for Creating the 'Gerasimov Doctrine'; I was the first to write about Russia's infamous high-tech military strategy. One small problem: it doesn't exist.'

(See https://foreignpolicy.com/2... .)

If anyone wants to grasp what the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, General Valery Gerasimov, was actually saying in the crucial February 2013 article which Galeotti was discussing, and how his thinking has developed subsequently, the place to look is, as so often, the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth.

Informed discussions by Charles Bartles and Roger McDermott are at https://www.armyupress.army... ; http://www.worldinwar.eu/wp... ; and https://jamestown.org/progr... .

In relation to the ongoing attempt to frame the GRU, it is material that, in his 2013 piece, Gerasimov harks back to two pivotal figures in the arguments of the interwar years. Of these, Georgy Isserson, the Jewish doctor's son from Kaunas who became a Civil War 'political commissar' and then a key associate of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, was the great pioneer theorist of 'deep operations.'

The ideas of the other, Aleksandr Svechin, the former Tsarist 'genstabist', born in Odessa into an ethnically Russian military family, who was the key opponent of Tukhachevky and Isserson in the arguments of the 'Twenties, provided key parts of the intellectual basis of the Gorbachev-era 'new thinking.'

The 'Ars Technica' article in which Tait's claims were initially disseminated opened:

'We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 – the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it – left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.'

In his 2013 article, Gerasimov harks back to the catastrophe which overcame the Red Army in June 1941. Ironically, this was the product of the Stalinist leadership's disregard of the cautions produced not only by Svechin, but by Isserson. In regard to the latter, the article remarks that:

'The fate of this "prophet of the Fatherland" unfolded tragically. Our country paid in great quantities of blood for not listening to the conclusions of this professor of the General Staff Academy.'

As it happens, while both Svechin and Tukhachevsky were shot by the heirs of 'Felix Edmundovich', the sentence of death on Isserson was commuted, and he spent the war in prison and labour camps, while others used his ideas to devastating effect against the Germans.

Quite clearly, the 'Guccifer 2.0' persona is a crude fabrication by someone who has absolutely no understanding of, or indeed interest in, the bitter complexities of both of the history of Russia and of the 'borderlands', not only in the Soviet period but before and after.

Using this criterion as a 'filter', the obvious candidates are traditional Anglo-Saxon 'Russophobes', like Sir Richard Dearlove and Christopher Steele, or the 'insulted and injured' of the erstwhile Russian and Soviet empires, so many of them from the 'borderlands', of the type of Victoria Nuland, or the various Poles, Ukrainians and Balts and Jews who have had so much influence on American policy.

(I should note that other Jews, not only in Russia, but outside, including in Israel, think quite differently, in particular as they are very well aware, as Isserson would have been, of the extent to which 'borderlands' nationalists were enthusiastic collaborators with the Germans in the 'Final Solution'. On this, there is a large and growing academic literature.)

It is not particularly surprising that many of the victims of the Russian and Soviet empires have enjoyed seeing the tables turned, and getting their own back. But it is rather far from clear that this makes for good intelligence or sound policy. We were unable to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide .

blue peacock , 2 days ago
How does the objective truth get disclosed in an environment of extreme deceit by so many parties?

How to trust western intelligence when they have such a long and sordid track record of deceit, lies and propaganda? At the same time there is such a long history of Russian and Chinese intelligence and information operations against the west.

Then there is the nexus among the highest levels of US law enforcement and intelligence as well as political elites in both parties and key individuals in the media complex.

We are living in a hall of mirrors and it seems the trend is towards confirmation bias in information consumption.

richardstevenhack , 2 days ago
Excellent post, especially the debunking of the 'Gerasimov doctrine' which I always thought was more hand-waving and Russian mind-reading.

It's important to realize that there are a number of people in the infosec community who have biases against Russia, just as there are in the general population. Then there are more cautious people, who recognize the difficulty in attributing a hack to any specific person absent solid, incontrovertible, non-circumstantial and non-spoofable (and preferably offline) evidence.

Tait doesn't appear to be one of the latter. Thomas Rid would be another. There are others.

Jeffrey Carr is one of the latter, and his familiarity with intelligence matters is clear from his organization of the annual "Suits and Spooks" Conference. I believe he was the first to raise questions about the DNC hack which didn't pass his smell test.

There are also a number of companies in infosec who rely on latching onto a particular strain of hacker, the more publicly exploitable for PR purposes the better, as a means of keeping the company name in front of potential high-profile and highly billable clients. CrowdStrike and its Russia obsession isn't the only one that's been tagged with that propensity.

Mandiant could be referred to as the "Chinese, all the time" company, for example. Richard Bejtlich was at Fireeye and the became Chief Security Officer when they acquired Mandiant. He spent quite a bit of effort on his blog warning about the Chinese military buildup as a huge threat to the US. He's former USAF so perhaps that's not surprising.

Bottom line: Confirmation bias is a real thing.

David Blake -> richardstevenhack , 5 hours ago
One quick way to know their bias is the AC test. Google their name plus "Atlantic Council". Ridd fails badly.
Barbara Ann , 2 days ago
Glad David's comment has been reproduced as a post in its own right, this is a critically important topic. IMO Matt Tait plays the role of midwife in this conspiracy. His Twitter thread

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mlnw , 2 days ago
The Comey, Brennan, Mueller claim - indeed a central one upon which the recent indictment rests- that Guccifer 2.0 was a Russian State agent that hacked the DNC- was discredited and put to rest last year by the forensics conducted by Bill Binney and his colleagues. The Guccifer 2.0 metadata was analyzed for its transmission speed, and based on the internet speeds to and from numerous test locations abroad and in the U.S., it was determined to have been impossible for the so-called Guccifer 2.0 to have hacked the DNC computers over the internet. The transmission speed however did correspond to the speed of the transfer to a thumb drive. Additionally, it was found that the data had been manipulated and split into two parts to simulate a July and a September transfer, when in fact the parts merge perfectly as single file, and where, according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be 100 to the 50th power.

As for the crude trace fingerprints (e.g. the referencing of Dzerzinsky), one of the Wikileaks data dumps (Vault 7 Marble) during a period when Assange was negotiating with the Administration - there were two at the time (Vault 7 Marble and Vault 7 Grasshopper), the release of which apparently enraged Mike Pompeo- was designed to obfuscate, fabricate and frame countries such as Russia, Iran or North Korea by pretending to be the target country, including in the use of target's alphabet and language.

VIPs has written numerous articles on this in Consortium News. See also the report by Patrick Lawrence Smith in The Nation at: https://www.thenation.com/a... . (It was apparently so hot at the time- and disputed by several other VIPs members- that The Nation sought an independent assessment by third party, though those comments were easily addressed and dismissed in seriatim by Binney in an annex to the article.)

Binney has explained his forensic analysis and conclusions at numerous forums, and in a sit-down with Secretary Pompeo in October, 2017- though Mueller, the FBI, and mainstream and some of the alternative press seem either deaf, dumb and blind to it all, or interested in discrediting the study. The irony is, I'd venture to guess, that Binney, with his 40 years of experience, including as Technical Director and technical guru at the NSA, is, even in retirement, more sophisticated in these matters than any one at the Agency, or the FBI, or CIA, or certainly, the Congressional Intelligence Committees. So, it is astounding that any or all of them could have, but did not, invite him to testify as an expert.

Moreover, the NSA has a record of every transmission, and also would have it on backup files. And, the FBI has been sitting on Seth Rich's computer and his communications with Wikileaks, and presumably has a report that it has not released. And of course, as Trump asked in his press conference, where's the DNC server, any or all of which would put this question to rest.

A recent interview with Binney can be found at:

Play Hide
mlnw -> mlnw , 2 hours ago
The last clause of the first paragraph should have said: "according to Binney, the probability of the split being a coincidence would be one over 100 to the 50th power
Jack -> David Habakkuk , a day ago
David

There is a pattern of abuse of formerly well regarded institutions to achieve the propaganda aims of the Deep State establishment. The depths that were plumbed to push the Iraq WMD falsehoods are well known. Yet no one was held to account nor was there any honest accounting of the abuse. There have been pretenses like the Owen inquiry that you note.

We see the same situation of sweeping under the rug malfeasance and even outright criminality through obfuscation and obstruction in the case of the meddling in the 2016 election by top officials in intelligence and law enforcement. Clearly less and less people are buying what the Deep State sells despite their overwhelming control of the media channels.

It seems that we are marching towards a credibility crisis similar to what was experienced in the Soviet Union when no one trusted the contents in Pravda.

What is to be gained by the leadership in Britain in promoting these biological weapons cases since Litvinenko? In the US it is quite apparent that the Deep State have become extremely powerful and the likelihood that Trump recognizes that resistance is futile is very high. Schumer may be proven right that they have six ways from Sunday to make you kowtow to their dictats.

Fred -> Jack , a day ago
Jack,

"Yet no one was held to account"

That was one of the changes being hoped for when Obama was first elected. Instead we got little, except for things such as bailed out bankers and the IRS scandal which lasted until the end of his 2nd term. The panic from the left over the 2016 election issues the are still going on is that the expected candidate isn't in office and they are being exposed. Whether they get prosecuted is another story.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/...

TTG , a day ago
I think Matt Tait, David Habakkuk and many others are reading far more into this Dzerzinsky thing than what it warrants. The government dependent ID cards used by my family while I was working as a clandestine case officer overseas were signed by Robert Ludlum. Intelligence officers often have an odd sense of humor.

On a different note, I fully endorse David Habakkuk's recommendation of the writings of Bartles, McDermott and many others at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. They are top notch. I learned a lot from Tim Thomas many years ago.

richardstevenhack -> TTG , a day ago
I agree that taken by itself, the Dzerzinsky thing would be an anomaly only and could be dismissed as "black humor" of a kind often found in hackers. However, taken with all the other evidence produced by Adam Carter, it becomes much more obviously an attempt to support a false flag "Russian hacker" narrative that otherwise is porous.

I believe there is a phrase going something like "an attempt to add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."

Publius Tacitus -> TTG , a day ago
TTG,

You want us to believe that the GRU are so sloppy and so inexperienced that they would launch a hack on the DNC and not take every measure to ensure there was no link whatsoever to anything Russian? Any former intel officer worth a damn knows that an operation to disrupt the election in a country the size of the United States would start with a risk/reward assessment, would require a team of at least 100 persons and would not be writing any code that could in any way be traced to Russia.

smoothieX12 . , a day ago
Unfortunately, the original author of this claptrap, Mark Galeotti, who, I regret to say, is, like Tait, British, has now recanted and confessed.

Doctrine-mongering and repeating birth of new faux-academic "entities", such as a "hybrid war" (any war is hybrid by definition), is a distinct feature of the Western "political science-military history" establishment. Galeotti, who for some strange reason passes as Russia "expert" is a perfect example of such "expertise" and doctrine-mongering. Military professionals largely met this "hybrid warfare" BS with disdain.

ancient archer , a day ago
I have to say that the more I look into this whole Russiagate affair, which is mostly in the minds of democrats (and a few republicans) and the MSM, the more it seems that there is indeed a foreign conspiracy to meddle in the internal affairs of the US (and in the presidential elections) but the meddling entity is not Russia. It is the British!

So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don't question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven't been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax.

This needs to be looked at in more detail by the alternative media and well informed commentators like the host of this site.

[Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer

Highly recommended!
Intelligence community is a new Praetorian guard which since JFK murder can decide the fate of presidents.
Notable quotes:
"... Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, on July 12. ..."
"... Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated "Intelligence Community," itself part of the sprawling political machine that makes up the D.C. comitatus ..."
"... Smug, self-satisfied, cheating creature that he is, Strzok can't take responsibility for his own misconduct, and blames Russia for dividing America. In the largely progressive bureau, moreover, Agent Strzok is neither underling nor outlier, for that matter. ..."
"... A "blind bootlicking faith in spooks" is certainly unwarranted and may even be foolish. What of odious individuals like former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and his predecessor, James Comey, now openly campaigning for the Democrats? Are these leaders outliers in the "Intelligence Community"? ..."
"... Similarly, it's hard to think of a more partisan operator than John O. Brennan -- he ran the CIA under President Obama. True to type, he cast a vote for Communist Party USA, back in 1976, when the current Russia monomania would have been justified. Brennan has dubbed President Trump a traitor for having dared to doubt people like himself. ..."
"... The very embodiment of the Surveillance State at its worst is Michael V. Hayden. Hayden has moved seamlessly from the National Security Agency and the CIA to CNN where he beats up on Trump. The former Bush employee hollered treason: "One of the most disgraceful performances of an American president in front of a Russian leader," Hayden inveighed. Not only had POTUS dared to explore the possibility of a truce with Russia, which is a formidable nuclear power; but the president had the temerity to express a smidgen of skepticism about a community littered with spooks like Mr. Hayden. ..."
"... Pray tell, since when does the Deep State -- FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, (Director of National Intelligence), on and on -- represent, or stand for, the American People? The president, conversely, actually got the support of at least 60 million Americans. ..."
"... Outside the Beltway, ordinary folks -- Deplorables, if you will -- have to sympathize with the president's initial and honest appraisal of the Intelligence Community's collective intelligence. This is the community that has sent us into quite a few recreational, hobby wars. ..."
Jul 20, 2018 | www.unz.com

Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, on July 12.

In no way had he failed to discharge his professional unbiased obligation to the public, asserted Strzok. He had merely expressed the hope that "the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating such horrible, disgusting behavior."

But we did not elect YOU, Mr. Strzok. We elected Mr. Trump.

Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated "Intelligence Community," itself part of the sprawling political machine that makes up the D.C. comitatus , now writhing like a fire breathing mythical monster against President Donald Trump.

Smug, self-satisfied, cheating creature that he is, Strzok can't take responsibility for his own misconduct, and blames Russia for dividing America. In the largely progressive bureau, moreover, Agent Strzok is neither underling nor outlier, for that matter. He's an overlord, having risen "to become the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, the second-highest position in that division."

As Ann Coulter observed, the FBI is not the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover. Neither is the Intelligence Community Philip Haney's IC any longer. Haney was a heroic, soft-spoken, demure employee at the Department of Homeland Security. Agents like him are often fired if they don't get with the program. He didn't. Haney's method and the authentic intelligence he mined and developed might have stopped the likes of the San Bernardino mass murderers and many others. Instead, his higher-ups in the "Intelligence Community" made Haney and his data disappear.

Post Haney, the FBI failed to adequately screen and stop Syed Farook and blushing bride Tashfeen Malik.

A "blind bootlicking faith in spooks" is certainly unwarranted and may even be foolish. What of odious individuals like former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and his predecessor, James Comey, now openly campaigning for the Democrats? Are these leaders outliers in the "Intelligence Community"?

As Peter Strzok might say to his paramour in a private tweet, "Who ya gonna believe, the Intelligence Community or your own lying eyes?" The Bureau in particular and the IC cabal, in general, appear to be dominated by the likes of the dull-witted Mr. Strzok.

Similarly, it's hard to think of a more partisan operator than John O. Brennan -- he ran the CIA under President Obama. True to type, he cast a vote for Communist Party USA, back in 1976, when the current Russia monomania would have been justified. Brennan has dubbed President Trump a traitor for having dared to doubt people like himself.

The very embodiment of the Surveillance State at its worst is Michael V. Hayden. Hayden has moved seamlessly from the National Security Agency and the CIA to CNN where he beats up on Trump. The former Bush employee hollered treason: "One of the most disgraceful performances of an American president in front of a Russian leader," Hayden inveighed. Not only had POTUS dared to explore the possibility of a truce with Russia, which is a formidable nuclear power; but the president had the temerity to express a smidgen of skepticism about a community littered with spooks like Mr. Hayden.

As one wag noted , not unreasonably, ours is "a highly-politicized intelligence community, infiltrated over decades by cadres of Deep State operatives and sleeper agents, whose goal is to bring down this presidency."

The latest pillorying heaped upon the president by the permanent establishment has it that, "Trump chose to stand with Vladimir Putin, instead of the American People." Trump, to be precise, had the temerity to "openly question his own intelligence agencies' firm finding that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S."

Pray tell, since when does the Deep State -- FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, (Director of National Intelligence), on and on -- represent, or stand for, the American People? The president, conversely, actually got the support of at least 60 million Americans.

That's a LOT of support. Outside the Beltway, ordinary folks -- Deplorables, if you will -- have to sympathize with the president's initial and honest appraisal of the Intelligence Community's collective intelligence. This is the community that has sent us into quite a few recreational, hobby wars.

And this is the community that regularly intercepts but fails to surveys and stop the likes of mass murderers Syed Farook and bride Tashfeen Malik. Or, Orlando nightclub killer Omar Mateen, whose father the Bureau saw fit to hire as an informant. The same "community" has invited the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Arab-American Institute to help shape FBI counterterrorism training.

The FBI might not be very intelligent at all. About the quality of that intelligence, consider: On August 3, 2016, as the mad media were amping up their Russia monomania, a frenzied BuzzFeed -- it calls itself a news org -- reported that "the Russian foreign ministry had wired nearly $30,000 through a Kremlin-backed bank to its embassy in Washington, DC."

Intercepted by American intelligence, the Russian wire stipulated that the funds were meant "to finance the election campaign of 2016." Was this not "meddling in our election" or what? Did we finally have irrefutable evidence of Kremlin culpability? The FBI certainly thought so. "Worse still, this was only one of 60 transfers that were being scrutinized by the FBI," wrote the Economist, in November of 2017. "Similar transfers were made to other countries." As it transpired, the money was wired from the Kremlin to embassies the world over. Its purpose? Russia was preparing to hold parliamentary elections in 2016 and had sent funds to Russian embassies "to organize the polling for expatriates."

While it did update its Fake News factoids, Buzzfeed felt no compunction whatsoever to remove the erroneous item or publicly question their sources in the unimpeachable "Intelligence Community."

Most news media are just not as inquisitive as President Trump.

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She is the author of " Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa " (2011) & " The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed " (June, 2016). She's on Twitter , Facebook , Gab & YouTube

[Jul 17, 2018] I think there is much more to the comment made by Putin regarding Bill Browder and his money flows into the DNC and Clinton campaign. That would explain why the DNC didn t hand the servers over to the FBI after being hacked.

Highly recommended!
Jul 17, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

NumNutt -> 847328_3527 Tue, 07/17/2018 - 11:41 Permalink

I think there is much more to the comment made by Putin regarding Bill Browder and his money flows into the DNC and Clinton campaign. That would explain why the DNC didn't hand the servers over to the FBI after being hacked. If you follow the money a lot of what happened during the election and afterwards in regards to Russia and Trump start to make sense. Could it be that we are finally witnessing the removal the last layers of the center of the onion?

[Jul 16, 2018] Putin Claims U.S. Intelligence Agents Funneled $400K To Clinton Campaign Zero Hedge

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... For instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder, in this particular case. Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia and never paid any taxes neither in Russia or the United States and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States. They sent [a] huge amount of money, $400,000,000, as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well that's their personal case. ..."
"... we have solid reason to believe that some [US] intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions. So we have an interest in questioning them. ..."
"... Browder is notoriously the man behind the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which exploited Congressional willingness to demonize Russia and has done so much to poison relations between Washington and Moscow. ..."
"... Browder, a media favorite who self-promotes as "Putin's enemy #1," portrays himself as a selfless human rights advocate, but is he? He has used his fortune to threaten lawsuits for anyone who challenges his version of events, effectively silencing many critics. He claims that his accountant Sergei Magnitsky was a crusading "lawyer" who discovered a $230 million tax-fraud scheme that involved the Browder business interest Hermitage Capital but was, in fact, engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who arrested Magnitsky and enabled his death in a Russian jail. ..."
"... William Browder is again in the news recently in connection with testimony related to Russiagate. On December 16th Senator Diane Feinstein of the Senate Judiciary Committee released the transcript of the testimony provided by Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS. According to James Carden, Browder was mentioned 50 times, but the repeated citations apparently did not merit inclusion in media coverage of the story by the New York Times, Washington Post and Politico. ..."
Jul 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

07/16/2018

Vladimir Putin made a bombshell claim during Monday's joint press conference with President Trump in Helsinki, Finland, when the Russian President said some $400 million )should be $400K) in illegally earned profits was funneled to the Clinton campaign by associates of American-born British financier Bill Browder - at one time the largest foreign portfolio investors in Russia. The scheme involved members of the U.S. intelligence community, said Putin, who he said "accompanied and guided these transactions."

Browder made billions in Russia during the 90's. In December, a Moscow court sentenced Browder in absentia to nine years in prison for tax fraud, while he was also found guilty of tax evasion in a separate 2013 case. Putin accused Browder's associates of illegally earning over than $1.5 billion without paying Russian taxes, before sending $400 million to Clinton. After offering to allow special counsel Robert Mueller's team to come to Russia for their investigation - as long as there was a reciprocal arrangement for Russian intelligence to investigate in the U.S., Putin said this:

For instance, we can bring up Mr. Browder, in this particular case. Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over $1.5 billion in Russia and never paid any taxes neither in Russia or the United States and yet the money escaped the country. They were transferred to the United States. They sent [a] huge amount of money, $400,000,000, as a contribution to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Well that's their personal case.

It might have been legal, the contribution itself but the way the money was earned was illegal. So we have solid reason to believe that some [US] intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions. So we have an interest in questioning them.

From a report we noted in February by Philip Giraldi of The Strategic Culture Foundation :

Israel Shamir, a keen observer of the American-Russian relationship, and celebrated American journalist Robert Parry both think that one man deserves much of the credit for the new Cold War and that man is William Browder, a hedge fund operator who made his fortune in the corrupt 1990s world of Russian commodities trading.

Browder is also symptomatic of why the United States government is so poorly informed about international developments as he is the source of much of the Congressional "expert testimony" contributing to the current impasse. He has somehow emerged as a trusted source in spite of the fact that he has self-interest in cultivating a certain outcome. Also ignored is his renunciation of American citizenship in 1998, reportedly to avoid taxes. He is now a British citizen.

Browder is notoriously the man behind the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which exploited Congressional willingness to demonize Russia and has done so much to poison relations between Washington and Moscow. The Act sanctioned individual Russian officials, which Moscow has rightly seen as unwarranted interference in the operation of its judicial system.

Browder, a media favorite who self-promotes as "Putin's enemy #1," portrays himself as a selfless human rights advocate, but is he? He has used his fortune to threaten lawsuits for anyone who challenges his version of events, effectively silencing many critics. He claims that his accountant Sergei Magnitsky was a crusading "lawyer" who discovered a $230 million tax-fraud scheme that involved the Browder business interest Hermitage Capital but was, in fact, engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who arrested Magnitsky and enabled his death in a Russian jail.

Many have been skeptical of the Browder narrative, suspecting that the fraud was in fact concocted by Browder and his accountant Magnitsky. A Russian court recently supported that alternative narrative, ruling in late December that Browder had deliberately bankrupted his company and engaged in tax evasion. He was sentenced to nine years prison in absentia.

William Browder is again in the news recently in connection with testimony related to Russiagate. On December 16th Senator Diane Feinstein of the Senate Judiciary Committee released the transcript of the testimony provided by Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS. According to James Carden, Browder was mentioned 50 times, but the repeated citations apparently did not merit inclusion in media coverage of the story by the New York Times, Washington Post and Politico.

Fusion GPS, which was involved in the research producing the Steele Dossier used to discredit Donald Trump, was also retained to provide investigative services relating to a lawsuit in New York City involving a Russian company called Prevezon. As information provided by Browder was the basis of the lawsuit, his company and business practices while in Russia became part of the investigation. Simmons maintained that Browder proved to be somewhat evasive and his accounts of his activities were inconsistent. He claimed never to visit the United States and not own property or do business there, all of which were untrue, to include his ownership through a shell company of a $10 million house in Aspen Colorado. He repeatedly ran away , literally, from attempts to subpoena him so he would have to testify under oath.

Per Simmons, in Russia, Browder used shell companies locally and also worldwide to avoid taxes and conceal ownership, suggesting that he was likely one of many corrupt businessmen operating in what was a wild west business environment.

My question is, "Why was such a man granted credibility and allowed a free run to poison the vitally important US-Russia relationship?" The answer might be follow the money. Israel Shamir reports that Browder was a major contributor to Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, who was the major force behind the Magnitsky Act.

[Jul 13, 2018] False flag operation covering DNC leaks now involves Mueller and his team

Highly recommended!
Looks like another Steele dossier and it has Brennan fingertips all over. Looks like another exercise in creation of a parallel reality. The content of the document implies that malware was installed in GRU computers and those computers were monitored 24/7 by CIA. The documents describes both GNU officers and DNC employees as unsophisticated idiots. DNC employees who who should undergo some basic security training were easily deceived by fishing emails from a foreign country. And a good practice is to disable hotlinks in emails.
I always suspected that Guccifer 2.0 was a false flag operation to hide the leak of DNC documents. If this is true this was really sophisticated false flag.
BTW GRU is military intelligence unit, so to hack into civil computers is kind of out of their main sphere of activities. They also should be aware about NSA capabilities of intercepting the traffic.
I especially like the following tidbit: "On or about June 1,2016, the Conspirators attempted to delete traces of their presence on the DCCC network using the computer program CCleaner." This is how third rate hackers (wannabes) behave.
Link to the original document: https://www.scribd.com/document/383793520/Netyksho-Et-Al-Indictment#fullscreen&from_embed
First of all the investigation of DNC was botched by hiring a private, connected to Democratic Party security company (Crowdstrike), so no data from it are acceptable in court. FBI did not have any access to the data.
Which means that Mueller is a patsy of more powerful forces
How about speed of download that proved to be excessive for Internet connection? Nothing is said about Dmitri Alperovitch role is all this investigation, which completely discredit all that results? See for example diuscusstion at Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear And, again, the question is: Was Guccifer 2.0 in itself a USA false flag operation ?
Looks like Mueller is acting as an operative of Democratic Party. Could not dig up enough dirt on Trump, so he now saddled his beloved horse, trying to provoke Russia to respond.
And this John Le Carre style details about individuals supposedly involved. Probably were provided by CIA ;-)
Jul 13, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

... ... ...

4. By in or around April 2016, the Conspirators also hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ("DCCC") and the Democratic National Committee ("DNC"). The Conspirators covertly monitored the computers of dozens of DCCC and DNC employees, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code ("malware"), and stole emails and other documents from the DCCC and DNC.

5. By in or around April 2016, the Conspirators began to plan the release of materials stolen from the Clinton Campaign, DCCC, and DNC.

6. Beginning in or around June 2016, the Conspirators staged and released tens of thousands of the stolen emails and documents. They did so using fictitious online personas, including "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0."

7. The Conspirators also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release additional stolen documents through a website maintained by an organization ("Organization Iй), that had previously posted documents stolen from U.S. persons, entities, and the U.S. government The Conspirators continued their U.S. election-interference operations through in or around November 2016.

8. To hide their connections to Russia and the Russian government, the Conspirators used false identities and made false statements about their identities. To further avoid detection, the Conspirators used a network of computers located across the world, including in the United States, and paid for this infrastructure using cryptocurrency.

... ... ...

13. Defendant ALEKSEY VIKTOROVICH LUKASHEV (Лукашсв Алексей Викторович) was a Senior Lieutenant in the Russian military assigned to ANTONOV's department within Unit 26165. LUKASHEV used various online personas, including "Den Katenberg" and "Yuliana Martynova." In on around 2016, LUKASHEV sent spcarphisliing emails to members of the Clinton Campaign and affiliated individuals, including the chairman of the Clinton Campaign.

14. Defendant SERGEY ALEKSANDROVICH MORGACHEV (Моргачев Сергей Александрович) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian military assigned to Unit 26165. MORGACHEV oversaw a department within Unit 26165 dedicated to developing and managing malware, including a hacking tool used by the GRU known as "X-Agent." During the hacking of the DCCC and DNC networks, MORGACHEV supervised the co-conspirators who developed and monitored the X-Agent malware implanted on those computers.

15. Defendant NIKOLAY YURYEVICH KOZACHEK (Козачек Николай Юрьевич) was a Lieutenant Captain in the Russian military assigned to MORGACHEV's department within Unit 26165. KOZACHEK used a variety of monikers, including "kazak" and "blablablal234565 " KOZACHEK developed, customized, and monitored X-Agent malware used to hack the DCCC and DNC networks beginning in or around April 2016.

16. Defendant PAVEL VYACHESLAVOVICH YERSHOV (Ершов Павел Вячеславович) was a Russian military officer assigned to MORGACHEV's department within Unit 26165. In or around 2016, YERSHOV assisted KOZACHEK and other co-conspirators in testing and customizing X-Agent malware before actual deployment and use.

17. Defendant ARTEM ANDREYEVICH MALYSHEV (Малышев Арт е м Андреевич) was a Second Lieutenant in the Russian military assigned to MORGACHEV's department within Unit 26165. MALYSIIEV used a variety of monikers, including "djangomagicdev" and "realblatr." In or around 2016, MALYSHEV monitored X-Agent malware implanted on the DCCC and DNC networks.

18. Defendant ALEKSANDR VLADIMIROVICH OSADCHUK (Осадчук Александр В ладимирович) was a Colonel in the Russian military and the commanding officer of Unit 74455. Unit 74455 was located at 22 Kirova Street, Khimki, Moscow, a building referred to within the GRU as the 'Tower." Unit 74455 assisted in the release of stolen documents through the DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas, the promotion of those releases, and the publication of anti-Clinton content on social media accounts operated by the GRU.

19. Defendant ALEKSEY ALEKSANDROVICH POTEMKIN (Потемкин Алексей Александрович) was an officer in the Russian military assigned to Unit 74455. POTEMKIN was a supervisor in a department within Unit 7445f responsible for the administration of computer infrastructure used in cyber operations. Infrastructure and social media accounts administered by POTEMKIN'S department were used, among other things, to assist in the release of stolen documents through the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2 0 personas.

21, ANTONOV, BADIN, YKRMAKOV, LUKASHEV, and their co-conspiratore targeted victims using a technique known as spearphishing to steal victims' passwords or otherwise gain access to their computers. Beginning by at least March 2016, the Conspirators targeted over 300 individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign, DCCC, and DNC.

a. For example, on or about March 19, 2016, LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators created and sent a spearphishing email to the chairman of the Clinton Campaign. LUKASHEV used the account "John356gh" at an online service that abbreviated lengthy website addresses (referred to as a "URL-shortcning service"). LIJKASHEV used the account to mask a link contained in the spearphishing email, which directed the recipient to a GRU-created website. LUKASHEV altered the a security notification from Google (a technique known as "spoofing"), instructing the user to change his password by clicking the embedded link. Those instructions wore followed. On or about March 21, 2016, LUKASHEV, YERMAKOV, and their co-conspirators stole the contents of the chairman's email account, which consisted of over 50,000 emails.

Starting on or about March 19, 2016, LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators sent spearphishing emails to the personal accounts of other individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign, including its campaign manager and a senior foreign policy advisor. On or about March 25, 2016, LUKASHEV used the same john356gh account to mask additional links included in spearphishing emails sent to numerous individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign, including Victims 1 and 2. LUKASliEV sent these emails from the Russia-based email account [email protected] that he spoofed to appear to be from Google. On or about March 28,2016, YERMAKOV researched the names of Victims 1 and 2 and their association with Clinton on various social media sites. Through their spearphishing operations, LUKASHEV, YERMAKOV, and their co-conspirators successfully stole email credentials and thousands of emails from numerous individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign. Many of these stolen emails. Including those from Victims 1 and 2, were later released by the Conspirators through DCLeaks.

On or about April 6, 2016, the Conspirators created an email account in the name (with a one-letter deviation from the actual spelling) of a known member of the Clinton Campaign. The Conspirators then used that account to send spearphishing emails to the work accounts of more than thirty different Clinton Campaign employees. In the spearphishipg emails, LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators embedded a link purporting to direct the recipient to a document titled "hillary-clinton-favorable-rating.xlsx " In fact, this link directed the recipients' computers to a GRU-crcatcd website.

22. The Conspirators spearphished individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign throughout the summer of 2016. For example, on or about July 27, 2016, the Conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-
party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.

Hacking into the DCCC Network

23. Beginning in or around March 2016, the Conspirators, in addition to their spearphishing efforts, researched the DCCC and DNC computer networks to identify technical specifications and vulnerabilities.

  1. For example, beginning on or about March 15,2016, YERMAKOV ran a technical query for the DNC's internet protocol configurations to identify connected devices.
  2. On or about the same day, YERMAKOV searched for opcn-source information about the DNC network, the Democratic Party, and Hillary Clinton.
  3. On or about April 7. 2016. YKRMAKOV ran я technical query for the DNC's internet protocol configurations to identify connected devices.

24. By in or around April 2016, within days of YERMAKOV's searches regarding the DCCC, the Conspirators hacked into the DCCC computer network. Once they gained access, they installed and managed different types of malware to explore the DCCC network and steal data.

a. On or about April 12,2016. the Conspirators used the stolen credentials of a I )CCC On or about April 12,2016, the Conspirators used the stolen credentials of a DCCC Employee ('"DCCC Employee 1") to access the DCCC network. DCCC Employee 1 had received a spearphishing email from the Conspirators on or about April 6,2016, and entered her password after clicking on the link.

b. Between in or around April 2016 and June 2016, the Conspirators installed multiple versions of their X-Agent malware on at least ten DCCC computers, which allowed them to monitor individual employees' computer activity, steal passwords, and maintain access to the DCCC network.

c. X-Agent malware implanted on the DCCC network transmitted information from the victims' computers to a GRU-leased server located in Arizona. The Conspirators referred to this server as their "AMS" panel. KOZACHEK, MALYSHEV, and their со-conspirators logged into the AMS panel to use X-Agent's keylog and screenshot functions in the course of monitoring and surveilling activity on the DCCC computers. 'Ibe keylog function allowed the Conspirators to capture keystrokes entered by DCCC employees. The screenshot function allowed the Conspirators to take pictures of the DCCC employees' computer screens.

d. For example, on or about April 14, 2016, the Conspirators repeatedly activated X-Agent's keylog and screensiot functions to surveil DCCC Employee 1's computer activity over the course of eight hours. During that time, the Conspirators captured DCCC Employee 1 's communications with co-workers and the passwords she entered while working on fundraising and voter outreach projects. Similarly, on or about April 22, 2016, the Conspirators activated X-Agcnt's keylog and screenshot functions to capture the discussions of another DCCC Employee ("DCCC Employee 2") about the DCCC's finances, as well as her individual banking information and other personal topics.

25. On or about April 19, 2016, KOZAC1IEK, YERSIIOV, and their co-conspirators remotely configured an overseas computer to relay communications between X-Agent malware and the AMS panel and then tested X-Agent's ability to connect to this computer. The Conspirators referred to this computer as a "middle server." The middle server acted as a proxy to obscure the connection between malware at the DCCC and the Conspirators' AMS panel. On or about April 20, 2016, the Conspirators directed X-Agent malware on the DCCC computers to connect to this middle server and receive directions from the Conspirators.

Hacking into the DNC Network

26. On or about April 18, 2016, the Conspirators hacked into the DNC's computers through their access to the DCCC network. The Conspirators then installed and managed different types of malware (as they did in the DCCC network) to explore the DNC network and steal documents, a. On or about April 18, 2016, the Conspirators activated X-Agent's keylog and screenshot functions to steal credentials of a DCCC employee who was authorized
to access the DNC network. The Conspirators hacked into the DNC network from the DCCC network using stolen credentials. By in or around June 2016, they gained access to approximately thirty-three DNC computers.

In or around April 2016, the Conspirators installed X Agent malware on tho DNC network, including the same versions installed on the DCCC network.
MALYSHEV and his co-conspifators monitored the X-Agent malware from the AMS panel and captured data from the victim computers. The AMS panel collected thousands of keylog and screenshot results from the DCCC and DNC computers, such as a screenshot and keystroke capture of DCCC Employee 2 viewing the DCCC's online banking information.

Theft of DCCC and DNC Documents

27. The Conspirators searched for and identified computers within the DCCC and DNC networks that stored information related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for example, on or about April 15, 2016, the Conspirators searched one hacked DCCC computer for terms that included "hillary," "cruz," and "trump." The Conspirators also copied select DCCC folders, including "Benghazi Investigations." The Conspirators targeted computers containing information such as opposition research and field operation plans for the 2016 elections.

28. To enable them to steal a large number of documents at once without detection, the Conspirators used a publicly available tool to gather and compress multiple documents on the DCCC and DNC networks. The Conspirators then used other GRU malware, known as "X-Tunncl," to move the stolen documents cutside the DCCC and DNC networks through encrypted channels.

a. For example, on or about April 22, 2016, the Conspirators compressed gigabytes of data from DNC computers, including opposition research. The Conspirators later moved the compressed DNC data using X-Tunnel to a GRU-leased computer located in Illinois.

b. On or about April 28, 2016, the Conspirators connected to and tested the same computer located in Illinois. Later that day, the Conspirators used X-Tunnel to connect to that computer to steal additional documents from the DCCC network.

29. Between on or about May 25, 2016 and June 1, 2016, the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails from the work accounts of DNC employees. During that time, YERMAKOV researched PowerShell commands related to accessing and managing the Microsoft Exchange Server.

30. On or about May 30, 2016, MALYSHEV accessed the AMS panel in order to upgrade custom AMS software on die server. That day, the AMS panel received updates from approximately thirteen different X-Agent malware implants on DCCC and DNC computers.

31. During the hacking of the DCCC and DNC networks, the Conspirators covered their tracks by Intentionally deleting logs and computer flies. For example, on or about May 13, 2016, the Conspirators cleared the event logs from a DNC computer. On or about June 20, 2016, the Conspirators deleted logs from the AMS panel that documented their activities on the panel, including the login history. Efforts to Remain on the X'CC and PNC Networks

32. Despite the Conspirators' efforts to hide their activity, beginning in or around May 2016, both the DCCC and DNC became aware that they had been hacked and hired a security company ("Company 1") to identify the extent of the intrusions. By in or around June 2016, Company 1 took steps to exclude intruders from the networks. Despite these efforts, a Linux-based version of X-Agent, programmed to communicate with the GRU-registercd domain linuxkml.net, remained on the DNC network until in or around October 2016.

33. In response to Company Ts efforts, the Conspirators took countermeasures to maintain access to the DCCC and DNC networks.

a. Oil 01 about May 31, 2016, YERMAKOV searched for opcn-sourcc information about Company 1 and its reporting on X-Agent and X-Tunnel. On or about June 1,2016, the Conspirators attempted to delete traces of their presence on the DCCC network using the computer program CCleaner.
b. On or about June 14, 2016, the Conspirators registered the domain actblues.com,
which mimicked the domain of a political fundraising platform that included a
DCCC donations page. Shortly thereafter, the Conspirators used stolen DCCC
credentials to modify the DCCC website and redirect visitors to the actblucs.com

On or about June 14, 2016, the Conspirators registered the domain actblues.com,
which mimicked the domain of a political fundraising platform that included a
DCCC donations page. Shortly thereafter, the Conspirators used stolen DCCC
credentials to modify the DCCC website and redirect visitors to the actblucs.com
domain.
On or about June 20, 2016, after Company 1 had disabled X-Agent on the DCCC
network, the Conspirators spent ever seven hours unsuccessfully trying to connect
to X-Agent. The Conspirators also tried to access the DCCC network using
previously stolen credentials.

34. In or around September 2016, the Conspirators also successfully gained access to DNC
computers hosted on a third-party cloud-computing service. These computers contained test
applications related to the DNC's analytics. After conducting reconnaissance, the Conspirators
gathered data by creating backups, or "snapshots," of the DNC's eloud-based systems using the
cloud provider's own technology. The Conspirators then moved the snapshots to cloud-based
accounts they had registered with the same service, thereby stealing the data from the DNC.
Stolen Documents Released through DCLcaks

35. More than a month before the release of any documents, the Conspirators constructed the online persona DCLeaks to release and publicize stolen election-related documents. On or about April 19, 2016, after attempting to register the domain clcctionleaks.com, the Conspirators registered the domain dcleaks.com through a service that anonymizcd the registrant. The funds used to pay for the dcleaks.com domain originated from an online cryptocutrrecy service that the Conspirators also used to fund the lease of a virtual private server registered with the operational email account [email protected]. The dirbinsaabol email account was also used to register the john356gh URL-shortening account used by LUKASHEV to spearphish the Clinton Campaign chairman and other campaign-related individuals.

36. On or about June 8,2016, the Conspirators launched the public website dcleaks.com, which they used to release stolen emails. Before it shut down in or around March 2017, the site received over one million page views. The Conspirators falsely claimed on the site that DCLeaks was started by a group of "American hacktivists," when in fact it was started by the Conspirators.

37. Starting in or around June 2016 and continuing through the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Conspirators used DCLeaks to release emails stolen from individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign. The Conspirators also released documents they had stolen in other spearphishing operations, including those they had conducted in 2015 that collected emails from individuals affiliated with the Republican Party.

38. On or about June 8,2016, and at approximately the same time that the dcleaks.com website was launched, the Conspirators created a DCLeaks Facebook page using a preexisting social media account under the fictitious name "Alice Donovan." In addition to the DCLeaks Facebook page, the Conspirators used other social media accounts in the names of fictitious U.S. persons such as "Jason Scott" and "Richard Gingrey" to promote the DCLeaks website. The Conspirators accessed these accounts from computers managed by POTEMKFN and his co-conspirators.

39. On or about June 8, 2016, the Conspirators created the Twitter account @dcleaks_. The Conspirators operated the @dclcaks_ Twitter account from the same computer used for other efforts to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. For example, the Conspirators used the same computer to operate the Twitter account @BaltimorcIsWhr, through which they encouraged U.S. audiences to "[j]oin our flash mob" opposing Clinton and to post images with the hashtag #BlacksAgainstHillary.

Stolen Documents Released through Guccifer 2.0

40. On or about June 14, 2016, the DNC -- through Company 1 -- publicly announced that it had been hacked by Russian government actors. In response, the Conspirators created the online persona Guccifer 2.0 and falsely claimed to be a lone Romanian hacker to undermine the allegations of Russian responsibility for the intrusion.
41. On or about June 15,2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and, between 4:19 PM and 4:56 PM Moscow Standard Time, searched for certain words and phrases, including:

Search terms

  • "some hundred sheets"
  • "some hundreds of sheets"
  • dcleaks
  • illuminati
  • широко известный перевод [widely known translation]
  • "worldwide known"
  • "think twice about"
  • "company's competence"

42. Later that day, at 7:02 PM Moscow Standard Time, the online persona Guccifer 2.0 published its first post on a blog site created through WordPress. Titled "DNC's servers hacked by a lone hacker," the post used numerous English words and phrases that the Conspirators had searched for earlier that day (bolded below):

Worldwide known cyber security company [Company 1] announced that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers had been hacked by
"sophisticated" hacker groups.

I'm very pleased the company appreciated my skills so highly))) [...]

Here are just a few docs from many thousands I extracted when hacking
into DNC's network. [...]

Some hundred sheets! This's a serious case, isn't it? [...]

I guess [Company 1] customers should think twice about company's competence.

F[***J the Illuminati and their conspiracies! МШШ F[***]

[Company 1] !!!!!!!!

43. Between in or around June 2016 and October 2016, the Conspirators used Guccifer 2.0 to release documents through WordPrcss that they had stolen from the DCCC and DNC. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also shared stolen documents with certain individuals.

a. On or about August 15,2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent. On or about August 22,2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of data stolen from the DCCC to a then-registered state lobbyist and online source of political news. The stolen data included donor records and personal identifying information for more than 2,000 Democratic donors.

On or about August 22, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent a reporter stolen documents pertaining to the Black Lives Matter movement. The reporter responded by discussing when to release the documents and offering to write an article about their release.

44. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also communicated with U.S. persons about the release of stolen documents. On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. TVump, "thank u for writing back... do u find anyt[h]ing interesting in the docs i posted?" On or about August 17, 2016, the Conspirators added, "please tell me if i can help u anyhow ... it would be a great pleasure to me." On or about September 9,2016, the Conspirators, again posing as Guccifer 2.0, referred to a stolen DCCC document posted online and asked the person, "what do u think of the info on the tunout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign." The person responded, "[p]retty standard."

45. The Conspirators conducted operations as Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks using overlapping computer infrastructure and financing.

a. For example, between on or about March 14, 2016 and April 28. 2016, the Conspirators used the same pool of bitcoin funds to purchase a virtual private network ("VPN") account and to lease a server in Malaysia. In or around June 2016, the Conspirators used the Malaysian server to host the dcleaks.com website.

On or about July 6, 2016, the Conspirators used the VPN to log into the @Guccifcr_2 Twitter account. The Conspirators opened that VPN account from
the same server that was also used to register malicious domains for the hacking of the DCCC and DNC networks.

On or about June 27, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, contacted a U.S. reporter with an offer to provide stolen emails from "Hillary Clinton's staff." The Conspirators then sent the reporter the password to access a nonpublic, password-protected portion of dc.eaks.com containing emails stolen from Victim 1 bу LUKASHEV, YERMAKOV, and thier co-conspirators in or around March 2016.

46. On or about January 12,2017, the Conspirators published a statement on the Guccifer 2.0 WordPrcss blog, falsely claiming that the intrusions and release of stolen documents had "totally no relation to the Russian government"

Use of Organization 1

47. In order to expand their interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Conspirators transferred many of the documents they stole from the DNC and the chairman of the Clinton Campaign to Organization 1. The Conspirators posing as Guccifer 2.0, discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases with Organization 1 to heighten their impact on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

a. On or about Juno 22, 2016, Organization 1 sent a private message to Guccifer 2.0 to "[s]end any new material [stolen from the DNC] here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact than what you are doing." On or about July 6, 2016, Organization 1 added, "if you have anything hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after." The Conspirators responded, "ok... i see." Organization I explained, "we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary ... so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting "

b After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email with an attachment titled "wk dnc linkl.txt.gpg." The Conspirators explained to Organization 1 that the encrypted file contained Instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it had "the 1Gb or so archive" and would make a release of the stolen documents "this week."

48. On or about July 22, 2016, Organization 1 released over 20,000 emails and other documents stolen from the DNC network by the Conspirators. This release occurred approximately three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. Organization 1 did not disclose Guccifer 2.0's role in providing them. The latest-in-time email released through Organization 1 was dated on or about May 25,2016, approximately the same day the Conspirators hacked the DNC Microsoft Exchange Server.

49. On or about October 7, 2016, Organization 1 released the first set of emails from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign that had been stolen by LUKASHEV and his co-conspirators. Between on or about October 7, 2016 and November 7, 2016, Organization 1 released approximately thirty-three tranches of documents mat had been stolen from the chairman of the Clinton Campaign. In total, over 50,000 stolen documents were released.

... ... ...

[Jul 03, 2018] Russia has a lot of information about Lybia that could dig a political grave for Hillary. They did not release it

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The fact of the matter is, if Russia wanted to do, cause lot of difficulty to the American election they could have. Instead, they went and talked privately to us. So when the government says Russia intercepted stuff that was very important to us, I'm being very fuzzy about it, it wasn't about the election. They told us that there were certain people in America doing things that were very deleterious to the War on Terrorism for personal and financial gain, and they could have blown it publicly but they went internally to us." ..."
"... I haven't listened to that particular interview yet, but can say the the HRC emails with Sid Blumenthal show the reason we got in bed with Sarkozy (and Britain) to destroy Libya was: ..."
"... To steal the nationalized oil ..."
"... To steal the hundreds of tons of gold and silver. ..."
"... To prevent Libya from developing a pan-African gold dinar and development bank to complete with the Federal Reserve petrodollar and the IMF. ..."
"... I can also say that Hersh documented that Ambassador Stevens was an arms dealer, smuggling Libyan military weapons into Syria to finish the "regime change" operation still ongoing there. Also, HRC knew her "rebels" were hunting down and murdering any black Libyans they could find even before Gaddafi was anally bayonet raped. ..."
Jul 03, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter L. | Jul 1, 2018 11:21:17 PM | 23

Hello There! I'm curious to know if any readers have comments about a recent Sy Hersh interview. In response to a question about Russian interference in the last US presidential election Hersh replied:

"I have been reporting something, I've been watching something since 2011 in Libya, when we had a secretary of state that later ran for president, and I will tell you: Some stories take a long time. And I don't know quite how to package it. I don't know how much to say about it. I assure you that there's no known intelligence that Russia impacted, cut into the DNC, Podesta e-mails. That did not happen. I can say that.

I can also say Russia learned other things about what was going on in Libya with us and instead of blowing -- [. . . lots cut out here before returning to the topic . . . ] The fact of the matter is, if Russia wanted to do, cause lot of difficulty to the American election they could have. Instead, they went and talked privately to us. So when the government says Russia intercepted stuff that was very important to us, I'm being very fuzzy about it, it wasn't about the election. They told us that there were certain people in America doing things that were very deleterious to the War on Terrorism for personal and financial gain, and they could have blown it publicly but they went internally to us."

The full text is at the Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2018/06/27/intercepted-live-from-brooklyn-with-sy-hersh-mariame-kaba-lee-gelernt-and-narcy/

Does anyone have any comments on what Sy Hersh is discussing? Who is he talking about?

Daniel , Jul 2, 2018 2:24:48 AM | 31
Peter L. @23

I haven't listened to that particular interview yet, but can say the the HRC emails with Sid Blumenthal show the reason we got in bed with Sarkozy (and Britain) to destroy Libya was:

  1. To steal the nationalized oil
  2. To steal the hundreds of tons of gold and silver.
  3. To prevent Libya from developing a pan-African gold dinar and development bank to complete with the Federal Reserve petrodollar and the IMF.

I can also say that Hersh documented that Ambassador Stevens was an arms dealer, smuggling Libyan military weapons into Syria to finish the "regime change" operation still ongoing there. Also, HRC knew her "rebels" were hunting down and murdering any black Libyans they could find even before Gaddafi was anally bayonet raped.

If I come up with more after listening, I'll post again.

[Jul 03, 2018] Musings II The "Intelligence Community," "Russian Interference," and Due Diligence

Highly recommended!
Looks like Brennan abused his power as a head of CIA and should be held accountable for that.
Notable quotes:
"... Did the U.S. "Intelligence Community" judge that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election? ..."
"... it is not that ..."
"... even that is misleading ..."
"... the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence Research did, in fact, have a different opinion but was not allowed to express it ..."
"... The second thing to remember is that reports of the intelligence agencies reflect the views of the heads of the agencies and are not necessarily a consensus of their analysts' views. The heads of both the CIA and FBI are political appointments, while the NSA chief is a military officer; his agency is a collector of intelligence rather than an analyst of its import, except in the fields of cryptography and communications security. ..."
"... Among the assertions are that a persona calling itself "Guccifer 2.0" is an instrument of the GRU, and that it hacked the emails on the Democratic National Committee's computer and conveyed them to Wikileaks. What the report does not explain is that it is easy for a hacker or foreign intelligence service to leave a false trail. In fact, a program developed by CIA with NSA assistance to do just that has been leaked and published. ..."
"... Retired senior NSA technical experts have examined the "Guccifer 2.0" data on the web and have concluded that "Guccifer 2.0's" data did not involve a hack across the web but was locally downloaded. Further, the data had been tampered with and manipulated, leading to the conclusion that "Guccifer 2.0" is a total fabrication. ..."
"... "Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries." ..."
"... DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying ..."
"... Prominent American journalists and politicians seized upon this shabby, politically motivated, report as proof of "Russian interference" in the U.S. election without even the pretense of due diligence. They have objectively acted as co-conspirators in an effort to block any improvement in relations with Russia, even though cooperation with Russia to deal with common dangers is vital to both countries. ..."
Jun 29, 2018 | jackmatlock.com

Musings II The "Intelligence Community," "Russian Interference," and Due Diligence Posted on by Jack Did the U.S. "Intelligence Community" judge that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election?

Most commentators seem to think so. Every news report I have read of the planned meeting of Presidents Trump and Putin in July refers to "Russian interference" as a fact and asks whether the matter will be discussed. Reports that President Putin denied involvement in the election are scoffed at, usually with a claim that the U.S. "intelligence community" proved Russian interference. In fact, the U.S. "intelligence community" has not done so. The intelligence community as a whole has not been tasked to make a judgment and some key members of that community did not participate in the report that is routinely cited as "proof" of "Russian interference."

I spent the 35 years of my government service with a "top secret" clearance. When I reached the rank of ambassador and also worked as Special Assistant to the President for National Security, I also had clearances for "codeword" material. At that time, intelligence reports to the president relating to Soviet and European affairs were routed through me for comment. I developed at that time a "feel" for the strengths and weaknesses of the various American intelligence agencies. It is with that background that I read the January 6. 2017 report of three intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

This report is labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment," but in fact it is not that . A report of the intelligence community in my day would include the input of all the relevant intelligence agencies and would reveal whether all agreed with the conclusions. Individual agencies did not hesitate to "take a footnote" or explain their position if they disagreed with a particular assessment. A report would not claim to be that of the "intelligence community" if any relevant agency was omitted.

The report states that it represents the findings of three intelligence agencies: CIA, FBI, and NSA, but even that is misleading in that it implies that there was a consensus of relevant analysts in these three agencies. In fact, the report was prepared by a group of analysts from the three agencies pre-selected by their directors, with the selection process generally overseen by James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Clapper told the Senate in testimony May 8, 2017, that it was prepared by "two dozen or so analysts -- hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies." If you can hand-pick the analysts, you can hand-pick the conclusions. The analysts selected would have understood what Director Clapper wanted since he made no secret of his views. Why would they endanger their careers by not delivering?

What should have struck any congressperson or reporter was that the procedure Clapper followed was the same as that used in 2003 to produce the report falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had retained stocks of weapons of mass destruction. That should be worrisome enough to inspire questions, but that is not the only anomaly.

The DNI has under his aegis a National Intelligence Council whose officers can call any intelligence agency with relevant expertise to draft community assessments. It was created by Congress after 9/11 specifically to correct some of the flaws in intelligence collection revealed by 9/11. Director Clapper chose not to call on the NIC, which is curious since its duty is "to act as a bridge between the intelligence and policy communities."

During my time in government, a judgment regarding national security would include reports from, as a minimum, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) of the State Department. The FBI was rarely, if ever, included unless the principal question concerned law enforcement within the United States. NSA might have provided some of the intelligence used by the other agencies but normally did not express an opinion regarding the substance of reports.

What did I notice when I read the January report? There was no mention of INR or DIA! The exclusion of DIA might be understandable since its mandate deals primarily with military forces, except that the report attributes some of the Russian activity to the GRU, Russian military intelligence. DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, is the U.S. intelligence organ most expert on the GRU. Did it concur with this attribution? The report doesn't say.

The omission of INR is more glaring since a report on foreign political activity could not have been that of the U.S. intelligence community without its participation. After all, when it comes to assessments of foreign intentions and foreign political activity, the State Department's intelligence service is by far the most knowledgeable and competent. In my day, it reported accurately on Gorbachev's reforms when the CIA leaders were advising that Gorbachev had the same aims as his predecessors.

This is where due diligence comes in. The first question responsible journalists and politicians should have asked is "Why is INR not represented? Does it have a different opinion? If so, what is that opinion? Most likely the official answer would have been that this is "classified information." But why should it be classified? If some agency heads come to a conclusion and choose (or are directed) to announce it publicly, doesn't the public deserve to know that one of the key agencies has a different opinion?

The second question should have been directed at the CIA, NSA, and FBI: did all their analysts agree with these conclusions or were they divided in their conclusions? What was the reason behind hand-picking analysts and departing from the customary practice of enlisting analysts already in place and already responsible for following the issues involved?

As I was recently informed by a senior official, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence Research did, in fact, have a different opinion but was not allowed to express it . So the January report was not one of the "intelligence community," but rather of three intelligence agencies, two of which have no responsibility or necessarily any competence to judge foreign intentions. The job of the FBI is to enforce federal law. The job of NSA is to intercept the communications of others and to protect ours. It is not staffed to assess the content of what is intercepted; that task is assumed by others, particularly the CIA, the DIA (if it is military) or the State Department's INR (if it is political).

The second thing to remember is that reports of the intelligence agencies reflect the views of the heads of the agencies and are not necessarily a consensus of their analysts' views. The heads of both the CIA and FBI are political appointments, while the NSA chief is a military officer; his agency is a collector of intelligence rather than an analyst of its import, except in the fields of cryptography and communications security.

One striking thing about the press coverage and Congressional discussion of the January report, and of subsequent statements by CIA, FBI, and NSA heads is that questions were never posed regarding the position of the State Department's INR, or whether the analysts in the agencies cited were in total agreement with the conclusions.

Let's put these questions aside for the moment and look at the report itself. On the first page of text, the following statement leapt to my attention:

We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.

Now, how can one judge whether activity "interfered" with an election without assessing its impact? After all, if the activity had no impact on the outcome of the election, it could not be properly termed interference. This disclaimer, however, has not prevented journalists and politicians from citing the report as proof that "Russia interfered" in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

As for particulars, the report is full of assertion, innuendo, and description of "capabilities" but largely devoid of any evidence to substantiate its assertions. This is "explained" by claiming that much of the evidence is classified and cannot be disclosed without revealing sources and methods. The assertions are made with "high confidence" or occasionally, "moderate confidence." Having read many intelligence reports I can tell you that if there is irrefutable evidence of something it will be stated as a fact. The use of the term "high confidence" is what most normal people would call "our best guess." "Moderate confidence" means "some of our analysts think this might be true."

Among the assertions are that a persona calling itself "Guccifer 2.0" is an instrument of the GRU, and that it hacked the emails on the Democratic National Committee's computer and conveyed them to Wikileaks. What the report does not explain is that it is easy for a hacker or foreign intelligence service to leave a false trail. In fact, a program developed by CIA with NSA assistance to do just that has been leaked and published.

Retired senior NSA technical experts have examined the "Guccifer 2.0" data on the web and have concluded that "Guccifer 2.0's" data did not involve a hack across the web but was locally downloaded. Further, the data had been tampered with and manipulated, leading to the conclusion that "Guccifer 2.0" is a total fabrication.

The report's assertions regarding the supply of the DNC emails to Wikileaks are dubious, but its final statement in this regard is important: "Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries." In other words, what was disclosed was the truth! So, Russians are accused of "degrading our democracy" by revealing that the DNC was trying to fix the nomination of a particular candidate rather than allowing the primaries and state caucuses to run their course. I had always thought that transparency is consistent with democratic values. Apparently those who think that the truth can degrade democracy have a rather bizarre -- to put it mildly–concept of democracy.

Most people, hearing that it is a "fact" that "Russia" interfered in our election must think that Russian government agents hacked into vote counting machines and switched votes to favor a particular candidate. This, indeed, would be scary, and would justify the most painful sanctions. But this is the one thing that the "intelligence" report of January 6, 2017, states did not happen. Here is what it said: " DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying ."

This is an important statement by an agency that is empowered to assess the impact of foreign activity on the United States. Why was it not consulted regarding other aspects of the study? Or -- was it in fact consulted and refused to endorse the findings? Another obvious question any responsible journalist or competent politician should have asked.

Prominent American journalists and politicians seized upon this shabby, politically motivated, report as proof of "Russian interference" in the U.S. election without even the pretense of due diligence. They have objectively acted as co-conspirators in an effort to block any improvement in relations with Russia, even though cooperation with Russia to deal with common dangers is vital to both countries.

This is only part of the story of how, without good reason, U.S.-Russian relations have become dangerously confrontational. God willin and the crick don't rise, I'll be musing about other aspects soon.

Thanks to Ray McGovern and Bill Binney for their research assistance.

Jack F. Matlock, Jr.
Booneville, Tennessee
June 29, 2018

[Jun 13, 2018] How False Flag Operations Are Carried Out Today by Philip M. GIRALDI

Highly recommended!
When the media is controlled by people responsible for false flag operation chances to use investigation to discredit this false flag operation, no matter how many evidence they have is close to zero
In other word false flag operation is perfect weapon for the "sole superpower" and due to this status entail very little risks.
Notable quotes:
"... Today's false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and non-government actors including terrorist groups, but they are only considered successful if the true attribution of an action remains secret. ..."
"... False flags can be involved in other sorts of activity as well. The past year's two major alleged chemical attacks carried out against Syrian civilians that resulted in President Donald Trump and associates launching 160 cruise missiles are pretty clearly false flag operations carried out by the rebels and terrorist groups that controlled the affected areas at the time. ..."
"... Because the rebels succeeded in convincing much of the world that the Syrian government had carried out the attacks, one might consider their false flag efforts to have been extremely successful. ..."
"... The remedy against false flag operations such as the recent one in Syria is, of course, to avoid taking the bait and instead waiting until a thorough and objective inspection of the evidence has taken place. The United States, Britain and France did not do that, preferring instead to respond to hysterical press reports by "doing something." If the U.N. investigation of the alleged attack turns up nothing, a distinct possibility, it is unlikely that they will apologize for having committed a war crime. ..."
"... The other major false flag that has recently surfaced is the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury England on March 4 th . Russia had no credible motive to carry out the attack and had, in fact, good reasons not to do so. ..."
"... Unfortunately, May proved wrong and the debate ignited over her actions, which included the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats, has done her severe damage. Few now believe that Russia actually carried out the poisoning and there is a growing body of opinion suggesting that it was actually a false flag executed by the British government or even by the CIA. ..."
"... The lesson that should be learned from Syria and Skripal is that if "an incident" looks like it has no obvious motive behind it, there is a high probability that it is a false flag. ..."
Apr 26, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org

False Flag is a concept that goes back centuries. It was considered to be a legitimate ploy by the Greeks and Romans, where a military force would pretend to be friendly to get close to an enemy before dropping the pretense and raising its banners to reveal its own affiliation just before launching an attack. In the sea battles of the eighteenth century among Spain, France and Britain hoisting an enemy flag instead of one's own to confuse the opponent was considered to be a legitimate ruse de guerre , but it was only "honorable" if one reverted to one's own flag before engaging in combat.

Today's false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and non-government actors including terrorist groups, but they are only considered successful if the true attribution of an action remains secret. There is nothing honorable about them as their intention is to blame an innocent party for something that it did not do. There has been a lot of such activity lately and it was interesting to learn by way of a leak that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has developed a capability to mimic the internet fingerprints of other foreign intelligence services. That means that when the media is trumpeting news reports that the Russians or Chinese hacked into U.S. government websites or the sites of major corporations, it could actually have been the CIA carrying out the intrusion and making it look like it originated in Moscow or Beijing. Given that capability, there has been considerable speculation in the alternative media that it was actually the CIA that interfered in the 2016 national elections in the United States.

False flags can be involved in other sorts of activity as well. The past year's two major alleged chemical attacks carried out against Syrian civilians that resulted in President Donald Trump and associates launching 160 cruise missiles are pretty clearly false flag operations carried out by the rebels and terrorist groups that controlled the affected areas at the time. The most recent reported attack on April 7th might not have occurred at all according to doctors and other witnesses who were actually in Douma. Because the rebels succeeded in convincing much of the world that the Syrian government had carried out the attacks, one might consider their false flag efforts to have been extremely successful.

The remedy against false flag operations such as the recent one in Syria is, of course, to avoid taking the bait and instead waiting until a thorough and objective inspection of the evidence has taken place. The United States, Britain and France did not do that, preferring instead to respond to hysterical press reports by "doing something." If the U.N. investigation of the alleged attack turns up nothing, a distinct possibility, it is unlikely that they will apologize for having committed a war crime.

The other major false flag that has recently surfaced is the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury England on March 4th. Russia had no credible motive to carry out the attack and had, in fact, good reasons not to do so. The allegations made by British Prime Minister Theresa May about the claimed nerve agent being "very likely" Russian in origin have been debunked, in part through examination by the U.K.'s own chemical weapons lab. May, under attack even within her own party, needed a good story and a powerful enemy to solidify her own hold on power so false flagging something to Russia probably appeared to be just the ticket as Moscow would hardly be able to deny the "facts" being invented in London. Unfortunately, May proved wrong and the debate ignited over her actions, which included the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats, has done her severe damage. Few now believe that Russia actually carried out the poisoning and there is a growing body of opinion suggesting that it was actually a false flag executed by the British government or even by the CIA.

The lesson that should be learned from Syria and Skripal is that if "an incident" looks like it has no obvious motive behind it, there is a high probability that it is a false flag. A bit of caution in assigning blame is appropriate given that the alternative would be a precipitate and likely disproportionate response that could easily escalate into a shooting war.

Tags: CIA

[Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block " Siberian candidate " Trump. ..."
"... The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The Washington Post , Dearlove told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers" opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in communication with the Kremlin." ..."
"... Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down. When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA Director (and now NBC News analyst). ..."
"... Dearlove and Halper are now partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another MI6 vet. Alexander Downer served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an unpaid advisor . ..."
"... Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom every Russian is a Boris Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that Lokhova convincingly argues are absurd. ..."
"... As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known, Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, argued that the Iraqi military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too. ..."
"... Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult" hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... describes Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr. Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort. ..."
"... But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK. ..."
"... Stefan Halper then infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign. Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other. ..."
"... The rightwing Federalist website speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating it." Clovis believes that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue after inauguration. ..."
"... Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a "nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency with violating US election laws. ..."
"... As The Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2 article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election Day. ..."
"... Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not his government. ..."
"... Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker ..."
"... But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press." ..."
"... It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice. ..."
"... "Russiagate" continues to attract mounting blowback at Clinton, Obama and the Dems. Might well be they who end up charged with lawbreaking, though I'd be surprised if anyone in authority is ever really punished. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/fbi-spying-trump-started-london-earlier-thought-new-texts-implicate-obama-white ..."
"... I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb, Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged "puppet." ..."
"... The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what really happened. ..."
"... I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump did. ..."
"... Long-time CIA asset named as FBI's spy on Trump campaign By Bill Van Auken https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/21/poli-m21.html ..."
"... What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was "in the lead". ..."
"... Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House. Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal ideology for the most part. ..."
"... The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White House. ..."
"... It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its existence based on foreign enemies. ..."
"... So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab. ..."
May 31, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

As the role of a well-connected group of British and U.S. intelligence agents begins to emerge, new suspicions are growing about what hand they may have had in weaving the Russia-gate story, as Daniel Lazare explains.

Special to Consortium News

With the news that a Cambridge academic-cum-spy named Stefan Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign, the role of the intelligence agencies in shaping the great Russiagate saga is at last coming into focus.

It's looking more and more massive. The intelligence agencies initiated reports that Donald Trump was colluding with Russia, they nurtured them and helped them grow, and then they spread the word to the press and key government officials. Reportedly, they even tried to use these reports to force Trump to step down prior to his inauguration. Although the corporate press accuses Trump of conspiring with Russia to stop Hillary Clinton, the reverse now seems to be the case: the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block " Siberian candidate " Trump.

The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The Washington Post , Dearlove told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers" opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in communication with the Kremlin."

Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down. When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA Director (and now NBC News analyst).

In-Bred

A few things stand out about this august group. One is its in-bred quality. After helping to run an annual confab known as the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, Dearlove and Halper are now partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another MI6 vet. Alexander Downer served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an unpaid advisor .

Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom every Russian is a Boris Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that Lokhova convincingly argues are absurd.

Halper: Infiltrated Trump campaign

In December 2016, Halper and Dearlove both resigned from the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar because they suspected that a company footing some of the costs was tied up with Russian intelligence – suspicions that Christopher Andrew, former chairman of the Cambridge history department and the seminar's founder, regards as " absurd " as well.

As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known, Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, argued that the Iraqi military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too.

Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult" hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine.

The result is a diplo-espionage gang that is very bad at the facts but very good at public manipulation – and which therefore decided to use its skill set out to create a public furor over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

It Started Late 2015

The effort began in late 2015 when GCHQ, along with intelligence agencies in Poland, Estonia, and Germany, began monitoring what they said were " suspicious 'interactions' between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents."

Since Trump was surging ahead in the polls and scaring the pants off the foreign-policy establishment by calling for a rapprochement with Moscow, the agencies figured that Russia was somehow behind it. The pace accelerated in March 2016 when a 30-year-old policy consultant named George Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as a foreign-policy adviser. Traveling in Italy a week later, he ran into Mifsud, the London-based Maltese academic, who reportedly set about cultivating him after learning of his position with Trump. Mifsud claimed to have "substantial connections with Russian government officials," according to prosecutors. Over breakfast at a London hotel, he told Papadopoulos that he had just returned from Moscow where he had learned that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails."

This was the remark that supposedly triggered an FBI investigation. The New York Times describes Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr. Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort.

But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK.

After Papadopoulos caused a minor political ruckus by telling a reporter that Prime Minister David Cameron should apologize for criticizing Trump's anti-Muslim pronouncements, a friend in the Israeli embassy put him in touch with a friend in the Australian embassy, who introduced him to Downer, her boss. Over drinks, Downer advised him to be more diplomatic. After Papadopoulos then passed along Misfud's tip about Clinton's emails, Downer informed his government, which, in late July, informed the FBI.

Was Papadopoulos Set Up?

Suspicions are unavoidable but evidence is lacking. Other pieces were meanwhile clicking into place. In late May or early June 2016, Fusion GPS, a private Washington intelligence firm employed by the Democratic National Committee, hired Steele to look into the Russian angle.

On June 20, he turned in the first of eighteen memos that would eventually comprise the Steele dossier , in this instance a three-page document asserting that Putin "has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years" and that Russian intelligence possessed "kompromat" in the form of a video of prostitutes performing a "golden showers" show for his benefit at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. A week or two later, Steele briefed the FBI on his findings. Around the same time, Robert Hannigan flew to Washington to brief CIA Director John Brennan about additional material that had come GCHQ's way, material so sensitive that it could only be handled at "director level."

One player was filling Papadopoulos's head with tales of Russian dirty tricks, another was telling the FBI, while a third was collecting more information and passing it on to the bureau as well.

Page: Took Russia's side.

On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in which he complained that " Washington and other western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed " unease " that someone representing the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's side in a growing neo-Cold War.

Stefan Halper then infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign. Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other.

On July 11, Page showed up at a Cambridge symposium at which Halper and Dearlove both spoke. In early September, Halper sent Papadopoulos an email offering $3,000 and a paid trip to London to write a research paper on a disputed gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, his specialty. "George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?" Halper asked when he got there, but Papadopoulos said he knew nothing. Halper also sought out Sam Clovis, Trump's national campaign co-chairman, with whom he chatted about China for an hour or so over coffee in Washington.

The rightwing Federalist website speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating it." Clovis believes that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue after inauguration.

Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a "nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency with violating US election laws.

But the corruption charges have nothing to do with Russian collusion and nothing in the indictment against IRA indicates that either the Kremlin or the Trump campaign were involved. Indeed, the activities that got IRA in trouble in the first place are so unimpressive – just $46,000 worth of Facebook ads that it purchased prior to election day, some pro-Trump, some anti, and some with no particular slant at all – that Mueller probably wouldn't even have bothered if he hadn't been under intense pressure to come up with anything at all.

The same goes for the army of bots that Russia supposedly deployed on Twitter. As The Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2 article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election Day.

The Steele dossier is also underwhelming. It declares on one page that the Kremlin sought to cultivate Trump by throwing "various lucrative real estate development business deals" his way but says on another that Trump's efforts to drum up business were unavailing and that he thus "had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather than business success."

Why would Trump turn down business offers when he couldn't generate any on his own? The idea that Putin would spot a U.S. reality-TV star somewhere around 2011 and conclude that he was destined for the Oval Office five years later is ludicrous. The fact that the Democratic National Committee funded the dossier via its law firm Perkins Coie renders it less credible still, as does the fact that the world has heard nothing more about the alleged video despite the ongoing deterioration in US-Russian relations. What's the point of making a blackmail tape if you don't use it?

Steele: Paid for political research, not intelligence.

Even Steele is backing off. In a legal paper filed in response to a libel suit last May, he said the document "did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts, but were raw intelligence which had identified a range of allegations that warranted investigation given their potential national security implications." The fact is that the "dossier" was opposition research, not an intelligence report. It was neither vetted by Steele nor anyone in an intelligence agency. Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not his government.

Using it Anyway

Nonetheless, the spooks have made the most of such pseudo-evidence. Dearlove and Wood both advised Steele to take his "findings" to the FBI, while, after the election, Wood pulled Sen. John McCain aside at a security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to let him know that the Russians might be blackmailing the president-elect. McCain dispatched long-time aide David J. Kramer to the UK to discuss the dossier with Steele directly.

Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker found a former national-security official who says he spoke with him at the time and that Kramer's goal was to have McCain confront Trump with the dossier in the hope that he would resign on the spot. When that didn't happen, Clapper and Brennan arranged for FBI Director James Comey to confront Trump instead. Comey later testified that he didn't want Trump to think he was creating "a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation – I didn't want him thinking I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way."

But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press."

Since then, the Democrats have touted the dossier at every opportunity, The New Yorker continues to defend it , while Times columnist Michelle Goldberg cites it as well, saying it's a "rather obvious possibility that Trump is being blackmailed." CNN, for its part, suggested not long ago that the dossier may actually be Russian disinformation designed to throw everyone off base, Republicans and Democrats alike.

It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice.

Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique , and his articles about the Middle East, terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites as Jacobin and The American Conservative.

Vivian O'Blivion , June 4, 2018 at 6:36 am

Interesting technical detail.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/04/mueller-russia-troll-case-620653

Mueller is trying to omit the normal burden of legal liability, "wilful intent" in his charges against the St Petersburg, social media operation. In a horrifically complex area such as tax, campaign contributions or lobbying, a foreign entity can be found guilty of breaking a law that they cannot reasonably have been expected to have knowledge of.

But the omission or inclusion of "wilful intent" is applied on a selective basis depending on the advantage to the deep state. From a practical standpoint, omission of "wilful intent" makes it easier for Mueller to get a guilty verdict (in adsentia assuming this is legally valid in America). Once the "guilt" of the St Petersburg staff is established, any communication between an American and them becomes "collusion".

This stinks.

Realist , June 3, 2018 at 4:50 am

"Russiagate" continues to attract mounting blowback at Clinton, Obama and the Dems. Might well be they who end up charged with lawbreaking, though I'd be surprised if anyone in authority is ever really punished. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/fbi-spying-trump-started-london-earlier-thought-new-texts-implicate-obama-white

I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb, Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged "puppet."

The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what really happened.

backwardsevolution , June 3, 2018 at 2:50 pm

Realist – good post. I think what you say is true. Trump got too caught up in the birther crap, and Obama retaliated. But I think that Trump had been thinking about the presidency long before Obama came along. He sees the country differently than Obama and Clinton do. Trump would never have built up China to the point where all American technology has been given away for free, with millions of jobs lost and a huge trade deficit, and he would have probably left Russia alone, not ransacked it.

I saw Obama as a somewhat reluctant globalist and Hillary as an eager globalist. They are both insiders. Trump is not. He's interested in what is best for the U.S., whereas the Clinton's and the Bush's were interested in what their corporate masters wanted. The multinationals have been selling the U.S. out, Trump is trying to put a stop to this, and it is going to be a fight to the death. Trump is playing hardball with China (who ARE U.S. multinationals), and it is working. Beginning July 1, 2018, China has agreed to reduce its tariffs:

"Import tariffs for apparel, footwear and headgear, kitchen supplies and fitness products will be more than halved to an average of 7.1 percent from 15.9 percent, with those on washing machines and refrigerators slashed to just 8 percent, from 20.5 percent.

Tariffs will also be cut on processed foods such as aquaculture and fishing products and mineral water, from 15.2 percent to 6.9 percent.

Cosmetics, such as skin and hair products, and some medical and health products, will also benefit from a tariff cut to 2.9 percent from 8.4 percent.

In particular, tariffs on drugs ranging from penicillin, cephalosporin to insulin will be slashed to zero from 6 percent before.

In the meantime, temporary tariff rates on 210 imported products from most favored nations will be scrapped as they are no longer favorable compared with new rates."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-tariffs/china-to-cut-import-tariffs-for-some-consumer-goods-from-most-favored-nations-idUSKCN1IW1PY

Trade with China has been all one way. At least Trump is leveling the playing field. He at least is trying to bring back jobs, something the "insiders" could care less about.

I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump did.

Abe , June 2, 2018 at 2:20 am

"Pentagon documents indicate that the Department of Defense's shadowy intelligence arm, the Office of Net Assessment, paid Halper $282,000 in 2016 and $129,000 in 2017. According to reports, Halper sought to secure Papadopoulos's collaboration by offering him $3,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to produce a research paper on energy issues in the eastern Mediterranean.

"The choice of Halper for this spying operation has ominous implications. His deep ties to the US intelligence apparatus date back decades. His father-in-law was Ray Cline, who headed the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War. Halper served as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Alexander Haig in the Nixon and Ford administrations.

"In 1980, as the director of policy coordination for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign, Halper oversaw an operation in which CIA officials gave the campaign confidential information on the Carter administration and its foreign policy. This intelligence was in turn utilized to further back-channel negotiations between Reagan's campaign manager and subsequent CIA director William Casey and representatives of Iran to delay the release of the American embassy hostages until after the election, in order to prevent Carter from scoring a foreign policy victory on the eve of the November vote.

"Halper subsequently held posts as deputy assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs and senior adviser to the Pentagon and Justice Department. More recently, Halper has collaborated with Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, the British intelligence service, in directing the Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi), a security think tank that lists the US and UK governments as its principal clients.

"Before the 2016 election, Halper had expressed his view – shared by predominant layers within the intelligence agencies – that Clinton's election would prove 'less disruptive' than Trump's.

"The revelations of the role played by Halper point to an intervention in the 2016 elections by the US intelligence agencies that far eclipsed anything one could even imagine the Kremlin attempting."

Long-time CIA asset named as FBI's spy on Trump campaign By Bill Van Auken https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/21/poli-m21.html

CitizenOne , June 1, 2018 at 11:19 pm

Sorry for not commenting on other posts as of yet. But I think I have a different perspective. Russia Gate is not about Hillary Clinton or Putin but it is about Donald Trump. Specifically an effort to get rid of him by the intelligence agencies and the MSM. The fact is the MSM created Trump and were chiefly responsible for his election. Trump is their brainchild starlet used to fleece all the republican campaigns like a huckster fleeces an audience. It all ties to key Supreme Court rulings eliminating campaign finance regulations which ushered in the age of dark money.

When billionaires can donate unlimited amounts of money anonymously to the candidate of their choosing what ends up is a field of fourteen wannabes in a primary race each backed by their own investor(s). The only way these candidates can win is to convince us to vote. The only way they can do that is to spend on advertising.

What the MSM dreamed of in a purely capitalistic way was a way to drain the wallets of every single one of the republican Super PACs. The mission was fraught with potential checkmates. Foe example, there could be an early leader who snatched up the needed delegates for the nomination early on which would have stopped the flow of advertising cash flowing to the MSM. Such possibilities worried the MSM and caused great angst since this might just be the biggest haul they ever took in during a primary season. How would they prevent a premature end of the money river. Like financial vampire bats, ticks and leeches they needed a way to keep the money flowing from the veins of the republican Super PACs until they were sucked dry.

What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was "in the lead".

It was a pure stroke of genius and it worked so well that Carl Rove is looking for a job and Donald Trump is sitting in the White House.

Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House. Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal ideology for the most part.

What to do? Trump was now the Commander in Chief and was spouting nonsense that the establishment recoiled at such as Trumps plans to form economic ties with Russia rather than continue to wage a cold war spanning 65 years which the MIC used year after year to spook us all and guarantee their billions annual increase in funding. Trump directly attacked defense projects and called for de-funding major initiatives like F35 etc.

The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White House.

What to do? There was clearly a need to eliminate this bad guy since his avowed policies were in direct opposition to the game plan that had successfully compromised the former administration. They felt powerless to dissuade the Administration to continue the course and form strategies to eliminate Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, Ukraine and other vulnerable targets swaying toward China and Russia. They faced a new threat with the Trump Administration which seemed hell bent to discontinue the wars in these regions robbing them of many dollars.

It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its existence based on foreign enemies.

So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab.

In the interim, they also forgot on purpose to tell anyone about the election campaign finance fraud that they were the chief beneficiaries of. They also of course forgot to tell anyone what the fight was about for the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Twenty seven million dollars in dark money was donated by dark money donors enabled by the Supreme Court's decisions to eliminate campaign finance regulations which enabled these donors to buy out Congress and elect and confirm a Supreme Court Justice who would uphold the laws which eliminate all the election rules and campaign finance regulations dating back to the Tillman Act of 1907 which was an attempt to eliminate corporate contributions in political campaigns with associated meager fines as penalties. The law was weak then and has now been eliminated.

In an era of dark money in politics protected by revisionist judges laying at the top of our federal judicial branch posing as strict constructionists while being funded by the corporatocracy that viciously fights over control of the highest court by a panicked republican party that seeks to tie up their domination in our Congress by any means including the abdication of the Constitutional authority granted to the citizens of the nation we now face a new internal enemy.

That enemy is not some foreign nation but our own government which conspires to represent the wealthy and the powerful and which exalts them and which enacts laws to defend their control of our nation. Here is a quote:

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Frederic Bastiat – (1801-1850) in Economic Sophisms

Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:32 am

Different journalist covering much the same ground:

http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/why-is-the-new-york-times-misleading-the-american-people-about-the-paid-informant-who-was-spying-on-the-trump-campaign/

"Russiagate" is strictly a contrivance of the Deep State, American & British Spookery, and the corporate media propagandists. It clearly needs to be genuinely investigated (unlike the mockery being orchestrated by Herr Mueller from the Ministry of Truth), re-christened "Intellgate" (after the real perpetrators of crime), pursued until all the guilty traitors (including Mueller) who really tried to steal our democratic election are tried, convicted and incarcerated (including probably hundreds complicit from the media) and given its own lengthy chapter in all the history books about "The Election They Tried to Steal and Blame on Russia: How America Nearly Lost its Constitution." If not done, America will lose its constitution, or rather the incipient process will become totally irreversible.

Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 6:25 am

Your timing of events is confused.
The deep state didn't try and steal the election because they were overly complacent that their woman would win. Remember, they didn't try to use the dodgy, Steele dossier before the election.
What the deep state has done is reactively try to overcome the election outcome by launching an investigation into Trump. The egregious element of the investigation is giving it the title "investigation into collusion" when they in all probability knew that collusion was unlikely to have taken place. To achieve their aim (removing Trump) they included the line "and matters arising" in the brief to give them an open ended remit which allowed them to investigate Trump's business dealings of a Russian / Ukrainian nature (which may venture uncomfortably close to Semion Mogilevich).
If as you state (and I concur) there was no Russian collusion, then barring fabrication of evidence by Mueller (and there is little evidence of that to date) you have nothing to worry about on the collusion front. Remember, to date, Mueller has stuck (almost exclusively) to meat and potatoes charges like tax evasion and money laundering. If however the investigation leads to credible evidence that Trump broke substantive laws in the past for financial gain, then it is not reasonable to cry foul.

Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:02 am

The Deep State assisted the DNC in knocking out Sanders. THAT was ground zero. Everything since then has been to cover this up and to discredit Trump (using him as the distraction). Consider that the Deep State never bothered to investigate the DNC servers/data; reason being is that they'd (Deep State) be implicated.

Skip Scott , June 1, 2018 at 7:29 am

Very true Seer. That is the real genesis of RussiaGate. It was a diversion tactic to keep people from looking at the DNC's behavior during the primaries. They are the reason Trump is president, not the evil Ruskies.

Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:13 am

We all seem agreed that the Russia collusion is an exercise in distraction. I can't say I know enough to comment with authority on whether the DNC would require assistance from the deep state to trash Bernie. From an outsider perspective it looked more like an application of massively disproportionate spending and standard, back room dirty tricks.
There is a saying; don't attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence. In this case, try replacing incompetence with MONEY.

dikcheney , June 2, 2018 at 5:09 pm

Totally agree with you Skip and the Mueller performance is there to keep up the intimidation and distraction by regularly finding turds to throw at Trump. Mueller doesnt need to find anything, he just needs to create vague intimations of 'guilty Trump' and suspicious associates so that no one will look at the DNC or the Clinton corruption or the smashing of the Sanders campaign.

Their actual agenda is to smother analysis and clear thinking. Thankfully there is the forensicator piecing the jigsaw as well as consortium news.

robjira , June 1, 2018 at 11:55 am

Spot on, Seer.

michael , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm

Those servers probably had a lot more pay-to-play secrets from the Clinton Foundation and ring-kissing from foreign big donors than what was released by Wikileaks, which mostly was just screwing over Bernie, which the judge ruled was Hillary's prerogative. Some email chains were probably construed as National Security and were discreetly not leaked.
The 30,000 emails Hillary had bit bleached from her private servers are likely in the hands of Russians and every other major country, all biding their time for leverage. This was the carrot the British (who undoubtedly have copies as well) dangled over idiot Popodopolous.

Uncle Bob , June 1, 2018 at 10:33 pm

Seth Rich

anon , June 1, 2018 at 7:42 am

Realist is likely referring to events before the election which involved people with secret agency connections, such as the opposition research (Steele dossier and Skripal affair).

Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:32 am

Realist responded but is being "moderated" as per usual.

Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:31 am

Hillary herself was a prime force in cooking up the smear against Trump for being "Putin's puppet." This even before the Democratic convention. Then she used it big time during the debates. It wasn't something merely reactive after she lost. Certainly she and her collaborators inside the deep state and the intelligence agencies never imagined that she would lose and have to distract from what she and her people did by projecting the blame onto Trump. That part was reactive. The rest of the conspiracy was totally proactive on her part and that of the DNC, even during the primaries.

Don't forget, the intel agencies led by Clapper, Brennan and Comey were all working for Obama at the time and were totally acquiescent in spying on the Trump campaign and "unmasking" the identities and actions of his would-be administration, including individuals like General Flynn. The cooked up Steele dossier was paid for by money from the Clinton campaign and used as a pretext for the intel agencies to spy on the Trump campaign. There is no issue on timing. The establishment was fully behind Clinton by hook or crook from the moment Trump had the delegates to win the GOP nomination. (OBTW, I am not a Trump supporter or even a Republican, so I KNOW that I "have nothing to worry about on the collusion front." I'm a registered Dem, though not a Hillary supporter.)

Moreover, if you think that Mueller (and the other intel chiefs) have been on the impartial up-and-up, why did the FBI never seize and examine the DNC servers? Why simply accept the interpretation of events given by the private cybersecurity firm (Crowdstrike) that the Clinton campaign hired to very likely mastermind a cover-up? That is exceptional (nay, unheard of!) "professional courtesy." Why has Mueller to this day not deposed Julian Assange or former British Ambassador Craig Murray, both of whom admit to knowing precisely who provided the leaked (not hacked) Podesta and DNC emails to Wikileaks? Why has Mueller not pursued the potential role of the late Seth Rich in the leaking of said emails? Why has Mueller not pursued the robust theory, based on actual evidence, proposed by VIPS, and supported by computer experts like Bill Binney and John McAfee, that the emails were not, as the Dems and the intel agencies would have you believe on NO EVIDENCE, hacked (by the "Russians" or anyone else) but were downloaded to a flash drive directly from the DNC servers? Why has Mueller not deposed Binney or Ray McGovern who claim to have evidence to bear on this and have discussed it freely in the media (to the miniscule extent that the corporate media will give them an audience)? Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a kangaroo court he is running? Is the media really independent and impartial or are they part of a cover-up, perpetrating numerous sins of both commission and omission in their highly flawed reportage?

I don't see clarity in what has been thus far been propounded by Mueller or any of Trump's other accusers, but I don't think I am the one who is confused here, Vivian. If you want to meet a thoroughly confused individual on what transpired leading up to this moment in American political history, just go read Hillary's book. Absolutely everyone under the sun shares in the blame but her for the fact that she does not presently reside in the White House.

Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 1:48 pm

You have presented your case with a great deal more detail and clarity than the original post that prompted my reply. You are also a great deal more knowledgeable than I on the details. I think we are 98% in agreement and I wouldn't like to say who's correct on the remaining 2%.
For clarity, I didn't follow the debates and wouldn't do so now if they were repeated. Much heat very little light.
The "pretext" that the intel agencies claim launched their actions against Trump was not the Steele dossier, at least that is what the intel agencies say. Either way your assertion that it was the dossier that set things off is just that, an assertion. I think this is a minor point.
On the DNC servers and the FBI we are 100% singing from the same hymn book and it all sticks. Mueller's apparent disinterest in the question of hack or USB drive does rather taint his investigation and thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't thought of that angle. I still think Mueller will stick to tax and money laundering and stay well clear of "collusion", so yes he may be running a kangaroo court investigation but the charges will be real world.
The MSM as a whole are a sick joke which is why we collectively find ourselves at CN, Craig Murray's blog, etc. I wouldn't like to attribute "collaboration" to any individual in the media. It was the reference to hundreds of journalists being sent to jail in your original post that set me off in the first place. When considering the "culpability" of any individual journalist you can have any position on a spectrum from; fully cognisant collaborator with a deep state conspiracy, to; a bit dim and running with the "sexy" story 'cause it's the biggest thing ever, the bosses can't get enough of it and the overtime is great. If American journalists are anything like their UK counterparts, 99% will fall into the latter category.
Don't have any issue with your final point. Hillary on stage and on camera was phoney as rocking horse s**te and everyone outside her extremely highly remunerated team could see it.
Sorry for any inconvenience, but your second post makes your points a hell of a lot clearer than the original.

Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:26 pm

My purpose for the first post in this thread was to direct readers to the article in Unz by Mike Whitney, not to compress a full-blown amateur expose' by myself into a three-sentence paragraph. You would have found much more in the way of facts, analysis and opinion in his article to which my terse comments did not even serve as an abstract.

Quoting his last paragraph may give you the flavor of this piece, which is definitely not a one-off by him or other actual journalists who have delved into the issues:

"Let's see if I got this right: Brennan gets his buddies in the UK to feed fake information on Russia to members of the Trump campaign, after which the FBI uses the suspicious communications about Russia as a pretext to unmask, wiretap, issue FISA warrants, and infiltrate the campaign, after which the incriminating evidence that was collected in the process of entrapping Trump campaign assistants is compiled in a legal case that is used to remove Trump from office. Is that how it's supposed to work?

It certainly looks like it. But don't expect to read about it in the Times."

backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm

Vivian – 90% of all major media is owned by six corporations. There most definitely was and IS collusion between some of them to bring down the outsider, Trump.

As far as individual journalists go, yeah, they're trying to pay their mortgage, I get it, and they're going to spin what their boss bloody well tells them to spin. But there is evidence coming out that "some" journalists did accept money from either Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie (sp) or Christopher Steele to leak information, which they did.

Bill Clinton passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that enabled these six media conglomerates to dominate the news. Of course they're political. They need to be split up, like yesterday, into a thousand pieces (ditto for the banks). They have purposely and with intent been feeding lies to the American people. Yes, some SHOULD go to jail.

As Peter Strzok of the FBI said re Trump colluding with Russia, "There was never any there, there." The collusion has come from the intelligence agencies, in cahoots with Hillary Clinton, perhaps even as high as Obama, to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed, they set out to get him impeached on whatever they could find. Of course Mueller is going to stick with tax and money laundering because he already KNOWS there was never any collusion with Russia.

This is the Swamp versus the People.

backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 1:52 pm

Realist – another excellent post. "Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a kangaroo court he is running?" As you rightly point out, Mueller IS being very selective in what he examines and doesn't examine. He's not after the whole truth, just a particular kind of truth, one that gets him a very specific result – to take down or severely cripple the President.

Evidence continues to trickle out. Former and active members of the FBI are now even begging to testify as they are disgusted with what is being purposely omitted from this so-called "impartial" investigation. This whole affair is "kangaroo" all the way.

I'm not so much a fan of Trump as I am a fan of the truth. I don't like to see him – anyone – being railroaded. That bothers me more than anything. But he's right about what he calls "the Swamp". If these people are not uncovered and brought to justice, then the country is truly lost.

Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:38 pm

Precisely. Destroy the man on false pretenses and you destroy our entire system, whether you like him and his questionable policies or not.

Some people would say it's already gone, but we do what we can to get it back or hold onto to what's left of it. Besides, all the transparent lies and skullduggery in the service of politics rather than principles are just making our entire system look as corrupt as hell.

michael , June 1, 2018 at 5:00 pm

When Mueller arrested slimy Manafort for crimes committed in the Ukraine and gave a pass to the Podesta Brothers who worked closely with Manafort, it was clear that Russiagate was a partisan operation.

backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 6:17 pm

Michael – good point!

KiwiAntz , June 1, 2018 at 1:00 am

Its becoming abundantly clear now, that the whole Russiagate charade was had nothibg to do with Russia & is about a elaborate smokescreen & shellgame coverup designed to divert attention away from, firstly the Democratic Party's woeful defeat & its lousy Candidate choice in the corrupt Hillary Clinton? & also the DNC's sabotaging of Bernie Saunders campaign run! But the most henious & treacherous parts was Obama's, weaponising the intelligence agencies to spy (Halper) on the imaginary Mancharian Candidate Trump & to set him up as a Russia stooge? Obama & Hillary Clinton are complicent in this disgraceful & illegal activity to get dirt on Trump withe goal of ensuring Clinton's election win? This is bigger than Watergate & more scandalous? But despite the cheating & stacking of the card deck, she still lost out to the Donald? And this isn't just illegal its treasonous & willful actions deserving of a lengthy jail incarceration? HRC & her crooked Clinton foundation's funding of the fraudulent & discredited "Steele Dosier" was also used to implement Trump & Russia in a made up, pile of fictitious gargage that was pure offal? Obama & HRC along with their FBI & CIA spys need to be rounded up, convicted & thrown in jail? Perhaps if Trump could just shut his damn mouuth for once & get off twitter long enough to be able too get some Justice Dept officials looking into this, without being distracted by this Russiagate shellgame fakery, then perhaps the real criminal's like Halpert, Obama,HRC & these corrupt spooks & spies can be rounded up & held to account for this treasonous behaviour?

Sean Ahern , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 pm

Attention should be paid also to the role of so called progressive media outlets such as Mother Jones which served as an outlets for the disinformation campaign described in Lazare's article.
Here from David Corn's Mother Jones 2016 article:

"And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more information from him."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/

Not only was Corn and Mother Jones selected by the spooks as an outlet, but these so called progressives lauded their 'expose' as a great investigative coup on their part and it paved the way for Corn's elevation on MSNBC for a while as a 'pundit.'

Paul G. , May 31, 2018 at 8:46 pm

In that vein did the spooks influence Rachel Maddow or is her $30,000. a day salary adequate to totally compromise her microscopic journalistic integrity.

dikcheney , June 3, 2018 at 6:57 am

Passing around references to Mother Jones is like passing round used toilet paper for another try. MJ is BS it is entirely controlled fake press.

Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:23 pm

Stefan Halper was being paid by the Clinton's foundation during the time he was spying on the Trump campaign. This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton's hands are all over getting Russia Gate started. Then there's the role that Obama's justice department played in setting up the spying on people who were working with the Trump campaign. This is worse than Watergate, IMO.

Rumors are that a few ex FBI agents are going to testify to congress in Comey's role in covering up Hillary's crimes when she used her private email server to send classified information to people who did not have clearance to read it. Sydney Bluementhol was working for Hillary's foundation and sending her classified information that he stole from the NSA.

Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were concerned about Obama knowing that Hillary wasn't using her government email account after he told the press that he only found out about it at the same time they did. He had been sending and receiving emails from her Clintonone email address during her whole tenure as SOS.

Obama was also aware of her using her foundation for pay to play which she was told by both congress and Obama to keep far away from her duties. Why did she use her private email server? So that Chelsea could know where Hillary was doing business so she could send Bill there to give his speeches to the same organizations, foreign governments and people who had just donated to their foundation.

Has any previous Secretary of State in history used their position to enrich their spouses or their foundations? I think not.

The secrets of how the FBI covered for Hillary are coming out. Whether she is charged for her crimes is a different matter.

F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 7:48 pm

If Hillary paid a political operative using Clinton Foundation funds – those are tax exempt charitable contributions – she would be guilty of tax fraud, charity fraud and campaign finance violations. Hillary may be evil, but she's not stupid. The U.S.Government paid Halper, which might be "waste, fraud and abuse", but it doesn't implicate Hillary at all. Not that she's innocent, mind you

Rob , June 1, 2018 at 2:14 am

I need some references to take any of your multitude of claims seriously. With all due respect, this sound like something taken from info wars and stylized in smartened up a little bit.

chris m , May 31, 2018 at 2:52 pm

the idea that Stefan Halper was some sort a of mastermind spy behind the so called "Russiagate" fiasco
seems very implausible considering what he seems to have spent doing for the past 40 years
going back to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980 and his efforts then.

i think he must have had a fairly peripheral role as to whatever or not was going on behind the scenes from 2016 election campaign, and the campaign to first stop Trump getting elected, and secondly, when that failed, to bring down his Presidency.

of course, the moment his name was revealed in recent days, would have shocked or surprised those of in the general
public, but not certainly amongst those in Government aka FBI/CIA/Military-industrial circles.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 4:36 pm

chris m – Halper is probably one of those people who hide behind their professor (or other legitimate) jobs, but are there at the ready to serve the Deep State. "I understand. You want me to set up some dupes in order to make it look like there was or could be actual Russian meddling. Gotcha." All you've got to do is make it "look like" something nefarious was going on. This facilitates a "reason" to have a phony investigation, and of course they make it as open-ended an investigation as possible, hoping to get the target on something, anything.

Well, they've no doubt looked long and hard for almost two years now, but zip. However, in their zeal to get rid of their opponent, who they did not think would win the election, they left themselves open, left a trail of crimes. Whoops!

This is the Swamp that Trump talked about during the election. He's probably not squeaky clean either, but he pales in comparison to what these guys have done. They have tried to take down a duly-elected President.

F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 5:09 pm

His role may have been peripheral, but I seem to recall that the Office of Net Assessments paid him roughly a million bucks to play it. That office, run from the Pentagon, is about as deep into the world of "black ops" spookdom as you can get. Hardly "peripheral", I'd say.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:13 pm

F. G. Sanford – yes, a million bucks implies something more than just a peripheral involvement, more like something essential to the plot, like the actual setting up of the plot. Risk of exposure costs money.

ranney , May 31, 2018 at 6:17 pm

Chris, I think the Halper inclusion in this complex tale is simply an example of how these things work in the ultra paranoid style of spy agencies. As Lazare explains, every one knew every one else – at least at the start of this, and it just kind of built from there, and Halper may have been the spark – but the spark landed on a highly combustible pile of paranoia that caught on fire right away. This is how our and the UK agencies function. There is an interesting companion piece to this story today at Common Dreams by Robert Kohler titled The American Way of War. It describes basically the same sort of mind set and action as this story. I'd link it for you if I knew how, but I'm not very adept at the computer. (Maybe another reader knows how?)

We (that is the American people who are paying the salaries of these brain blocked, stiff necked idiots) need to start getting vocal and visible about the destructive path our politicians, banks and generals have rigidly put us on. Does any average working stiff still believe that all this hate, death and destruction is to "protect" us?

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:07 pm

ranney – when you are on the page that you want to link to, take your cursor (the little arrow on your screen) to the top of the page to the address bar (for instance, the address for this article is:
"https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/31/spooks-spooking ")

Once your cursor is over the address bar, right click on your mouse. A little menu will come up. Then position your cursor down to the word "copy" and then left click on your mouse. This will copy the link.

Then proceed back to the blog (like Consortium) where you want to provide the link in your post. You might say, "Here is the link for the article I just described above." Then at this point you would right click on your mouse again, position your cursor over the word "paste", and then left click on your mouse. Voila, your link magically appears.

If you don't have a mouse and are using a laptop pad, then someone else will have to help you. That's above my pay grade. Good luck, ranney.

irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:13 pm

If you are using a Mac, either laptop w/touch screen or with a mouse, the copy/paste function
works similarly. Use either the mouse (no need to 'right click, left click') or the touch screen
to highlight the address bar once you have the cursor flashing away on the left side of it.
You may need to scroll right to highlight the whole address. Then go up to Edit (there's also
a keyboard command you can use, but I don't) in your tool bar at the top of your screen.
Click on 'copy'. Now your address is in memory. Then do the same as described above to
get back to where you want to paste it. Put your cursor where you want it to be 'pasted'.
Go back to 'edit' and click 'paste'. Voila !

This is a very handy function and can be used to copy text, web addresses, whatever you want.
Explore it a little bit. (Students definitely overuse the 'paste and match style' option, which allows
a person to 'paste' text into for example an essay and 'match the style' so it looks seamless, although
unless carefully edited it usually doesn't read seamlessly !)

Remember that whatever is in 'copy' will remain there until you 'copy' something else. (Or your
computer crashes . . . )

ranney , June 1, 2018 at 3:39 pm

Irina and Backwards Evolution – Thanks guys for the computer advice! I'll try it, but I think I need someone at my shoulder the first time I try it.

backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 8:53 pm

ranney – you're welcome! Snag one of your kids or a friend, and then do it together. Sometimes I see people posting things like: "Testing. I'm trying to provide a link, bear with me." Throw caution to the wind, ranney. I don't worry about embarrassing myself anymore. I do it every day and the world still goes on.

I heard a good bit of advice once, something I remind my kids: when you're young, you think everybody is watching you and so you're afraid to step out of line. When you're middle-aged, you think everybody is watching you, but you don't care. When you're older, you realize nobody is really watching you because they're more concerned about themselves.

Good luck, ranney.

irina , June 2, 2018 at 10:00 pm

I find it helpful to write down the steps (on an old fashioned piece of paper, with old fashioned ink)
when learning to use a new computer tool, because while I think I'll remember, it doesn't usually
'stick' until after using it for quite a while. And yes, definitely recruit a member of the younger set
or someone familiar with computers. My daughter showed me many years ago how to 'cut & paste'
and to her credit she was very gracious about it. Remember that you need a place to 'paste' what-
ever you copied -- either a comment board like this, or a document you are working on, or (this is
handy) an email where you want to send someone a link to something. Lots of other possibilities too!

mike , June 1, 2018 at 7:43 pm

No one is presenting Halper as a mastermind spy. He was a tool of the deep state nothing more.

Gary Weglarz , May 31, 2018 at 1:57 pm

It seems a mistake to frame the "Russiagate" nonsense as a "Democrat vs Republican" affair, except at the most surface level of understanding in terms of our political realities. If one considers that the Bush family has been effectively the Republican Party's face of the CIA/deep state nexus for decades, as the Clinton/Obama's have been the Democratic Party's face for decades now, what comes into focus is Trump as a sort of unknown, unexpected wild card not appropriately tethered to the control structure. Simply noting that the U.S. and Russia need not be enemies is alone enough to require an operation to get Trump into line.
This hardly means this is some sort of "partisan" issue as the involvement of McCain and others demonstrates.

One of the true "you can't make this stuff up" ironies of the Bush/Clinton CIA/deep state nexus history is worth remembering if one still maintains any illusions about how the CIA vets potential presidents since they killed JFK. During Iran/Contra we had Bush, the former CIA director now vice president, running a drugs for arms operation out the White House through Ollie North, WHILE then unknown Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was busy squashing Arkansas State Police investigations into said narcotics trafficking. Clinton obviously proved his bona fides to the CIA/deep state with such service and was appropriately rewarded as an asset who could function as a reliable president. Here in one operation we had two future presidents in Bush and Clinton both engaged in THE SAME CIA drug running operation. You truly can't make this stuff up.

Russiagate seems to be in the end all about keeping deep state policy moving in the "right direction" and "hating Russia" is the only entree on the menu at this time for the whole cadre of CIA/deep state, MIC, neocons, Zionists, and all their minions in the MSM. The Obama White House would have gladly supported Vlad the Impaler as the Republican candidate that beat Hillary if Vlad were to have the appropriate foaming at the mouth "hate-Russia" vibe going on.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:18 pm

Gary – great post.

irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm

Roger that. I would really like to see an inquiry re-opened into the
teenage boys who died 'on the train tracks' in Arkansas during the
early years of the Clinton-Bush trafficking. Many questions are still
unanswered. Speculation is that they saw something they weren't
supposed to see.

Mark Thomason , May 31, 2018 at 1:12 pm

This all grows out of the failure to clean up the mess revealed by the Iraq fiasco. Instead, those who did that remained, got away with it, and are doing more of the same.

Babyl-on , May 31, 2018 at 12:46 pm

So, here is my question – Who, ultimately does the permanent/bureaucratic/deep/Imperial* state finally answer to? Who's interests are they serving? How do they know what those interests are?

It could be, and increasingly it looks as if, the answer is – no one in particular – but the Saud family, the Zionist cabal of billionaires, the German industrialist dynasties, the Japanese oligarchy and never forget the arms dealers, all of them once part of the Empire now fighting for themselves so we end up with the high level apparatchiks not knowing what to do or who to follow so they lie outright to Congress and go on TV and babble more lies for money.

It's a great contradiction that the greatest armed force ever assembled with cutting edge robotics and AI yet at the same time so weak and pathetic it can not exercise hegemony over the Middle East as it seems to desire more than anything. Being defeated by forces with less than 20% of the US spend.

Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:36 pm

You're right. They answer to no one because they are not just working in this country, but they think that the whole world is theirs.

To these people there are no borders. They meet at places like the G20, Davos and wherever the Bilderberg group decides to meet every year. No leader of any country gets to be one unless they are acceptable to the Deep State. The council of foreign relations is one of the groups that run the world. How we take them down is a good question.

Abe , May 31, 2018 at 12:43 pm

Following the pattern of mainstream media, Daniel Lazare assiduously avoids mentioning Israel and pro-Israel Lobby interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the Israel-gate reality underlying all the Russia-gate fictions.

For example, George Papadopoulos is directly connected to the pro-Israel Lobby, right wing Israeli political interests, and Israeli government efforts to control regional energy resources.

Lazare mentions that Papadapoulos had "a friend in the Israeli embassy".

But Lazare conspicuously neglects to mention numerous Israeli and pro-Israel Lobby players interested in "filling Papadopoulos's head" with "tales of Russian dirty tricks".

Papadopoulos' LinkedIn page lists his association with the right wing Hudson Institute. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank part of pro-Israel Lobby web of militaristic security policy institutes that promote Israel-centric U.S. foreign policy.

https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/hudson_institute/

The Hudson Institute confirmed that Papadopoulos was an intern who left the pro-Israel neoconservative think tank in 2014.

In 2014, Papadopoulos authored op-ed pieces in Israeli publications.

In an op-ed published in Arutz Sheva, media organ of the right wing Religionist Zionist movement embraced by the Israeli "settler" movement, Papadopoulos argued that the U.S. should focus on its "stalwart allies" Israel, Greece, and Cyprus to "contain the newly emergent Russian fleet".

In another op-ed published in Ha'aretz, Papadopoulos contended that Israel should exploit its natural gas resources in partnership with Cyprus and Greece rather than Turkey.

In November 2015, Papadapalous participated in a conference in Tel Aviv, discussing the export of natural gas from Israel with a panel of current and past Israeli government officials including Ron Adam, a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Eran Lerman, a former Israeli Deputy National Security Adviser.

Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region.

Israeli plans to develop energy resources and expand territorial holdings in the Syrian Golan are threatened by the Russian military presence in Syria. Russian diplomatic efforts, and the Russian military intervention that began in September 2015 after an official request by the Syrian government, have interfered with the Israeli-Saudi-U.S. Axis "dirty war" in Syria.

Israeli activities and Israel-gate realities are predictably ignored by the mainstream media, which continues to salivate at every moldy scrap of Russia-gate fiction.

Lazare need no be so circumspect, unless he has somehow been spooked.

Herman , May 31, 2018 at 4:13 pm

"Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region."

And water. Rating energy and water, what's at the top for Israel. Israel would probably say both but Israel shielded by the US will take what it wants. That is already true with the Palestinians.. The last figure I heard is that the Palestinians are allocated one fifth per capita what is allocated to Israel's

mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:59 am

A large swamp is actually an ancient and highly organized ecosystem. Only humans could create a lawless madness like Washington DC.

irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:24 pm

Yes that is a good description of a swamp. BUT, if it loses what sustains it --
water, in the case of a 'real' swamp and money in the case of this swamp --
it changes character very quickly and becomes first a bog, then a meadow.

I am definitely ready for more meadowland ! But the only way to create it
is to voluntarily redirect federal taxes into escrow accounts which stipulate
that the funds are to be used for (fill in the blank) Public Services at the
Local and Regional levels. Much more efficient than filtering them through
the federal bureaucracy !

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:21 pm

But how would one avoid prosecution for nonpayment of taxes?
That seems a very quiet way to be rendered ineffective as a resister.

irina , June 1, 2018 at 2:30 am

The thing is, you don't 'nonpay' them. The way it used to work, through the
Con$cience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account, was that you filed
your taxes as usual. (This does require having less withholding than you owe).
BUT instead of paying what is due to the IRS, you send it to the Escrow Account.
You attach a letter to your tax return, explaining where the money is and why it
is there. That is, you want it to be spent on _________________(fill in the blank)
worthy public social service. Then you send your return to the IRS.

When I used to do this, I stated that I wanted my tax dollars to be spent to develop
public health clinics at neighborhood schools. Said clinics would be staffed by nurse
practitioners, would be open 24-7 and nurses would be equipped with vans to make
House Calls. Security would be provided.

So you're not 'nonpaying' your taxes, you are (attempting) to redirect them. Eventually,
after several rounds of letters back and forth, the IRS would seize the monies from the
escrow account, which would only release them to the IRS upon being told to by the
tax re-director. Unfortunately, not enough people participated to make it a going concern.
But the potential is still there, and the template has been made and used. It's very scale-
able, from local to international. And it would not take that many 're-directors' to shift the
focus of tax liability from the collector to the payor. Because ultimately we are liable for
how our funds are used !

Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:19 pm

this was done a lot during the Vietnam conflict, especially by Quakers. the first thing, if you are a wage earner, is to re-file a W2 with maximum withholdings-that has two effects: 1) it means you owe all your taxes in April. 2) it means the feds are deprived of the hidden tax in which they use or invest your withholding throughout the year before it's actually due(and un-owed taxes if you over over-withhold). Pretty sure that if a large number of people deprive the government of that hidden tax by under-withholding, they will begin to take notice.

Abe , May 31, 2018 at 11:54 am

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence agency of the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom.

In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and telephone data in the UK. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing disclosures of global surveillance and manipulation.

For example, NSA files from the Snowden archive published by Glenn Greenwald reveal details about GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) unit, which uses "dirty trick" tactics to covertly manipulate and control online communities.

JTRIG document: "The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations"
https://edwardsnowden.com/docs/doc/the-art-of-deception-training-for-a-new.pdf

In 2017, officials from the UK and Israel made an unprecedented confirmation of the close relationship between the GCHQ and Israeli intelligence services.

Robert Hannigan, outgoing Director-General of the GCHQ, revealed for the first time that his organization has a "strong partnership with our Israeli counterparts in signals intelligence." He claimed the relationship "is protecting people from terrorism not only in the UK and Israel but in many other countries."

Mark Regev, Israeli ambassador to the UK, commented on the close relationship between British and Israeli intelligence agencies. During remarks at a Conservative Friends of Israel reception, Regev opined: "I have no doubt the cooperation between our two democracies is saving British lives."

Hannigan added that GCHQ was "building on an excellent cyber relationship with a range of Israeli bodies and the remarkable cyber industry in Be'er Sheva."

The IDF's most important signal intelligence–gathering installation is the Urim SIGINT Base, a part of Unit 8200, located in the Negev desert approximately 30 km from Be'er Sheva.

Snowden revealed how Unit 8200 receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens, as part of a secret agreement with the U.S. National Security Agency.

After his departure from GCHQ, Hannigan joined BlueteamGlobal, a cybersecurity services firm, later re-named BlueVoyant.

BlueVoyant's board of directors includes Nadav Zafrir, former Commander of the Israel Defense Forces' Unit 8200. The senior leadership team at BlueVoyant includes Ron Feler, formerly Deputy Commander of the IDF's Unit 8200, and Gad Goldstein, who served as a division head in the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet, in the rank equivalent to Major General.

In addition to their purported cybersecurity activities, Israeli. American, and British private companies have enormous access and potential to promote government and military deception operations.

mike k , May 31, 2018 at 12:23 pm

Thanks Abe. Sounds like a manual for slave owners and con men. What a tangled wed the rich bastards weave. The simple truth is their sworn enemy.

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:19 pm

Interesting that a foreign power would be given all US communications data, which implies that the US has seized it all without a warrant and revealed it all in violation of the Constitution. If extensive, this use of information power amounts to information warfare against the US by its own secret agencies in collusion with a foreign power, an act of treason.

Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:18 am

This has been going on for a LONG time, it's nothing new. I seem to recall 60 Minutes covering it way back in the 70s(?). UK was allowed to do the snooping in the US (and, likely, vice versa) and then providing info to the US. This way the US govt could claim that it didn't spy/snoop on its citizens. Without a doubt Israel has been extensively intercepting communications in the US..

Secrecy kills.

Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:23 am

Yes, but the act of allowing unregulated foreign agencies unwarranted access to US telecoms is federal crime, and it is treason when it goes so far as to allow them full access, and even direct US bulk traffic to their spy agencies. If this is so, these people should be prosecuted for treason.

F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 11:36 am

To listen to the media coverage of these events, it is tempting to believe that two entirely different planets are being discussed. Fox comes out and says Mueller was "owned" by Trump. Then, CNN comes out and says Trump was "owned" by Clapper. Clapper claims the evidence is "staggering", while video clips of his testimony reveal irrefutable perjury. Some of President Trump's policies are understandably abhorrent to Democrats, while Clinton's email server and charity frauds are indisputably violations of Federal statutes. Democrats are attempting to claim that a "spy" in the Trump campaign was perfectly reasonable to protect "national security", but evidence seems to indicate that the spy was placed BEFORE there was a legitimate national security concern. Some analysts note that, while Mueller's team appears to be Democratic partisan hacks, their native "skill set" is actually expertise in money laundering investigations. They claim that although Mr. Trump may not be compromised by the Russian government, he is involved with nefarious Russian organized crime figures. It follows, according to them, that given time, Mueller will reveal these illicit connections, and prosecution will become inevitable.

Let's assume, for argument, that both sides are right. That means that our entire government is irretrievably corrupt. Republicans claim that it could " go all the way to Obama". Democrats, of course, play the "moral high ground" card, insinuating that the current administration is so base and immoral that somehow, the "ends justify the means". No matter how you slice it, the Clinton campaign has a lot more liability on its hands. The problem is, if prosecutions begin, people will "talk" to save their own skins. The puppet masters can't really afford that.

"All the way to Obama", you say? I think it could go higher than that. Personally, I think it could go all the way to Dick Cheney, and the 'powers that be' are in no mood to let that happen.

Vivian O'Blivion , May 31, 2018 at 12:19 pm

The issue as I see it is that from the start everyone was calling the Mueller probe an investigation into collusion and not really grasping the catch all nature of his brief.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017–present)

It's the "any matters arising " that is the real kicker. So any dodgy dealing / possible criminal activity in the past is fair game. And this is exactly what in happening with Manafort.
Morally you can apply the Nucky Johnson defence and state that everyone knew Trump was a crook when they voted for him, but legally this has no value.
There is an unpleasant whiff of deep state interference with the will of the people (electoral college). Perhaps if most bodies hadn't written Trump's chances off in such an off hand manner, proper due diligence of his background would have uncovered any liabilities before the election.
If there is actionable dirt, can't say I am overly sympathetic to Trump. Big prizes sometimes come with big risks.

David G , May 31, 2018 at 5:14 pm

My own feeling from the start has been that Mueller was never going to track down any "collusion" or "meddling" (at least not to any significant degree) because the whole, sprawling Russia-gate narrative – to the extent one can be discerned – is obviously phony.

But at the same time, there's no way the completely lawless, unethical Trump, along with his scummy associates, would be able to escape that kind of scrutiny without criminal conduct being exposed.

So far, on both scores, that still seems to me to be a likely outcome, and for my part I'm fine with it.

Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 5:29 am

My thoughts exactly. Collusion was never a viable proposition because the Russians aren't that stupid. Regardless of any personal opinion regarding the intelligence and mental stability of Donald Snr., the people he surrounds himself with are weapons grade stupid. I don't see the Russians touching the Trump campaign with a proverbial barge pole.

Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:26 pm

it just happens that Trump appears to have been involved (wittingly or not), with the laundering a whole lot of Russian money and so many of his friends seem to be connected with wealthy Russian oligarchs as well plus they are so stupid, they keep appearing to (and probably are) obstructing justice. The Cohen thing doesn't get much attention here, but it's significant that they have all this stuff on a guy who is clearly Trump's bagman.

Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:15 pm

There is also quite an indication that the entire Mueller investigation is a complete smoke screen to be used as cannon fodder in the mainstream media.

On the one hand, Mueller and his hacks have found nothing of import to link Trump to anything close to collusion with members of the Russian government. And I am by no means a Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, except as a foil to Clinton. However, even my minimalist expectations for Trump have not worked out either.

In addition. the Mueller investigation has been spending what appears to be a majority of its time on ancillary matters that were not within the supposed scope and mandate of this investigation. Further, a number of indictments have come down against people involved with such ancillary matters.

The result is that if Mueller is going beyond the scope of his investigatory mandate, this may come in as a technicality that will allow indicted persons to escape prosecution on appeal.

Such a mandate, I would think, is the same thing as a police warrant, which can find only admissible evidence covered by the warrant. Anything else found to be criminally liable must be found to be as a result of a completely different investigation that has nothing to do with the original warrant.

In other words, it appears that the Mueller investigation was allowed to commence under a Republican controlled Congress for the very reason that its intent is simply to go in circles long enough for Republicans to get their agendas through, which does not appear to be working all too well as a result of their high levels of internecine party conflicts.

This entire affair is coming to show just how dysfunctional, corrupt, and incompetent the entirety of the US federal government has become. And to the chagrin of all sincere activists, no amount of organized protesting and political action will ever rid the country of this grotesque political quagmire that now engulfs the entirety of our political infrastructure.

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:48 pm

Very true that the US federal government is now "dysfunctional, corrupt, and incompetent."
What are your thoughts on forms of action to rid us this political quagmire?
(other than ineffective "organized protesting and political action")
Have you considered new forms of public debate and public information?

Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:34 am

All of this is blackmail to hold Trump's feet to the fire of the Israel firsters (such actions pull in all the dark swampy things). By creating the Russia blackmail story they've effectively redirected away from themselves. The moment Trump balks the Deep State will reel in some more, airing innuendos to overwhelm Trump. Better believe that Trump has been fully "briefed" on all of this. John Bolton was able to push out a former OPCW head with threats (knew where his, the OPCW head's children were). And now John Bolton is sitting right next to Trump (whispering in his ear that he knows ways in which to oust Trump).

What actual "ideas" were in Trump's head going in to all of this (POTUS run) is hard to say. But, anything that can be considered a threat to the Deep State has been effectively nullified now.

Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:22 am

Possible, but Manafort already tried to get his charges thrown out as being the outcome of investigations beyond the remit He failed.

Brendan , May 31, 2018 at 10:26 am

There's no doubt at all that Joseph Mifsud was closely connected with western intelligence, and with MI6 in particular. His contacts with Russia are insignificant compared with his long career working amongst the elite of western officials.
Lee Smith of RealClearInvestigations lists some of the places where Mifsud worked, including two universities:

"he taught at Link Campus University in Rome, ( ) whose lecturers and professors include senior Western diplomats and intelligence officials from a number of NATO countries, especially Italy and the United Kingdom.

Mifsud also taught at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and the London Academy of Diplomacy, which trained diplomats and government officials, some of them sponsored by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council, or by their own governments."

Two former colleagues of Mifsud's, Roh and Pastor, recently interviewed him for a book they have written. Those authors could very well be biased, but one of them makes a valid point, similar to one that Daniel Lazare makes above:
"Given the affiliations of Link's faculty and staff, as well as Mifsud's pedigree, Roh thinks it's impossible that the man he hired as a business development consultant is a Russian agent."

Politically, Mifsud identifies with the Clintons more than anyone else, and claims to belong to the Clinton Foundation, which has often been accused of being just a way of funneling money into Hillary Clinton's campaign.

As Lee Smith says, if Mifsud really is a Russian spy, "Western intelligence services are looking at one of the largest and most embarrassing breaches in a generation. But none of the governments or intelligence agencies potentially compromised is acting like there's anything wrong."

From all that we know about Joseph Mifsud, it's safe to say that he was never a Russian spy. If not, then what was he doing when he was allegedly feeding stories to George Papadopoulos about Russians having 'dirt' on Clinton?

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/05/26/the_maltese_phantom_of_russiagate_.html

David G , May 31, 2018 at 4:25 pm

I read somewhere that Mifsud had disappeared. Was that true? If so, is he back, or still missing?

Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 6:21 pm

Here are some excerpts that will answer your question from an article by Lee Smith at Realclearinvestigations, "The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate".

A new book by former colleagues of Mifsud's – Stephan Roh, a 50-year-old Swiss-German lawyer, and Thierry Pastor, a 35-year-old French political analyst – reports that he is alive and well. Their account includes a recent interview with him.

Their self-published book, "The Faking of Russia-gate: The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with Mifsud in which he denies saying anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they write, stated "vehemently that he never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos." Mifsud asked rhetorically: "From where should I have this [information]?"

Mifsud's account seems to be supported by Alexander Downer, the Australian diplomat who alerted authorities about Papadopoulos. As reported in the Daily Caller, Downer said Papadopoulos never mentioned emails; he spoke, instead, about the Russians possessing material that could be damaging to Clinton. This new detail raises the possibility that Mifsud, Papadopoulos' alleged source for the information, never said anything about Clinton-related emails either.

In interviews with RealClearInvestigations, Roh and Pastor said Mifsud is anything but a Russian spy. Rather, he is more likely a Western intelligence asset.

According to the two authors, it was a former Italian intelligence official, Vincenzo Scotti, a colleague of Mifsud's and onetime interior minister, who told the professor to go into hiding. "I don't know who was hiding him," said Roh, "but I'm sure it was organized by someone. And I am sure it will be difficult to get to the bottom of it."

Toby McCrossin , June 1, 2018 at 1:54 am

" The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with Mifsud in which he denies saying anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they write, stated "vehemently that he never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos.""

Thank you for providing that explosive piece of information. If true, and I suspect it is, that's one more nail in the Russiagate narrative. Who, then, is making the claim that Misfud mentioned emails? The only source for the statement I can find is "court documents".

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:20 am

The election scams serve only to distract from the Israel-gate scandal and the oligarchy destruction of our former democracy. Mr. Lazare neglects to tell us about that. All of Hillary's top ten campaign bribers were zionists, and Trump let Goldman-Sachs take over the economy. KSA and big business also bribed heavily.

We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for democracy is lost.

We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious preference.

Otherwise the United States is lost, and our lives have no historical meaning beyond slavery to oligarchy.

Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 9:51 am

You are right Sam. Israel does work the fence under the guise of the Breaking News. Joe

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm

My response was that Israel massacres at the fence, ignored by the zionist US mass media.

mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:48 am

The extreme wealth and privileges of oligarchy depend on the poverty and slavery of others. Inequality of income is the root cause of most of our ills. Try to imagine what a world of economic equals would be like. No striving for more and more wealth at the expense of others. No wars. What would there be to fight over – everyone would be content with what they already had.

If you automatically think such a world would be impossible, try to state why. You might discover that the only obstacle to such a world is the greedy bastards who are sitting on top of everybody, and will do anything to maintain their advantages.

mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:52 am

How do the oligarchs ensure your slavery? With the little green tickets they have hoarded that the rest of us need just to eat and have a roof over our heads. The people sleeping in the streets tell us the penalty for not being good slaves.

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 12:50 pm

Very true, Mike. Those who say that equality or fairness of income implies breaking the productivity incentive system are wrong. No matter how much or how little wage incentive we offer for making an effort in work, we need not have great disparities of income. Those who can work should have work, and we should all make an effort to do well in our work, but none of us need the fanciest cars or grand monuments to live in, just to do our best.

Getting rid of oligarchy, and getting money out of mass media and elections, would be the greatest achievement of our times.

Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 5:30 pm

An old socialist friend of my dad's generation who claimed to have read the biography of Andrew Carnegie had told me over a few beers that Carnegie said, "that at a time when he was paying his workers $5 a week he 'could' have been paying them $50 a day, but then he could not figure out what kind of life they would lead with all that money". Think about it mike, if his workers would have had that kind of money it would not be long before Carnegie's workers became his competition and opened up next door to him the worst case scenario would be his former workers would sell their steel at a cheaper price, kind of, well no exactly like what Rockefeller did with oil, or as Carnegie did with steel innovation. How's that saying go, keep them down on the farm . well. Remember Carnegie was a low level stooge for the railroads at one time, and rose to the top .mike. Great point to make mike, because there could be more to go around. Joe

Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:16 pm

"We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for democracy is lost.

We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious preference."

Good luck with that!!!

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:19 pm

Well, you are welcome to make suggestions on how to save the republic.

john wilson , May 31, 2018 at 9:10 am

The depths of the deep state has no limits, but as a UK citizen, I fail to see why the American "spooks" need any help from we Brits when it comes state criminal activity. Sure, we are masters at underhand dirty tricks, but the US has a basket full of tricks that 'Trump' (lol) anything we've got. It was the Russians wot done mantra has been going on for many decades and is ever good for another turn around the political mulberry tree of corruption and underhand dealings. Whether the Democrats or the Republicans win its all the same to the deep state as they are in control whoever is in the White House. Trump was an outsider and there for election colour and the "ho ho ho" look what a great democracy we are, anyone can be president. He is in fact the very essence of the 'wild card' and when he actually won there was total confusion, panic, disbelief and probably terror in the caves and dungeons of the deep state.

Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:33 am

I'm sure the result was so unexpected that the shadowy fixers, the IT mavens who could have "adjusted" the numbers, were totally caught off guard and unable to do "cleanly." Not that they didn't try to re-jigger the results in the four state recounts that were ordered, but it was simply too late to effectively cheat at that point, as there were already massive overvotes detected in key urban precincts. Such a thing will never happen again, I am sure.

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:36 am

It appears that UK has long had a supply of anti-Russia fearmongers, presumably backed by its anti-socialist oligarchy as in the US. Perhaps the US oligarchy is the dumbest salesman, who believes that all customers are even dumber, so that UK can sell Russophobia here thirty years after the USSR.

Bob Van Noy , May 31, 2018 at 8:49 am

"But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press."

Perfect.
Recently, while trying to justify my arguement that a new investigation into the RFK Killing was necessary, I was asked why I thought that, and my response was "Modus operandi," exactly what Robert Parry learned by experience, and that is the fundamental similarity to all of the institutionalized crime that takes place by the IC. Once one realizes the literary approach to disinformation that was fundamental to Alan Dulles, James Jesus Angleton, even Ian Fleming, one can easily see the Themes being applied. I suppose that the very feature of believability offered by propaganda, once recognized, becomes its undoing. That could be our current reality; the old Lines simply are beginning to appear to be ridiculous

Thank you Daniel Lazar.

Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:39 am

The recognition of themes of propaganda as literary themes and modus operandi is helping to discredit propaganda. The similarities of the CW false-flag operations (Iraq, Syria, and UK), and the fake assassinations (Skripal and Babchenko) by the anti-Russia crowd help reveal and persuade on the falsehood of the Iraq WMD, Syria CW, and MH-17 propaganda ops. Just as the similarities of the JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations persuade us that commonalities exist long before we see evidence.

Bob Van Noy , June 1, 2018 at 1:11 pm

Many thanks Sam F for recognizing that. As we begin to achieve a resolution of the 60's Kllings, we can begin to see the general and specific themes utilized to direct the programs of Assassination. The other aspect is that real investigation Never followed; and that took Real Power.

In a truly insightful book by author Sally Denton entitled "The Profiteers" she puts together a very cogent theory that it isn't the Mafia, it's the Syndicate, which means (for me at least) real, criminal power with somewhat divergent interests ok with one another, to the extent that they can maintain their Own Turf. I think that's a profound insight

Too, in a similar vain, the Grand Deceptions of American Foreign Policy, "scenarios" are simply and only that, not a Real possible solution. Always resulting in failure

Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 9:23 pm

Yes, it is difficult to determine the structure of a subculture of gangsterism in power, which can have many specialized factions in loose cooperation, agreeing on some general policy points, like benefits for the rich, hatred of socialism, institutionalized bribery of politicians and judges, militarized policing, destruction of welfare and social security, deregulation of everything, essentially the neocon/neolib line of the DemReps. The party line of oligarchy in any form.

Indeed the foreign policy of such gangsters is designed to "fail" because destruction of cultures, waste, and fragmentation most efficiently exploits the bribery structure available, and serves the anti-socialist oligarchy. Failure of the declared foreign policy is success, because that is only propaganda to cover the corruption.

SocraticGadfly , May 31, 2018 at 8:48 am

You know, not only Gay Trowdy but even Dracula Napolitano think people like Lazare , McGovern, etc. are overblown on this issue.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 1:47 pm

SocraticGadfly – Trey Gowdy hasn't even seen the documents yet, so he's hardly in a position to say anything. The House Intelligence Committee, under Chairman Nunes, are being stymied by the FBI and the Department of Justice who are refusing to hand over documents. Refusing! Refusing to disclose documents to the very people who, by law, have oversight. Nunes is threatening to hit them with Contempt of Congress.

Let's see the documents. Then Trey Gowdy can open his mouth.

Herman , May 31, 2018 at 8:32 am

What I take from this head spinning article is the paragraph about Carter Page.

"On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in which he complained that "Washington and other western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed "unease" that someone representing the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's side in a growing neo-Cold War

Mr. Page hit the nail on the head. There is no greater sin to entrenched power than to spell out what is going on with Russia. It helps us understand why terms like dupe and naïve were stuck on Carter Page's back.. Truth to power is not always good for your health.

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:07 am

The tyrant accuses of disloyalty, all who question the reality of his foreign monsters.
And so do his monster-fighting agencies, whose budgets depend upon the fiction.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 am

Daniel Lazare – good report. "It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree." This wasn't a case of paranoia. This was a blatant attempt to bring down a rival opponent and, failing that, the President of the United States. This was intentional and required collusion between top officials of the government. They fabricated the phony Steele dossier (paid for by the Clinton campaign), exonerated Hillary Clinton, and then went to town on bringing down Trump.

"Was George Popodopolous set up?" Of course he was. Set up a patsy in order to give you reason to carry out a phony investigation.

"If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice." They're not befogged; they're following orders (the major television and newspaper outfits). Without their 24/7 spin and lies, Russiagate would never have been kept alive.

These guys got the biggest surprise of their life when Hillary Clinton lost the election. None of this would have come out had she won. During the campaign, as Trump gained in the polls, she was heard to say, "If they ever find out what we've done, we'll all hang."

I hope they see jail time for what they've done.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:38 am

Apparently what has come out so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Some are saying this could lead all the way up to Obama. I hope not, but they have certainly done all they can to ruin the Trump Presidency.

JohnM , May 31, 2018 at 9:58 am

I'm adjusting my tinfoil hat right now. I'm wondering if Skripal had something to do with the Steel dossier. The iceberg may be even bigger than thought.

Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:18 am

It is known that Skripal's close friend living nearby was an employee of Steele's firm Orbis.

Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 2:58 pm

Exactly, his name is Pablo Miller and he is the MI6 agent who initially recruited Sergei Skripal. Miller worked for Orbis, Steele's company and listed that in his resume on LinkedIn but later deleted it. But once it's on the internet it can always be found and it was and it was published.

robjira , May 31, 2018 at 2:13 pm

John, both Moon Of Alabama and OffGuardian have had excellent coverage of the Skripal affair. Informed opinions wonder if Sergei Skripal was one of Steele's "Russian sources," and that he may have been poisoned for the purpose of either a) bolstering the whole "Russia = evil" narrative, or b) a warning not to ask for more than what he may have conceivably received for any contribution he may or may not have made to the "dossiere."

mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:20 am

Interesting details in this article, but we have known this whole Russiagate affair was a scam from the get go. It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over Hillary. The chagrined dems came together and concocted their sore loser alibi – the Russians did it. They scooped up a lot of pre-election dirt, rolled it into a ball and directed it at Trump. It is a testament to the media's determination to stick with their story, that in spite of not a single scrap of real evidence after over a year of digging by a huge team of democratic hit men and women, this ridiculous story still has supporters.

David G , May 31, 2018 at 10:31 am

"It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over Hillary."

Not so.

Daniel Lazare's first link in the above piece is to Paul Krugman's July 22, 2016 NY Times op-ed, "Donald Trump, the Siberian Candidate". (Note how that headline doesn't even bother to employ a question mark.)

I appreciate that that Krugman column gets pride of place here since I distinctly remember reading it in my copy of the Times that day, months before the election, and my immediate reaction to it: nonplussed that such a risible thesis was being aired so prominently, along with a deep realization that this was only the first shot in what would be a co-ordinated media disinformation campaign, à la Saddam's WMDs.

Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 3:37 pm

Actually, I think the intelligence agencies' (CIA/FBI/DNI) plan started shortly after Trump gave the names of Page and Papadopoulos to the Washington Post (CIA annex) in a meeting on March 21, 2016 outlining his foreign policy team.

Carter Page (Naval Academy distinguished graduate and Naval intelligence officer) in 2013 worked as an "under-cover employee" of the FBI in a case that convicted Evgeny Buryakov and it was reported that he was still an UCE in March of 2016. The FBI never charged or even hinted that Page was anything but innocent and patriotic. However, in October 2016 the FBI told the FISA Court that he was a spy to support spying on him. Remember the FISA Court allows spying on him AND the persons he is in contact, which means almost everyone on the Trump transition team/administration.

Here is an excerpt from an article by WSJ's Kimberley Strassel:

In "late spring" of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House "National Security Council Principals" that the FBI had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul Manafort joined the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had previously been on the radar of law enforcement. But here's what matters: With this briefing, Mr. Comey officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama that the bureau had eyes on Donald Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such explosive information.

And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections.

David G , May 31, 2018 at 4:56 pm

Most interesting, Chet Roman. Thanks.

My understanding is that Trump more or less pulled Page's name out of a hat to show the WashPost that he had a "foreign policy team", and thus that his campaign wasn't just a hollow sham, but that at that point he really had had no significant contact at all with Page – maybe hadn't even met him. It was just a name from his new political world that sprang to "mind" (or the Trumpian equivalent).

Of course, the Trump campaign *was* just a sham, by conventional Beltway standards: a ramshackle road show with no actual "foreign policy team", or any other policy team.

So maybe that random piece of B.S. from Trump has caused him a heap of trouble. This is part of why – no matter how bogus "Russia-gate" is – I just can't bring myself to feel sorry for old Cheeto Dust.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 6:56 am

Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal had some good advice:

"Mr. Trump has an even quicker way to bring the hostility to an end.

He can – and should – declassify everything possible, letting Congress and the public see the truth.

That would put an end to the daily spin and conspiracy theories. It would puncture Democratic arguments that the administration is seeking to gain this information only for itself, to "undermine" an investigation.

And it would end the Justice Department's campaign of secrecy, which has done such harm to its reputation with the public and with Congress."

What do you bet he does?

RickD , May 31, 2018 at 6:44 am

I have serious doubts about the article's veracity. There seems to be a thread running through it indicating an attempt to whitewash any Russian efforts to get Trump elected. To dismiss all the evidence of such efforts, and , despite this author's words, there is enough such evidence, seems more than a bit partisan.

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , May 31, 2018 at 6:55 am

What evidence? I've seen none so far. A lot of claims that there is such evidence but no one seems to ever say what it is.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:06 am

RickD – thanks for the good laugh before bedtime. I'm with Mr. Merrell and I actually want to see some evidence. Maybe it was Professor Halper in the kitchen with the paring knife.

Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:21 am

Unfortunately, what this guy says is what most Americans still seem to believe. When I ask people what is the actual hard evidence for "Russiagate" (because I don't know of any that has been corroborated), I get a response that there have been massive examples of Russian hacks, Russian posts, tweets and internet adverts–all meant to sabotage Hillary's candidacy, and very effective, mind you. Putin has been an evil genius worthy of a comic book villain (to date myself, a regular Lex Luthor). Sez who, ask I? Sez the trustworthy American media that would never lie to the public, sez they. You know, professional paragons of virtue like Rachel Maddow and her merry band.

Nobody seems aware of the recent findings about Halpern, none seem to have a realistic handle on the miniscule scope of the Russian "offenses" against American democracy. Rachel, the NY Times and WaPo have seen to that with their sins of both commission and omission. Even the Republican party is doing a half-hearted job of defending its own power base with rigorous and openly disseminated fact checking. It's like even many of the committee chairs with long seniority are reluctant to buck the conventional narrative peddled by the media. Many have chosen to retire rather than fight the media and the Deep State. What's a better interpretation of events? Or is one to believe that the silent voices, curious retirements and political heat generated by the Dems, the prosecutors and the media are all independent variables with no connections? These old pols recognise a good demonizing when they see it, especially when directed at them.

Personally, I think that not only the GOPers should be fighting like the devil to expose the truth (which should benefit them in this circumstance) but so should the media and all the watchdog agencies (ngo's) out there because our democracy WAS hijacked, but it was NOT by the Russians. Worse than that, it was done by internal domestic enemies of the people who must be outed and punished to save the constitution and the republic, if it is not too late. All the misinformation by influential insiders and the purported purveyors of truth accompanied by the deliberate silence by those who should be chirping like birds suggests it may well be far too late.

backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:53 pm

Realist – a most excellent post! Some poll result I read about the other day mentioned that well over half of the American public do NOT believe what they are being told by the media. That was good to hear. But you are right, there are still way too many who never question anything. If I ever get in trouble, I wouldn't want those types on my jury. They'd be wide awake during the prosecution's case and fast asleep during my defense.

This is the Swamp at work on both sides of the aisle. Most of the Republicans are hanging Trump out to dry. They've probably got too much dirt they want to keep hidden themselves, so retirement looks like a good idea. Get out of Dodge while the going is good, before the real fighting begins! The Democrats are battling for all they're worth, and I've got to hand it to them – they're dirty little fighters.

Yes, democracy has been hijacked. Hard to say how long this has been going on – maybe forever. If there is anything good about Trump's presidency, it's that the Deep State is being laid out and delivered up on a silver platter for all to see.

There has never been a better chance to take back the country than this. If this opportunity passes, it will never come again. They will make sure of it.

The greatest thing that Trump could do for the country would be to declassify all documents. Jeff Sessions is either part of the Deep State or he's been scared off. He's not going to act. Rosenstein is up to his eyeballs in this mess and he's not going to act. In fact, he's preventing Nunes from getting documents. It is up to Trump to act. I just hope he's not being surrounded by a bunch of bad apple lawyers who are giving him bad advice. He needs to go above the Department of Justice and declassify ALL documents. If he did that, a lot of these people would probably die of a heart attack within a minute.

mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:11 am

You sure came out of the woodwork quickly to express your "serious doubts" RickD.

Skip Scott , May 31, 2018 at 8:07 am

Please provide "such evidence". I've yet to see any. The entire prosecution of RussiaGate has been one big Gish Gallop.

strgr-tgther , May 31, 2018 at 9:39 pm

RickD – Thank you for pointing that out! You were the only one!!! It is a very strange article leaving Putin and the Russians evidence out and also not a single word about Stromy Daniels witch is also very strange. I know Hillary would never have approved of any of this and they don't say that either.

John , June 1, 2018 at 2:26 am

What does Stormy Daniels have to do with RussiaGate?

You know that someone who committed the ultimate war crime by lying us into war to destroy Libya and re-institute slavery there, and who laughed after watching video of a man that Nelson Mandela called "The Greatest Living Champion of Human Rights on the Planet" be sodomized to death with a knife, is somehow too "moral" to do such a thing? Really?

It amazes me how utterly cultish those who support the Red Queen have shown themselves to be – without apparently realizing that they are obviously on par with the followers of Jim Jones!

strgr-tgther , June 1, 2018 at 12:17 pm

That is like saying what does income tax have to do with Al Capone. Who went to Alctraz because he did not pay income tax not for being a gangster. So we know Trump has sexual relations with Stormy Daniels, then afterward PAID her not to talk about it. So he paid Story Daniels for sex! That is Prostitution! Same thing. And that is inpeachable, using womens bodies as objects. If we don't prosecute Trump here then from now on all a John needs to say to the police is that he was not paying for sex but paying to keep quiet about it. And Cogress can get Trump for prostitution and disgracing the office of President. Without Russia investigations we would never have found out about this important fact, so that is what it has to do with Russia Gate.

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , May 31, 2018 at 4:53 am

Guccifer 2.0's American Fingerprints Reveal An Operation Made In The USA: https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/05/guccifer-2-0s-american-fingerprints-reveal-an-operation-made-in-the-usa/

[Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say. ..."
"... The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack. ..."
"... "No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.] ..."
"... "Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since . ..."
"... "More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi." ..."
"... The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ] ..."
"... Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies. MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers. ..."
"... The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. ..."
"... I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed out" propaganda. One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not. No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply." ..."
"... There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths. ..."
"... Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked" to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another ..."
"... (FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and printed. ..."
"... Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden. ..."
"... Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their "investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again. ..."
"... Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's activities are a complete sham. ..."
"... Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely cause of the Russiagate scams. ..."
"... Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." ..."
"... For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic conspiracy. ..."
"... Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB drive, it is not a known. ..."
"... There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings. ..."
"... Don't forget this Twitter post by Wikileaks on October 30, 2016: Podesta: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082#efmAGSAH- ..."
"... Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face? ..."
"... If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars. ..."
"... My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody? ..."
Jun 09, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand close scrutiny . It could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity -- including two "alumni" who were former National Security Agency technical directors -- have long since concluded that Julian Assange did not acquire what he called the "emails related to Hillary Clinton" via a "hack" by the Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage device -- probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama.

On January 18, 2017 President Obama admitted that the "conclusions" of U.S. intelligence regarding how the alleged Russian hacking got to WikiLeaks were "inconclusive." Even the vapid FBI/CIA/NSA "Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections" of January 6, 2017, which tried to blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for election interference, contained no direct evidence of Russian involvement. That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say.

Never mind. The FBI/CIA/NSA "assessment" became bible truth for partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who was among the first off the blocks to blame Russia for interfering to help Trump. It simply could not have been that Hillary Clinton was quite capable of snatching defeat out of victory all by herself. No, it had to have been the Russians.

Five days into the Trump presidency, I had a chance to challenge Schiff personally on the gaping disconnect between the Russians and WikiLeaks. Schiff still "can't share the evidence" with me or with anyone else, because it does not exist.

WikiLeaks

It was on June 12, 2016, just six weeks before the Democratic National Convention, that Assange announced the pending publication of "emails related to Hillary Clinton," throwing the Clinton campaign into panic mode, since the emails would document strong bias in favor of Clinton and successful attempts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders. When the emails were published on July 22, just three days before the convention began, the campaign decided to create what I call a Magnificent Diversion, drawing attention away from the substance of the emails by blaming Russia for their release.

Clinton's PR chief Jennifer Palmieri later admitted that she golf-carted around to various media outlets at the convention with instructions "to get the press to focus on something even we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton." The diversion worked like a charm. Mainstream media kept shouting "The Russians did it," and gave little, if any, play to the DNC skullduggery revealed in the emails themselves. And like Brer' Fox, Bernie didn't say nothin'.

Meanwhile, highly sophisticated technical experts, were hard at work fabricating "forensic facts" to "prove" the Russians did it. Here's how it played out:

June 12, 2016: Assange announces that WikiLeaks is about to publish "emails related to Hillary Clinton."

June 14, 2016: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, (with a dubious professional record and multiple conflicts of interest) announces that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was injected by Russians.

June 15, 2016: "Guccifer 2.0" affirms the DNC statement; claims responsibility for the "hack;" claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that the forensics show was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."

The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack.

Enter Independent Investigators

A year ago independent cyber-investigators completed the kind of forensic work that, for reasons best known to then-FBI Director James Comey, neither he nor the "handpicked analysts" who wrote the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment bothered to do. The independent investigators found verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of an alleged Russian hack of July 5, 2016 showing that the "hack" that day of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else.

Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider -- the same process used by the DNC insider/leaker before June 12, 2016 for an altogether different purpose. (Once the metadata was found and the "fluid dynamics" principle of physics applied, this was not difficult to disprove the validity of the claim that Russia was responsible.)

One of these independent investigators publishing under the name of The Forensicator on May 31 published new evidence that the Guccifer 2.0 persona uploaded a document from the West Coast of the United States, and not from Russia.

In our July 24, 2017 Memorandum to President Donald Trump we stated , "We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI."

Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, the disclosure described below may be related. Even if it is not, it is something we think you should be made aware of in this general connection. On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks began to publish a trove of original CIA documents that WikiLeaks labeled 'Vault 7.' WikiLeaks said it got the trove from a current or former CIA contractor and described it as comparable in scale and significance to the information Edward Snowden gave to reporters in 2013.

"No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.]

Marbled

"Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since .

"The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima, it seems, 'did not get the memo' in time. Her March 31 article bore the catching (and accurate) headline: 'WikiLeaks' latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations.'

"The WikiLeaks release indicated that Marble was designed for flexible and easy-to-use 'obfuscation,' and that Marble source code includes a "de-obfuscator" to reverse CIA text obfuscation.

"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi."

A few weeks later William Binney, a former NSA technical, and I commented on Vault 7 Marble, and were able to get a shortened op-ed version published in The Baltimore Sun

The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ]

We also do not know if you have discussed cyber issues in any detail with President Putin. In his interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly he seemed quite willing – perhaps even eager – to address issues related to the kind of cyber tools revealed in the Vault 7 disclosures, if only to indicate he has been briefed on them. Putin pointed out that today's technology enables hacking to be 'masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can understand the origin' [of the hack] And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or any individual that everyone will think that they are the exact source of that attack.

"'Hackers may be anywhere,' he said. 'There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can't you imagine such a scenario? I can.'

New attention has been drawn to these issues after I discussed them in a widely published 16-minute interview last Friday.

In view of the highly politicized environment surrounding these issues, I believe I must append here the same notice that VIPS felt compelled to add to our key Memorandum of July 24, 2017:

"Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our former intelligence colleagues.

"We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." The fact we find it is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer before serving as a CIA analyst for 27 years. His duties included preparing, and briefing one-on-one, the President's Daily Brief.

ThomasGilroy , June 9, 2018 at 9:44 am

"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report, Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi."

Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies. MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers.

The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. It must be the Gulf of Tonkin all over again. While Crowdstrike might have a "dubious professional record and multiple conflicts of interest", their results were also confirmed by several other cyber-security firms (Wikipedia):

cybersecurity experts and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant, SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and the editor for Ars Technica, have rejected the claims of "Guccifer 2.0" and have determined, on the basis of substantial evidence, that the cyberattacks were committed by two Russian state-sponsored groups (Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear).

Then there was Papadopoulas who coincidentally was given the information that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Obviously, they were illegally obtained (unless this was another CIA false flag operation). This was before the release of the emails by WikiLeaks. This was followed by the Trump Tower meeting with Russians with connections to the Russian government and the release of the emails by WikiLeaks shortly thereafter. Additionally, Russia had the motive to defeat HRC and elect Trump. Yesterday, Trump pushed for the reinstatement of Russia at the G-7 summit. What a shock! All known evidence and motive points the finger directly at Russia.

Calling everything a false flag operation is really the easy way out, but ultimately, it lets the responsible culprits off of the hook.

anon , June 9, 2018 at 11:28 am

I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed out" propaganda. One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not. No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply."

CitizenOne , June 8, 2018 at 11:40 pm

There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths.

In pre computer technology days there were also many false flags which were set up to create real world scenarios which suited the geopolitical agenda. Even today, there are many examples of tactical false flag operations either organized and orchestrated or utilized by the intelligence agencies to create the narrative which supports geopolitical objectives.

Examples:

The US loaded munitions in broad daylight visible to German spies onto the passenger ship Lusitania despite German warnings that they would torpedo any vessels suspected of carrying munitions. The Lusitania then proceeded to loiter unaccompanied by escorts in an area off the Ireland coast treading over the same waters until it was spotted by a German U-Boat and was torpedoed. This was not exactly a false flag since the German U-Boat pulled the trigger but it was required to gain public support for the entrance of the US into WWI. It worked.

There is evidence that the US was deliberately caught "off guard" in the Pearl Harbor Attack. Numerous coded communication intercepts were made but somehow the advanced warning radar on the island of Hawaii was mysteriously turned off in the hours before and during the Japanese attack which guaranteed that the attack would be successful and also guaranteed that our population would instantly sign on to the war against Japan. It worked.

There is evidence that the US deliberately ignored the intelligence reports that UBL was planning to conduct an attack on the US using planes as bombs. The terrorists who carried out the attacks on the twin towers were "allowed" to conduct them. The result was the war in Iraq which was sold based on a pack of lies about WMDs and which we used to go to war with Iraq.

The Tonkin Gulf incident which historians doubt actually happened or believe if it did was greatly exaggerated by intelligence and military sources was used to justify the war in Vietnam.

The Spanish American War was ginned up by William Randolph Hearst and his yellow journalism empire to justify attacking Cuba, Panama and the Philippines. The facts revealed by forensic analysis of the exploded USS Maine have shown that the cataclysm was caused by a boiler explosion not an enemy mine. At the time this was also widely believed to not be caused by a Spanish mine in the harbor but the news sold the story of Spanish treachery and war was waged.

In each case of physical false flags created on purpose, or allowed to happen or just made up by fictions based on useful information that could be manipulated and distorted the US was led to war. Some of these wars were just wars and others were wars of choice but in every case a false flag was needed to bring the nation into a state where we believed we were under attack and under the circumstances flocked to war. I will not be the judge of history or justice here since each of these events had both negative and positive consequences for our nation. What I will state is that it is obvious that the willingness to allow or create or just capitalize on the events which have led to war are an essential ingredient. Without a publicly perceived and publicly supported cause for war there can be no widespread support for war. I can also say our leaders have always known this.

Enter the age of technology and the computer age with the electronic contraptions which enable global communication and commerce.

Is it such a stretch to imagine that the governments desire to shape world events based on military actions would result in a plan to use these modern technologies to once again create in our minds a cyber scenario in which we are once again as a result of the "cyber" false flag prepared for us to go to war? Would it be too much of a stretch to imagine that the government would use the new electronic frontier just as it used the old physical world events to justify military action?

Again, I will not go on to condemn any action by our military but will focus on how did we get there and how did we arrive at a place where a majority favored war.

Whether created by physical or cyberspace methods we can conclude that such false flags will happen for better or worse in any medium available.

susan sunflower , June 8, 2018 at 7:52 pm

I'd like "evidence" and I'd also like "context" since apparently international electoral "highjinks" and monkey-wrenching and rat-f*cking have a long tradition and history (before anyone draws a weapon, kills a candidate or sicc's death squads on the citizenry.

The DNC e-mail publication "theft" I suspect represents very small small potatoes for so many reasons As Dixon at Black Agenda Report put it . Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked" to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another

https://www.blackagendareport.com/russia-gate-and-crisis-american-exceptionalism

(FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and printed.

Gary Weglarz , June 8, 2018 at 11:08 am

Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden.

Skip Scott , June 8, 2018 at 1:07 pm

I can't think of any single piece of evidence that our MSM is under the very strict control of our so-called intelligence agencies than how fast and completely the Vault 7 releases got flushed down the memory hole. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."

Realist , June 9, 2018 at 1:36 am

http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/dems-put-finishing-touches-on-one-party-surveillance-superstate/

Skip Scott , June 9, 2018 at 7:05 am

Mbob-

I don't think anyone can predict whether or not Sanders would have won as a 3rd party candidate. He ran a remarkable campaign, but when he caved to the Clinton machine he lost a lot of supporters, including me. If he had stood up at the convention and talked of the DNC skullduggery exposed by Wikileaks, and said "either I run as a democrat, or I run as a Green, but I'm running", he would have at least gotten 15 pct to make the TV debates, and who knows what could have happened after that. 40 pct of registered voters didn't vote. That alone tells you it is possible he might have won.

Instead he expected us to follow him like he was the f'ing Pied Piper to elect another Wall St. loving warmonger. That's why he gets no "pass" from me. He (and the Queen of Chaos) gave us Trump. BTW, Obama doesn't get a "pass" either.

willow , June 8, 2018 at 9:24 pm

It's all about the money. A big motive for the DNC to conjure up Russia-gate was to keep donors from abandoning any future
Good Ship Hillary or other Blue Dog Democrat campaigns: "Our brand/platform wasn't flawed. It was the Rooskies."

Vivian O'Blivion , June 8, 2018 at 8:22 am

An earlier time line.

March 14th. Popadopoulos has first encounter with Mifsud.

April 26th. Mifsud tells Popadopoulos that Russians have "dirt" on Clinton, including "thousands of e-mails".

May 4th. Trump last man standing in Republican primary.

May 10th. Popadopoulos gets drunk with London based Australian diplomat and talks about "dirt" but not specifically e-mails.

June 9th. Don. Jr meets in Trump tower with Russians promising "dirt" but not specifically in form of e-mails.

It all comes down to who Mifsud is, who he is working for and why he has been "off grid" to journalists (but not presumably Intelligence services) for > 6 months.

Specific points.

On March 14th Popadopoulos knew he was transferring from team Carson to team Trump but this was not announced to the (presumably underwhelmed) world 'till March 21st. Whoever put Mifsud onto Popadopoulos was very quick on their feet.
The Australian diplomat broke chain of command by reporting the drunken conversation to the State Department as opposed to his domestic Intelligence service. If Mifsud was a western asset, Australian Intelligence would likely be aware of his status.
If Mifsud was a Russian asset why would demonstrably genuine Russians be trying to dish up the dirt on Clinton in June?

There are missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle but it's starting to look like a deep state operation to dirty Trump in the unlikely event that he went on to win.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:28 pm

Ms. Clinton was personally trying to tar Trump with allusions to "Russia" and being "Putin's puppet" long before he won the presidency, in fact, quite conspicuously during the two conventions and most pointedly during the debates. She was willing to use that ruse long before her defeat at the ballot box. It was the straw that she clung to and was willing to use as a pretext for overturning the election after the unthinkable happened. But, you are right, smearing Trump through association with Russia was part of her long game going back to the early primaries, especially since her forces (both in politics and in the media) were trying mightily to get him the nomination under the assumption that he would be the easiest (more like the only) Republican candidate that she could defeat come November.

Wcb , June 8, 2018 at 5:25 pm

Steven Halper?

Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:33 am

I might add to this informative article that the reason why Julian Assange has been ostracized and isolated from any public appearance, denied a cell phone, internet and visitors is that he tells the truth, and TPTB don't want him to say yet again that the emails were leaked from the DNC. I've heard him say it several times. H. Clinton was so shocked and angry that she didn't become president as she so confidently expected that her, almost knee-jerk, reaction was to find a reason that was outside of herself on which to blame her defeat. It's always surprised me that no one talks about what was in those emails which covered her plans for Iran and Russia (disgusting).
Trump is a sociopath, but the Russians had nothing to do with him becoming elected. I was please to read here that he or perhaps just Pompeo? met with Binney. That's a good thing, though Pompeo, too, is unstable and war hungry to follow Israel into bombing yet another innocent sovereign country. Thank, Mr. McGovern for another excellent coverage of this story.

MLS , June 7, 2018 at 9:59 pm

"no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team"

Do tell, Ray: How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's investigation – with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks – has and has not done?

strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:14 am

MLS: Thank you! No one stands up for what is right any more. We have 17 Intelligency agencies that say are election was stolen. And just last week the Republicans Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnel and Trey Gowdy (who I detest) said the FBI and CIA and NSA were just doing there jobs the way ALL AMERICANS woudl want them to. And even Adam Schiff, do you think he will tell any reporter what evidence he does have? #1 It is probably classified and #2 he is probably saving it for the inpeachment. We did not find out about the Nixon missing 18 minutes until the end anyways. All of these articles sound like the writer just copied Sean Hannity and wrote everything down he said, and yesterday he told all suspects in the Mueller investigation to Smash and Bleach there mobile devices, witch is OBSTRUCTION of justice and witness TAMPERING. A great American there!

Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:48 am

strgr-tgther:

Sean Hannity??? Ha, ha, ha.

As Mr. McGoven wrote .."any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental."

John , June 8, 2018 at 5:48 am

Sorry I had to come back and point out the ultimate irony of ANYONE who supports the Butcher of Libya complaining about having an election stolen from them (after the blatant rigging of the primary that caused her to take the nomination away from the ONE PERSON who was polling ahead of Trump beyond the margin of error of the polls.)

It is people like you who gave us Trump. The Pied Piper Candidate promoted by the DNC machine (as the emails that were LEAKED, not "hacked", as the metadata proves conclusively, show.)

incontinent reader , June 8, 2018 at 7:14 am

What is this baloney? Seventeen Intelligence agencies DID NOT conclude what you are alleging, And in fact, Brennan and his cabal avoided using a National intelligence Estimate, which would have shot down his cherry-picked 'assessment' before it got off the ground – and it would have been published for all to read.

The NSA has everything on everybody, yet has never released anything remotely indicating Russian collusion. Do you think the NSA Director, who, as you may recall, did not give a strong endorsement to the Brennan-Comey assessment, would have held back from the Congress such information, if it had existed, when he was questioned? Furthermore, former technical directors of the NSA, Binney, Wiebe and Loomis- the very best of the best- have proven through forensics that the Wikileaks disclosures were not obtained by hacking the DNC computers, but by a leak, most likely to a thumb drive on the East Coast of the U.S. How many times does it have to be laid out for you before you are willing and able to absorb the facts?

As for Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, (and Trey Gowdy, who was quite skilled on the Benghazi and the Clinton private email server investigations- investigations during which Schiff ran interference for Clinton- but has seemed unwilling to digest the Strozk, Page, McCabe, et al emails and demand a Bureau housecleaning), who cares what they think or say, what matters is the evidence.

I suggest you familiarize yourself with the facts- and start by rereading Ray's articles, and the piece by Joe diGenova posted on Ray's website.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:12 pm

The guy's got Schiff for brains. Everyone who cares about the truth has known since before Mueller started his charade that the "17 intelligence agency" claim was entirely a ruse, bald-faced confected propaganda to anger the public to support the coup attempted by Ms. Clinton and her zombie followers. People are NOT going to support the Democratic party now or in the future when its tactics include subverting our public institutions, including the electoral process under the constitution–whether you like the results or not! If the Democratic party is to be saved, those honest people still in it should endeavor to drain the septic tank that has become their party before we can all drain the swamp that is the federal government and its ex-officio manipulators (otherwise known as the "deep state") in Washington.

Farmer Pete , June 8, 2018 at 7:30 am

"We have 17 Intelligency agencies that say are election was stolen."

You opened up with a talking point that is factually incorrect. The team of hand-picked spooks that slapped the "high confidence" report together came from 3 agencies. I know, 17 sounds like a lot and very convincing to us peasants. Regardless, it's important to practice a few ounces of skepticism when it comes to institutions with a long rap sheet of crime and deception. Taking their word for it as a substitute for actual observable evidence is naive to say the least. The rest of your hollow argument is filled with "probably(s)". If I were you, I'd turn off my TV and stop looking for scapegoats for an epically horrible presidential campaign and candidate.

strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:50 pm

/horrible presidential campaign and candidate/ Say you. But we all went to sleep comfortable the night before the election where 97% of all poles said Clinton was going to be are next President. And that did not happen! So Robert Mueller is going to find out EXACTLY why. Stay tuned!!!

irina , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm

Not 'all'. I knew she was toast after reading that she had cancelled her election night fireworks
celebration, early on the morning of Election Day. She must have known it also, too.

And she was toast in my mind after seeing the ridiculous scene of her virtual image
'breaking the glass ceiling' during the Democratic Convention. So expensively stupid.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:50 pm

Mueller is simply orchestrating a dramatic charade to distract you from the obvious reason why she lost: Trump garnered more electoral votes, even after the popular votes were counted and recounted. Any evidence of ballot box stuffing in the key states pointed to the Democrats, so they gave that up. She and her supporters like you have never stopped trying to hoodwink the public either before or after the election. Too many voters were on to you, that's why she lost.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:57 pm

Indeed, stop the nonsense which can't be changed short of a coup d'etat, and start focusing on opposing the bad policy which this administration has been pursuing. I don't see the Dems doing that even in their incipient campaigns leading up to the November elections. Fact is, they are not inclined to change the policies, which are the same ones that got them "shellacked" at the ballot box in 2016. (I think Obama must own lots of stock in the shellack trade.)

Curious , June 8, 2018 at 6:27 pm

Ignorance of th facts keep showing up in your posts for some unknown reason. Sentence two: "we have 17 intelligency (sic) agencies that say ". this statement was debunked a long time ago.

Have you learned nothing yet regarding the hand-picked people out of three agencies after all this time? Given that set of lies it makes your post impossible to read.
I would suggest a review of what really happened before you perpetuate more myths and this will benefit all.

Also, a good reading of the Snowden Docs and vault 7 should scare you out of your shell since our "intelligeny" community can pretend to be Chinese, Russian, Iranian just for starters, and the blame game can start after hours instead of the needed weeks and/or months to determine the veracity of a hack and/or leak.

It's past trying to win you over with the actual 'time lines' and truths. Mr McGovern has re-emphasized in this article the very things you should be reading.
Start with Mr Binney and his technical evaluation of the forensics in the DNC docs and build out from there This is just a suggestion.

What never ceases to amaze me in your posts is the 'issue' that many of the docs were bought and paid for by the Clinton team, and yet amnesia has taken over those aspects as well. Shouldn't you start with the Clintons paying for this dirt before it was ever attributed to Trump?

Daniel , June 8, 2018 at 6:38 pm

Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their "investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again.

More than 1/2 of their report was about RT, and even though that was all easily viewable public record, they got huge claims wrong. Basically, the best they had was that RT covered Occupy Wall Street and the NO DAPL and BLM protests, and horror of horrors, aired third party debates! In a democracy! How dare they?

Why didn't FBI subpoena DNC's servers so they could run their own forensics on them? Why did they just accept the claims of a private company founded by an Atlantic Council board member? Did you know that CrowdStrike had to backpedal on the exact same claim they made about the DNC server when Ukraine showed they were completely wrong regarding Ukie artillery?

Joe Lauria , June 8, 2018 at 2:12 am

Until he went incommunicado Assange stated on several occasions that he was never questioned by Muellers team. Craig Murray has said the same. And Kim Dotcom has written to Mueller offering evidence about the source and he says they have never replied to him.

Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm

Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's activities are a complete sham.

Miranda Keefe , June 8, 2018 at 3:28 pm

MLS wrote, "How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's investigation – with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks – has and has not done?"

Robert Mueller is NOT a Special Prosecutor appointed by the Congress. He is a special counsel appointed by the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, and is part of the Department of Justice.

I know no one who dislikes Trumps wants to hear it. But all Mueller's authority and power to act is derived from Donald J. Trump's executive authority because he won the 2016 presidential election. Mueller is down the chain of command in the Executive Department.

That's why this is all nonsense. What we basically have is Trump investigating himself. The framers of the Constitution never intended this. They intended Congress to investigate the Executive and that's why they gave Congress the power to remove him or her via impeachment.

As long as we continue with this folly of expecting the Justice Department to somehow investigate and prosecute a president we end up with two terrible possibilities. Either a corrupt president will exercise his legitimate authority to end the investigation like Nixon did -or- we have a Deep State beyond the reach of the elected president that can effectively investigate and prosecute a corrupt president, but also then has other powers with no democratic control.

The solution to this dilemma? An empowered Congress elected by the People operating as the Constitution intended.

As to the rest of your post? It is an example of the "will to believe." Me? I'll not act as if there is evidence of Russian interference until I'm shown evidence, not act as if it must be true, because I want to believe that, until it's fully proven that it didn't happen.

F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 8:22 pm

There must be some Trump-Russia ties.
Or so claim those CIA spies-
McCabe wants a deal, or else he won't squeal,
He'll dissemble when he testifies!

No one knows what's on Huma's computer.
There's no jury and no prosecutor.
Poor Adam Schiff hopes McCabe takes the fifth,
Special council might someday recruit her!

Assange is still embassy bound.
Mueller's case hasn't quite come unwound.
Wayne Madsen implies that there might be some ties,
To Israelis they haven't yet found!

Halper and Mifsud are players.
John Brennan used cutouts in layers.
If the scheme falls apart and the bureau is smart,
They'll go after them all as betrayers!

They needed historical fiction.
A dossier with salacious depiction!
Some urinous whores could get down on all fours,
They'd accomplish some bed sheet emiction!

Pablo Miller and Skripal were cited.
Sidney Blumenthal might have been slighted.
Christopher Steele offered Sidney a deal,
But the dossier's not copyrighted!

That story about Novichok,
Smells a lot like a very large crock.
But they can't be deposed or the story disclosed,
The Skripals have toxic brain block!

Papadopolis shot off his yap.
He told Downer, that affable chap-
There was dirt to report on the Clinton cohort,
Mifsud hooked him with that honey trap!

She was blond and a bombshell to boot.
Papadopolis thought she was cute.
She worked for Mifsud, a mysterious dude,
Now poor Paps is in grave disrepute!

But the trick was to tie it to Russians.
The Clinton team had some discussions.
Their big email scandal was easy to handle,
They'd blame Vlad for the bad repercussions!

There must have been Russian collusion.
That explained all the vote count confusion.
Guccifer Two made the Trump team come through,
If he won, it was just an illusion!

Lisa Page and Pete Strzok were disgusted
They schemed and they plotted and lusted.
If bald-headed Clapper appealed to Jake Tapper,
Brennan's Tweets might get Donald Trump busted!

There had to be cyber subversion.
It would serve as the perfect perversion.
They would claim it was missed if it didn't exist,
It's a logically perfect diversion!

Ray McGovern , June 8, 2018 at 1:03 am

BRAVO, F.G. and thanks.
Ray

Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:41 am

F.G., you've done it again, and I might add, topped even yourself! Thanks.

KiwiAntz , June 7, 2018 at 7:30 pm

What a joke, America, the most dishonest Country on Earth, has meddled, murdered & committed coups to overturn other Govts & interfered & continues to do so in just about every Country on Earth by using Trade sanctions, arming Terrorists & illegal invasions, has the barefaced cheek to puff out its chest & hypocritcally blame Russia for something that it does on a daily basis?? And the point with Mueller's investigation is not to find any Russian collusion evidence, who needs evidence when you can just make it up? The point is provide the US with a list of unfounded lies & excuses, FIRSTLY to slander & demonise RUSSIA for something they clearly didn't do! SECONDLY, was to provide a excuse for the Democrats dismal election loss result to the DONALD & his Trump Party which just happens to contain some Republicans? THIRDLY, to conduct a soft Coup by trying to get Trump impeached on "TRUMPED UP CHARGES OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION"? And FOURTLY to divert attention away from scrutiny & cover up Obama & Hillary Clinton's illegal, money grubbing activities & her treasonous behaviour with her private email server?? After two years of Russiagate nonsense with NOTHING to show for it, I think it's about time America owes Russia a public apology & compensation for its blatant lying & slander of a innocent Country for a crime they never committed?

Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 7:11 pm

Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely cause of the Russiagate scams.

I am sure that they manipulate the digital voting machines directly and indirectly. True elections are now impossible.

Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental."

Antiwar7 , June 7, 2018 at 6:23 pm

Expecting the evil people running the show to respond to reason is futile, of course. All of these reports are really addressed to the peanut gallery, where true power lies, if only they could realize it.

Thanks, Ray and VIPS, for keeping up the good fight.

mike k , June 7, 2018 at 5:55 pm

For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic conspiracy.

And BTW people have become shy about using the word conspiracy, for fear it will automatically brand one as a hoaxer. On the contrary, conspiracies are extremely common, the higher one climbs in the power hierarchy. Like monopolies, conspiracies are central to the way the oligarchs do business.

John , June 8, 2018 at 5:42 am

Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB drive, it is not a known.

There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings.

Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 10:44 am

Don't forget this Twitter post by Wikileaks on October 30, 2016: Podesta: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082#efmAGSAH-

Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 10:47 am

" whether or not"?!! Wow. That's an imperialistic statement.

Drew Hunkins , June 7, 2018 at 5:50 pm

Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?

So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was arguably in bed with the Winter Hill Gang!

jose , June 7, 2018 at 5:13 pm

If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars.

Jeff , June 7, 2018 at 4:35 pm

Thanx, Ray. The sad news is that everybody now believes that Russia tried to "meddle" in our election and, since it's a belief, neither facts nor reality will dislodge it. Your disclaimer should also probably carry the warning – never believe a word a government official says especially if they are in the CIA, NSA, or FBI unless they provide proof. If they tell you that it's classified, that they can't divulge it, or anything of that sort, you know they are lying.

john wilson , June 7, 2018 at 4:09 pm

I suspect the real reason no evidence has been produced is because there isn't any. I know this is stating the obvious, but if you think about it, as long as the non extent evidence is supposedly being "investigated" the story remains alive. They know they aren't going to find anything even remotely plausible that would stand up to any kind of scrutiny, but as long as they are looking, it has the appearance that there might be something.

Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 4:08 pm

I first want to thank Ray and the VIPS for their continuing to follow through on this Russia-Gate story. And it is a story.

My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody?

Now we have Sean Hannity making a strong case against the Clinton's and the FBI's careful handling of their crimes. What seems out of place, since this should be big news, is that CNN nor MSNBC seems to be covering this story in the same way Hannity is. I mean isn't this news, meant to be reported as news? Why avoid reporting on Hillary in such a manner? This must be that 'fake news' they all talk about boy am I smart.

In the end I have decided to be merely an observer, because there are no good guys or gals in our nation's capital worth believing. In the end even Hannity's version of what took place leads back to a guilty Russia. So, the way I see it, the swamp is being drained only to make more room for more, and new swamp creatures to emerge. Talk about spinning our wheels. When will good people arrive to finally once and for all drain this freaking swamp, once and for all?

Realist , June 7, 2018 at 5:25 pm

Ha, ha! Don't you enjoy the magic show being put on by the insiders desperately trying to hang onto their power even after being voted out of office? Their attempt to distract your attention from reality whilst feeding you their false illusions is worthy of Penn & Teller, or David Copperfield (the magician). Who ya gonna believe? Them or your lying eyes?

Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 10:00 pm

Realist, You can bet they will investigate everything but what needs investigated, as our Politico class devolves into survivalist in fighting, the mechanism of war goes uninterrupted. Joe

F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 5:34 pm

Joe, speaking of draining the swamp, check out my comment under Ray's June 1 article about Freddy Fleitz!

Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 6:59 pm

That is just what I was reminded of; here is an antiseptic but less emphatic last line:
"Swamp draining progresses apace.
It's being accomplished with grace:
They're taking great pains to clean out the drains,"
New swamp creatures will need all that space!

Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 11:00 am

We must realize that to them, "the Swamp" refers to those in office who still abide by New Deal policy. Despite the thoroughly discredited neoliberal economic policy, the radical right are driving the world in the libertarian direction of privatization, austerity, private bank control of money creation, dismantling the nation-state, contempt for the Constitution, etc.

[May 23, 2018] Mueller role as a hatchet man is now firmly established. Rosenstein key role in applointing Mueller without any evidence became also more clear with time. Was he coerced or did it voluntarily is unclear by Lambert Strether

Highly recommended!
Was Rosenstein-Comey-Mueller gambit so called "insurance" about which Strzok told Lisa Page ? It looks more and more likely that it was. So Trump was declared illegitimate president by intelligence community even before he was elected. And actions against him were actins typically done during color revolutions by the State Department and CIA. Role of FBI in "regime change" efforts was to implement directives from those agencies. It is doubtful that FBI acted as an independent player.
Notable quotes:
"... The regulations require that such an appointment recite the facts justifying the conclusion that a federal crime was committed, and specify the crime. However, the initial appointment of Robert Mueller did neither, referring instead to a national security investigation that a special counsel has no authority to pursue. Although Rosenstein apparently tried to correct his mistake in a new appointment memo, he has thus far refused to disclose, even to a federal judge, a complete copy of it. ..."
"... lettre de cachet ..."
May 23, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

"Stopping Robert Mueller to protect us all" [Mark Penn (!), The Hill ]. "Rather than a fair, limited and impartial investigation, the Mueller investigation became a partisan, open-ended inquisition that, by its precedent, is a threat to all those who ever want to participate in a national campaign or an administration again. Its prosecutions have all been principally to pressure witnesses with unrelated charges and threats to family, or just for a public relations effect, like the indictment of Russian internet trolls. Unfortunately, just like the Doomsday Machine in 'Dr. Strangelove; that was supposed to save the world but instead destroys it, the Mueller investigation comes with no 'off' switch: You can't fire Mueller. He needs to be defeated, like Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Clinton. Finding the 'off' switch will not be easy. Step one here is for the Justice Department inspector general report to knock Comey out of the witness box. Next, the full origins of the investigation and its lack of any real intelligence needs to come out in the open." ( Penn was a chief strategist and pollster for the 2008 Clinton campaign .)

"End Robert Mueller's investigation: Michael Mukasey" [ USA Today ]. "Recall that the investigation was begun to learn whether the Trump campaign had gotten help unlawfully from Russia . Because Attorney General Jeff Sessions had worked on the Trump campaign, he recused himself from the matter, and so the deputy -- Rod Rosenstein -- took the decision to appoint a special counsel. The regulations require that such an appointment recite the facts justifying the conclusion that a federal crime was committed, and specify the crime. However, the initial appointment of Robert Mueller did neither, referring instead to a national security investigation that a special counsel has no authority to pursue. Although Rosenstein apparently tried to correct his mistake in a new appointment memo, he has thus far refused to disclose, even to a federal judge, a complete copy of it.

In other investigations supposedly implicating a president -- Watergate and Whitewater come to mind -- we were told what the crime was and what facts justified the investigation. Not here . Nor have any of the charges filed in the Mueller investigation disclosed the Trump campaign's criminal acceptance or solicitation of help from the Russians." I missed that detail about the lettre de cachet aspect of the appointment memo

"The FBI Informant Who Wasn't Spying" [Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal ]. "Could a Trump FBI task agents to look into the foreign ties of advisers to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign in 2020?"

"Hayden: The Intel Community and Presidents -- Facts vs. Vision" [ RealClearPolitics ]. Hayden on Presidential transitions and the intelligence community:

"HAYDEN : We knew that if it were to be a President Trump this [transition] would be a big speed bump because these attributes I described over here, I think the creator gave him an extra measure. He is inherently instinctive, spontaneous, not very reflective, prone to action, has an almost preternatural view of his own preternatural confidence in his own a priori narrative of how things work. So we well, this one's gonna be tough. To your point, it is a national tragedy and a perfect storm that the first time we had to do that with the new president, we knew it's always tough but it was gonna be especially tough with this one, through no one's fault, it was on an issue as you described. An issue that other Americans, not the intel guys, other Americans were using to challenge his legitimacy of President of the United States ."

"Not the intel guys." Really?

[May 22, 2018] Cat fight within the US elite getting more intense

Highly recommended!
There is no question that Trump of over his head and folded early on, adopting the deep state foreign policy in even more militant incarnation the under Obama.
All those moves about "Russiagate" now is an empty sound or a cat fight of the faction of the US elite for contracts and sinecures in government.
Notable quotes:
"... Since being inaugurated, orange clown has reversed himself on the pre-election intimations and campaign promises that apparently got him elected. Instead of improving relations with Russia, he's made everything worse; he never misses a chance to provoke Russia. Instead of pulling out of Afghanistan, he's escalating that pointless war. He's increased the illegal, immoral and unconstitutional U.S. military occupation of Syria. He's escalating the genocidal war against Yemen. He's arming the corrupt puppet government in Kiev. He's already slaughtered more people with drone strikes than Obama did in eight years. He's surrounded himself with bloodthirsty psychopaths. He's trying to overthrow the Maduro government in Venezuela. He puts Israel first and America second (or lower) on the list. He wants more military spending. He seems to want a bigger, more powerful more and aggressive NATO, not the reverse. Rather than investigate 9/11, he studiously avoids the topic. Etc., etc., etc. ..."
"... From a "deep state" perspective, what is there to dislike about orange clown? How can the "deep state" have any kind of serious problem with someone who's making Obama look like Mister Rogers? ..."
"... Has the "deep state" deployed a "lone nut" against him? Apparently not. Is he being impeached? No. Is there even a hint of political opposition to his reckless, imperial "foreign policy"? No. Have any of his appointees been blocked? No. Has there been any kind of significant legal action against him challenging his blatantly unconstitutional military adventurism for example? As far as I know, no. ..."
"... Not where I live in the Northwest. I have spoken to people who are convinced Trump is "beyond guilty" of collusion. These people are either CNN watchers or work in IT. Everyday I go to the gym people are either watching CNN or MSNBC on their screen. ..."
"... How do you "manipulate" a reasonable person into flirting with planetary extinction? How can someone who actually cares about America be manipulated into risking war with Russia for no good reason? Such a person is not morally or mentally fit for the job of president in the first place. ..."
"... So in essence Trump's whole campaign platform was reversed by "deep state" "manipulation" but rather than surround himself with reasonable people, appeal to his supporters, investigate or threaten to investigate 9/11, or even resign (rather than become a mass-murderer), he decides to stay on because he enjoys killing people with drones and he loves the vacations, etc.? ..."
"... The more likely case is that orange clown's a con man whose whole campaign was a calculated bait and switch fraud from the beginning. And all this "out to get Trump" nonsense depicting Trump as hapless "victim" of the deep state is pure political theater. ..."
"... Michael Caputo now says he was approached by a SECOND recruiter, someone other than Halper. ..."
"... Yes, Halper was involved in getting President Carter's debate briefing book to the Reagan/ BUSH campaign ahead of the debate. He's been in there, connected, for years and years, a call-boy the players, the powers-that-be have at their disposal. ..."
"... Democrats and Republicans serve the same master, no difference, neither have real any real power. The Wall St bankers,, The Lobby, MIC, International Corporations call the shots. All the politicians are dirty, and deep state has plenty of blackmail info on ALL of them if they step out of line. They're only puppets for you to get angry at, and vote out to ease your anger. But nothing changes with elections because the ones with power are unelected, and never move. See Jim Traficant or JFK for what happens when one dares to tell the truth, or challenge the establishment. ..."
"... If Trump really wanted to change things, if he was the real deal, he would have Sessions start a new 9/11 investigation, and start imprisoning and executing the perps and traitors, all the way from Tel Aviv back home to Wall St. All of them. ..."
"... In fairness, his life expectancy after such an announcement would be about 6 minutes. Getting the public to realize the truth about 9/11 is the best chance I can see for real political change in the U.S., but hoping that anyone in Washington will lead the charge seems quite futile. A group of lawyers representing victims' families recently filed a petition for a new investigation – the media of course were not interested. It really comes down to spreading the word on the grassroots level. ..."
"... Halper was not a recruiter. He was there to collect information for the FBI, the very definition of a spy. ..."
"... The Democrats truly hate the whole concept of democracy. They've tried as best they can to ban democracy from their party. And now they've instituted both illegal campaign tactics before the election and a coup after the election to try to keep the power in the Democratic Party and the money flowing to them. ..."
"... Did Imram Awan leak the documents exposing that the DNC was colluding with the Clintons and rigging the primaries and convention in her favor? After all, that's where this all began. ..."
"... That was when Hillary came up with the idea to try to blame the Russians for the leaks and thus lead the world close to nuclear war for her own personal ambition. ..."
May 22, 2018 | www.unz.com

Originally from: Can We Call It a Coup Now, by Mike Whitney - The Unz Review

Svigor , May 20, 2018 at 9:44 pm GMT

So, help me out here – the only reason the NYT is even reporting on this is because Congress was closing in on this turd's identity, right?

"F.B.I. 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.

"Suspicious contacts" = Russians who talked to Trump's employees.

So the FISA surveillance, the national-security letters, the FBI informants and 18 months of relentless probing-harassment have all been justified on the basis of allegations about Russia hacking that may or may not have happened at all??

The one silver lining to all of this is that the GOP can to absolutely DRAG the Democrats about this in the next election. If the GOP is smart, they will not listen to a goddamn word coming out of the mouths of the Democrats or their (((Big Media))) mouthpieces during the 2020 election. They will not respond to a single point they have to make, except to call them hopelessly corrupt authoritarians who are unfit to govern until they come clean about their malfeasance and cut the rot from their ranks, and then spout their other talking points and drop the mic.

"According to people familiar with (General Michael) Flynn's visit to the intelligence seminar, the source was alarmed by the general's apparent closeness with a Russian woman who was also in attendance. The concern was strong enough that it prompted another person to pass on a warning to the American authorities that Mr. Flynn could be compromised by Russian intelligence, according to two people familiar with the matter."

*Facepalm*

These fucks are beyond parody now. We're literally ruled by corrupt morons, stooges, and degenerates.

"The cockblocking/penis-envy concern was enough for Stasi agents to follow up "

Renoman , May 20, 2018 at 10:03 pm GMT
I would be shocked if both political party's didn't have a myriad of spies in each other's campaigns dating back to Lincoln! Grow up people, there's a ton of money here.
Svigor , May 20, 2018 at 10:28 pm GMT
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/20/donald-trump-orders-justice-department-to-investigate-surveillance-of-trump-campaign/
anon [217] Disclaimer , May 22, 2018 at 4:30 am GMT
Rod Rosenstein is a traitorous weasel POS who never should've been appointed. Christopher Wray worked as a deputy to James Comey and is highly likely dirty and another deep state puppet. Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, McConnell, Pompeo, John Kelly, Kirstjen Nielsen, Gina Haspel, John Bolton, Nikki Haley, all are deep state puppets. Why does Trump keep appointing more deep state puppets to take over from the other deep state puppets?

I cannot for the life of me understand why Jeff Sessions continues to stick up for Rosenstein the weasel. My only explanation is that this whole thing is a coup set up by Deep State and Mike Pence from the get go so Pence can be president, and Sessions is in on the coup to keep his job.

I did not know it was Rosenstein's memo that prompted Trump to fire James Comey. Trump needs to bring that out in the open and let everyone know Rosenstein set him up. This POS weasel needs to go to jail. As long as he's still in the DOJ no real investigation of deep state will ever take place. We've got the fox guarding the hen house.

Carlton Meyer , Website May 22, 2018 at 4:40 am GMT
An equally interesting article can be found here:

https://theintercept.com/2018/05/19/the-fbi-informant-who-monitored-the-trump-campaign-stefan-halper-oversaw-a-cia-spying-operation-in-the-1980-presidential-election/

It notes that all the corporate media knows it was Halper, but they obey the Deep State and refuse to report this, pretending that evil Republicans are trying to out an innocent FBI spy. Even today, their coverage is "alleged" informant. For some reason, NBC News was the only "mainstream" team to ignore this absurd BS and report his name as part of the biggest news story of the decade. Note that Halper is not a Democratic Party mole, but a Bush family mole.

Doesn't Mueller have the self-respect to end his witch hunt and crawl back under a rock?

Bombercommand , May 22, 2018 at 5:46 am GMT
A very strong move by President Trump. It is a fact that the FBI sent an informant, Mr. Halper, to gather information on the Trump campaign. The FBI can plead it was to gather info on alarming Russians, but the informant my gather other info just as easily. If the FBI can send one, Halper, they can just as easily send another, or more unknown informants. This RussiaGate nonsense has always been a matter to be tried in the court of public opinion, by innuendo. Therefore President Trump's investigation can use the "have you stopped beating your wife?" method. Every time the FBI says no to a question it looks like they are lying to cover something bigger. Informants have Control Officers, who write reports to superiors, the reports make reference to code words, places and dates. Reports generate memos and orders. Everything becomes fuel for innuendo and the only out the FBI will have is "We honestly thought .but no, we found nothing".
Wizard of Oz , May 22, 2018 at 7:17 am GMT
@Renoman

A point well made in qualification of the merits of the article. Surely the author knows on reflection that no political party or campaign is going to forgo the chance of getting inside information on what their opponents are up to, including crimes – and spying.

Wizard of Oz , May 22, 2018 at 7:25 am GMT
@anon

Since Trump could do some shuffling so as to appoint an Attorney-General who wouldn't recuse himself or get rid of Rosenstein by appointing him a judge, or ambassador just for example maybe it is best to assume that the President doesn't feel immediately threatened and is reasonably confident that he can find and time his countermeasures satisfactorily. It is hardly beyond belief that there are Trump moles in Mueller's army who are assuring him that his instinct is right: apparent witch hunting persecution by Mueller is actually a harmless distraction and so good for him until the time is right to blow it up.

animalogic , May 22, 2018 at 7:44 am GMT
Considered in its entirety, this Trump/Russia business is indeed turning into the political crime (& shame) of the century. Were someone who had died in the 50′s to suddenly resurrect, they would suffer the equivalent of a psychotic episode or a bad LSD trip.
Its mind boggling to anyone even vaguely conscious .
Mr Trump needs to clean house: politiclly difficult, yes, but Trump needs to visit a Lehman Bros' moment on the DOJ, CIA & FBI.
No doubt the above toxic agencies will (again) spew forth the magic word: "Russia-Russia-Russia" to render all opposition impotent.
One may, of course, truly wonder whether a majority of citizens will awake & notice the stench of rotting democracy & having noticed, draw the correct conclusions and – finally – act .
The Alarmist , May 22, 2018 at 8:59 am GMT
@Svigor

Trump has surrounded himself with lifer Deep Staters who no doubt tell him that investigations and prosecutions will do grave harm to national security and, at the same time, would appear to be his own politically motivated witch hunt, the kind one sees only in third-world basket case countries, and that would reflect more poorly on him than on the actual cabal attempting to overthrow him and overturn his election.

But the actual collusion has become so obvious that he has to pull the trigger, because nobody else is going to. Sessions should have been all over this a year ago, but he too is a long-serving government employee, which suggests he is also of the swamp. As for Congress, a few brave souls, e.g. Nunes, have tried and have been exposed to withering fire from all sides.

Bob , May 22, 2018 at 11:00 am GMT
The purpose of the informant/spy was to "dirty" Page and Papadopoulos; to make them plausible suspects so that full use of the NSA database could be used on the Trump team both pre- and post-election and as far back in the past as they wanted to go. The warrants used on Page and Papadopoulos were counterintelligence warrants that allow using NSA resources on anyone "two hops" (two people) away from Page and Papadopoulos. "Two-hops" would easily include everyone near Trump even if Page and Papadopoulos had only minimal contact with the campaign. This is the heart of the crime. Page and Papadopoulos were used as place-holders to gather information on everyone near Trump. The informer was used to set those two up.
Ma Laoshi , May 22, 2018 at 1:36 pm GMT
Trump posting something on Twitter isn't "fighting back"–it's venting steam. As the article correctly states, letting the DOJ investigate itself is a joke. So Trump needed a Special Counsel of his own, and he needed him right after his inauguration. It may be that Trump likes a dose of Russia Scare to push overpriced American weapons and LNG to clueless Europeans. It may be that he's found out (or at least his people have) that he needs Deep-State sleaze for his anti-Iran campaign. It may be that Trump well knows he's vulnerable on nepotism, old NY Mob ties, and oh yeah some sexual peccadilloes, so he better play along and color within the lines. Or it may simply be that Trump is a moron without the attention span for anything beyond venting on Twitter.

It doesn't really matter now, the ship has sailed, he's gone too far in with "Putin-Assad baby killers" to return to sanity now.

Harold Smith , May 22, 2018 at 1:39 pm GMT
"After 18 months of withering attacks and accusations, Donald Trump has decided to get up off the canvas and fight back."

If "they" are really out to "get" orange clown, why don't "they" go after him for his impeachable war crimes in Syria, for example? Why don't "they" at least bring a lawsuit against him for his illegal, immoral and unconstitutional occupation of Syria?

Generally speaking, when one party ostensibly dislikes another party, and apparently seeks to "get" that party, isn't there usually some kind of plausible, identifiable reason for the enmity?

Since being inaugurated, orange clown has reversed himself on the pre-election intimations and campaign promises that apparently got him elected. Instead of improving relations with Russia, he's made everything worse; he never misses a chance to provoke Russia. Instead of pulling out of Afghanistan, he's escalating that pointless war. He's increased the illegal, immoral and unconstitutional U.S. military occupation of Syria. He's escalating the genocidal war against Yemen. He's arming the corrupt puppet government in Kiev. He's already slaughtered more people with drone strikes than Obama did in eight years. He's surrounded himself with bloodthirsty psychopaths. He's trying to overthrow the Maduro government in Venezuela. He puts Israel first and America second (or lower) on the list. He wants more military spending. He seems to want a bigger, more powerful more and aggressive NATO, not the reverse. Rather than investigate 9/11, he studiously avoids the topic. Etc., etc., etc.

From a "deep state" perspective, what is there to dislike about orange clown? How can the "deep state" have any kind of serious problem with someone who's making Obama look like Mister Rogers?

"In any event, Trump has decided to throw caution to the wind and go for broke. He's decided that the only way he's going to get his enemies off his back is by flushing them out into the open and subjecting their activities to public scrutiny."

Has the "deep state" deployed a "lone nut" against him? Apparently not. Is he being impeached? No. Is there even a hint of political opposition to his reckless, imperial "foreign policy"? No. Have any of his appointees been blocked? No. Has there been any kind of significant legal action against him challenging his blatantly unconstitutional military adventurism for example? As far as I know, no.

So how is anybody actually "[on] his back"?

anon [204] Disclaimer , May 22, 2018 at 1:49 pm GMT
@Wizard of Oz

3D chess, 4D chess or what is it up to now, 14D chess? Trumpistas have too much faith in their man. Trump is a businessman not a politician. He's in over his head. Just look at how easily he was goaded into canning James Comey that set off this whole sorry affair.

anon [204] Disclaimer , May 22, 2018 at 1:56 pm GMT
@animalogic

One may, of course, truly wonder whether a majority of citizens will awake & notice the stench of rotting democracy & having noticed, draw the correct conclusions and – finally – act.

Not where I live in the Northwest. I have spoken to people who are convinced Trump is "beyond guilty" of collusion. These people are either CNN watchers or work in IT. Everyday I go to the gym people are either watching CNN or MSNBC on their screen. Most Americans are brain dead sheeple.

phil , May 22, 2018 at 2:34 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

"Has the "deep state" deployed a 'lone nut' against him? Apparently not. Is he being impeached? No. Is there even a hint of political opposition to his reckless, imperial 'foreign policy'? No. Have any of his appointees been blocked? No. Has there been any kind of significant legal action against him challenging his blatantly unconstitutional military adventurism for example? As far as I know, no.

So how is anybody actually '[on] his back'?"

Answer: the Deep State obviously is on his back, It is has successfully manipulated him into a foreign policy that he did not want. He wanted an America First policy, but because of political blackmail and dishonest allegations about collusion with Russia, Trump has felt compelled to do what Zionists want in the Middle East. At home, massive legal immigration continues, there will be no mass deportations, and the border wall will not be built. The Democrats will be firmly entrenched after Trump is gone from the scene.

Harold Smith , May 22, 2018 at 3:13 pm GMT
@phil

"the Deep State obviously is on his back, It is has successfully manipulated him into a foreign policy that he did not want. "

Or so goes the Trump apologists' claim. But that's pure unfounded speculation.

How do you "manipulate" a reasonable person into flirting with planetary extinction? How can someone who actually cares about America be manipulated into risking war with Russia for no good reason? Such a person is not morally or mentally fit for the job of president in the first place.

So in essence Trump's whole campaign platform was reversed by "deep state" "manipulation" but rather than surround himself with reasonable people, appeal to his supporters, investigate or threaten to investigate 9/11, or even resign (rather than become a mass-murderer), he decides to stay on because he enjoys killing people with drones and he loves the vacations, etc.?

I think not. The more likely case is that orange clown's a con man whose whole campaign was a calculated bait and switch fraud from the beginning. And all this "out to get Trump" nonsense depicting Trump as hapless "victim" of the deep state is pure political theater.

John Q Public , May 22, 2018 at 3:29 pm GMT
"In an earlier version of this article I stated that the FBI planted a spy INSIDE the Trump campaign. This is not correct, which is why I asked editor Ron Unz to remove the article. The informant was not part of the Campaign but sought information from members of the Campaign."

Hyper-technical hair splitting that is ultimately false. The point of Halper's approaches were to recruit people in the campaign to provide information. Those recruits would have been spies. Michael Caputo now says he was approached by a SECOND recruiter, someone other than Halper.

jeff davis , May 22, 2018 at 4:02 pm GMT
Trump is head of the Executive Branch. The DoJ and FBI are part of the executive branch and subordinate to Trump. He can send 30-40 US Marshals to FBI headquarters, and to DoJ headquarters, and have them extract by force the necessary documents, and no one can say "boo!"

I wish he would.

The downside of course is that everyone in the media and in Congress would scream "tyrant!" So Trump currently is leaving them alone to continue digging their own grave with the Mueller/Russia witchunt, as the country moves towards the midterm elections.

Buzz Mohawk , May 22, 2018 at 4:04 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Yes, Halper was involved in getting President Carter's debate briefing book to the Reagan/ BUSH campaign ahead of the debate. He's been in there, connected, for years and years, a call-boy the players, the powers-that-be have at their disposal.

Stefan Halper is one of the creepy-crawly things that have been living under the rock Donald Trump kicked over.

As Steve Sailer points out, Halper is the son-in-law of CIA man Ray. S. Cline, who was instrumental in the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

redmudhooch , May 22, 2018 at 5:07 pm GMT
Democrats and Republicans serve the same master, no difference, neither have real any real power. The Wall St bankers,, The Lobby, MIC, International Corporations call the shots. All the politicians are dirty, and deep state has plenty of blackmail info on ALL of them if they step out of line. They're only puppets for you to get angry at, and vote out to ease your anger. But nothing changes with elections because the ones with power are unelected, and never move. See Jim Traficant or JFK for what happens when one dares to tell the truth, or challenge the establishment.

9/11 and silence from both sides with regard to a real investigation into the biggest "terrorist" attack in US History, and the murder of 3000 Americans, this tells you who is in power, the people that pulled it off. Neither party supports a real investigation into this attack, they both work for the same people. The fact that the MSM still lies about it means they are also controlled by the goons. The FBI, CIA lies about it, and Muellers coverup of the crime tells you all of the "Intelligence" and "Law" enforcement agencies are also controlled by the same cabal.

Until they start telling the truth about 9/11, you can bet the same goons are still in charge, no matter who the president is, no matter which Democrat or Republican you elect, the shadow government, deep state are still calling the shots. If you do vote, vote 3rd party. The whole election system is rigged to keep out most anyone who might dare to challenge the establishment, thats why we only get lowlifes like Mitt Romney or the Cintons running for office year after year, out of millions of people the same dirtbags just won't go away.

Everything else is just noise, distractions from this reality. If Trump really wanted to change things, if he was the real deal, he would have Sessions start a new 9/11 investigation, and start imprisoning and executing the perps and traitors, all the way from Tel Aviv back home to Wall St. All of them.

WorkingClass , May 22, 2018 at 5:51 pm GMT
@Renoman

People who say nothing ever changes should read a history book.

Mike P , May 22, 2018 at 6:20 pm GMT

If Trump really wanted to change things, if he was the real deal, he would have Sessions start a new 9/11 investigation, and start imprisoning and executing the perps and traitors, all the way from Tel Aviv back home to Wall St. All of them.

In fairness, his life expectancy after such an announcement would be about 6 minutes. Getting the public to realize the truth about 9/11 is the best chance I can see for real political change in the U.S., but hoping that anyone in Washington will lead the charge seems quite futile. A group of lawyers representing victims' families recently filed a petition for a new investigation – the media of course were not interested. It really comes down to spreading the word on the grassroots level.

anon [217] Disclaimer , May 22, 2018 at 7:04 pm GMT
@John Q Public

Hyper-technical hair splitting that is ultimately false. The point of Halper's approaches were to recruit people in the campaign to provide information. Those recruits would have been spies. Michael Caputo now says he was approached by a SECOND recruiter, someone other than Halper.

Halper was not a recruiter. He was there to collect information for the FBI, the very definition of a spy.

anon [217] Disclaimer , May 22, 2018 at 7:17 pm GMT
@renfro

From the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/world/asia/trump-hotel-china-indonesia.html

Hatunggal Muda Siregar, a spokesman for MNC, said the theme park and the Trump properties are separate projects within the Lido development. The agreement with the Chinese company to build the theme park does not include any financing for the project, he said.

Mr. Trump's business dealings in Indonesia prompted scrutiny even before his inauguration, and he pledged not to embark on any new deals while in office. But the Trump Organization held onto the projects in Indonesia, saying the contracts with Mr. Hary were signed in 2015 and were binding.

Yet another nothing burger. This an old deal made before he even ran for president. The Chinese loan does not extend to building of the Trump properties. As the article repeatedly pointed out:

There isn't any evidence that the agreement with the construction company was intended to sway the Trump administration on any matters.

If there's no evidence, why report it at all? To give more ammo to people who are always for looking for any reason to disparage Trump, and only bother to read headlines.

Svigor , May 22, 2018 at 7:19 pm GMT
NPR had a great piece on this today. Smarmy Ray Suarez interviewing several lying swamp creatures. The bullshit was neck-deep.
Ozymandias , May 22, 2018 at 9:11 pm GMT
"It's worth noting, that the current Russia investigation is based on the dubious claim that Russia hacked DNC computers."

Imran Awan is not Russian, he's a Paki. And he didn't need to hack the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz let him in and gave him the password. There, huge mystery solved.

Harold Smith , May 22, 2018 at 9:48 pm GMT
@anon

"Anyone who refers to Trump as 'orange clown' is obviously partisan to the point of not worth listening to."

You may be right about that; now that I think about it, it does seem too generous.

How about "teflon-don-the-con-man"; or, "the ignorant orange savage in the White House"? Of course there's always the Biblical description to fall back on: "the beast from the earth" (i.e. the second beast of Rev 13); will that work?

Theo Daio , May 22, 2018 at 9:58 pm GMT
Meanwhile, at the same time we also learn that there is evidence that there really was collusion between the Trump campaign and foreign powers that wanted to see it elected in return for favorable policies. But, the problem that the Deep State has is that the foreign powers were not the cartoon-pinup-all-purpose villan of the Russians. No, it was Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The point of all of this is that the United States is supposed to be a democracy which means that the government does what the people want it to do. The one thing that we are seeing is that nobody in Washington wants that. The Democrats truly hate the whole concept of democracy. They've tried as best they can to ban democracy from their party. And now they've instituted both illegal campaign tactics before the election and a coup after the election to try to keep the power in the Democratic Party and the money flowing to them.

But, it turns out Trump was off cutting deals with Israel and Saudi Arabia that now seem to have the USA headed straight into a disasterous war that was the last thing that voters wanted. The voters keep electing candidates who claim to be against these wars. The problem is that they whole bunch of them are a lot of liars, and the one and only thing they are truly against is democracy and letting the people have a say.

America desperately needs a Democracy Movement. One that cleans the temples of DC of all of the corrupt liars that currently rule us in both fake parties.

SunBakedSuburb , May 22, 2018 at 9:59 pm GMT
"He's decided that the only way he's going to get his enemies off his back is by flushing them out into the open and subjecting their activities to public scrutiny. It's a risky strategy "

It's the only strategy he can pursue. If he doesn't take the fight out into the open, where his enemies are vulnerable, they will bury him.

Akran Ahab , May 22, 2018 at 10:05 pm GMT
Did Imram Awan leak the documents exposing that the DNC was colluding with the Clintons and rigging the primaries and convention in her favor? After all, that's where this all began.

It was a bit before the conventions when those emails leaked. Hillary certainly knew that they could be the death of her lifelong quest to see how much she could steal as President. If the Bernie voters were upset that the whole fake primary and caucus process had been rigged all along and refused to support Hillary, then she was done as a Presidential contender.

That was when Hillary came up with the idea to try to blame the Russians for the leaks and thus lead the world close to nuclear war for her own personal ambition.

TG , May 22, 2018 at 10:34 pm GMT
You know it's funny, all those 'conservatives' screaming that Edward Snowden is a traitor, that we should trust the US government to spy on us in secret because national security demands it, etc. Because only bad people have something to hide, right?

And now we begin to see exactly what it means when the central government can essentially spy on anyone for any reason not so wonderful after all, is it?

There is an old saying that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, and a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. I guess a civil libertarian is a national security hawk that's been spied on.

Per/Norway , May 22, 2018 at 11:22 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

I see your point, bread and circus for the people. I'm more worried about is Israel attacking Lebanon, tbh, dragging the entire ME in to the conflict ending up with trump/bibi and Erdogan stumbling us into a ww and/or financial breakdown.

renfro , May 22, 2018 at 11:56 pm GMT
@Theo Daio

America desperately needs a Democracy Movement. One that cleans the temples of DC of all of the corrupt liars that currently rule us in both fake parties

Yes indeed we do. The Dems are using the corruption theme, but of course they are hypocrites also and don't live up to ethical standards either. Still, maybe an election platform based on ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID ..will open the eyes of some of our more mentally challenged voters.

Hate always works – Tump pretended he was going to drain the hateful deep state swamp to save his little people -- -so I guess the Dems can pretend they are going to kill the corrupt to save the little people.

Democrats Roll Out Anti-Corruption Message for 2018

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ /democrats_roll_out_anti-corruption_message_for&#8230 ;

1 day ago – Instead, Democrats are returning to an anti-corruption message that A decade later, Trump seized on a similar theme, directing voter ire at

renfro , May 23, 2018 at 12:19 am GMT
Mueller is the only admirable man in this mess. Trump's problem is he is for once up against an honest man, someone he cant threaten or bribe or bully.
Trump, as we say in the south, is white trash he is way out of his class with Mueller.

Mueller's investigation isn't going to 'wrap up' soon -- and Trump is still in peril

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-litman-mueller-anniversary-20180516-story.html

Anyone paying attention over the last year knows Mueller will not yield to political pressure. His investigators haven't leaked; they have ignored vicious personal attacks; they haven't veered in the slightest from prosecutorial professionalism.

So to "wrap it up," Trump would have to make a move, but will he?

The president and his lawyers are strategizing about whether he will agree to be interviewed by Mueller, either voluntarily or under subpoena. If he were to refuse, as the current swing of the pendulum suggests, and then try to end the probe, he would only seem more guilty and undermine his support even among Republicans. If his refusal were to lead, as expected, to a court battle, we would expect the Supreme Court to settle the issue. Any move by Trump to preempt it would again only undermine his credibility.

In addition, the president and his circle are well aware of how fast the midterm election is approaching and what effect an attempt to fire Mueller could have on the outcome. They want to avoid any action that would help the Democrats flip the House. Such a shift would change every calculation, not least because a Democratic majority could move to impeach the president early next year.

Of course, Trump may calculate that he could get away with firing Mueller now, if he moved quickly and the Republican leadership rallied to his side. But it is equally possible that Congress would respond with legislation to reinstate Mueller. Again, the field of battle would shift to the courts.

Most importantly, even a successful ouster of Mueller would not derail the investigation at this point. Too much evidence has been gathered, and too many prosecutors, who have surely considered and planned for the contingency, stand ready to carry on. Should Trump try to shutter the entire special counsel's office, a much graver and politically and legally riskier act than firing Mueller or Rosenstein, other divisions in the Department of Justice, in particular the Southern District of New York, would also be ready to take up the charge.

The strength of all that evidence, the careful work done thus far, and the indictments already filed are the special counsel's protection against "witch hunt" tweets and protestations that the investigation is already over with nothing to show for it.

In the course of the past year, we've learned not to underestimate what Mueller knows and what bombshell he may have prepared. It may involve the Russians and the campaign, it may involve obstruction of justice, but there are other relevant threads as well: the true motive behind the Seychelles meeting between Trump associate Erik Prince and the head of a Russian wealth fund, the hacking of Democratic Party emails and its links to Trump political advisor Roger Stone, the recent sale of Russia's state owned oil company to Qatar.

Last week we discovered that Mueller was way ahead of us on the huge payments made to Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen for access to the president. We don't yet know what he's found out from cooperating witnesses, including Michael Flynn and Rick Gates, that might point directly at the president. And there is still the possibility that Paul Manafort or Cohen could decide to cooperate with the investigation.

None of these threads signals Trump's removal from office. A conviction in the Senate, no matter what happens in the midterm, would require a good number of Republicans to turn against the president, which seems remote absent a smoking gun that proves grave criminal conduct. But it is more than plausible that the probe and associated investigations will result in additional indictments of Trump associates -- including Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. -- and will leave Trump seriously wounded, an untenable candidate in 2020. Once he leaves office, his legal exposure, both civil and criminal, would skyrocket.

The "wrap it up" crowd is indulging in wishful thinking. The first anniversary of the Mueller investigation is unlikely to be the last.

Harry Litman teaches constitutional law at UC San Diego. He is a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general.

Carroll Price , May 23, 2018 at 12:38 am GMT
@Harold Smith

A brilliant summation of who Trump is and what he's always been – an opportunist, Manchurian Candidate. The Deep State has done it to us again.

Shemp the Greatest Stooge , May 23, 2018 at 12:44 am GMT
@renfro

Renfro, only admirable man. what a card! will not yield. stop it, you're killin me!

https://digwithin.net/2018/04/08/muellers-history/

Renfro, man, dig us up more of that funny shit.

[May 14, 2018] You will never see a headline in WSJ which reads something like FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign .

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... At this point I have no belief that we'll ever see the entirety of the shenanigans or that any will be held to account. The bureaucratic gamesmanship with Nunes, Grassley and others to block, obfuscate and prevent any disclosure on one side and the complexity and extensiveness of the misuse of law enforcement and intelligence powers ensures that the American people will never know how warped their national security institutions have become. ..."
"... Net net, it seems to me that our national security apparatus along with our equally compromised political establishment will through sheer hubris and ineptitude, bungle into a situation that could be very dangerous not only to us but to the world at large. ..."
"... In other news: the Praetorian Guard is so embroiled in extracurricular activities that it doesn't actually spend any time guarding the Emperor. ..."
"... It is interesting that I don't see a headline on WSJ which reads something like "FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign". Of course I don't see such a headline on CNN or the NYTimes. To think that I once looked down my nose at Fox News. ..."
"... This article by Andy McCarthy reviews some of the Page-Strzok text messages and looks at what was redacted especially in light of Nunes pushing for the unredaction of the name of the person who is apparently associated with both US and British intelligence and apparently met with George Papadapolous prior to his meeting with the Australian ambassador Downer. ..."
"... A couple of interesting posts on Nunes. The Deep State Mob Targets Nunes https://www.zerohedge.com/n... Devin Nunes is a Badass https://amgreatness.com/201... ..."
"... The Trump campaign and presidency show similar characteristics. Placing a mole in that chaos seems to have been about the easiest possible intelligence operation. If we knew the details, would we find ANYONE who made the effort and failed to get past Trump level "vetting"? Does anyone think that Michael Wolf's experience was unique? It seems plausible that over time more and more of the real work is getting done by such people simply because they are careful not to do the sorts of things that lead to actual believers leaving at such impressive rates. ..."
"... The significance is pretty simple. What was the actual intelligence information to launch the counter-intelligence investigation of the Trump campaign? None. It was all a fabrication by Brennan and Clapper that was then laundered through to Comey to use the investigatory authorities and tools. ..."
"... The bottom line is that an incumbent administration used the national security apparatus to spy and frame a presidential campaign of the other party and directly intervene and manipulate a presidential election. And when they failed created media hysteria to launch an effort to find impeachable offenses of a duly elected president. This is what happens in a banana republic. We are one now, That is the significance. ..."
"... In my mind after 2 years of investigation both by the FBI/DOJ and then Mueller they've yet to provide any evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. On the other hand there is increasing evidence that the FBI/DOJ were weaponized for political purposes. ..."
"... The executive branch of government, in this case the Obama administration, planting a federal agent inside the political campaign of the Democratic Party's opponent to entrap members of that campaign or the candidate himself. ..."
"... I recall Carter Page being identified several months back in a SST comments section as the probable US intel source enabling the broad FISA order ..."
"... I suppose that this is the usual foreign (often ME) belief that America is about them rather than about itself. In fact Trump is leading an attempt at counter-revolution, a revolt of the heartland against the elites of the left and right coasts and islands in the stream like Chicago. The counter-revolution is against globalist internationalism that discounts the welfare of the heartland as well as against "progressivism" which denies the faith writ large of the heartland. ..."
May 14, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock , a day ago

As the onion gets slowly peeled back what we are seeing is staggering in its scope and depth. It is starting to make sense to me as to why the immense failures across the entire national security and law enforcement apparatus. Their leadership have been far too busy and immersed in playing political games, bureaucratic games and engaging in media operations. They've had no time or mental energy remaining to do the actual work that they've been paid to do.

At this point I have no belief that we'll ever see the entirety of the shenanigans or that any will be held to account. The bureaucratic gamesmanship with Nunes, Grassley and others to block, obfuscate and prevent any disclosure on one side and the complexity and extensiveness of the misuse of law enforcement and intelligence powers ensures that the American people will never know how warped their national security institutions have become.

The other side is that it seems that for Trump himself it is not about getting it out to the public as he could declassify all these documents with a stroke of a pen, but to use this to play up his victimization and rile up his base. That seems to be working if the attendance at his recent public rallies are an indicator.

Net net, it seems to me that our national security apparatus along with our equally compromised political establishment will through sheer hubris and ineptitude, bungle into a situation that could be very dangerous not only to us but to the world at large.

Sid Finster -> blue peacock , 8 hours ago
In other news: the Praetorian Guard is so embroiled in extracurricular activities that it doesn't actually spend any time guarding the Emperor.

From the point of view of the Iron Law of Institutions, the FBI's decision to play politics at the expense of law enforcement makes perfect sense.

James Thomas , 2 days ago
It is interesting that I don't see a headline on WSJ which reads something like "FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign". Of course I don't see such a headline on CNN or the NYTimes. To think that I once looked down my nose at Fox News.
richardstevenhack , 2 days ago
This link is better - it takes you past the WSJ paywall:

https://www.wsj.com/article...

Jack , 8 minutes ago
This article by Andy McCarthy reviews some of the Page-Strzok text messages and looks at what was redacted especially in light of Nunes pushing for the unredaction of the name of the person who is apparently associated with both US and British intelligence and apparently met with George Papadapolous prior to his meeting with the Australian ambassador Downer.

https://www.nationalreview....

Valissa Rauhallinen , a day ago
A couple of interesting posts on Nunes. The Deep State Mob Targets Nunes https://www.zerohedge.com/n... Devin Nunes is a Badass https://amgreatness.com/201...
Fred W , a day ago
The incoherence is stunning. And in the same kind of way as the hullabaloo on the left over Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Let's start with the Russian participation since we now know a lot more about that. It was obnoxious. It showed potential for future serious damage to the US electoral system. But did it elect Donald Trump? No. The Russians were dabbling in a game being run at much larger scale by world class practitioners. They brought to the table neither the sophisticated understanding of American politics not the resources required to make a difference. They picked some targets of opportunity and were able to use pre-existing cleavages to their advantage.

The Trump campaign and presidency show similar characteristics. Placing a mole in that chaos seems to have been about the easiest possible intelligence operation. If we knew the details, would we find ANYONE who made the effort and failed to get past Trump level "vetting"? Does anyone think that Michael Wolf's experience was unique? It seems plausible that over time more and more of the real work is getting done by such people simply because they are careful not to do the sorts of things that lead to actual believers leaving at such impressive rates.

And what is the significance of the possible mole? Do we see a pattern of Trump administration initiatives being frustrated by subtle maneuvers by people who always seem to know what is the next planned move? No. Even their closest allies don't seem to have any idea what to expect. What would be the content of reports from such a mole?

So the contention is that that the FBI (or CIA?) opened up a channel of communication with someone in an inside position. Or placed someone in an inside position. For valid reasons or bad. I'm inclined to think probably good reasons; the WSJ writers are inclined to think bad. Did this happen before or after the famous Papadopoulis drunken indiscretions? If before, then indeed they need to have had reasons beyond what they have expressed.

But again, what is the significance? The WSJ article makes a brief foray into the suspicious nature of other (non-Russian) foreigners and leaves it at that. Did the intelligence agencies then undertake investigations that they shouldn't have? Regardless of where allegations come from, do we really want an intelligence service that follows up only on data from "approved" sources? If there was nothing going on, the proper action for the intelligence agencies was to determine that fact.

blue peacock -> Fred W , a day ago
The significance is pretty simple. What was the actual intelligence information to launch the counter-intelligence investigation of the Trump campaign? None. It was all a fabrication by Brennan and Clapper that was then laundered through to Comey to use the investigatory authorities and tools.

The bottom line is that an incumbent administration used the national security apparatus to spy and frame a presidential campaign of the other party and directly intervene and manipulate a presidential election. And when they failed created media hysteria to launch an effort to find impeachable offenses of a duly elected president. This is what happens in a banana republic. We are one now, That is the significance.

Fred W -> blue peacock , 13 hours ago
What I meant by significance was actual use of the data obtained. Discerning that can be logically dicey, but in general the investigation seems to have held data about as tight as it can be held. Other investigators don't seem to have much trouble turning up interesting (and embarrassing) history, but nobody seems to know what the FBI investigation has or doesn't have.

You do reference a "media hysteria to launch an effort to find impeachable offenses". That did happen. Media hysteria is how America does things these days. But any connection to the FBI investigation is problematic. That seems to have started with people deliberately going around the FBI and CIA, which initially wouldn't even confirm the existence of an investigation.

You don't like the fact that they investigated at all, and you may be right. But rightness or wrongness of initiating an investigation is certain to be contentious and to depend on facts that you and I don't have. Please correct me if in fact you do have access to the detailed fact set and timeline that went into the decision making. In the meantime I will assume only access to publicly available data. If the investigation was started capriciously, that would qualify as a serious problem. If facts or allegations with major national security implications only became available after other less damning data had caused investigation to begin, I am not very interested. This is about protecting the country, not about checking the right boxes. In the long term, failing to investigate serious charges will seem a lot more damning than overreacting to spurious ones.

This all seems to come down to matters of trust. Do we trust the FBI to have done its job professionally and without any overriding partisan bias? Yeah. My trust levels are pretty low, actually but I don't see much evidence to stoke the suspicions that are being so flagrantly marketed. To begin with, if you wanted to locate a cabal of hard-core leftist partisans in the US government, FBI agents would seem an unlikely place to look. If anything the known occurrences of bias seem to been directed against Hillary Clinton as much as than Donald Trump. Then there is the lack of instances of using investigation data in blatantly political ways. Their data is held very tightly. And what is the theory of how such a widespread conspiracy could have been put in place without anyone noticing at the time?

In the real world trustworthiness is always limited and relative. For this issue, would you trust the FBI more than self-interested politicians? Devin Nunes in particular with his history of leaking out-of-context mini-quotes, but really any politician. Would you trust the current FBI more than any replacement that could be formed? Would you trust that they are not carrying on the sort of activities uncovered by the Church committee? I know of no reason to withhold trust at that level.

And again we come back to significance. It might be worth digging out all the details if the investigation was being used to blackmail and intimidate people. (How would you set about intimidating Donald Trump?) Or if false charges were being filed against people. (The charges don't look false. The scandal may be that no one seems to have looked before at some of this. In any case false charges are a technique for people without the resources to defend themselves. Not these guys.) What has occurred to justify throwing away the system we have built over the years?

I don't see American political players being abused by an out-of-control FBI. I see some American political players desperately wanting to keep facts from coming out. "If you have an innocent client, act like it!"

Jack -> Fred W , 23 minutes ago
This whole Russia collusion affair speaks volumes about the state of our nation.

The testimony from Brennan, Clapper and Comey points to Electronic Communication as the original basis for the launch of the counter-intelligence probe of the Trump campaign. The DOJ and FBI have not been forthcoming on what exactly that was. They've continuously fought disclosure and then when the pressure rose from Congressional oversight they redacted critical elements. When some of the redactions were unredacted it showed it had nothing to do with national security and everything to do with preventing malfeasance and politicization from being disclosed. Nunes has disclosed that the electronic communication did not originate from a 5 Eyes party. From testimony and other public disclosures it seems that the electronic communication originated from Brennan and Clapper.

There's something fishy for sure that happened during the Summer/Fall 2016. In my mind after 2 years of investigation both by the FBI/DOJ and then Mueller they've yet to provide any evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. On the other hand there is increasing evidence that the FBI/DOJ were weaponized for political purposes.

Fred -> Fred W , a day ago
FredW,

"...dabbling in a game being run at much larger scale by world class practitioners."

And who might those practitioners be?

You ask about significance twice: "And what is the significance of the possible mole?" and "But again, what is the significance?"

The executive branch of government, in this case the Obama administration, planting a federal agent inside the political campaign of the Democratic Party's opponent to entrap members of that campaign or the candidate himself.

Those are Alinsky's rules, not constitutional principles in a democratic society. The follow on question is how many other times was this done in political campaigns inside the US to favor the political party in power, in this case the Democratic Party?

ChrisFahlman -> Fred , 10 hours ago
Trump by chance may have hired someone who came already with a past (and unrelated to anything Trump) FBI or CIA relationship. So it may not be a case of "planting" but of asset activation, or the source itself may have initiated the contact with law enforcement regarding possible crimes.
Fred S -> ChrisFahlman , 8 hours ago
Chris,

You mean it was just oh so coincidental that "someone who came with a past....FBI" How many other elections for President, or any other elected office, did this happen in previously? Perhaps an audit of all the FISA applications previously made would be helpful.

Fred W -> Fred , a day ago
"To entrap members of the campaign or the candidate himself"

You are assuming a motive. I have long since learned not to make assumptions about other people's motives. My mind-reading credentials expired long ago. In any case, one of the very first rules of intelligence is to avoid such assumptions.

In any case, your theory suffers from a lack of examples of such entrapment. The embarassments experienced all seem to have derived from much more basic and public sources. Whatever the intelligence agencies found on their own has remained private except for actual indictments. None of those qualify in my mind as "entrapment".

Fred S -> Fred W , 8 hours ago
FredW,

There have been no indictments against Trump or members of his campaign for aiding Russians with interference in the 2016 election.

Wj , 2 days ago
I recall Carter Page being identified several months back in a SST comments section as the probable US intel source enabling the broad FISA order.
Pat Lang Mod -> Wj , a day ago
We are talking about a second one.
Alexandros HoMegas , 2 days ago
So what is happening? This seems like a conflict inside the US ruling class, those who favored the Iran deal and those who want war.
Pat Lang Mod -> Alexandros HoMegas , 2 days ago
I suppose that this is the usual foreign (often ME) belief that America is about them rather than about itself. In fact Trump is leading an attempt at counter-revolution, a revolt of the heartland against the elites of the left and right coasts and islands in the stream like Chicago. The counter-revolution is against globalist internationalism that discounts the welfare of the heartland as well as against "progressivism" which denies the faith writ large of the heartland.

The Iran as enemy issue is derived from generations of pro-Zionist propaganda from those coastal elites. This has had a profound effect on the Christian evangelicals of the heartland who think Zion fulfills prophecy as a harbinger of the end of days. They are many of Trump's "troops."

[May 03, 2018] Mueller's questions to Trump more those of a prosecuting attorney than of an impartial investigator by Alexander Mercouris

Highly recommended!
Mueller's proposed questions to Trump show that Trump remains Mueller's ultimate target
Notable quotes:
"... (1) Robert Mueller is in possession of no facts which have not previously been made public. ..."
"... (2) Donald Trump continues to be Robert Mueller's target ..."
"... Frankly they do not look like the sort of questions an investigator asks if he searching for the truth. Rather they look like cross examination by prosecuting Counsel. ..."
"... (3) Obstruction of Justice has replaced collusion with Russia as the focus of the Mueller probe ..."
"... the Russiagate investigation did become a criminal inquiry and not just a counterespionage inquiry. ..."
"... When he finished, I said that I agreed very much that it was terrible that his calls with foreign leaders leaked. I said they were classified and he needed to be able to speak to foreign leaders in confidence ..."
"... The memo shows Trump putting pressure on Comey to investigate the leaks and Comey resisting doing so. Whilst Comey purported to agree with Trump that the leaks were terrible and that the leakers should be punished, he resisted Trump's suggestion that the most effective way to go after the leakers was to go after the reporters they were leaking to. ..."
"... The reason Trump brought up the subject of Flynn was because his case was a particularly egregious example of a career that had been destroyed by unauthorised and illegal leaking. ..."
"... In addition Mueller wants to ask Trump questions about his thoughts about Comey and his reasons for dismissing Comey, all of which suggest an attempt to catch Trump in some sort of obstruction of justice charge in relation to the circumstances of Comey's dismissal, about which however see above. ..."
"... (4) The collusion narrative has collapsed ..."
"... The lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, duped Don Jr. into setting up the meeting by claiming to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. In fact, the meeting was a bait and switch. It turned out the lawyer had no meaningful information to offer on Mrs. Clinton. Rather, she wanted to interest the Trump team in a Moscow initiative to allow American families to adopt Russian children. ..."
"... In contrast, Hillary Clinton's campaign actually helped pay for a dossier of almost entirely false accusations about Mr. Trump , some of which a British former intelligence official obtained from Russian contacts. ..."
"... Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to Mueller's investigation as a witch-hunt, and he is right. The questions Mueller is seeking to ask Trump confirm as much. ..."
May 03, 2018 | theduran.com

...Here is my take on these questions:

(1) Robert Mueller is in possession of no facts which have not previously been made public.

Every single one of the questions is obviously drawn on information which has already been made public and which has been widely discussed.

... ... ...

(2) Donald Trump continues to be Robert Mueller's target

Recently there have been media reports that Robert Mueller's investigators have informed Donald Trump that he is not a target of the Mueller investigation.

The highly aggressive questions Mueller wants to ask Trump however tell a very different story. The consistent theme behind them is of a Donald Trump who is very much at the centre of all sorts of nefarious activities. Frankly they do not look like the sort of questions an investigator asks if he searching for the truth. Rather they look like cross examination by prosecuting Counsel.

In light of this Trump's hesitation in submitting himself to an interview by Mueller in which these sort of questions are asked is fully understandable.

I suspect his lawyers are advising him against it.

(3) Obstruction of Justice has replaced collusion with Russia as the focus of the Mueller probe

When around the time of former FBI Director James Comey's admittedly botched dismissal the issue of obstruction of justice first arose, it seemed to me so farfetched that I could not bring myself to believe that Mueller or anyone else would seriously entertain it.

As I pointed out at the time the Russiagate investigation was at that point in time still a counterespionage inquiry rather than a crime inquiry, as had recently been confirmed by no less a person than James Comey himself in his March 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee.

As it happens it is a moot point when exactly the Russiagate investigation did become a criminal inquiry and not just a counterespionage inquiry.

My guess is that no such formal decision was ever taken, but that Mueller himself simply decided as soon as he was appointed Special Counsel that he was conducting a criminal inquiry as well as a counterespionage inquiry. The point is apparently being pursued by Paul Manafort's lawyers in the case Mueller has brought against him. It will be interesting to see what comes of it. Irrespective of this, the fact that the Russiagate investigation was apparently still a counterespionage inquiry as opposed to a criminal inquiry when Comey was sacked made it impossible for me to see how Comey's sacking could amount to an obstruction of justice.

What I was of course at that time completely unaware of was of the discussions which had previously passed between Trump and Comey about General Flynn.

A memo Comey wrote up after one of these discussions has been seized on by Trump's critics as evidence that he attempted to block the FBI's investigation into whether or not General Flynn had committed an offence under the Logan Act by talking whilst a member of the Trump transition team to Russian ambassador Kislyak, and that this amounts to an obstruction of justice.

When early accounts of the contents of this memo appeared I expressed my strong doubt that its contents as they were being reported showed that there had been any obstruction of justice by Donald Trump of the investigation of General Flynn

..since Comey's note shows Trump neither instructing Comey nor requesting Comey to drop the investigation against Flynn, nor of Trump putting pressure on Comey to do so, but merely shows Trump expressing the "hope" Comey would do so, in any sane world no charge of obstructing justice or of perverting the course of justice brought upon it could possibly stick.

The redacted text of this and of Comey's other memos has now been published, and the relevant sections of the memo read as follows

He [Donald Trump – AM] began by saying he "wanted to talk about Mike Flynn". He then said that although Flynn "hadn't done anything wrong" in his call with the Russians (a point he made at least two more times in the conversation), he had to let him go because he misled the Vice-President and, in any event, he had concerns about Flynn, and had a great guy coming in, so he had to let Flynn go ..

..He then referred at length to the leaks relating to Mike Flynn's call with the Russians, which he stressed was not wrong in any way ("he made lots of calls"), but that the leaks were terrible.

I tried to interject several times to agree with him about the leaks being terrible, but was unsuccessful. When he finished, I said that I agreed very much that it was terrible that his calls with foreign leaders leaked. I said they were classified and he needed to be able to speak to foreign leaders in confidence ..

He then returned to the subject of Mike Flynn, saying that Flynn is a good guy, and has been through a lot. He misled the Vice-President but he didn't do anything wrong in the call. He said, "I hope you can see your way to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." I replied by saying, "I agree he is a good guy", but said no more.

(bold italics added)

The entirety of the memo in fact shows that the main subject of the conversation and Donald Trump's major concern as of the time when the conversation took place was not General Flynn or the case against him but the systematic campaign of leaks which were undermining his administration.

The memo shows Trump putting pressure on Comey to investigate the leaks and Comey resisting doing so. Whilst Comey purported to agree with Trump that the leaks were terrible and that the leakers should be punished, he resisted Trump's suggestion that the most effective way to go after the leakers was to go after the reporters they were leaking to.

The reason Trump brought up the subject of Flynn was because his case was a particularly egregious example of a career that had been destroyed by unauthorised and illegal leaking.

In this Trump was undoubtedly right.

Over the course of this discussion – and obviously so as to emphasise the point -Trump made the further point – which is no longer disputed by anyone – that Flynn had done nothing wrong in his conversations with Kislyak, and had done nothing to deserve having his career and reputation destroyed by illegal leaking.

The memo shows that it was in the context of these observations about the way Flynn was brought down by illegal leaking that Trump made his comments about the investigation of Flynn.

Trump's point was that the investigation of Flynn for committing an offence under the Logan Act (initiated by former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates). coming on top of the illegal leaks which had destroyed his career, was tough on Flynn given that he had done nothing wrong.

Accordingly Trump said to Comey that he hoped Comey would be able to find a way to "letting [the case against Flynn] go".

It was a minor aside and it is unlikely Trump gave much thought to it. Certainly it was not intended as any sort of instruction to Comey to drop the inquiry, and the entirety of the text of the memo shows that Comey never thought it was.

In fact the memo shows that Comey agreed with Trump.

The words in the memo which I have highlighted ("I agreed very much that it was terrible that his calls with foreign leaders leaked. I said they were classified and he needed to be able to speak to foreign leaders in confidence") have attracted remarkably little attention. However they show clearly that Comey also thought that Flynn's conversation with Kislyak was lawful.

No other explanation for his words as he himself has reported them in his memo – "he needed to be able to speak to foreign leaders in confidence" – is possible.

In other words the memo shows that not only did Trump not instruct or request Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn or put pressure on Comey to do so, but on the contrary he and Comey had what was essentially a consensual conversation in which they both agreed with each other that (1) leaks are terrible; (2) Flynn had been appallingly treated by having his career and reputation destroyed by leaks; and (3) in his conversation with Kislyak Flynn had done nothing wrong.

Given that this is so it is simply impossible to see how an obstruction of justice charge can be put together from this material.

Nonetheless the drift of Mueller's questions to Trump suggests that this is still what Mueller is trying to do.

A disproportionate number of Mueller's questions concern Trump's various interactions with Comey. These include but are not limited to Trump's interactions with Comey which concerned Flynn.

In addition Mueller wants to ask Trump questions about his thoughts about Comey and his reasons for dismissing Comey, all of which suggest an attempt to catch Trump in some sort of obstruction of justice charge in relation to the circumstances of Comey's dismissal, about which however see above.

There is also a number of questions concerning Trump's sometimes fraught relationship with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the clear implication of which is that Trump's widely known and publicly expressed anger about Sessions's decision to recuse himself from the Russiagate inquiry stems from anger that Sessions would no longer be able to protect Trump from it.

Even if that is so – which it probably is – I cannot see how it amounts to obstruction of justice. Anger that Sessions had recused himself from the Russiagate inquiry and would no longer be able to protect the President is surely no more than a thought crime even if it were true, which it probably is.

Last I heard thought crimes are not actionable in America. However,judging from his questions, Mueller still seems intent on pursuing this one.

(4) The collusion narrative has collapsed

By comparison with the disproportionate number of questions devoted to the obstruction of justice allegations, the questions about the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia – the investigation of which was supposed to be the object of the Mueller inquiry – look threadbare.

All of them cover old ground, in which all the facts are known.

The first two questions concern the now notorious meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 between Donald Trump Junior and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The lack of substance to this meeting, and the extent to which it is truly a non-story, has been brilliantly explained by Ronald Kessler in The Washington Times

When it comes to President Trump and the question of collusion with Russia , there is indeed a smoking gun. But it's not the June 2016 meeting that Donald Trump Jr. , along with campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, held in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer.

The lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, duped Don Jr. into setting up the meeting by claiming to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. In fact, the meeting was a bait and switch. It turned out the lawyer had no meaningful information to offer on Mrs. Clinton. Rather, she wanted to interest the Trump team in a Moscow initiative to allow American families to adopt Russian children.

The meeting, which lasted 20 minutes, was the sort any political campaign or media outlet would have agreed to. Like investigative reporters, political operatives want to obtain tips, even if most of the time the proffered information turns out to be of no value. In this case, nothing came of the meeting. In contrast, Hillary Clinton's campaign actually helped pay for a dossier of almost entirely false accusations about Mr. Trump , some of which a British former intelligence official obtained from Russian contacts.

According to journalistic standards that existed decades ago, the fact that such a meeting took place would not have even been a story. The pretext for the meeting was a hoax, and nothing resulted from it. To suggest by running a story that there was something nefarious about it was unfair. But in today's politically charged media world, the meeting became an immediate sensation as part of a narrative -- pushed by the media and Democrats -- suggesting that the Trump campaign illegally colluded with Russia .

I have nothing to add to this masterful analysis save to say that the fact that Mueller is continuing to ask questions about a meeting at which exactly nothing happened is testimony to the hollowness of the whole collusion narrative the investigation of which Mueller's inquiry is supposed to be about.

Summary

When Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel I welcomed his appointment. What I had heard about Mueller suggested that he would be a safe pair of hands who would put the whole preposterous Russiagate conspiracy theory to bed. It is with frank embarrassment that I repeat what I wrote about him at the time of his appointment

.it is essential that with Comey gone the Russiagate investigation is put in the charge of a safe pair of hands, and of someone who will not be seen as the President's defender, and whose eventual findings are accepted, and Mueller seems by most accounts to be the sort of person to do that ..

Mueller appears to be a good choice for the job. He was a well regarded FBI director, staying in post from 2001 – when he was appointed by George W. Bush – until his retirement in 2013, when Comey replaced him. During that period he resisted the George W. Bush administration's attempts to introduce interrogation methods since characterised as torture as part of the so-called 'war on terror'. As someone well known to the staff of the FBI, he looks like the obvious person to do the job, and to steady the ship, and – hopefully – to bring some sanity to this investigation.

Mueller's job will now be to bring order to the mess Comey has created, and to bring the various investigations into Russiagate that Obama's Justice Department initiated to a proper close. If he does his job properly – and if he is left alone to do it – it should all be over by the summer.

It has long since become clear that far from Mueller being the safe pair of hands I took him for, he is someone who sees his task as protecting the Justice Department and the FBI (which he largely built up) from someone who he obviously considers to be an angry and potentially vengeful President. His proposed questions show that he still has the President in his sights, and that Mueller is pulling out all the stops to bring him down.

Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to Mueller's investigation as a witch-hunt, and he is right. The questions Mueller is seeking to ask Trump confirm as much.

[Apr 21, 2018] On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and his associates. Nunes's words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots to hide: "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said ."The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created." ..."
"... The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved. Largely because of Trump's own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted headlines like this recent one -- "Trump escalates attacks on FBI " -- from an article in The Washington Post , commiserating with the treatment accorded fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he ( dis)served . ..."
"... What motivated the characters now criminally "referred" is clear enough from a wide variety of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page. Many, however, have been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with taking such major liberties with the law. ..."
"... None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, "opposition research," or other activities directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not prison. The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to win. ..."
"... Comey admits, "It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the polls." ..."
"... The key point is not Comey's tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was "sure to be the next president." This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally referred to the Department of Justice. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men -- even very tall men. One wag claimed that the "Higher" in "A Higher Loyalty" refers simply to the very tall body that houses an outsized ego. ..."
"... "Hope springs eternal" would be the cynical folk wisdom. FYI we haven't had a functioning constitution since the National Security Act of 1947 brought this nation under color of law, but the IC types wouldn't have you know that. Too tough to square the idea you'd never have had your CIA career in a world where the FISA court couldn't exist either. ..."
"... there is concrete evidence that the Democratic party/Clinton manipulated the primaries to destroy Clinton's challanger. That the DOJ, FBI & other alphabet agencies conspired with Clinton to equally, destroy Trump's campaign. ..."
"... We saw the same nonsense with Obama, the "peace president". Obama a man who never saw a Muslim he did not want to bomb or a Jew he did not want to bail out ..."
"... The best thing about this referral is that it also demands deputy AG Rod Rosenstein the weasel to recluse himself from this case. Rosenstein is the pinnacle of corruption by the deep state. ..."
"... Former CIA Director John Brennan is the prime mover behind the ongoing coup attempt against Trump. He gathered his deep state allies at DOJ and the FBI to join him in this endeavor. Brennan's allies -- McCabe, Lynch, Strzok, Yates, ect., may or may not be aware of Brennan's true motive behind creating all the noise and distraction since the 2016 election. It could be they're just partisan hacks; or they're on board with Brennan to keep secret what was revealed in the hack of the Podesta emails. ..."
"... Assange had 'physical proof' Russians didn't hack DNC, Rohrabacher says https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/19/julian-assange-has-physical-proof-russians-didnt-h/ ..."
"... I noticed Comey tried to pull a J Edgar-style subtle blackmail on Trump by the way he brought up the so-called "dossier" ..."
"... Bill Clinton got recruited into CIA by Cord Meyer, who bragged of it himself in his cups. ..."
"... Hillary cut her teeth on CIA's Watergate purge of Nixon. (If it's news to anyone that the Watergate cast of characters was straight out of CIA central casting, Russ Baker has conclusively tied the elaborate ratfeck to the intelligence community.) ..."
"... Obama was son of spooks, grandson of spooks, greased in to Harvard by Alwaleed bin-Talal's bagman. ..."
Apr 21, 2018 | www.unz.com

Wednesday's criminal referral by 11 House Republicans of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as several former and serving top FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials is a giant step toward a Constitutional crisis.

Named in the referral to the DOJ for possible violations of federal law are: Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey; former Attorney General Loretta Lynch; former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe; FBI Agent Peter Strzok; FBI Counsel Lisa Page; and those DOJ and FBI personnel "connected to" work on the "Steele Dossier," including former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.

With no attention from corporate media, the referral was sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber. Sessions appointed Huber months ago to assist DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz. By most accounts, Horowitz is doing a thoroughly professional job. As IG, however, Horowitz lacks the authority to prosecute; he needs a U.S. Attorney for that. And this has to be disturbing to the alleged perps.

This is no law-school case-study exercise, no arcane disputation over the fine points of this or that law. Rather, as we say in the inner-city, "It has now hit the fan." Criminal referrals can lead to serious jail time. Granted, the upper-crust luminaries criminally "referred" enjoy very powerful support. And that will come especially from the mainstream media, which will find it hard to retool and switch from Russia-gate to the much more delicate and much less welcome "FBI-gate."

As of this writing, a full day has gone by since the letter/referral was reported, with total silence so far from T he New York Times and The Washington Post and other big media as they grapple with how to spin this major development. News of the criminal referral also slipped by Amy Goodman's non-mainstream DemocracyNow!, as well as many alternative websites.

The 11 House members chose to include the following egalitarian observation in the first paragraph of the letter conveying the criminal referral: "Because we believe that those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately." If this uncommon attitude is allowed to prevail at DOJ, it would, in effect, revoke the de facto "David Petraeus exemption" for the be-riboned, be-medaled, and well-heeled.

Stonewalling

Meanwhile, the patience of the chairmen of House committees investigating abuses at DOJ and the FBI is wearing thin at the slow-rolling they are encountering in response to requests for key documents from the FBI. This in-your-face intransigence is all the more odd, since several committee members have already had access to the documents in question, and are hardly likely to forget the content of those they know about. (Moreover, there seems to be a good chance that a patriotic whistleblower or two will tip them off to key documents being withheld.)

The DOJ IG, whose purview includes the FBI, has been cooperative in responding to committee requests for information, but those requests can hardly include documents of which the committees are unaware.

Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and his associates. Nunes's words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots to hide: "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said ."The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created."

Whether the House will succeed in overcoming the resistance of those criminally referred and their many accomplices and will prove able to exercise its Constitutional prerogative of oversight is, of course, another matter -- a matter that matters.

And Nothing Matters More Than the Media

The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved. Largely because of Trump's own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted headlines like this recent one -- "Trump escalates attacks on FBI " -- from an article in The Washington Post , commiserating with the treatment accorded fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he ( dis)served .

Nor is the Post above issuing transparently clever warnings -- like this one in a lead article on March 17: "Some Trump allies say they worry he is playing with fire by taunting the FBI. 'This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI's going to win,' said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. 'You can't fight the FBI. They're going to torch him.'" [sic]

Mind-Boggling Criminal Activity

What motivated the characters now criminally "referred" is clear enough from a wide variety of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page. Many, however, have been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with taking such major liberties with the law.

None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, "opposition research," or other activities directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not prison. The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to win.

But she lost.

Comey himself gives this away in the embarrassingly puerile book he has been hawking, "A Higher Loyalty" -- which

amounts to a pre-emptive move motivated mostly by loyalty-to-self, in order to obtain a Stay-Out-of-Jail card. Hat tip to Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone for a key observation, in his recent article , "James Comey, the Would-Be J. Edgar Hoover," about what Taibbi deems the book's most damning passage, where Comey discusses his decision to make public the re-opening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Comey admits, "It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the polls."

The key point is not Comey's tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was "sure to be the next president." This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally referred to the Department of Justice. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men -- even very tall men. One wag claimed that the "Higher" in "A Higher Loyalty" refers simply to the very tall body that houses an outsized ego.

I think it can be said that readers of Consortiumnews.com may be unusually well equipped to understand the anatomy of FBI-gate as well as Russia-gate. Listed below chronologically are several links that might be viewed as a kind of "whiteboard" to refresh memories. You may wish to refer them to any friends who may still be confused.

2017

2018

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years. In retirement, he co-created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Mike Whitney , April 20, 2018 at 4:15 am GMT

This story appears to be developing very fast. Interested readers might want to look at this short video on the Tucker Carlson show last night: http://video.foxnews.com/v/5773524495001/?playlist_id=5198073478001#sp=show-clips

Will McCabe wind up in jail? Will Comey? Will Hillary face justice? Fingers crossed!

jilles dykstra , April 20, 2018 at 6:05 am GMT
A weird country, the USA. Reading the article I'm reminded of the 1946 Senate investigation into Pearl Harbour, where, in my opinion, the truth was unearthed. At the same time, this truth hardly ever reached the wider public, no articles, the book, ed. Harry Elmer Barnes, never reviewed.
Greg Bacon , Website April 20, 2018 at 6:54 am GMT

Will McCabe wind up in jail? Will Comey? Will Hillary face justice? Fingers crossed!

The short answer is NO. McCabe might, but not Comey and the Killer Queen, they've both served Satan, uh I mean the Deep State too long and too well.Satan and the banksters–who really run the show–take care of their own and apex predators like Hillary won't go to jail. But it does keep the rubes entertained while the banksters continue to loot, pillage and plunder and Israel keeps getting Congress to fight their wars.

Ronald Thomas West , Website April 20, 2018 at 7:23 am GMT
"Hope springs eternal" would be the cynical folk wisdom. FYI we haven't had a functioning constitution since the National Security Act of 1947 brought this nation under color of law, but the IC types wouldn't have you know that. Too tough to square the idea you'd never have had your CIA career in a world where the FISA court couldn't exist either.

Consortium News many sops tossed to 'realpolitik' where false narrative is attacked with alternative false narrative, example given, drunk Ukrainian soldiers supposedly downing MH 17 with a BUK as opposed to Kiev's Interior Ministry behind the Ukrainian combat jet that actually brought down MH 17, poisons everything (trust issues) spewed from that news service.

The realpolitik 'face saving' exit/offer implied in the Consortium News narrative where Russia doesn't have to confront the West with Ukraine's (and by implication the western intelligence agencies) premeditated murder of 300 innocents does truth no favors.

Time to grow up and face reality. Realpolitik is dead; the caliber of 'statesman' required for these finessed geopolitical lies to function no longer exist on the Western side, and the Russians (I believe) are beginning to understand there is no agreement can be made behind closed doors that will hold up; as opposed to experiencing a backstabbing (like NATO not moving east.)

Back on topic; the National Security Act of 1947 and the USA's constitution are mutually exclusive concepts, where you have a Chief Justice appoints members of our FISA Court, er, nix that, let's call a spade a spade, it's a Star Chamber. There is no constitution to uphold, no matter well intended self deceits. There will be no constitutional crisis, only a workaround to pretend a constitution still exists:

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2017/12/01/the-oath-and-the-trash-bin/

For those who prefer the satire:

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2016/01/07/moot-court/^

animalogic , April 20, 2018 at 8:00 am GMT
To comprehend the internal machinations s of US politics one needs a mind capable of high level yoga or of squaring a circle. On the one hand there is a multimillion, full throttle investigation into – at best – nebulus, inconsequential links between trump/ his campaign & Russia.
On the other there is concrete evidence that the Democratic party/Clinton manipulated the primaries to destroy Clinton's challanger. That the DOJ, FBI & other alphabet agencies conspired with Clinton to equally, destroy Trump's campaign.

Naturally, its this 2nd conspiracy which is retarded. Imagine, a mere agency of a dept, the FBI, is widely considered untouchable by The President ! Indeed, they will "torch" him. AND the "the third estate" ie: the msm will support them the whole way! As a script the "The Twilight Zone" would have rejected all this as too ludicrous, too psychotic for even its broad minded viewers.

Jake , April 20, 2018 at 11:29 am GMT
The Deep State will make certain none of its most important functionaries get anything close to what they deserve.
redmudhooch , April 20, 2018 at 11:43 am GMT
Just a show, nothing will happen. Anything to keep you talking about anything other than 9/11, fake economy, fake war on terror, or Zionists..
jacques sheete , April 20, 2018 at 11:49 am GMT

And that will come especially from the mainstream media

I quit reading right there. Use of that term indicates mental laziness at best. What's mainstream about it? Please refer to corporate media in proper terms, such as PCR's "presstitute" media. Speaking of PCR, it's too bad he doesn't allow comments.

DESERT FOX , April 20, 2018 at 12:58 pm GMT
The MSM is controlled by Zionists as is the U.S. gov and the banks, so it is no surprise that the MSM protects the ones destroying America, this is what they do. Nothing of consequence will be done to any of the ones involved, it will all be covered up, as usual.
tjm , April 20, 2018 at 1:06 pm GMT
What utter nonsense. These people are ALL actors, no one will go to jail, because everything they do is contrived, no consequence for doing as your Zionist owners command.

There is no there there. This is nothing but another distraction, something o feed the dual narratives, that Clinton and her ilk are out to get Trump, and the "liberal media" will cover it up. This narrative feeds very nicely into the primary goal of driving Republicans/conservatives to support Trump, even as Trump does everything they elected him NOT TO DO!

We saw the same nonsense with Obama, the "peace president". Obama a man who never saw a Muslim he did not want to bomb or a Jew he did not want to bail out

Yet even while Obama did the work of the Zionist money machine, the media played up the fake battle between those who thought he was not born in America, "birthers" and his blind supporters.

Nothing came of any of it, just like Monica Lewinsky, nothing but theater, fill the air waves, divide the people, while America is driven insane.

anon [321] Disclaimer , April 20, 2018 at 1:49 pm GMT
The best thing about this referral is that it also demands deputy AG Rod Rosenstein the weasel to recluse himself from this case. Rosenstein is the pinnacle of corruption by the deep state. It's seriously way pass time for Jeff Sessions to grow a pair, put on his big boy pants, unrecuse himself from the Russian collusion bullshit case, fire Rosenstein and Mueller and end the case once and for all. These two traitors are in danger of completely derailing the Trump agenda and toppling the Republican majority in November, yet Jeff Sessions is still busy arresting people for marijuana, talk about missing the forest for the trees.

As far as where this referral will go from here, my guess is, nowhere. Not as long as Jeff Sessions the pussy is the AG. It's good to hear that Giuliani has now been recruited by Trump to be on his legal team. What Trump really needs to do is replace Jeff Sessions with Giuliani, or even Chris Christie, and let them do what a real AG should be doing, which is clean house in the DOJ, and prosecute the Clintons for their pay-to-play scheme with their foundation. Not only is the Clinton corruption case the biggest corruption case in US history, but this might be the only way to save the GOP from losing their majority in November.

anon [321] Disclaimer , April 20, 2018 at 1:54 pm GMT
@Greg Bacon

But it does keep the rubes entertained while the banksters continue to loot, pillage and plunder and Israel keeps getting Congress to fight their wars.

Sadly I think you're right. Things might be different if we had a real AG, but Jeff Sessions is not the man I thought he was. He's been swallowed by the deep state just like Trump. At least Trump is putting up a fight, Sessions just threw in the towel and recused himself from Day 1. Truly pathetic. Some patriot he is.

Twodees Partain , April 20, 2018 at 2:32 pm GMT
@Nick Granite

" He's ferreted out more than a few and probably has a lot better idea who his friends are he certainly knows the enemies by now."

He failed to ferret out Haley, Pompeo, or Sessions and he just recently appointed John Bolton, so I don't agree with your assessment. If his friends include those three, that says enough about Trump to make any of his earlier supporters drop him.

Anyway, not having a ready made team, or at least a solid short list of key appointees shows that he was just too clueless to have even been a serious candidate. It looks more as though Trump is doing now what he intended to do all along. That means he was bullshitting everybody during his campaign.

So, maybe the neocons really have been his friends all along.

Twodees Partain , April 20, 2018 at 2:46 pm GMT
@jacques sheete

It's also telling that Ray didn't mention what was included in the referral regarding an enforced recusal of Rosenstein going forward.

https://desantis.house.gov/_cache/files/8/0/8002ca75-52fc-4995-b87e-43584da268db/472EBC7D8F55C0F9E830D37CF96376A2.final-criminal-referral.pdf

Authenticjazzman , April 20, 2018 at 6:02 pm GMT
@Renoman

" America is a very crooked country, nothing suprises me".

Every country on this insane planet is "crooked" to a greater or lesser degree, when to a lesser degree, this is simply because they, the PTB, have not yet figured out how to accelerate, how to increase their corruption and thereby how to increase their unearned monetary holdings.

Money is the most potent singular factor which causes humans to lose their minds, and all of their ethics and decency.
And within the confines of a "socialist" system, "money" is replaced by rubber-stamps, which then wield, exactly in the manner of "wealth", the power of life or death, over the unwashed masses.

Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz musician.

anon [140] Disclaimer , April 20, 2018 at 7:24 pm GMT
@Ronald Thomas West

BTW Jeff Sessions is a fraternal brother of Pence (a member of the same club, same [recently deceased] guru) and is no friend of Trump.

That would explain why Sessions reclused himself from the start, and refused to appoint a special council to investigate the Clintons. He's in on this with Pence.

anon [140] Disclaimer , April 20, 2018 at 7:30 pm GMT
Just as it looks like the Comey memos will further exonerate Trump, we now have this farce extended by the DNC with this latest lawsuit on the "Trump campaign". The Democrats are now the most pathetic sore losers in history, they are hell bent on dragging the whole country down the pit of hell just because they can't handle a loss.
anon [140] Disclaimer , April 20, 2018 at 7:34 pm GMT
Wishful thinking that anything will come of this, just like when the Nunes memo was released. Nothing will happen as long as Jeff Sessions is AG. Trump needs to fire either Sessions or Rosenstein ASAP, before he gets dragged down by this whole Russian collusion bullshit case.
SunBakedSuburb , April 20, 2018 at 7:45 pm GMT
Former CIA Director John Brennan is the prime mover behind the ongoing coup attempt against Trump. He gathered his deep state allies at DOJ and the FBI to join him in this endeavor. Brennan's allies -- McCabe, Lynch, Strzok, Yates, ect., may or may not be aware of Brennan's true motive behind creating all the noise and distraction since the 2016 election. It could be they're just partisan hacks; or they're on board with Brennan to keep secret what was revealed in the hack of the Podesta emails.

John Podesta, in addition to being a top Democrat/DC lobbyist and a criminal deviant, is also a long-time CIA asset running a blackmail/influence operation that utilized his deviancy: the sexual exploitation of children.

Haxo Angmark , Website April 20, 2018 at 10:38 pm GMT
Seth Rich is still dead...
utu , April 20, 2018 at 11:33 pm GMT
Assange had 'physical proof' Russians didn't hack DNC, Rohrabacher says https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/19/julian-assange-has-physical-proof-russians-didnt-h/
UrbaneFrancoOntarian , April 21, 2018 at 12:18 am GMT
@anon

His cowardice is shocking. I wonder what they have on him? Probably some Roy Moore shit. Some shady stuff happened in the old South.

Ronald Thomas West , Website April 21, 2018 at 12:56 am GMT
@utu

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2017/09/16/incompetent-espionage-wikileaks-iii/

Yeah, and General Kelly won't let Rohrabacher meet with Trump. What do you suppose is up with that (rhetorical question)

RobinG , April 21, 2018 at 1:02 am GMT
@utu

What kind of "physical proof" could Assange have? A thumb drive that was provably American, or something? Rohrabacher only got Red Pilled on Russia because he had one very determined (and well heeled) constituent. But he did cosponsor one of Tulsi Gabbard's "Stop Funding Terrorists" bills, which he figured out on his own. Nevertheless, a bit of a loose cannon and an eff'd up hawk on Iran He's probably an 'ISIS now, Assad later' on Syria.

anonymous [185] Disclaimer , April 21, 2018 at 2:36 am GMT
I noticed Comey tried to pull a J Edgar-style subtle blackmail on Trump by the way he brought up the so-called "dossier". Anyone could see it was absurd but he played his hand with it, pretending it was being looked at. I would say Trump could see through this sleazy game Comey was trying to play and sized him up. Comey is about as slimy as they get even as he parades around trying to look noble. What a corrupt bunch.
Culloden , April 21, 2018 at 2:45 am GMT
"The culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain "

[What follows is excerpted from an article headlined Robert Mueller's Questionable Past that appeared yesterday on the American Free Press website:]

During his tenure with the Justice Department under President George H W Bush, Mueller supervised the prosecutions of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, the Lockerbie bombing (Pan Am Flight 103) case, and Gambino crime boss John Gotti. In the Noriega case, Mueller ignored the ties to the Bush family that Victor Thorn illustrated in Hillary (and Bill): The Drugs Volume: Part Two of the Clinton Trilogy. Noriega had long been associated with CIA operations that involved drug smuggling, money laundering, and arms running. Thorn significantly links Noriega to Bush family involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Regarding Pan Am Flight 103, the culprit has swayed with the immediate need for a villain. Pro-Palestinian activists, Libyans, and Iranians have all officially been blamed when US intelligence and the mainstream mass media needed to paint each as the antagonist to American freedom. Mueller toed the line, publicly ignoring rumors that agents onboard were said to have learned that a CIA drug-smuggling operation was afoot in conjunction with Pan Am flights. According to the theory, the agents were going to take their questions to Congress upon landing. The flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland.

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/

"We were in Libya for oil" (only). Who said that:

http://www.firmmagazine.com

Bennis Mardens , April 21, 2018 at 2:47 am GMT
Without exception, leftists are degenerate filth.

But they won't be going to jail.

It's kabuki theater.

Art , April 21, 2018 at 5:21 am GMT
My god – who believes this woman?

Hillary says "they would never let me be president" – she is serious. She has gone bonkers with self-pity.

This is no longer laughable – it boarders on the pathological.

Art

WhiteWolf , April 21, 2018 at 5:39 am GMT
@Bennis Mardens

There has been some former high flyers going to jail recently. Sarkozy is facing a hard time at the moment. If it can happen to a former president of France it can happen to Hillary.

Stonehands , April 21, 2018 at 6:20 am GMT
@Twodees Partain

I still read ZH articles, but the commentariat has devolved to lockeroom towel-snapping, barely above YouTube chattering.

Stonehands , April 21, 2018 at 6:42 am GMT
@Ronald Thomas West

Ronald, thank-you for posting this Doug Coe sermon; l have never heard of him. BTW are you a Christian?

Stonehands , April 21, 2018 at 7:56 am GMT
@Ronald Thomas West

Ronald, thank-you for posting this Doug Coe sermon; l have never heard of him. BTW are you a Christian?

Twodees Partain , April 21, 2018 at 10:11 am GMT
@Culloden

Here's another about Mueller's involvement with the FBI's Whitey Bulger scandal.

https://saraacarter.com/questions-still-surround-robert-muellers-boston-past/

Mueller's past is so laden with misfeasance and malfeasance that he should have been disbarred a few decades ago.

Ronald Thomas West , Website April 21, 2018 at 1:14 pm GMT
@Stonehands

Am I a Christian? Well, no. I had some exposure to Christianity but it never took hold. On the other hand, I do believe there was a historical Jesus that was a remarkable man, but there is a world (or universe) of difference between the man and the mythology. Here's some of my thoughts on the matter:

https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2013/04/11/celebrating-the-anti-christ/

^ It doesn't necessarily go where the title might suggest (for many)

CIA in Charge , April 21, 2018 at 1:58 pm GMT
@Authenticjazzman

Nothing uncanny about it. There's a frenetic Democratic cottage industry inferring magical emotional charisma powers that explain the outsized influence of those three. The fact is very simple. All three are CIA nomenklatura.

(1.) Bill Clinton got recruited into CIA by Cord Meyer, who bragged of it himself in his cups.

(2.) Hillary cut her teeth on CIA's Watergate purge of Nixon. (If it's news to anyone that the Watergate cast of characters was straight out of CIA central casting, Russ Baker has conclusively tied the elaborate ratfeck to the intelligence community.)

(3.) Obama was son of spooks, grandson of spooks, greased in to Harvard by Alwaleed bin-Talal's bagman. While he was vocationally wet behind the ears he not only got into Pakistan, no mean feat at the time, but he went to a falconry outing with the future acting president of Pakistan. And is there anyone alive who wasn't flabbergasted at the instant universal acclaim for some empty suit who made a speech at the convention? Like Bill Clinton, successor to DCI Bush, Obama was blatantly, derisively installed in the president slot of the CIA org chart.

Authenticjazzman , April 21, 2018 at 6:06 pm GMT
@CIA in Charge

Excellent post and quite accurate information, however my point being that the irrational fear harbored by the individuals who could actually begin to rope these scumbags in, is just that : Irrational, as they seem to think or have been lead/brainwashed to believe that these dissolute turds are somehow endowed with supernatural, otherworldy powers and options, and that they are capable of unholy , merciless vengeance : VF, SR, etc.

And the truth is as soon as they finally start to go after them they, they will fall apart at the seams, such as with all cowards, and this is the bottom line : They, the BC/HC/BO clique, they are nothing more than consumate cowards, who can only operate in such perfidious manners when left unchallenged.

Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro Jazz artist.

[Apr 18, 2018] The Great American Unspooling Is Upon Us

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times ..."
"... collusion with Russia ..."
Apr 18, 2018 | russia-insider.com

With spring, things come unstuck; an unspooling has begun. The turnaround at the FBI and Department of Justice has been so swift that even The New York Times has shut up about collusion with Russia -- at the same time omitting to report what appears to have been a wholly politicized FBI upper echelon intruding on the 2016 election campaign, and then laboring stealthily to un-do the election result.

The ominous silence enveloping the DOJ the week after Andrew McCabe's firing -- and before the release of the FBI Inspector General's report -- suggests to me that a grand jury is about to convene and indictments are in process, not necessarily from Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's office. The evidence already publicly-aired about FBI machinations and interventions on behalf of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump looks bad from any angle, and the wonder was that it took so long for anyone at the agency to answer for it.

McCabe is gone from office and, apparently hung out to dry on the recommendation of his own colleagues. Do not think for a moment that he will just ride off into the sunset. Meanwhile, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, have been sent to the FBI study hall pending some other shoes dropping in a grand jury room. James Comey is out hustling a book he slapped together to manage the optics of his own legal predicament (evidently, lying to a congressional committee). And way out in orbit beyond the gravitation of the FBI, lurk those two other scoundrels, John Brennan, former head of the CIA (now a CNN blabbermouth), and James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, a new and redundant post in the Deep State's intel matrix (and ditto a CNN blabbermouth). Brennan especially has been provoked to issue blunt Twitter threats against Mr. Trump, suggesting he might be entering a legal squeeze himself.

None of these public servants have cut a plea bargain yet, as far as is publicly known, but they are all, for sure, in a lot of trouble. Culpability may not stop with them. Tendrils of evidence point to a coordinated campaign that included the Obama White House and the Democratic National Committee starring Hillary Clinton. Robert Mueller even comes into the picture both at the Uranium One end of the story and the other end concerning the activities of his old friend, Mr. Comey. Most tellingly of all, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not shoved out of office but remains shrouded in silence and mystery as this melodrama plays out, tick, tick, tick.

None of this makes President Trump a more reassuring figure. His lack of decorum remains as awesome as his apparent lack of common sense. But he has labored against the most intense campaign of coordinated calumny ever seen against a chief executive and his fortitude, at least, is impressive. What is unspooling for him, and the body politic, are the nation's finances, and the dog of an economy that gets wagged by finance. Yesterday's 724-point dump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is liable to not be a fluke event, but the beginning of a cascade into the pitiless maw of reality -- the reality that just about everything is grossly mispriced.

[Mar 27, 2018] Perfidious Albion The Fatally Wounded British Beast Lashes Out by Barbara Boyd

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Skripal's MI6 recruiter and handler, Pablo Miller, listed himself as a consultant to Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele's British company, on his LinkedIn profile. When the Telegraph called attention to the Orbis reference, it was removed from the LinkedIn profile. Steele, who worked on the Trump dossier through his company Orbis, has denied that Miller worked directly on the Trump dossier. ..."
"... Theresa May and her foreign minister Boris Johnson insist there is only one person who could be responsible for the poisoning, described as an act of war, and that is Vladimir Putin. No evidence has been offered to support this claim. In fact, there is a substantial doubt whether the putative nerve agent, Novichok, even exists. ..."
"... Rather than following the protocols of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which require that evidence of the alleged agent be presented to Russia, the eccentric and unpopular May instead delivered an ultimatum to Russia and whipped up war fever throughout the UK. ..."
"... Thus, just like Christopher Steele's dirty dossier against Donald Trump, the British claims against Putin are an evidence-free exercise of raw power. The Anglo- American establishment instructed us, with respect to Steele: "trust him, ignore the stinky factless content presented in this dossier, just note that he is backed by very important intelligence agencies who could cook your goose if you object." The same can be said for Teresa May's crazed assertions now. ..."
"... Steele was an MI6 agent in Moscow around the time Skripal was recruited. He also later ran the MI6 Russia desk and would have known everything there was to know about Skripal. Pablo Miller, who recruited Skripal, according to his LinkedIn profile, worked for Steele's firm and lived in the same town as Skripal. ..."
"... Since Steele has been discredited in the United States, a huge fawning publicity campaign has been undertaken on his behalf. The campaign involves journalists who have collaborated directly with Steele in his smear job against Trump. Books by Luke Harding and Michael Isikoff seek to rebuild Steele's reputation. A fawning piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker , as implausible as it is long, has been foisted on the public for the same reason. There are some fascinating facts, however, in all this fawning prose: ..."
"... Steele and his partners are mentored by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 and a critical player in the infamous "sexing up" and fabrication of the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, creating the rationale for the disastrous and genocidal Iraq War. ..."
"... Aside from Skripal's relationship to the central figure in the British led coup against Donald Trump, there are questions whether the nerve agent the British claim was used on the Skripals even exists, and even more troubling questions for Theresa May's "Russia did it" claim, if it does. ..."
"... Dr. Robin Black, Head of the Detection Laboratory at Porton Down as of 2016, and a colleague of the murdered British Iraq War dissident David Kelly, called the existence of Novichoks speculative, noting that "no independent confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published." ..."
"... The Skripal poisoning is being compared in the British press to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The former KGB and FSB officer was granted asylum in London and worked for the infamous anti-Putin British intelligence directed oligarch Boris Berezovsky in information warfare and other attacks on the Russian state, inclusive of McCarthyite accusations against any European politician seeking sane relations with Putin. ..."
"... Litvinenko's case officer was none other than Christopher Steele, and Christopher Steele conducted MI6's investigation of the case, which, of course, found Putin himself culpable. Berezovsky's use of the disgraced British PR firm Bell, Pottinger is also credited with a significant role in public acceptance of this result. Berezovsky was a prime suspect in organizing the murder of American journalist Paul Klebnikov. Many believe that Berezovsky arranged Litvinenko's demise. Berezovsky himself died in Britain in mysterious circumstances following the loss of a major court case to another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich. ..."
"... In the parliamentary debate in which Theresa May issued her provocation, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn cautioned against a rush to judgment and pointed to the bloody playing field of Russian oligarchs and Russian organized crime as alternative areas for investigation. Had Corbyn added to that mix, "Western intelligence agencies," he would have been entirely on the right track. ..."
"... The insane McCarthyite reactions to Corbyn's simple statements of fact show that he hit the nail on the head. If you want to find Skripal's poisoners, then, like Edgar Allen Poe, you must take in the whole picture first. The field of play involves the British intelligence services and the anti-Putin Russian oligarchs who service each other, acting on behalf of British strategic objectives. It is no accident that the coup against Donald Trump and the latest British intelligence fraud, putting the entire world in peril, absolutely intersect one another. ..."
Mar 18, 2018 | LaRouchePAC
Skripal Poisoning a Desperate British Attempt to Resurrect Their American Coup

by Barbara Boyd, [email protected]

This statement explores the strategic significance of major events in the world starting in February of 2018. Our goal is to precisely situate Theresa May's March 12–14 mad effort to manufacture a new "weapons of mass destruction" hoax using the same people (the MI6 intelligence grouping around Sir Richard Dearlove) and script (an intelligence fraud concerning weapons of mass destruction) which were used to draw the United States into the disastrous Iraq War. The Skripal poisoning fraud also directly involves British agent Christopher Steele, the central figure in the ongoing coup against Donald Trump. This time the British information warfare operation is aimed at directly provoking Russia while maintaining their targeting of the U.S. population and President Trump.

As the fevered war-like media coverage and hysteria surrounding the case makes clear, a certain section of the British elite seems prepared to risk everything on behalf of their dying imperial system. Despite the hype, economic warfare and sanctions appear to be the British weapons of choice. Putin, as we shall see, recently called the West's nuclear bluff. With their Russiagate coup against Donald Trump fizzling, exposing British agent Christopher Steele and a slew of his American friends to criminal prosecution, a new tool was desperately needed to back the President of the United States into the British geopolitical corner shared by most of the American establishment. The tool is an intelligence hoax, a tried and true British product.

According to the British spy tale, a former Russian military intelligence colonel, Sergei Skripal who spied for Great Britain in Russia from the early 1990s until 2004 was poisoned, along with his daughter, on March 4 in Salisbury, England, using a nerve agent "of a type developed by the former Soviet Union." In 2010, Skripal had been exchanged in a spy swap between the United States and Russia. He had served six years in a Russian prison for spying for Britain. He had been living in the open in Britain for the last eight years. Skripal's MI6 recruiter and handler, Pablo Miller, listed himself as a consultant to Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele's British company, on his LinkedIn profile. When the Telegraph called attention to the Orbis reference, it was removed from the LinkedIn profile. Steele, who worked on the Trump dossier through his company Orbis, has denied that Miller worked directly on the Trump dossier.

Theresa May and her foreign minister Boris Johnson insist there is only one person who could be responsible for the poisoning, described as an act of war, and that is Vladimir Putin. No evidence has been offered to support this claim. In fact, there is a substantial doubt whether the putative nerve agent, Novichok, even exists. No plausible motive has been provided as to why Putin would order such a provocative murder now, ahead of the World Cup, when the Russiagate coup against him in the United States has lost all momentum. Rather than following the protocols of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which require that evidence of the alleged agent be presented to Russia, the eccentric and unpopular May instead delivered an ultimatum to Russia and whipped up war fever throughout the UK. She now seeks to pull Donald Trump and NATO into ever more aggressive moves against Russia.

Thus, just like Christopher Steele's dirty dossier against Donald Trump, the British claims against Putin are an evidence-free exercise of raw power. The Anglo- American establishment instructed us, with respect to Steele: "trust him, ignore the stinky factless content presented in this dossier, just note that he is backed by very important intelligence agencies who could cook your goose if you object." The same can be said for Teresa May's crazed assertions now.

A short statement of the reasons why the British are now staging the Skripal provocation can be found in a March 14 London Sunday Telegraph call to arms by Allister Heath, who rants: "We need a new world order to take on totalitarian capitalists in Russia and China Such an alliance would dramatically shift the global balance of power, and allow the liberal democracies finally to fight back. It would endow the world with the sorts of robust institutions that are required to contain Russia and China Britain needs a new role in the world; building such a network would be our perfect mission." Across the pond, as they say, a similar foundational statement was made by 68 former Obama Administration officials who have formed a group called National Security Action, aimed at securing Trump's impeachment and attacking Russia and China.

As visitors to the LaRouchePAC website know, Russia and China have embarked on a massive infrastructure building project in Eurasia, the center of all British geopolitical fantasies since the time of Halford MacKinder. Moreover, China's Belt and Road Initiative now encompasses more than 140 nations in the largest infrastructure-building project ever undertaken in human history. This project is a true economic engine for the future, while neo-liberal economies continue to see their productive potentials sucked dry by the massive mound of debt they have created since the 2008 financial collapse. This debt is now on a hair trigger for implosion. It is estimated by banking insiders that the City of London is sitting on a derivatives powderkeg of $700 trillion with over-the-counter derivatives accounting for another $570 trillion. The City of London will bear the major impact of the derivatives collapse.

In this strategic geometry, President Trump's support of peaceful collaboration with Russia during the campaign and his personal friendship with President Xi, marked him for the relentless coup against him waged by the British and their U.S. friends.

On top of that, President Putin delivered a mammoth strategic shock on March 1, showing new Russian weapons systems based on new physical principles which render present U.S. ABM systems and much of current U.S. war-fighting doctrine obsolete, together with the vaunted first strike capacity with which NATO has surrounded Russia. Not only is the West sitting on a new financial collapse; its vaunted military superiority has just been flanked.

It is very clear that a strategic choice now confronts the human race. In 1984, Lyndon LaRouche wrote a very profound document, "Draft Memorandum of Agreement Between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R." In it, he developed the concrete basis for peace between the two superpowers at the moment when the U.S. had adopted the LaRouche/Reagan doctrine of strategic defense. Both Reagan and LaRouche had proposed that the Russians and the United States cooperate in building and developing strategic defense against offensive nuclear weapons based on new physical principles, thereby eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation.

According to the LaRouche Doctrine, "The political foundation for durable peace must be: a) the unconditional sovereignty of each and all nation states, and b) cooperation among sovereign states to the effect of promoting unlimited opportunities to participate in the benefits of technological progress, to the mutual benefit of each and all."

Both China, in President Xi's October Address to the Party Congress, and Russia, in Putin's March 1 address, have set a course to produce "technological progress capable of being shared in by all," outlining major infrastructure projects and dedicating massive funding to exploring the frontiers of science, technology, and space exploration. Donald Trump, in both his campaign and his presidency, has embraced similar views. The British and their American friends, however, are devotees of a completely different and failing economic system, a system soundly rejected in Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and most recently in the Italian elections.

Just look at the events of February and March from this standpoint. It is no accident that Christopher Steele turns up, smack dab in the middle of the Skripal poisoning hoax.

The Coup Against Trump Begins to Be Reversed; British Are Exposed as Actual U.S. Election Meddlers

On February 2, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a memo demonstrating that the Obama Justice Department and FBI committed an outright fraud on the FISA court in obtaining surveillance warrants on Carter Page, a volunteer to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The bogus warrant applications relied heavily on the dirty British dossier authored by MI6's "former" Russian intelligence chief, Christopher Steele, who had been paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, to paint Donald Trump as a Manchurian candidate, a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to the House Intelligence memo and other aspects of its investigation, Steele confided to Bruce Ohr, a high official in the DOJ, that he, Steele, hated Trump with a passion and would do "anything" to prevent Trump's election. Steele was using the fact of an FBI investigation of his allegations as part of a "full spectrum" British information warfare campaign conducted against candidate Trump with the full complicity of Obama's intelligence chiefs. 1 Peter Van Buren, "Christopher Steele: The Real Foreign Influence in the 2016 U.S. Election?" American Conservative, February 15, 2018. None of the true facts about the actual motive for, and sponsors of, the DOJ applications about Carter Page were revealed to the FISA Court in the filings made by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former FBI Director James Comey, or current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The House Intelligence Committee memo was quickly followed by a declassified letter on February 5, in which Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsay Graham referred Christopher Steele to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution based on false statements he made to the FBI about his contacts with the news media. No doubt the criminal referral sent chills down the spines not only of Christopher Steele and his British colleagues but also of those Obama officials conspiring against Trump.

In the same week, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes announced that he would be conducting investigations of the role of the Obama State Department and intelligence chiefs in the circulation and use of Christopher Steele's dirty dossier. These investigations have been widely reported to focus on John Brennan and James Clapper: Brennan for widely promoting the dirty British work product and Clapper for leaks associated with BuzzFeed's publication and legitimization of the dirty British work product. Remind yourself every time you hear media explosions against Trump by either Clapper (Congressional perjurer and proponent of the theory that the Russians are genetically predisposed to screw the United States) or Brennan (gopher for George Tenet's perpetual war and torture regime and Grand Inquisitor for Barack Obama's serial assassinations by baseball card). They are next in the barrel, so to speak.

The January 11, 2017 BuzzFeed publication of the Steele dossier was meant to permanently poison Trump's incoming administration and is the subject of libel suits in both Florida and London. In the London case, the British are ready to invoke the Official Secrets Act to protect Christopher Steele. In the Florida case, Steele has been ordered to sit for deposition despite numerous delays and stalling tactics.

The Congressional investigation of the State Department is focused on John Kerry, Kerry's aide Jonathan Winer, Victoria Nuland, and Clinton operative Cody Shearer. Nuland utilized Christopher Steele as a primary intelligence source while running the U.S. regime change operations in Ukraine in alliance with neo-Nazis. She greenlighted Steele's initial meetings with the FBI about Donald Trump. Winer deployed himself to vouch for Steele with various news publications collaborating with British agent Steele and his U.S. employer, Fusion GPS, in Steele's media warfare operations against Trump.

  • On March 12, the House Intelligence Committee announced that it had completed its Russia investigation. It stated that it found "no collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia." Its draft final report was to have been provided to the Democrats on the Committee on March 13 for comment and then submitted to declassification review.
  • On March 15, four U.S. Senators from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, and Thom Tillis, called for the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate the DOJ and FBI with respect to the Russiagate investigation. They particularly focused on the use of the Steele dossier, FISA abuse, the disclosure of classified information to the press, and the criminal investigation and case of former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Separately, House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte have asked the Justice Department to appoint a Special Counsel on similar grounds.
  • On March 16, James Comey's Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, was fired as the result of recommendations by the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). The OPR recommendation resulted from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's investigation of McCabe's actions with respect to the Clinton email investigation and the Clinton Foundation. McCabe claimed that this was part of a plot against himself, Comey, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Michael Horowitz, however, is an actual Washington straight shooter appointed to his post by Barack Obama. The OPR is the FBI's own disciplinary agency. Horowitz's report is expected to be extremely critical of McCabe, citing a "lack of candor," (i.e., lying) with respect to the investigation. Whatever the corrupt media might claim, the facts here have been thoroughly investigated by McCabe's former FBI subordinates. They think his lies and other actions disgrace the FBI and don't entitle him to a pension.

Horowitz's report on the Clinton investigations, which already unearthed the texts between former Russiagate lead case agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, proclaiming their hatred of Donald Trump and the need for an "insurance policy" against his election, is expected to be released very soon. According to the House Intelligence Committee, the Strzok/Page texts also reveal that Strzok was a close friend of U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras. Contreras sits on the FISA court, took Michael Flynn's guilty plea, and then promptly recused himself from Michael Flynn's case for reasons which remain undisclosed.

Despite its exoneration of the President, and thorough discrediting of the British Steele operation, the House Intelligence Committee dangerously accepts the myth that the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee, the DCCC, and the emails of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta, and then provided the hacked information to WikiLeaks for publication. It states, however, that Putin's intervention was not in support of Donald Trump, as previously claimed by Obama's intelligence chiefs. The Senators seeking a new Special Counsel also salute this dangerous fraud.

As we have previously reported, the myth that Putin hacked the Democrats and provided the hacked emails to WikiLeaks, has been substantively refuted by the investigations of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. In summary, the evidence points to a leak rather than a hack in the case of the DNC. Further, the NSA would have the evidence of any such hack or hacks, according to former NSA technical director Bill Binney, and would have provided it, even if in a classified setting. It is clear that the NSA has no such evidence. It is also clear that the U.S. and the British have cyber warfare capabilities fully capable of creating "false flag" cyber war incidents.

North Korea Talks Planned; Russia and China Continue to Create the Conditions for a New Human Renaissance

In addition to the fizzling of the coup, the Western elites otherwise suffered through February and March. To the shock of the entire smug Davos crowd, Donald Trump, working with Russia, China, and South Korea, appears to have gotten Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table concerning denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Substantive talks have been scheduled for May. The breakthrough was announced by President Trump and South Korea on March 8.

On March 1, President Putin gave his historic two-hour address to the Russian assembly and the Russian people. Like President Xi's address to the Chinese Party Congress in October of 2017, Putin focused on the goal of deeply reducing poverty in Russian society. Xi vowed in October to eliminate it from Chinese society altogether. In addition, Putin emphasized that Russia would undertake a huge city-building project across its vast rural frontiers and dramatically expand its modern infrastructure, including Russia's digital infrastructure. He put major emphasis on directing funds to basic scientific and technological progress. He emphasized that harnessing and stimulating the creative powers of individual human beings was the true driver of all economic progress. Those knowledgeable in the West could not help but recognize the suppressed formulas for continuing economic prosperity advocated by Alexander Hamilton and advanced by Lyndon LaRouche.

China's Belt and Road Initiative also continued to advance. Great infrastructure projects are popping up throughout the world, including most specifically in Africa, which had been consigned to be a permanent primitive looting ground for Western interests. Among the recent breakthroughs is the great project to refurbish Lake Chad, a project known as "Transaqua," involving the Italian engineering firm Bonifica, the Chinese engineering and construction firm PowerChina, and the Lake Chad Basin Commission, which represents the African countries directly benefiting from the project.

But the biggest strategic news of the last six weeks was contained in the last part of President Putin's speech. He showed various weapons, developed by Russian scientists in the wake of the U.S. abrogation of the ABM treaty and the Anglo-American campaign of color revolutions and NATO base-building in the former Soviet bloc. The weapons, based on new physical principles, render U.S. ABM defenses obsolete, together with many utopian U.S. war fighting doctrines developed under the reigns of Obama and Bush. Putin emphasized that the economic and "defense" aspects of his speech were not separate. Rather, the scientific breakthroughs were based on an in-depth economic mobilization of the physical economy. He stressed that Russia's survival was dependent upon marshaling continuous creative breakthroughs in basic science and the high technology spinoffs which result, and their propagation through the entire population. He stressed that such breakthroughs are the product of providing an actually human existence to the entire society.

Compare what Russia and China have set out to accomplish with the physical economy of the earth, and the second and third paragraphs of Lyndon LaRouche's prescription for a durable peace in the LaRouche Doctrine: "The most crucial feature of present implementation of such a policy of durable peace is a profound change in the monetary, economic, and political relations between dominant powers and those relatively subordinated nations often classed as 'developing nations.' Unless the inequities lingering in the aftermath of modern colonialism are progressively remedied, there can be no durable peace on this planet.

"Insofar as the United States and the Soviet Union acknowledge the progress of the productive powers of labor throughout the planet to be in the vital strategic interests of each and both, the two powers are bound to that degree and in that way by a common interest. This is the kernel of the political and economic policies of practice indispensable to the fostering of a durable peace between those two powers."

This is the perspective which has the British terrified and acting out, insanely. Were Trump, Putin, and Xi to enter into negotiations based on the LaRouche Doctrine, a breakthrough will have occurred for all of mankind, a breakthrough to a permanent and durable peace. No neo-liberal, post-industrial, unipolar order can match this, no matter how much Mr. Heath, Ms. May, or Boris Johnson rant and rave about it.

Christopher Steele's British Playground

As is well known by now, Christopher Steele was a long time MI6 agent before "retiring" to form his own extremely lucrative private intelligence firm. The firm is said to have earned $200 million since its formation. Steele was an MI6 agent in Moscow around the time Skripal was recruited. He also later ran the MI6 Russia desk and would have known everything there was to know about Skripal. Pablo Miller, who recruited Skripal, according to his LinkedIn profile, worked for Steele's firm and lived in the same town as Skripal.

Since Steele has been discredited in the United States, a huge fawning publicity campaign has been undertaken on his behalf. The campaign involves journalists who have collaborated directly with Steele in his smear job against Trump. Books by Luke Harding and Michael Isikoff seek to rebuild Steele's reputation. A fawning piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker , as implausible as it is long, has been foisted on the public for the same reason. There are some fascinating facts, however, in all this fawning prose:

Steele described his business to Luke Harding as primarily providing research and reports to competing and feuding Russian oligarchs, many of whom use London as a base of operations. This is obviously a perfect cover for intelligence operations. It is also a very violent theater of operations. The oligarchs intersect both Western intelligence operations and Russian organized crime. They engage in deadly gang warfare.

Steele and his partners are mentored by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 and a critical player in the infamous "sexing up" and fabrication of the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, creating the rationale for the disastrous and genocidal Iraq War.

Steele had been tasked to claim that Russia was interfering in Western elections during the entire post-Ukraine coup time frame in which this black propaganda line began to be circulated widely. According to Jane Mayer's account, Steele called this Project Charlemagne, completing his report in April, 2016, just before he undertook his hit job against Donald Trump. In his report, Steele claimed that Russia was interfering in the politics of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Turkey. He claimed that Russia was conducting social media warfare aimed at "inflaming fear and prejudice and had provided opaque financial support to favored politicians." He specifically targeted Silvio Berlusconi and Marine La Pen. Steele also suggested that Russian aid was given to "lesser known right wing nationalists" in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, implying that the Russians were behind Brexit, with an overall goal of destroying the European Union.

Aside from Skripal's relationship to the central figure in the British led coup against Donald Trump, there are questions whether the nerve agent the British claim was used on the Skripals even exists, and even more troubling questions for Theresa May's "Russia did it" claim, if it does.

Former British Ambassador Craig Murray reports that the British chemical weapons laboratory at Porton Down, just 8 miles from where the Skripals were found, is unsure about what substance, if any, was actually involved in the Skripal poisoning. According to Murray's sources at Porton Down, the scientists were pressured to say that it was a nerve agent of a "type developed by Russia." This is supposed to refer to a whole family of chemical weapons, the Novichoks, which were supposedly produced in the 1980s in a Soviet laboratory in Uzbekistan. This production facility was completely dismantled by the United States, according to multiple accounts. Dr. Robin Black, Head of the Detection Laboratory at Porton Down as of 2016, and a colleague of the murdered British Iraq War dissident David Kelly, called the existence of Novichoks speculative, noting that "no independent confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published."

The main account supporting the existence of the chemical weapons cited by Theresa May was written by a Soviet dissident chemist named Vil Mirzayanov who now lives in the United States and published a book about his work at the Uzbekistan laboratory. In his much-publicized book, Mirzayanov sets out the formulas for the claimed substances. According to the Wall Street Journal of March 16, that publicity led to Novichok's chemical structure being leaked, making it readily available for reproduction elsewhere. Ralf Trapp, a France-based consultant and expert on the control of chemical and biological weapons, told the Journal, "The chemical formula has been publicized and we know from publications from then-Czechoslovakia that they had worked on similar agents for defense in the 1980s . I'm sure other countries with developed programs would have as well."

But it does not seem that those "other countries" include Russia. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the independent agency charged by treaty with investigating claims like those just made by the British government, certified in September of 2017 that the Russian government had destroyed its entire chemical weapons program, inclusive of its nerve agent production capabilities. In addition to Mirzayanov, Seamus Martin, writing in the Irish Times of March 14, posits, based on personal knowledge, that Novichoks were widely expropriated by East Bloc oligarchs and criminal elements in the Russian economic chaos of the 1990s.

Thus, Novichoks are the product of the mind of a dissident Russian chemist living in the United States whose formulas have been widely copied by other countries, according to the press accounts. Porton Downs, the very laboratory now asserting their existence, stated as of 2016 that even this published "fact" was to be substantially doubted.

Further trouble for May's attempted hoax is found in the condition of the Skripals and a police officer who went to their home. All were made critically ill, although they are still alive. Yet emergency personnel who treated the Skripals, allegedly the victims of a deadly and absolutely lethal nerve poison, suffered no ill effects whatsoever.

The Skripal poisoning is being compared in the British press to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The former KGB and FSB officer was granted asylum in London and worked for the infamous anti-Putin British intelligence directed oligarch Boris Berezovsky in information warfare and other attacks on the Russian state, inclusive of McCarthyite accusations against any European politician seeking sane relations with Putin.

Litvinenko's case officer was none other than Christopher Steele, and Christopher Steele conducted MI6's investigation of the case, which, of course, found Putin himself culpable. Berezovsky's use of the disgraced British PR firm Bell, Pottinger is also credited with a significant role in public acceptance of this result. Berezovsky was a prime suspect in organizing the murder of American journalist Paul Klebnikov. Many believe that Berezovsky arranged Litvinenko's demise. Berezovsky himself died in Britain in mysterious circumstances following the loss of a major court case to another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich.

In the parliamentary debate in which Theresa May issued her provocation, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn cautioned against a rush to judgment and pointed to the bloody playing field of Russian oligarchs and Russian organized crime as alternative areas for investigation. Had Corbyn added to that mix, "Western intelligence agencies," he would have been entirely on the right track. Corbyn also pointed out that these oligarchs had contributed millions to May's Conservative party. The reaction by the British media, May's conservatives, and Tony Blair's faction of the Labor Party was to paint Corbyn as a Putin dupe, including photo-shopped images of the Labor leader in a Russian winter hat in front of the Kremlin widely circulated in the news media.

The insane McCarthyite reactions to Corbyn's simple statements of fact show that he hit the nail on the head. If you want to find Skripal's poisoners, then, like Edgar Allen Poe, you must take in the whole picture first. The field of play involves the British intelligence services and the anti-Putin Russian oligarchs who service each other, acting on behalf of British strategic objectives. It is no accident that the coup against Donald Trump and the latest British intelligence fraud, putting the entire world in peril, absolutely intersect one another.

[Mar 27, 2018] Let's Investigate John Brennan, by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
What is interesting is a strong Brennan connections with UK and his possiblke role in Steel dossier creation and propogation. Which actually were typical for many members of Trump administration. He also has connections with Saudi intelligence services
Notable quotes:
"... So Morell is by his own words clearly an idiot, which explains a lot about what is wrong with CIA and is probably why he is now a consultant with CBS News instead of serving as Agency Director under the beneficent gaze of President Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Back in 2013 John Brennan, then Obama's counter-terrorism advisor, had a difficult time with the Senate Intelligence Committee explaining some things that he did when he was still working at CIA. ..."
"... He claimed that he had only "raised serious questions" in his own mind on the interrogation issue after reading the 525 page summary of the 6,000 page report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee which detailed the failure of the Agency program. Brennan's reaction, however, suggested at a minimum that he had read only the rebuttal material produced by CIA that had deliberately inflated the value of the intelligence produced. ..."
"... Surprisingly the subject of rendition, which Brennan must surely have been involved with while at CIA, hardly surfaced though two other interesting snippets emerged from the questioning. ..."
"... Brennan was not questioned at all about the conflict of interest or ethical issues raised by the revolving door that he benefited from when he left CIA as Deputy Executive Director in 2005 and joined a British-owned company called The Analysis Corporation (TAC) where he was named CEO. ..."
"... At the Center of the Storm ..."
"... Brennan certainly knew how to feather his nest and reward his friends, but the area that is still murky relates to what exactly he was up to in 2016 when he was CIA Director and also quite possibly working hard to help Hillary get elected. He was still at it well after Trump got elected and assumed office. In May 2017, his testimony before Congress was headlined in a Washington Post ..."
"... The precise money quote by Brennan that the two articles chiefly rely on is "I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals." ..."
"... The testimony inevitably raises some questions about just what Brennan was actually up to. First of all, the CIA is not supposed to keep tabs on American citizens and tracking the activities of known associates of a presidential candidate should have sent warning bells off, yet Brennan clearly persisted in following the trail. ..."
"... it is clear that Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected, which admittedly was a longshot at the time. That is how Russiagate began. ..."
"... So, Mr. Brennan, for all his bluster and scarcely concealed anger, has a lot of baggage, to include his possible role in coordinating with other elements in the national security agencies as well as with overseas parties to get their candidate Hillary Clinton elected. ..."
Mar 27, 2018 | www.unz.com
Philip Giraldi • March 27, 2018 • 1,700 Words • 2 Comments • Reply

Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan, a Barack Obama friend and protégé as well as a current paid contributor for NBC and MSNBC, has blasted President Donald Trump for congratulating President Vladimir Putin over his victory in recent Russian national elections. He said that the U.S. President is "afraid of the president of Russia" and that the Kremlin "may have something on him personally. The fact that he has had this fawning attitude toward Mr. Putin continues to say to me that he does have something to fear and something very serious to fear."

It is an indication of how low we have sunk as a nation that a possible war criminal like Brennan can feel free to use his former official status as a bully pulpit to claim that someone is a foreign spy without any real pushback or objection from the talking heads and billionaire manipulators that unfortunately run our country. If Trump is actually being blackmailed, as Brennan implies, what evidence is there for that? One might reasonably conclude that Brennan and his associates are actually angry because Trump has had the temerity to try to improve relations with Russia.

It is ironic that when President Trump does something right he gets assailed by the same crowd that piles on when he does something stupid, leading to the conclusion that unless The Donald is attacking another country, when he is lauded as becoming truly presidential, he cannot ever win with the inside the Beltway Establishment crowd. Brennan and a supporting cast of dissimulating former intelligence chiefs opposed Trump from the git-go and were perfectly willing to make things up to support Hillary and the status quo that she represented. It was, of course, a status quo that greatly and personally benefited that ex-government crowd which by now might well be described as the proverbial Deep State.

The claim that Trump is a Russian agent is not a new one since it is an easy mark to allege something that you don't have to prove. During the campaign, one was frequently confronted on the television by the humorless stare of the malignant Michael Morell, former acting CIA Director, who wrote in a mind numbing August 2016 op-ed how he was proud to support Hillary Clinton because of her "commitment to our nation's security: her belief that America is an exceptional nation that must lead in the world for the country to remain secure and prosperous; her understanding that diplomacy can be effective only if the country is perceived as willing and able to use force if necessary; and her capacity to make the most difficult decision of all: whether to put young American women and men in harm's way." Per Morell, she was a "proponent of a more aggressive approach [in Syria], one that might have prevented the Islamic State from gaining a foothold "

But Morell saved his finest vitriol for Donald Trump, observing how Vladimir Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them" obtained the services of one fairly obscure American businessman named Trump without even physically meeting him. Morell, given his broad experience as an analyst and desk jockey, notes, "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." An "unwitting agent" is a contradiction in terms, but one wouldn't expect Morell to know that. Nor would John Brennan, who was also an analyst and desk jockey before he was elevated by an equally witless President Barack Obama.

So Morell is by his own words clearly an idiot, which explains a lot about what is wrong with CIA and is probably why he is now a consultant with CBS News instead of serving as Agency Director under the beneficent gaze of President Hillary Clinton.

Well, Trump's fractured foreign policy aside, I have some real problems with folks like Michael Morell and John Brennan throwing stones. Both can be reasonably described as war criminals due to what they did during the war on terror and also as major subverters of the Constitution of the United States that has emerged as part of the saga of the 2016 election, the outcome of which, ironically, is being blamed on the Russians.

Back in 2013 John Brennan, then Obama's counter-terrorism advisor, had a difficult time with the Senate Intelligence Committee explaining some things that he did when he was still working at CIA. He was predictably attacked by some senators concerned over the expanding drone program, which he supervised; over CIA torture; for the kill lists that he helped manage; and regarding the pervasive government secrecy, which he surely condoned to cover up the questionable nature of the assassination lists and the drones. Not at all surprisingly, he was forced to defend the policies of the administration that he was then serving in, claiming that the United States is "at war with al-Qaeda." But he did cite his basic disagreement with the former CIA interrogation policies and expressed his surprise at learning that enhanced interrogation, which he refused to label torture because he is "no lawyer," had not provided any unique or actionable information. He claimed that he had only "raised serious questions" in his own mind on the interrogation issue after reading the 525 page summary of the 6,000 page report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee which detailed the failure of the Agency program. Brennan's reaction, however, suggested at a minimum that he had read only the rebuttal material produced by CIA that had deliberately inflated the value of the intelligence produced.

Surprisingly the subject of rendition, which Brennan must surely have been involved with while at CIA, hardly surfaced though two other interesting snippets emerged from the questioning. One was his confirmation that the government has its own secret list of innocent civilians killed by drones while at the same time contradicting himself by maintaining that the program does not actually exist and that if even if it did exist such fatalities do not occur. And more directly relevant to Brennan himself, Senator John D. Rockefeller provided an insight into the classified sections of the Senate report on CIA torture, mentioning that the enhanced interrogation program was both "managed incompetently" and "corrupted by personnel with pecuniary conflicts of interest." One would certainly like to learn more about the presumed contractors who profited corruptly from waterboarding and one would like to know if they were in any way punished, an interesting sidebar as Brennan has a number of times spoken about the need for accountability.

Brennan was not questioned at all about the conflict of interest or ethical issues raised by the revolving door that he benefited from when he left CIA as Deputy Executive Director in 2005 and joined a British-owned company called The Analysis Corporation (TAC) where he was named CEO. He made almost certainly some millions of dollars when the Agency and other federal agencies awarded TAC contracts to develop biometrics and set up systems to manage the government's various watch lists before rejoining the government with a full bank account to help him along his way. Brennan also reportedly knew how to return a favor, giving his former boss at CIA George Tenet a compensated advisory position in his company and also hosting in 2007 a book signing for Tenet's At the Center of the Storm . The by-invitation-only event included six hundred current and former intelligence officers, some of whom waited for hours to have Tenet sign copies of the book, which were provided by TAC.

Brennan certainly knew how to feather his nest and reward his friends, but the area that is still murky relates to what exactly he was up to in 2016 when he was CIA Director and also quite possibly working hard to help Hillary get elected. He was still at it well after Trump got elected and assumed office. In May 2017, his testimony before Congress was headlined in a Washington Post front page featured article as Brennan's explosive testimony just made it harder for the GOP to protect Trump . The article stated that Brennan during the 2016 campaign "reviewed intelligence that showed 'contacts and interaction' between Russian actors and people associated with the Trump campaign." Politico was also in on the chase in an article entitled Brennan: Russia may have successfully recruited Trump campaign aides .

The precise money quote by Brennan that the two articles chiefly rely on is "I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals."

The testimony inevitably raises some questions about just what Brennan was actually up to. First of all, the CIA is not supposed to keep tabs on American citizens and tracking the activities of known associates of a presidential candidate should have sent warning bells off, yet Brennan clearly persisted in following the trail. What Brennan did not describe, because it was "classified," was how he came upon the information in the first place. We know from Politico and other sources that it came from foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians, and there has to be a strong suspicion that the forwarding of at least some of that information might have been sought or possibly inspired by Brennan unofficially in the first place. But whatever the provenance of the intelligence, it is clear that Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected, which admittedly was a longshot at the time. That is how Russiagate began.

So, Mr. Brennan, for all his bluster and scarcely concealed anger, has a lot of baggage, to include his possible role in coordinating with other elements in the national security agencies as well as with overseas parties to get their candidate Hillary Clinton elected. Brennan should be thoroughly investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, to include subpoenaing all records at CIA relating to the Trump inquiries before requiring testimony under oath of Brennan himself with possible legal consequences if he is caught lying

[Mar 24, 2018] Assange Suggests British Government Was Involved In Plot To Bring Down Trump by Steve Watson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... We finally have the most concrete evidence yet of shadowy actors using dirty tricks in order to rig elections ..."
"... In a series of tweets Thursday night, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange suggested that there is evidence indicating that the British government and intelligence agencies were involved in a plot to bring down the Trump presidency. Assange laid out the possible role that he believes MI6 and the government played in the so called 'dirty dossier' scandal ..."
"... Misfud worked in Riyadh for a "think tank" run by the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al Faisal. (BBC) ..."
"... Misfud 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 be both present in this phone https://t.co/HAbldyx73m pic.twitter.com/xtaGEiZxQG ..."
"... It was Alexander Downer in London, closely associated with Hakluyt (now Holdingham Group Ltd) a private MI6 outfit, that met with Papadopulos. The FBI used AD's statement about Misfud to open the FISA interception warrants against the Trump camp. https://t.co/O9wT5ufPQE ..."
Mar 23, 2018 | www.infowars.com

" We finally have the most concrete evidence yet of shadowy actors using dirty tricks in order to rig elections "

351 Comments

In a series of tweets Thursday night, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange suggested that there is evidence indicating that the British government and intelligence agencies were involved in a plot to bring down the Trump presidency. Assange laid out the possible role that he believes MI6 and the government played in the so called 'dirty dossier' scandal :

There is something very odd about the Joseph Mifsud story and the role of the UK in the 2016 US presidential election:
(thread)

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

1/ Boris Johnson met with Misfud on 19 Oct 2017 (Politico) https://t.co/SYxQZMMWMn

But who's the guy on the right? pic.twitter.com/VzIc8vVeTz

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

Assange notes that back in November, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was pictured meeting with Joseph Mifsud, a professor with strong Kremlin ties who also worked for a group run by the former head of Saudi intelligence.

2/ Misfud worked in Riyadh for a "think tank" run by the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al Faisal. (BBC) https://t.co/rBYoTIWE2X pic.twitter.com/6quB4oYFCk

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

3/ Misfud 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 be both present in this phone https://t.co/HAbldyx73m pic.twitter.com/xtaGEiZxQG

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

Assange notes that The FBI used MI6 associate Alexander Downer's statement about Misfud to open the FISA interception warrants against the Trump camp:

4/ It was Alexander Downer in London, closely associated with Hakluyt (now Holdingham Group Ltd) a private MI6 outfit, that met with Papadopulos. The FBI used AD's statement about Misfud to open the FISA interception warrants against the Trump camp. https://t.co/O9wT5ufPQE

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

Assange then highlights how each move by the British government and its associates aided the opposition campaign against Trump:

5/ It was former UK MI6 officer Christopher Steele who compiled the smear filled "Steel Dossier" funded by Hillary Clinton

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

6/ The UK government approved of giving the Steele dossier to the Obama FBI

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

7/ It was the UK government that issued a press suppression notice (DA Notice) about Steele https://t.co/Wwj7fWWCqX

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

8/ Steele used former UK ambassador Sir Andrew Wood to funnel the dossier to the Trump hating Senator John McCain; seemingly deliberately moving the handover out of London, to Canada. https://t.co/hzMAuTasFn

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

9/ UK government TV then "verified" the dossier. The reporter? Paul Wood, a reporter who has been repeatedly operated within UK military and intelligence covert operation zones. https://t.co/jyN0XLHgKj pic.twitter.com/vKpk7Cbzzg

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

10/ CIA Director John Brennan: https://t.co/G9yWuJaI6Y

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 22, 2018

Assange followed up with a tweet concerning election interference at the hands of the British government.

"We finally have the most concrete evidence yet of shadowy actors using dirty tricks in order to rig elections. But these characters aren't operating from Moscow Instead, they are British, Eton educated, and have close ties to Her Majesty " https://t.co/14nQXGa90H

-- Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 23, 2018

Clearly the Wikileaks head is suggesting that rather than 'muh Russians' being the shady actors trying to rig the election in favor of Trump, of which there has been no evidence, it may in fact have been British government and intelligence operatives attempting to rig the election to stop Trump getting into office.

[Mar 23, 2018] Skripal Poisoning a Desperate British Attempt To Resurrect Their American Coup by Barbara Boyd

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... According to the British spy tale, a former Russian military intelligence colonel, Sergei Skripal, who spied for Great Britain in Russia from the early 1990s until 2004, was poisoned, along with his daughter, on March 4 in Salisbury, England, using a nerve agent "of a type developed by Russia." In 2010, Skripal had been exchanged in a spy swap between the United States and Russia. He had served six years in a Russian prison for spying for Britain. He had been living in the open in Britain for the last eight years. Skripal's MI6 recruiter and handler, Pablo Miller, listed himself as a consultant to Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele's British company, on his LinkedIn profile. When the London Daily Telegraph called attention to the Orbis reference, it was removed from the profile. Steele, who worked on the Trump dossier through his company Orbis, has denied that Miller worked directly on that dossier. ..."
"... Rather than following the protocols of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which require that evidence of the alleged agent be presented to Russia, the eccentric and unpopular May instead delivered an ultimatum to Russia, and whipped up war fever throughout the UK. She now seeks to pull Donald Trump and NATO into ever more aggressive moves against Russia. ..."
"... A short statement of the reasons why the British are now staging the Skripal provocation can be found in a March 14 London Daily Telegraph call to arms by Allister Heath, who rants: "We need a new world order to take on totalitarian capitalists in Russia and China. Such an alliance would dramatically shift the global balance of power, and allow the liberal democracies finally to fight back. It would endow the world with the sorts of robust institutions that are required to contain Russia and China. Britain needs a new role in the world; building such a network would be our perfect mission." Across the pond, as they say, a similar foundational statement was made by 68 former Obama Administration officials who have formed a group called National Security Action, aimed at securing Trump's impeachment and attacking Russia and China. ..."
"... China's "Belt and Road Initiative" now encompasses more than 140 nations in the largest infrastructure-building project ever undertaken in human history. This project is a true economic engine for the future. At the same time, the neo-liberal economies of the trans-Atlantic region continue to see their productive potentials sucked dry by the massive piles of debt they have created since the 2008 financial collapse. ..."
"... Just look at the events of February and March from this standpoint. It is no accident that Christopher Steele turns up, smack dab in the middle of the Skripal poisoning hoax. ..."
"... None of the true facts about the actual motive for, and sponsors of, the DOJ applications involving Carter Page were revealed to the FISA Court in the filings made by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former FBI Director James Comey, or current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. ..."
"... Since Steele has been discredited in the United States, a huge fawning publicity campaign has been undertaken on his behalf. The campaign involves journalists who have collaborated directly with Steele in his smear job against Trump. Books by Luke Harding and Michael Isikoff seek to rebuild Steele's reputation. ..."
"... A fawning piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, as implausible as it is long, has been foisted on the public for the same reason. ..."
"... Steele described his business to Luke Harding as primarily providing research and reports to competing and feuding Russian oligarchs, many of whom use London as a base of operations. This is obviously a perfect cover for intelligence operations. It is also a very violent theater of operations. The oligarchs intersect both Western intelligence operations and Russian organized crime. They engage in deadly gang warfare. ..."
"... Steele and his partners are mentored by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 and a critical player in the infamous "sexing up" and fabrication of the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, ..."
"... Steele had been tasked to claim that Russia was interfering in Western elections during the entire post-Ukraine coup time-frame, when this black propaganda line began to be circulated widely. ..."
"... The background to Porton Down's reluctance, is of course former Prime Minister Blair's phony dossier on Iraqi WMD, which Lyndon LaRouche fought, alongside the late British arms expert David Kelly, who exposed the "dodgy dossier," at the time. ..."
"... Thus, after being disclosed by a dissident Russian chemist living in the United States, novichoks have been widely copied by other countries, according to the press accounts. ..."
"... The insane McCarthyite reactions to Corbyn's simple statements of fact show that he hit the nail on the head. If you want to find Skripal's poisoners, then, like Edgar Allen Poe, you must take in the whole picture first. The field of play involves the British intelligence services and the anti-Putin Russian oligarchs, each of which services the other, acting on behalf of British strategic objectives. It is no accident that the coup against Donald Trump and the latest British intelligence fraud, putting the entire world in peril, absolutely intersect one another. ..."
Mar 18, 2018 | www.larouchepub.com

Skripal Poisoning a Desperate British Attempt To Resurrect Their American Coup

by Barbara Boyd

[ Print version of this article ]

March 18 -- In this report, we will explore the strategic significance of major events in the world starting in February 2018. Our goal is to precisely situate British Prime Minister Theresa May's March 12-14 mad effort to manufacture a new "weapons of mass destruction" hoax based on the alleged Skripal poisoning, using the same people (the MI6 intelligence grouping around Sir Richard Dearlove) and script (an intelligence fraud concerning weapons of mass destruction) which were used to draw the United States into the disastrous Iraq War.

The Skripal poisoning fraud also directly involves British agent Christopher Steele, the central figure in the ongoing coup against Donald Trump. This time the British information warfare operation is aimed at directly provoking Russia, while maintaining the targeting of the U.S. population and President Trump.

As the fevered, war-like media coverage and hysteria surrounding the case make clear, a certain section of the British elite seems prepared to risk everything on behalf of its dying imperial system. Despite the hype, economic warfare and sanctions appear to be the British weapons of choice -- Vladimir Putin, as we shall see, recently called the West's nuclear bluff. With the British "Russiagate" coup against Donald Trump fizzling, exposing British agent Christopher Steele and a slew of his American friends to criminal prosecution, a new tool was desperately needed to back the President of the United States into the British geopolitical corner shared by most of the American establishment. The tool they are using to do this is an intelligence hoax, a tried-and-true British product.

According to the British spy tale, a former Russian military intelligence colonel, Sergei Skripal, who spied for Great Britain in Russia from the early 1990s until 2004, was poisoned, along with his daughter, on March 4 in Salisbury, England, using a nerve agent "of a type developed by Russia." In 2010, Skripal had been exchanged in a spy swap between the United States and Russia. He had served six years in a Russian prison for spying for Britain. He had been living in the open in Britain for the last eight years. Skripal's MI6 recruiter and handler, Pablo Miller, listed himself as a consultant to Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele's British company, on his LinkedIn profile. When the London Daily Telegraph called attention to the Orbis reference, it was removed from the profile. Steele, who worked on the Trump dossier through his company Orbis, has denied that Miller worked directly on that dossier.

Theresa May and her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, insist there is only one person who could be responsible for the poisoning -- described as an act of war -- and that person is Vladimir Putin. No evidence has been offered to support this claim. No plausible motive has been provided as to why Putin would order such a provocative murder now, ahead of the World Cup, when the Russiagate coup in the United States has lost all momentum.

Rather than following the protocols of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which require that evidence of the alleged agent be presented to Russia, the eccentric and unpopular May instead delivered an ultimatum to Russia, and whipped up war fever throughout the UK. She now seeks to pull Donald Trump and NATO into ever more aggressive moves against Russia.

Thus, as with Christopher Steele's dirty dossier against Donald Trump, the British claims against Putin are an evidence-free exercise of raw power. The Anglo-American establishment instructs us: "trust this, ignore the stinky factless content presented in this dossier -- just note that it is backed by very important intelligence agencies which could cook your goose if you object."

A short statement of the reasons why the British are now staging the Skripal provocation can be found in a March 14 London Daily Telegraph call to arms by Allister Heath, who rants: "We need a new world order to take on totalitarian capitalists in Russia and China. Such an alliance would dramatically shift the global balance of power, and allow the liberal democracies finally to fight back. It would endow the world with the sorts of robust institutions that are required to contain Russia and China. Britain needs a new role in the world; building such a network would be our perfect mission." Across the pond, as they say, a similar foundational statement was made by 68 former Obama Administration officials who have formed a group called National Security Action, aimed at securing Trump's impeachment and attacking Russia and China.

Russia and China have embarked on a massive infrastructure building project in Eurasia, the center of all British geopolitical fantasies since the time of Halford Mackinder. China's "Belt and Road Initiative" now encompasses more than 140 nations in the largest infrastructure-building project ever undertaken in human history. This project is a true economic engine for the future. At the same time, the neo-liberal economies of the trans-Atlantic region continue to see their productive potentials sucked dry by the massive piles of debt they have created since the 2008 financial collapse. This debt is now on a hair trigger for implosion. It is estimated by banking insiders that the City of London is sitting on a derivatives powderkeg of $700 trillion, with over-the-counter derivatives accounting for another $570 trillion. The City of London will bear the major impact of the coming derivatives collapse.

In this strategic geometry, President Trump's support for peaceful collaboration with Russia during the campaign, and his personal friendship with China's President Xi Jinping, have marked him for the relentless coup-drive waged by the British and their U.S. friends.

On top of that, President Putin delivered a mammoth strategic shock on March 1, showing new Russian weapons systems based on new physical principles, which render present U.S. ABM systems and much of current U.S. war-fighting doctrine obsolete, together with the vaunted first strike capacity with which NATO has surrounded Russia. Not only is the West sitting on a new financial collapse, its vaunted military superiority has just been flanked.

It is very clear that a strategic choice now confronts the human race. In 1984, Lyndon LaRouche wrote a very profound document, " Draft Memorandum of Agreement Between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. " In it, he developed the concrete basis for peace between the two superpowers at the moment when the United States had adopted the LaRouche/Reagan doctrine of strategic defense. Both Reagan and LaRouche had proposed that the Russians and the United States cooperate in building and developing strategic defense against offensive nuclear weapons, based on new physical principles, thereby eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation.

According to the LaRouche Doctrine, "The political foundation for durable peace must be: a) the unconditional sovereignty of each and all nation states, and b) cooperation among sovereign states to the effect of promoting unlimited opportunities to participate in the benefits of technological progress, to the mutual benefit of each and all."

Both China, in President Xi's October Address to the Party Congress, and Russia, in Putin's March 1 address to the Federal Assembly, have set a course to produce technological progress capable of being shared in by all. They both outline major infrastructure projects and dedicating massive funding to exploring the frontiers of science, technology, and space exploration. Donald Trump, in both his campaign and his presidency, has embraced similar views. The British and their American friends, however, are devotees of a completely different and failing economic system, a system soundly rejected in Brexit, in the election of Donald Trump, and most recently in the Italian elections.

Just look at the events of February and March from this standpoint. It is no accident that Christopher Steele turns up, smack dab in the middle of the Skripal poisoning hoax.

Exposure of British as U.S. Election Meddlers Weakens Anti-Trump Coup

On Feb. 2, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a memo demonstrating that the Obama Justice Department and FBI committed an outright fraud on the FISA court in obtaining surveillance warrants on Carter Page, a volunteer for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The bogus warrant applications relied heavily on the dirty British dossier authored by MI6's "former" Russian intelligence chief, Christopher Steele, who had been paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee to paint Donald Trump as a Manchurian candidate -- as a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to the House Intelligence memo and other aspects of its investigation, Steele confided to Bruce Ohr, a high official in the DOJ, that he, Steele, hated Trump with a passion and would do "anything" to prevent Trump's election. Steele was using the fact of an FBI investigation of his allegations as part of a "full spectrum" British information warfare campaign conducted against candidate Trump with the full complicity of Obama's intelligence chiefs. (See Peter Van Buren, " Christopher Steele: The Real Foreign Influence in the 2016 U.S. Election? " The American Conservative, February 15, 2018.) None of the true facts about the actual motive for, and sponsors of, the DOJ applications involving Carter Page were revealed to the FISA Court in the filings made by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former FBI Director James Comey, or current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The House Intelligence Committee memo was quickly followed by a declassified letter on Feb. 5, in which Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsay Graham referred Christopher Steele to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal prosecution, based on false statements he made to the FBI about his contacts with the news media. No doubt the criminal referral sent chills down the spines not only of Christopher Steele and his British colleagues, but also of those former Obama officials conspiring against Trump.

In the same week, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes announced that he would be conducting investigations into the role of the Obama State Department and intelligence chiefs in the circulation and use of Christopher Steele's dirty dossier. These investigations have been widely reported to focus on John Brennan and James Clapper -- Brennan for widely promoting the dirty British work product, and Clapper for leaks associated with BuzzFeed's publication and legitimization of the dirty British work product. Remind yourself every time you hear media explosions against Trump by either Clapper (congressional perjurer and proponent of the theory that the Russians are genetically predisposed to screw the United States) or Brennan (gopher for George Tenet's perpetual war and torture regime and Grand Inquisitor for Barack Obama's serial
assassinations by baseball card). They are next in the barrel, so to speak.

The January 11, 2017 BuzzFeed publication of the Steele dossier was meant to permanently poison Trump's incoming administration, and is the subject of libel suits both in Florida and London. In the London case, the British are ready to invoke the Official Secrets Act to protect Christopher Steele. In the Florida case, Steele has been ordered to sit for deposition despite numerous delays and stalling tactics.

The Congressional investigation of the State Department is focused on John Kerry, Kerry's aide Jonathan Winer, Victoria Nuland, and Clinton operative Cody Shearer. Nuland utilized Christopher Steele as a primary intelligence source while running the U.S. regime change operations in Ukraine in alliance with neo-Nazis. She greenlighted Steele's initial meetings with the FBI about Donald Trump. Winer deployed himself to vouch for Steele to various news publications collaborating with British agent Steele and his U.S. employer, Fusion GPS, in Steele's media warfare operations against Trump.

  • On March 12, the House Intelligence Committee announced that it had completed its Russia investigation. It stated that it found "no collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia." Its draft final report was to have been provided to the Democrats on the Committee on March 13 for comment and then submitted to declassification review.
  • On March 15, four U.S. Senators from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, and Thom Tillis, called for the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate the DOJ and FBI with respect to the Russiagate investigation. They particularly focused on the use of the Steele dossier, FISA abuse, the disclosure of classified information to the press, and the criminal investigation and case of former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Separately, House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte have asked the Justice Department to appoint a Special Counsel on similar grounds.
  • On March 16, James Comey's Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, was fired as the result of recommendations by the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). The OPR recommendation resulted from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's investigation of McCabe's actions with respect to the Clinton email investigation and the Clinton Foundation. McCabe claimed that this was part of a plot against himself, Comey, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Michael Horowitz, however, is an actual Washington straight shooter appointed to his post by Barack Obama. The OPR is the FBI's own disciplinary agency. Horowitz's report is expected to be extremely critical of McCabe, citing a "lack of candor" (i.e., lying) with respect to the investigation. Whatever the corrupt media might claim, the facts here have been thoroughly investigated by McCabe's former FBI subordinates. They think his lies and other actions disgrace the FBI and don't entitle him to a pension.

Horowitz's report on the Clinton investigations -- which have already unearthed the texts between former Russiagate lead case agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, proclaiming their hatred of Donald Trump and the need for an "insurance policy" against his election -- is expected to be released very soon. According to the House Intelligence Committee, the Strzok/Page texts also reveal that Strzok was a close friend of U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras. Contreras sits on the FISA court, took Michael Flynn's guilty plea, and then promptly recused himself from Michael Flynn's case for reasons which remain undisclosed.

Despite its exoneration of the President and thorough discrediting of the British Steele operation, the House Intelligence Committee dangerously accepts the myth that the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the emails of Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta, and then provided the hacked information to WikiLeaks for publication. Its final report states, however, that Putin's intervention was not in support of Donald Trump, as previously claimed by Obama's intelligence chiefs. The Senators seeking a new Special Counsel also salute this dangerous fraud.

As we have previously reported, the myth that Putin hacked the Democrats and provided the hacked emails to WikiLeaks, has been substantively refuted by the investigations of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). In summary, the evidence points to a leak rather than a hack in the case of the DNC. Further, the NSA would have the evidence of any such hack or hacks, according to former NSA technical director Bill Binney, and would have provided it, even if in a classified setting. It is clear that the NSA has no such evidence. It is also clear that the United States and the British have cyber warfare capabilities fully capable of creating "false flag" cyber war incidents.

North Korea Talks Planned, While Russia and China Continue to Create the Conditions for a New Human Renaissance

In addition to the fizzling of the coup, the Western elites suffered through February and March for additional reasons. To the shock of the entire, smug Davos crowd, Donald Trump, working with Russia, China, and South Korea, appears to have gotten Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table concerning denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Substantive talks have been scheduled for May. The breakthrough was announced by President Trump and South Korea on March 8.

On March 1, President Putin gave his historic two-hour address to the Russian Federal Assembly and the Russian people. Like President Xi's address to the Chinese Party Congress in October 2017, Putin focused on the goal of deeply reducing poverty in Russian society. Xi vowed in October to eliminate poverty from Chinese society altogether by 2020. In addition, Putin emphasized that Russia would undertake a huge city-building project across its vast rural frontiers and dramatically expand its modern infrastructure, including Russia's digital infrastructure. He put major emphasis on directing funds to basic scientific and technological progress. He emphasized that harnessing and stimulating the creative powers of individual human beings is the true driver of all economic progress.

China's Belt and Road Initiative also continued to advance. Great infrastructure projects are popping up throughout the world, including most specifically in Africa, which had been consigned to be a permanent, primitive looting-ground for Western interests. Among the recent breakthroughs is the great project to refill Lake Chad, a project known as "Transaqua," involving the Italian engineering firm Bonifica, the Chinese engineering and construction firm PowerChina, and the Lake Chad Basin Commission, which represents the African countries directly benefiting from the project. But the biggest strategic news of the last six weeks was contained in the last part of President Putin's speech. He showed various weapons, developed by Russian scientists in the wake of the U.S. abrogation of the ABM treaty and the Anglo-American campaign of color revolutions and NATO base-building in the former Soviet bloc. These weapons, based on new physical principles, render U.S. ABM defenses obsolete, together with many U.S. utopian war-fighting doctrines developed under the reigns of Obama and Bush. Putin emphasized that the economic and "defense" aspects of his speech were not separate. Rather, the scientific breakthroughs were based on an in-depth economic mobilization of the physical economy. He stressed that Russia's survival was dependent upon marshalling continuous creative breakthroughs in basic science and the high-technology spinoffs which result, and their propagation through the entire population. He stressed that such breakthroughs are the product of providing an actually human existence to the entire society.

Compare what Russia and China have set out to accomplish with respect to the physical economy of the Earth, with the second and third paragraphs of Lyndon LaRouche's prescription for a durable peace in the LaRouche Doctrine:

The most crucial feature of present implementation of such a policy of durable peace is a profound change in the monetary, economic, and political relations between dominant powers and those relatively subordinated nations often classed as "developing nations." Unless the inequities lingering in the aftermath of modern colonialism are progressively remedied, there can be no durable peace on this planet.

Insofar as the United States and the Soviet Union acknowledge the progress of the productive powers of labor throughout the planet to be in the vital strategic interests of each and both, the two powers are bound to that degree and in that way by a common interest. This is the kernel of the political and economic policies of practice indispensable to the fostering of a durable peace between those two powers.

This is the perspective which has the British terrified and acting-out, insanely. Were Trump, Putin, and Xi to enter into negotiations based on the LaRouche Doctrine, a breakthrough will have occurred for all of mankind, a breakthrough to a permanent and durable peace. No neo-liberal, post-industrial, unipolar order can match this, no matter how much Allister Heath, Ms. May, or Boris Johnson rant and rave about it.

Christopher Steele's British Playground

As is well known by now, Christopher Steele was a long-time MI6 agent before "retiring" to form his own extremely lucrative private intelligence firm. The firm is said to have earned $200 million since its formation. Steele was an MI6 agent in Moscow around the time Skripal was recruited. He also later ran the MI6 Russia desk and would have known everything there was to know about Skripal. Pablo Miller, who recruited Skripal, worked for Steele's firm according to Miller's LinkedIn profile, and lived in the same town as Skripal.

Since Steele has been discredited in the United States, a huge fawning publicity campaign has been undertaken on his behalf. The campaign involves journalists who have collaborated directly with Steele in his smear job against Trump. Books by Luke Harding and Michael Isikoff seek to rebuild Steele's reputation.

A fawning piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, as implausible as it is long, has been foisted on the public for the same reason.

There are some fascinating facts, however, in all this fawning prose:

  • Steele described his business to Luke Harding as primarily providing research and reports to competing and feuding Russian oligarchs, many of whom use London as a base of operations. This is obviously a perfect cover for intelligence operations. It is also a very violent theater of operations. The oligarchs intersect both Western intelligence operations and Russian organized crime. They engage in deadly gang warfare.
  • Steele and his partners are mentored by Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6 and a critical player in the infamous "sexing up" and fabrication of the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, creating the rationale for the disastrous and genocidal Iraq War.
  • Steele had been tasked to claim that Russia was interfering in Western elections during the entire post-Ukraine coup time-frame, when this black propaganda line began to be circulated widely. According to Jane Mayer's account, Steele called this "Project Charlemagne," and completed his report on it in April 2016, just before he undertook his hit job against Donald Trump. In his report, Steele claimed that Russia was interfering in the politics of France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Turkey. He claimed that Russia was conducting social media warfare aimed at "inflaming fear and prejudice and had provided opaque financial support to favored politicians." He specifically targeted Silvio Berlusconi and Marine Le Pen. Steele also suggested that Russian aid was given to "lesser known right wing nationalists" in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, implying that the Russians were behind Brexit, with an overall goal of destroying the European Union.

Leaving aside Sergei Skripal's relationship with the central figure in the British-led coup against Donald Trump, it is clear that the May government's claim that he and his daughter were poisoned by a "novichok" nerve-agent, even if it is true, by no means makes a case that Putin's government was responsible. (It is of interest that as we were going to press on March 19, the foreign ministers of the European Union, after a briefing by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that indicted Putin as responsible, issued a statement which condemned the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter, but pointedly failed to blame Putin or Russia.)

Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan who maintains contacts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, wrote March 16 that Britain's chemical-warfare scientists at Porton Down, "are not able to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture, and have been resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so. Porton Down would only sign up to the formulation of a type developed by Russia, after a rather difficult meeting where this was agreed as a compromise formulation. The Russians were allegedly researching, in the novichok program, a generation of nerve agents which could be produced from commercially available precursors such as insecticides and fertilizers. This substance is a novichok in that sense. It is of that type. Just as I am typing on a laptop of a type developed by the United States, though this one was made in China."

The background to Porton Down's reluctance, is of course former Prime Minister Blair's phony dossier on Iraqi WMD, which Lyndon LaRouche fought, alongside the late British arms expert David Kelly, who exposed the "dodgy dossier," at the time.

"To anybody with a Whitehall background this has been obvious for several days," Murray continues. "The government has never said the nerve agent was made in Russia, or that it can only be made in Russia. The exact formulation of a type developed by Russia was used by Theresa May in Parliament, used by the U.K. at the UN Security Council, used by Boris Johnson on the BBC yesterday and, most tellingly of all, 'of a type developed by Russia,' is the precise phrase used in the joint communique‚ issued by the U.K., U.S.A., France, and Germany yesterday."

The main account of the chemical weapons cited by Theresa May was written by a Soviet dissident chemist named Vil Mirzayanov who now lives in the United States and published a book about his work at the Soviets' Uzbekistan chemical-warfare laboratory. In his much-publicized book, Mirzayanov sets out the formulas for the claimed substances. According to the March 16 Wall Street Journal, that publicity led to the novichoks' chemical structure being leaked, making them readily available for reproduction elsewhere. Ralf Trapp, a France-based consultant and expert on the control of chemical and biological weapons, told the Journal, "The chemical formula has been publicized and we know from publications from then-Czechoslovakia that they had worked on similar agents for defense in the 1980s. I'm sure other countries with developed programs would have as well."

But it does not seem that those "other countries" include Russia. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the independent agency charged by treaty with investigating claims like those just made by the British government, certified in September 2017 that the Russian government had destroyed its entire chemical weapons program, inclusive of its nerve agent production capabilities. In addition to Trapp's account, Seamus Martin, writing in the March 14 Irish Times, posits, based on personal knowledge, that novichoks were widely expropriated by East Bloc oligarchs and criminal elements in the Russian economic chaos of the 1990s.

Thus, after being disclosed by a dissident Russian chemist living in the United States, novichoks have been widely copied by other countries, according to the press accounts.

Further trouble for May's attempted hoax is found in the condition of the Skripals and of a police officer who went to their home. All were made critically ill, although they are still alive. Yet the emergency personnel who treated the Skripals, allegedly the victims of a deadly and absolutely lethal nerve poison, suffered no ill effects whatsoever.

The Skripal poisoning is being compared in the British press to the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. The former KGB and FSB officer was granted asylum in London and worked for the infamous anti-Putin British-intelligence-directed oligarch Boris Berezovsky in information warfare and other attacks on the Russian state, inclusive of McCarthyite accusations against any European politician seeking sane relations with Putin.

Litvinenko's case officer was none other than Christopher Steele, and Christopher Steele conducted MI6's investigation of the case, which, of course, found Putin himself culpable. Berezovsky's use of the disgraced British PR firm Bell, Pottinger is also credited with a significant role in public acceptance of this result. Berezovsky was a prime suspect in organizing the murder of American journalist Paul Klebnikov. Many believe that Berezovsky arranged Litvinenko's demise. Berezovsky himself died in Britain in mysterious circumstances following the loss of a major court case to another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich.

In the parliamentary debate in which Theresa May issued her provocation, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn cautioned against a rush to judgment and pointed to the bloody playing field of Russian oligarchs and Russian organized crime as alternative areas for investigation. Had Corbyn added to that mix, "Western intelligence agencies," he would have been entirely on the right track. Corbyn also pointed out that these oligarchs had contributed millions to May's Conservative Party. The reaction by the British media, May's Conservatives, and Tony Blair's faction of the Labour Party was to paint Corbyn as a Putin dupe, including photoshopped images of the Labour leader in a Russian winter hat in front of the Kremlin.

The insane McCarthyite reactions to Corbyn's simple statements of fact show that he hit the nail on the head. If you want to find Skripal's poisoners, then, like Edgar Allen Poe, you must take in the whole picture first. The field of play involves the British intelligence services and the anti-Putin Russian oligarchs, each of which services the other, acting on behalf of British strategic objectives. It is no accident that the coup against Donald Trump and the latest British intelligence fraud, putting the entire world in peril, absolutely intersect one another.

[Mar 22, 2018] I hope Brennan is running scared, along with Power. It's like the Irish Mafia.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... I agree that they are a big threat to life on earth. From the amount of ecological damage that our wars create, the number of people who we have killed or misplaced, to their planned war with Russia that could see the end of the human race and animals. That so many people are believing this Russian propaganda crap is beyond belief. These are the same people who used to question what the intelligence agencies were saying, but not any more. ..."
"... All Maxine "Lip Flappin" Waters does nowadays, like Adam Schiff, is ignore their districts in favor of Russiagate and get Trump out. They don't deserve their congressional positions. ..."
"... Ain't no one touching Schumer, and as for our president all he has to do is make another $10B donation to his favorite country and all this will go away. They done sold this country out many times over. ..."
"... The quaint idea that the public should "just trust" the "intelligence" (sic) "community" (sic) is trotted out by the propaganda media whenever anyone dares to question this gang of spies and dirty tricksters. As if these scum are somehow paragons of virtue and truthfulness! And the mass of Americans just swallow this rotten bait, and continue their profound sleep ..."
"... Yes, the secret agencies must be nearly abolished, as completely incompatible with democracy. ..."
"... I am wondering if Trump is going to make it out of this alive. ..."
"... I can see the pure evil in Brennan's eyes. He is dripping with hatred. Not that I like Trump, but our so-called intelligence agencies must be brought to heel if we are to have any hope for the future. People like Brennan need to be prosecuted and go to jail. ..."
"... Skip Scott -- Trump should keep his mouth shut, I know, but I can't blame the guy for speaking out, especially when he's been hounded by the press with something like 90+% negative coverage. He was right about his phones being "tapped", and everyone said he was out of his mind for saying such a thing. The Steele dossier is a phony, made-up dossier purposely invented to spy on Trump and bring in the Special Prosecutor. Everyone who had a hand in this should be behind bars. This has been an attempted coup against a duly-elected President. ..."
"... When the Inspector General's Report comes out, when Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy finally get the information they've been asking for, I think we're going to see people go to jail. They're now looking into Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation. ..."
"... These guys brought down the World Trade Center just to further their geopolitical agenda. Nothing is beyond their treachery. They don't have to assassinate the man, as they did the hapless Skripal's just to smear Russia one more time. They can bring down Airforce One and blame it on the Russians in some kind of grand two-fer, if they so choose (everyone knows those Russians just can't quit their evil ways). ..."
"... These spooks and their collaborators in the Pentagon, the MIC, Capitol Hill and the MSM have as effectively seized all power in this country as the Stalinists did in the Soviet Union. Idiots like Schumer sometimes unwittingly let the cat out of the bag, and he was right in pin-pointing who runs this country and to what extent they will go to destroy you to maintain their stake in ruling the planet ..."
"... Realist, very true, and you have summarized it so well. I am afraid this Skirpal incident in U.K. has been staged as a prelude to attack on Syria by U.S., U.K., Israel, and France, with Germany and other Western Nations cheering from the side. ..."
"... Trump is completely safe & will not be taken out? Why? Because Candidate Trump has completely backtracked from every foreign policy statements he made such as seeking peace with Russia? It's no coincidence that Trump was made to pay a visit to the one of the Deepstate's intelligence agencies at the CIA? ..."
"... I wonder to what extent Trump is whistling past the graveyard. Most women understand the dynamic: When you know you are under threat, pretend not to notice anything untoward ..."
"... "Power also saw fit to remind Trump where the power lies, so to speak. She warned him publicly that it is "not a good idea to piss off John Brennan." Didn't Michael Hastings piss off Brennan? ..."
"... Washington is like a continuing Soap Opera, as the real bad guys battle it out with the other really bad guys. We the people are mere pawns in their hands, to be influenced and duped to no end, as the lies swirl around and around until a citizen is completely buffaloed into submission. ..."
"... While reading this about John Brennan I could not help but think of JFK firing Allen Dulles. Again with the rhyming. ..."
"... "Former Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom said that there was a plot among "high-ranking" people throughout government -- "not just the FBI," who coordinated in a plot to help Hillary Clinton avoid indictment. ..."
"... "I think we have ample facts revealed to us during this last year and a half that high-ranking people throughout government, not just the FBI, high-ranking people had a plot to not have Hillary Clinton, you know, indicted," Kallstrom told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo. ..."
"... "I think it goes right to the top. And it involves that whole strategy -- they were gonna win, nobody would have known any of this stuff, and they just unleashed the intelligence community. Look at the unmaskings. We haven't heard anything about that yet. Look at the way they violated the rights of all those American citizens." ..."
"... "Mike Whitney suspects that John Brennan was the mastermind behind Russia-gate." Looking at the pictures of Barack Obama with John Brennen, they seemed to have very cozy relationship. I wonder about Obama's role in this Russia-Gate. There are many unanswered questions about the top-echelons' role in this bizarre drama which may end up in many ominous consequences for the country and for the World. ..."
"... I think the intelligence agencies are the true source of nearly all of the problems..instead of gathering intelligence the IAs are effecting the events about which the intelligence is supposed to be about. Certainty Intelligence agencies can be credited with 9/11 and the war on Iraq. Interconnected between nations, shuffling in open-source form, secret sharing, false flag event production, and media delivered propaganda are activities which define the intelligence agencies. Secret means slave citizens are denied the knowledge that would allow them to understand how corrupt our societies are; so that the leaders of such societies can continue in the office that commands the power. ..."
"... Brilliantly stated, faraday's law. You've raised the all-important point that the intelligence agencies are are not simply gathering intelligence, they are also engaging in covert action, unlawfully, unaccountably, and unscrutinized. For all we know they could be spending their virtually unlimited funds on creating our enemies, thereby creating a need for our military industrial complex, the only entity that benefits from their work. ..."
"... Seems like the two wings of the Anglo-American establishment alliance are working in concert to defeat all who stand in their way and regain dominance over the western world. In Britain, Teresa May and the Tories -- who are losing popularity to the resurgent Labour party and its progressive leader Jeremy Corbyn -- are trying to blame Russia for a nerve agent attack. The blame game over there is evidence-free of course and the lies and weasel-word assertions are being effectively countered by, among others, ex-Ambassador Craig Murray ( https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/ ) in post after post. ..."
"... You present some interesting points, but John Brennan is no "Wild Bill Donovan" or even a William Casey with the backup of the fraternity of OSS which no longer has meetings. It seems to me that Brennan's and his diminishing followers' power lies with the media that has done the dance of "valued sources" and perception manipulation of the masses. Actually, "night of the long knives" occurred in Saudi Arabia when Prince "Bandar Bush" was captured and "interviewed" not by the FBI or the CIA, but most probably by individuals with videos of confessions which summarized the long history of the activities involving operatives conducting activities during the presidential administrations of both political parties but continuously for clans such as the Bush Dynasty and assorted associates within the institutions that are now domestically profiting from the policies of the President. ..."
"... But beyond this crisis is the larger one of how to harness the Deep State to reflect the nation's interests, not those few who run things now. Some say start to rid foreign intelligence of its operational arm which has been at the forefront of regime change and other mischief. ..."
"... Yes, the CIA operations division should be made small because it is abused for the hidden agendas of oligarchy, that the People would never approve. It should be monitored by an agency reporting directly to Congress. ..."
"... The Deep State, through the CIA, pursues a foreign policy that is often at odds with the wishes of the vast majority of the people in this country ..."
"... Brennans screech confirms that Trump is not just smoke and mirrors. He really hit the bureaucracy where it hurts, their pensions -- brilliant move. ..."
"... Trump and Brennan represent equally criminal factions of the ruling class, divided over foreign policy, particularly in the civil war in Syria, and more generally towards Russia. ..."
"... Brennan and the Democrats speak for powerful sections of the military-intelligence apparatus embittered by the failure of US intervention in Syria and Trump's apparent abandonment of the Islamic fundamentalist groups armed by the CIA to fight the Russian and Iranian-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad. They want to push further into the Syrian slaughter, regardless of the risk of open military conflict with Russia, the world's second strongest nuclear power. ..."
"... That "moral turpitude" reference seems to imply that there is some -- yet to be revealed -- scandal held in abeyance, fully capable of delivering a decisive blow. And, the "deep staters" are merely waiting for the right moment to pull this shark-toothed rabbit out of the hat. ..."
"... Former heads of the nation's top intelligence organization do not attack sitting presidents, let alone in such a visceral vituperative and public fashion. This is indication of deep fissures, quite beyond politics as most citizens understand. As the World Socialist Web Site published today: "There is no recent parallel for statements and actions such as those of the past three days. One would have to go back to the period before the American Civil War to find equivalent levels of tension, which in the late 1850s erupted in violence in the halls of Congress before exploding in full-scale military conflict." ..."
"... Trump is a maverick outsider so it's hard to get a handle on what or who he represents, but the Brennan/deep state side of the dispute is very much aligned with the corporate DNC Democratic Party. That they seem, by Brennan's comments, to consider themselves as the representation of "America" as they abandon constitutional and etiquette norms and articulate visceral hatred towards political rivals should serve as fair warning. ..."
"... Kevin Zeese: "He basically is a Senator for Israel. He totally supports the Israeli foreign policy viewpoint, which is a very hawkish, if you were a Republican you would call him a neocon." ..."
"... Thomas Hedges: "Schumer's staunch support for Israel has prompted him for example, to criticize the Obama administration, when in 2016, the United States abstained from a UN Security Council resolution re-affirming something the Council had almost unanimously upheld since 1979. Namely, that Israel's settlement building projects on Palestinian land violated international law." ..."
"... Brennan is history's most hilarious DCI. His grandiose hissy fit suggests that CIA continues the Dulles tradition of infiltrating the civil service with 'focal points -' illegal CIA moles infiltrating US government agencies -- and the IG fumigated one key out in firing McCabe. ..."
"... the MSM and the Left see the "crime" being that McCabe was fired, not that McCabe broke the law. Kind of like when they didn't see a crime in Hillary using her own personal servers, but saw the crime as being that the emails might have been hacked by a foreign government. That they had no evidence of this didn't matter. ..."
"... Brennan sounds like a desperate man. They must be getting closer to him. ..."
"... See how this works? The article is about Brennan. The comment is about Brennan's CIA. But immersive CIA propaganda immediately diverts the topic to CIA's synthetic warring factions, Hillary! Trump! Hillary! Trump! ..."
"... CIA runs your country. You're not going to get anywhere until you stop bickering about their presidential puppet rulers. ..."
"... The mention of John Brennan brings to mind the bizarre death of Rolling Stone's writer, Michael Hastings, who was reported to be working on a story about Brennan just before he had his "accident". ..."
"... Our MS Media is nothing more than Democrat Propaganda, and that situation will doom us to Russian interference. Every election the Russians can do the same as 2016: release the truth about justice not served. ..."
"... Israel has advised, trained and equipped, and ran "dirty war" operations in the Latin American "dirty war" conflicts in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Colombia. In the case of the Salvadoran "bloodbath", the Israelis were present from the beginning. Besides arms sales, they helped train ANSESAL, the secret police who were later to form the framework of the infamous death squads that would kill tens of thousands of mostly civilian activists. ..."
"... USMC activated. Well, I'd put my two-cents on POTUS. Just like we've all seen throughout our lives when the supposed tough guy starts making threats he is really scared Sh**less. Lots of these clowns are just going to disappear during the late night hours of the day never to be heard from again. ..."
"... Guys like Brennan are scared rats in a sinking ship, good riddance! ..."
"... What an amazingly illuminating article. Devin Nunes, who perfectly ok with wire taps as long as the target aren't from his party is somehow a noble individual. While I agree that Brennan should be in prison, it should be for torturing people ..."
Mar 21, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

backwardsevolution March 19, 2018 at 7:08 am

Great article. I hope Brennan is running scared, along with Power. It's like the Irish Mafia.

"Meanwhile, the Washington Post is dutifully playing its part in the deep-state game of intimidation. The following excerpt from Sunday's lead article conveys the intended message: "Some Trump allies say they worry he is playing with fire by taunting the FBI. 'This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI's going to win,' said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. 'You can't fight the FBI. They're going to torch him.'"

That sounds like something "Six Ways From Sunday" Schumer would say. In fact, I'd bet money that it is the shyster himself. That guy should be removed from the Senate in leg irons. He is a menace to society.

Abby , March 19, 2018 at 9:51 pm

I agree that they are a big threat to life on earth. From the amount of ecological damage that our wars create, the number of people who we have killed or misplaced, to their planned war with Russia that could see the end of the human race and animals. That so many people are believing this Russian propaganda crap is beyond belief. These are the same people who used to question what the intelligence agencies were saying, but not any more.

The fact that most of congress and people in other governments have made up the Russian propaganda is what needs to be exposed. This is a huge crime against humanity, IMO. This includes Bernie of all people. They are doing this so they can get their war on with Russia and escalate the Syrian war.

geeyp , March 20, 2018 at 3:02 am

Agreed. All Maxine "Lip Flappin" Waters does nowadays, like Adam Schiff, is ignore their districts in favor of Russiagate and get Trump out. They don't deserve their congressional positions. I wish to add a comment Coleen Rowley's piece. An update: Law Professor Jonathan Turley says Andrew M. will still get his pension, just have to wait until he's 57 (now 50). Can you understand this? What will it take to punish these arrogant evil little punks? And why should we pay their pensions, especially when so many of us get nothing!

Mike S , March 20, 2018 at 12:59 am

Ain't no one touching Schumer, and as for our president all he has to do is make another $10B donation to his favorite country and all this will go away. They done sold this country out many times over.

Brad Owen , March 19, 2018 at 12:16 pm

The draining of the swamp has now begun, and battle is about to be joined. That's the word from Alex Jones, Roy Potter and that youtube crowd of similar "guerilla journalists", who fill in for the Deep State-captured and untrustworthy MSM.

The Deep State miscalculated the alignment of forces for the upcoming, somewhat covert, civil war within the governing apparatus; Trump knows the military has his back, especially the Marines, and they are part & parcel of the Constitution. The Deep State is a sick Post-WWII mistake, rogue and criminal, and will be rolled up. There are a lot of jewels hidden in their unacknowledged black programs of great benefit to the World, if we can wrestle them away from these weaponizing psychopaths of the Deep State.

jean , March 20, 2018 at 2:53 pm

Unfortunately whistleblowers like Bill Binny and others can't get airtime on in corporate media but can get a voice on Alex Jones.

William Binney High Ranking NSA Whistle Blower Interview with Alex. Video for Bill Binney alex jones
? 34:25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW-V-TOJVE8
Jun 14, 2017 -- Uploaded by N Jacobson
William Binney High Ranking NSA Whistle Blower Interview w/ Alex Jones 6-14-17 William Binney, and ..

Whistleblower Reveals NSA Blackmailing Top Govt Officials -- YouTube
Video for Russ tice alex jones
? 22:27
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZoV52qdaOA
Jun 8, 2014 -- Uploaded by The Alex Jones Channel
NSA whistleblower Russell Tice was a key source in the 2005 New York Times report that blew the lid off the

saveourliberty , March 20, 2018 at 8:35 pm

Attacks on Alex Jones might be warranted, but I find those trivial in comparison for how he has awakened the masses and has given a bully-pit to those that have been silenced by the MSM. Choose your battles. Jones isn't one I want to silence though we can never let our guard down to co-option neither.

Andrew , March 20, 2018 at 7:04 am

An open threat to torch the POTUS and there are no consequences for making such threats? Like Brennan's clear threat? No judicial system to deal with those threats?

mike k , March 19, 2018 at 7:46 am

The quaint idea that the public should "just trust" the "intelligence" (sic) "community" (sic) is trotted out by the propaganda media whenever anyone dares to question this gang of spies and dirty tricksters. As if these scum are somehow paragons of virtue and truthfulness! And the mass of Americans just swallow this rotten bait, and continue their profound sleep ..

Sam F , March 20, 2018 at 6:32 am

Yes, the secret agencies must be nearly abolished, as completely incompatible with democracy.

Wolfbay , March 20, 2018 at 6:54 am

There are only 17 secret agencies. No room to cut.

toni , March 21, 2018 at 11:51 am

Why do you think that there all the shows on television and the movies where the good guy is the cop, or some federal agent?

Skip Scott , March 19, 2018 at 8:06 am

I am wondering if Trump is going to make it out of this alive. I know they don't want to tip their hand to the public, but if their media circus performance doesn't gain sufficient traction, it'll probably be time for a "lone nut" assassin. I can see the pure evil in Brennan's eyes. He is dripping with hatred. Not that I like Trump, but our so-called intelligence agencies must be brought to heel if we are to have any hope for the future. People like Brennan need to be prosecuted and go to jail.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 8:34 am

Skip Scott -- Trump should keep his mouth shut, I know, but I can't blame the guy for speaking out, especially when he's been hounded by the press with something like 90+% negative coverage. He was right about his phones being "tapped", and everyone said he was out of his mind for saying such a thing. The Steele dossier is a phony, made-up dossier purposely invented to spy on Trump and bring in the Special Prosecutor. Everyone who had a hand in this should be behind bars. This has been an attempted coup against a duly-elected President.

When the Inspector General's Report comes out, when Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy finally get the information they've been asking for, I think we're going to see people go to jail. They're now looking into Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation.

Never mind the damage being done re relations between Russia and the U.S. and the possible nuclear threat. These people truly are insane. I agree with you, these intelligence agencies really have gone rogue and need to be "brought to heel".

laninya , March 19, 2018 at 11:22 am

The day Trump keeps his mouth shut or stops tweeting is the day he and his revolution will be over. What do you think is smoking all these malefactors out into the open?

Steve Naidamast , March 19, 2018 at 12:51 pm

backwardsevolution

Former CIA Officer, Kevin Shipp, spoke out in an article I saw the other day that the FBI is working very methodically on the investigations into the Clinton Foundation. He expects that when it comes out so many "heads will roll" in the Congress and the Executive branch that we will have a Constitutional crises portending a collapse of the US government.

Can't wait to see these fireworks :-)

Typingperson , March 19, 2018 at 9:33 pm

Not holding my breath -- but I hope so!

Abby , March 19, 2018 at 9:55 pm

I read this article and I too hope that Shipp is right about this. The Clinton foundation and everything connected to them is rotten. They robbed Haiti's reconstruction funds and gave their friends and family members special access to bilking them. Everyone knew that they did that, yet no one said a word about it.

Dave P. , March 20, 2018 at 1:27 am

Steve, I watched this Youtube video of Kevin Shipp talking to this Group of citizens, last evening. It is really very informative. The title of the video was: "CIA Officer exposes the shadow government" dated Feb 19, 2018. This video is really worth watching.

Realist , March 19, 2018 at 3:38 pm

These guys brought down the World Trade Center just to further their geopolitical agenda. Nothing is beyond their treachery. They don't have to assassinate the man, as they did the hapless Skripal's just to smear Russia one more time. They can bring down Airforce One and blame it on the Russians in some kind of grand two-fer, if they so choose (everyone knows those Russians just can't quit their evil ways).

These spooks and their collaborators in the Pentagon, the MIC, Capitol Hill and the MSM have as effectively seized all power in this country as the Stalinists did in the Soviet Union. Idiots like Schumer sometimes unwittingly let the cat out of the bag, and he was right in pin-pointing who runs this country and to what extent they will go to destroy you to maintain their stake in ruling the planet .

All this has been clear for a long time now, yet nothing is ever done about it, probably because the task is too immense, these devils are too numerous and too deeply entrenched. Everything they say or do before the public is simply stagecraft and dramatics, and that includes all the gibbering that emanates from Congress each day, dispensed to you in a direct feed by the propaganda organs of the mass media which now includes most of the internet. You want to hear the truth? Go read a novel, maybe the publishing monolith will occasionally let slip an accurate description of our world couched in metaphor, a glitch in the Matrix, if you will.

Dave P. , March 20, 2018 at 3:16 pm

Realist, very true, and you have summarized it so well. I am afraid this Skirpal incident in U.K. has been staged as a prelude to attack on Syria by U.S., U.K., Israel, and France, with Germany and other Western Nations cheering from the side.

Most likely, a false flag event will staged in Syria very soon to justify it. And there will be some sort of action in Ukraine too. U.S., U.K., and France are deep in debt. China is rising economically, and I am afraid that these Western Imperial Nations will not let go their complete dominance over the planet without a fight.

Events may take a very sad and violent turn in no time.

Skip Scott , March 21, 2018 at 8:47 am

Realist.

That is a very scary scenario you propose about Air Force One, and quite conceivable. The way things are heating up, I suspect something in that order of magnitude very soon.

KiwiAntz , March 20, 2018 at 12:02 am

Trump is completely safe & will not be taken out? Why? Because Candidate Trump has completely backtracked from every foreign policy statements he made such as seeking peace with Russia? It's no coincidence that Trump was made to pay a visit to the one of the Deepstate's intelligence agencies at the CIA?

Trump would have been taken into a office & shown a continuous looped, Zapruder film of JFK getting his head blasted apart, as a warning of what happened to the last President who tried to destroy their power & influences? Remember Chuck Schumer's threat in 2017, warning Trump that the Intelligence Agencies have a number of ways, to take you down, if you rock the boat? Trump was shown what to expect if he doesn't toe the line & do what he's told by his real masters? Confirmation of Trump's obedience to the Deepstate agenda is that as he's now singing from the same song sheet that the Deepstate is singing from, completely backtracking most of his his election promises, making America great again, not by diplomacy but by endless war mongering & foreign interventions with no end in sight?

geeyp , March 20, 2018 at 12:51 am

We have known for sometime that the CIA and Google (not to mention WaPo and Jeff's garage sale site) are tight. Julian Assange's "When Google Met Wikileaks" is a go to for this. And you know that Eric Schmidt and Hillary Clinton are close connivers.

Litchfield , March 20, 2018 at 9:17 am

I wonder to what extent Trump is whistling past the graveyard. Most women understand the dynamic: When you know you are under threat, pretend not to notice anything untoward . . . So as not to trigger something really bad happening. If the picture changed dramatically -- say, with indictments of co-conspirators in the DNC shenanigans or the FBI collusion, or the Russiagate farce -- Trump might do some kind fo about-face. The big question, though, is his real relationship to and heartfelt convictions regarding Netanyahu/Israel.

Gregory Herr , March 20, 2018 at 6:45 pm

"Power also saw fit to remind Trump where the power lies, so to speak. She warned him publicly that it is "not a good idea to piss off John Brennan." Didn't Michael Hastings piss off Brennan?

Gregory Herr , March 20, 2018 at 7:15 pm

http://m.digitaljournal.com/news/world/wikileaks-cia-s-brennan-on-witch-hunt-when-hastings-was-killed/article/421913

Joe Tedesky , March 19, 2018 at 9:06 am

Washington is like a continuing Soap Opera, as the real bad guys battle it out with the other really bad guys. We the people are mere pawns in their hands, to be influenced and duped to no end, as the lies swirl around and around until a citizen is completely buffaloed into submission.

While reading this about John Brennan I could not help but think of JFK firing Allen Dulles. Again with the rhyming.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 9:07 am

Two short interviews with James Kallstrom at this site:

"Former Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom said that there was a plot among "high-ranking" people throughout government -- "not just the FBI," who coordinated in a plot to help Hillary Clinton avoid indictment.

"I think we have ample facts revealed to us during this last year and a half that high-ranking people throughout government, not just the FBI, high-ranking people had a plot to not have Hillary Clinton, you know, indicted," Kallstrom told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.

"I think it goes right to the top. And it involves that whole strategy -- they were gonna win, nobody would have known any of this stuff, and they just unleashed the intelligence community. Look at the unmaskings. We haven't heard anything about that yet. Look at the way they violated the rights of all those American citizens."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-18/ex-fbi-assistant-director-there-was-high-ranking-plot-protect-hillary-brennan

Tom Ratliff , March 19, 2018 at 11:36 am

Yes, very interesting interview with Kallstrom -- on mainstream media, which is important. Seems too many people understand what's really transpired for Trump -- or anyone -- to be in mortal danger. We'll see.

Brennan's tweet suggests he knows the walls are closing in on him.

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , March 19, 2018 at 10:36 pm

I agree. If you're very strong, you don't bother making public threats against powerful people. You just break their backs without comment. Brennan comes across like he's been backed into a corner where he has no weapons and from which he knows there is no escape.

Mike Whitney suspects that John Brennan was the mastermind behind Russia-gate. http://www.unz.com/mwhitney/is-john-brennan-the-mastermind-behind-russiagate/

geeyp , March 20, 2018 at 1:15 am

It is what I already sussed out, Paul. In reading Whitney's piece, it reminded me that over the last eight years the State Department in their press gatherings continuously mocked any RT reporters and disrespected them. You could easily surmise from this that they had a hand in these propaganda smears and lies.

Dave P. , March 20, 2018 at 1:53 am

"Mike Whitney suspects that John Brennan was the mastermind behind Russia-gate." Looking at the pictures of Barack Obama with John Brennen, they seemed to have very cozy relationship. I wonder about Obama's role in this Russia-Gate. There are many unanswered questions about the top-echelons' role in this bizarre drama which may end up in many ominous consequences for the country and for the World.

Bob H , March 21, 2018 at 4:16 pm

Dave P(et.al.) it's getting more involved every day. It is interesting that the interview was on Fox as it indicates prominent Republicans may be leaning towards a more thorough investigation. However, if the investigation includes an inquiry into Cambridge Analytica they are likely to find that most of the fake news on Facebook that was influential in throwing the election to Trump was the result of Breitbart strategy with no Russian connection. Some Republicans may be willing to do this, but if it were conclusive I doubt whether either the Democrats or the Trump administration would come out on top; there are very few innocents that didn't add to the stench of the swamp. BTW: thanks for that valuable link B.E.!

Stephen J. , March 19, 2018 at 9:40 am

Is This the Land of the Free?

How will it end, or will it go on without end?
This feasting on blood that these demons depend
Will these diabolical devils ever be arraigned and indicted
And will we ever see the land of the free tried and convicted?

[more info at link below]

http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/04/is-this-land-of-free.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"It has become embarrassing to be an American. Our country has had four war criminal presidents in succession. Clinton twice launched military attacks on Serbia, ordering NATO to bomb the former Yugoslavia twice, both in 1995 and in 1999, so that gives Bill two war crimes. George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and attacked provinces of Pakistan and Yemen from the air. That comes to four war crimes for Bush. Obama used NATO to destroy Libya and sent mercenaries to destroy Syria, thereby committing two war crimes. Trump attacked Syria with US forces, thereby becoming a war criminal early in his regime."

Paul Craig Roberts, Information Clearing House, April 15/16, 2017.

Bob Van Noy , March 19, 2018 at 3:10 pm

H. W., Kuwait, Sept. 11, 1990

https://www.politico.com/story/2009/09/president-bush-responds-to-iraqi-invasion-of-kuwait-sept-11-1990-026997

David Hamilton , March 20, 2018 at 8:50 pm

Yes, this "H.W., Kuwait" is the war crime that started the era of ruthless war-making in which we are now trapped. It is the era of the kicked-down Vietnam Syndrome, where we are free once again to enrich our mercenary corporations as we project our military force 'exceptionally' to 'creatively destroy' in our noble quest to guide the world to do things our way. Some may recall how, back then, the pundit and Congressional classes deployed propaganda that was the prototype for what we have since become accustomed to. "We are doing this for peace, so all you dissenters shut up." Nobody then would acknowledge that we had covertly -- and treacherously -- aided and abetted both Iran and Iraq during their 8-year war that immediately preceded our war. (Hush, hush, wink, wink, said the media.) Thus, we had no moral or legal standing to pronounce any country guilty of 'aggression', as we did Saddam's country, who we had also green-lighted into settling his border dispute with force. That alone was enough to reveal our collective disregard for Muslim life. The rules of engagement that allowed water treatment plants to be bombed only confirmed our disregard. Warnings of unintended (or intended?) consequences then, as later, went unheeded, such as the certainty of blow back when one betrays so many peoples of the world who thought we had 'principles'. Is it any wonder there was blow back, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? (By the way, Rep. Dick Gephardt, criticized in this article, eventually led a valiant but futile effort to derail the war momentum in the House.) Peace.

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , March 19, 2018 at 11:13 pm

Paul Craig Roberts is a bit off. Each of the war crimes he mentions were waging wars of aggression. But there were a multitude of lesser war crimes committed in each of those wars. And his count is off. Bush's wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen did not cease being wars of aggression in 2008 simply because 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue acquired new tenants that year. Obama gets credit for the continuation of those four wars in addition to the wars first launched while he was in office. And Trump likewise must be given credit for his continuations of wars of aggression launched by his predecessors.

Michael Kenny , March 19, 2018 at 11:01 am

For over 50 years, I have applied the rule that I never take the word of anyone who has ever been connected with the CIA.

Skip Scott , March 20, 2018 at 8:21 am

Bullshit. I've seen your posts going back months, and you are a typical MSM propaganda apologist. If you know anything about "Operation Mockingbird", then you know that all of your past comments are "connected with the CIA".

Realist , March 20, 2018 at 11:17 pm

I'm telling ya, the guy seems like the amazing schizoid man these days.

faraday's law , March 19, 2018 at 11:05 am

I think the intelligence agencies are the true source of nearly all of the problems..instead of gathering intelligence the IAs are effecting the events about which the intelligence is supposed to be about. Certainty Intelligence agencies can be credited with 9/11 and the war on Iraq. Interconnected between nations, shuffling in open-source form, secret sharing, false flag event production, and media delivered propaganda are activities which define the intelligence agencies. Secret means slave citizens are denied the knowledge that would allow them to understand how corrupt our societies are; so that the leaders of such societies can continue in the office that commands the power.

Linda Wood , March 20, 2018 at 6:24 pm

Brilliantly stated, faraday's law. You've raised the all-important point that the intelligence agencies are are not simply gathering intelligence, they are also engaging in covert action, unlawfully, unaccountably, and unscrutinized. For all we know they could be spending their virtually unlimited funds on creating our enemies, thereby creating a need for our military industrial complex, the only entity that benefits from their work.

Dr. Ip , March 19, 2018 at 11:17 am

Seems like the two wings of the Anglo-American establishment alliance are working in concert to defeat all who stand in their way and regain dominance over the western world. In Britain, Teresa May and the Tories -- who are losing popularity to the resurgent Labour party and its progressive leader Jeremy Corbyn -- are trying to blame Russia for a nerve agent attack. The blame game over there is evidence-free of course and the lies and weasel-word assertions are being effectively countered by, among others, ex-Ambassador Craig Murray ( https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/ ) in post after post.

Over here, where the establishment Democrats and their cabal of friendly old Republicans (think: Mitt Romney) have lost their hold on direct power, they are trying to assert it through their long-time henchmen in the intelligence services. Ever since Wild Bill Donovan and the Dulles brothers, the intelligence services have been looking after their own survival and proliferation (and the profits of their masters) while, as a side-benefit, the United States got some security.

This clash of the services with Trump is only the latest in a series of clashes which Presidents have mostly lost (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, even Obama backed down after he became President) unless they were card-carrying members of the clan like Bush the First. So, you can expect Trump to lose as well unless he has the armed forces behind him and can purge the services of his enemies. We actually might have a night of the long knives coming. The question is of course if Caesar can survive the knifings!

Not that this Caesar is an Augustus or Marcus Aurelius

Marshall Smith , March 19, 2018 at 7:29 pm

You present some interesting points, but John Brennan is no "Wild Bill Donovan" or even a William Casey with the backup of the fraternity of OSS which no longer has meetings. It seems to me that Brennan's and his diminishing followers' power lies with the media that has done the dance of "valued sources" and perception manipulation of the masses. Actually, "night of the long knives" occurred in Saudi Arabia when Prince "Bandar Bush" was captured and "interviewed" not by the FBI or the CIA, but most probably by individuals with videos of confessions which summarized the long history of the activities involving operatives conducting activities during the presidential administrations of both political parties but continuously for clans such as the Bush Dynasty and assorted associates within the institutions that are now domestically profiting from the policies of the President.

Yes, Pres. Trump and his advisers (such as Peter Thiel and even possibly Erik Prince and individuals of varied backgrounds possibly to even include Rabbis, Cardinals and other wise men not members of the Brookings Institution or the CFR) knew the obstacles and the nature of the enemies that would unit against a Populist Movement. In addition to advisers aware of the cyber world and the underworld of intelligence/counter-intelligence operations, advisers aware of the functioning of institutions and how institutions change their "culture" were absolutely necessary when the "resistance" was sending the message non-stop that Pres. Trump was only a temporary resident of the White House, and he would follow the path of Nixon, but in short order! Well, it seems that even the FBI is cleaning house internally and even Brennan's supporters within the old intelligence community leadership are giving their endorsement to the President's choice for CIA Dir. and she has a loyal following among the rank and file members of that institution.

Yes, ministers of Egypt wanted to present documents on the Muslim Brotherhood and it's relationship with the Obama Adm.; and Prince Salman will probably bring gifts during his State Visit. Pres. Trump and his team will decide the time and date to unwrap the evidence that will shatter the camera lens and stop the presses! No knives or guns, please!

Herman , March 19, 2018 at 11:45 am

From Wikipedia:

"Moral turpitude is a legal concept in the United States and some other countries that refers to "an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community".[1] This term appears in U.S. immigration law beginning in the 19th century.[2]"

I guess the "community" Brennan was referring to was the Deep State. Not willingly but perhaps fortuitously Trump finds himself on the battlefield playing David and Goliath is there wearing a stone proof helmet. Obama liked to go after leakers, so long as the were underling leakers. If Trump is successful, which is to be hoped for but unlikely, how will the New York Times and Washington Post fill their editorial pages?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is a paraphrase but apt.

But beyond this crisis is the larger one of how to harness the Deep State to reflect the nation's interests, not those few who run things now. Some say start to rid foreign intelligence of its operational arm which has been at the forefront of regime change and other mischief.

Sam F , March 19, 2018 at 1:00 pm

Yes, the CIA operations division should be made small because it is abused for the hidden agendas of oligarchy, that the People would never approve. It should be monitored by an agency reporting directly to Congress.

Joe Wallace , March 19, 2018 at 3:32 pm

Herman and Sam F:

"But beyond this crisis is the larger one of how to harness the Deep State to reflect the nation's interests, not those few who run things now. Some say start to rid foreign intelligence of its operational arm which has been at the forefront of regime change and other mischief."

"Yes, the CIA operations division should be made small because it is abused for the hidden agendas of oligarchy, that the People would never approve. It should be monitored by an agency reporting directly to Congress."

Not until Citizens United v FEC is overturned will we have a foreign policy that reflects the nation's interests, administered by elected officials who actually represent the will of the electorate. The Deep State, through the CIA, pursues a foreign policy that is often at odds with the wishes of the vast majority of the people in this country .

Sam F , March 20, 2018 at 6:55 am

Yes, but the judiciary that decided Citizens United are corruption leaders installed by corrupt politicians installed by the dictatorship of the rich. Until the rich are overthrown there will be no democracy in the US.

Stephen J. , March 19, 2018 at 12:09 pm

Has the System Become Corrupted?

I believe the system has become corrupted. The same people who parrot the words "rule of law" are according to numerous reports working hand in glove with terrorists. They even pass "laws" against terrorism, while at the same time consorting with terrorists. I guess "our hypocrite leaders" are above the law? The latest horrific terrorist bombing in Manchester raises questions about the spy agency "MI5."
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/06/has-system-become-corrupted.html

mike k , March 19, 2018 at 12:13 pm

Our problem is how to shock the American public into awareness of who their real enemies are: the Oligarchs, Deep State, Zionazis, MSM, MIC. What kind of major disclosure could start the ball rolling? What kind of outrage would be too much for the zombified public to brush off and continue sleeping? What the hell would it take to knock the middle class out of it's putrid comfort zone?

Linda Wood , March 20, 2018 at 7:04 pm

zendeviant, I think it will come to a national refusal to fund illegal activity on the part of our federal government. I don't think it will come to violence, which would accomplish less than nothing. Instead, I think the American people will take legal action to stop the hemorrhage of black funding.

Skip Scott , March 21, 2018 at 10:22 am

Linda-

Funding is not the issue. They just print the money and give it out. Our tax dollars are just demanded to make sure we are in submission. The Pentagon isn't even audited, and at this point would be impossible to audit. Legal action requires an uncompromised judiciary. Haven't seen that in my lifetime. It will take real "boots on the ground" from the people to get any real change. TPTB will only budge when their backs are against the wall.

Sam F , March 20, 2018 at 7:54 am

Fair question, Mike, although perhaps annoying at times to very well-meaning people. Middle class comfort is indeed the security of a corrupt government, and so affluence destroys democracy.

As you know, I have advocated a College of Policy Debate constituted to protect all points of view, and to conduct moderated text-only debate among university experts of several disciplines, of the status and possibilities of each world region, and the policy options. Debate summaries commented by all sides are to be made available for public study and comment.

The debates would require a higher standard of argument in foreign and domestic policy on all sides, and would have much reduced the group-think that led to our endless mad wars since WWII. Extreme and naïve politicians would be easier to expose, and media commentators would have a starting point and a standard for media investigation and analysis.

While most politicians will ignore and attack careful analysis, and "the common man avoids the truth [because] it is dangerous, no good can come of it, and it doesn't pay" (Mencken), the CPD can bring the knowledge of society into public debate, educate the electorate, discourage propaganda, and expose the wrongs of society and the corruption of government that desperately need reform.

If such a rational mechanism fails to awaken the public and cause reform, then we are doomed to overthrow of the dictatorship of the rich, requiring far greater degradation to motivate the people, and greater violence than any previous revolution due to the advance of technology. I fear that both will in fact occur, after a long era of US corruption.

Deniz , March 19, 2018 at 12:36 pm

Brennans screech confirms that Trump is not just smoke and mirrors. He really hit the bureaucracy where it hurts, their pensions -- brilliant move.

orwell , March 19, 2018 at 1:15 pm

It's nice to see that everybody here agrees about this situation. Really refreshing, and no pro-CIA/FBI TROLLS !!!!!!

Stephen J, , March 19, 2018 at 1:18 pm

Article of interest at link below. http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/19/pompeo-and-haspel-are-symptoms-of-a-deeper-problem/

Herry Smith , March 19, 2018 at 1:51 pm

I remember that Larry Johnson described this threat in detail more than a year ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMkR_5Sesgg It was on RT but he made a lot of sense. Appears to have been vindicated.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 4:39 pm

Herry Smith -- thanks for posting that interview. Larry Johnson was excellent, articulate, and he's going to be proven right.

Gregory Kruse , March 19, 2018 at 2:05 pm

"Shortly before his re-election in 2012, Obama reportedly was braced at a small dinner party by wealthy donors who wanted to know whatever happened to the 'progressive Obama.' The President did not take kindly to the criticism, rose from the table, and said, 'Don't you remember what happened to Dr. King?'"

Dr. Ip , March 19, 2018 at 3:06 pm

" Trump and Brennan represent equally criminal factions of the ruling class, divided over foreign policy, particularly in the civil war in Syria, and more generally towards Russia.

Brennan and the Democrats speak for powerful sections of the military-intelligence apparatus embittered by the failure of US intervention in Syria and Trump's apparent abandonment of the Islamic fundamentalist groups armed by the CIA to fight the Russian and Iranian-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad. They want to push further into the Syrian slaughter, regardless of the risk of open military conflict with Russia, the world's second strongest nuclear power. "

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/19/pers-m19.html

Bob Ford , March 19, 2018 at 3:15 pm

It is imperative to bring about a cleansing of the FBI and DOJ, removing high-ranking officials who place politics and personal agendas ahead of enforcing the law fairly and without bias. Will that mean a "war" with the deep state? Or are there enough people within the FBI and DOJ who WANT to remove the stains from their agencies? If so, we may see more corruption exposed in the coming days.
A cleansing of the CIA or NSA is probably not feasible, even though it is sorely needed. If the president tried, he would probably be regime-changed.

Bob Van Noy , March 19, 2018 at 3:39 pm

Craig Murray has been totally reliable on Russiagate from the beginning. There is an excellent synopsis of his web reporting with commentary at Unz for those interested. http://www.unz.com/article/russian-to-judgement/

JWalters , March 19, 2018 at 10:24 pm

Excellent link. Thanks very much. His theory that the murder of the ex-Russian spy in England was an Israeli false flag operation seems to me the most plausible theory, for the reasons he states. And it fits so well into the overall picture.

KiwiAntz , March 19, 2018 at 4:03 pm

What a Banana Republic America has become? Russia has just had it's election & we have had all the usual negative comments by Western Leaders regarding Putin & Russia's supposed lack of a democratic process in voting?

Russians, at least, voted for a well known individual in Putin with a proven track record, so they know exactly what they can look forward to, secure in that knowledge of certainty? Russia has no Deepstate puppeteer's pulling the strings behind the scenes!

Contrast that with America? The whole Political system is corrupt & dominated by Corporate money paying off its Leaders? The sick joke is America claims it's a Democracy which it isn't? It's a Fascist Oligarchy ruled by a unelected Deepstate, & it doesn't matter what Party or Leader you voted for, the Deepstate, shadow Govt never just marches on & rules?

It also raises the issue, is there any point in American's actually getting out & voting every 4 yrs, they may as well just stay home & have a beer instead, as this electoral process is a complete & utter farce! America's Deepstate Govt doesn't need or care for your vote? Your vote doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things? And that, by definition, is what America has become, a Banana Republic!

Typingperson , March 20, 2018 at 12:47 am

True. And sad.

Michael Wilk , March 19, 2018 at 4:06 pm

Speaking for myself, I'd love nothing more than to see that degenerate orange-painted child take the intel agencies and their scum-willing leaders down several pegs, just to remind them who is supposed to be working for whom. Alas, the Great Orange Dope hasn't the brains to do anything but screw things up. But give the boy credit for trying, bless his toupée-glue-crusted head.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 5:04 pm

Dumb like a fox: to be smart or cunning, but pretend you don't know what you're doing. President Trump is letting them hang themselves. As someone said above, he is smoking them out. It is working beautifully too. Who, besides Trump, could have or would have put up with what he's had to contend with? It took a tough, hard-shelled individual who wouldn't cow, someone who would hang in there long enough while the others (the Inspector General, intelligence committees) could do their work.

I grant you that President Trump's brain is not like Slick Willy's or polished smooth like the last Narcissist in Chief, but he's right about a lot of things: you can't have a country without borders; you can't have a country without making your own steel and a healthy manufacturing base; and you can't have a country run by the intelligence agencies.

I'm putting my money on Trump.

Michael Wilk , March 19, 2018 at 5:50 pm

That might be true if this country respected the borders of other nations or if it actually brought back steel-making and a healthy manufacturing base. But Caligula Drumpf never intended to bring any of that back, nor will he even try. Oh, he'll make a few token statements bragging about his exaggerated actions having actually achieved success, but that's all it will be is empty boasting. Let's face it: Drumpf supporters were had.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 6:11 pm

Too early to call. It took years to ship all of the jobs overseas (thanks, Slick Willy!), and it will take years to bring them back. Did you think Trump was magical, that he could bring the jobs back in one year with the wave of a wand or something? I mean, he's been a tad busy fighting the intelligence community, hasn't he?

If given the chance, he will secure the borders, decrease immigration, institute a merit-based immigration system, bring some jobs back (a lot are being automated). The globalists are losing, but it takes time.

The Swamp will take time to drain as well, but it's proceeding along quite nicely.

Michael Wilk , March 20, 2018 at 9:05 am

But Drumpf won't even try to bring the jobs back. This is not a matter of how quickly he can do something he's never going to do, but about his will to actually follow through on his campaign promises. There's simply no reason to believe Drumpf will bother. Why would he? He's got no stake in bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.

Bart Hansen , March 19, 2018 at 5:28 pm

That "six ways from Sunday" saying may keep Schumer in line; but for Trump, what could they possibly have against him that would in the least embarrass or bother his voters, himself or his family? Day after day he crosses a variety of moral red lines.

F. G. Sanford , March 19, 2018 at 6:22 pm

That "moral turpitude" reference seems to imply that there is some -- yet to be revealed -- scandal held in abeyance, fully capable of delivering a decisive blow. And, the "deep staters" are merely waiting for the right moment to pull this shark-toothed rabbit out of the hat. I can't help but wonder what you suspect they'll try next, Ray but this whole thing reminds me of an old friend's advice given to me during a dark and desolate period of my own life: "If they had something really good, they'd have used it by now."

jaycee , March 19, 2018 at 7:23 pm

A word of caution -- the intensely partisan fighting may induce a certain fascination as a spectator, like eye-witnessing the aftermath of a vehicle accident, but what is happening is without precedent, at least in modern history. Former heads of the nation's top intelligence organization do not attack sitting presidents, let alone in such a visceral vituperative and public fashion. This is indication of deep fissures, quite beyond politics as most citizens understand. As the World Socialist Web Site published today: "There is no recent parallel for statements and actions such as those of the past three days. One would have to go back to the period before the American Civil War to find equivalent levels of tension, which in the late 1850s erupted in violence in the halls of Congress before exploding in full-scale military conflict."

Trump is a maverick outsider so it's hard to get a handle on what or who he represents, but the Brennan/deep state side of the dispute is very much aligned with the corporate DNC Democratic Party. That they seem, by Brennan's comments, to consider themselves as the representation of "America" as they abandon constitutional and etiquette norms and articulate visceral hatred towards political rivals should serve as fair warning.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 8:25 pm

jaycee -- great post. I agree with what you've said: what is happening IS without precedent, Brennan/deep state ARE aligned with the Democrats, and they believe only THEY represent the true "America".

Dangerous game by very dangerous people who are systematically destroying the Constitution in their quest to retain power.

Over and over I've heard people who know Trump well say that he listens to them, but then makes up his own mind. They say he wants to stay true to what he promised to the American people, that that is actually important to him. Of course he's willing to compromise some, but he wants the basics of what he promised.

If the Swamp takes him out, the lid is going to come off.

Abe , March 19, 2018 at 7:24 pm

Chuck Schumer is a leading Democratic Party figure of the pro-Israel Lobby and a rabid Senate warhawk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=456&v=DlV5WChUWFk

Kevin Zeese: "He basically is a Senator for Israel. He totally supports the Israeli foreign policy viewpoint, which is a very hawkish, if you were a Republican you would call him a neocon."

Ariel Gold: "He has come out in strong opposition to the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement and was very supportive of New York Governor Cuomo's order to ban BDS in New York state, and Schumer made a direct statement in support of that."

Thomas Hedges: "Schumer's staunch support for Israel has prompted him for example, to criticize the Obama administration, when in 2016, the United States abstained from a UN Security Council resolution re-affirming something the Council had almost unanimously upheld since 1979. Namely, that Israel's settlement building projects on Palestinian land violated international law."

Ben Norton: "Schumer criticized the Obama administration for abstaining on this very basic resolution, which every other country voted for. So the US was still a pariah, because the US didn't vote for it, it just abstained on it. But to Schumer that was not enough, he wanted it to be completely vetoed, because anything that Israel does is sacrosanct, and anyone who criticizes it, in Schumer's eyes, is not someone he wants to ally with politically, so he'd rather affectively ally with Trump."

Thomas Hedges: "The most recent showing of that allegiance was [ ] when Schumer supported Trump's decision to launch an air strike on an Air Force base in Syria, something Israel also strongly supported. [ ] But perhaps Schumer's greatest show of allegiance to Israel, was his decision to oppose the Iran nuclear deal, without which experts have warned, would put the United States and Iran on a collision course."

Ben Norton: "Under President Obama, Schumer was one of the most prominent Democrats to oppose the Iran nuclear deal, and he was of course fearmongering about Iran, which to him is the devil incarnate, and he actually made factually false statements about the nuclear agreement, and claimed that it would allow Iran in 10 years to produce nuclear weapons etc."

Thomas Hedges: "Leading up to his decision, Schumer reassured Zionists that he was consulting the most credentialed men in Washington, including Henry Kissinger, an opponent of the deal, and the man who orchestrated the violent coup in Chile that toppled its democratically elected leader, as well as the architect of the very bloody Vietnam war."

Chuck Schumer: I spent some time with Dr. Kissinger, I'm spending time with excellence.

Ariel Gold: So it threatened to pull us into another war, and we're back in that threat again with Trump winning the election we hear a lot about undoing the Iran nuclear deal, and it's one of the things that Israel has been saying they would like to see come out of the Trump administration.

Thomas Hedges: Schumer's willingness to oppose the deal early on, which created an opening for other undecided Democrats to do the same, is a strong display of support for Israel.

JWalters , March 19, 2018 at 10:32 pm

Spot on about Chuck Schumer. The following link, from a Jewish-run, anti-Zionist website, proves that Schumer lies to Americans for the benefit of Israel. He puts Israel's interests above those of the US. He is an Israeli mole in the US government. "Schumer says he opposed the Iran deal because of 'threat to Israel'" http://mondoweiss.net/2018/03/schumer-opposed-because/

Opus Doi , March 19, 2018 at 7:40 pm

America will triumph over you. Wo wo wo. Wo wo wo. Doo doo-doo doo doo! ?

Brennan is history's most hilarious DCI. His grandiose hissy fit suggests that CIA continues the Dulles tradition of infiltrating the civil service with 'focal points -' illegal CIA moles infiltrating US government agencies -- and the IG fumigated one key out in firing McCabe.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 8:35 pm

Opus Doi -- and the MSM and the Left see the "crime" being that McCabe was fired, not that McCabe broke the law. Kind of like when they didn't see a crime in Hillary using her own personal servers, but saw the crime as being that the emails might have been hacked by a foreign government. That they had no evidence of this didn't matter.

Brennan sounds like a desperate man. They must be getting closer to him.

Opus Doi , March 20, 2018 at 7:56 am

See how this works? The article is about Brennan. The comment is about Brennan's CIA. But immersive CIA propaganda immediately diverts the topic to CIA's synthetic warring factions, Hillary! Trump! Hillary! Trump!

People need to come to grips with the fact that the past four presidents -- the ones you hate and the ones you like -- were all drawn from CIA nomenklatura. DCI Bush; Bill Clinton, recruited by Cord Meyer at Oxford; spy brat and hopeless Arubusto 'wildcatter' GW Bush; and Obama, son of spooks, grandson of spooks, greased into Harvard by Alwaleed bin-Talal's bagman, invisible student at Columbia, honored guest of the future acting president of Pakistan before his career even started. Before CIA took over directly they thwarted (Truman, Eisenhower's disarmament plan, Carter's human rights initiative,) purged (Nixon, Carter,) shot at (Ford,) and shot (Kennedy, Reagan) their presidential figureheads.

CIA runs your country. You're not going to get anywhere until you stop bickering about their presidential puppet rulers.

Kenneth Rapoza , March 19, 2018 at 8:46 pm

Who makes the laws? He who makes the laws can break the laws. I would bet my life that Brenna, Hillary and all the "deep state" actors do not see one second in jail nor pay a nickel in fines.

backwardsevolution , March 19, 2018 at 10:22 pm

Comey and McCabe were fired for breaking the law. Lots of laws have been broken. The only thing separating the U.S. and a Third World country is the Rule of Law. Start breaking laws and looking the other way on corruption and you've got a Banana Republic. Jail time coming up for some of them.

E. Leete , March 20, 2018 at 1:29 pm

"Give me control over a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws." -- Meyer A Rothschild

Whoever controls the creation and destruction of money, as well as credit regulation (this is the deep state; the massive financial matrix including the MIC -- all run by wealthpower giants with their insatiable desires for power to control nothing less than the entire planet) controls the government including the spook/spy agencies (this is the shadow government).

the two are intimately connected, of course, and function thru unbridled unconstitutional powers of secrecy -- empowered by the state secrets privilege

nothing changes until we once and for all time do away with the bankers having the power to issue our money as debt

because, again, it all starts with private control of money creation -- the most enormous farce in all of history and it rules yet today

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." -- Woodrow Wilson

Bob H , March 19, 2018 at 9:59 pm

The mention of John Brennan brings to mind the bizarre death of Rolling Stone's writer, Michael Hastings, who was reported to be working on a story about Brennan just before he had his "accident".

https://news.vice.com/article/primary-sources-emails-show-fbi-worked-to-debunk-conspiracy-theories-following-michael-hastings-death

Hello Good World , March 19, 2018 at 11:26 pm

Imagine if a Trump tweet alleged that a man who was found guilty by the FBI was really innocent. Imagine if Trump tweeted that a man was really guilty despite no evidence found after almost 2 years of investigation.

What would be the response to either tweet be from the MS Media? Our MS Media is nothing more than Democrat Propaganda, and that situation will doom us to Russian interference. Every election the Russians can do the same as 2016: release the truth about justice not served.

Skip Scott , March 20, 2018 at 1:00 pm

Michael-

I'm no fan of Trump, but Hillary had absolutely no intention to "address the needs of the people". They are all globalizing warmongers who know how to say what needs to be said to get elected, and then do whatever their paymasters tell them. Hillary's speeches to her banker buddies unearthed via Podesta's email account show that she felt it necessary to have "private views" separate from her "public views". How much plainer could it be than that!

j. D. D. , March 20, 2018 at 7:59 am

"Does one collect a full pension in jail?" Brilliant, provocative and persuasive, in the way that any follower of Ray McGovern has come to expect.

Abe , March 21, 2018 at 11:38 am

As the Russia-gate fictions erode and Israel-gate emerges, the Hasbara troll army is scraping the bottom of the propaganda barrel.

Here we have "j. D. D." and the shrill refrain of "BobS"

For more hilarious Hasbara antics from comrade "BobS", see the CN comments at
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/26/growing-risk-of-u-s-iran-hostilities-based-on-false-pretexts-intel-vets-warn/

Comrade "BobS" and fellow Hasbara troll "will" are positively obsessed about Reagan era "dirty wars" Central and South America. That's understandable.

Israel has advised, trained and equipped, and ran "dirty war" operations in the Latin American "dirty war" conflicts in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Colombia. In the case of the Salvadoran "bloodbath", the Israelis were present from the beginning. Besides arms sales, they helped train ANSESAL, the secret police who were later to form the framework of the infamous death squads that would kill tens of thousands of mostly civilian activists.

McGovern certainly understands what sort of "ally" Israel can be.

So keep on yappin' "BobS". We got you.

IsItAnyWonder , March 20, 2018 at 11:10 am

USMC activated. Well, I'd put my two-cents on POTUS. Just like we've all seen throughout our lives when the supposed tough guy starts making threats he is really scared Sh**less. Lots of these clowns are just going to disappear during the late night hours of the day never to be heard from again.

Our society is sitting on a knifes edge, anything at all happens to Trump and the entire nation will just burn to the ground with literal blood in the streets. No one needs to pound their chest and say what tough guy acts they will do since most of the heavy lifting is already going on with Spec Ops and very soon USMC.

Most of us would not have the skills are knowledge to do what is needed. Foggy Bottom is about to get a big enema along with the CIA to our benefit. Guys like Brennan are scared rats in a sinking ship, good riddance!

geeyp , March 20, 2018 at 3:05 pm

Excuse me Mr. Williamson, I think you are precisely right. This indeed is the time to get it all out. Expose it all. Lay it all out and go for it. These people have it coming to them.

will , March 20, 2018 at 1:23 pm

What an amazingly illuminating article. Devin Nunes, who perfectly ok with wire taps as long as the target aren't from his party is somehow a noble individual. While I agree that Brennan should be in prison, it should be for torturing people ...

Abe , March 21, 2018 at 12:18 pm

As the Russia-gate fictions erode and Israel-gate emerges, the Hasbara propaganda troll army keeps on sending in the clowns.

For more hilarious Hasbara antics from "works for a living" comrade "will", see the CN comments at
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/12/22/the-strangelovian-russia-gate-myth/

Comrade "will" and his fellow Hasbara troll "BobS" recite the same propaganda script, going on and on about the war in Latin America.

Of course, the trolls never mention the fact that the US government, especially the CIA, recruited an all-too-eager Israel to "support" the Central and South American military forces and intelligence units engaged in violent and widespread repression during the Reagan and Bush era "dirty wars".

Recently declassified 1983 US government documents have obtained by the Washington, DC-based National Security Archives through the Freedom of Information Act. One such declassified document is a 1983 memo from the notorious Colonel Oliver North of the Reagan Administration's National Security Council and reads: "As discussed with you yesterday, I asked CIA, Defense, and State to suggest practical assistance which the Israelis might offer in Guatemala and El Salvador."

Another document, this time a 1983 cable from the US Ambassador in Guatemala to Washington Frederic Chapin shows the money trail. Chapin says that at a time when the US did not want to be seen directly assisting Guatemala, "we have reason to believe that our good friends the Israelis are prepared, or already have, offered substantial amounts of military equipment to the GOG (Government of Guatemala) on credit terms up to 20 years (I pass over the importance of making huge concessionary loans to Israel so that it can make term loans in our own backyard)."

The Reagan and Bush era "dirty wars" were bad enough. The Israeli-Saudi-US Axis jumped the shark with Bush the Lesser and Obama wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Under Trump, Israel remains only to happy to continue providing "support" for Al Qaeda and ISIS.

So keep on blabbin', Hasbara troll team mates "will" and "BobS". We got you.

Drogon , March 20, 2018 at 6:45 pm

"It is an open secret that the CIA has been leaking like the proverbial sieve over the last two years or so" And this is supposed to be a bad thing? I'm sorry, but the more leaks the better IMO.

Ray McGovern , March 21, 2018 at 1:05 am

Drogon, You're right; usually the more leaks the better ..BUT these are "AUTHORIZED" leaks to co-opted journalists and PR people like Palmieri designed to give some "substance" to Russia-gate, for example. ray

Abe , March 21, 2018 at 11:04 am

Speaking of "AUTHORIZED" leaks: http://whitehouse.georgewbush.org/initiatives/posters/images/leaking-secrets.jpg

[Mar 21, 2018] Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It is an open secret that the CIA has been leaking like the proverbial sieve over the last two years or so to its favorite stenographers at the New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... On April 6, 2017 I attended a panel discussion on "Russia's interference in our democracy" at the Clinton/Podesta Center for American Progress Fund. In my subsequent write-up I noted that panelist Palmieri had inadvertently dropped tidbits of evidence that I suggested "could get some former officials in deep kimchi -- if a serious investigation of leaking, for example, were to be conducted." ..."
"... Palmieri was asked to comment on "what was actually going on in late summer/early fall [2016]." She answered: "It was a surreal experience so I did appreciate that for the press to absorb the idea that behind the stage that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton was too fantastic for people to, um, for the press to process, to absorb . ..."
"... But she lost. And a month ago, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) threw down the gauntlet, indicating that there could be legal consequences, for example, for officials who misled the FISA court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and associates. ..."
"... John Brennan is widely reported to be Nunes's next target. Does one collect a full pension in jail? ..."
"... Unmasking: Senior national security officials are permitted to ask the National Security Agency to unmask the names of Americans in intercepted communications for national security reasons -- not for domestic political purposes. ..."
"... Brennan's words and attitude are a not-so-subtle reminder of the heavy influence and confidence of the deep state, including the media -- exercised to a fare-thee-well over the past two years. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Washington Post ..."
"... The Post, incidentally, waited until paragraph 41 of 44 to inform readers that it was the FBI's own Office of Professional Responsibility and the Inspector General of the Department of Justice that found McCabe guilty, and that the charge was against McCabe, not the FBI. A quite different impression was conveyed by the large headline "Trump escalates attacks on FBI" as well as the first 40 paragraphs of Sunday's lead article. ..."
"... "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," Schumer told Maddow. "So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." Did Maddow ask Schumer if he was saying President of the United States should be afraid of the intelligence community? No, she let Schumer's theorem stand. ..."
Mar 19, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

With former CIA Director John Brennan accusing President Donald Trump of "moral turpitude" for his "scapegoating" of Andy McCabe, it remains to be seen whether a constitutional crisis will be averted, writes Ray McGovern.

What prompted former CIA Director John Brennan on Saturday to accuse President Donald Trump of "moral turpitude" and to predict, with an alliterative flourish, that Trump will end up "as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history"? The answer shines through the next sentence in Brennan's threatening tweet : "You may scapegoat Andy McCabe [former FBI Deputy Director fired Friday night] but you will not destroy America America will triumph over you."

It is easy to see why Brennan lost it. The Attorney General fired McCabe, denying him full retirement benefits, because McCabe "had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor -- including under oath -- on multiple occasions." There but for the grace of God go I, Brennan must have thought, whose stock in trade has been unauthorized disclosures.

In fact, Brennan can take but small, short-lived consolation in the fact that he succeeded in leaving with a full government pension. His own unauthorized disclosures and leaks probably dwarf in number, importance, and sensitivity those of McCabe. And many of those leaks appear to have been based on sensitive intercepted conversations from which the names of American citizens were unmasked for political purposes. Not to mention the leaks of faux intelligence like that contained in the dubious "dossier" cobbled together for the Democrats by British ex-spy Christopher Steele.

It is an open secret that the CIA has been leaking like the proverbial sieve over the last two years or so to its favorite stenographers at the New York Times and Washington Post. (At one point, the obvious whispering reached the point that the Wall Street Journal saw fit to complain that it was being neglected.) The leaking can be traced way back -- at least as far as the Clinton campaign's decision to blame the Russians for the publication of very damning DNC emails by WikiLeaks just three days before the Democratic National Convention.

This blame game turned out to be a hugely successful effort to divert attention from the content of the emails, which showed in bas relief the dirty tricks the DNC played on Bernie Sanders. The media readily fell in line, and all attention was deflected from the substance of the DNC emails to the question as to why the Russians supposedly "hacked into the DNC and gave the emails to WikiLeaks."

This media operation worked like a charm, but even Secretary Clinton's PR person, Jennifer Palmieri, conceded later that at first it strained credulity that the Russians would be doing what they were being accused of doing.

Magnificent Diversion

On April 6, 2017 I attended a panel discussion on "Russia's interference in our democracy" at the Clinton/Podesta Center for American Progress Fund. In my subsequent write-up I noted that panelist Palmieri had inadvertently dropped tidbits of evidence that I suggested "could get some former officials in deep kimchi -- if a serious investigation of leaking, for example, were to be conducted." (That time seems to be coming soon.)

Palmieri was asked to comment on "what was actually going on in late summer/early fall [2016]." She answered: "It was a surreal experience so I did appreciate that for the press to absorb the idea that behind the stage that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton was too fantastic for people to, um, for the press to process, to absorb .

"But then we go back to Brooklyn [Clinton headquarters] and heard from the -- mostly our sources were other intelligence, with the press who work in the intelligence sphere, and that's where we heard things and that's where we learned about the dossier and the other story lines that were swirling about; and how to process And along the way the administration started confirming various pieces of what they were concerned about what Russia was doing. So I do think that the answer for the Democrats now in both the House and the Senate is to talk about it more and make it more real."

So the leaking had an early start, and went on steroids during the months following the Democratic Convention up to the election -- and beyond.

As a Reminder

None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, or other activities directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not prison.

But she lost. And a month ago, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) threw down the gauntlet, indicating that there could be legal consequences, for example, for officials who misled the FISA court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and associates. His words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of yet other miscreants. "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said. "The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created."

John Brennan is widely reported to be Nunes's next target. Does one collect a full pension in jail?

Unmasking: Senior national security officials are permitted to ask the National Security Agency to unmask the names of Americans in intercepted communications for national security reasons -- not for domestic political purposes. Congressional committees have questioned why Obama's UN ambassador Samantha Power (as well as his national security adviser Susan Rice) made so many unmasking requests. Power is reported to have requested the unmasking of more than 260 Americans, most of them in the final days of the administration, including the names of Trump associates.

Deep State Intimidation

Back to John Brennan's bizarre tweet Saturday telling the President, "You may scapegoat Andy McCabe but you will not destroy America America will triumph over you." Unmasking the word "America," so to speak, one can readily discern the name "Brennan" underneath. Brennan's words and attitude are a not-so-subtle reminder of the heavy influence and confidence of the deep state, including the media -- exercised to a fare-thee-well over the past two years.

Later on Saturday, Samantha Power, with similar equities at stake, put an exclamation point behind what Brennan had tweeted earlier in the day. Power also saw fit to remind Trump where the power lies, so to speak. She warned him publicly that it is "not a good idea to piss off John Brennan."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is dutifully playing its part in the deep-state game of intimidation. The following excerpt from Sunday's lead article conveys the intended message: "Some Trump allies say they worry he is playing with fire by taunting the FBI. 'This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI's going to win,' said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. 'You can't fight the FBI. They're going to torch him.'" [sic]

The Post, incidentally, waited until paragraph 41 of 44 to inform readers that it was the FBI's own Office of Professional Responsibility and the Inspector General of the Department of Justice that found McCabe guilty, and that the charge was against McCabe, not the FBI. A quite different impression was conveyed by the large headline "Trump escalates attacks on FBI" as well as the first 40 paragraphs of Sunday's lead article.

Putting Down a Marker

It isn't as though Donald Trump wasn't warned, as are all incoming presidents, of the power of the Deep State that he needs to play ball with -- or else. Recall that just three days before President-elect Trump was visited by National Intelligence Director James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Michael Rogers, Trump was put on notice by none other than the Minority Leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer. Schumer has been around and knows the ropes; he is a veteran of 18 years in the House, and is in his 20th year in the Senate.

On Jan. 3, 2017 Schumer said it all, when he told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, that President-elect Trump is "being really dumb" by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities:

"Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," Schumer told Maddow. "So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." Did Maddow ask Schumer if he was saying President of the United States should be afraid of the intelligence community? No, she let Schumer's theorem stand.

With gauntlets now thrown down by both sides, we may not have to wait very long to see if Schumer is correct in his blithe prediction as to how the present constitutional crisis will be resolved.

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as a CIA analyst under seven Presidents and nine CIA directors and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

[Mar 13, 2018] The CIA takeover of the Democratic Party by Patrick Martin

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If on November 6 the Democratic Party makes the net gain of 24 seats needed to win control of the House of Representatives, former CIA agents, military commanders, and State Department officials will provide the margin of victory and hold the balance of power in Congress. ..."
"... Since its establishment in 1947 -- under the administration of Democratic President Harry Truman -- the CIA has been legally barred from carrying out within the United States the activities which were its mission overseas: spying, infiltration, political provocation, assassination. These prohibitions were given official lip service but ignored in practice. ..."
"... The Church Committee in particular featured the exposure of CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, General Rene Schneider in Chile, and many others. More horrors were uncovered: MK-Ultra, in which the CIA secretly subjected unwitting victims to experimentation with drugs like LSD; ..."
"... Operation Mockingbird, in which the CIA recruited journalists to plant stories and smear opponents; Operation Chaos, an effort to spy on the antiwar movement and sow disruption; Operation Shamrock, under which the telecommunications companies shared traffic with the NSA for more than a quarter century. ..."
"... The Church and Pike committee exposures, despite their limitations, had a devastating political effect. The CIA and its allied intelligence organizations in the Pentagon and NSA became political lepers, reviled as the enemies of democratic rights. The CIA in particular was widely viewed as "Murder Incorporated." ..."
"... The last 15 years have seen a massive expansion of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, backed by an avalanche of media propaganda, with endless television programs and movies glorifying American spies and assassins ..."
"... The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks . ..."
"... This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and expanded the various operations of the intelligence agencies abroad and within the United States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen candidate of the Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate the confrontation with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine. ..."
"... The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of resentment over the disruption of its operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that score. ..."
"... The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence operatives are moving in large numbers to take over a political party and seize a major role in Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic Party primaries are "former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however, purely nominal. Joining the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments. ..."
Mar 13, 2018 | www.wsws.org

In a three-part series published last week, the World Socialist Web Site documented an unprecedented influx of intelligence and military operatives into the Democratic Party. More than 50 such military-intelligence candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination in the 102 districts identified by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as its targets for 2018. These include both vacant seats and those with Republican incumbents considered vulnerable in the event of a significant swing to the Democrats.

If on November 6 the Democratic Party makes the net gain of 24 seats needed to win control of the House of Representatives, former CIA agents, military commanders, and State Department officials will provide the margin of victory and hold the balance of power in Congress. The presence of so many representatives of the military-intelligence apparatus in the legislature is a situation without precedent in the history of the United States.

Since its establishment in 1947 -- under the administration of Democratic President Harry Truman -- the CIA has been legally barred from carrying out within the United States the activities which were its mission overseas: spying, infiltration, political provocation, assassination. These prohibitions were given official lip service but ignored in practice.

In the wake of the Watergate crisis and the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon, reporter Seymour Hersh published the first devastating exposure of the CIA domestic spying, in an investigative report for the New York Times on December 22, 1974. This report triggered the establishment of the Rockefeller Commission, a White House effort at damage control, and Senate and House select committees, named after their chairmen, Senator Frank Church and Representative Otis Pike, which conducted hearings and made serious attempts to investigate and expose the crimes of the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.

The Church Committee in particular featured the exposure of CIA assassination plots against foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, General Rene Schneider in Chile, and many others. More horrors were uncovered: MK-Ultra, in which the CIA secretly subjected unwitting victims to experimentation with drugs like LSD;

Operation Mockingbird, in which the CIA recruited journalists to plant stories and smear opponents; Operation Chaos, an effort to spy on the antiwar movement and sow disruption; Operation Shamrock, under which the telecommunications companies shared traffic with the NSA for more than a quarter century.

The Church and Pike committee exposures, despite their limitations, had a devastating political effect. The CIA and its allied intelligence organizations in the Pentagon and NSA became political lepers, reviled as the enemies of democratic rights. The CIA in particular was widely viewed as "Murder Incorporated."

In that period, it would have been unthinkable either for dozens of "former" military-intelligence operatives to participate openly in electoral politics, or for them to be welcomed and even recruited by the two corporate-controlled parties. The Democrats and Republicans sought to distance themselves, at least for public relations purposes, from the spy apparatus, while the CIA publicly declared that it would no longer recruit or pay American journalists to publish material originating in Langley, Virginia. Even in the 1980s, the Iran-Contra scandal involved the exposure of the illegal operations of the Reagan administration's CIA director, William Casey.

How times have changed. One of the main functions of the "war on terror," launched in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has been to rehabilitate the US spy apparatus and give it a public relations makeover as the supposed protector of the American people against terrorism.

This meant disregarding the well-known connections between Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders and the CIA, which recruited them for the anti-Soviet guerrilla war in Afghanistan, waged from 1979 to 1989, as well as the still unexplained role of the US intelligence agencies in facilitating the 9/11 attacks themselves.

The last 15 years have seen a massive expansion of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, backed by an avalanche of media propaganda, with endless television programs and movies glorifying American spies and assassins ( 24 , Homeland , Zero Dark Thirty , etc.)

The American media has been directly recruited to this effort. Judith Miller of the New York Times , with her reports on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, is only the most notorious of the stable of "plugged-in" intelligence-connected journalists at the Times , the Washington Post , and the major television networks. More recently, the Times has installed as its editorial page editor James Bennet, brother of a Democratic senator and son of the former administrator of the Agency for International Development, which has been accused of working as a front for the operations of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The media campaign alleging Russian intervention in the 2016 US elections has been based entirely on handouts from the CIA, NSA and FBI, transmitted by reporters who are either unwitting stooges or conscious agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This has been accompanied by the recruitment of a cadre of top CIA and military officials to serve as highly paid "experts" and "analysts" for the television networks .

In centering its opposition to Trump on the bogus allegations of Russian interference, while essentially ignoring Trump's attacks on immigrants and democratic rights, his alignment with ultra-right and white supremacist groups, his attacks on social programs like Medicaid and food stamps, and his militarism and threats of nuclear war, the Democratic Party has embraced the agenda of the military-intelligence apparatus and sought to become its main political voice.

This process was well under way in the administration of Barack Obama, which endorsed and expanded the various operations of the intelligence agencies abroad and within the United States. Obama's endorsed successor, Hillary Clinton, ran openly as the chosen candidate of the Pentagon and CIA, touting her toughness as a future commander-in-chief and pledging to escalate the confrontation with Russia, both in Syria and Ukraine.

The CIA has spearheaded the anti-Russia campaign against Trump in large part because of resentment over the disruption of its operations in Syria, and it has successfully used the campaign to force a shift in the policy of the Trump administration on that score. A chorus of media backers -- Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen of the New York Times , the entire editorial board of the Washington Post , most of the television networks -- are part of the campaign to pollute public opinion and whip up support on alleged "human rights" grounds for an expansion of the US war in Syria.

The 2018 election campaign marks a new stage: for the first time, military-intelligence operatives are moving in large numbers to take over a political party and seize a major role in Congress. The dozens of CIA and military veterans running in the Democratic Party primaries are "former" agents of the military-intelligence apparatus. This "retired" status is, however, purely nominal. Joining the CIA or the Army Rangers or the Navy SEALs is like joining the Mafia: no one ever actually leaves; they just move on to new assignments.

The CIA operation in 2018 is unlike its overseas activities in one major respect: it is not covert. On the contrary, the military-intelligence operatives running in the Democratic primaries boast of their careers as spies and special ops warriors. Those with combat experience invariably feature photographs of themselves in desert fatigues or other uniforms on their websites. And they are welcomed and given preferred positions, with Democratic Party officials frequently clearing the field for their candidacies.

The working class is confronted with an extraordinary political situation. On the one hand, the Republican Trump administration has more military generals in top posts than any other previous government. On the other hand, the Democratic Party has opened its doors to a "friendly takeover" by the intelligence agencies.

The incredible power of the military-intelligence agencies over the entire government is an expression of the breakdown of American democracy. The central cause of this breakdown is the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite, whose interests the state apparatus and its "bodies of armed men" serve. Confronted by an angry and hostile working class, the ruling class is resorting to ever more overt forms of authoritarian rule.

Millions of working people want to fight the Trump administration and its ultra-right policies. But it is impossible to carry out this fight through the "axis of evil" that connects the Democratic Party, the bulk of the corporate media, and the CIA. The influx of military-intelligence candidates puts paid to the longstanding myth, peddled by the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, that the Democrats represent a "lesser evil." On the contrary, working people must confront the fact that within the framework of the corporate-controlled two-party system, they face two equally reactionary evils.

Patrick Martin

The author also recommends:

Palace coup or class struggle: The political crisis in Washington and the strategy of the working class

[Mar 11, 2018] The Elephant In The Room by Craig Murray

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... while totally failing to mention the fact that incident took place only eight miles from the largest stock of nerve agent in western Europe. ..."
"... The adviser said the use of nerve agent suggested a state operation ..."
"... It certainly does. But the elephant in the room is – which state? ..."
Mar 11, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

Nerve agents including Sarin and VX are manufactured by the British Government in Porton Down, just 8 miles from where Sergei Skripal was attacked. The official British government story is that these nerve agents are only manufactured "To help develop effective medical countermeasures and to test systems".

The UK media universally accepted that the production of polonium by Russia was conclusive evidence that Vladimir Putin was personally responsible for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. In the case of Skripal, po-faced articles like this hilarious one in the Guardian speculate about where the nerve agent could possibly have come from – while totally failing to mention the fact that incident took place only eight miles from the largest stock of nerve agent in western Europe.

The investigation comprises multiple strands. Among them is whether there is any more of the nerve agent in the UK, and where it came from.

Chemical weapons experts said it was almost impossible to make nerve agents without training. "This needs expertise and a special place to make it or you will kill yourself. It's only a small amount, but you don't make this in your kitchen," one said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer at the UK's chemical, biological and nuclear regiment, said: "This is pretty significant. Nerve agents such as sarin and VX need to be made in a laboratory. It is not an insufficient task. Not even the so-called Islamic State could do it."

Falling over themselves in the rush to ramp up the Russophobia, the Guardian quotes

"One former senior Foreign Office adviser suggested the Kremlin was taking advantage of the UK's lack of allies in the US and EU. He said the British government was in a "weaker position" than in 2006 when two Kremlin assassins poisoned the former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko with a radioactive cup of tea.

The adviser said the use of nerve agent suggested a state operation "

It certainly does. But the elephant in the room is – which state?

[Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this. ..."
"... Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky. ..."
"... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
"... I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence". ..."
"... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
"... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
"... Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ..."
"... They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040 ..."
"... In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. ..."
"... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union ..."
"... About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS ..."
"... No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming. ..."
"... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
"... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
"... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
"... IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war. ..."
"... The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. ..."
"... A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella. ..."
"... Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear. ..."
Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'

In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background, which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.'

There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.

This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.

And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area.

Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.

The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.

In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry – the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.

Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier, which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.

(See http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/20/what-really-happened-robert-levinson-cia-iran-454803.html .)

Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio 4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets, backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.

The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available – evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.

Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.

What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest a sale had been completed.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.

All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder. For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.

(On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews both with Mogilevich and Levinson at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_06_12_99.txt )

In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.

Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions north of the Litani.

These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.

What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.

Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking 'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.

Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.

So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster.

All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate Russia in supplying materials.

There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)

It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional, Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.

It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here, a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.

Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.

In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.

Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain, but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)

That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:

'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear limited life components and you can read for weeks).'

(For this and other articles by Kaszeta, as also his bio, see http://strongpointsecurity.co.uk ')

What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility, in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of ones which lasted longer.

For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.

What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.

In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'

According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?

As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.

In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties, and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another day.

A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.

Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.

Posted at 03:42 PM in As The Borg Turns , Habakkuk , Russia , Russiagate | Permalink

james , 03 February 2018 at 04:33 PM

thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..

it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..

JohnB , 03 February 2018 at 05:17 PM
David,

Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.

turcopolier , 03 February 2018 at 06:02 PM
james

It is the closest of all international intelligence relationships. It started in WW2. Before that the Brits were though of as a potential enemy. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 03 February 2018 at 06:10 PM
I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One.
The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
catherine , 03 February 2018 at 06:22 PM
That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.

Re: Levinson

# Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.

# Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson went to Jablonski with it.

# And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson? The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing came of it.

I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.

Ishmael Zechariah , 03 February 2018 at 06:54 PM
DH,

As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.

I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".

Be safe.

Ishmael Zechariah

Rd , 03 February 2018 at 07:31 PM
Babak Makkinejad said in reply to turcopolier...

The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
..and US is the one who has been paying for it since 1979!!!

kooshy said in reply to Ishmael Zechariah... , 03 February 2018 at 08:21 PM
IZ
My guess is, that he is unpredictable, instantaneous and therefore can't be consistent and reliable, useful idiot needs to be predictable.
kooshy , 03 February 2018 at 08:43 PM
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. "

David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making. Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

different clue , 03 February 2018 at 08:49 PM
Ishmael Zechariah,

( reply to comment 6),

I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.

It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate.

And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.

So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

Jack , 03 February 2018 at 08:54 PM
David,

Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.

In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.

Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century endorsed her.

Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in. Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling the Borg pundits.

SmoothieX12 -> kooshy... , 03 February 2018 at 09:51 PM
So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. This swamp (Borg, deep state, etc.) still thinks that it can use Cold War 1.0 Playbook and address very real and dangerous American economic issues. They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with.

Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:10 PM
They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:24 PM
You are right CWII is very much desired and on agenda, but i am not sure of setup, the setup/board has been changed tremendously and IMO benefits the Asian side of Bosphorus, for one thing technology is no longer exclusive, and financial burden is heavier on atlantic side.
catherine said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:21 AM
''Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ''

The locust keep trying and trying, destruction is their life's work.

'1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'

In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241, 251 - 256]

'November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union'

State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union

aleksandar , 04 February 2018 at 04:41 AM
David,

About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS.

Fred said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 08:40 AM
Babak,

"they got US to bail them out during WWII" And how would things have worked out had we not done so?

Fred , 04 February 2018 at 08:46 AM
David,

"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time."

Yes, that is what appears to be just what is coming to light. I wonder just what position Trey Gowdy is going to have since he won't be running for re-election. The rage from the left is palpable. I'm sure the next outraged guy on the left will know how to shoot straighter than the ones who shot up Congressman Scalise or the concert goers at Mandalay Bay.

Anna said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 08:48 AM
"They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with."
-- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
turcopolier , 04 February 2018 at 08:54 AM
Anna

The powerful are often remarkably ignorant. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> Fred... , 04 February 2018 at 10:08 AM
England preferred NAZI Germany to USSR, this is well known. As to what would have happened, the outcome of the war, in my opinion, did not depend on US participation in the European Theatre. All of Europe would have become USSR satellite or joined USSR.
jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 11:53 AM
"unsentimental empirical people"? Absolutely disagree with you. Now the Iranians, they strike me as a singularity unsentimental people. Just general impressions, mind you.
Kooshy said in reply to catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
Yes, US was the first country to proudly deliver Manpads to be used by "rebels" (Mojahadin later Taleban) against USSR in Afghanistan back in 80s. And, as per the architect of support for the rebels (Zbigniew Brzezinski) very proud of it with no regret. With that in mind, I don't see how western politicians, the western governments and their related proxy war planers, will be regretting, even sadden, once god forbid we see passenger planes with loved ones are shot down taking off or landing at various western airports and other places around the word. Just like how superficialy with crocodile tears in their eyes they acted in aftermath of the terrorist events in various western cities in this past 16 years. Gods knows what will happens to us if the opposite side start to supply his own proxies with lethal anti air weapons. "Proudly", I don't think anybody in west cares or will regret of such an escalation.
Phodges said in reply to turcopolier ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:23 PM
Sir

It seems we are being defeated by Cicero's enemy within. Zion is achieving what no one could hope to achieve by force of arms.

David Habakkuk -> catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 01:17 PM
catherine,

In response to comment 5.

I think it likely that what Meier produces is only a 'limited hangout', and am hoping that when the book arrives it will contain more pointers.

It is important to be clear that one is often dealing with people playing very complicated double games.

An interesting document is the 'Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus' made on behalf of Khodorkovsky's close associate Alexander Konanykhin back in 1997,when the Immigration and Naturalization Service were – apparently at least – cooperating with Russian attempts to get hold of him. An extract:

'During the immigration hearing FBI SA Robert Levinson, an INS witness, confirmed that in 1992 Petitioner was kidnapped and afterwards pursued by assassins of the Solntsevskaya organized criminal group. This organized criminal group is reportedly the largest and the most influential organized criminal group in Russia, and operates internationally.'

(See http://defiancethebook.com/legal/habeas/petition.htm .)

Note the similarities between the 'StratCom' that Khonanykin and his associates were producing in the 'Nineties, and that which Simpson and his associates have been producing two decades later.

Another useful example is provided by a 2004 item in the 'New American Magazine', reproduced on Konanykhin's website:

'One of those who testified on behalf of Konanykhine was KGB defector Yuri Shvets, who declared: "I have a firsthand knowledge on similar operations conducted by the KGB." Konanykhine had brought trouble on himself, Shvets continued, when he "started bringing charges against people who were involved with him in setting up and running commercial enterprises. They were KGB people secretly smuggling from Russia hundreds of millions of dollars . This is [a] serious case, and I know that KGB ... desperately wants to win this case, and everybody who won't step to their side would face problems."'

(See http://konanykhin.com/news/the-konanykhine-case.html .)

So – 'first hand knowledge', from a Ukrainian nationalist – look at what the Chalupas have been doing, it seems not much has changed.

For a rather different perspective on what Konanykhin had actually been up to, from someone in whose honesty – if not always judgement – I have complete confidence, see the testimony of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson to the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services hearings on Russian Money Laundering. In this, she described how she had been approached by him in 1993:

'"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [Ł1bn] in assets and investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent political and social elite," she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and asked her to help buy foreign passports for its "very, very special clients".

'In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that it believed Mr Konanykhine and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials".

(For a 'Guardian report, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/23/julianborger ; for the actual testimony, see http://archives-financialservices.house.gov/banking/92299ger.pdf .)

Coming back to Steele's 'StratCom', in July 2008, an item appeared on the 'Newnight' programme of the BBC – which some of us think should by then have been rechristened the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – in which the introduction by the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, read as follows:

'Good evening. The New Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, was all smiles and warm words when he met Gordon Brown today. He said he was keen to resolve all outstanding difficulties between the two countries. Yada yada yada. Gordon Brown smiled, but he must know what Newsnight can now reveal: that MI5 believes the Russian state was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive poisoning. They also believe that without their intervention another London-based Russian, Boris Berezovsky, would have been murdered. Our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, has this exclusive report.'

(For the transcript presented in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, see http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ )

When Urban repeated the claims on his blog, there was a positive eruption from someone using the name 'timelythoughts', about the activities of someone she referred to as 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist' – when I came across this later, it was immediately clear to me that she was Karon von Gerhke, and he was Shvets.

(For the first part of the exchanges of comments, the second apparently having become unavailable, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/markurban/2008/07/litvinenko_killing_had_state_i.html )

She then described a visit by Scaramella to Washington, details of which had already been unearthed by my Italian collaborator, David Loepp. Her claim to have e-mails from Shvets, from the time immediately prior to Litvinenko's death, directly contradicting the testimony he had given, fitted with other evidence I had already unearthed.

Later, we exchanged e-mails over a quite protracted period, and a large amount of material that came into my possession as a result was submitted by me to the Inquest team, with some of it being used in posts on the 'European Tribune' site.

What I never used publicly, because I could only partially corroborate it from the material she provided, was an extraordinary claim about Shvets:

'He was responsible for bringing in a Kremlin initiative that was walked Vice President Cheney's office on a US government quid pro quo with the Kremlin FSB SVR involving the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – a cease and desist on allegations of a politically motivated arrest of Khodorkovsky, violations of rules of law and calls from Russia's expulsion from the G 8 in exchange for favorable posturing of U.S. oil companies on Gazprom's Shtokman project and intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria, all documented in reports I submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and MI6.

'Berezovsky's DS could not be on both sides on that isle. His Kremlin FSB SVR sources had been vetted by the CIA and by the National Security Council. They proved to be as represented. As we would later learn, however, he was on Berezovsky's payroll at same time. The FSB SVR general he was coordinating the Kremlin initiative through was S. R. Subbotin, the same FSB SVR general who was investigating Berezovsky's money laundering operations in Switzerland during the same timeframe. His FSB SVR sources surrounding Putin were higher than any Lugovoy could have ever hoped to affiliate with.

'R. James Woolsey (former CIA DCI), Marshall Miller (former law partner of the late CIA DCI William Colby), who I coordinated the Kremlin initiative through that Berezovsky's DS had brought in were shocked to learn that he was affiliated with Berezovsky and Litvinenko. He was in Berezovsky's inner circle and engaged in vetting Russian business with Litvinenko. He operated Berezovsky's Ukraine website, editing and dubbing the now infamous Kuchma tapes throughout the lead up to the elections in the Ukraine. Berezovsky contributed $41 million to Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, which he used in an attempt to force Yushchenko to reunite with Julia Tymoschenko. It failed but would succeed later after Berezovsky orchestrated a public relations initiative through Alan Goldfarb in the U.S. on behalf of Tymoschenko.'

Having got to know Karon von Gerhke quite well, and also been able to corroborate a great deal of what she told me about many things, and discussed these matters with her, it is absolutely clear to me that she was neither fabricating nor fantasising. What later became apparent, both to her and to me, was that in the 'double game' that Shvets was playing, he had succeeded in fooling her as to the side for which he was working.

It seems likely however that the reason Shvets could do what he did was that quite precisely that many high-up people in the Kremlin and elsewhere were playing a 'double game.' In this, Karon von Gerhke's propensity for indiscretion – of which I, like others, was both beneficiary and victim – could be useful.

An exercise in 'positioning', which could be used to disguise the fact that Shvets was indeed 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist', could be used to make it appear that 'intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria' was actually credible.

This could have been used to try to rescue Cheney, Bush and their associates from the mess they had got into as a result of the failure of the invasion to provide any evidence whatsoever supporting the case which had been made for it. It could also have been used to provide the kind of materials justifying military action against Iran for which Levinson and Jablonski were looking, and for similar action against Syria.

Among reasons for bringing this up now is that we need to make sense of the paradox that Simpson – clearly in collusion with Steele – was using Mogilevich and the 'Solnsetskaya Bratva' both against Manafort and Trump and against Browder.

There are various possible explanations for this. I do not want to succumb to my instinctive prejudice that this may have been another piece of 'positioning', similar to what I think was being done with Shvets, but the hypothesis needs to be considered.

A more general point is that people in Washington and London need to 'wise up' to the kind of world with which they are dealing. This could be done quite enjoyably: reading some of Dashiell Hammett's fictions of the United States in the Prohibition era, or indeed buying DVDs of some of the classics of 'film noir', like 'Out of the Past' (in its British release, 'Build My Gallows High') might be a start.

Very much of the coverage of affairs in the post-Soviet space since 1991 has read rather as though a Dashiell Hammett story had been rewritten by someone specialising in sentimental children's, or romantic, fiction (although, come to think of it, that is really what Brigid O'Shaughnessy does in 'The Maltese Falcon.')

The testimony of Glenn Simpson seems a case in point. The sickly sentimentality of these people does, rather often, make one feel as though one wanted to throw up.

Thomas , 04 February 2018 at 01:24 PM
"They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.}

No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming.

SmoothieX12 -> Anna... , 04 February 2018 at 01:39 PM
- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.

My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.

Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.

Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.

james said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 February 2018 at 03:01 PM
there seems to be no shortage of money for these blatant propaganda exercises..
Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 04:14 PM
I think the failure of Deciders is nothing new - Fath Ali Shah attacking Russia, or the abject failure of the Deciders in 1914. Europe is still not where she was in 1890.
begob , 04 February 2018 at 05:20 PM
I read the post and responses early on, so forgive me if this point has been addressed in the meantime. If the memo information on non-disclosure of material evidence to the warrant issuing court is accurate, as soon as that information came to the attention of the authorities (clearly some time ago) there was a duty on them (including the judge(s) who issued the warrants) to have the matter brought back before the court toot sweet. If that had happened it would surely be in the public domain, so on the assumption the prosecutors and maybe even the judge didn't see the need to review the matter, even purely on a contempt/ethics basis, the memo information only seems convincing if the FISA system is a total sham. I really doubt that.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 06:20 PM
IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war.

The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. As I remember that wasn't the case at the end of VN war when i first landed here. At that time even though the war was on the other side of the planet and away from homeland, still people, especially young ones in colleges were paying more attention to the cost of war.

spy killer , 04 February 2018 at 06:55 PM
Diana West has uncovered some interesting "Red Threads" (6 part article at dianawest-dot-net) on all the Fusion GPS folks. Seems ole Russian speaking Nellie Ohr got herself a ham radio license recently. Wonder why she would suddenly need one of those? They are all Marxists with potential connections back to Russia.
English Outsider -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 07:23 AM
Been there. I am also a latecomer to SST. You have to read the back numbers. How? My IT expertise dates from the dawn of the internet and was lamentable then but I find Wayback sometimes allows easier searches than the SST search engine. A straight search on google also allows searches with more than one term. This link -

https://twitter.com/pat_lang

- gets you to a chronological list and for recent material is sometimes quicker than fiddling around with search engines. "Categories" on the RH side is useful but then you don't get some very informative comments that cross-refer.

If those sadly elementary procedures fail resort to the nearest infant. There's a blur of fingers on the keyboard and what you want then usually appears. Never ask them how they did it. They get so fed up when you ask them to explain it again.

"Who is David Habakkuk?" That's a quantum computer sited, from internal evidence you pick up from time to time, somewhere in the Greater London area. Cross references like you wouldn't believe and over several fields, so maybe he's two quantum computers.

The "Borg"?. Try Wittgenstein. Likely a prog but you can't be choosy these days. Early on in "Philosophical Investigations" (hope I get this right) he discusses the problem of how you can view as an entity something that has ill-defined or overlapping boundaries. The "Borg" is that "you know it when you see it" sort of thing. A great merit of this site is that the owner and many of the contributors know it from inside.

In general you may regard your new found site as a microcosm of the great battle that is raging in the West. It's a battle between the (probably apocryphal but adequately stated) Roveian view of reality that regards truth as an adjunct to or as a by-product of ideology and Realpolitik and the objective view of reality as something that is damned difficult to get at, and sometimes impossible, but that has a truth in it somewhere that is independent of the views and convictions of the observer. It's a battle that's never going to be won but unless it tilts back closer to common sense it can certainly be lost and the West with it.

jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 08:11 AM
Clearly the Labor Party in the UK preferred the USSR to Nazi Germany. (cepting that short interlude where the Soviets signed the Agreement with Hitler, and the Left Organized Leadership all across Europe, for the most part, lined up with Hitler). But for the most part, Labor was Left.
Elements (the ones that won out in the end) of the Conservative Party loathed both Hitler and Stalin. An element of the Conservative Party was sympathetic, but only up to a certain point, with the Nazis. This ended in 1939, sept.

So I don't think it fair, or accurate, to say 'England prefered the Nazis....and even if it not those things, it certainly not "well known", except to the people who have used the false premise to butter their wounds from supporting Stalin in his Pact with Hitler. Or are inclined to bash the British in general.

Babak Makkinejad -> jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 08:29 AM
All right, perhaps I should have said "The English Government". Google "Litvinov", you may discover how the English Government pushed Stalin to make a deal with Hitler to buy USSR time.
Sid Finster said in reply to Jack... , 05 February 2018 at 10:26 AM
Witness the infamous State Department protest memo calling for more war on Syria.

The State Department employees that signed that memo were sure that HRC would win and that their diligent work in pushing the Deep State agenda would sure be rewarded.

Since entering office, Trump appears to have taken the line that if he gives the Deep State everything it demands, he will be allowed to remain in office, even if he is not allowed to remain in power.

Sid Finster said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 05 February 2018 at 10:31 AM
Explain Marshall Miller's role in this, please. He is someone I know quite well. I also know one of the Chalupas.
begob said in reply to jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 10:56 AM
jonst That's broadly accurate, but specifically Attlee brought the motion of no confidence in Chamberlain, which the conservative appeasers won but which led to Churchill's opportunity. Attlee was essential in cabinet to Churchill's resistance after the retreat of the BEF.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 11:18 AM
FM
What are you doing here? You said you dislike the military. Are you really in the Spanish Basque country? Bilbao maybe? break - David Habakkuk is a private scholar of the Litvinenko murder and Soviet/Russian politics and intelligence affairs. His surname comes from Wales where in the 18th (?) Century the ancestral village were all "chapel" and changed their surnames to Old Testament names. His father was master of one of the Cambridge colleges and David is himself a graduate of Cambridge. pl
Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 11:19 AM
Yes, I am Iranian. All "Babak"s are Iranians - except some obscure ones that are Rus - Babakov.
Anna , 05 February 2018 at 02:07 PM
The hard, blinding truth: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/05/will-conspiracy-trump-american-democracy-go-unpunished/
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Thomas said in reply to turcopolier ... , 05 February 2018 at 02:08 PM
Colonel,

This troll showed up recently at b's place doing the same accusations. There is group that is running sacred and pulling out all the stops in "info ops" side of the spectrum. The damn fools don't or, most probably, won't get thru their thick heads and even thicker hearts that it is a failed strategy that turns bystanders into their opponents.

Richardstevenhack , 05 February 2018 at 02:36 PM
Here for your edification is the definitive analysis of the GOP memo by Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran.

And it is a masterpriece - and quite long, possibly his longest analysis of anything so far. He buries the counterarguments being passed around by the Democratic opposition and the anti-Trump media.

Mercouris writes on legal affairs alongside his foreign policy stuff and he writes with a lawyer's precision. And in this article he points out that the GOP memo is writter as a legal document - probably by Trey Gowdy - with additional political insertions by Nunes. So it should properly be referred to as the "GOP memo" or the "Gowdy memo", not the Nunes memo."

Why this is important is that the GOP memo is basically written as a defense lawyer would in contesting a case -- this case being the FISA warrant application. Which means its orientation is proving failure to disclose relevant and material information to the FISA court and in some cases rising to the point of contempt of court.

Seriously, read this! The whole thing!

Rampant abuse and possible contempt of Court: what you need to know about the GOP memo
http://theduran.com/rampant-abuse-contempt-court-analysis-gop-memorandum/

blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 03:25 PM
Sen Grassley releases memo heavily redacted by DOJ/FBI.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-05/grassley-graham-blast-fbi-censoring-memo-calling-criminal-probe-trump-dossier

"Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging," Grassley said in a statement after posting a heavily redacted version of the criminal referral that he and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent to the Justice Department last month. " The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn't secret. "

I suppose DOJ/FBI believe that by obstructing, stalling and obfuscating they can buy time and that the Republicans in Congress will get tired of the games and go home. This seems like a pretty straightforward memo, highlighting the discrepancy between Steele's court filings and the FBI's version of Steele's discussions with them. Grassley is pointing out that either Steele or the FBI is lying.

What is interesting is the difference in process and ability between the House & Senate. The House can release their memos on its own, even if not declassified by the Executive, whereas the Senate requires the Executive to declassify it's memos that are based on classified documents.

turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 04:38 PM
FM

We have not had a self declared communist on SST before although LeaNder in her youth may have come close to that exalted status. You might want to read the wiki on me and the CV I have posted on the blog to avoid tedious accusations of this or that. I am thought by some to have some knowledge of the ME so please do not try to lecture me about how much you love the Arabs. I speak their language and have lived with them for a long time. There are people who write to SST who are pro-Trump and some who are anti-Trump. I seek a mixture of views so long as personal insult and invective are eschewed. Personally, I do not belong to a political party and would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Trump is the constitutionally and legally elected president of the United States. Your descriptors with regard to him are, in my opinion, only plausible if seen from the point of view of various kinds of leftist including Marxist-Leninists like you. You sound very smug and self-satisfied but we will see if you can have an open mind at all. pl

Kooshy said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 04:46 PM
Found him, Ali Babacan XVPM, XFM and M of finance. Yes god forbid, if he is a decendent of Ardisher Babakan and another claimant to Iranian throne, which CIA and Soros can jump on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Babacan MBA from Northeestern
blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 04:55 PM
...would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Aye. Aye. Sir!

+1

That is why some of us believe the Patriot Act and FISA are both unpatriotic and unconstitutional. SCOTUS disagrees with the few of us.

Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 05:03 PM
I do not believe Trump is a misogynists - he stated publicly that he likes beautiful women. I also do not think he is a racist. I think he is the first US leader in many decades who has been willing to publicly talk about US problems. For most other US politicians - they largely live in "the best of all possible worlds".
English Outsider , 05 February 2018 at 06:31 PM
Colonel - sincere apologies if my comment above disrupted the discussion on a fascinating article.

David Habakkuk - I should say that "Quantum Computer" referred solely to the ability to gather and collate great amounts of material. It's an ability I admire. On Steele, you are among other things setting out something that is unfamiliar to me though not to most others here, I imagine, and that is the milieu in which he is or was working as a UK Intelligence operative. That you have also done in previous articles; it doesn't seem to be a particularly savoury milieu. As far as Steele's US activities are concerned, from you I'm not getting the picture of a lone operative, all ties with MI6 neatly severed, working solo in the States on some chance assignment in 2016. I'm getting the picture of someone still very much in the swim and selected because of that.

The only problem with that second picture is the dossier, or the 30% or so of it - what Comey, I think it was, described as "salacious and unverified". Surely that's got to be amateur night. Not something that a practised professional working with other professionals would put his hand to. Does that not support the picture of an ex-operative who's gone off the rails and is fumbling around unsupervised?

The Steele affair touched a nerve. One is always I suppose aware that IC professionals are getting up to all sorts and it doesn't seem improbable that "all sorts" includes political stuff and smear campaigns. But it's not heaps of corpses in Syria or farm boys being sent to certain death in the Ukraine. And even within the UK Intelligence Community and their contractors or whatever they're called, compared with what our IC people have done in the ME or compared with what one fears Hamish de Bretton Gordon might have got himself involved in, Christopher Steele's just a choirboy. Nevertheless there's something deeply repellent about what he did. Whatever your view of Trump there he was, newly elected, obviously wanting to make a go of it, and already faced with difficulties. Then some chancer throws "Golden Showers" in his face and makes his position, not maybe for the insiders but for the general public, that bit more untenable.

So from a UK perspective the question of whether Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK becomes important. If he was truly working solo then that from a UK point of view is regrettable but one of those things. In that case MI6 would just have to tighten up its controls on what ex-operatives get up to, put out the appropriate disclaimers, and that's the end of it as far as the UK is concerned. But if Golden Showers and the rest of it was a "Welcome Mr President" from UK IC professionals as a group then those professionals should be hung drawn and quartered together with whoever set them on.

I've read your article several times now and apart from the fact that much of what you pull together isn't material I'm up on, it doesn't seem to me that you're definitely coming to one conclusion or the other. There are many more facts to come out so perhaps this question is premature, but do you think Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK or was he, at least as far as the UK is concerned, working solo?

kooshy , 05 February 2018 at 07:49 PM
Most Iranian females Named Fatima/ Fatimah after prophet' daughter, call themselves Fati, and if they are of aristocrat type, they are called Bibi Fati Khanam, which is honorable lady Fati and if they are westernized they become Fay or Fifi.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 07:59 PM
EO

Much of your commentary seems directed to David Habakkuk and PT rather than I. I don't think the FBI would have started to pay him until he left UK service. pl

English Outsider , 06 February 2018 at 05:10 AM
Colonel - Further apologies - I should have submitted comment 79 as two items.

Yes, the question about Steele was in response to DH's article. The UK side of the affair is I suppose only a small part of the question you and your Committee are examining but it's a dubious part however one looks at it. Although it's early days yet I was hoping DH, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK intelligence scene, might feel able to cast more light on that UK side.

English Outsider -> Cortes... , 06 February 2018 at 05:53 AM
Cortes - " ... where, exactly, do you expect the great public to look beyond the initial scabrously defamatory storytelling about the "golden showers"? "

I don't think one can expect the public, at least in the UK, to look very far beyond the initial scandal. The investigations and enquiries presently under way in the US are complex and are taking place in a different system. This member of the UK public wouldn't be able to give you a coherent account of those enquiries and I doubt many of my fellows could.

So we have to take on trust, most of us, what we're told. As far as I can tell the underlying theme from the BBC and the media is generally that Trump is subverting the American Justice system in order to ensure his own misdemeanours aren't investigated.

Some of us take that as gospel. Others of us assume that the politicians and the media are untrustworthy and ignore them. I doubt many of us go into much more detail than that. Therefore the original story will stick in our minds.

But for some in the UK there are questions in there as well. How come the UK got mixed up in all this? How much did the UK get mixed up in it?

David Habakkuk -> Sid Finster... , 06 February 2018 at 06:19 AM
Sid Finster,

In response to comment 53.

When I belatedly started looking at the Litvinenko mystery, as a result of a strange email provoked by comments of mine on SST which arrived in my inbox in March 2007 from someone who turned out to be a key protagonist, it was rather obvious that improvised and chaotic 'StratCom' operations had been put into place on both the Russian and British sides to cover up what had happened.

A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella.

When I started delving, I came across some very interesting pieces on Scaramella and related matters posted on the 'European Tribune' website by a Rome-based blogger using the name 'de Gondi' in the period after the story broke.

His actual name is David Loepp, by profession he is an artisan jeweller specialising in ancient and traditional goldsmith techniques, and I already knew and respected his work from his contributions to the transnational internet investigation into the Niger uranium forgeries – an earlier MI6 clusterf**ck.

So in May 2008 I posted a longish piece on that site, setting out the problems with the evidence about the Litvinenko case as I saw them, in the hope of reactivating his interest. This paid off in spades, when he linked to, and translated a key extract from, the request from Italian prosecutors to use wiretaps of conversations with Senator Paolo Guzzanti in connection with their prosecution of Scaramella for 'aggravated calumny.'

The request, which up to not so long ago was freely available on the website of the Italian Senate, was denied, but the extensive summaries of the transcripts provided a lot of material.

(This initial post by me, and later posts by me on that site, are at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/uid:1857/diary. Three posts David Loepp and I produced jointly in December 2012, which have a lot on Scaramella and Shvets, are on his page there, at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/de%20Gondi/diary .)

The extract from the wiretap request which David Loepp posted, which like Litvinenko's letter containing the claims he and Yuri Shvets had concocted about Putin using Mogilevich to attempt to supply Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb' is dated 1 December 2005, contains key pointers to the conspiracy. It concludes:

'A passage on Simon Moghilevic and an agreement between the camorra to search for nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War to be consigned to Bin Laden, a revelation made by the Israeli. According to Scaramella the circle closes: camorra, Moghilevic- Russian mafia- services- nuclear bombs in Naples.'

Subsequent conversations make clear that Scaramella left on 6 December 2005 for Washington, on a trip where he was to meet Shvets. The summary of a report on this to Guzzanti reads:

'12) conversation that took place on number [omissis] on December 18, 2005, at 9:41:51 n. 1426, containing explicit references to the authenticity of the declarations of Alexander Litvinenko acquired by Scaramella, to the trustworthiness of the affirmations made by Scaramella in his reports to the commission and to the meetings Scaramella had with Talik after having denounced them [presumably Talik and his alleged accomplices]. (They can talk with HEIMS thanks to the help of MILLER. SHVEZ says that he had been a companion of CARLOS at the academy; SHVEZ has already made declarations and is willing to continue collaboration. Guzzanti warns that a document in Russian arrived in commission in which the name of SCARAMELLA appears several times, these [sic] say that directives to the contrary had been given to Litvinenko. Scaramella says that he went to the meeting with TALIK in the company of two treasury [police] and a cop, Talik spoke of a person from the Ukrainian GRU who would be willing to talk and a strange Chechen ring in Naples. Assassination attempt against the pope, CASAROLI was a Soviet agent.)'

The summary of a later conversation also refers to 'MILLER':

'conversation that took place on number [omissis] on January 13, 2006, at 11:22:11 n. 2287, containing references to Scaramella's sources in relation to facts referred in the Commission, the means by which they were obtained by Scaramella from declarations made abroad, the role of Litvinenko, also on the occasion of declarations made by third parties and the credibility of the news and theses given by Scaramella to the commission (Scaramella reads a text in English on the relation between the KGB and PRODI. Guzzanti asks if its credibility can be confirmed and if the taped declarations can be backed up; Scaramella answers that there were two testimonies, Lou Palumbo and Alexander (Litvinenko), and that the registration made in London at the beginning of the assignment [Scaramella's?] had been authenticated by a certain BAKER of the FBI. As he translates the text from English, Scaramella notes that the person testifying does not say he knows Prodi but only that he thinks that Prodi ...; all those who worked for the person testifying in Scandinavia said that Prodi was "theirs." The affair in Rimini, Bielli is preparing the battle in Rimini. Meetings with MILLER for the three things that are needed. Polemic about Pollari over the pressure exerted on Gordievski.)'

In the exchanges on my May 2008 post, I mentioned and linked to some extraordinary comments on a crucial article by Edward Jay Epstein, in which Karon von Gerhke claimed that his sceptical account fitted with what her contacts in the British investigation had told her. When that July I came across her equally extraordinary claims in response to the BBC's Mark Urban piece of stenography – which Steele may also have had a hand in organising – I found she was referring to precisely that visit to Washington by Scaramella which had been described in the wiretap request.

As you can perhaps imagine, the fact that 'Miller' had featured in the conversations with Guzzanti both as a key contact, who could introduce Scaramella to Aldrich Ames (which is who 'Heims' clearly is), and with whom there had been meetings about 'the three things that are needed' made me inclined to take seriously what Karon von Gerhke said about his role.

In December 2008, I put up another post on 'European Tribune', putting together the material from David Loepp and that from Karon von Gerhke – but not discussing the references to 'Miller.' As I had hoped, this led to her getting in touch.

Among the material with which she supplied me, which I in turn supplied to the Solicitor to the Inquest, were covers of faxes to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel of the CIA. From a fax dated 23 October 2005.

'John: See attached email to Chuck Patrizia. Berezovsky alleges he is in possession of a copy of a classified file given to the CIA by Russia's FSB, which he further alleges the CIA disseminated to British, French, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies implicating him in business associations with the Mafia and to ties with terrorist organizations. Yuri Shvets was authorised/directed by Berezovsky to raise the issue with Bud McFarlane scheduled for Thursday. McFarlane is unaware the issue will be raised with him.'

From a fax dated 7 November 2005:

'John: I am attaching an email exchange between Yuri Shvets and me re: 1) article he published on his Ukraine website on alleged sale of nuclear choke to Iran, which I reproached him on as having been planted by Berezovsky and 2 the alleged FSB/CIA document file that Berezovsky obtained from Scaramella, which Yuri acknowledges in his e-mail to me. Like extracting wisdom teeth to get him to put anything on paper, especially in an e-mail! [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is the source McFarlane referred Yuri to re: Berezovsky's visa issue. She proposed meeting Berezovsky in London. Alleged it would take a year to clear up USG issues and even then could not guarantee him a visa. She too has access to USG intelligence on Berezovsky. Open book.'

From a fax dated 5 December 2005:

'John. From Mario Scaramella to Yuri Shvets to my ears, the DOJ has authorised Mario Scaramella to interview Aldrich Ames with regard to members of the Italian Intelligence Service agent recruited by Ames for the KGB. Scaramella, as you may recall, is who gave Boris Berezovsky's aide, a former FSB Colonel [LITVINENKO – DH], that alleged document number to the FSB file that the CIA disseminated on Berezovsky – a file that Bud McFarlane's "Madam Visa" [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is alleged is totting off to London for a meeting with Berezovsky, who has agreed to retain her re: his visa issue. Quid pro quo's with Berezovsky and Scaramella on the CIA agent currently facing kidnapping charges for the rendition of the Muslim cleric? Scott Armstrong has a most telling file on Scaramella. Not a single redeeming quality.'

In the course of very extensive exchanges with Karon von Gerhke subsequently, we had some rather acute disagreements. It was unfortunate that her filing was a shambles – a crucial hard disk failed without a backup, and the 'hard copies' appeared to be in a chaotic state.

However, the only occasion when I can recall having reason to believe that was deliberately lying to me was when David Loepp unearthed a cache of documentation including the full Italian text of the letter from Litvinenko containing the 'StratCom' designed to suggest that Putin had attempted to supply a 'mini nuclear bomb' to Al Qaeda. Having been asked to keep this between ourselves for the time being, Karon insisted on immediately sending it to her contacts in Counter Terrorism Command, and then produced bogus justifications.

Time and again, moreover, I found that I could confirm statements that she made – see for example the two posts I put up on the legal battles following the death in February 2008 of Berezovsky's long-term partner Arkadi 'Badri' Patarkatsishvili in June and July 2009, which were based on careful corroboration of what she told me.

(I should also say that I acquired the greatest respect for her courage.)

And while Owen and his team suppressed all the evidence from her, and almost all of that from David Loepp, which I had I provided to them, the dossier about Berezovsky is described in a statement made by Litvinenko in Tel Aviv in April 2006, presented in evidence in the Inquiry.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

Other evidence, moreover, strongly inclines me to believe that there were overtures for a 'quid pro quo', purporting to come from Putin, but that this was a ruse orchestrated by Berezovsky.

Part of the purpose of this would almost certainly have been to supply probably bogus 'evidence' about arms sales in the Yeltsin years to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moreover, I think there was an article on the second 'Fifth Element' site run by Shvets about the supposed sale of a nuclear 'choke' – whatever that is – to Iran.

The likelihood of the involvement of elements in the FBI in these shenanigans seems to quite high, given what has already emerged about the activities of Levinson. Also relevant may be the fact that the 'declaration' which was part of the attempt to frame Romano Prodi was authenticated, in London, by 'a certain BAKER of the FBI.')

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 09:40 AM
Thank you David Habakkuk. Truly sordid and deplorable. WWIII to be initiated on basis of lies.
Jack , 06 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
David

You may already know this but Steele was a no show in a UK court for a deposition on the libel suit.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/05/christopher-steele-is-no-show-in-london-court-in-civil-case-over-dossier.amp.html

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 01:18 PM
I know something of spectroscopy.

The critical issue here is the provenance of the samples and not the sophistication of the techniques used in the analysis itself or its instrumentation.

The paragraph that you have quoted:

"To figure out signatures based on various synthetic routes and conditions, Chipuk says that the synthetic chemists on his team will make the same chemical threat agent as many as 2,000 times in an ..." reeks of intellectual intimidation - trying to brow-beat any skeptic by the size of one's instrument - as it were."

And then there is a little matter of confidence level in any of the analysis - such things are normally based on prior statistics - which did not and could not exist in this situation.

LeaNder , 07 February 2018 at 09:16 AM
David, it's no doubt interesting to watch how attention on Victor Ivanov in another deficient inquiry on the British Isles, was managed in that inquiry. If I may, since he pops up again in the Steele dossier. You take what's available? Is that all there is to know?

I know its hard to communicate basics if you are deeply into matters. Usually people prefer to opt out. It's getting way too complicated for them to follow. You made me understand this experience. But isn't this (fake) intelligence continuity "via" Yuri Svets what connects your, no harm meant I do understand your obsession with the case, with what we deal with now in the Steele Dossier? Again, one of the most central figures is Ivanov.

Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear.

By the way, babbling mode, I found your Tom Mangold transcription. It felt it wasn't there on the link you gave. I used the date, and other search terms. Maybe I am wrong. Haven't looked at what the judge ruled out of the collection. Yes, cozy session/setting.

According to Google search there are no other links then your articles here:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf

**********

JAN RICHARD BĆRUG
The Collapsing Wall. Hybrid Journalism.
A Comparative Study of Newspapers and
Magazines in Eight Countries in Europe

Available online. Haven't read it yet, but journalism as hidden public relations transfer belt would be one of my minor obsessions. ...

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 07 February 2018 at 11:23 AM
I wonder too; their command of the English idiom is very au currant - noticed "opt in/opt out" reference? Too American.

They clearly are not native speakers of German.

LeaNder said in reply to kooshy... , 07 February 2018 at 12:30 PM
why California, Kooshy #18? California among other things left this verbal trace, since I once upon time thought a luggage storage in SF might be free/available now: this is my home, lady.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_Island#Economy

Tourists from many -- but not all -- foreign nations wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to obtain any visa prior to travel. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.

Who are the not all? Can we assume Britain is not one of those?

The German link is different. How about the Iranian?

or isn't this the Kish we are talking about?

LeaNder said in reply to LeaNder... , 07 February 2018 at 01:14 PM
correcting myself #94:

another Ivanov. I struggled with names (...) in Russian crime novels, admittedly. But that's long ago from times Russian crime and Russian money flows and rogues getting hold of its nuclear material surfaced more often in Europe. 90s

I see Sergei seems to share my interest in the literary genre:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Ivanov#Personal

[Mar 10, 2018] Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko s death.

Highly recommended!
There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time.
It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
Notable quotes:
"... There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this. ..."
"... Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky. ..."
"... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
"... I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence". ..."
"... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
"... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
"... Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ..."
"... They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040 ..."
"... In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. ..."
"... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union ..."
"... About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS ..."
"... No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming. ..."
"... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
"... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
"... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
"... IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war. ..."
"... The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. ..."
"... A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella. ..."
"... Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear. ..."
Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'

In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background, which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.'

There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.

This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.

And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area.

Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.

The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.

In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry – the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.

Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier, which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.

(See http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/20/what-really-happened-robert-levinson-cia-iran-454803.html .)

Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio 4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets, backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.

The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available – evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.

Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.

What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest a sale had been completed.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.

All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder. For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.

(On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews both with Mogilevich and Levinson at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_06_12_99.txt )

In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.

Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions north of the Litani.

These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.

What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.

Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking 'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.

Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.

So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster.

All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate Russia in supplying materials.

There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)

It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional, Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.

It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here, a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.

Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.

In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.

Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain, but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)

That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:

'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear limited life components and you can read for weeks).'

(For this and other articles by Kaszeta, as also his bio, see http://strongpointsecurity.co.uk ')

What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility, in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of ones which lasted longer.

For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.

What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.

In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'

According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?

As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.

In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties, and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another day.

A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.

Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.

Posted at 03:42 PM in As The Borg Turns , Habakkuk , Russia , Russiagate | Permalink

james , 03 February 2018 at 04:33 PM

thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..

it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..

JohnB , 03 February 2018 at 05:17 PM
David,

Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.

turcopolier , 03 February 2018 at 06:02 PM
james

It is the closest of all international intelligence relationships. It started in WW2. Before that the Brits were though of as a potential enemy. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 03 February 2018 at 06:10 PM
I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One.
The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
catherine , 03 February 2018 at 06:22 PM
That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.

Re: Levinson

# Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.

# Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson went to Jablonski with it.

# And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson? The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing came of it.

I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.

Ishmael Zechariah , 03 February 2018 at 06:54 PM
DH,

As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.

I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".

Be safe.

Ishmael Zechariah

Rd , 03 February 2018 at 07:31 PM
Babak Makkinejad said in reply to turcopolier...

The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
..and US is the one who has been paying for it since 1979!!!

kooshy said in reply to Ishmael Zechariah... , 03 February 2018 at 08:21 PM
IZ
My guess is, that he is unpredictable, instantaneous and therefore can't be consistent and reliable, useful idiot needs to be predictable.
kooshy , 03 February 2018 at 08:43 PM
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. "

David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making. Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

different clue , 03 February 2018 at 08:49 PM
Ishmael Zechariah,

( reply to comment 6),

I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.

It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate.

And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.

So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

Jack , 03 February 2018 at 08:54 PM
David,

Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.

In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.

Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century endorsed her.

Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in. Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling the Borg pundits.

SmoothieX12 -> kooshy... , 03 February 2018 at 09:51 PM
So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. This swamp (Borg, deep state, etc.) still thinks that it can use Cold War 1.0 Playbook and address very real and dangerous American economic issues. They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with.

Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:10 PM
They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:24 PM
You are right CWII is very much desired and on agenda, but i am not sure of setup, the setup/board has been changed tremendously and IMO benefits the Asian side of Bosphorus, for one thing technology is no longer exclusive, and financial burden is heavier on atlantic side.
catherine said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:21 AM
''Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ''

The locust keep trying and trying, destruction is their life's work.

'1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'

In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241, 251 - 256]

'November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union'

State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union

aleksandar , 04 February 2018 at 04:41 AM
David,

About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS.

Fred said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 08:40 AM
Babak,

"they got US to bail them out during WWII" And how would things have worked out had we not done so?

Fred , 04 February 2018 at 08:46 AM
David,

"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time."

Yes, that is what appears to be just what is coming to light. I wonder just what position Trey Gowdy is going to have since he won't be running for re-election. The rage from the left is palpable. I'm sure the next outraged guy on the left will know how to shoot straighter than the ones who shot up Congressman Scalise or the concert goers at Mandalay Bay.

Anna said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 08:48 AM
"They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with."
-- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
turcopolier , 04 February 2018 at 08:54 AM
Anna

The powerful are often remarkably ignorant. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> Fred... , 04 February 2018 at 10:08 AM
England preferred NAZI Germany to USSR, this is well known. As to what would have happened, the outcome of the war, in my opinion, did not depend on US participation in the European Theatre. All of Europe would have become USSR satellite or joined USSR.
jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 11:53 AM
"unsentimental empirical people"? Absolutely disagree with you. Now the Iranians, they strike me as a singularity unsentimental people. Just general impressions, mind you.
Kooshy said in reply to catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
Yes, US was the first country to proudly deliver Manpads to be used by "rebels" (Mojahadin later Taleban) against USSR in Afghanistan back in 80s. And, as per the architect of support for the rebels (Zbigniew Brzezinski) very proud of it with no regret. With that in mind, I don't see how western politicians, the western governments and their related proxy war planers, will be regretting, even sadden, once god forbid we see passenger planes with loved ones are shot down taking off or landing at various western airports and other places around the word. Just like how superficialy with crocodile tears in their eyes they acted in aftermath of the terrorist events in various western cities in this past 16 years. Gods knows what will happens to us if the opposite side start to supply his own proxies with lethal anti air weapons. "Proudly", I don't think anybody in west cares or will regret of such an escalation.
Phodges said in reply to turcopolier ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:23 PM
Sir

It seems we are being defeated by Cicero's enemy within. Zion is achieving what no one could hope to achieve by force of arms.

David Habakkuk -> catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 01:17 PM
catherine,

In response to comment 5.

I think it likely that what Meier produces is only a 'limited hangout', and am hoping that when the book arrives it will contain more pointers.

It is important to be clear that one is often dealing with people playing very complicated double games.

An interesting document is the 'Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus' made on behalf of Khodorkovsky's close associate Alexander Konanykhin back in 1997,when the Immigration and Naturalization Service were – apparently at least – cooperating with Russian attempts to get hold of him. An extract:

'During the immigration hearing FBI SA Robert Levinson, an INS witness, confirmed that in 1992 Petitioner was kidnapped and afterwards pursued by assassins of the Solntsevskaya organized criminal group. This organized criminal group is reportedly the largest and the most influential organized criminal group in Russia, and operates internationally.'

(See http://defiancethebook.com/legal/habeas/petition.htm .)

Note the similarities between the 'StratCom' that Khonanykin and his associates were producing in the 'Nineties, and that which Simpson and his associates have been producing two decades later.

Another useful example is provided by a 2004 item in the 'New American Magazine', reproduced on Konanykhin's website:

'One of those who testified on behalf of Konanykhine was KGB defector Yuri Shvets, who declared: "I have a firsthand knowledge on similar operations conducted by the KGB." Konanykhine had brought trouble on himself, Shvets continued, when he "started bringing charges against people who were involved with him in setting up and running commercial enterprises. They were KGB people secretly smuggling from Russia hundreds of millions of dollars . This is [a] serious case, and I know that KGB ... desperately wants to win this case, and everybody who won't step to their side would face problems."'

(See http://konanykhin.com/news/the-konanykhine-case.html .)

So – 'first hand knowledge', from a Ukrainian nationalist – look at what the Chalupas have been doing, it seems not much has changed.

For a rather different perspective on what Konanykhin had actually been up to, from someone in whose honesty – if not always judgement – I have complete confidence, see the testimony of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson to the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services hearings on Russian Money Laundering. In this, she described how she had been approached by him in 1993:

'"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [Ł1bn] in assets and investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent political and social elite," she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and asked her to help buy foreign passports for its "very, very special clients".

'In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that it believed Mr Konanykhine and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials".

(For a 'Guardian report, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/23/julianborger ; for the actual testimony, see http://archives-financialservices.house.gov/banking/92299ger.pdf .)

Coming back to Steele's 'StratCom', in July 2008, an item appeared on the 'Newnight' programme of the BBC – which some of us think should by then have been rechristened the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – in which the introduction by the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, read as follows:

'Good evening. The New Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, was all smiles and warm words when he met Gordon Brown today. He said he was keen to resolve all outstanding difficulties between the two countries. Yada yada yada. Gordon Brown smiled, but he must know what Newsnight can now reveal: that MI5 believes the Russian state was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive poisoning. They also believe that without their intervention another London-based Russian, Boris Berezovsky, would have been murdered. Our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, has this exclusive report.'

(For the transcript presented in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, see http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ )

When Urban repeated the claims on his blog, there was a positive eruption from someone using the name 'timelythoughts', about the activities of someone she referred to as 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist' – when I came across this later, it was immediately clear to me that she was Karon von Gerhke, and he was Shvets.

(For the first part of the exchanges of comments, the second apparently having become unavailable, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/markurban/2008/07/litvinenko_killing_had_state_i.html )

She then described a visit by Scaramella to Washington, details of which had already been unearthed by my Italian collaborator, David Loepp. Her claim to have e-mails from Shvets, from the time immediately prior to Litvinenko's death, directly contradicting the testimony he had given, fitted with other evidence I had already unearthed.

Later, we exchanged e-mails over a quite protracted period, and a large amount of material that came into my possession as a result was submitted by me to the Inquest team, with some of it being used in posts on the 'European Tribune' site.

What I never used publicly, because I could only partially corroborate it from the material she provided, was an extraordinary claim about Shvets:

'He was responsible for bringing in a Kremlin initiative that was walked Vice President Cheney's office on a US government quid pro quo with the Kremlin FSB SVR involving the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – a cease and desist on allegations of a politically motivated arrest of Khodorkovsky, violations of rules of law and calls from Russia's expulsion from the G 8 in exchange for favorable posturing of U.S. oil companies on Gazprom's Shtokman project and intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria, all documented in reports I submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and MI6.

'Berezovsky's DS could not be on both sides on that isle. His Kremlin FSB SVR sources had been vetted by the CIA and by the National Security Council. They proved to be as represented. As we would later learn, however, he was on Berezovsky's payroll at same time. The FSB SVR general he was coordinating the Kremlin initiative through was S. R. Subbotin, the same FSB SVR general who was investigating Berezovsky's money laundering operations in Switzerland during the same timeframe. His FSB SVR sources surrounding Putin were higher than any Lugovoy could have ever hoped to affiliate with.

'R. James Woolsey (former CIA DCI), Marshall Miller (former law partner of the late CIA DCI William Colby), who I coordinated the Kremlin initiative through that Berezovsky's DS had brought in were shocked to learn that he was affiliated with Berezovsky and Litvinenko. He was in Berezovsky's inner circle and engaged in vetting Russian business with Litvinenko. He operated Berezovsky's Ukraine website, editing and dubbing the now infamous Kuchma tapes throughout the lead up to the elections in the Ukraine. Berezovsky contributed $41 million to Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, which he used in an attempt to force Yushchenko to reunite with Julia Tymoschenko. It failed but would succeed later after Berezovsky orchestrated a public relations initiative through Alan Goldfarb in the U.S. on behalf of Tymoschenko.'

Having got to know Karon von Gerhke quite well, and also been able to corroborate a great deal of what she told me about many things, and discussed these matters with her, it is absolutely clear to me that she was neither fabricating nor fantasising. What later became apparent, both to her and to me, was that in the 'double game' that Shvets was playing, he had succeeded in fooling her as to the side for which he was working.

It seems likely however that the reason Shvets could do what he did was that quite precisely that many high-up people in the Kremlin and elsewhere were playing a 'double game.' In this, Karon von Gerhke's propensity for indiscretion – of which I, like others, was both beneficiary and victim – could be useful.

An exercise in 'positioning', which could be used to disguise the fact that Shvets was indeed 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist', could be used to make it appear that 'intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria' was actually credible.

This could have been used to try to rescue Cheney, Bush and their associates from the mess they had got into as a result of the failure of the invasion to provide any evidence whatsoever supporting the case which had been made for it. It could also have been used to provide the kind of materials justifying military action against Iran for which Levinson and Jablonski were looking, and for similar action against Syria.

Among reasons for bringing this up now is that we need to make sense of the paradox that Simpson – clearly in collusion with Steele – was using Mogilevich and the 'Solnsetskaya Bratva' both against Manafort and Trump and against Browder.

There are various possible explanations for this. I do not want to succumb to my instinctive prejudice that this may have been another piece of 'positioning', similar to what I think was being done with Shvets, but the hypothesis needs to be considered.

A more general point is that people in Washington and London need to 'wise up' to the kind of world with which they are dealing. This could be done quite enjoyably: reading some of Dashiell Hammett's fictions of the United States in the Prohibition era, or indeed buying DVDs of some of the classics of 'film noir', like 'Out of the Past' (in its British release, 'Build My Gallows High') might be a start.

Very much of the coverage of affairs in the post-Soviet space since 1991 has read rather as though a Dashiell Hammett story had been rewritten by someone specialising in sentimental children's, or romantic, fiction (although, come to think of it, that is really what Brigid O'Shaughnessy does in 'The Maltese Falcon.')

The testimony of Glenn Simpson seems a case in point. The sickly sentimentality of these people does, rather often, make one feel as though one wanted to throw up.

Thomas , 04 February 2018 at 01:24 PM
"They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.}

No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming.

SmoothieX12 -> Anna... , 04 February 2018 at 01:39 PM
- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.

My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.

Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.

Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.

james said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 February 2018 at 03:01 PM
there seems to be no shortage of money for these blatant propaganda exercises..
Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 04:14 PM
I think the failure of Deciders is nothing new - Fath Ali Shah attacking Russia, or the abject failure of the Deciders in 1914. Europe is still not where she was in 1890.
begob , 04 February 2018 at 05:20 PM
I read the post and responses early on, so forgive me if this point has been addressed in the meantime. If the memo information on non-disclosure of material evidence to the warrant issuing court is accurate, as soon as that information came to the attention of the authorities (clearly some time ago) there was a duty on them (including the judge(s) who issued the warrants) to have the matter brought back before the court toot sweet. If that had happened it would surely be in the public domain, so on the assumption the prosecutors and maybe even the judge didn't see the need to review the matter, even purely on a contempt/ethics basis, the memo information only seems convincing if the FISA system is a total sham. I really doubt that.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 06:20 PM
IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war.

The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. As I remember that wasn't the case at the end of VN war when i first landed here. At that time even though the war was on the other side of the planet and away from homeland, still people, especially young ones in colleges were paying more attention to the cost of war.

spy killer , 04 February 2018 at 06:55 PM
Diana West has uncovered some interesting "Red Threads" (6 part article at dianawest-dot-net) on all the Fusion GPS folks. Seems ole Russian speaking Nellie Ohr got herself a ham radio license recently. Wonder why she would suddenly need one of those? They are all Marxists with potential connections back to Russia.
English Outsider -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 07:23 AM
Been there. I am also a latecomer to SST. You have to read the back numbers. How? My IT expertise dates from the dawn of the internet and was lamentable then but I find Wayback sometimes allows easier searches than the SST search engine. A straight search on google also allows searches with more than one term. This link -

https://twitter.com/pat_lang

- gets you to a chronological list and for recent material is sometimes quicker than fiddling around with search engines. "Categories" on the RH side is useful but then you don't get some very informative comments that cross-refer.

If those sadly elementary procedures fail resort to the nearest infant. There's a blur of fingers on the keyboard and what you want then usually appears. Never ask them how they did it. They get so fed up when you ask them to explain it again.

"Who is David Habakkuk?" That's a quantum computer sited, from internal evidence you pick up from time to time, somewhere in the Greater London area. Cross references like you wouldn't believe and over several fields, so maybe he's two quantum computers.

The "Borg"?. Try Wittgenstein. Likely a prog but you can't be choosy these days. Early on in "Philosophical Investigations" (hope I get this right) he discusses the problem of how you can view as an entity something that has ill-defined or overlapping boundaries. The "Borg" is that "you know it when you see it" sort of thing. A great merit of this site is that the owner and many of the contributors know it from inside.

In general you may regard your new found site as a microcosm of the great battle that is raging in the West. It's a battle between the (probably apocryphal but adequately stated) Roveian view of reality that regards truth as an adjunct to or as a by-product of ideology and Realpolitik and the objective view of reality as something that is damned difficult to get at, and sometimes impossible, but that has a truth in it somewhere that is independent of the views and convictions of the observer. It's a battle that's never going to be won but unless it tilts back closer to common sense it can certainly be lost and the West with it.

jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 08:11 AM
Clearly the Labor Party in the UK preferred the USSR to Nazi Germany. (cepting that short interlude where the Soviets signed the Agreement with Hitler, and the Left Organized Leadership all across Europe, for the most part, lined up with Hitler). But for the most part, Labor was Left.
Elements (the ones that won out in the end) of the Conservative Party loathed both Hitler and Stalin. An element of the Conservative Party was sympathetic, but only up to a certain point, with the Nazis. This ended in 1939, sept.

So I don't think it fair, or accurate, to say 'England prefered the Nazis....and even if it not those things, it certainly not "well known", except to the people who have used the false premise to butter their wounds from supporting Stalin in his Pact with Hitler. Or are inclined to bash the British in general.

Babak Makkinejad -> jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 08:29 AM
All right, perhaps I should have said "The English Government". Google "Litvinov", you may discover how the English Government pushed Stalin to make a deal with Hitler to buy USSR time.
Sid Finster said in reply to Jack... , 05 February 2018 at 10:26 AM
Witness the infamous State Department protest memo calling for more war on Syria.

The State Department employees that signed that memo were sure that HRC would win and that their diligent work in pushing the Deep State agenda would sure be rewarded.

Since entering office, Trump appears to have taken the line that if he gives the Deep State everything it demands, he will be allowed to remain in office, even if he is not allowed to remain in power.

Sid Finster said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 05 February 2018 at 10:31 AM
Explain Marshall Miller's role in this, please. He is someone I know quite well. I also know one of the Chalupas.
begob said in reply to jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 10:56 AM
jonst That's broadly accurate, but specifically Attlee brought the motion of no confidence in Chamberlain, which the conservative appeasers won but which led to Churchill's opportunity. Attlee was essential in cabinet to Churchill's resistance after the retreat of the BEF.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 11:18 AM
FM
What are you doing here? You said you dislike the military. Are you really in the Spanish Basque country? Bilbao maybe? break - David Habakkuk is a private scholar of the Litvinenko murder and Soviet/Russian politics and intelligence affairs. His surname comes from Wales where in the 18th (?) Century the ancestral village were all "chapel" and changed their surnames to Old Testament names. His father was master of one of the Cambridge colleges and David is himself a graduate of Cambridge. pl
Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 11:19 AM
Yes, I am Iranian. All "Babak"s are Iranians - except some obscure ones that are Rus - Babakov.
Anna , 05 February 2018 at 02:07 PM
The hard, blinding truth: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/05/will-conspiracy-trump-american-democracy-go-unpunished/
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Thomas said in reply to turcopolier ... , 05 February 2018 at 02:08 PM
Colonel,

This troll showed up recently at b's place doing the same accusations. There is group that is running sacred and pulling out all the stops in "info ops" side of the spectrum. The damn fools don't or, most probably, won't get thru their thick heads and even thicker hearts that it is a failed strategy that turns bystanders into their opponents.

Richardstevenhack , 05 February 2018 at 02:36 PM
Here for your edification is the definitive analysis of the GOP memo by Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran.

And it is a masterpriece - and quite long, possibly his longest analysis of anything so far. He buries the counterarguments being passed around by the Democratic opposition and the anti-Trump media.

Mercouris writes on legal affairs alongside his foreign policy stuff and he writes with a lawyer's precision. And in this article he points out that the GOP memo is writter as a legal document - probably by Trey Gowdy - with additional political insertions by Nunes. So it should properly be referred to as the "GOP memo" or the "Gowdy memo", not the Nunes memo."

Why this is important is that the GOP memo is basically written as a defense lawyer would in contesting a case -- this case being the FISA warrant application. Which means its orientation is proving failure to disclose relevant and material information to the FISA court and in some cases rising to the point of contempt of court.

Seriously, read this! The whole thing!

Rampant abuse and possible contempt of Court: what you need to know about the GOP memo
http://theduran.com/rampant-abuse-contempt-court-analysis-gop-memorandum/

blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 03:25 PM
Sen Grassley releases memo heavily redacted by DOJ/FBI.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-05/grassley-graham-blast-fbi-censoring-memo-calling-criminal-probe-trump-dossier

"Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging," Grassley said in a statement after posting a heavily redacted version of the criminal referral that he and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent to the Justice Department last month. " The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn't secret. "

I suppose DOJ/FBI believe that by obstructing, stalling and obfuscating they can buy time and that the Republicans in Congress will get tired of the games and go home. This seems like a pretty straightforward memo, highlighting the discrepancy between Steele's court filings and the FBI's version of Steele's discussions with them. Grassley is pointing out that either Steele or the FBI is lying.

What is interesting is the difference in process and ability between the House & Senate. The House can release their memos on its own, even if not declassified by the Executive, whereas the Senate requires the Executive to declassify it's memos that are based on classified documents.

turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 04:38 PM
FM

We have not had a self declared communist on SST before although LeaNder in her youth may have come close to that exalted status. You might want to read the wiki on me and the CV I have posted on the blog to avoid tedious accusations of this or that. I am thought by some to have some knowledge of the ME so please do not try to lecture me about how much you love the Arabs. I speak their language and have lived with them for a long time. There are people who write to SST who are pro-Trump and some who are anti-Trump. I seek a mixture of views so long as personal insult and invective are eschewed. Personally, I do not belong to a political party and would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Trump is the constitutionally and legally elected president of the United States. Your descriptors with regard to him are, in my opinion, only plausible if seen from the point of view of various kinds of leftist including Marxist-Leninists like you. You sound very smug and self-satisfied but we will see if you can have an open mind at all. pl

Kooshy said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 04:46 PM
Found him, Ali Babacan XVPM, XFM and M of finance. Yes god forbid, if he is a decendent of Ardisher Babakan and another claimant to Iranian throne, which CIA and Soros can jump on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Babacan MBA from Northeestern
blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 04:55 PM
...would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Aye. Aye. Sir!

+1

That is why some of us believe the Patriot Act and FISA are both unpatriotic and unconstitutional. SCOTUS disagrees with the few of us.

Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 05:03 PM
I do not believe Trump is a misogynists - he stated publicly that he likes beautiful women. I also do not think he is a racist. I think he is the first US leader in many decades who has been willing to publicly talk about US problems. For most other US politicians - they largely live in "the best of all possible worlds".
English Outsider , 05 February 2018 at 06:31 PM
Colonel - sincere apologies if my comment above disrupted the discussion on a fascinating article.

David Habakkuk - I should say that "Quantum Computer" referred solely to the ability to gather and collate great amounts of material. It's an ability I admire. On Steele, you are among other things setting out something that is unfamiliar to me though not to most others here, I imagine, and that is the milieu in which he is or was working as a UK Intelligence operative. That you have also done in previous articles; it doesn't seem to be a particularly savoury milieu. As far as Steele's US activities are concerned, from you I'm not getting the picture of a lone operative, all ties with MI6 neatly severed, working solo in the States on some chance assignment in 2016. I'm getting the picture of someone still very much in the swim and selected because of that.

The only problem with that second picture is the dossier, or the 30% or so of it - what Comey, I think it was, described as "salacious and unverified". Surely that's got to be amateur night. Not something that a practised professional working with other professionals would put his hand to. Does that not support the picture of an ex-operative who's gone off the rails and is fumbling around unsupervised?

The Steele affair touched a nerve. One is always I suppose aware that IC professionals are getting up to all sorts and it doesn't seem improbable that "all sorts" includes political stuff and smear campaigns. But it's not heaps of corpses in Syria or farm boys being sent to certain death in the Ukraine. And even within the UK Intelligence Community and their contractors or whatever they're called, compared with what our IC people have done in the ME or compared with what one fears Hamish de Bretton Gordon might have got himself involved in, Christopher Steele's just a choirboy. Nevertheless there's something deeply repellent about what he did. Whatever your view of Trump there he was, newly elected, obviously wanting to make a go of it, and already faced with difficulties. Then some chancer throws "Golden Showers" in his face and makes his position, not maybe for the insiders but for the general public, that bit more untenable.

So from a UK perspective the question of whether Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK becomes important. If he was truly working solo then that from a UK point of view is regrettable but one of those things. In that case MI6 would just have to tighten up its controls on what ex-operatives get up to, put out the appropriate disclaimers, and that's the end of it as far as the UK is concerned. But if Golden Showers and the rest of it was a "Welcome Mr President" from UK IC professionals as a group then those professionals should be hung drawn and quartered together with whoever set them on.

I've read your article several times now and apart from the fact that much of what you pull together isn't material I'm up on, it doesn't seem to me that you're definitely coming to one conclusion or the other. There are many more facts to come out so perhaps this question is premature, but do you think Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK or was he, at least as far as the UK is concerned, working solo?

kooshy , 05 February 2018 at 07:49 PM
Most Iranian females Named Fatima/ Fatimah after prophet' daughter, call themselves Fati, and if they are of aristocrat type, they are called Bibi Fati Khanam, which is honorable lady Fati and if they are westernized they become Fay or Fifi.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 07:59 PM
EO

Much of your commentary seems directed to David Habakkuk and PT rather than I. I don't think the FBI would have started to pay him until he left UK service. pl

English Outsider , 06 February 2018 at 05:10 AM
Colonel - Further apologies - I should have submitted comment 79 as two items.

Yes, the question about Steele was in response to DH's article. The UK side of the affair is I suppose only a small part of the question you and your Committee are examining but it's a dubious part however one looks at it. Although it's early days yet I was hoping DH, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK intelligence scene, might feel able to cast more light on that UK side.

English Outsider -> Cortes... , 06 February 2018 at 05:53 AM
Cortes - " ... where, exactly, do you expect the great public to look beyond the initial scabrously defamatory storytelling about the "golden showers"? "

I don't think one can expect the public, at least in the UK, to look very far beyond the initial scandal. The investigations and enquiries presently under way in the US are complex and are taking place in a different system. This member of the UK public wouldn't be able to give you a coherent account of those enquiries and I doubt many of my fellows could.

So we have to take on trust, most of us, what we're told. As far as I can tell the underlying theme from the BBC and the media is generally that Trump is subverting the American Justice system in order to ensure his own misdemeanours aren't investigated.

Some of us take that as gospel. Others of us assume that the politicians and the media are untrustworthy and ignore them. I doubt many of us go into much more detail than that. Therefore the original story will stick in our minds.

But for some in the UK there are questions in there as well. How come the UK got mixed up in all this? How much did the UK get mixed up in it?

David Habakkuk -> Sid Finster... , 06 February 2018 at 06:19 AM
Sid Finster,

In response to comment 53.

When I belatedly started looking at the Litvinenko mystery, as a result of a strange email provoked by comments of mine on SST which arrived in my inbox in March 2007 from someone who turned out to be a key protagonist, it was rather obvious that improvised and chaotic 'StratCom' operations had been put into place on both the Russian and British sides to cover up what had happened.

A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella.

When I started delving, I came across some very interesting pieces on Scaramella and related matters posted on the 'European Tribune' website by a Rome-based blogger using the name 'de Gondi' in the period after the story broke.

His actual name is David Loepp, by profession he is an artisan jeweller specialising in ancient and traditional goldsmith techniques, and I already knew and respected his work from his contributions to the transnational internet investigation into the Niger uranium forgeries – an earlier MI6 clusterf**ck.

So in May 2008 I posted a longish piece on that site, setting out the problems with the evidence about the Litvinenko case as I saw them, in the hope of reactivating his interest. This paid off in spades, when he linked to, and translated a key extract from, the request from Italian prosecutors to use wiretaps of conversations with Senator Paolo Guzzanti in connection with their prosecution of Scaramella for 'aggravated calumny.'

The request, which up to not so long ago was freely available on the website of the Italian Senate, was denied, but the extensive summaries of the transcripts provided a lot of material.

(This initial post by me, and later posts by me on that site, are at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/uid:1857/diary. Three posts David Loepp and I produced jointly in December 2012, which have a lot on Scaramella and Shvets, are on his page there, at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/de%20Gondi/diary .)

The extract from the wiretap request which David Loepp posted, which like Litvinenko's letter containing the claims he and Yuri Shvets had concocted about Putin using Mogilevich to attempt to supply Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb' is dated 1 December 2005, contains key pointers to the conspiracy. It concludes:

'A passage on Simon Moghilevic and an agreement between the camorra to search for nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War to be consigned to Bin Laden, a revelation made by the Israeli. According to Scaramella the circle closes: camorra, Moghilevic- Russian mafia- services- nuclear bombs in Naples.'

Subsequent conversations make clear that Scaramella left on 6 December 2005 for Washington, on a trip where he was to meet Shvets. The summary of a report on this to Guzzanti reads:

'12) conversation that took place on number [omissis] on December 18, 2005, at 9:41:51 n. 1426, containing explicit references to the authenticity of the declarations of Alexander Litvinenko acquired by Scaramella, to the trustworthiness of the affirmations made by Scaramella in his reports to the commission and to the meetings Scaramella had with Talik after having denounced them [presumably Talik and his alleged accomplices]. (They can talk with HEIMS thanks to the help of MILLER. SHVEZ says that he had been a companion of CARLOS at the academy; SHVEZ has already made declarations and is willing to continue collaboration. Guzzanti warns that a document in Russian arrived in commission in which the name of SCARAMELLA appears several times, these [sic] say that directives to the contrary had been given to Litvinenko. Scaramella says that he went to the meeting with TALIK in the company of two treasury [police] and a cop, Talik spoke of a person from the Ukrainian GRU who would be willing to talk and a strange Chechen ring in Naples. Assassination attempt against the pope, CASAROLI was a Soviet agent.)'

The summary of a later conversation also refers to 'MILLER':

'conversation that took place on number [omissis] on January 13, 2006, at 11:22:11 n. 2287, containing references to Scaramella's sources in relation to facts referred in the Commission, the means by which they were obtained by Scaramella from declarations made abroad, the role of Litvinenko, also on the occasion of declarations made by third parties and the credibility of the news and theses given by Scaramella to the commission (Scaramella reads a text in English on the relation between the KGB and PRODI. Guzzanti asks if its credibility can be confirmed and if the taped declarations can be backed up; Scaramella answers that there were two testimonies, Lou Palumbo and Alexander (Litvinenko), and that the registration made in London at the beginning of the assignment [Scaramella's?] had been authenticated by a certain BAKER of the FBI. As he translates the text from English, Scaramella notes that the person testifying does not say he knows Prodi but only that he thinks that Prodi ...; all those who worked for the person testifying in Scandinavia said that Prodi was "theirs." The affair in Rimini, Bielli is preparing the battle in Rimini. Meetings with MILLER for the three things that are needed. Polemic about Pollari over the pressure exerted on Gordievski.)'

In the exchanges on my May 2008 post, I mentioned and linked to some extraordinary comments on a crucial article by Edward Jay Epstein, in which Karon von Gerhke claimed that his sceptical account fitted with what her contacts in the British investigation had told her. When that July I came across her equally extraordinary claims in response to the BBC's Mark Urban piece of stenography – which Steele may also have had a hand in organising – I found she was referring to precisely that visit to Washington by Scaramella which had been described in the wiretap request.

As you can perhaps imagine, the fact that 'Miller' had featured in the conversations with Guzzanti both as a key contact, who could introduce Scaramella to Aldrich Ames (which is who 'Heims' clearly is), and with whom there had been meetings about 'the three things that are needed' made me inclined to take seriously what Karon von Gerhke said about his role.

In December 2008, I put up another post on 'European Tribune', putting together the material from David Loepp and that from Karon von Gerhke – but not discussing the references to 'Miller.' As I had hoped, this led to her getting in touch.

Among the material with which she supplied me, which I in turn supplied to the Solicitor to the Inquest, were covers of faxes to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel of the CIA. From a fax dated 23 October 2005.

'John: See attached email to Chuck Patrizia. Berezovsky alleges he is in possession of a copy of a classified file given to the CIA by Russia's FSB, which he further alleges the CIA disseminated to British, French, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies implicating him in business associations with the Mafia and to ties with terrorist organizations. Yuri Shvets was authorised/directed by Berezovsky to raise the issue with Bud McFarlane scheduled for Thursday. McFarlane is unaware the issue will be raised with him.'

From a fax dated 7 November 2005:

'John: I am attaching an email exchange between Yuri Shvets and me re: 1) article he published on his Ukraine website on alleged sale of nuclear choke to Iran, which I reproached him on as having been planted by Berezovsky and 2 the alleged FSB/CIA document file that Berezovsky obtained from Scaramella, which Yuri acknowledges in his e-mail to me. Like extracting wisdom teeth to get him to put anything on paper, especially in an e-mail! [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is the source McFarlane referred Yuri to re: Berezovsky's visa issue. She proposed meeting Berezovsky in London. Alleged it would take a year to clear up USG issues and even then could not guarantee him a visa. She too has access to USG intelligence on Berezovsky. Open book.'

From a fax dated 5 December 2005:

'John. From Mario Scaramella to Yuri Shvets to my ears, the DOJ has authorised Mario Scaramella to interview Aldrich Ames with regard to members of the Italian Intelligence Service agent recruited by Ames for the KGB. Scaramella, as you may recall, is who gave Boris Berezovsky's aide, a former FSB Colonel [LITVINENKO – DH], that alleged document number to the FSB file that the CIA disseminated on Berezovsky – a file that Bud McFarlane's "Madam Visa" [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is alleged is totting off to London for a meeting with Berezovsky, who has agreed to retain her re: his visa issue. Quid pro quo's with Berezovsky and Scaramella on the CIA agent currently facing kidnapping charges for the rendition of the Muslim cleric? Scott Armstrong has a most telling file on Scaramella. Not a single redeeming quality.'

In the course of very extensive exchanges with Karon von Gerhke subsequently, we had some rather acute disagreements. It was unfortunate that her filing was a shambles – a crucial hard disk failed without a backup, and the 'hard copies' appeared to be in a chaotic state.

However, the only occasion when I can recall having reason to believe that was deliberately lying to me was when David Loepp unearthed a cache of documentation including the full Italian text of the letter from Litvinenko containing the 'StratCom' designed to suggest that Putin had attempted to supply a 'mini nuclear bomb' to Al Qaeda. Having been asked to keep this between ourselves for the time being, Karon insisted on immediately sending it to her contacts in Counter Terrorism Command, and then produced bogus justifications.

Time and again, moreover, I found that I could confirm statements that she made – see for example the two posts I put up on the legal battles following the death in February 2008 of Berezovsky's long-term partner Arkadi 'Badri' Patarkatsishvili in June and July 2009, which were based on careful corroboration of what she told me.

(I should also say that I acquired the greatest respect for her courage.)

And while Owen and his team suppressed all the evidence from her, and almost all of that from David Loepp, which I had I provided to them, the dossier about Berezovsky is described in a statement made by Litvinenko in Tel Aviv in April 2006, presented in evidence in the Inquiry.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

Other evidence, moreover, strongly inclines me to believe that there were overtures for a 'quid pro quo', purporting to come from Putin, but that this was a ruse orchestrated by Berezovsky.

Part of the purpose of this would almost certainly have been to supply probably bogus 'evidence' about arms sales in the Yeltsin years to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moreover, I think there was an article on the second 'Fifth Element' site run by Shvets about the supposed sale of a nuclear 'choke' – whatever that is – to Iran.

The likelihood of the involvement of elements in the FBI in these shenanigans seems to quite high, given what has already emerged about the activities of Levinson. Also relevant may be the fact that the 'declaration' which was part of the attempt to frame Romano Prodi was authenticated, in London, by 'a certain BAKER of the FBI.')

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 09:40 AM
Thank you David Habakkuk. Truly sordid and deplorable. WWIII to be initiated on basis of lies.
Jack , 06 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
David

You may already know this but Steele was a no show in a UK court for a deposition on the libel suit.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/05/christopher-steele-is-no-show-in-london-court-in-civil-case-over-dossier.amp.html

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 01:18 PM
I know something of spectroscopy.

The critical issue here is the provenance of the samples and not the sophistication of the techniques used in the analysis itself or its instrumentation.

The paragraph that you have quoted:

"To figure out signatures based on various synthetic routes and conditions, Chipuk says that the synthetic chemists on his team will make the same chemical threat agent as many as 2,000 times in an ..." reeks of intellectual intimidation - trying to brow-beat any skeptic by the size of one's instrument - as it were."

And then there is a little matter of confidence level in any of the analysis - such things are normally based on prior statistics - which did not and could not exist in this situation.

LeaNder , 07 February 2018 at 09:16 AM
David, it's no doubt interesting to watch how attention on Victor Ivanov in another deficient inquiry on the British Isles, was managed in that inquiry. If I may, since he pops up again in the Steele dossier. You take what's available? Is that all there is to know?

I know its hard to communicate basics if you are deeply into matters. Usually people prefer to opt out. It's getting way too complicated for them to follow. You made me understand this experience. But isn't this (fake) intelligence continuity "via" Yuri Svets what connects your, no harm meant I do understand your obsession with the case, with what we deal with now in the Steele Dossier? Again, one of the most central figures is Ivanov.

Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear.

By the way, babbling mode, I found your Tom Mangold transcription. It felt it wasn't there on the link you gave. I used the date, and other search terms. Maybe I am wrong. Haven't looked at what the judge ruled out of the collection. Yes, cozy session/setting.

According to Google search there are no other links then your articles here:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf

**********

JAN RICHARD BĆRUG
The Collapsing Wall. Hybrid Journalism.
A Comparative Study of Newspapers and
Magazines in Eight Countries in Europe

Available online. Haven't read it yet, but journalism as hidden public relations transfer belt would be one of my minor obsessions. ...

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 07 February 2018 at 11:23 AM
I wonder too; their command of the English idiom is very au currant - noticed "opt in/opt out" reference? Too American.

They clearly are not native speakers of German.

LeaNder said in reply to kooshy... , 07 February 2018 at 12:30 PM
why California, Kooshy #18? California among other things left this verbal trace, since I once upon time thought a luggage storage in SF might be free/available now: this is my home, lady.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_Island#Economy

Tourists from many -- but not all -- foreign nations wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to obtain any visa prior to travel. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.

Who are the not all? Can we assume Britain is not one of those?

The German link is different. How about the Iranian?

or isn't this the Kish we are talking about?

LeaNder said in reply to LeaNder... , 07 February 2018 at 01:14 PM
correcting myself #94:

another Ivanov. I struggled with names (...) in Russian crime novels, admittedly. But that's long ago from times Russian crime and Russian money flows and rogues getting hold of its nuclear material surfaced more often in Europe. 90s

I see Sergei seems to share my interest in the literary genre:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Ivanov#Personal

[Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this. ..."
"... Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky. ..."
"... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
"... I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence". ..."
"... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
"... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
"... Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ..."
"... They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040 ..."
"... In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. ..."
"... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union ..."
"... About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS ..."
"... No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming. ..."
"... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
"... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
"... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
"... IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war. ..."
"... The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. ..."
"... A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella. ..."
"... Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear. ..."
Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'

In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background, which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.'

There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.

This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.

And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area.

Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.

The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.

In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry – the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.

Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier, which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.

(See http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/20/what-really-happened-robert-levinson-cia-iran-454803.html .)

Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio 4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets, backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.

The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available – evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.

Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.

What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest a sale had been completed.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.

All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder. For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.

(On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews both with Mogilevich and Levinson at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_06_12_99.txt )

In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.

Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions north of the Litani.

These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.

What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.

Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking 'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.

Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.

So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster.

All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate Russia in supplying materials.

There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)

It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional, Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.

It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here, a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.

Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.

In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.

Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain, but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)

That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:

'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear limited life components and you can read for weeks).'

(For this and other articles by Kaszeta, as also his bio, see http://strongpointsecurity.co.uk ')

What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility, in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of ones which lasted longer.

For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.

What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.

In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'

According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?

As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.

In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties, and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another day.

A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.

Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.

Posted at 03:42 PM in As The Borg Turns , Habakkuk , Russia , Russiagate | Permalink

james , 03 February 2018 at 04:33 PM

thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..

it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..

JohnB , 03 February 2018 at 05:17 PM
David,

Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.

turcopolier , 03 February 2018 at 06:02 PM
james

It is the closest of all international intelligence relationships. It started in WW2. Before that the Brits were though of as a potential enemy. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 03 February 2018 at 06:10 PM
I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One.
The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
catherine , 03 February 2018 at 06:22 PM
That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.

Re: Levinson

# Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.

# Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson went to Jablonski with it.

# And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson? The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing came of it.

I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.

Ishmael Zechariah , 03 February 2018 at 06:54 PM
DH,

As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.

I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".

Be safe.

Ishmael Zechariah

Rd , 03 February 2018 at 07:31 PM
Babak Makkinejad said in reply to turcopolier...

The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
..and US is the one who has been paying for it since 1979!!!

kooshy said in reply to Ishmael Zechariah... , 03 February 2018 at 08:21 PM
IZ
My guess is, that he is unpredictable, instantaneous and therefore can't be consistent and reliable, useful idiot needs to be predictable.
kooshy , 03 February 2018 at 08:43 PM
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. "

David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making. Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

different clue , 03 February 2018 at 08:49 PM
Ishmael Zechariah,

( reply to comment 6),

I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.

It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate.

And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.

So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

Jack , 03 February 2018 at 08:54 PM
David,

Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.

In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.

Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century endorsed her.

Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in. Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling the Borg pundits.

SmoothieX12 -> kooshy... , 03 February 2018 at 09:51 PM
So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. This swamp (Borg, deep state, etc.) still thinks that it can use Cold War 1.0 Playbook and address very real and dangerous American economic issues. They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with.

Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:10 PM
They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 03 February 2018 at 10:24 PM
You are right CWII is very much desired and on agenda, but i am not sure of setup, the setup/board has been changed tremendously and IMO benefits the Asian side of Bosphorus, for one thing technology is no longer exclusive, and financial burden is heavier on atlantic side.
catherine said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:21 AM
''Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ''

The locust keep trying and trying, destruction is their life's work.

'1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'

In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241, 251 - 256]

'November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union'

State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union

aleksandar , 04 February 2018 at 04:41 AM
David,

About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS.

Fred said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 08:40 AM
Babak,

"they got US to bail them out during WWII" And how would things have worked out had we not done so?

Fred , 04 February 2018 at 08:46 AM
David,

"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time."

Yes, that is what appears to be just what is coming to light. I wonder just what position Trey Gowdy is going to have since he won't be running for re-election. The rage from the left is palpable. I'm sure the next outraged guy on the left will know how to shoot straighter than the ones who shot up Congressman Scalise or the concert goers at Mandalay Bay.

Anna said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 08:48 AM
"They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with."
-- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
turcopolier , 04 February 2018 at 08:54 AM
Anna

The powerful are often remarkably ignorant. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> Fred... , 04 February 2018 at 10:08 AM
England preferred NAZI Germany to USSR, this is well known. As to what would have happened, the outcome of the war, in my opinion, did not depend on US participation in the European Theatre. All of Europe would have become USSR satellite or joined USSR.
jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 04 February 2018 at 11:53 AM
"unsentimental empirical people"? Absolutely disagree with you. Now the Iranians, they strike me as a singularity unsentimental people. Just general impressions, mind you.
Kooshy said in reply to catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
Yes, US was the first country to proudly deliver Manpads to be used by "rebels" (Mojahadin later Taleban) against USSR in Afghanistan back in 80s. And, as per the architect of support for the rebels (Zbigniew Brzezinski) very proud of it with no regret. With that in mind, I don't see how western politicians, the western governments and their related proxy war planers, will be regretting, even sadden, once god forbid we see passenger planes with loved ones are shot down taking off or landing at various western airports and other places around the word. Just like how superficialy with crocodile tears in their eyes they acted in aftermath of the terrorist events in various western cities in this past 16 years. Gods knows what will happens to us if the opposite side start to supply his own proxies with lethal anti air weapons. "Proudly", I don't think anybody in west cares or will regret of such an escalation.
Phodges said in reply to turcopolier ... , 04 February 2018 at 12:23 PM
Sir

It seems we are being defeated by Cicero's enemy within. Zion is achieving what no one could hope to achieve by force of arms.

David Habakkuk -> catherine... , 04 February 2018 at 01:17 PM
catherine,

In response to comment 5.

I think it likely that what Meier produces is only a 'limited hangout', and am hoping that when the book arrives it will contain more pointers.

It is important to be clear that one is often dealing with people playing very complicated double games.

An interesting document is the 'Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus' made on behalf of Khodorkovsky's close associate Alexander Konanykhin back in 1997,when the Immigration and Naturalization Service were – apparently at least – cooperating with Russian attempts to get hold of him. An extract:

'During the immigration hearing FBI SA Robert Levinson, an INS witness, confirmed that in 1992 Petitioner was kidnapped and afterwards pursued by assassins of the Solntsevskaya organized criminal group. This organized criminal group is reportedly the largest and the most influential organized criminal group in Russia, and operates internationally.'

(See http://defiancethebook.com/legal/habeas/petition.htm .)

Note the similarities between the 'StratCom' that Khonanykin and his associates were producing in the 'Nineties, and that which Simpson and his associates have been producing two decades later.

Another useful example is provided by a 2004 item in the 'New American Magazine', reproduced on Konanykhin's website:

'One of those who testified on behalf of Konanykhine was KGB defector Yuri Shvets, who declared: "I have a firsthand knowledge on similar operations conducted by the KGB." Konanykhine had brought trouble on himself, Shvets continued, when he "started bringing charges against people who were involved with him in setting up and running commercial enterprises. They were KGB people secretly smuggling from Russia hundreds of millions of dollars . This is [a] serious case, and I know that KGB ... desperately wants to win this case, and everybody who won't step to their side would face problems."'

(See http://konanykhin.com/news/the-konanykhine-case.html .)

So – 'first hand knowledge', from a Ukrainian nationalist – look at what the Chalupas have been doing, it seems not much has changed.

For a rather different perspective on what Konanykhin had actually been up to, from someone in whose honesty – if not always judgement – I have complete confidence, see the testimony of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson to the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services hearings on Russian Money Laundering. In this, she described how she had been approached by him in 1993:

'"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [Ł1bn] in assets and investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent political and social elite," she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and asked her to help buy foreign passports for its "very, very special clients".

'In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that it believed Mr Konanykhine and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials".

(For a 'Guardian report, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/23/julianborger ; for the actual testimony, see http://archives-financialservices.house.gov/banking/92299ger.pdf .)

Coming back to Steele's 'StratCom', in July 2008, an item appeared on the 'Newnight' programme of the BBC – which some of us think should by then have been rechristened the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – in which the introduction by the presenter, Jeremy Paxman, read as follows:

'Good evening. The New Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, was all smiles and warm words when he met Gordon Brown today. He said he was keen to resolve all outstanding difficulties between the two countries. Yada yada yada. Gordon Brown smiled, but he must know what Newsnight can now reveal: that MI5 believes the Russian state was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive poisoning. They also believe that without their intervention another London-based Russian, Boris Berezovsky, would have been murdered. Our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, has this exclusive report.'

(For the transcript presented in evidence to Owen's Inquiry, see http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/ )

When Urban repeated the claims on his blog, there was a positive eruption from someone using the name 'timelythoughts', about the activities of someone she referred to as 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist' – when I came across this later, it was immediately clear to me that she was Karon von Gerhke, and he was Shvets.

(For the first part of the exchanges of comments, the second apparently having become unavailable, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/markurban/2008/07/litvinenko_killing_had_state_i.html )

She then described a visit by Scaramella to Washington, details of which had already been unearthed by my Italian collaborator, David Loepp. Her claim to have e-mails from Shvets, from the time immediately prior to Litvinenko's death, directly contradicting the testimony he had given, fitted with other evidence I had already unearthed.

Later, we exchanged e-mails over a quite protracted period, and a large amount of material that came into my possession as a result was submitted by me to the Inquest team, with some of it being used in posts on the 'European Tribune' site.

What I never used publicly, because I could only partially corroborate it from the material she provided, was an extraordinary claim about Shvets:

'He was responsible for bringing in a Kremlin initiative that was walked Vice President Cheney's office on a US government quid pro quo with the Kremlin FSB SVR involving the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – a cease and desist on allegations of a politically motivated arrest of Khodorkovsky, violations of rules of law and calls from Russia's expulsion from the G 8 in exchange for favorable posturing of U.S. oil companies on Gazprom's Shtokman project and intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria, all documented in reports I submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and MI6.

'Berezovsky's DS could not be on both sides on that isle. His Kremlin FSB SVR sources had been vetted by the CIA and by the National Security Council. They proved to be as represented. As we would later learn, however, he was on Berezovsky's payroll at same time. The FSB SVR general he was coordinating the Kremlin initiative through was S. R. Subbotin, the same FSB SVR general who was investigating Berezovsky's money laundering operations in Switzerland during the same timeframe. His FSB SVR sources surrounding Putin were higher than any Lugovoy could have ever hoped to affiliate with.

'R. James Woolsey (former CIA DCI), Marshall Miller (former law partner of the late CIA DCI William Colby), who I coordinated the Kremlin initiative through that Berezovsky's DS had brought in were shocked to learn that he was affiliated with Berezovsky and Litvinenko. He was in Berezovsky's inner circle and engaged in vetting Russian business with Litvinenko. He operated Berezovsky's Ukraine website, editing and dubbing the now infamous Kuchma tapes throughout the lead up to the elections in the Ukraine. Berezovsky contributed $41 million to Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, which he used in an attempt to force Yushchenko to reunite with Julia Tymoschenko. It failed but would succeed later after Berezovsky orchestrated a public relations initiative through Alan Goldfarb in the U.S. on behalf of Tymoschenko.'

Having got to know Karon von Gerhke quite well, and also been able to corroborate a great deal of what she told me about many things, and discussed these matters with her, it is absolutely clear to me that she was neither fabricating nor fantasising. What later became apparent, both to her and to me, was that in the 'double game' that Shvets was playing, he had succeeded in fooling her as to the side for which he was working.

It seems likely however that the reason Shvets could do what he did was that quite precisely that many high-up people in the Kremlin and elsewhere were playing a 'double game.' In this, Karon von Gerhke's propensity for indiscretion – of which I, like others, was both beneficiary and victim – could be useful.

An exercise in 'positioning', which could be used to disguise the fact that Shvets was indeed 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist', could be used to make it appear that 'intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria' was actually credible.

This could have been used to try to rescue Cheney, Bush and their associates from the mess they had got into as a result of the failure of the invasion to provide any evidence whatsoever supporting the case which had been made for it. It could also have been used to provide the kind of materials justifying military action against Iran for which Levinson and Jablonski were looking, and for similar action against Syria.

Among reasons for bringing this up now is that we need to make sense of the paradox that Simpson – clearly in collusion with Steele – was using Mogilevich and the 'Solnsetskaya Bratva' both against Manafort and Trump and against Browder.

There are various possible explanations for this. I do not want to succumb to my instinctive prejudice that this may have been another piece of 'positioning', similar to what I think was being done with Shvets, but the hypothesis needs to be considered.

A more general point is that people in Washington and London need to 'wise up' to the kind of world with which they are dealing. This could be done quite enjoyably: reading some of Dashiell Hammett's fictions of the United States in the Prohibition era, or indeed buying DVDs of some of the classics of 'film noir', like 'Out of the Past' (in its British release, 'Build My Gallows High') might be a start.

Very much of the coverage of affairs in the post-Soviet space since 1991 has read rather as though a Dashiell Hammett story had been rewritten by someone specialising in sentimental children's, or romantic, fiction (although, come to think of it, that is really what Brigid O'Shaughnessy does in 'The Maltese Falcon.')

The testimony of Glenn Simpson seems a case in point. The sickly sentimentality of these people does, rather often, make one feel as though one wanted to throw up.

Thomas , 04 February 2018 at 01:24 PM
"They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040.}

No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming.

SmoothieX12 -> Anna... , 04 February 2018 at 01:39 PM
- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders." Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.

My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.

Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.

Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.

james said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 04 February 2018 at 03:01 PM
there seems to be no shortage of money for these blatant propaganda exercises..
Babak Makkinejad -> SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 04:14 PM
I think the failure of Deciders is nothing new - Fath Ali Shah attacking Russia, or the abject failure of the Deciders in 1914. Europe is still not where she was in 1890.
begob , 04 February 2018 at 05:20 PM
I read the post and responses early on, so forgive me if this point has been addressed in the meantime. If the memo information on non-disclosure of material evidence to the warrant issuing court is accurate, as soon as that information came to the attention of the authorities (clearly some time ago) there was a duty on them (including the judge(s) who issued the warrants) to have the matter brought back before the court toot sweet. If that had happened it would surely be in the public domain, so on the assumption the prosecutors and maybe even the judge didn't see the need to review the matter, even purely on a contempt/ethics basis, the memo information only seems convincing if the FISA system is a total sham. I really doubt that.
kooshy said in reply to SmoothieX12 ... , 04 February 2018 at 06:20 PM
IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war.

The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. As I remember that wasn't the case at the end of VN war when i first landed here. At that time even though the war was on the other side of the planet and away from homeland, still people, especially young ones in colleges were paying more attention to the cost of war.

spy killer , 04 February 2018 at 06:55 PM
Diana West has uncovered some interesting "Red Threads" (6 part article at dianawest-dot-net) on all the Fusion GPS folks. Seems ole Russian speaking Nellie Ohr got herself a ham radio license recently. Wonder why she would suddenly need one of those? They are all Marxists with potential connections back to Russia.
English Outsider -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 07:23 AM
Been there. I am also a latecomer to SST. You have to read the back numbers. How? My IT expertise dates from the dawn of the internet and was lamentable then but I find Wayback sometimes allows easier searches than the SST search engine. A straight search on google also allows searches with more than one term. This link -

https://twitter.com/pat_lang

- gets you to a chronological list and for recent material is sometimes quicker than fiddling around with search engines. "Categories" on the RH side is useful but then you don't get some very informative comments that cross-refer.

If those sadly elementary procedures fail resort to the nearest infant. There's a blur of fingers on the keyboard and what you want then usually appears. Never ask them how they did it. They get so fed up when you ask them to explain it again.

"Who is David Habakkuk?" That's a quantum computer sited, from internal evidence you pick up from time to time, somewhere in the Greater London area. Cross references like you wouldn't believe and over several fields, so maybe he's two quantum computers.

The "Borg"?. Try Wittgenstein. Likely a prog but you can't be choosy these days. Early on in "Philosophical Investigations" (hope I get this right) he discusses the problem of how you can view as an entity something that has ill-defined or overlapping boundaries. The "Borg" is that "you know it when you see it" sort of thing. A great merit of this site is that the owner and many of the contributors know it from inside.

In general you may regard your new found site as a microcosm of the great battle that is raging in the West. It's a battle between the (probably apocryphal but adequately stated) Roveian view of reality that regards truth as an adjunct to or as a by-product of ideology and Realpolitik and the objective view of reality as something that is damned difficult to get at, and sometimes impossible, but that has a truth in it somewhere that is independent of the views and convictions of the observer. It's a battle that's never going to be won but unless it tilts back closer to common sense it can certainly be lost and the West with it.

jonst said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 08:11 AM
Clearly the Labor Party in the UK preferred the USSR to Nazi Germany. (cepting that short interlude where the Soviets signed the Agreement with Hitler, and the Left Organized Leadership all across Europe, for the most part, lined up with Hitler). But for the most part, Labor was Left.
Elements (the ones that won out in the end) of the Conservative Party loathed both Hitler and Stalin. An element of the Conservative Party was sympathetic, but only up to a certain point, with the Nazis. This ended in 1939, sept.

So I don't think it fair, or accurate, to say 'England prefered the Nazis....and even if it not those things, it certainly not "well known", except to the people who have used the false premise to butter their wounds from supporting Stalin in his Pact with Hitler. Or are inclined to bash the British in general.

Babak Makkinejad -> jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 08:29 AM
All right, perhaps I should have said "The English Government". Google "Litvinov", you may discover how the English Government pushed Stalin to make a deal with Hitler to buy USSR time.
Sid Finster said in reply to Jack... , 05 February 2018 at 10:26 AM
Witness the infamous State Department protest memo calling for more war on Syria.

The State Department employees that signed that memo were sure that HRC would win and that their diligent work in pushing the Deep State agenda would sure be rewarded.

Since entering office, Trump appears to have taken the line that if he gives the Deep State everything it demands, he will be allowed to remain in office, even if he is not allowed to remain in power.

Sid Finster said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 05 February 2018 at 10:31 AM
Explain Marshall Miller's role in this, please. He is someone I know quite well. I also know one of the Chalupas.
begob said in reply to jonst... , 05 February 2018 at 10:56 AM
jonst That's broadly accurate, but specifically Attlee brought the motion of no confidence in Chamberlain, which the conservative appeasers won but which led to Churchill's opportunity. Attlee was essential in cabinet to Churchill's resistance after the retreat of the BEF.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 11:18 AM
FM
What are you doing here? You said you dislike the military. Are you really in the Spanish Basque country? Bilbao maybe? break - David Habakkuk is a private scholar of the Litvinenko murder and Soviet/Russian politics and intelligence affairs. His surname comes from Wales where in the 18th (?) Century the ancestral village were all "chapel" and changed their surnames to Old Testament names. His father was master of one of the Cambridge colleges and David is himself a graduate of Cambridge. pl
Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 11:19 AM
Yes, I am Iranian. All "Babak"s are Iranians - except some obscure ones that are Rus - Babakov.
Anna , 05 February 2018 at 02:07 PM
The hard, blinding truth: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/05/will-conspiracy-trump-american-democracy-go-unpunished/
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Thomas said in reply to turcopolier ... , 05 February 2018 at 02:08 PM
Colonel,

This troll showed up recently at b's place doing the same accusations. There is group that is running sacred and pulling out all the stops in "info ops" side of the spectrum. The damn fools don't or, most probably, won't get thru their thick heads and even thicker hearts that it is a failed strategy that turns bystanders into their opponents.

Richardstevenhack , 05 February 2018 at 02:36 PM
Here for your edification is the definitive analysis of the GOP memo by Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran.

And it is a masterpriece - and quite long, possibly his longest analysis of anything so far. He buries the counterarguments being passed around by the Democratic opposition and the anti-Trump media.

Mercouris writes on legal affairs alongside his foreign policy stuff and he writes with a lawyer's precision. And in this article he points out that the GOP memo is writter as a legal document - probably by Trey Gowdy - with additional political insertions by Nunes. So it should properly be referred to as the "GOP memo" or the "Gowdy memo", not the Nunes memo."

Why this is important is that the GOP memo is basically written as a defense lawyer would in contesting a case -- this case being the FISA warrant application. Which means its orientation is proving failure to disclose relevant and material information to the FISA court and in some cases rising to the point of contempt of court.

Seriously, read this! The whole thing!

Rampant abuse and possible contempt of Court: what you need to know about the GOP memo
http://theduran.com/rampant-abuse-contempt-court-analysis-gop-memorandum/

blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 03:25 PM
Sen Grassley releases memo heavily redacted by DOJ/FBI.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-05/grassley-graham-blast-fbi-censoring-memo-calling-criminal-probe-trump-dossier

"Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging," Grassley said in a statement after posting a heavily redacted version of the criminal referral that he and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent to the Justice Department last month. " The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn't secret. "

I suppose DOJ/FBI believe that by obstructing, stalling and obfuscating they can buy time and that the Republicans in Congress will get tired of the games and go home. This seems like a pretty straightforward memo, highlighting the discrepancy between Steele's court filings and the FBI's version of Steele's discussions with them. Grassley is pointing out that either Steele or the FBI is lying.

What is interesting is the difference in process and ability between the House & Senate. The House can release their memos on its own, even if not declassified by the Executive, whereas the Senate requires the Executive to declassify it's memos that are based on classified documents.

turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 04:38 PM
FM

We have not had a self declared communist on SST before although LeaNder in her youth may have come close to that exalted status. You might want to read the wiki on me and the CV I have posted on the blog to avoid tedious accusations of this or that. I am thought by some to have some knowledge of the ME so please do not try to lecture me about how much you love the Arabs. I speak their language and have lived with them for a long time. There are people who write to SST who are pro-Trump and some who are anti-Trump. I seek a mixture of views so long as personal insult and invective are eschewed. Personally, I do not belong to a political party and would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Trump is the constitutionally and legally elected president of the United States. Your descriptors with regard to him are, in my opinion, only plausible if seen from the point of view of various kinds of leftist including Marxist-Leninists like you. You sound very smug and self-satisfied but we will see if you can have an open mind at all. pl

Kooshy said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 05 February 2018 at 04:46 PM
Found him, Ali Babacan XVPM, XFM and M of finance. Yes god forbid, if he is a decendent of Ardisher Babakan and another claimant to Iranian throne, which CIA and Soros can jump on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Babacan MBA from Northeestern
blue peacock , 05 February 2018 at 04:55 PM
...would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.

Aye. Aye. Sir!

+1

That is why some of us believe the Patriot Act and FISA are both unpatriotic and unconstitutional. SCOTUS disagrees with the few of us.

Babak Makkinejad -> Fatima Manoubia... , 05 February 2018 at 05:03 PM
I do not believe Trump is a misogynists - he stated publicly that he likes beautiful women. I also do not think he is a racist. I think he is the first US leader in many decades who has been willing to publicly talk about US problems. For most other US politicians - they largely live in "the best of all possible worlds".
English Outsider , 05 February 2018 at 06:31 PM
Colonel - sincere apologies if my comment above disrupted the discussion on a fascinating article.

David Habakkuk - I should say that "Quantum Computer" referred solely to the ability to gather and collate great amounts of material. It's an ability I admire. On Steele, you are among other things setting out something that is unfamiliar to me though not to most others here, I imagine, and that is the milieu in which he is or was working as a UK Intelligence operative. That you have also done in previous articles; it doesn't seem to be a particularly savoury milieu. As far as Steele's US activities are concerned, from you I'm not getting the picture of a lone operative, all ties with MI6 neatly severed, working solo in the States on some chance assignment in 2016. I'm getting the picture of someone still very much in the swim and selected because of that.

The only problem with that second picture is the dossier, or the 30% or so of it - what Comey, I think it was, described as "salacious and unverified". Surely that's got to be amateur night. Not something that a practised professional working with other professionals would put his hand to. Does that not support the picture of an ex-operative who's gone off the rails and is fumbling around unsupervised?

The Steele affair touched a nerve. One is always I suppose aware that IC professionals are getting up to all sorts and it doesn't seem improbable that "all sorts" includes political stuff and smear campaigns. But it's not heaps of corpses in Syria or farm boys being sent to certain death in the Ukraine. And even within the UK Intelligence Community and their contractors or whatever they're called, compared with what our IC people have done in the ME or compared with what one fears Hamish de Bretton Gordon might have got himself involved in, Christopher Steele's just a choirboy. Nevertheless there's something deeply repellent about what he did. Whatever your view of Trump there he was, newly elected, obviously wanting to make a go of it, and already faced with difficulties. Then some chancer throws "Golden Showers" in his face and makes his position, not maybe for the insiders but for the general public, that bit more untenable.

So from a UK perspective the question of whether Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK becomes important. If he was truly working solo then that from a UK point of view is regrettable but one of those things. In that case MI6 would just have to tighten up its controls on what ex-operatives get up to, put out the appropriate disclaimers, and that's the end of it as far as the UK is concerned. But if Golden Showers and the rest of it was a "Welcome Mr President" from UK IC professionals as a group then those professionals should be hung drawn and quartered together with whoever set them on.

I've read your article several times now and apart from the fact that much of what you pull together isn't material I'm up on, it doesn't seem to me that you're definitely coming to one conclusion or the other. There are many more facts to come out so perhaps this question is premature, but do you think Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK or was he, at least as far as the UK is concerned, working solo?

kooshy , 05 February 2018 at 07:49 PM
Most Iranian females Named Fatima/ Fatimah after prophet' daughter, call themselves Fati, and if they are of aristocrat type, they are called Bibi Fati Khanam, which is honorable lady Fati and if they are westernized they become Fay or Fifi.
turcopolier , 05 February 2018 at 07:59 PM
EO

Much of your commentary seems directed to David Habakkuk and PT rather than I. I don't think the FBI would have started to pay him until he left UK service. pl

English Outsider , 06 February 2018 at 05:10 AM
Colonel - Further apologies - I should have submitted comment 79 as two items.

Yes, the question about Steele was in response to DH's article. The UK side of the affair is I suppose only a small part of the question you and your Committee are examining but it's a dubious part however one looks at it. Although it's early days yet I was hoping DH, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK intelligence scene, might feel able to cast more light on that UK side.

English Outsider -> Cortes... , 06 February 2018 at 05:53 AM
Cortes - " ... where, exactly, do you expect the great public to look beyond the initial scabrously defamatory storytelling about the "golden showers"? "

I don't think one can expect the public, at least in the UK, to look very far beyond the initial scandal. The investigations and enquiries presently under way in the US are complex and are taking place in a different system. This member of the UK public wouldn't be able to give you a coherent account of those enquiries and I doubt many of my fellows could.

So we have to take on trust, most of us, what we're told. As far as I can tell the underlying theme from the BBC and the media is generally that Trump is subverting the American Justice system in order to ensure his own misdemeanours aren't investigated.

Some of us take that as gospel. Others of us assume that the politicians and the media are untrustworthy and ignore them. I doubt many of us go into much more detail than that. Therefore the original story will stick in our minds.

But for some in the UK there are questions in there as well. How come the UK got mixed up in all this? How much did the UK get mixed up in it?

David Habakkuk -> Sid Finster... , 06 February 2018 at 06:19 AM
Sid Finster,

In response to comment 53.

When I belatedly started looking at the Litvinenko mystery, as a result of a strange email provoked by comments of mine on SST which arrived in my inbox in March 2007 from someone who turned out to be a key protagonist, it was rather obvious that improvised and chaotic 'StratCom' operations had been put into place on both the Russian and British sides to cover up what had happened.

A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella.

When I started delving, I came across some very interesting pieces on Scaramella and related matters posted on the 'European Tribune' website by a Rome-based blogger using the name 'de Gondi' in the period after the story broke.

His actual name is David Loepp, by profession he is an artisan jeweller specialising in ancient and traditional goldsmith techniques, and I already knew and respected his work from his contributions to the transnational internet investigation into the Niger uranium forgeries – an earlier MI6 clusterf**ck.

So in May 2008 I posted a longish piece on that site, setting out the problems with the evidence about the Litvinenko case as I saw them, in the hope of reactivating his interest. This paid off in spades, when he linked to, and translated a key extract from, the request from Italian prosecutors to use wiretaps of conversations with Senator Paolo Guzzanti in connection with their prosecution of Scaramella for 'aggravated calumny.'

The request, which up to not so long ago was freely available on the website of the Italian Senate, was denied, but the extensive summaries of the transcripts provided a lot of material.

(This initial post by me, and later posts by me on that site, are at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/uid:1857/diary. Three posts David Loepp and I produced jointly in December 2012, which have a lot on Scaramella and Shvets, are on his page there, at http://www.eurotrib.com/user/de%20Gondi/diary .)

The extract from the wiretap request which David Loepp posted, which like Litvinenko's letter containing the claims he and Yuri Shvets had concocted about Putin using Mogilevich to attempt to supply Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb' is dated 1 December 2005, contains key pointers to the conspiracy. It concludes:

'A passage on Simon Moghilevic and an agreement between the camorra to search for nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War to be consigned to Bin Laden, a revelation made by the Israeli. According to Scaramella the circle closes: camorra, Moghilevic- Russian mafia- services- nuclear bombs in Naples.'

Subsequent conversations make clear that Scaramella left on 6 December 2005 for Washington, on a trip where he was to meet Shvets. The summary of a report on this to Guzzanti reads:

'12) conversation that took place on number [omissis] on December 18, 2005, at 9:41:51 n. 1426, containing explicit references to the authenticity of the declarations of Alexander Litvinenko acquired by Scaramella, to the trustworthiness of the affirmations made by Scaramella in his reports to the commission and to the meetings Scaramella had with Talik after having denounced them [presumably Talik and his alleged accomplices]. (They can talk with HEIMS thanks to the help of MILLER. SHVEZ says that he had been a companion of CARLOS at the academy; SHVEZ has already made declarations and is willing to continue collaboration. Guzzanti warns that a document in Russian arrived in commission in which the name of SCARAMELLA appears several times, these [sic] say that directives to the contrary had been given to Litvinenko. Scaramella says that he went to the meeting with TALIK in the company of two treasury [police] and a cop, Talik spoke of a person from the Ukrainian GRU who would be willing to talk and a strange Chechen ring in Naples. Assassination attempt against the pope, CASAROLI was a Soviet agent.)'

The summary of a later conversation also refers to 'MILLER':

'conversation that took place on number [omissis] on January 13, 2006, at 11:22:11 n. 2287, containing references to Scaramella's sources in relation to facts referred in the Commission, the means by which they were obtained by Scaramella from declarations made abroad, the role of Litvinenko, also on the occasion of declarations made by third parties and the credibility of the news and theses given by Scaramella to the commission (Scaramella reads a text in English on the relation between the KGB and PRODI. Guzzanti asks if its credibility can be confirmed and if the taped declarations can be backed up; Scaramella answers that there were two testimonies, Lou Palumbo and Alexander (Litvinenko), and that the registration made in London at the beginning of the assignment [Scaramella's?] had been authenticated by a certain BAKER of the FBI. As he translates the text from English, Scaramella notes that the person testifying does not say he knows Prodi but only that he thinks that Prodi ...; all those who worked for the person testifying in Scandinavia said that Prodi was "theirs." The affair in Rimini, Bielli is preparing the battle in Rimini. Meetings with MILLER for the three things that are needed. Polemic about Pollari over the pressure exerted on Gordievski.)'

In the exchanges on my May 2008 post, I mentioned and linked to some extraordinary comments on a crucial article by Edward Jay Epstein, in which Karon von Gerhke claimed that his sceptical account fitted with what her contacts in the British investigation had told her. When that July I came across her equally extraordinary claims in response to the BBC's Mark Urban piece of stenography – which Steele may also have had a hand in organising – I found she was referring to precisely that visit to Washington by Scaramella which had been described in the wiretap request.

As you can perhaps imagine, the fact that 'Miller' had featured in the conversations with Guzzanti both as a key contact, who could introduce Scaramella to Aldrich Ames (which is who 'Heims' clearly is), and with whom there had been meetings about 'the three things that are needed' made me inclined to take seriously what Karon von Gerhke said about his role.

In December 2008, I put up another post on 'European Tribune', putting together the material from David Loepp and that from Karon von Gerhke – but not discussing the references to 'Miller.' As I had hoped, this led to her getting in touch.

Among the material with which she supplied me, which I in turn supplied to the Solicitor to the Inquest, were covers of faxes to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel of the CIA. From a fax dated 23 October 2005.

'John: See attached email to Chuck Patrizia. Berezovsky alleges he is in possession of a copy of a classified file given to the CIA by Russia's FSB, which he further alleges the CIA disseminated to British, French, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies implicating him in business associations with the Mafia and to ties with terrorist organizations. Yuri Shvets was authorised/directed by Berezovsky to raise the issue with Bud McFarlane scheduled for Thursday. McFarlane is unaware the issue will be raised with him.'

From a fax dated 7 November 2005:

'John: I am attaching an email exchange between Yuri Shvets and me re: 1) article he published on his Ukraine website on alleged sale of nuclear choke to Iran, which I reproached him on as having been planted by Berezovsky and 2 the alleged FSB/CIA document file that Berezovsky obtained from Scaramella, which Yuri acknowledges in his e-mail to me. Like extracting wisdom teeth to get him to put anything on paper, especially in an e-mail! [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is the source McFarlane referred Yuri to re: Berezovsky's visa issue. She proposed meeting Berezovsky in London. Alleged it would take a year to clear up USG issues and even then could not guarantee him a visa. She too has access to USG intelligence on Berezovsky. Open book.'

From a fax dated 5 December 2005:

'John. From Mario Scaramella to Yuri Shvets to my ears, the DOJ has authorised Mario Scaramella to interview Aldrich Ames with regard to members of the Italian Intelligence Service agent recruited by Ames for the KGB. Scaramella, as you may recall, is who gave Boris Berezovsky's aide, a former FSB Colonel [LITVINENKO – DH], that alleged document number to the FSB file that the CIA disseminated on Berezovsky – a file that Bud McFarlane's "Madam Visa" [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is alleged is totting off to London for a meeting with Berezovsky, who has agreed to retain her re: his visa issue. Quid pro quo's with Berezovsky and Scaramella on the CIA agent currently facing kidnapping charges for the rendition of the Muslim cleric? Scott Armstrong has a most telling file on Scaramella. Not a single redeeming quality.'

In the course of very extensive exchanges with Karon von Gerhke subsequently, we had some rather acute disagreements. It was unfortunate that her filing was a shambles – a crucial hard disk failed without a backup, and the 'hard copies' appeared to be in a chaotic state.

However, the only occasion when I can recall having reason to believe that was deliberately lying to me was when David Loepp unearthed a cache of documentation including the full Italian text of the letter from Litvinenko containing the 'StratCom' designed to suggest that Putin had attempted to supply a 'mini nuclear bomb' to Al Qaeda. Having been asked to keep this between ourselves for the time being, Karon insisted on immediately sending it to her contacts in Counter Terrorism Command, and then produced bogus justifications.

Time and again, moreover, I found that I could confirm statements that she made – see for example the two posts I put up on the legal battles following the death in February 2008 of Berezovsky's long-term partner Arkadi 'Badri' Patarkatsishvili in June and July 2009, which were based on careful corroboration of what she told me.

(I should also say that I acquired the greatest respect for her courage.)

And while Owen and his team suppressed all the evidence from her, and almost all of that from David Loepp, which I had I provided to them, the dossier about Berezovsky is described in a statement made by Litvinenko in Tel Aviv in April 2006, presented in evidence in the Inquiry.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

Other evidence, moreover, strongly inclines me to believe that there were overtures for a 'quid pro quo', purporting to come from Putin, but that this was a ruse orchestrated by Berezovsky.

Part of the purpose of this would almost certainly have been to supply probably bogus 'evidence' about arms sales in the Yeltsin years to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moreover, I think there was an article on the second 'Fifth Element' site run by Shvets about the supposed sale of a nuclear 'choke' – whatever that is – to Iran.

The likelihood of the involvement of elements in the FBI in these shenanigans seems to quite high, given what has already emerged about the activities of Levinson. Also relevant may be the fact that the 'declaration' which was part of the attempt to frame Romano Prodi was authenticated, in London, by 'a certain BAKER of the FBI.')

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 09:40 AM
Thank you David Habakkuk. Truly sordid and deplorable. WWIII to be initiated on basis of lies.
Jack , 06 February 2018 at 12:06 PM
David

You may already know this but Steele was a no show in a UK court for a deposition on the libel suit.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/05/christopher-steele-is-no-show-in-london-court-in-civil-case-over-dossier.amp.html

Babak Makkinejad -> David Habakkuk ... , 06 February 2018 at 01:18 PM
I know something of spectroscopy.

The critical issue here is the provenance of the samples and not the sophistication of the techniques used in the analysis itself or its instrumentation.

The paragraph that you have quoted:

"To figure out signatures based on various synthetic routes and conditions, Chipuk says that the synthetic chemists on his team will make the same chemical threat agent as many as 2,000 times in an ..." reeks of intellectual intimidation - trying to brow-beat any skeptic by the size of one's instrument - as it were."

And then there is a little matter of confidence level in any of the analysis - such things are normally based on prior statistics - which did not and could not exist in this situation.

LeaNder , 07 February 2018 at 09:16 AM
David, it's no doubt interesting to watch how attention on Victor Ivanov in another deficient inquiry on the British Isles, was managed in that inquiry. If I may, since he pops up again in the Steele dossier. You take what's available? Is that all there is to know?

I know its hard to communicate basics if you are deeply into matters. Usually people prefer to opt out. It's getting way too complicated for them to follow. You made me understand this experience. But isn't this (fake) intelligence continuity "via" Yuri Svets what connects your, no harm meant I do understand your obsession with the case, with what we deal with now in the Steele Dossier? Again, one of the most central figures is Ivanov.

Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear.

By the way, babbling mode, I found your Tom Mangold transcription. It felt it wasn't there on the link you gave. I used the date, and other search terms. Maybe I am wrong. Haven't looked at what the judge ruled out of the collection. Yes, cozy session/setting.

According to Google search there are no other links then your articles here:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613093555/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/HMG000513wb.pdf

**********

JAN RICHARD BĆRUG
The Collapsing Wall. Hybrid Journalism.
A Comparative Study of Newspapers and
Magazines in Eight Countries in Europe

Available online. Haven't read it yet, but journalism as hidden public relations transfer belt would be one of my minor obsessions. ...

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 07 February 2018 at 11:23 AM
I wonder too; their command of the English idiom is very au currant - noticed "opt in/opt out" reference? Too American.

They clearly are not native speakers of German.

LeaNder said in reply to kooshy... , 07 February 2018 at 12:30 PM
why California, Kooshy #18? California among other things left this verbal trace, since I once upon time thought a luggage storage in SF might be free/available now: this is my home, lady.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_Island#Economy

Tourists from many -- but not all -- foreign nations wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to obtain any visa prior to travel. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.

Who are the not all? Can we assume Britain is not one of those?

The German link is different. How about the Iranian?

or isn't this the Kish we are talking about?

LeaNder said in reply to LeaNder... , 07 February 2018 at 01:14 PM
correcting myself #94:

another Ivanov. I struggled with names (...) in Russian crime novels, admittedly. But that's long ago from times Russian crime and Russian money flows and rogues getting hold of its nuclear material surfaced more often in Europe. 90s

I see Sergei seems to share my interest in the literary genre:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Ivanov#Personal

[Mar 10, 2018] They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
"... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
Feb 03, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

different clue , 03 February 2018 at 08:49 PM

Ishmael Zechariah,

( reply to comment 6),

I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.

It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate.

And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.

So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

Jack , 03 February 2018 at 08:54 PM
David,

Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.

In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.

Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century endorsed her.

Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in. Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling the Borg pundits.

[Mar 08, 2018] Mueller determines the US foreign policy toward Russia; The Intel Community Lies About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus

Highly recommended!
The sad but reasonable conclusion from all those Russiagate events is that an influential part of the US elite wants to balance on the edge of war with Russia to ensure profits and flow of taxpayer money. that part of the elite include top honchos on the US intelligence community and Pentagon (surprise, surprise)
The other logical conclusion is that intelligence agencies now determine the US foreign policy and control all major political players (there were widespread suspicions that Clinton, Bush II and Obama were actually closely connected to CIA). Which neatly fits into hypotheses about the "deep state".
This "can of worms" that the US political scene now represents is very dangerous for the future on mankind indeed.
Notable quotes:
"... Most objective observers would concede that the DNI has been a miserable failure and nothing more than a bureaucratic boondoggle. ..."
"... "The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow -- the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities." ..."
"... More telling was the absence of any written document issued from the Office of the DNI that detailed the supposed intel backing up this judgment. Notice the weasel language in this release ..."
"... If there was actual evidence/intelligence, such as an intercepted conversation between Vladimir Putin and a subordinate ordering them to hack the DNC or even a human source report claiming such an activity, then it would have and should have been referenced in the Clapper/Johnson document. It was not because such intel did not exist. ..."
"... "We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election," Clinton said. "I find that deeply disturbing." ..."
"... The basic job of an analyst is to collect as much relevant information as possible on the subject or topic that is their responsibility. There are analysts at the CIA, the NSA, the DIA and State INR that have the job of knowing about Russian cyber activity and capabilities. That is certain. But we are not talking about hundreds of people. ..."
"... Let us move from the hypothetical to the actual. In January of 2017, DNI Jim Clapper release a report entitled, " Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections " (please see here ). In subsequent testimony before the Congress, Clapper claimed that he handpicked two dozen analysts to draft the document . That is not likely. There may have been as many as two dozen analysts who read the final document and commented on it, but there would never be that many involved in in drafting such a document. In any event, only analysts from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI were involved ..."
"... This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies. ..."
"... That is how the process is supposed to work. But the document produced in January 2017 was not a genuine work reflecting the views of the "Intelligence Community." It only represented the supposed thinking (and I use that term generously) of CIA, NSA and FBI analysts. In other words, only three of 16 agencies cleared on the document that presented four conclusions ..."
"... Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations. ..."
"... We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. ..."
"... We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. ..."
"... We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes. ..."
"... It is genuinely shocking that DNI Jim Clapper, with the acquiescence of the CIA, the FBI and NSA, would produce a document devoid of any solid intelligence. There is a way to publicly release sensitive intelligence without comprising a the original source. But such sourcing is absent in this document. ..."
"... The Intelligence Community was used as a tool to misinform the public and persuade them that Russia was guilty of something they did not do. That lie remains unchallenged. ..."
"... "The Intelligence Community was used as a tool to misinform the public and persuade them that Russia was guilty of something they did not do. That lie remains unchallenged.'" Yes it was and so remains the lie unchallenged. ..."
"... Conjectural garbage appears first to have been washed through the FBI, headquarters no less, then probably it picked up a Triple A rating at the CIA, and then when the garbage got to Clapper, it was bombs away - we experts all agree. There were leaks, but they weren't sufficient to satisfy Steele so he just delivered the garbage whole to the Media in order to make it a sure thing. The garbage was placed securely out there in the public domain with a Triple A rating because the FBI wouldn't concern itself with garbage, would it? ..."
"... Contrast this trajectory with what the Russian policy establishment did when it concluded that the US had done something in the Ukraine that Russia found significantly actionable: it released the taped evidence of Nuland and our Ambassador finishing off the coup. ..."
"... To be precise, CrowdStrike did provide the FBI with allegedly "certified true images" of the DNC servers allegedly involved in the alleged "hack." They also allegedly provided these images to FireEye and Mandiant, IIRC ..."
"... Of course, given the CrowdStrike itself is a massively compromised organization due to its founder and CEO, those "certified true images" are themselves tainted evidence. ..."
"... In addition, regardless of whether the images were true or not, the evidence allegedly contained therein is painfully inadequate to confirm that APT28 or APT29 were involved, nor that the Russian government was involved, or even that there was a real hack involved, and even less evidence that any emails that might have been exfiltrated were given to Wikileaks as opposed to another leak such as that alleged by Sy Hersh to have been done by Seth Rich. ..."
"... My interpretation is: In 1990 +- Bush 41 sold us the 1st Iraq war using fudged intelligence, then Bush 43 sold us the second Iraq war using fabricated intelligence. And now the Obama Administration tried to sell us fake intelligence in regard to Russia in order to get Clinton elected ..."
"... Mueller has had 18 months and has proceeded to reveal exactly nothing related to either Trump "collusion" with Russia nor Russia as a state actually doing anything remotely described as "meddling." ..."
"... His expected indictment of some Russians for the DNC hack is going to be more of the same in all likelihood. I predict there will be next to zero evidence produced either that the Russians named are in fact members of APT28 or APT29 or that they had any direct connection with either the alleged DNC hack or Wikileaks or the Russian government. ..."
"... It's a witch hunt, nothing more. People holding their breath for the "slam dunk" are going to pass out soon if they haven't already. ..."
"... Mueller is investigating some aspects. But there is another aspect - the conspiracy inside law enforcement and the IC. That is also being investigated. There are Congressional committees in particular Nunes, Goodlatte and Grassley. Then there is the DOJ IG. And today AG Sessions confirms there is a DOJ prosecutor outside Washington investigating. ..."
"... But such evidence (corroborating the Steele dossier) was not forthcoming. If it had existed than Jim Comey could have claimed in his June 2017 testimony before Congress that the parts of the "Dossier" had been verified. He did not do so. Testifying under oath Comey described the "Dossier" as "salacious and unverified." ..."
"... ... was UK Intelligence, or an ex-UK intelligence officer, used to get material through the US evaluation process, material that would not have got through that US evaluation process had it originated within the US itself?" I would say yes and especially yes if the contact for this piece of data was conducted at the highest level within the context of the already tight liaison between the US IC and Mi-6/GCHQ ..."
"... Was it Hitler or Stalin who said "show me the man and I will find his crime?" As I have said before, Trumps greatest vulnerability lies in his previous business life as an entrepreneurial hustler. ..."
"... Re 'baby adoption' meeting between Trump, Jr. and Veselnitskaya, I recall a comment here linking to an article speculating the email initiating the meeting originated in Europe, was set up by the playboy son of a European diplomat, and contained words to trip data-gathering monitors which would have enabled a FISA request to have Trump, Jr. come under surveillance. ..."
"... "We don't have the evidence yet because Mueller hasn't found it yet!" is a classic argument from ignorance, in that is assumes without evidence (there's that pesky word again!) that there is something to be found. ..."
"... The fact is Flynn has pled guilty to perjury. Nothing else like collusion with the Russians. ..."
"... Manafort has been indicted for money laundering, wire fraud, etc for activities well before the election campaign. Sure, it is good that these corrupt individuals should be investigated and prosecuted. However, this corruption is widespread in DC. How come none of these cheering Mueller on to destroy Trump care about all the foreign money flowing to K Street? Why aren't they calling for investigations of the Clinton Foundation or the Podesta brothers where probable cause exist of foreign money and influence? What about Ben Cardin and all those recipients of foreign zionist money and influence? It would be nice if there were wide ranging investigations on all those engaged in foreign influence peddling. But it seems many just want a witch hunt to hobble Trump. It's going to be very difficult to get the Senate to convict him for obstruction of justice or tax evasion or some charge like that. ..."
"... What does "hacking our elections" mean? Does it means breaking into voting systems and changing the outcome by altering votes? Or does it mean information operations to change US voters' minds about for whom they would vote? ..."
"... As for McMasters, I am unimpressed with him. He displays all the symptoms of Russophobia. He has special information? Information can be interpreted many ways depending on one's purpose. pl ..."
"... IMO the perpetrators in the Steel Memo case are and were merely hiding behind claims of sources and methods protection in order to protect themselve. ..."
"... So now we are supposed to believe unquestioningly the word of torturers, perjurers and entrapment artists, all talking about alleged evidence that we are not allowed to see? Did you learn nothing from the "Iraqi WMD" fiasco or the "ZOMG! Assad gassed his own peoples ZOMG!" debacle? Funny how in each of these instances, the intelligence community's lies just happened to coincide with the agenda of empire. ..."
Mar 07, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The Intel Community Lie About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus

Americans tend to be a trusting lot. When they hear a high level government official, like former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, state that Russia's Vladimir ordered and monitored a Russian cyber attack on the 2016 Presidential election, those trusting souls believe him. For experienced intelligence professionals, who know how the process of gathering and analyzing intelligence works, they detect a troubling omission in Clapper's presentation and, upon examining the so-called "Intelligence Community Assessment," discover that document is a deceptive fraud. It lacks actual evidence that Putin and the Russians did what they are accused of doing. More troubling -- and this is inside baseball -- is the fact that two critical members of the Intelligence Community -- the DIA and State INR -- were not asked to coordinate/clear on the assessment.

You should not feel stupid if you do not understand or appreciate the last point. That is something only people who actually have produced a Community Assessment would understand. I need to take you behind the scenes and ensure you understand what is intelligence and how analysts assess and process that intelligence. Once you understand that then you will be able to see the flaws and inadequacies in the report released by Jim Clapper in January 2017.

The first thing you need to understand is the meaning of the term, the "Intelligence Community" aka IC. Comedians are not far off the mark in touting this phrase as the original oxymoron. On paper the IC currently is comprised of 17 agencies/departments:
  1. Air Force Intelligence,
  2. Army Intelligence,
  3. Central Intelligence Agency aka CIA,
  4. Coast Guard Intelligence,
  5. Defense Intelligence Agency aka DIA,
  6. Energy Department aka DOE,
  7. Homeland Security Department,
  8. State Department aka INR,
  9. Treasury Department,
  10. Drug Enforcement Administration aka DEA,
  11. Federal Bureau of Investigation aka FBI,
  12. Marine Corps Intelligence,
  13. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency aka NGIA or NGA,
  14. National Reconnaissance Office aka NRO,
  15. National Security Agency aka NSA,
  16. Navy Intelligence
  17. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

But not all of these are "national security" agencies -- i.e., those that collect raw intelligence, which subsequently is packaged and distributed to other agencies on a need to know basis. Only six of these agencies take an active role in collecting raw foreign intelligence. The remainder are consumers of that intelligence product. In other words, the information does not originate with them. They are like a subscriber to the New York Times. They get the paper everyday and, based upon what they read, decide what is going on in their particular world. The gatherers of intelligence are:

  • The CIA collects and disseminates intelligence from human sources, i.e., foreigners who have been recruited to spy for us.
  • The DIA collects and disseminates intelligence on the activities and composition of foreign militaries and rely primarily on human sources but also collect documentary material.
  • The State Department messages between the Secretary of State and the our embassies constitutes the intelligence reviewed and analyzed by other agencies.
  • NGIA collects collects, analyzes, and distributes geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national security. NGA was known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) until 2003. In other words, maps and photographs.
  • NRO designs, builds, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government, and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the NSA, imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the NGA, and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the DIA.
  • NSA analyzes signal intelligence, including phone conversations and emails.

Nine of the other agencies/departments are consumers. They do not collect and package original info. They are the passive recipients. The analysts in those agencies will base their conclusions on information generated by other agencies, principally the CIA and the NSA.

The astute among you, I am sure, will insist my list is deficient and will ask, "What about the FBI and DEA?" It is true that those two organizations produce a type of human intelligence -- i.e., they recruit informants and those informants provide those agencies with information that the average person understandably would categorize as "intelligence." But there is an important difference between human intelligence collected by the CIA and the human source intelligence gathered by the FBI or the DEA. The latter two are law enforcement agencies. No one from the CIA or the NSA has the power to arrest someone. The FBI and the DEA do.

Their authority as law enforcement agents, however, comes with limitations, especially in collecting so-called intelligence. The FBI and the DEA face egal constraints on what information they can collect and store. The FBI cannot decide on its own that skinheads represent a threat and then start gathering information identifying skinhead leaders. There has to be an allegation of criminal activity. When such "human" information is being gathered under the umbrella of law enforcement authorities, it is being handled as potential evidence that may be used to prosecute someone. This means that such information cannot be shared with anyone else, especially intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NSA.

The "17th" member of the IC is the Director of National Intelligence aka DNI. This agency was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks for the ostensible purpose of coordinating the activities and products of the IC. In theory it is the organization that is supposed to coordinate what the IC collects and the products the IC produces. Most objective observers would concede that the DNI has been a miserable failure and nothing more than a bureaucratic boondoggle.

An important, but little understood point, is that these agencies each have a different focus. They are not looking at the same things. In fact, most are highly specialized and narrowly focused. Take the Coast Guard, for instance. Their intelligence operations primarily hone in on maritime threats and activities in U.S. territorial waters, such as narcotic interdictions. They are not responsible for monitoring what the Russians are doing in the Black Sea and they have no significant expertise in the cyber activities of the Russian Army military intelligence organization aka the GRU.

In looking back at the events of 2016 surrounding the U.S. Presidential campaign, most people will recall that Hillary Clinton, along with several high level Obama national security officials, pushed the lie that the U.S. Intelligence agreed that Russia had unleashed a cyber war on the United States. The initial lie came from DNI Jim Clapper and Homeland Security Chief, Jeb Johnson, who released the following memo to the press on 7 October 2016 :

"The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow -- the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."

This was a deliberate deceptive message. It implied that the all 16 intelligence agencies agreed with the premise and "evidence of Russian meddling. Yet not a single bit of proof was offered. More telling was the absence of any written document issued from the Office of the DNI that detailed the supposed intel backing up this judgment. Notice the weasel language in this release:

  • "The USIC is confident . . ."
  • "We believe . . ."

If there was actual evidence/intelligence, such as an intercepted conversation between Vladimir Putin and a subordinate ordering them to hack the DNC or even a human source report claiming such an activity, then it would have and should have been referenced in the Clapper/Johnson document. It was not because such intel did not exist.

Hillary Clinton helped perpetuate this myth during the late October debate with Donald Trump, when she declared as fact that:

"We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election," Clinton said. "I find that deeply disturbing."

What is shocking is that there was so little pushback to this nonsense. Hardly anyone asked why would the DEA, Coast Guard, the Marines or DOE have any technical expertise to make a judgment about Russian hacking of U.S. election systems. And no one of any importance asked the obvious -- where was the written memo or National Intelligence Estimate laying out what the IC supposedly knew and believed? There was nothing.

It is natural for the average American citizen to believe that something given the imprimatur of the Intelligence Community must reflect solid intelligence and real expertise. Expertise is supposed to be the cornerstone of intelligence analysis and the coordination that occurs within the IC. That means that only those analysts (and the agencies they represent) will be asked to contribute or comment on a particular intelligence issue. When it comes to the question of whether Russia had launched a full out cyber attack on the Democrats and the U.S. electoral system, only analysts from agencies with access to the intelligence and the expertise to analyze that intelligence would be asked to write or contribute to an intelligence memorandum.

Who would that be? The answer is simple -- the CIA, the DIA, the NSA, State INR and the FBI. (One could make the case that there are some analysts within Homeland Security that might have expertise, but they would not necessarily have access to the classified information produced by the CIA or the NSA.) The task of figuring out what the Russians were doing and planned to do fell to five agencies and only three of the five (the CIA, the DIA and NSA) would have had the ability to collect intelligence that could inform the work of analysts.

Before I can explain to you how an analyst work this issue it is essential for you to understand the type of intelligence that would be required to "prove" Russian meddling. There are four possible sources -- 1) a human source who had direct access to the Russians who directed the operation or carried it out; 2) a signal intercept of a conversation or cyber activity that was traced to Russian operatives; 3) a document that discloses the plan or activity observed; or 4) forensic evidence from the computer network that allegedly was attacked.

Getting human source intel is primarily the job of CIA. It also is possible that the DIA or the FBI had human sources that could have contributed relevant intelligence.

Signal intercepts are collected and analyzed by the NSA.

Documentary evidence, which normally is obtained from a human source but can also be picked up by NSA intercepts or even an old-fashioned theft.

Finally there is the forensic evidence . In the case of Russian meddling there is no forensic evidence available to the IC because the Democratic National Committee did not permit the FBI to investigate and examine the computers and the network that was allegedly attacked.

What Do Analysts Do?

Whenever there is a "judgment" or "consensus" claimed on behalf to the IC, it means that one or more analysts have written a document that details the evidence and presents conclusions based on that evidence. On a daily basis the average analyst confronts a flood of classified information (normally referred to as "cables" or "messages"). When I was on the job in the 1980s I had to wade through more than 1200 messages -- i.e., human source reports from the CIA, State Department messages with embassies around the world, NSA intercepts, DIA reports from their officers based overseas (most in US embassies) and open source press reports. Today, thanks to the internet, the average analyst must scan through upwards of 3000 messages. It is humanly impossible.

The basic job of an analyst is to collect as much relevant information as possible on the subject or topic that is their responsibility. There are analysts at the CIA, the NSA, the DIA and State INR that have the job of knowing about Russian cyber activity and capabilities. That is certain. But we are not talking about hundreds of people.

Let us move from the hypothetical to the actual. In January of 2017, DNI Jim Clapper release a report entitled, " Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections " (please see here ). In subsequent testimony before the Congress, Clapper claimed that he handpicked two dozen analysts to draft the document . That is not likely. There may have been as many as two dozen analysts who read the final document and commented on it, but there would never be that many involved in in drafting such a document. In any event, only analysts from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI were involved :

This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies.

Limiting the drafting and clearance on this document to only the CIA, the NSA and the FBI is highly unusual because one of the key analytical conclusions in the document identifies the Russian military intelligence organization, the GRU, as one of the perpetrators of the cyber attack. DIA's analysts are experts on the GRU and there also are analysts in State Department's Bureau of INR who should have been consulted. Instead, they were excluded.

Here is how the process should have worked in producing this document:

  1. One or more analysts are asked to do a preliminary draft. It is customary in such a document for the analyst to cite specific intelligence, using phrases such as: "According to a reliable source of proven access," when citing a CIA document or "According to an intercept of a conversation between knowledgeable sources with access," when referencing something collected by the NSA. The analyst does more than repeat what is claimed in the intel reports, he or she also has the job of explaining what these facts mean or do not mean.
  2. There always is an analyst leading the effort who has the job of integrating the contributions of the other analysts into a coherent document. Once the document is completed in draft it is handed over to Branch Chief and then Division Chief for editing. We do not know who had the lead, but it was either the FBI, the CIA or the NSA.
  3. At the same time the document is being edited at originating agency, it is supposed to be sent to the other clearing agencies, i.e. those agencies that either provided the intelligence cited in the draft (i.e., CIA, NSA, DIA, or State) or that have expertise on the subject. As noted previously, it is highly unusual to exclude the DIA and INR.
  4. Once all the relevant agencies clear on the content of the document, it is sent into the bowels of the DNI where it is put into final form.

That is how the process is supposed to work. But the document produced in January 2017 was not a genuine work reflecting the views of the "Intelligence Community." It only represented the supposed thinking (and I use that term generously) of CIA, NSA and FBI analysts. In other words, only three of 16 agencies cleared on the document that presented four conclusions:

  • Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.
  • We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.
  • We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
  • We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes.

Sounds pretty ominous, but the language used tells a different story. The conclusions are based on assumptions and judgments. There was nor is any actual evidence from intelligence sources showing that Vladimir Putin ordered up anything or that his government preferred Trump over Clinton.

How do I know this? If such evidence existed -- either documentary or human source or signal intercept -- it would have been cited in this document. Not only that. Such evidence would have corroborated the claims presented in the Steele dossier. But such evidence was not forthcoming. If it had existed than Jim Comey could have claimed in his June 2017 testimony before Congress that the parts of the "Dossier" had been verified. He did not do so. Testifying under oath Comey described the "Dossier" as "salacious and unverified."

It is genuinely shocking that DNI Jim Clapper, with the acquiescence of the CIA, the FBI and NSA, would produce a document devoid of any solid intelligence. There is a way to publicly release sensitive intelligence without comprising a the original source. But such sourcing is absent in this document.

That simple fact should tell you all you need to know. The Intelligence Community was used as a tool to misinform the public and persuade them that Russia was guilty of something they did not do. That lie remains unchallenged.

LeaNder , 07 March 2018 at 05:59 PM

Good summary argument, PT. Thanks. Helpful reminder.

But, makes me feel uncomfortable. Cynical scenario. I'd prefer them to be both drivers and driven, somehow stumbling into the chronology of events. They didn't hack the DNC, after all. Crowdstrike? Steele? ...

********
But yes, all the 17 agencies Clinton alluded to in her 3rd encounter with Trump was a startling experience:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/19/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-blames-russia-putin-wikileaks-rele/

turcopolier , 07 March 2018 at 06:10 PM
LeaNder

One other point on which Tacitus and I differ is the quality of the analysts in the "minors." The "bigs" often recruit analysts from the "minors" so they can't be all that bad. And the analysts in all these agencies receive much the same data feed electronically every day. There are exceptions to this but it is generally true. I, too, read hundreds of documents every day to keep up with the knowledge base of the analysts whom I interrogated continuously. "How do you know that?" would have been typical. pl

Flavius , 07 March 2018 at 06:19 PM
Well done.

"The Intelligence Community was used as a tool to misinform the public and persuade them that Russia was guilty of something they did not do. That lie remains unchallenged.'" Yes it was and so remains the lie unchallenged.

Conjectural garbage appears first to have been washed through the FBI, headquarters no less, then probably it picked up a Triple A rating at the CIA, and then when the garbage got to Clapper, it was bombs away - we experts all agree. There were leaks, but they weren't sufficient to satisfy Steele so he just delivered the garbage whole to the Media in order to make it a sure thing. The garbage was placed securely out there in the public domain with a Triple A rating because the FBI wouldn't concern itself with garbage, would it?

Contrast this trajectory with what the Russian policy establishment did when it concluded that the US had done something in the Ukraine that Russia found significantly actionable: it released the taped evidence of Nuland and our Ambassador finishing off the coup.

The whole sequence reminds me in some ways of the sub prime mortgage bond fiasco: garbage risk progressively bundled, repackaged, rebranded and resold by big name institutions that should have known better.

I have only two questions: was it misfeasance, malfeasance, or some ugly combination of the two? And are they going to get away with it?

Richardstevenhack , 07 March 2018 at 06:23 PM
Re this: " In the case of Russian meddling there is no forensic evidence available to the IC because the Democratic National Committee did not permit the FBI to investigate and examine the computers and the network that was allegedly attacked."

To be precise, CrowdStrike did provide the FBI with allegedly "certified true images" of the DNC servers allegedly involved in the alleged "hack." They also allegedly provided these images to FireEye and Mandiant, IIRC.

All three allegedly examined those images and concurred with CrowdStrike's analysis.

Of course, given the CrowdStrike itself is a massively compromised organization due to its founder and CEO, those "certified true images" are themselves tainted evidence.

In addition, regardless of whether the images were true or not, the evidence allegedly contained therein is painfully inadequate to confirm that APT28 or APT29 were involved, nor that the Russian government was involved, or even that there was a real hack involved, and even less evidence that any emails that might have been exfiltrated were given to Wikileaks as opposed to another leak such as that alleged by Sy Hersh to have been done by Seth Rich.

The "assessment" that Putin ordered any of this is pure mind-reading and can be utterly dismissed absent any of the other evidence Publius points out as necessary.

The same applies to any "estimate" that the Russian government preferred Trump or wished to denigrate Clinton. Based on what I read in pro-Russian news outlets, Russian officials took great pains to not pick sides and Putin's comments were similarly very restrained. The main quote from Putin about Trump that emerged was mistranslated as approval whereas it was more an observation of Trump's personality. At no time did Putin ever say he favored Trump over Clinton, even though that was a likely probability given Clinton's "Hitler" comparison.

As an aside, I also recommend Scott Ritter's trashing of the ICA. Ritter is familiar with intelligence estimates and their reliability based on his previous service as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq and in Russia implementing arms control treaties.

ann , 07 March 2018 at 11:22 PM
This is a wonderful explanation of the intelligence community. And I thank you for the explanation. My interpretation is: In 1990 +- Bush 41 sold us the 1st Iraq war using fudged intelligence, then Bush 43 sold us the second Iraq war using fabricated intelligence. And now the Obama Administration tried to sell us fake intelligence in regard to Russia in order to get Clinton elected. However inadequate my summary is it looks like the Democrats are less skilled in propaganda than the Repubs. And what else is the difference?
Richardstevenhack , 08 March 2018 at 03:02 AM
Mueller has had 18 months and has proceeded to reveal exactly nothing related to either Trump "collusion" with Russia nor Russia as a state actually doing anything remotely described as "meddling."

His expected indictment of some Russians for the DNC hack is going to be more of the same in all likelihood. I predict there will be next to zero evidence produced either that the Russians named are in fact members of APT28 or APT29 or that they had any direct connection with either the alleged DNC hack or Wikileaks or the Russian government.

It's a witch hunt, nothing more. People holding their breath for the "slam dunk" are going to pass out soon if they haven't already.

blue peacock , 08 March 2018 at 04:12 AM
GZC #12

Mueller is investigating some aspects. But there is another aspect - the conspiracy inside law enforcement and the IC. That is also being investigated. There are Congressional committees in particular Nunes, Goodlatte and Grassley. Then there is the DOJ IG. And today AG Sessions confirms there is a DOJ prosecutor outside Washington investigating.

IMO, the conspiracy is significantly larger in scale and scope than anything the Russians did.

Yes, indeed we'll have to wait and see what facts Mueller reveals. But also what facts these other investigations reveal.

English Outsider , 08 March 2018 at 05:57 AM
Thank you for setting out the geography and workings of this complex world.

Might I ask how liaison with other Intelligence Communities fits in? Is intelligence information from non-US sources such as UK intelligence sources subject to the same process of verification and evaluation?

I ask because of the passage in your article -

"But such evidence (corroborating the Steele dossier) was not forthcoming. If it had existed than Jim Comey could have claimed in his June 2017 testimony before Congress that the parts of the "Dossier" had been verified. He did not do so. Testifying under oath Comey described the "Dossier" as "salacious and unverified." "

Does this leave room for the assertion that although the "Dossier" was unverified in the US it was accepted as good information because it had been verified by UK Intelligence or by persons warranted by the UK? In other words, was UK Intelligence, or an ex-UK intelligence officer, used to get material through the US evaluation process, material that would not have got through that US evaluation process had it originated within the US itself?

turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 07:53 AM
EO,

" ... was UK Intelligence, or an ex-UK intelligence officer, used to get material through the US evaluation process, material that would not have got through that US evaluation process had it originated within the US itself?" I would say yes and especially yes if the contact for this piece of data was conducted at the highest level within the context of the already tight liaison between the US IC and Mi-6/GCHQ. PT may think differently. pl

turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 07:54 AM
GZC

A lot of smoke? Only if you wish to place a negative value on everything the Trump people did or were. pl

jsn -> The Twisted Genius ... , 08 March 2018 at 08:20 AM
The CIA appears to be trying to right the wrongs done them with the creation of the DNI:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/08/dems-m08.html
turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 08:54 AM
jsn

The wrongs done them? I hope that was irony. pl

turcopolier -> Green Zone Café ... , 08 March 2018 at 09:01 AM
GZC

Was it Hitler or Stalin who said "show me the man and I will find his crime?" As I have said before, Trumps greatest vulnerability lies in his previous business life as an entrepreneurial hustler. If he is anything like the many like him whom I observed in my ten business years, then he has cut corners legally somewhere in international business. they pretty much all do that. Kooshy, a successful businessman confirmed that here a while back. These other guys were all business hustlers including Flynn and their activities have made them vulnerable to Mueller. IMO you have to ask yourself how much you want to be governed by political hacks and how much by hustlers. pl

turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 09:24 AM
jsn

hy this socialist pub would fing it surprising that former public servants seek elected office is a mystery to me. BTW, in re all the discussion here of the IC, there are many levels in these essentially hierarchical structures and one's knowledge of them is conditioned by the perspective from which you viewed them. pl

DH , 08 March 2018 at 09:50 AM
Re 'baby adoption' meeting between Trump, Jr. and Veselnitskaya, I recall a comment here linking to an article speculating the email initiating the meeting originated in Europe, was set up by the playboy son of a European diplomat, and contained words to trip data-gathering monitors which would have enabled a FISA request to have Trump, Jr. come under surveillance.

Also, the Seymour Hersh tape certainly seems authentic as far as Seth Rich being implicated in the DNC dump.

Publius Tacitus -> Green Zone Café ... , 08 March 2018 at 09:53 AM
GZC,

Are you really this obtuse?

You insist (I guess you rely on MSNBC as your fact source) that Manafort, Page, etc. all "have connections to Russia or Assange." You are using smear and guilt by association. Flynn's so-called connection to Russia was that he accepted an invite to deliver a speech at an RT sponsored event and was paid. So what? Nothing wrong with that. Just ask Bill Clinton. Or perhaps you are referring to the fact that Flynn also spoke to the Russian Ambassador to the US after the election in his capacity as designated National Security Advisor. Zero justification for investigation.

Stone? He left the campaign before there had even been a primary and only had text exchanges with Assange.

Your blind hatred of Trump makes you incapable of thinking logically.

jsn , 08 March 2018 at 10:15 AM
Sir,

The most sarcastic irony was intended. This is what the real left looks like, its very different from Clintonite Liberals, not that I agree with their ideological program, though I believe parts have their place.

Liberals have, I believe, jumped the shark: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/07/progressive-journalists-jump-the-shark-on-russiagate/

If the get their way with the new McCarthyism, the implications for dissent, left or right, seem to me to be about the same:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/federalist-68-the-electoral-college-and-faithless-electors.html#intelligence

jsn , 08 March 2018 at 10:25 AM
Sir,

And to your second comment, yes I agree about the complexity of institutions and how situationally constrained individual experiences are, if that was the point.

I'll also concede my brief comments generalize very broadly, but it's hard to frame things more specific comments without direct knowledge, such as the invaluable correspondents here. I try to avoid confirmation bias by reading broadly and try to provide outside perspectives. My apologies if they're too far outside.

I suppose it would be interesting to see a side by side comparison of how many former IC self affiliated with which party in choosing to run. I'm just guessing but I'll bet there's more CIA in the D column and more DIA among the Rs.

LeaNder said in reply to Flavius... , 08 March 2018 at 10:40 AM
love this coinage Flavius: Yes it was and so remains the lie unchallenged

a lie "circumstantial"? http://recycledknowledge.blogspot.de/2005/05/seven-degrees-of-lie.html

Sid Finster , 08 March 2018 at 11:06 AM
"We don't have the evidence yet because Mueller hasn't found it yet!" is a classic argument from ignorance, in that is assumes without evidence (there's that pesky word again!) that there is something to be found.

That said, I have no doubt that Mueller will find *something*, simply because an aggressive and determined prosecutor can always find *something*, especially if the target is engaged in higher level business or politics. A form unfiled, an irregularity in an official document, and overly optimistic tax position.

If nothing else works, there's always the good old standby of asking question after question until the target makes a statement that can be construed as perjury or lying to investigators.

Sarah B said in reply to turcopolier ... , 08 March 2018 at 11:27 AM
My perspective, after reading that linked article by the WSWS, is that both, the IC and the DoD, are trying to take over the whole US political spectrum, in fact, militarizing de facto the US political life....

Now, tell me that this is not an intend by the MIC ( where all the former IC or DoD people finally end when they leave official positions )to take over the government ( if more was needed after what has happened with Trump´s ) to guarantee their profit rate in a moment where everything is crimbling....

Btw, have you read the recently released paper, "WorldWide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community" by Daniel R. Coats ( DNI )? You smell fear from the four corners....do not you?

Barbara Ann -> turcopolier ... , 08 March 2018 at 11:35 AM
Those immortal words are attributed to Lavrentiy Beria, Colonel and you are not the first to draw the comparison re Mueller's investigation. For those who do not know Beria was head of the NKVD under Stalin.
Sarah B , 08 March 2018 at 11:38 AM
Here is the paper in question I am mentioning above: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf Some neutral analyst is saying that from 28 pages, 24 are dedicated to Russia and China, then Iran and NK, in this order...and that it is an official recognition of the new multipolar order....
Peter VE said in reply to johnf... , 08 March 2018 at 11:55 AM
The BBC reported this morning that a police officer who was amongst the earliest responders to the "nerve gas" poisoning of Col. Skripal is also being treated for symptoms. How was it that many "White Helmets" who were filmed where the sarin gas was dropped on Khan Sheikhoun last April suffered no symptoms?
Jack -> turcopolier ... , 08 March 2018 at 11:59 AM
Sir

That's a good way to present it political hacks vs hustlers. The fact is Flynn has pled guilty to perjury. Nothing else like collusion with the Russians. And his sentencing is on hold now as the judge has ordered Mueller to hand over any exculpatory evidence. Clearly something is going on his case for the judge to do that.

Manafort has been indicted for money laundering, wire fraud, etc for activities well before the election campaign. Sure, it is good that these corrupt individuals should be investigated and prosecuted. However, this corruption is widespread in DC. How come none of these cheering Mueller on to destroy Trump care about all the foreign money flowing to K Street? Why aren't they calling for investigations of the Clinton Foundation or the Podesta brothers where probable cause exist of foreign money and influence? What about Ben Cardin and all those recipients of foreign zionist money and influence? It would be nice if there were wide ranging investigations on all those engaged in foreign influence peddling. But it seems many just want a witch hunt to hobble Trump. It's going to be very difficult to get the Senate to convict him for obstruction of justice or tax evasion or some charge like that.

The Twisted Genius , 08 March 2018 at 12:59 PM
The select group of several dozen analysts from CIA, NSA and FBI who produced the January 2017 ICA are very likely the same group of analysts assembled by Brenner in August 2016 to form a task force examining "L'Affaire Russe" at the same time Brennan brought that closely held report to Obama of Putin's specific instructions on an operation to damage Clinton and help Trump. I've seen these interagency task forces set up several times to address particular info ops or cyberattack issues. Access to the work of these task forces was usually heavily restricted. I don't know if this kind of thing has become more prevalent throughout the IC.

I am also puzzled by the absence of DIA in the mix. When I was still working, there were a few DIA analysts who were acknowledged throughout the IC as subject matter experts and analytical leaders in this field. On the operational side, there was never great enthusiasm for things cyber or info ops. There were only a few lonely voices in the darkness. Meanwhile, CIA, FBI and NSA embraced the field wholeheartedly. Perhaps those DIA analytical experts retired or moved on to CYBERCOM, NSA or CIA's Information Operations Center.

LeaNder said in reply to Richardstevenhack ... , 08 March 2018 at 01:01 PM
I predict there will be next to zero evidence produced either that the Russians named are in fact members of APT28 or APT29 ...

Richard, over here the type of software is categorized under Advanced Persistent Threat, and beyond that specifically labeled the "Sofacy Group". ... I seem to prefer the more neutral description 'Advanced Persistent Threat' by Kaspersky. Yes, they seem to be suspicious lately in the US. But I am a rather constant consumer, never mind the occasional troubles over the years.

APT: Helps to not get confused by all the respective naming patterns in the economic field over national borders. APT 1 to 29 ...? Strictly, What's the precise history of the 'Bear' label and or the specific, I assume, group of APT? ...

Kasperky pdf-file - whodunnit?
https://tinyurl.com/APT-Avanced-Persitent-Treat

Ever used a datebase checking a file online? Would have made you aware of the multitude of naming patterns.

******
More ad-hoc concerning one item in your argument above. To what extend does a standard back-up system leave relevant forensic traces? Beyond the respective image in the present? Do you know?

Admittedly, I have no knowledge about matters beyond purely private struggles. But yes, they seemed enough to get a vague glimpse of categories in the field of attribution. Regarding suspected state actors vs the larger cybercrime scene that is.

LeaNder said in reply to Fred... , 08 March 2018 at 02:29 PM
Even mentioning those is just further evidence that something really did happen.

I appreciate you are riding our partially shared hobby horse, Fred. ;)

But admittedly this reminds me of something that felt like a debate-shift, I may be no doubt misguided here. Nitwit! In other words I may well have some type of ideological-knot in the relevant section dealing with memory in my brain as long-term undisciplined observer of SST.

But back on topic: the argument seemed to be that "important facts" were omitted. In other words vs earlier times were are now centrally dealing with omission as evidence. No?

Dave -> Publius Tacitus ... , 08 March 2018 at 03:18 PM
Ask National Security Advisor General McMaster.
Even Trump now says Putin meddled.
What more evidence do you need
Dave -> Publius Tacitus ... , 08 March 2018 at 03:20 PM
General McMaster has seen the evidence and says the fact of Russian meddling can no longer be credibly denied.
That doesn't stop the right-wing extremists from spinning fairy tales.
turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 03:34 PM
Dave

It is politically necessary for Trump to say that. Tell me, what is meant by "Russian meddling"in this statement by McMaster? pl

Dave -> turcopolier ... , 08 March 2018 at 03:50 PM
Russian meddling is hacking our election systems.

The right wing (re: Hannity and Limbaugh) have been trying mightily to discredit this investigation by smearing Mueller's reputation, even though he is a conservative republican.

They are doing this so that if Mueller's report is damning, they can call it a "witch hunt."

I would think that if Trump is innocent, he would cooperate with this investigation fully.

You are insinuating that McMaster is a liar even though he has access to information that you don't.

Publius Tacitus -> Dave... , 08 March 2018 at 04:02 PM
Just because trump is stupid is not an excuse for you. You accept a lie without one shred of actual evidence. You are a lemming
Fred -> LeaNder... , 08 March 2018 at 04:04 PM
LeaNder,

"omission as evidence. " Incorrect. Among the omissions was the fact that the dossier was paid for by a political campaign and that the wife of a senior DOJ lawyer's wife was working for Fusion GPS. Then there's the rest of the political motivations left out.

Fred -> Dave... , 08 March 2018 at 04:07 PM
Dave,

Putin hired Facebook. That company seems to do well helping out foreign governments.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/technology/facebook-censorship-tool-china.html

Linda , 08 March 2018 at 04:16 PM
If you have seen the classified information that would be necessary to back up your conclusions, it should not be discussed in this forum. As you are well aware sources and methods cannot be made public so I fail to see how you believe this should have been publically done. Having said that, I pretty much agree with your conclusion except for the indication that the analysts lied.
turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 04:26 PM
Dave

What does "hacking our elections" mean? Does it means breaking into voting systems and changing the outcome by altering votes? Or does it mean information operations to change US voters' minds about for whom they would vote?

If the latter you must know that we (the US) have done this many times in foreign elections, including Russian elections, Israeli elections, Italian elections, German elections, etc., or perhaps you think that a different criterion should be applied to people who are not American.

As for McMasters, I am unimpressed with him. He displays all the symptoms of Russophobia. He has special information? Information can be interpreted many ways depending on one's purpose. pl

turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 04:36 PM
Linda

PT does not have access to the classified information underlying but your argument that "As you are well aware sources and methods cannot be made public so I fail to see how you believe this should have been publicly done." doesn't hold water for me since I have seen sources and methods disclosed by the government of the US many times when it felt that necessary. One example that I have mentioned before was that of the trial of Jeffrey Sterling (merlin) for which I was an expert witness and adviser to the federal court for four years.

In that one the CIA and DoJ forced the court to allow them to de-classify the CIA DO's operational files on the case and read them into the record in open court. I had read all these files when they were classified at the SCI level. IMO the perpetrators in the Steel Memo case are and were merely hiding behind claims of sources and methods protection in order to protect themselve. pl

JamesT -> turcopolier ... , 08 March 2018 at 04:37 PM
I continue to learn things around here that I could never learn anywhere else. It is a privilege to read the Colonel, TTG, and Publius Tacitus.
turcopolier , 08 March 2018 at 04:47 PM
Dave

If you use denigrating language like "wild eyed" to attack your interlocutors you will not be welcome here. pl

LeaNder said in reply to Flavius... , 08 March 2018 at 04:49 PM
Mueller cleared his ridiculous indictment relating to the Russian troll farm, a requirement that at one time would have been SOP for any FBI Office or USAtty Office bringing an indictment of this kind.

Not aware of this. Can you help me out?

No doubt vaguely familiar with public lore, in limited ways. As always.

Sid Finster said in reply to Dave... , 08 March 2018 at 05:09 PM
So now we are supposed to believe unquestioningly the word of torturers, perjurers and entrapment artists, all talking about alleged evidence that we are not allowed to see? Did you learn nothing from the "Iraqi WMD" fiasco or the "ZOMG! Assad gassed his own peoples ZOMG!" debacle? Funny how in each of these instances, the intelligence community's lies just happened to coincide with the agenda of empire.
LeaNder said in reply to Fred ... , 08 March 2018 at 05:10 PM
Ok, true. I forgot 'Steele'* was used as 'evidence'. Strictly, Pat may have helped me out considering my 'felt' "debate-shift". Indirectly. I do recall, I hesitated to try to clarify matters for myself.

* ...

m -> turcopolier ... , 08 March 2018 at 06:29 PM
Depends on what crime the "hack" committed. Fudging on taxes or cutting corners? Big whoop. Laundering $500 mil for a buddy of Vlad's? Now you got my attention and should have the voters' attention.

This is a political process in the end game. Clinton lied about sex in the oval Office and was tried for it. Why don't we exercise patience in the process and see if this President should be tried?

m -> Publius Tacitus ... , 08 March 2018 at 06:33 PM
I ain't a lawyer but don't prosecutors hold their cards (evidence) close to their chests until the court has a criminal charge and sets a date for discovery?
Publius Tacitus -> Linda ... , 08 March 2018 at 06:45 PM
Linda,
You betray your ignorance on this subject. You clearly have not understood nor comprehended what I have written. So i will put it in CAPS for you. Please read slowly.

THIS TYPE OF DOCUMENT, IF IT HAD A SOURCE OR SOURCES BEHIND IT, WOULD REFERENCE THOSE SOURCES. AN ANALYST WOULD NOT WRITE "WE ASSESS." IF YOU HAVE A RELIABLE HUMAN SOURCE OR A RELIABLE PIECE OF SIGINT THE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ASSESS. YOU SIMPLY STATE, ACCORDING TO A KNOWLEDGEABLE AND RELIABLE SOURCE.

GOT IT. And don't come back with nonsense that the sources are so sensitive that they cannot be disclose. News flash genius--the very fact that Clapper put out this piece of dreck would have exposed the sources if they existed (but they do not). In any event, there would be reference to sources that provided the evidence that such activity took place at the direction of Putin.

IT DOES NOT EXIST.

J , 08 March 2018 at 07:08 PM
Colonel,

The granddaddy of them all is #16, and what have they contributed?

Steve McIntyre -> David Habakkuk ... , 08 March 2018 at 07:41 PM
I'm eagerly awaiting your thoughts on the Skripal poisoning. I'm sure I'm not alone in the hope that you will write on it.
The Twisted Genius -> Publius Tacitus ... , 08 March 2018 at 07:59 PM
Publius Tacitus,

I notice other Intelligence Community Assessments also use the term "we assess" liberally. For example, the 2018 Worldwide Threat Assessment and the 2012 ICA on Global Water Security use the "we assess" phrase throughout the documents. I hazard to guess that is why they call these things assessments.

The 2017 ICA on Russian Interference released to the public clearly states: "This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment. This document's conclusions are identical to the highly classified assessment, but this document does not include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence on key elements of the influence campaign. Given the redactions, we made minor edits purely for readability and flow."

I would hazard another guess that those minor edits for readability and flow are the reason that specific intelligence reports and sources, which were left out of the unclassified ICA, are not cited in that ICA.

The Twisted Genius -> Dave... , 08 March 2018 at 08:26 PM
Dave,

As far as I know, no one has reliably claimed that election systems, as in vote tallies, were ever breached. No votes were changed after they were cast. The integrity of our election system and the 2016 election itself was maintained. Having said that, there is plenty of evidence of Russian meddling as an influence op. I suggest you and others take a gander at the research of someone going by the handle of @UsHadrons and several others. They are compiling a collection of FaceBook, twitter and other media postings that emanated from the IRA and other Russian sources. The breadth of these postings is quite wide and supports the assessment that enhancing the divides that already existed in US society was a primary Russian goal.

https://medium.com/@ushadrons

I pointed this stuff out to Eric Newhill a while back in one of our conversations. He jokingly noted that he may have assisted in spreading a few of these memes. I bet a lot of people will recognize some of the stuff in this collection. That's nothing. Recently we all learned that Michael Moore did a lot more than unwittingly repost a Russian meme. He took part in a NYC protest march organized and pushed by Russians. This stuff is open source proof of Russian meddling.

Publius Tacitus -> The Twisted Genius ... , 08 March 2018 at 08:55 PM
TTG
Nice try, but that is bullshit just because recent assessments come out with sloppy language is no excuse. Go back and look at the assessment was done for iraq to justify the war in 2003. Many sources cited because it was considered something Required to justify going to war. As we have been told by many in the media that the Russians meddling was worse or as bad as the attack on Pearl Harbor and 9-11. With something so serious do you want to argue that they would downplay the sourcing?

[Mar 08, 2018] Cue bono question in Scripal case?

Highly recommended!
This case looks more and more like Litvinenko II -- another false flag designed to implicate Russia a fuel anti-russian hysteria. British MI6 are masters in such provocations.
Along with sabotaging Moscow soccer tournament this also can also be an attempt to distract from MI6 role is creation of Steele dossier too.
Notable quotes:
"... Having worked for Russia's Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU) since the Soviet era, Sergey Skripal was recruited in 1995 by the British agent Pablo Miller, who at the time was posing as Antonio Alvarez de Hidalgo and working in Britain's embassy in Tallinn. Russia's Federal Security Service says Miller was actually an undercover MI6 agent tasked with recruiting Russians. ..."
"... The first reports about Miller's work in Russia emerged in the early 2000s, after multiple Russians arrested for spying fingered Miller as their recruiter. For example, former tax police Major Vyacheslav Zharko says it was Miller who recruited him. He says it was Boris Berezovsky and former Federal Security Service (FSB) agent Alexander Litvinenko who introduced him to British intelligence agents. Zharko surrendered himself to Russian officials when he learned about the British authorities' suspicions that another former FSB officer, Andrey Lugovoi, had poisoned Litvinenko with polonium. ..."
"... Litvinenko also worked for MI6 ..."
"... Skripal, however, never turned himself in. For nine years, according to the FSB, he collaborated actively with British intelligence, transmitting information about Russian agents. ..."
"... Who/what paid Skripal a $472,000 house and a pension? That is way more than the reported $100,000 he earlier got. What did he do to earn the higher pay? ..."
"... Seems Skripal was a British spy at the end. If he required killing, it would have happened long ago as b asserts. Clearly, he knew something dangerously compromising to make himself a target. ..."
"... If b is too moral to consider killing injuring unrelated, innocent people for propaganda as it was 9/11 whoever did it, he must wake up. These days, days of phony YT,FB Twitter reality, the only value is propaganda value nothing else, anybody will be thrown under the bus if this fits aims of ruling elite even some oligarchs who are rich only because their submit to rape of ruling elite as high paid prostitute while the rest are raped for free ..."
"... If fact they will supress details of that crime just to obfuscate obvious perpetrators in a cloud of conspiracy theories in fact mining people's brains busy them up like little ants like Bitcoin miners waste electricity and computer power for delusional quest of riches ..."
"... Sources close to Orbis, the business intelligence firm run by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who was behind a dossier of compromising allegations against Donald Trump, said Mr Skripal did not contribute to the file. But they could not say whether Mr Skripal was involved in different investigations into the US President for other interested parties. ..."
"... It's interesting how quickly the denial from steele comes out... Is skripal dead yet, or still alive? i wonder if he comes back, what he says? i guess we will never know either way... ..."
"... Media management and playing the old "backs to the wall boys & girls, its the blitz all over again" is what the 'counter-terror' mob do. ..."
"... The initial cops played the whole thing really low key, it seemed as though they wanted to get to the bottom of whatever happened, but their replacements 'counter-terror' appear to devote more time and energy to seducing credulous journos than they do trying to find out what actually did occur. ..."
"... Over in the states there have been reports about carfentanil poisoning responders to overdoses because of trace amounts. It is reported as 100 x as powerful as fentanyl. So maybe a chemical cousin is a possible consideration. ..."
"... B's suggestion that Skripal might be longing to return to and die in Russia, and that he was offering a "gift" to Moscow via his daughter (or maybe even a letter apologising for his treachery and begging for forgiveness, Berezovsky-style) is a stroke of genius. Makes me think that Boris Berezovsky's death merits more attention and cannot be brushed off as a suicide. ..."
"... On a park bench, they were discovered. I'll bet my best fishing lure that location's covered by a CCTV whose footage will provide all the answers--unless we aren't to be shown, due to national security or some such. ..."
"... Meanwhile The Guardian is spewing its usual bilge : Russian spy attack inquiry widens after medics treat 21 people ..."
"... The longer Skripal and his daughter stay alive, the more propaganda can be rung out of his death. Be worth watching to see how many sanctions and laws the UK can push through before he finally snuffs it. ..."
Mar 08, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

Spy Poisons Spy And The Anti-Trump Campaign

On Sunday a former British-Russian double agent and his daughter were seriously injured in a mysterious incident in Salisbury, England. The British government says that both were hurt due to "exposure to a nerve agent". Speculative media reports talk of Sarin and VX, two deadly nerve-agents used in military chemical weapons. Anonymous officials strongly hint that 'Russia did it'.

New reports though point to a deep connection between the case and the anti-Trump/anti-Russia propaganda drive run by the Obama administration and the Hillary Clinton election campaign.

Sergei Skripal once was a colonel in a Russian military intelligence service. In the early 1990s he was recruited by the MI6 agent Pablo Miller. He continued to spy for the Brits after his 1999 retirement. The Russian FSB claims that the British MI6 paid him $100,000 for his service. At that time a Russian officer would only make a few hundred bucks per month. Skripal was finally uncovered in 2004 and two years later convicted for spying for Britain. He was sentenced to 18 years and in 2010 he and other agents ware exchanged in a large spy swap between the United States and Russia. Skripal was granted refuge in Britain and has since lived openly under his own name in Salisbury. His wife and his son died over the last years of natural causes. The only near relative he has left is his daughter who continued to live in Russia.

Last week his daughter flew to Britain and met him in Salisbury. On Sunday they went to a pub and a restaurant. At some point they were poisoned or poisoned themselves. They collapsed on a public bench. They are now in intensive care. A policeman one the scene was also seriously effected.

Authorities have declined to name the substance to which the pair is suspected to have been exposed, but :

Local media had on Monday reported the substance found at the scene to be similar to fentanyl: a lethally strong opioid available even on Salisbury's soporific streets.

The British government is hinting at Russian involvement :

Whorin Piece , Mar 8, 2018 4:30:36 PM | 1

Seth Rich.

Awesome, thank you b,

I think this event is a ramp to offing Knesia Sobchak prior to or just after the national poll. She is a pawn of the West. She has been directed to consolidate the disparate liberal opposition campaigns by the use of primaries...which would just happen to result in her primacy. The idea is to have her win enough vote it can be alleged that she has embarrassed Putin...and then they six her using VX. Her father was close go Putin during Putin's early years in St Pete. The BBC has been running chaff out the foot saying Putin killed his mentor Anatoly Sobchak. Knesia has been moved into position. She will be offed to harm Putin's reputation but also to place e a complex wound in him. The West are monsters

yoffa , Mar 8, 2018 4:35:34 PM | 2
The Orbis consultant / analyst living in Salisbury is identified as Pablo Miller. He had recruited Skripal in 1995 ( https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/03/06/a-hundred-grand-and-hundreds-of-betrayed-agents).
notheonly1 , Mar 8, 2018 4:40:39 PM | 3
Ms Rudd told MPs it was an "outrageous crime", adding that the government would "act without hesitation as the facts become clearer".

Yeah, right.

Like the illegal invasion of a sovereign foreign country based on the lies by the same 'government', with a million+ casualties among the middle eastern population.

That kind of outrageous crime , correct?

One day the pendulum will swing back hard and merciless at these criminal warmongers and war profiteers. Disgusting how low what goes for 'homo sapiens' can sink.

Christian Chuba , Mar 8, 2018 4:43:02 PM | 4
I was wondering if Grigory Rodchenkov was in danger of meeting the same fate by some of the more unsavory elements of U.S. Intelligence Agencies. He would become a poster boy for Russian assassinations on U.S. soil.

One thing about Rodchenkov, if the doping was not state sponsored, what motive would have have for doing it on his own, is there enough money in the Olympics that individual athletes would bribe him or would it make him look better if his athletes did better? I don't buy that it was state sponsored, or at least there is no evidence to that affect.

Oyyo , Mar 8, 2018 4:51:46 PM | 6
21 people were affected.

https://news.sky.com/story/live-poisoned-salisbury-cop-talking-and-engaging-11280674

xLemming , Mar 8, 2018 5:05:53 PM | 7
Sadly @3 we may have to wait for Judgement Day for that to happen. But if it comes about sooner, and in our lifetime, it will be a day of rejoicing!
b , Mar 8, 2018 5:07:11 PM | 8
@yoffa @2 - thank you. Your link does not work, here is a good one: A hundred grand and hundreds of betrayed agents What was former GRU Colonel Sergey Skripal's treason against Russia?
Having worked for Russia's Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU) since the Soviet era, Sergey Skripal was recruited in 1995 by the British agent Pablo Miller, who at the time was posing as Antonio Alvarez de Hidalgo and working in Britain's embassy in Tallinn. Russia's Federal Security Service says Miller was actually an undercover MI6 agent tasked with recruiting Russians.

The first reports about Miller's work in Russia emerged in the early 2000s, after multiple Russians arrested for spying fingered Miller as their recruiter. For example, former tax police Major Vyacheslav Zharko says it was Miller who recruited him. He says it was Boris Berezovsky and former Federal Security Service (FSB) agent Alexander Litvinenko who introduced him to British intelligence agents. Zharko surrendered himself to Russian officials when he learned about the British authorities' suspicions that another former FSB officer, Andrey Lugovoi, had poisoned Litvinenko with polonium.

Litvinenko also worked for MI6 ..
Skripal, however, never turned himself in. For nine years, according to the FSB, he collaborated actively with British intelligence, transmitting information about Russian agents.

Nikolai Luzan, who calls himself a colonel and a veteran of Russia's security agencies, wrote a detailed book about how the British recruited Sergey Skripal. Luzan says his book, "A Devil's Counterintelligence Dozen," is an "artistic-documentary production."

If we assume that Luzan's account is generally accurate, then Skripal was recruited during a long-term assignment in Malta and Spain, where he "got greedy."
...

Further on:
Skripal led a quiet life in Salisbury, where he reportedly bought an average house for 340,000 British pounds (about $472,000). His neighbors describe him as an ordinary, reasonably friendly pensioner. When he moved to the area, he even invited the whole street over for a housewarming party.

It's unclear why Skripal decided to resettle specifically in Salisbury, but LinkedIn indicates that Pablo Miller -- the MI6 agent who recruited him -- lives in the same town. In 2015, the year he retired, Miller received the Order of the British Empire for services to Her Majesty's Government.

Skripal's wife, Lyudmila, lived with him in Salisbury until her death a few years ago. His son died from liver failure in 2017 in St. Petersburg.

It must be Pablo Miller who worked with Steele ...

Who/what paid Skripal a $472,000 house and a pension? That is way more than the reported $100,000 he earlier got. What did he do to earn the higher pay?

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2018 5:12:03 PM | 9
Seems Skripal was a British spy at the end. If he required killing, it would have happened long ago as b asserts. Clearly, he knew something dangerously compromising to make himself a target. The UK's fairly well covered by CCTV; I'd be very interested in what those in Salisbury observed. The incident has La Carre written all over it.
Kalen , Mar 8, 2018 5:21:30 PM | 10
If someone like MI6 for FSB wanted him dead they would be instantly in a car accident of robbery attempt, they whoever they are, wanted this to thing to prolong in time to feed the press Russia gate and wanted people like b to follow the trap since most of the info here can be found just after few clicks, will be picked up by rational people.

If b is too moral to consider killing injuring unrelated, innocent people for propaganda as it was 9/11 whoever did it, he must wake up. These days, days of phony YT,FB Twitter reality, the only value is propaganda value nothing else, anybody will be thrown under the bus if this fits aims of ruling elite even some oligarchs who are rich only because their submit to rape of ruling elite as high paid prostitute while the rest are raped for free .

If fact they will supress details of that crime just to obfuscate obvious perpetrators in a cloud of conspiracy theories in fact mining people's brains busy them up like little ants like Bitcoin miners waste electricity and computer power for delusional quest of riches .

In the society of control ruling elite controls everything it needs to control and hence is responsible for this. Case closed.

b , Mar 8, 2018 5:39:21 PM | 12
The Independent: Sergei Skripal: Former double agent may have been poisoned with nerve agent over 'freelance' spying, sources say
The Russian double agent poisoned in Salisbury may have become a target after using his contacts in the intelligence community to work for private security firms, investigators believe.

Sergei Skripal could have come to the attention of certain people in Russia by attempting to "freelance" for companies run by former MI5, MI6 and GCHQ spies, security sources say.
...
Sources close to Orbis, the business intelligence firm run by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who was behind a dossier of compromising allegations against Donald Trump, said Mr Skripal did not contribute to the file. But they could not say whether Mr Skripal was involved in different investigations into the US President for other interested parties.

A very believable denial by Steele. Not.
james , Mar 8, 2018 5:56:08 PM | 13
It's interesting how quickly the denial from steele comes out... Is skripal dead yet, or still alive? i wonder if he comes back, what he says? i guess we will never know either way...
Debsisdead , Mar 8, 2018 6:02:23 PM | 14
For me it was particularly suss when the Leceister Police who are the coppers on the ground in Salisbury were heavied by Scotland Yuk ( or 'the met' as englander papers call that gang of proven torturers & murderers) to turn the Skripsky investigation over to the 'counter-terror squad' - the mob of thugs whose skillful manipulation of england's media combined with evidence falsification made their indicted murder of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes seem like an heroic act by playing the old honest whitefella card - "all those brownfellas look the same, who can tell the difference?" . No copper, not the killers or the idiot in charge suffered any disciplinary actiion, much less a criminal one. IIRC the policeperson in charge who claimed to be 'in the bathroom' at the time of de Menzeses murder, one Cressida Dick, is now chief commissioner, the boss of Scotland Yuk.

The local coppers know the area and will have a rapport with witnesses that a mob of arseholes in sharp suits backed by balaclava wearing armed heavies is unlikely to enjoy, so why grab the gig especially since it is certain to remain unsolved?

Well partly that, to make sure it remains unsolved, but also because counter-terror plays the press release regurgitators who are englander 'journos' like a fine old violin. Questions about fentanyl being a nerve agent get tricky? Spin the chooks a yarn about evil a-rabs you have met.

Uncoy , Mar 8, 2018 6:21:20 PM | 15
Kalen is right. Such a flamboyant killing is not how modern intelligence agencies dispose of problems. Unless they want to draw attention to their work.

Maybe there's a bunch of people around the Christopher Steele dossier thinking of talking. What better way to shut them up than to knock off a Steele source.

Peter , Mar 8, 2018 6:33:27 PM | 16
Very good work, B. Thanks for your website, best on the web.
sadness , Mar 8, 2018 6:41:55 PM | 17
It could always be a simple & rather human explanation - The daughter was struggling for cash at home, dad was old but refused to die & had a stash of cash from his past, she knocked him off to get an earlier inheritance but being an amateur at this she did herself in too, which would be poetic justice...?
sadness , Mar 8, 2018 6:49:11 PM | 18
....oh i forgot to add....or it was a sad suicide pact between them when all else was lost & over
ToivoS , Mar 8, 2018 7:08:41 PM | 19
It is highly unlikely that fentanyl was the toxin that poisoned Skribal and his daughter. That hypothesis should be excluded at this point.

The main reason for this is that the patrol man who discovered them also came down with similar symptoms. Fentanyl is extremely toxic when injected intravenously. But not to any one coming into contact with them, touching them or even performing mouth to mouth resusication.

There are numerous acetyl choline inhibitors (e.g. sarin, vx, and many other similar compounds that have never been approved for chemical warfare) that can cause symptoms if someone comes into contact with an intoxicated patient especially one has be exposed externally.

Also the Portland Down lab has identified an ACE inhibitor (of course, that is part of the British military and they could very easily be lying.)

In any case, this looks like a nerve toxin poison, fentanyl is not in that class.

Fatima Manoubia , Mar 8, 2018 7:08:44 PM | 20
Fentanyl patchs are used to control intense chronic pain...If he resigned from GRU because of health issues, as the "Meduzas" affirm, it might be related to this chronic pain and so he could well be a patient using this drug for pain control.....

Thus, fentanyl is not a nerve agent, but an anesthesic in any case....All could well be a performance...to blame the Russians and contribute to scare the population about them previous to some machination to be mounted at......Do not forget that that factory of mannequin challenges broadcasts, the White Helmets, is also a British "enterprise", creation of "former" MI6 LeMesurier....

Debsisdead , Mar 8, 2018 7:40:41 PM | 21
Yesterday when questions about fentanyl were raised, the sick policeman was identified, up until that point all that had been said was that the bill first on the scene were admitted to be checked out by medics. Today the close to death's door copper is in fine fettle once again. I leave it up to others to decide whether he was crook (sick - an Oz term) or the imported police were crooks (lying).

Media management and playing the old "backs to the wall boys & girls, its the blitz all over again" is what the 'counter-terror' mob do. If they were really opposed to scaring the bejeezuz outta englanders which is what their name implies they would A) be better at preventing actions which they hadn't cranked up themselves for entrapment and B) not imagine it was on the up and up to terrify the burghers of Salisbury with yarns about possible 'nerve agent' on the loose that were placing the town's population at risk.

The initial cops played the whole thing really low key, it seemed as though they wanted to get to the bottom of whatever happened, but their replacements 'counter-terror' appear to devote more time and energy to seducing credulous journos than they do trying to find out what actually did occur. The form of this gang of sleek deceitful killers means that just because they claim this local woodentop was poisoned, it doesn't mean that is what actually befell him.

Duck1 , Mar 8, 2018 7:49:18 PM | 22
Over in the states there have been reports about carfentanil poisoning responders to overdoses because of trace amounts. It is reported as 100 x as powerful as fentanyl. So maybe a chemical cousin is a possible consideration.
Jen , Mar 8, 2018 7:54:30 PM | 23
It seems that MI6 was keeping Sergei Skripal on a tight leash by having him live in Salisbury close to Pablo Miller who must be the old fellow's minder as well as recruiter. One way of keeping Skripal on this leash must be to supply him with an addictive painkiller, for whatever pain he is suffering (physical, perhaps psychological?), and fentanyl fits the bill.

Fentanyl also fits the bill for a poisoning agent that also affected the police officer who attended the Skripals. The fentanyl epidemic is apparently forcing emergency and first-response personnel to re-evaluate procedures in handling patients so that they themselves are not affected by sniffing fentanyl accidentally.

B's suggestion that Skripal might be longing to return to and die in Russia, and that he was offering a "gift" to Moscow via his daughter (or maybe even a letter apologising for his treachery and begging for forgiveness, Berezovsky-style) is a stroke of genius. Makes me think that Boris Berezovsky's death merits more attention and cannot be brushed off as a suicide.

karlof1 , Mar 8, 2018 7:59:42 PM | 24
sadness @17 & 18--

Nobody died. Only 3 remain in hospital and are not endangered.

On a park bench, they were discovered. I'll bet my best fishing lure that location's covered by a CCTV whose footage will provide all the answers--unless we aren't to be shown, due to national security or some such.

Briar Patch , Mar 8, 2018 8:05:32 PM | 25
The question raised by the link offered by Oyyo at 6 (at least 21 affected by the "neurotoxin"), the comments offered by Debisdead at 21, and the note from Craig Murry about the nearby chemical site: Was this an attack targeting Skripal at all, or some other kind of "misadventure"? There are so many opportunities to use this kind of incident, by entities capable of spinning it this way and that, that it doesn't give to us individuals reading the news much hope of ever learning the truth.
Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2018 8:16:50 PM | 26
>>>>> ToivoS | Mar 8, 2018 7:08:41 PM | 19

Fentanyl can enter the body through the skin :

A police officer in East Liverpool, Ohio, collapsed and was rushed to the hospital after he brushed fentanyl residue off his uniform, allowing the drug to enter his system through his hands. The officer had apparently encountered the opioid earlier in the day while making a drug bust.
Fenatanyl acts on the nervous system so could be described as a "nerve agent", particularly by a British politician or civil servant.
WorldBLee , Mar 8, 2018 8:49:38 PM | 30
I love it when the UK media call it a "professional hit job." No, it's not. In a professional hit job the person ends up dead.
Ghost Ship , Mar 8, 2018 9:02:37 PM | 31
Meanwhile The Guardian is spewing its usual bilge: Russian spy attack inquiry widens after medics treat 21 people

Statement from Wiltshire Police :

In addition to the three inpatients**** who are currently receiving treatment in relation to the incident, in line with Public Health England guidance, which asked anyone who was in the area and is concerned because they feel unwell to come forward, the Trust has seen and assessed a number of people who did not need treatment.

**** - These are Sgt Nick Bailey & the two original victims.

Peter AU 1 , Mar 8, 2018 9:04:33 PM | 32
The longer Skripal and his daughter stay alive, the more propaganda can be rung out of his death. Be worth watching to see how many sanctions and laws the UK can push through before he finally snuffs it.

[Mar 02, 2018] Contradictions In Seth Rich Murder Continue To Challenge Hacking Narrative

Highly recommended!
Muller was the guy who buried 911 investigation. That's probably why he was hired for Russiagate investigation too.
Notable quotes:
"... retired U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks a simple, yet monumentally significant question: Why haven't Congressional Investigators or Special Counsel Robert Mueller addressed the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich - who multiple people have claimed was Wikileaks' source of emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. presidential election? ..."
"... Mueller has been incredibly thorough in his ongoing investigations -- however he won't even respond to Kim Dotcom, the New Zealand entrepreneur who clearly knew about the hacked emails long before they were released, claims that Seth Rich obtained them with a memory stick , and has offered to provide proof to the Special Counsel investigation. ..."
"... In addition to several odd facts surrounding Rich's still unsolved murder - which officials have deemed a "botched robbery," forensic technical evidence has emerged which contradicts the Crowdstrike report. The Irvine, CA company partially funded by Google , was the only entity allowed to analyze the DNC servers in relation to claims of election hacking: ..."
"... Notably, Crowdstrike has been considered by many to be discredited over their revision and retraction of a report over Russian hacking of Ukrainian military equipment - a report which the government of Ukraine said was fake news. ..."
"... Also notable is that Crowdstrike founder and anti-Putin Russian expat Dimitri Alperovitch sits on the Atlantic Council - which is funded by the US State Department, NATO, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukranian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Who else is on the Atlantic Council? Evelyn Farkas - who slipped up during an MSNBC interview with Mika Brzezinski and disclosed that the Obama administration had been spying on the Trump campaign: ..."
"... "The facts that we know of in the murder of the DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was that he was gunned down blocks from his home on July 10, 2016. Washington Metro police detectives claim that Mr. Rich was a robbery victim, which is strange since after being shot twice in the back, he was still wearing a $2,000 gold necklace and watch. He still had his wallet, key and phone. Clearly, he was not a victim of robbery, " writes Lyons. ..."
"... Another unexplained fact muddying the Rich case is that of a stolen 40 caliber Glock 22 handguns stolen from an FBI agent's car the same day Rich was murdered. D.C. Metro police said that the theft occurred between 5 and 7 a.m., while the FBI said two weeks later that the theft had occurred between Midnight and 2 a.m. - fueling speculation that the FBI gun was used in Rich's murder ..."
"... Perhaps the most stunning audio evidence, however, comes from leaked audio of a recorded conversation between Ed Butowsky and Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who told him of a " purported FBI report establishing that Seth Rich sent emails to WikiLeaks ." ..."
"... Hersh also told Butowsky that the DNC made up the Russian hacking story as a disinformation campaign – directly pointing a finger at former CIA director (and now MSNBC/NBC contributor ) John Brennan as the architect. ..."
"... and said 'I want money.' ..."
Mar 02, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

As rumors swirl that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is preparing a case against Russians who are alleged to have hacked Democrats during the 2016 election -- a conclusion based solely on the analysis of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, a Friday op-ed in the Washington Times by retired U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks a simple, yet monumentally significant question: Why haven't Congressional Investigators or Special Counsel Robert Mueller addressed the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich - who multiple people have claimed was Wikileaks' source of emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. presidential election?

Mueller has been incredibly thorough in his ongoing investigations -- however he won't even respond to Kim Dotcom, the New Zealand entrepreneur who clearly knew about the hacked emails long before they were released, claims that Seth Rich obtained them with a memory stick , and has offered to provide proof to the Special Counsel investigation.

On May 18, 2017, Dotcom proposed that if Congress includes the Seth Rich investigation in their Russia probe, he would provide written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich was WikiLeaks' source.

In addition to several odd facts surrounding Rich's still unsolved murder - which officials have deemed a "botched robbery," forensic technical evidence has emerged which contradicts the Crowdstrike report. The Irvine, CA company partially funded by Google , was the only entity allowed to analyze the DNC servers in relation to claims of election hacking:

Notably, Crowdstrike has been considered by many to be discredited over their revision and retraction of a report over Russian hacking of Ukrainian military equipment - a report which the government of Ukraine said was fake news.

In connection with the emergence in some media reports which stated that the alleged "80% howitzer D-30 Armed Forces of Ukraine removed through scrapping Russian Ukrainian hackers software gunners," Land Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine informs that the said information is incorrect .

Ministry of Defence of Ukraine asks journalists to publish only verified information received from the competent official sources. Spreading false information leads to increased social tension in society and undermines public confidence in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. –mil.gov.ua (translated) (1.6.2017)

In fact, several respected journalists have cast serious doubt on CrowdStrike's report on the DNC servers:

Pay attention, because Mueller is likely to use the Crowdstrike report to support the rumored upcoming charges against Russian hackers.

Also notable is that Crowdstrike founder and anti-Putin Russian expat Dimitri Alperovitch sits on the Atlantic Council - which is funded by the US State Department, NATO, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukranian Oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Who else is on the Atlantic Council? Evelyn Farkas - who slipped up during an MSNBC interview with Mika Brzezinski and disclosed that the Obama administration had been spying on the Trump campaign:

The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods , meaning we would not longer have access to that intelligence. - Evelyn Farkas

Odd facts surrounding the murder of Seth Rich

"The facts that we know of in the murder of the DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was that he was gunned down blocks from his home on July 10, 2016. Washington Metro police detectives claim that Mr. Rich was a robbery victim, which is strange since after being shot twice in the back, he was still wearing a $2,000 gold necklace and watch. He still had his wallet, key and phone. Clearly, he was not a victim of robbery, " writes Lyons.

Another unexplained fact muddying the Rich case is that of a stolen 40 caliber Glock 22 handguns stolen from an FBI agent's car the same day Rich was murdered. D.C. Metro police said that the theft occurred between 5 and 7 a.m., while the FBI said two weeks later that the theft had occurred between Midnight and 2 a.m. - fueling speculation that the FBI gun was used in Rich's murder.

Furthermore, two men working with the Rich family - private investigator and former D.C. Police detective Rod Wheeler and family acquaintance Ed Butowsky, have previously stated that Rich had contacts with WikiLeaks before his death.

"According to Ed Butowsky, an acquaintance of the family, in his discussions with Joel and Mary Rich, they confirmed that their son transmitted the DNC emails to Wikileaks ," writes Lyons.

While Wheeler initially told TV station Fox5 that proof of Rich's contact with WikiLeaks lies on the murdered IT staffer's laptop, he later walked the claim back - though he maintained that there was "some communication between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks."

Wheeler also claimed in recently leaked audio that Seth Rich's brother, Aaron – a Northrup Grumman employee, blocked him from looking at Seth's computer and stonewalled his investigation.

Wheeler said that brother Aaron Rich tried to block Wheeler from looking at Seth's computer, even though there could be evidence on it. "He said no, he said I have his computer, meaning him," Wheeler said. "I said, well can I look at it? He said, what are you looking for? I said anything that could indicate if Seth was having problems with someone. He said no, I already checked it. Don't worry about it."

Aaron also blocked Wheeler from finding out about who was at a party Seth attended the night of the murder.

"All I want you to do is work on the botched robbery theory and that's it," Aaron told Wheeler - Big League Politics

Perhaps the most stunning audio evidence, however, comes from leaked audio of a recorded conversation between Ed Butowsky and Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who told him of a " purported FBI report establishing that Seth Rich sent emails to WikiLeaks ."

As transcribed and exclusively reported on by journalist Cassandra Fairbanks last year:

What the report says is that some time in late Spring he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that's in his computer," he says. " Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents -- of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC."

Hersh explains that it was unclear how the negotiations went, but that WikiLeaks did obtain access to a password protected DropBox where Rich had put the files.

" All I know is that he offered a sample, an extensive sample, I'm sure dozens of emails, and said 'I want money.' Later, WikiLeaks did get the password, he had a DropBox, a protected DropBox," he said. They got access to the DropBox."

Hersh also states that Rich had concerns about something happening to him, and had

"The word was passed, according to the NSA report, he also shared this DropBox with a couple of friends, so that 'if anything happens to me it's not going to solve your problems,'" he added. "WikiLeaks got access before he was killed."

Brennan and Russian disinformation

Hersh also told Butowsky that the DNC made up the Russian hacking story as a disinformation campaign – directly pointing a finger at former CIA director (and now MSNBC/NBC contributor ) John Brennan as the architect.

I have a narrative of how that whole f*cking thing began. It's a Brennan operation, it was an American disinformation , and the fu*kin' President, at one point, they even started telling the press – they were backfeeding the Press, the head of the NSA was going and telling the press, fu*king c*cksucker Rogers, was telling the press that we even know who in the Russian military intelligence service leaked it.

Listen to Seymour Hersh leaked audio:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/giuZdBAXVh0

(full transcription here and extended audio of the Hersh conversation here )

Hersh denied that he told Butowsky anything before the leaked audio emerged , telling NPR " I hear gossip [Butowsky] took two and two and made 45 out of it. "

Technical Evidence

As we mentioned last week, Dotcom's assertion is backed up by an analysis done last year by a researcher who goes by the name Forensicator , who determined that the DNC files were copied at 22.6 MB/s - a speed virtually impossible to achieve from halfway around the world, much less over a local network - yet a speed typical of file transfers to a memory stick.

The big hint

Last but not least, let's not forget that Julian Assange heavily implied Seth Rich was a source:

Given that a) the Russian hacking narrative hinges on Crowdstrikes's questionable reporting , and b) a mountain of evidence pointing to Seth Rich as the source of the leaked emails - it stands to reason that Congressional investigators and Special Counsel Robert Mueller should at minimum explore these leads.

As retired U.S. Navy admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. asks: why aren't they?

macholatte Permalink

Something all of us here already know, if Mueller gets away from the delusion of Trump-Russia collusion then it will be his ass in the frying pan. So he won't go after the Clintons, Obama, Comey or anyone else. Hitlery could show up with a gun in her hand and tell Mueller she shot Seth and he would ignore it.

And, sadly, there ain't nobody gonna do anything about it unless and until a Special Prosecutor from outside DC is hired. Right now a snowball in hell has a better chance.

Corruption!
It's what's for breakfast!

– Rod Sessions

NumberNone -> hedgeless_horseman Permalink

Why don't the Democrats scream about the exploitation of his murder against them like they do with every minor accusation? It's as if they want his death to disappear from the public view...wonder why?

Theosebes Goodfellow -> WTFRLY Permalink

I think it is mostly because they know so much of their world hangs in the secrecy. If they let the Seth Rich story get out, the Uranium One story gets out. If the Uranium One story gets out, the Awans' stolen cars with diplomatic cover for guns to Syria in return for heroin to America comes out. If that story comes out, then the ISI Pakistani doctors with fake medical degrees pushing pharma opiods in America comes out. And finally, Pizzagate, Pedogate, call it what you want, it comes out too. And then all of these dirty sons of bitches go to jail.

And that's why you aren't hearing any of it. Especially from Mueller. I think he got hoodwinked too. They sold him this job as a slam dunk to get Trump out of the White House. It really is the shits when the best laid plans of mice go south.

Bes Yars Revenge Permalink

One of Trumps big problems is that as an outsider he did not have people both qualified and loyal to appoint to critical offices in the deep state. That is why he wound up with a cipher like Sessions, a guy naive and gullible enough to believe the justice department was filled with honorable and trustworthy people or at least men who played by some set of rules. Having found out the hard way that he screwed up Trump is groping for a way out, trying to use a knife in a gun fight. The other side is too ruthless and i suspect they will take him down in the end.

SlothB77 Yars Revenge Permalink

"All I know is that he offered a sample, an extensive sample, I'm sure dozens of emails, and said 'I want money.' Later, WikiLeaks did get the password, he had a DropBox, a protected DropBox," he said. They got access to the DropBox."

Why has no one followed the money on this yet? This introduces an interesting angle - did Seth Rich get paid by WikiLeaks? And if so, can we find evidence of the payoff? How did he afford his expensive watch and necklace?

Dems voters and liberals are silent on all this or really just pushing the Russian and Putin narrative.

Report a crime, yet don't allow law enforcement access to evidence to help them solve the case.

Sounds like a case in Illinois. A 1 1/2 year old went missing, yet the parent wouldn't let the authorities search the house. I don't remember if there was a warrant or what finally happened that the police were allowed to search the home, but they did, and found the baby, dead, under the sofa.

hedgeless_horseman z530 Permalink

The case is being tried on CNN and in the NYT. It was never intended to go to court.

The other key is Rod Rosenstein's post-indictment presser. At the very end, he gave away the game by admitting there was no collusion, no Americans were involved, and nothing allegedly done by the Russians affected the election's outcome. BOOM. Stick a fork in Mueller's ham sandwich indictment.

truthalwayswinsout Permalink

Without that bit of truth, Mueller can go after people for other crimes but not for what he was mandated to do.

The one bit of evidence that pushes me over from the possible to probably is the gun, what are the odds of this gun being stolen from the FBI, not just some random joe, but the FBI themselves. If that was the same gun used in the murder than the odds of it happening to turn up immediately in a robbery where nothing was stolen in an area where no one commits crimes is so small as to be near zero. It is vague above, what do ballistics say?

If Trump really wants to drain his swamp then this would be the way in, however if they did murder Seth then they'll murder Trump's family too so he is neutralized unless they can go in and get everyone involved in one go. Otherwise I'd expect the job to be handed over to someone ready to die, thinking here a retired general/admiral with no family might be the one to do it.

[Feb 28, 2018] Perjury traps to manufacture indictments to pressure people to testify against others is a new tool of justice in a surveillance state

Highly recommended!
Looks like Mueller investigation was a part of color revolution to depose Trump, using consequentialism slogan widely attributed to Machiavelli's The Prince "the end justifies the means".
Mueller witch hunt is a part of neoliberalism counterattack on forces that are against neoliberal globalization, dropping standard of living of common people and offshoring of manufacturing. That means tiny greedy elite against the majority of the USA population. We read about such situations in history books, did not we?
Notable quotes:
"... The full force of the U.S. intelligence community has been looking for evidence of Russian government (not just "some Russians") interference in the election for 18 months (the recently released Schiff memo reveals five Trump campaign officials were under investigation as of September 2016, including Flynn), with the aim of finding proof of Trump's collusion with Russia in the same caper for about a year. ..."
"... It is reasonable to conclude they do not have definitive intelligence, no tape of a Team Trump official cutting a deal with a Russian spy. The same goes for the Steele dossier and its salacious accusations . If a tape existed or if there was proof the dossier was true, we'd watching impeachment hearings. ..."
"... What's left is the battle cry of Trump's opponents since Election Day: "Just you wait." They exhibit a scary, gleeful certainty that Trump worked with the Russians, because how else could he have won? ..."
"... It's not enough. Mueller is charged with nothing less than proving the president knowingly worked with a foreign government, receiving help in the election in return for some quid pro quo, an act that can be demonstrated so clearly to the American people as to overturn an election probably a full two years after it was decided. ..."
"... Given the stakes -- a Kremlin-controlled man in the Oval Office -- you'd think every person in government would be on this 24/7 to save the nation, not a relatively small staff of prosecutors leisurely filing indictments that so far have little to do with their core charge in the hope that someone will join their felony hunt and testify to crimes that may not have been committed. ..."
Feb 28, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com

So here's what Mueller has: evidence of unrelated-to-Trump financial crimes by Paul Manafort and others, based mostly from FISA surveillance on Manafort dating back to 2014 . The FBI's earlier investigation was dropped for lack of evidence, and it appears Mueller revived it now in part so the information could be repurposed to press Manafort to testify. The role pervasive surveillance has played in setting perjury traps to manufacture indictments to pressure people to testify against others has been grossly underreported. We'll see more of it, unfortunately, a new tool of justice in a surveillance state.

Flynn and Papadopoulos are currently charged with relatively minor offenses whose connections to Russiagate are tenuous. Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador can be seen as a lot of uncomplimentary things, but it does not appear to have been a crime. With Papadopoulos there may be a conspiracy charge in there with some shady lawyering, but little more. Further offstage, Carter Page, a key actor in the Steele dossier and the subject of FISA warrants, has not been charged with anything.

Here's what Mueller is missing. The full force of the U.S. intelligence community has been looking for evidence of Russian government (not just "some Russians") interference in the election for 18 months (the recently released Schiff memo reveals five Trump campaign officials were under investigation as of September 2016, including Flynn), with the aim of finding proof of Trump's collusion with Russia in the same caper for about a year.

It is reasonable to conclude they do not have definitive intelligence, no tape of a Team Trump official cutting a deal with a Russian spy. The same goes for the Steele dossier and its salacious accusations . If a tape existed or if there was proof the dossier was true, we'd watching impeachment hearings.

What's left is the battle cry of Trump's opponents since Election Day: "Just you wait." They exhibit a scary, gleeful certainty that Trump worked with the Russians, because how else could he have won?

But so far the booked charges against Flynn and Papadopoulos and the guilty pleas of others point towards relatively minor sentences to bargain over -- assuming they have game-changing information to share in the first place. These are process crimes, not ones of turpitude. Manafort says he'll go to court and defend himself, lips sealed.

It's not enough. Mueller is charged with nothing less than proving the president knowingly worked with a foreign government, receiving help in the election in return for some quid pro quo, an act that can be demonstrated so clearly to the American people as to overturn an election probably a full two years after it was decided.

Given the stakes -- a Kremlin-controlled man in the Oval Office -- you'd think every person in government would be on this 24/7 to save the nation, not a relatively small staff of prosecutors leisurely filing indictments that so far have little to do with their core charge in the hope that someone will join their felony hunt and testify to crimes that may not have been committed.

A limping-to-the-finish line conclusion to Mueller's work just ahead of the midterms alleging Trump technically obstructed justice, or a "conspiracy to commit something" charge without a finding of an underlying crime, will risk tearing the nation apart. Mueller holds a lot in his hands, and he needs soon to produce the conclusive report to Congress he was charged to write. Until then, absent evidence, skepticism remains a healthy stance.

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.

[Feb 26, 2018] It looks like Christopher Steele's real role was laundering information which had been obtained through continued Inquiries of the NSA mega-file by our Ambassador to the UN

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Following Admiral Roger's closing the FSA mega-file to the FBI, it looks as though Christopher Steele's real role was laundering information stateside which had been obtained through continued Inquiries of the NSA mega-file by our Ambassador to the UN. *** Fusion GPS immediately hired FBI manager Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, and Christopher Steele. Bruce Ohr passed his illegally obtained information to Nellie, she to Steele, who then relayed the material back to Fusion / FBI as coming from his "Russian contacts." ..."
"... And here 44 may have made a mistake in authorizing the spread his Daily Briefing to 30+ agencies and individuals -- again as a work-around of the Roger's information ban. This places 44's fingerprints on the work-around. ..."
"... As it happens, I think the suggestion that Steele's role may have been, in very substantial measure, to give the impression that material from other source was the product of a high-quality 'humint' investigation merits being taken extremely seriously. ..."
"... Carter Page during his period of cooperation with the FBI, almost certainly was handled by Agents assigned to a field office. I wonder what they had to say, assuming they even knew, about HQ opening a CI case targeting their former cooperating witness for FISA coverage. It will be very interesting to see who handled Steele. Strzok? ..."
"... What was the compelling evidence and who furnished it to turn a US Naval Academy graduate, and presumably a Naval Officer with a readily accessible track record in service, into the targeted subject of an espionage investigation. Did he even have any current access to classified information? This is not looking good. ..."
Feb 26, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

RC, 25 February 2018 at 01:32 PM

Following Admiral Roger's closing the FSA mega-file to the FBI, it looks as though Christopher Steele's real role was laundering information stateside which had been obtained through continued Inquiries of the NSA mega-file by our Ambassador to the UN. *** Fusion GPS immediately hired FBI manager Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, and Christopher Steele. Bruce Ohr passed his illegally obtained information to Nellie, she to Steele, who then relayed the material back to Fusion / FBI as coming from his "Russian contacts."

And here 44 may have made a mistake in authorizing the spread his Daily Briefing to 30+ agencies and individuals -- again as a work-around of the Roger's information ban. This places 44's fingerprints on the work-around.

You may recall the incident of the wrong Michael Cohen traveling to Prague to meet with Russians -- when the future 45's personal lawyer was having a family celebration / baseball game stateside? The error was generated by the NSA mega-file. Steele's "Russian contacts" dutifully corroborated Cohen's visit with them in Prague -- how could they not, since they exist only in Steele's mind. In short, the Steele "Russians contacts" are proved to be fictions and if fictions then there was no Russian collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia.

*** Our UN Ambassador claims she was not generating hundreds of NSA Inquiries per week and we can believe her. The NSA Inquiries were coming from the FBI via her State Department "support" in DC.

David Habakkuk -> RC... , 26 February 2018 at 11:28 AM
RC,

It really does help if, when you make claims, you link to the source so that others can evaluate them. In the case of the claims you are making, the source is clearly a post two days ago by 'sundance' on the 'Conservative Treehouse' site entitled 'Tying All The Loose Threads Together – DOJ, FBI, DoS, White House: "Operation Latitude" '

(See https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/24/tying-all-the-loose-threads-together-doj-fbi-dos-white-house-operation-latitude/ .)

As it happens, I think the suggestion that Steele's role may have been, in very substantial measure, to give the impression that material from other source was the product of a high-quality 'humint' investigation merits being taken extremely seriously.

However, to repeat claims by 'sundance', while not taking the – rather minimal – amount of trouble required to provide the link which allows others to evaluate them, simply puts people's backs up and makes them less likely to take what you are suggesting seriously.

Flavius , 26 February 2018 at 05:32 PM
Most unusual, I would say, for an Agent in an upper management position in FBI HQ to open a counter intelligence case and then for all intents and purposes assign it to himself. Cases are normally worked and directly supervised in field offices.

Carter Page during his period of cooperation with the FBI, almost certainly was handled by Agents assigned to a field office. I wonder what they had to say, assuming they even knew, about HQ opening a CI case targeting their former cooperating witness for FISA coverage. It will be very interesting to see who handled Steele. Strzok?

What was the compelling evidence and who furnished it to turn a US Naval Academy graduate, and presumably a Naval Officer with a readily accessible track record in service, into the targeted subject of an espionage investigation. Did he even have any current access to classified information? This is not looking good.

[Feb 26, 2018] Democrat Memo Lays Egg by Publius Tacitus

Highly recommended!
Carter Page FISA warrant does much, much more than surveille Page himself -- it permits surveillance of most of the Trump campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... The whole Memo discussion above concerns the FBI's data manipulations to cast Carter Page as a spy worthy of an Article 1 warrant by the FISC. As I explained above, once Admiral Rogers closed the FBI's access to the NSA mega-file, the Bureau developed several work-arounds to explain how the FBI had data from the mega-file that they were mining through our Ambassador to the UN. ..."
"... Fusion GPS immediately hired the wife of FBI manager Bruce Ohr, Nellie, and Christopher Steele. Bruce handed material to Nellie, Nellie to Christopher. He repackaged the material claiming it was provided by very personal "Russian contacts" and the FBI then handed that laundered Steele material to the FISC. ..."
"... This laundering operation was exposed with a mistake concerning Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen was actually attending a family celebration and a ball game here in the US when he supposedly met Steele's "Russian contacts" in Prague. Steele's contacts, who exist only in his mind, dutifully confirmed that the meeting took place in Prague. ..."
"... Bill Binney, on Jimmy Dore show, said that FISA warrant enabled "two hop" surveillance. If so, then Carter Page FISA warrant does much, much more than surveille Page himself -- it permits surveillance of most of the Trump campaign. ..."
"... My "dog that didn't bark" question about Carter Page - if Carter Page was such a known danger, why didn't the FBI warn the Trump Campaign against letting him become involved in the campaign? ..."
"... The dog that didn't bark - if the Schiff Memo were so powerful, such a slam dunk, every MSM outlet in the western world would be trumpeting it to the skies and talking about nothing but. They seem to be barely able to acknowledge the existence of the Memo. ..."
"... As it happens, I think the suggestion that Steele's role may have been, in very substantial measure, to give the impression that material from other source was the product of a high-quality 'humint' investigation merits being taken extremely seriously. ..."
"... Schiff's defence sounded so, pardon the pun, shifty and did nothing to really counter the main point Nunes made when he released his memo. ..."
"... Schiff's memo was basically a vendetta against persons. Page and Papadopolis (sp?) are obviously the unpopular kids in the minds of the "mean girl" Democrats because they had links to Trump, the real threat to the popular girl Democrats. ..."
"... Funnily enough the question raised in your excerpt is exactly what I've been thinking since reading a post by TTG about Carter Page being an important FBI informant and state witness to the prosecution of Russian espionage. ..."
"... If the FBI believed Page had become a Russian spy it would have been easy due to their prior relationship with him to interview him and if he lied, to prosecute him for the process crime of perjury. That is such a slam dunk that the fact they didn't do that makes it seem there's something fishy there. ..."
"... And they never verified Steele's allegation that Page met with Sechin and Divyekin which would have been easy to do and now it seems was pure fabrication. Instead the FBI and DOJ lied and misrepresented to FISC to get a surveillance warrant on Page. This seems rather fishy. I speculate they did that to gain incidental collection on members of the Trump campaign. ..."
"... I note that Page hasn't been charged by the DOJ for any crime. ..."
"... Instead of working hard to protect national security, the FBI/CIA/DOJ' senior-idiots (accustomed to comfort and hefty checks) have been politicking and meddling in the electoral process. Meanwhile, the foreign nationals were left free to surf congressional computers – for years! (See Awan affair) and the "natives" like Clinton et al have been making a lot of money by getting huge bribes from Russians and Saudis (see Uranium One, involving Mueller for all other people). ..."
"... Carter Page during his period of cooperation with the FBI, almost certainly was handled by Agents assigned to a field office. I wonder what they had to say, assuming they even knew, about HQ opening a CI case targeting their former cooperating witness for FISA coverage. It will be very interesting to see who handled Steele. Strzok? ..."
"... What was the compelling evidence and who furnished it to turn a US Naval Academy graduate, and presumably a Naval Officer with a readily accessible track record in service, into the targeted subject of an espionage investigation. Did he even have any current access to classified information? This is not looking good. ..."
"... Carter Page is indeed a puzzlement. I don't see any account of him being an FBI informant, but he was a witness in the investigation and trial of the three SVR officers who tried to recruit him in 2013. ..."
"... Obama claimed something to the effect that, it turns out I am pretty good at killing people. This was in reference to the drone program and assume I don't need to footnote. Perhaps he got the notion that his administration was pretty good at intelligence. ..."
Feb 26, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

After reading the memo championed by Democrat Adam Schiff , which was promised to rebut the memo produced by the Republican majority on the House Intel Committee, I was reminded of a Peggy Lee song-- Is That All There Is?

Devin Nunes and his team have saved me the effort of pointing out the problems with the Schiff rebuttal. I am presenting that in full. Here is the bottomline--we now know that Christopher Steele was not a "one-time Charlie." He had a longstanding covert relationship as an FBI intelligence asset. The Democrat memo does nothing to dispute that fact.

It also is clear that DOJ and FBI personnel engaged in unprofessional (and possibly illegal) conduct with respect to making representations to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Three key points on this front--1: The so-called Steele dossier was proffered as evidence to the FISC without fully disclosing that Steele was a covert asset being paid for his work and that Democrat political operatives were also paying him; 2: Senior DOJ officials, particularly Bruce Our, were totally comprised yet continued to be involved in the process; and 3: The Democrats insist that Carter Page is a bad guy and deserves to be investigated. Yet, no charges have been filed against him and the allegations leveled in the Steele dossier were dismissed by former FBI Director Comey as "salacious and unverified."

Anyway, here are the main points from the Democrat memo and the Republican response.

Publius Tacitus -> steve... , 25 February 2018 at 03:12 PM

Steve,

Page was a campaign nobody. Never had a meeting with Trump. Never briefed Trump. That's what is one of the bizarre aspects of this.

james , 25 February 2018 at 08:53 PM
from page 2 of the pdf - https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_redacted_minority_memo.pdf

"George Papadopoulos revealed [redacted] that individuals linked to Russia, who took interest in Papadopoulos as a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, informed him in late April 2016 that Russia [two lines redacted]. Papadopoulos's disclosure, moreover, occurred against the backdrop of Russia's aggressive covert campaign to influence our elections, which the FBI was already monitoring. We would later learn in Papadopoulos's plea that the information the Russians could assist by anonymously releasing were thousands of Hillary Clinton emails."

my problem with this is wikileaks released the e mails via a search-able archive on march 16th 2016...

i still don't see how anything papadopolous said is relevant time wise.. what am i missing here, other then the obvious fact papadopolous looks like a lousy liar.. apparently he got this from Joseph Mifsud who as it turns out was 'director of the London Academy of Diplomacy' and etc - according to the nyt here - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/europe/russia-us-election-joseph-mifsud.html

and from the nyt article "Mr. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with the "professor." Mr. Mifsud is referred to in the papers only as "the professor," based in London, but a Senate aide familiar with emails involving Mr. Mifsud -- lawmakers in both the Senate and the House are investigating Russia's role in the election -- confirmed that he was the person cited."

the whole thing of russia influencing the usa election seems built on via a number of sketchy characters at best..

at any rate - this is what emptywheel thinks is relevant in an otherwise irrelevant memo from schiff... i don't get how it is!

RC said in reply to Fred ... , 25 February 2018 at 09:50 PM
Fred,

The whole Memo discussion above concerns the FBI's data manipulations to cast Carter Page as a spy worthy of an Article 1 warrant by the FISC. As I explained above, once Admiral Rogers closed the FBI's access to the NSA mega-file, the Bureau developed several work-arounds to explain how the FBI had data from the mega-file that they were mining through our Ambassador to the UN.

Fusion GPS immediately hired the wife of FBI manager Bruce Ohr, Nellie, and Christopher Steele. Bruce handed material to Nellie, Nellie to Christopher. He repackaged the material claiming it was provided by very personal "Russian contacts" and the FBI then handed that laundered Steele material to the FISC.

This laundering operation was exposed with a mistake concerning Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen was actually attending a family celebration and a ball game here in the US when he supposedly met Steele's "Russian contacts" in Prague. Steele's contacts, who exist only in his mind, dutifully confirmed that the meeting took place in Prague.

I wish I might be a sock-puppet, but too many of my condo neighbors know otherwise. My favorite hobby in retirement is writing films for children, in which white hats succeed and black hats don't.

Steve McIntyre , 25 February 2018 at 10:25 PM
Bill Binney, on Jimmy Dore show, said that FISA warrant enabled "two hop" surveillance. If so, then Carter Page FISA warrant does much, much more than surveille Page himself -- it permits surveillance of most of the Trump campaign.
Tel said in reply to Boronx... , 25 February 2018 at 10:40 PM
"The entire case against the FBI rests on the idea that they cannot seek a warrant using biased evidence."
The FBI can use any evidence that is convincing to a judge.

Ahhhh, but they cannot legally tell lies to the judge during that process.

RC , 25 February 2018 at 11:19 PM
Hi Fred,

In some ways, being a sock-puppet and napping, in a bureau drawer (?), between soliloquies would be rather peaceful. Alas, too many of my condo neighbors know me to be otherwise !

Do check out sites such as The Conservative Treehouse and you will discover that Admiral Rogers' closing the NSA mega-file to the FBI led to Nellie Ohr's & Christopher Steele's information laundering operation. Other sites yet will introduce you to FISC Chief Judge Rosemary Collyer's 99-page rebuke of the FBI for their defalcations.

At a minimum, you won't be surprised when a plethora of FBI / DOJ / State Department employees are found guilty and sent to prison.

Enrico Malatesta , 26 February 2018 at 12:06 AM
My "dog that didn't bark" question about Carter Page - if Carter Page was such a known danger, why didn't the FBI warn the Trump Campaign against letting him become involved in the campaign?
blue peacock , 26 February 2018 at 03:53 AM
A cogent critique of the Schiff memo and how it doesn't aid the Democrats.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/schiff-memo-russia-investigation-harms-democrats-more-than-helps-them/

The memo does note that "the FBI also interviewed Page multiple times about his Russian intelligence contacts." Apparently, these interviews stretch back to 2013. The memo also lets slip that there was at least one more interview with Page in March 2016, before the counterintelligence investigation began. We must assume that Page was a truthful informant since his information was used in a prosecution against Russian spies and Page himself has never been accused of lying to the FBI .

So . . . here's the question: When Steele brought the FBI his unverified allegations that Page had met with Sechin and Divyekin, why didn't the FBI call Page in for an interview rather than subject him to FISA surveillance? Lest you wonder, this is not an instance of me second-guessing the Bureau with an investigative plan I think would have been better. It is a requirement of FISA law.

When the FBI and DOJ apply for a FISA warrant, they must convince the court that surveillance -- a highly intrusive tactic by which the government monitors all of an American citizen's electronic communications -- is necessary because the foreign-intelligence information the government seeks "cannot reasonably be obtained by normal investigative techniques." (See FISA, Section 1804(a)(6)(C) of Title 50, U.S. Code.) Normal investigative techniques include interviewing the subject. There are, of course, situations in which such alternative investigative techniques will inevitably fail -- a mafia don or a jihadist is not likely to sit down with FBI agents and tell them everything he knows. But Carter Page was not only likely to do so, he had a documented history of providing information to the FBI .

There's a reason why Nunes, Goodlatte and Grassley are focused on the Clinton commissioned Fusion GPS dossier, Christopher Steele and the FISA Title 1 warrant on Carter Page. It is the simplest path to the conspiracy at the Obama administration.

jonst said in reply to Boronx... , 26 February 2018 at 09:35 AM
My, street sense, and experience as a lawyer tells me that -- "tips, confessions.." from informants is true Steve. But the bar for going after a drug dealer, or fence, or kiddie porn type, is supposed -- one assumes -- to be a hell of a lot lower than going after the nominee for President of a major political party.
Green Zone Café , 26 February 2018 at 11:11 AM
Welcome to the criminal defense world. Everyday, hundreds of warrants based on the statements of criminals, paid informers, bitter ex-girlfriends, lying cops, and even non-existent "confidential informants" are issued. With all but the most blatant provably false affidavits, questionable searches are upheld by judges.

At this point I'm just waiting for Mueller's final indictments and the report. The facts will be there, or they won't.

If they are, try arguing a Motion to Suppress Evidence in the impeachment trial. That'll get you far . . .

Sid Finster , 26 February 2018 at 11:14 AM
The dog that didn't bark - if the Schiff Memo were so powerful, such a slam dunk, every MSM outlet in the western world would be trumpeting it to the skies and talking about nothing but. They seem to be barely able to acknowledge the existence of the Memo.
David Habakkuk -> RC... , 26 February 2018 at 11:28 AM
RC,

It really does help if, when you make claims, you link to the source so that others can evaluate them. In the case of the claims you are making, the source is clearly a post two days ago by 'sundance' on the 'Conservative Treehouse' site entitled 'Tying All The Loose Threads Together – DOJ, FBI, DoS, White House: "Operation Latitude" '

(See https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/24/tying-all-the-loose-threads-together-doj-fbi-dos-white-house-operation-latitude/ .)

As it happens, I think the suggestion that Steele's role may have been, in very substantial measure, to give the impression that material from other source was the product of a high-quality 'humint' investigation merits being taken extremely seriously.

However, to repeat claims by 'sundance', while not taking the – rather minimal – amount of trouble required to provide the link which allows others to evaluate them, simply puts people's backs up and makes them less likely to take what you are suggesting seriously.

DianaLC , 26 February 2018 at 01:55 PM
PT,

In the words of Emily Dickinson, I'm nobody. So., I come here to test my reaction when I read what the Democrats wrote -- though it was hard to get any continuity while reading because of all the big black lines--I was completely underwhelmed. I hate it when someone claims that what he/she is going to say will be something that will change my entire Weltanschauung and it turns out to be a nothing burger, in today's parance.

So thank you for confirming my opinion of the memo and thanks to others who have commented and who have way more experience and knowledge about how our Swam works (or doesn't work?).

My first reaction before I even tried to read the memo was correct. My first instinct was to judge on the basis of personality, which I know is not often logical. I felt that nothing put out under Schiff's authority could change my mind about the point Nunes made when he put out his mamo. Schiff's defence sounded so, pardon the pun, shifty and did nothing to really counter the main point Nunes made when he released his memo.

Schiff's memo was basically a vendetta against persons. Page and Papadopolis (sp?) are obviously the unpopular kids in the minds of the "mean girl" Democrats because they had links to Trump, the real threat to the popular girl Democrats. All we have to do is hear their names and we should automatically decide that if we want to be popular, we should malign them also so as to malign Trump and gain our entrance into the popular group in the cafeteria.

Jack said in reply to blue peacock... , 26 February 2018 at 02:00 PM
blue peacock,

Thanks for that link.

Funnily enough the question raised in your excerpt is exactly what I've been thinking since reading a post by TTG about Carter Page being an important FBI informant and state witness to the prosecution of Russian espionage.

If the FBI believed Page had become a Russian spy it would have been easy due to their prior relationship with him to interview him and if he lied, to prosecute him for the process crime of perjury. That is such a slam dunk that the fact they didn't do that makes it seem there's something fishy there.

And they never verified Steele's allegation that Page met with Sechin and Divyekin which would have been easy to do and now it seems was pure fabrication. Instead the FBI and DOJ lied and misrepresented to FISC to get a surveillance warrant on Page. This seems rather fishy. I speculate they did that to gain incidental collection on members of the Trump campaign.

I note that Page hasn't been charged by the DOJ for any crime. I agree with you that the investigation of the "conspiracy" is moving along well despite the roadblocks by the DOJ. Goodlatte who has seen the FISA application has now requested all the DOJ testimony from FISC. In a recent interview Rep. Ratcliffe who has also seen the FISA application made an interesting point that since in a FISC proceeding the accused has no ability to challenge the prosecution's claims, the prosecution has an affirmative obligation under FISA to present all the evidence, which the DOJ did not do but instead knowingly mislead the court.

It looks like we're heading towards another special counsel to investigate law enforcement and the IC regarding both the Trump and Clinton counter-intelligence investigations as well as the IC and media propaganda efforts to build hysteria around the meme of collusion of the Trump campaign with the Russian government. That investigation could lead all the way into the Obama White House.

Anna said in reply to Leaky Ranger... , 26 February 2018 at 02:56 PM
Your answer deserves F.

See post No 14: "...the FBI also interviewed Page multiple times about his Russian intelligence contacts." Apparently, these interviews stretch back to 2013. The memo also lets slip that there was at least one more interview with Page in March 2016, before the counterintelligence investigation began. We must assume that Page was a truthful informant since his information was used in a prosecution against Russian spies and Page himself has never been accused of lying to the FBI."

The case is not closed – it is closing on the high-placed violators of the US Constitution --as well as on their lack of professionalism, sheer incompetence and promiscuous opportunism

Instead of working hard to protect national security, the FBI/CIA/DOJ' senior-idiots (accustomed to comfort and hefty checks) have been politicking and meddling in the electoral process. Meanwhile, the foreign nationals were left free to surf congressional computers – for years! (See Awan affair) and the "natives" like Clinton et al have been making a lot of money by getting huge bribes from Russians and Saudis (see Uranium One, involving Mueller for all other people).

There is another big Q: To what extend both the FBI and the CIA have been infiltrated by Israel-firsters that are loyal to Zion, and how extensive is the damage inflicted by the "duals" on the US.

RC said in reply to David Habakkuk ... , 26 February 2018 at 03:30 PM
Thank you David -- will do so in the future.
outthere , 26 February 2018 at 04:30 PM
Some commentators here seem not to know this simple fact: prosecutors in USA have enormous power. They can make mountains of molehills. And their most powerful weapon is the law of conspiracy. Here is an explanation by an experienced attorney:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/26/thirteen-russians-a-defense-lawyer-decodes-the-mueller-indictments/
Flavius , 26 February 2018 at 05:32 PM
Most unusual, I would say, for an Agent in an upper management position in FBI HQ to open a counter intelligence case and then for all intents and purposes assign it to himself. Cases are normally worked and directly supervised in field offices.

Carter Page during his period of cooperation with the FBI, almost certainly was handled by Agents assigned to a field office. I wonder what they had to say, assuming they even knew, about HQ opening a CI case targeting their former cooperating witness for FISA coverage. It will be very interesting to see who handled Steele. Strzok?

What was the compelling evidence and who furnished it to turn a US Naval Academy graduate, and presumably a Naval Officer with a readily accessible track record in service, into the targeted subject of an espionage investigation. Did he even have any current access to classified information? This is not looking good.

The Twisted Genius -> Jack... , 26 February 2018 at 07:29 PM
Jack,

Carter Page is indeed a puzzlement. I don't see any account of him being an FBI informant, but he was a witness in the investigation and trial of the three SVR officers who tried to recruit him in 2013.

If he was an informant, the FBI would not have had to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil him in 2014. That also raises doubts about how cooperative he was during that investigation and the 2015 Russian spy trial.

Obviously he didn't obstruct the investigation or prosecution or he would have been charged for that long ago. I get the impression he is a lot more wily than most people give him credit for.

Duck1 , 26 February 2018 at 08:37 PM
Obama claimed something to the effect that, it turns out I am pretty good at killing people. This was in reference to the drone program and assume I don't need to footnote. Perhaps he got the notion that his administration was pretty good at intelligence.

[Feb 19, 2018] Nunes FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Nunes chances to bring perpetrators to justice are close to zero. The Deep State controls the Washington, DC and can withstand sporadic attacks.
It is an extremly courageous of Devin Nunes to give this interview.
Notable quotes:
"... Throwing down the gauntlet on alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the Department of Justice and the FBI, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) stated that there could be legal consequences for officials who may have misled the FISA court. "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said. "The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created." ..."
"... Nunes took this highly unusual, no-holds-barred stance during an interview with Emmy-award winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson , which aired on Sunday. ..."
"... He unapologetically averred that, yes, a criminal trial might well be the outcome. "DOJ and FBI are not above the law," he stated emphatically. "If they are committing abuse before a secret court getting warrants on American citizens, you're darn right that we're going to put them on trial." ..."
"... The stakes are very high. Current and former senior officials -- and not only from DOJ and FBI, but from other agencies like the CIA and NSA, whom documents and testimony show were involved in providing faulty information to justify a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign official Carter Page -- may suddenly find themselves in considerable legal jeopardy. Like, felony territory. ..."
"... On the other hand, the presumptive perps have not run into a chairman like Nunes in four decades, since Congressmen Lucien Nedzi (D-Mich.), Otis Pike (D-NY), and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) ran tough, explosive hearings on the abuses of a previous generation deep state, including massive domestic spying revealed by quintessential investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in December 1974. (Actually, this is largely why the congressional intelligence oversight committees were later established, and why the FISA law was passed in 1978.) ..."
"... At this point, one is tempted to say plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose ..."
"... One glaring sign of the media's unwillingness to displease corporate masters and Official Washington is the harsh reality that Hersh's most recent explosive investigations, using his large array of government sources to explore front-burner issues, have not been able to find a home in any English-speaking newspaper or journal. ..."
"... On this point, Nunes said, "In the last administration they were unmasking hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of Americans' names. They were unmasking for what I would say, for lack of a better definition, were for political purposes." ..."
"... It is real courageous of Devin Nunes to give this interview. It is not only the accountability to law that is at stake in U.S., but the Whole World is imperiled with what happens in Washington. But as many have written before in comments about this complete moral collapse of the Entire West, I am afraid, it is all going to be swept under the rug. We have to just keep the fingers crossed. ..."
"... I have never seen such media bias against a sitting president in my lifetime, not even against Richard Nixon when they at least practiced decorum and feigned objectivity even if they were secretly cheering on his demise. I will reiterate here that I do not champion the man but rather due process under our constitution, which has been made a travesty from the moment of Clinton's loss at the polls. ..."
"... I completely agree with you Realist. I am not Trump's fan or supporter of his agenda, in fact, in many things quite the opposite of it. However, he raised some very valid points about the the domestic economy and other issues, and about the need to stop interventions in foreign countries, and getting along Russia, and the need to rebuild country's manufacturing system again. He was duly elected by the people, and he should have been given the support to pursue what he promised. But it did not happen. ..."
"... Although it's being done for the wrong reasons, I am nevertheless looking forward to seeing our out-of-control intelligence agencies being put in their place. If I were president and my party controlled both houses of Congress, you'd better believe I'd be looking to dismantle the national surveillance state and reduce the military budget to a "mere" $250 billion annually. ..."
"... The post 9-11 wars of aggression, massive surveillance, torture and other war crimes were sold to the American public as only to be inflicted on foreigners, i.e. "we fight them over there so we don't fight them here." But the blowback has now turned America's schools, malls, workplaces, concerts and churches into war zones and little by little, the disinformation ops, "regime change" know-how and other accoutrements of perpetual war (the fool's errand of gaining full spectrum dominance over the rest of the world) have been turned inward on the American people, including powerful American officials themselves. So it would seem to be a good thing that some politicians like Nunes have finally seen the light exactly as Frank Church did -- only when they themselves began to reap the negative consequences of what they thought would only negatively impact other, lesser people. ..."
"... But there is more to it, as some have pointed out in comments above, there are some intra-party quarrels going on in Washington to take the upper hand. Regarding foreign policy, National Security State and surveillance, and other such issues, both parties are joined at the hip. ..."
"... It is instructive to read the comments on any NYT article on this subject. The comments are clearly written by intelligent, well-educated individuals – who parrot the Deep State's anti-Russian propaganda as if they were the dumbest of the "Better dead than Red!" 50s McCarthyites. ..."
"... The new McCarthyites are actually stupider and more authoritarian than their sad fore-bearers, because they could pierce the Deep States lies with 30 minutes of online research, but they prefer tribalism and ignorance, instead. ..."
"... Trump started going head to head with the intel folks, but has backed down a lot now. Let's hope Nunes et al hang in there and keep the pressure on these despicable criminals who hide behind governmental powers. ..."
"... Somehow I don't think Nunes or his committee is capable of reigning in Frankenstein. His "constitutuents"" are not likely to allow it and although the monster was pieced together from many body parts its instincts for self-preservation are formidable. Nevertheless, I would applaud anyone who makes the effort. ..."
"... Note that after saying the Russians are indicted for interfering in the election, and spending 5 minutes on this, at the 5 minute 20 second mark Rosenstein says there is no evidence that the Russians had any affect [sic] on the election! So what we have is the Deputy Attorney General of the United States announcing an indictment for which he says there is no evidence! ..."
"... In the world of cypher espionage I have no knowledge, but if Russia does hang out in it well then I'm sure the U.S. is already there to do what it must to defend it's cypher security. So that's a wash, but this insane Russia-Gate distraction was originally a way to deflect attention from Hillary & Debbie's putting the screws to Socialist Sanders . then Russia-Gate became a MSM driven coup to oust Trump from his Electoral won presidential office. ..."
"... Impossible to get the whole Gorgon's head, anyway, in such a corrupt system as we have ..."
"... Ray, do you think Trump has made a deal: he'll allow escalations against Russia, and in return the Deep State will leave him alone? If so, does that portend that this will fizzle out? ..."
"... While the shiny ball, smoke and mirrors psychological operation known as "Russiagate" has begun running on fumes before the gas tank finally runs dry, the major revelation of the Clinton WikiLeaks emails describing Saudi/Qatari financing of ISIS drops further down the memory hole. There's nothing like success ..."
Feb 19, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes has stated that "DOJ and FBI are not above the law," and could face legal consequences for alleged abuses of the FISA court, reports Ray McGovern.

Throwing down the gauntlet on alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the Department of Justice and the FBI, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) stated that there could be legal consequences for officials who may have misled the FISA court. "If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial," he said. "The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created."

Nunes took this highly unusual, no-holds-barred stance during an interview with Emmy-award winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson , which aired on Sunday.

Attkisson said she had invited both Nunes and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) but that only Nunes agreed. She asked him about Schiff's charge that Nunes' goal was "to put the FBI and DOJ on trial." What followed was very atypical bluntness -- candor normally considered quite unacceptable in polite circles of the Washington Establishment.

Rather than play the diplomat and disavow what Schiff contended was Nunes' goal, Nunes said, in effect, let the chips fall where they may. He unapologetically averred that, yes, a criminal trial might well be the outcome. "DOJ and FBI are not above the law," he stated emphatically. "If they are committing abuse before a secret court getting warrants on American citizens, you're darn right that we're going to put them on trial."

Die Is Cast

The stakes are very high. Current and former senior officials -- and not only from DOJ and FBI, but from other agencies like the CIA and NSA, whom documents and testimony show were involved in providing faulty information to justify a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign official Carter Page -- may suddenly find themselves in considerable legal jeopardy. Like, felony territory.

This was not supposed to happen. Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? Back when the FISA surveillance warrant of Page was obtained, just weeks before the November 2016 election, there seemed to be no need to hide tracks, because, even if these extracurricular activities were discovered, the perps would have looked forward to award certificates rather than legal problems under a Trump presidency.

Thus, the knives will be coming out. Mostly because the mainstream media will make a major effort -- together with Schiff-mates in the Democratic Party -- to marginalize Nunes, those who find themselves in jeopardy can be expected to push back strongly.

If past is precedent, they will be confident that, with their powerful allies within the FBI/DOJ/CIA "Deep State" they will be able to counter Nunes and show him and the other congressional investigation committee chairs, where the power lies. The conventional wisdom is that Nunes and the others have bit off far more than they can chew. And the odds do not favor folks, including oversight committee chairs, who buck the system.

Staying Power

On the other hand, the presumptive perps have not run into a chairman like Nunes in four decades, since Congressmen Lucien Nedzi (D-Mich.), Otis Pike (D-NY), and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) ran tough, explosive hearings on the abuses of a previous generation deep state, including massive domestic spying revealed by quintessential investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in December 1974. (Actually, this is largely why the congressional intelligence oversight committees were later established, and why the FISA law was passed in 1978.)

At this point, one is tempted to say plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose -- or the more things change, the more they stay the same -- but that would be only half correct in this context. Yes, scoundrels will always take liberties with the law to spy on others. But the huge difference today is that mainstream media have no room for those who uncover government crimes and abuse. And this will be a major impediment to efforts by Nunes and other committee chairs to inform the public.

One glaring sign of the media's unwillingness to displease corporate masters and Official Washington is the harsh reality that Hersh's most recent explosive investigations, using his large array of government sources to explore front-burner issues, have not been able to find a home in any English-speaking newspaper or journal. In a sense, this provides what might be called a "confidence-building" factor, giving some assurance to deep-state perps that they will be able to ride this out, and that congressional committee chairs will once again learn to know their (subservient) place.

Much will depend on whether top DOJ and FBI officials can bring themselves to reverse course and give priority to the oath they took to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. This should not be too much to hope for, but it will require uncommon courage in facing up honestly to the major misdeeds appear to have occurred -- and letting the chips fall where they may. Besides, it would be the right thing to do.

Nunes is projecting calm confidence that once he and Trey Gowdey (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, release documentary evidence showing what their investigations have turned up, it will be hard for DOJ and FBI officials to dissimulate.

In Other News

In the interview with Attkisson, Nunes covered a number of other significant issues:

The committee is closing down its investigation into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign; no evidence of collusion was found. The apparently widespread practice of "unmasking" the identities of Americans under surveillance. On this point, Nunes said, "In the last administration they were unmasking hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of Americans' names. They were unmasking for what I would say, for lack of a better definition, were for political purposes." Asked about Schiff's criticism that Nunes behaved improperly on what he called the "midnight run to the White House," Nunes responded that the stories were untrue. "Well, most of the time I ignore political nonsense in this town," he said. "What I will say is that all of those stories were totally fake from the beginning."

Not since Watergate has there been so high a degree of political tension here in Washington but the stakes for our Republic are even higher this time. Assuming abuse of FISA court procedures is documented and those responsible for playing fast and loose with the required justification for legal warrants are not held to account, the division of powers enshrined in the Constitution will be in peril.

A denouement of some kind can be expected in the coming months. Stay tuned.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Skip Scott , February 19, 2018 at 9:38 am

Thanks Ray for another great article. One can only hope that Nunes is successful. However, like you say, the MSM is now complicit with the "Deep State", so the fight for justice becomes much harder. One also has to remember Schumer's "six ways from Sunday" applies equally to the congress as it does to the president. I hardly ever watch TV news, but recently I've been subjected to it, and I've seen a deluge of fluff pieces on our so-called Intelligence Agencies. I would love to see Trump give a speech (instead of a tweet) directly to the American people letting them know what rascals like Brennan, Clapper, et al have been up to.

Bob Van Noy , February 19, 2018 at 12:51 pm

This may be the best broadcast tv journalism in many years, read Sharyl Attkisson's story, "Stonewalled" (I will link the commentary page to that book for thorough readers). And thank you Nat, Ray McGovern & CN

https://www.amazon.com/Stonewalled-Obstruction-Intimidation-Harassment-Washington/dp/0062322850/ref=sr_1_1/140-4375232-2286101?ie=UTF8&qid=1519058613&sr=8-1&keywords=stonewalled#customerReviews

Dave P. , February 19, 2018 at 2:29 pm

An excellent and very timely article by Ray McGovern. Lawlessness, greed, complete subservience to Wall Street Finance and other Powers, insanity, and utter inhumanity prevails in present day Ruling Establishment in Washington. Obama, "the hope and change" Con Artist for whose election, being democrats we worked so hard in 2008 turned to be the biggest perpetrator of this lawlessness and responsible for fanning the flames still further in starting a new Cold War.

It is real courageous of Devin Nunes to give this interview. It is not only the accountability to law that is at stake in U.S., but the Whole World is imperiled with what happens in Washington. But as many have written before in comments about this complete moral collapse of the Entire West, I am afraid, it is all going to be swept under the rug. We have to just keep the fingers crossed.

Howard Dean just said yesterday that Nunes and people like him belong in jail. Now can you believe it, how low these so called liberal democrats have come to? Looking at the pictures of Adam Schiff, Howard Dean, and others in their company, I literally feel sick in the stomach. And one asks the essential question: "did not their parents teach them any honesty or moral principles in young age?".

Abbybwood , February 19, 2018 at 3:54 pm

But what he said is very confusing. First he says that Congress has no way to prosecute the DOJ/FBI for wrong doing then at the end he says Congress will need to prosecute the DOJ/FBI if necessary. Either Congress has the ability to prosecute the DOJ/FBI and issue indictments and set up Grand Juries or they don't.

Somebody needs to find out, Constitutionally, what the solution is when the DOJ/FBI at the highest levels become the criminals. WHO has the power to indict/convict these individuals??

Sam F , February 19, 2018 at 10:36 pm

A special prosecutor (Mueller's position) is appointed by the Pres or AG.

Annie , February 19, 2018 at 3:20 pm

From what I've heard expressed by a few FBI people, you don't come before a court, but a judge, one person, and they are known to rubber stamp almost everything. So they should be investigated too.

Realist , February 19, 2018 at 5:02 pm

I have never seen such media bias against a sitting president in my lifetime, not even against Richard Nixon when they at least practiced decorum and feigned objectivity even if they were secretly cheering on his demise. I will reiterate here that I do not champion the man but rather due process under our constitution, which has been made a travesty from the moment of Clinton's loss at the polls.

Dave P. , February 19, 2018 at 7:56 pm

I completely agree with you Realist. I am not Trump's fan or supporter of his agenda, in fact, in many things quite the opposite of it. However, he raised some very valid points about the the domestic economy and other issues, and about the need to stop interventions in foreign countries, and getting along Russia, and the need to rebuild country's manufacturing system again. He was duly elected by the people, and he should have been given the support to pursue what he promised. But it did not happen. We would not know now what he actually wanted to accomplish.

Sam F , February 19, 2018 at 10:41 pm

Yes, neither party nor the mass media shows concern for the Constitution or for the people. As the propaganda agency, the mass media are primarily responsible. The zionist/WallSt/MIC oligarchy have consolidated control over mass media, secret agencies, and elections, but not without factions.

Michael , February 19, 2018 at 10:00 am

Although it's being done for the wrong reasons, I am nevertheless looking forward to seeing our out-of-control intelligence agencies being put in their place. If I were president and my party controlled both houses of Congress, you'd better believe I'd be looking to dismantle the national surveillance state and reduce the military budget to a "mere" $250 billion annually.

Joe Tedesky , February 19, 2018 at 11:09 am

Michael I hear ya. Yes, there is a civil war of sorts going on in DC, and yes it would be a wonderful thing to rid our bureaucracy of all the slim that is in it, but taking Jiminy Cricket's good advice to heart would be so much more fruitful to if you and I would only sing;

'When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you"

Now that song will be stuck in my head all day .got any Journey? Joe

Coleen Rowley , February 19, 2018 at 3:27 pm

It's true that people generally do not care when bad practices, policies or violence is inflicted on others and not on themselves. Of course that's stupid because it's just a matter of time before "blowback" occurs (as the CIA euphemistically labeled how doing unto others eventually boomerangs back on perpetrators). Going back to the Church Committee and how that bit of accountability finally happened, it only got off the ground when Frank Church and other Senators found THEMSELVES in the crosshairs of FBI Cointelpro; CIA's "CHAOS" and NSA's "Minaret" surveillance. http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/25/secret-cold-war-documents-reveal-nsa-spied-on-senators/ (To this day, only 7 of the 1000 or so Americans targeted by the NSA during the Vietnam War have been discovered but their identities are telling.)

The post 9-11 wars of aggression, massive surveillance, torture and other war crimes were sold to the American public as only to be inflicted on foreigners, i.e. "we fight them over there so we don't fight them here." But the blowback has now turned America's schools, malls, workplaces, concerts and churches into war zones and little by little, the disinformation ops, "regime change" know-how and other accoutrements of perpetual war (the fool's errand of gaining full spectrum dominance over the rest of the world) have been turned inward on the American people, including powerful American officials themselves. So it would seem to be a good thing that some politicians like Nunes have finally seen the light exactly as Frank Church did -- only when they themselves began to reap the negative consequences of what they thought would only negatively impact other, lesser people.

BobS , February 19, 2018 at 4:50 pm

" the blowback has now turned America's schools, malls, workplaces, concerts and churches into war zones"

"blowback" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, if you're referring specifically to "post 9-11 wars of aggression, massive surveillance, torture and other war crimes". Whenever the incidents have had a political agenda attached, it's more often than not been of the domestic right-wing variety. And of course, all of them have been facilitated by easy civilian access to hardware that was originally developed by the military (ours and the Soviets) to efficiently kill/incapacitate large numbers of enemy fighters.

Gregory Herr , February 19, 2018 at 7:30 pm

BobS fails to understand that blowback encapsulates more than "revenge". "Forever war" and all Colleen mentions that goes with it has had societal impact because violence is glorified as a "solution" and feelings of suspicion and antagonism become part of the dark undertow.

Sam F , February 19, 2018 at 10:54 pm

Well said, Colleen. Let us hope that Nunes is not merely acting the part. I wonder whether the greatest secrets of domestic spying are now so compartmentalized and controlled that only those most dependent upon their agency could blow the whistle.

Annie , February 19, 2018 at 4:23 pm

This is not to be compared to spying on citizens, which is unacceptable, but they tried to undermine a presidency, whether you like Trump or not, and at the same time it allowed them to push their cold war agenda. I remember Clinton's campaign manager coming out right after the e-mail dump that said the Russians did it. And didn't Obama send a lot of those Russian ambassadors packing? They should be investigated, as should the FISA court itself. Perhaps if Trump didn't have this charge of colluding with Russia he might have been able to be more diplomatic on that score. Now, they made sure he would never be getting along with Russia. What they have now is a bunch of Russians acting on their own that allegedly interfered in our elections and created political discord, which is absurd, since the democrats are mainly responsible for this nonsense, as is the FBI and DOJ. I was a democrat, but no more.

Dave P. , February 19, 2018 at 4:52 pm

Annie, you are right on that. However, Coleen Rowely has also made some very good observations in her comments. But there is more to it, as some have pointed out in comments above, there are some intra-party quarrels going on in Washington to take the upper hand. Regarding foreign policy, National Security State and surveillance, and other such issues, both parties are joined at the hip.

Gregory Herr , February 19, 2018 at 7:42 pm

I wouldn't completely discount the idea that Nunes' sense of responsibility has been activated by being a close witness to what is blatant wrongdoing. But then my cynicism is still tempered by the belief that sometimes people are compelled to do what's right just because it's what's right. Silly me.

Virginia , February 19, 2018 at 10:34 am

Me, too, Michael, to " dismantle the national surveillance state and reduce the military budget to a 'mere' $250 billion annually."

Thanks to Ray McGovern for another good article with link to interview. Good to hear they will finally be closing the Mueller investigation (Nunes was straightforward about that, no there there) and will likely be investigating the FBI and DOJ.

Applause goes to David Nunes. Keep up the good work.

Abbybwood , February 19, 2018 at 4:03 pm

But I see where Trump asked for nearly one TRILLION dollars for the military and got it.

Pandas4peace , February 19, 2018 at 10:24 am

Where can we get access to Seymour Hersh's "recent explosive investigations" even if they are written in German?

Cherrycoke , February 19, 2018 at 11:57 am

https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s-Red-Line.html

There is more at the bottom of the page.

Ray McGovern , February 19, 2018 at 12:11 pm

Try this link: http://raymcgovern.com/?s=hersh+welt or simply search on consortiumnews.com webpage.

ray

mike k , February 19, 2018 at 2:54 pm

"On June 25th 2017 the German newspaper, Welt, published the latest piece by Seymour Hersh, countering the "mainstream" narrative around the April 4th 2017 Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack in Syria."

Ray McGovern , February 19, 2018 at 9:35 pm

Ranney,

Please have a look at this: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/25/intel-behind-trumps-syria-attack-questioned/

Consortiumnews.com publishes and comments on everything Pulitzer Prize winning Sy Hersh does. The problem is that he is BANNED from English-language pubs -- simply banned and even kept off erstwhile "liberal" TV and radio programs. Amy Goodman, for example, has ALWAYS had Sy on when he had a new story until this one. She would not touch it; these days prefers to go with the "White Helmets" of this world. O Tempora, O Mores. Sad.

So, in sum, the problem is a very basic one. Sy does not publish until he has nailed down every significant detail and, since he is so well plugged in with many longtime, trusted sources to sift through, that takes a while for a bit story -- as all of them are. And when he is ready to publish, he hears folks whisper "Leper" as he gets close to an editorial office. It really IS that bad. We owe the op-ed editor at die Welt our thanks.

Btw: The Consortiumnews.com main page has a SEARCH button that I find very handy. Try to search on Seymour Hersh. Same goes for easily searchable raymcgovern.com, my website.

Ray

David Otness , February 19, 2018 at 5:37 pm

The London Review of Books has been publishing Hersh's work. That's one source.

Ray McGovern , February 19, 2018 at 9:51 pm

David,

Not for his latest of last June. See explanation of LRB cave in at: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/25/intel-behind-trumps-syria-attack-questioned/

The ostracizing of Sy Hersh is a major -- if highly depressing -- story in and of itself. But he is irrepressible. I do not think he is going to silently steal away any time soon.

Ray McGovern

Kim Dixon , February 19, 2018 at 10:32 am

Can anyone imagine the Neocon WashPo, or the NYT (or CBS, or CNN, or ) committing actual journalism, as this story progresses?

That, and the DNC's commitment to the DNC to the Russia Did It!™ canard, will ensure that real revelations go nowhere.

It is instructive to read the comments on any NYT article on this subject. The comments are clearly written by intelligent, well-educated individuals – who parrot the Deep State's anti-Russian propaganda as if they were the dumbest of the "Better dead than Red!" 50s McCarthyites.

The new McCarthyites are actually stupider and more authoritarian than their sad fore-bearers, because they could pierce the Deep States lies with 30 minutes of online research, but they prefer tribalism and ignorance, instead.

Lois Gagnon , February 19, 2018 at 1:01 pm

You got that right! I live in the 5 college area in Massachusetts. Plenty of those types around here playing activists. They fit your description. I can't stand to be in the same room with any of them. They may as well be from Mars.

Nancy , February 19, 2018 at 2:47 pm

I agree. The average working person has more common sense than the so-called intelligent, educated class. I suspect their views reflect the fact that they are very comfortable, financially, with the status quo, and don't want any real change.

mike k , February 19, 2018 at 10:35 am

Trump started going head to head with the intel folks, but has backed down a lot now. Let's hope Nunes et al hang in there and keep the pressure on these despicable criminals who hide behind governmental powers. When you allow people to do whatever they want in secret with no oversight, you can expect them to abuse their power. The basic question all this leads to is "who is running this country and making crucial decisions about war and peace, or fascism and democracy"?

BobH , February 19, 2018 at 10:52 am

Somehow I don't think Nunes or his committee is capable of reigning in Frankenstein. His "constitutuents"" are not likely to allow it and although the monster was pieced together from many body parts its instincts for self-preservation are formidable. Nevertheless, I would applaud anyone who makes the effort.

BobH , February 19, 2018 at 6:43 pm

Here's where Mueller's investigation didn't go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-2_Bc_7Pos

Bob Van Noy , February 19, 2018 at 7:11 pm

Thanks BobH, that's an excellent rant, thanks for passing it along.

Joe Tedesky , February 19, 2018 at 10:58 am

The only way any trail that Nunes could even begin to make magically appear to happen before our weary eyes will happen only, and I say only, will appear because it will be good for tv ratings. Enforcing Constitutional law, I mean who does that anymore? Why today in our nation's capital we have congressional people asking the opposite of what Ben Franklin warned us good citizens about as the swamp critters are saying, 'Constitution how can we lose it'. You know this Ray that these crooks and crookettes in DC think that the U.S. Constitution is so passé and so anciently colonial that they hear Jefferson saying, 'ignore this stupid document, I was drunk with Adams and Franklin when I wrote it. It was all a big mistake.' Or something like that, but Constitutional law we don't need no stink'n Constitutional law, now get back to your part time work. (Whip cracking sound)

Hey Ray this whole fiasco does what is most important in this new American century, this fiasco is entertaining and the ratings are going through the roof so with that what more could a red blooded good American ask for now pass the tv remote.

Joe Tedesky , February 19, 2018 at 11:29 am

Paul Craig Roberts may have nailed this thing: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/18/cbs-contradicts-muellers-report/

blimbax , February 19, 2018 at 9:21 pm

Paul Craig Roberts wrote,

Note that after saying the Russians are indicted for interfering in the election, and spending 5 minutes on this, at the 5 minute 20 second mark Rosenstein says there is no evidence that the Russians had any affect [sic] on the election! So what we have is the Deputy Attorney General of the United States announcing an indictment for which he says there is no evidence!

If we take Roberts' statement at face value, he may have inadvertenly mischaracterized Rosenstein's statement. According to Roberts, Rosenstein said there is no evidence of an effect on the election, but it does not follow from that that Rosenstein is saying that there is no evidence of interference. There may have been "interference" that had no impact. And, of course, there is the question, just what is meant by "interference" in this context?

I share the frustration many commenters have about the entire "Russiagate" narrative, but I think it is important to be careful in how we evaluate these statements. It may all be a "nothinburger," but it is important to describe things carefully and correctly. Otherwise, one ends up inadvertently setting up a straw man for someone else to knock down.

Joe Tedesky , February 19, 2018 at 10:25 pm

I share the stress you do blimblax that you and all who stay on this Russia-Gate pay-ops suffer, but the way this crooked nail investigation has been going, mostly distorted by the press coverage, your argument about the interpretation of Rosenstein's words to the general public will be like splitting hairs with bald people . they just won't get it, and why, because I'm not sure the vast amount of Americans get it now. They got turned off along time ago back when the FBI didn't produce Trump performing his much heard about Steele Dossier acclaimed Water Sports in his Moscow Obama's Presidential Suite sick, yes, but it's the truth. No pictures, no believe you.

Personally I have never doubted any Russian influence in the way of statements, or essays, but this contribution of opinion is to be expected from any well thinking country, or nation if you'd rather of the world. Plus the Russians spending wasn't even close to any real fraction of what both U.S. Presidential candidate spend on their campaigns, get real.

In the world of cypher espionage I have no knowledge, but if Russia does hang out in it well then I'm sure the U.S. is already there to do what it must to defend it's cypher security. So that's a wash, but this insane Russia-Gate distraction was originally a way to deflect attention from Hillary & Debbie's putting the screws to Socialist Sanders . then Russia-Gate became a MSM driven coup to oust Trump from his Electoral won presidential office.

We could argue to how Trump,should be questioned, or even brought up on impeachment charges, but not for this particular Russia interference into our so well guarded American democracy. In fact we Americans don't need any Russian help at bringing our American democracy down, because we Americans already did that with the Patriot Act as among a few many other things. Joe

Joe Tedesky , February 19, 2018 at 11:59 am

Here is a rant by Charles Hugh Smith: http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2018/02/russian-meddling-gagging-on-irony.html

SocraticGadfly , February 19, 2018 at 1:35 pm

Neither Dems nor GOP truly care about the First Amendment. Ray won't write about that. I have, re the Mueller indictments: http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/02/internet-research-agency-butt-hurt.html

Joe Tedesky , February 19, 2018 at 2:14 pm

That was a terrific read, and so is this: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/02/mueller-indictement-the-russian-influence-is-a-commercial-marketing-scheme.html#more

Enjoy. Joe

Bill , February 19, 2018 at 11:48 am

Somehow many Democrats are convinced that the FBI/DOJ did nothing wrong with regards to the FISA warrants. And they're still convinced that Trump colluded with Putin. Nothing will change their minds, it's hopeless.

Lois Gagnon , February 19, 2018 at 4:17 pm

It is indeed surreal to watch people who classify themselves as the left undermining the left by supporting the very agencies whose sole purpose from their inception is to destroy the left.

As David William Pear put it at OpEd News, "I don't think even Orwell has a scene like this: anti-authoritarian dissidents endorse more authoritarian means to weed out authoritarians resulting in authoritarians having more control to weed out dissidents."

I have a headache.

Jessika , February 19, 2018 at 11:55 am

The Deep State is very, very deep, and we're "Knee Deep in the Big Muddy" (Pete Seeger). Anybody knows the US Deep State was thoroughly entrenched by Reagan's time. It's overdue not to let this deep state corruption harden to concrete. I support neither party until there is a course correction, and Nunes makes valid points in support of a correction. Thanks, Ray.

BobS , February 19, 2018 at 11:58 am

Thin skinned too, eh Ray?
You're right, of course- Russia analysts at the CIA did stellar work in the 1980s.

Joe Tedesky , February 19, 2018 at 12:01 pm

No BobS it's you with your thickhead that doesn't get it. Keep it up BobS, because eventually you are going to say something funny. Take care. Joe

SocraticGadfly , February 19, 2018 at 1:34 pm

Ray continues to engage in two-siderism. He ignores digging into legit critiques of Mueller, as I have. http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2018/02/internet-research-agency-butt-hurt.html

Charles Misfeldt , February 19, 2018 at 11:58 am

Will Nunes or any conservative go after the thousands of illegal acts perpetrated by conservatives??? NO! Nunes, along with every conservative traitor in America (republican or democrat) needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The conservative agenda is not moral or constitutional.

BobS , February 19, 2018 at 1:09 pm

Considering their disregard for law as well as their worship of authoritarianism (exercised against the proper targets, of course), I'd say it's more than "self-enrichment" that drives conservatives, both ancient and modern.

Deniz , February 19, 2018 at 1:58 pm

Perhaps that is an issue, but I am unclear precisely what is wrong in Nunes position that he is relying on Gowdy, an undeniably sharp, precise, prosecutor, to review the examined material. Watching both Nunes and Gowdy in sessions, I would have probably, and gladly, made the same decision. It also make sense politically that they cover for each other, one person is expendable and takes the heat – Nunes, while the other – Gowdy, an upward star of the party, who probably ran the whole investigation anyway, keeps his hands clean.

BobS , February 19, 2018 at 2:09 pm

The always partisan "upward star" Trey 'BENGHAZI!!!' Gowdy announced his retirement from congress last month due to his being "sick of hyper-partisanship". And let me show you this bridge I'm selling

Deniz , February 19, 2018 at 2:32 pm

In fact, I would greatly enjoy a discussion on weapons transfers from Libya to Erdogan to Al – Qaeda via Clinton. This is actually one of my favorite topics. So have it.

Deniz , February 19, 2018 at 5:34 pm

So what is your argument, that we should be loyal to our crime family and not theirs?

Or do you think Hillary, "We came, we saw, he died" or Mueller, of nothing to see here on 9/11 notoriety are the sort of people we should be defending.

Jessika , February 19, 2018 at 12:07 pm

Impossible to get the whole Gorgon's head, anyway, in such a corrupt system as we have. Why else are we in such a mess? Both GOP and Democrats have not served the people, so we should therefore give up trying to address any abuse?

Antiwar7 , February 19, 2018 at 12:35 pm

Ray, do you think Trump has made a deal: he'll allow escalations against Russia, and in return the Deep State will leave him alone? If so, does that portend that this will fizzle out?

Gregory Herr , February 19, 2018 at 8:14 pm

So you are privy to the briefings in question. Just because Reagan bloated the military budget doesn't mean he was being fed false intelligence by McGovern.

On the other hand, it is well publicized that Cheney twisted arms at Langley and Tenet obliged and Rummy worked the Iraq angle as well. We also had the Downing Street Memo and the Powell fiasco and Valerie Plame. Ray was right to be indignant.

Jerry Alatalo , February 19, 2018 at 3:50 pm

While the shiny ball, smoke and mirrors psychological operation known as "Russiagate" has begun running on fumes before the gas tank finally runs dry, the major revelation of the Clinton WikiLeaks emails describing Saudi/Qatari financing of ISIS drops further down the memory hole. There's nothing like success

Drew Hunkins , February 19, 2018 at 3:59 pm

Good point Mr. Alatalo. The Saudi-Zio Terror Network gets away with murder, literally and figuratively and of course the Saudi-Zio Terror Network NEVER, EVER interferes in ANY elections in the United States, no never.

(sarcasm)

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , February 19, 2018 at 5:59 pm

Related news: Kim Dotcom: "Let Me Assure You, The DNC Hack Wasn't Even A Hack", https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-18/kim-dotcom-let-me-assure-you-dnc-hack-wasnt-even-hack (Kim Dot Com claims personal knowledge on who took the DNC emails (Seth Rich) and his lawyers wrote to Mueller twice, offering his testimony, but never heard back from Mueller).

Bob Van Noy , February 19, 2018 at 7:18 pm

Thank you Paul E. Merrell, J.D. I have been convinced from the beginning of all of this that this was the line to Wikileaks. Now if we could only get a real investigation into Seth's murder.

Stop Bush and Clinton , February 19, 2018 at 7:34 pm

"We found that they broke a vast number of laws, did surveillance of a competitor with a warrant based on fake evidence, all adding up to treason worse than Watergate. But we think that no reasonable prosecutor would file charges .." -- The FBI

[Feb 19, 2018] The Russiagate Intelligence Wars What We Do and Don't Know

Highly recommended!
Mueller was the person responsible for investigation of 911. That fact alone tells you all as for what we can expect.
Notable quotes:
"... NO actual physical proof has been presented to the public to substantiate claims that Russia hacked the DNC ..."
"... There is NO proof (only allegations) of collusion between Trump's campaign and the Kremlin ..."
"... Social media efforts by Russian trolls to influence the election were minimal in the extreme, laughably amateurish and completely ineffective ..."
"... Glenn Greenwald has spent the past year documenting in detail the large volume of fake anti-Russian "news" generated by the MSM (see GG at The Intercept) ..."
"... There is NO connection between the Russian government and the 13 private citizens recently indicted for their pathetic and ineffectual activity as part of a troll farm ..."
"... Thanks to the paranoid, xenophobic, Russia-bashing nationalistic propaganda that is being promoted by our military-industrial-intelligence-media complex, the U.S. now believes it is acceptable to launch a first strike nuclear attack in retaliation for breeches of cyber security ..."
"... Trump won't be impeached over Russiagate for the simple reason that Russiagate is nothing but a psyops perpetrated against the American people by the national-security bureaucracy (and their corporate media propagandists) for the purposes of reigniting a second Cold War and maintaining U.S. global hegemony. ..."
"... Thanks to the hysterical McCarthyism now rampant among Democrats - and that is being used to great effect by Washington's bipartisan neocon warmongers - we may just end up in a nuclear war. The good news: it will be a short war and the Democrats will never have to accept responsibility for Clinton's loss. ..."
"... How about that Clinton got the CIA to partner with neo-Nazis in Ukraine to stage a coup, kick out Putin's friend, and install a billionaire capitalist as President? - something the media never mentions. ..."
"... Ultimately, I see the Russia story as getting its legs from the efforts of the dominant Hillary wing of the Democratic party, backed by big media, to continue to assert that Hillary really won the presidency in 2016, and that their wing should continue to have control of the party. ..."
"... That an immensely dangerous war fever is being whipped up in the process is of no importance to them. And, by no means incidentally, they are ignoring all of the real atrocities being committed by the Trump administration against the American people and the earth's environment. ..."
"... It has been thus since the creep moved into the White House. Dreyfuss, perky Rachel Maddow, Colbert, Maher, and many others have been the true "useful idiots". ..."
"... This same media never gave Sanders any media exposure during the primary. ..."
"... I would add that the election manipulations which the Clinton forces engaged in to defeat Sanders during the Democratic primaries dwarfs, by orders of magnitude, anything alleged against the Russians by even the most hawkish backers of the Russia probe. ..."
"... tweet by Peter Van Buren, former US foreign intelligence officer "Just did a quick read of the '13 Russian' indictment. Missing are a) any connections between the 13 and the Russian government and/or Trump campaign; b) any discussion of the impact (if any) their social media efforts had. It describes them buying Facebook ads, but nothing about if it affected votes; c) no connection shown between any of this and DNC, Wikileaks, hacking of emails; d) no discussion of motive; e) assumption that anything anti-Clinton was defacto pro-Bernie and/or pro-Trump. And all indicted persons are Russians, and outside the U.S., so highly unlikely this is going anywhere further legally. ..."
"... BTW, today the media put up that scumbag Podesta as a spokesperson for the Democrats. ..."
"... Seems that the end justifies the means. No matter what is the truth. In the mean-time, they're actually harming the opposition to Trump. I suppose nobody asked Podesta why the DNC never offered their computers for FBI forensics. ..."
"... The MSM never asks the hard questions anymore. It seems all pre-scripted and sanitized for corporate media. ..."
"... It's been a year since Mueller went to work and what's he got? A couple of Republican political operatives being political operatives. Their crime was not reporting to the USG that they were working for Ukraine. Now we're down to social media posts. You're probably one of those people who say, I saw it on the internet so it must be true. If the government is going to be upset about crap they see on social media from foreign parties, they need to start by telling said social media that they can't solicit advertising from foreign entities with political overtones as facebook did of RT. ..."
"... So we are going to limit global free speech by spending $Trillions more on building a nuclear arsenal - total madness - driven by [un] Democratic whining. ..."
"... Apparently, it comes down to trolls who planted various "fake news" stories. Stipulate to all of that; the worst of it. How does THAT begin to stack–up against the murderous coup that the USA OPENLY fomented in the Ukraine a couple of years earlier by bankrolling dozens of Non-governmental organizations whose sole purpose was "regime change"? ..."
"... Maybe come back to me about all of this when the FBI can convincingly prove that the Russian government armed and funded a Neo–nazi para–military group that assaulted and burned–down the North Carolina State House. ..."
"... You mean like Clinton and the CIA did in Ukraine, for economic domination over Russia, don't you? ..."
"... Tell me, as soon as you can, when having skepticism on the Russia/Election Meddling story is finally permitted. I heard tell, we've lately dropped the "Treason" narration. Now the spin du jour is that Trump & Co were all duped by them clever Ruskies. Whatever floats your boat. ..."
"... Stephen Cohen's take on Russiagate makes a lot of sense, to me. I've followed Russia/soviet/US relations very closely since Gorbachev. Open your eyes, Mattis has labeled Russia our mortal enemy, we just upped defense spending to an obscene level that shall keep our schools, hospitals, social services, and infrastructure in their bad state. ..."
Feb 19, 2018 | www.thenation.com

Cara Marianna says: February 19, 2018 at 4:36 pm

Here's what we know:

  1. NO actual physical proof has been presented to the public to substantiate claims that Russia hacked the DNC
  2. There is NO proof (only allegations) of collusion between Trump's campaign and the Kremlin
  3. Social media efforts by Russian trolls to influence the election were minimal in the extreme, laughably amateurish and completely ineffective
  4. Glenn Greenwald has spent the past year documenting in detail the large volume of fake anti-Russian "news" generated by the MSM (see GG at The Intercept)
  5. There is NO connection between the Russian government and the 13 private citizens recently indicted for their pathetic and ineffectual activity as part of a troll farm
  6. Thanks to the paranoid, xenophobic, Russia-bashing nationalistic propaganda that is being promoted by our military-industrial-intelligence-media complex, the U.S. now believes it is acceptable to launch a first strike nuclear attack in retaliation for breeches of cyber security

Read number six again and think about it. The U.S. is ready and willing to launch a preemptive nuclear attack against any nation it accuses of undermining our cyber security - no proof necessary. The Democratic establishment, which has spent the past year engaging in baseless Kremlin-baiting (and very little else), is directly responsible for this insanity.

Trump won't be impeached over Russiagate for the simple reason that Russiagate is nothing but a psyops perpetrated against the American people by the national-security bureaucracy (and their corporate media propagandists) for the purposes of reigniting a second Cold War and maintaining U.S. global hegemony.

Thanks to the hysterical McCarthyism now rampant among Democrats - and that is being used to great effect by Washington's bipartisan neocon warmongers - we may just end up in a nuclear war. The good news: it will be a short war and the Democrats will never have to accept responsibility for Clinton's loss.

Fred Caruso says: February 18, 2018 at 9:30 pm

Who gives a shit really?

How about that Clinton got the CIA to partner with neo-Nazis in Ukraine to stage a coup, kick out Putin's friend, and install a billionaire capitalist as President? - something the media never mentions.

Caleb Melamed says: February 18, 2018 at 9:12 am

As I open the online edition of The Nation this morning, there are two lead stories. One of them tells how Trump is planning to evict 5 million poor people from public housing. A very important story.

The second story by Bob Dreyfuss is probably the 10,000th one I've seen about the Russia probe. The public housing story is obviously much more important and substantial, yet the Democrats have been focusing almost exclusively on the flimsy Russia probe. Not even the pressing need to regulate assault rifles has really grabbed their full attention, even in the wake of the latest dreadful Florida high school massacre. In perusing the news stories this Sunday morning, the Russia probe continues to hold first place in coverage by a big margin.

Ultimately, I see the Russia story as getting its legs from the efforts of the dominant Hillary wing of the Democratic party, backed by big media, to continue to assert that Hillary really won the presidency in 2016, and that their wing should continue to have control of the party.

That an immensely dangerous war fever is being whipped up in the process is of no importance to them. And, by no means incidentally, they are ignoring all of the real atrocities being committed by the Trump administration against the American people and the earth's environment.

Clark M Shanahan says: February 18, 2018 at 9:52 am

Amen, Caleb
It has been thus since the creep moved into the White House. Dreyfuss, perky Rachel Maddow, Colbert, Maher, and many others have been the true "useful idiots".

Fred Caruso says: February 18, 2018 at 9:33 pm

This same media never gave Sanders any media exposure during the primary.

Caleb Melamed says: February 18, 2018 at 9:42 am

I would add that the election manipulations which the Clinton forces engaged in to defeat Sanders during the Democratic primaries dwarfs, by orders of magnitude, anything alleged against the Russians by even the most hawkish backers of the Russia probe.

Clark M Shanahan says: February 18, 2018 at 8:24 am

FYI
tweet by Peter Van Buren, former US foreign intelligence officer "Just did a quick read of the '13 Russian' indictment. Missing are a) any connections between the 13 and the Russian government and/or Trump campaign; b) any discussion of the impact (if any) their social media efforts had. It describes them buying Facebook ads, but nothing about if it affected votes; c) no connection shown between any of this and DNC, Wikileaks, hacking of emails; d) no discussion of motive; e) assumption that anything anti-Clinton was defacto pro-Bernie and/or pro-Trump. And all indicted persons are Russians, and outside the U.S., so highly unlikely this is going anywhere further legally.

Fred Caruso says: February 18, 2018 at 9:37 pm

There is nothing illegal or unethical about any individual of government supporting one candidate over another. BTW, today the media put up that scumbag Podesta as a spokesperson for the Democrats.

Clark M Shanahan says: February 19, 2018 at 9:02 am

Seems that the end justifies the means. No matter what is the truth. In the mean-time, they're actually harming the opposition to Trump. I suppose nobody asked Podesta why the DNC never offered their computers for FBI forensics.

Fred Caruso says: February 19, 2018 at 12:31 pm

The MSM never asks the hard questions anymore. It seems all pre-scripted and sanitized for corporate media.

Richard Phelps says: February 18, 2018 at 2:52 am

There is one issue that no media is talking about regarding the "memos". Trump is clearly a "person of interest", if not a suspect in some parts of the investigation. Given Trump's entanglement how is it not an absolute conflict of interest for Trump being the person who decides what memos get to be public and what redactions must be made.

Imagine a judge being a suspect in a crime or a major stockholder in a corporate civil suit. S/he would never be allowed to make any rulings on what evidence the jury gets to see or anything about the case. Some non-interested 3rd party needs to make those decisions.

Fred Caruso says: February 18, 2018 at 9:38 pm

Quit feeding this beast.

Jeffrey Harrison says: February 16, 2018 at 8:15 pm

The other interesting and fun fact not mentioned anywhere. Three Names won by 3 million votes. Crafty Ruskis.

Carla Skidmore says: February 16, 2018 at 7:33 pm

This investigation by Mueller is just beginning. In other words, and to use the vernacular, "We "ain't seen nothing," yet."

Fred Caruso says: February 18, 2018 at 9:40 pm

You are right. This is nothing but bullshit and it may be just the beginning. The Democrats have an endless supply of donkey-shit.

Jeffrey Harrison says: February 16, 2018 at 6:08 pm

It's interesting that the Russians set this all up to boost Trump and disparage Three Names before Trump even announced he was running. The basic set up for this was going on in 2014 whereas Trump announced in 2015.

Carla Skidmore says: February 16, 2018 at 7:29 pm

No, not really. Trump was making gestures of interest in the presidency in 2012

Clark M Shanahan says: February 18, 2018 at 10:28 am

Since when have you been so trusting of our FBI & CIA, Carla? From what we've experienced together from the Gulf of Tonkin onward, I'm a wee-tad taken aback. Please read the ex-foreign intelligence officer's twitter posting that I posted above.

Jeffrey Harrison says: February 16, 2018 at 8:30 pm

Pfui. He also made noises about running in the 2012 election. People don't set up organizations to do stuff just on the off chance that some politician or wannabe is going to run. These guys ain't got nothin'. It's been a year since Mueller went to work and what's he got? A couple of Republican political operatives being political operatives. Their crime was not reporting to the USG that they were working for Ukraine. Now we're down to social media posts. You're probably one of those people who say, I saw it on the internet so it must be true. If the government is going to be upset about crap they see on social media from foreign parties, they need to start by telling said social media that they can't solicit advertising from foreign entities with political overtones as facebook did of RT.

Fred Caruso says: February 19, 2018 at 3:35 pm

So we are going to limit global free speech by spending $Trillions more on building a nuclear arsenal - total madness - driven by [un] Democratic whining.

Francis Louis Szot says: February 16, 2018 at 6:05 pm

Apparently, it comes down to trolls who planted various "fake news" stories. Stipulate to all of that; the worst of it. How does THAT begin to stack–up against the murderous coup that the USA OPENLY fomented in the Ukraine a couple of years earlier by bankrolling dozens of Non-governmental organizations whose sole purpose was "regime change"?

Maybe come back to me about all of this when the FBI can convincingly prove that the Russian government armed and funded a Neo–nazi para–military group that assaulted and burned–down the North Carolina State House.

Fred Caruso says: February 19, 2018 at 3:37 pm

You mean like Clinton and the CIA did in Ukraine, for economic domination over Russia, don't you?

Clark M Shanahan says: February 16, 2018 at 3:44 pm

I'm hoping the hush-money passed on to two of Trump's romantic caprices, during the election, gets traction.

Tell me, as soon as you can, when having skepticism on the Russia/Election Meddling story is finally permitted. I heard tell, we've lately dropped the "Treason" narration. Now the spin du jour is that Trump & Co were all duped by them clever Ruskies. Whatever floats your boat.

Clark M Shanahan says: February 17, 2018 at 10:13 am

Yes David, I'm still a skeptic. In fact, I think this move to indict 13 suspects, that have a snowball in Hell's chance of ever being tried, is simply a dog and pony show to placate the public. Debrief yourself, read Binney's report and listen to Stephen F Cohen's latest, here on the Nation.

Clark M Shanahan says: February 17, 2018 at 5:25 pm

Stephen Cohen's take on Russiagate makes a lot of sense, to me. I've followed Russia/soviet/US relations very closely since Gorbachev. Open your eyes, Mattis has labeled Russia our mortal enemy, we just upped defense spending to an obscene level that shall keep our schools, hospitals, social services, and infrastructure in their bad state.

As if Hill, who stole the primaries actually ran a competent campaign.

[Feb 15, 2018] Trump's War on the Deep State by Conrad Black

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... And the dossier, a pastiche of falsehoods from gossips in the Kremlin, has been exposed as a smear job paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee ..."
"... The hunters are the prey and Trump will prosecute, sack, or intimidate the deep state. But it is there, can arise quickly and can be very dangerous. Forewarned is forearmed. ..."
Feb 15, 2018 | nationalinterest.org

...Donald Trump went to war against the entire political class: all factions of both parties, the bureaucracy, the national media, the lobbyists, Hollywood and Wall Street. He said the whole system was rotten and had failed the nation: hopeless wars that accomplished nothing except the wastage of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, the extension of Iranian influence and an immense humanitarian crisis, a flatlined economy, a shrinking workforce, increasing poverty and crime, oceans of debt, large trade deficits from trade agreements that exported unemployment to the United States and the unmonitored influx of millions of illiterate peasants from Latin America.

... ... ...

For the first nine months of the new administration, there was the constant confected threat of impeachment. The phantasmagorical imbecility that Trump had somehow colluded and connived with the Russian government to rig the election was the excuse of the hapless Clinton and her Trump-hating echo chamber in the national media for the election result.

The deep state was almost the whole state, and it pitched in to sabotage the administration. For nearly that long, the Republican leaders sat on their hands waiting to see if he would be impeached or not. His nominees were a long time in being confirmed. There were leaks of White House conversations, including with foreign leaders -- outright acts of insubordination causing Trump, a decisive executive, to fire some fairly high officials, including the malign director of the FBI, who then informed Congress that he had leaked a self-addressed memo (probably illegally, as it was technically government property), in order to have a special prosecutor named to torment the president over the fatuous Russian allegations, although Comey testified that Trump himself was not a target or suspect and the Russians had not influenced the outcome of the election. (This was a sober position compared to the wholesale fabrications of the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, that a thousand Russian agents had swarmed the key battleground states and had delivered Wisconsin to Trump.)

The president has strengthened the White House staff. The FBI and Justice Department have been ripped apart in their partisanship and misuse of the dossier on which the collusion argument and the surveillance of the Trump campaign were based. And the dossier, a pastiche of falsehoods from gossips in the Kremlin, has been exposed as a smear job paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, and the whole impeachment movement has collapsed. The hunters are the prey and Trump will prosecute, sack, or intimidate the deep state. But it is there, can arise quickly and can be very dangerous. Forewarned is forearmed.

Conrad Black is a writer and former newspaper publisher whose most recent book is Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full (PublicAffairs, 2007).

[Feb 14, 2018] Recused Judge in Flynn Prosecution Served on FISA Court

Highly recommended!
Feb 14, 2018 | www.unz.com

Clyde, February 14, 2018 at 11:20 am GMT

@Ozymandias

"It's worth noting that intentionally deceiving a federal judge is a felony."
It's also worth noting that sometimes the judge is in on it.

For the Trump Admin surveillance warrants the FISA judge was probably Contreras. So goes the rumor. He was probably in on it or halfway in on it. All the major players in DC know each other and trade favors.

And Gen Mike Flynn is in the process of getting his case dismissed. The only thing left to determine is how much the Federales will have to reimburse him for his lawyers fees, which are a million plus.

FISA Judge Rudolph Contreras EXPOSED – twitter.com

Rudolph Contreras was the FISA Judge who issued a warrant to spy on Carter Page because of a Yahoo News article and a Phony Probably have already. He needs to go

Recused Judge in Flynn Prosecution Served on FISA Court

https://www.infowars.com/recused-judge-in-flynn-prosecution-served&#8230 ;

Did Judge Contreras OK electronic surveillance of Recused Judge in Flynn Prosecution Served on FISA Court Did Judge Contreras OK electronic surveillance of

Federal FISA Judge Recuses Himself From Michael Flynn Case

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/07/federal-fisa-judge&#8230 ;

Blows the whole FISA Court to hell in a hand basket and Judge Contreras is getting the hell out of dodge. This a helluva mess for the FISA Court and it's victims. Rule 5. Authority of the Judges. (b) Referring Matters to Other Judges.

[Feb 14, 2018] The Anti-Trump Coup by Michael S. Rozeff

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Mainly, unnamed intelligence officials and operatives who are in the CIA or recently retired from such. A number of media outfits are exceptionally active in propagating negative headlines and stories about Trump and his administration. Elements of other intelligence agencies and departments of government are possibly involved. We do not know the names of those operating against Trump, and this is a weakness of the coup hypothesis. ..."
"... Its foundation was laid in 2016 by accusations of Russian interference in the election. The coup began in earnest as soon as the election in November 2016 made Trump the winner. ..."
"... On Jan. 14, 2017, a news report states that the CIA set up a task force in 2016 to investigate possible Russian funding of Trump's campaign. The task force included the FBI, the Treasury, and Justice Departments, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency (NSA). ..."
"... On February 24, 2016, ex-CIA chief Hayden said he'd be "frightened" of a Trump presidency. He said, "I would be incredibly concerned if President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign." A news report told us "Former CIA director Michael Hayden believes there is a legitimate possibility that the U.S. military would refuse to follow orders given by Donald Trump if the Republican front-runner becomes president and decides to make good on certain campaign pledges." ..."
"... There is ample evidence in the form of sharp public bickering between Trump and these two CIA chiefs, present and the past, that the CIA set up a task force to investigate Trump's campaign as a weapon against Trump and his possible election. The motive behind the investigation was not to ensure a clean campaign free of Russian influence but to work against Trump's election chances. The CIA was dismayed by what appeared to them to be a possible president who was aiming to work with Putin and not against him. ..."
"... The excuse was an allegation that three of Trump's associates had received campaign money from the Kremlin. This allegation came from a Baltic state and it was processed by the CIA and made into something worthy of following up. We read that the task force " was set up after the director of the CIA, John Brennan, received a recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into Trump's campaign coffers, the BBC's Paul Wood reported. The recording was apparently passed to the CIA by the intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States." ..."
"... According to this, John Brennan is the key player in the anti-Trump movement. He wants to see Trump's presidency brought to a quick end or otherwise neutered and made compliant to rule by the CIA. By their control over information and its interpretation, the leaders of the CIA have gained considerable power within the government. They've enhanced this by developing operational forces in the field. ..."
"... As occurred during the propaganda campaign that preceded Bush 2's attack on Iraq and as in the Ukraine case noted above, we again observe murky foreign sources that are given credence and validity by the CIA. The public and media have no viable way of checking on the story of Kremlin money except perhaps through off the record sources. Such stories can't be traced through public hearings without subpoena power and a will to wash a lot of dirty linen in public. They are perfect for propaganda and cover-ups. ..."
"... On January 3, 2016, Charles Schumer said that Trump was "being really dumb" for arguing against the assessments of the intelligence community on Russian hacking. He adds ominously: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you." ..."
"... On January 15, 2017, we read "CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday had a stern parting message for Republican Donald Trump days before he assumes the U.S. presidency, cautioning him against loosening sanctions on Russia and warning him to watch what he says. Brennan rebuked the president-elect for comparing U.S. intelligence practices to Nazi Germany in comments that laid bare the friction between Trump and the intelligence community he has criticized and is on the verge of commanding." ..."
"... In 2016 Trump and the CIA became foes of one another because of vast policy differences. Past and present CIA directors went public against Trump. They instigated a series of reports and leaks to discredit Trump and to link his campaign to Russian meddling in the election. They went after several of his aides, causing Paul Manafort to resign. After the election, they produced new anti-Trump material and managed to get his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, to resign. This adds up to an attempted coup that has had some success. ..."
Feb 21, 2017 | www.lewrockwell.com

...

Q. Who is behind the coup attempt ?

A. Mainly, unnamed intelligence officials and operatives who are in the CIA or recently retired from such. A number of media outfits are exceptionally active in propagating negative headlines and stories about Trump and his administration. Elements of other intelligence agencies and departments of government are possibly involved. We do not know the names of those operating against Trump, and this is a weakness of the coup hypothesis.

Q. When did the coup attempt begin?

A. Its foundation was laid in 2016 by accusations of Russian interference in the election. The coup began in earnest as soon as the election in November 2016 made Trump the winner.

Q. What evidence points to the CIA's role in the coup attempt?

A. A news report from September 5, 2016, reports that "U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are investigating what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions, intelligence, and congressional officials said."

On Jan. 14, 2017, a news report states that the CIA set up a task force in 2016 to investigate possible Russian funding of Trump's campaign. The task force included the FBI, the Treasury, and Justice Departments, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency (NSA).

Q. Why did the CIA set up a task force to investigate Trump's campaign?

A. Why did the CIA not set up a task force to investigate Hillary Clinton's activities during and after being Secretary of State in response to receipt of mammoth amounts of foreign money that were laundered through the Clinton Foundation? The reason is that she was the candidate favored by the CIA leadership and Trump was not.

Early in 2016, Trump was raising very strong doubts in the intelligence community that he'd govern as they saw fit.

On February 24, 2016, ex-CIA chief Hayden said he'd be "frightened" of a Trump presidency. He said, "I would be incredibly concerned if President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign." A news report told us "Former CIA director Michael Hayden believes there is a legitimate possibility that the U.S. military would refuse to follow orders given by Donald Trump if the Republican front-runner becomes president and decides to make good on certain campaign pledges."

A month later, Hayden opined that Trump was a larger threat to national stability on security matters than Hillary Clinton.

On April 11, 2016, we learn that CIA Director "Brennan said on NBC News Sunday that he would not allow enhanced interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, even if a future president ordered it." Trump wasted no time responding: "Donald Trump is taking on CIA Director John Brennan on torture, saying Brennan's pledge not to allow waterboarding is 'ridiculous.'"

On July 13, 2016, Brennan testified that he'd consider quitting rather than obey a president's order to reinstate waterboarding, something that Trump had suggested. Another article says that even before that date, "[Brennan] has already expressed his distaste for Trump."

There is ample evidence in the form of sharp public bickering between Trump and these two CIA chiefs, present and the past, that the CIA set up a task force to investigate Trump's campaign as a weapon against Trump and his possible election. The motive behind the investigation was not to ensure a clean campaign free of Russian influence but to work against Trump's election chances. The CIA was dismayed by what appeared to them to be a possible president who was aiming to work with Putin and not against him.

Q. But wasn't the CIA doing the right thing to investigate possible Russian funding of the Trump campaign?

A. The idea of Russian funding of Trump's campaign was absurd. This investigation had no reason to be started other than a goal of smearing Trump and preventing a Trump presidency. It was absurd because foreign money given to American political campaigns is illegal and everyone knows it. Trump would not jeopardize his campaign for some trivial amount of money nor would his campaign officials; and a large amount would easily be spotted through the banking system. It was also absurd because the Kremlin would not operate and does not operate in this way. It would not risk being found out blatantly violating American law in this way, as that would greatly diminish its credibility. "Doing the right thing" for the American system was strictly a plausible and disingenuous device.

Q. If the investigation was absurd, what leads or allegations did the CIA have to set it up?

A. The excuse was an allegation that three of Trump's associates had received campaign money from the Kremlin. This allegation came from a Baltic state and it was processed by the CIA and made into something worthy of following up. We read that the task force " was set up after the director of the CIA, John Brennan, received a recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into Trump's campaign coffers, the BBC's Paul Wood reported. The recording was apparently passed to the CIA by the intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States."

According to this, John Brennan is the key player in the anti-Trump movement. He wants to see Trump's presidency brought to a quick end or otherwise neutered and made compliant to rule by the CIA. By their control over information and its interpretation, the leaders of the CIA have gained considerable power within the government. They've enhanced this by developing operational forces in the field.

As occurred during the propaganda campaign that preceded Bush 2's attack on Iraq and as in the Ukraine case noted above, we again observe murky foreign sources that are given credence and validity by the CIA. The public and media have no viable way of checking on the story of Kremlin money except perhaps through off the record sources. Such stories can't be traced through public hearings without subpoena power and a will to wash a lot of dirty linen in public. They are perfect for propaganda and cover-ups.

John Brennan has the CIA initiate an investigation on a flimsy basis and gets away with it. We know from his public statements at that time and later that he's thoroughly anti-Trump and anti-Russia. This is why such an investigation went forward. Brennan had nothing to lose. If he found some dirt on Trump or his associates, he'd discredit Trump and lose him votes. If he didn't find anything, the investigation itself would still raise suspicions about Trump and provide Hillary Clinton and her aides with anti-Trump ammunition. In fact, her campaign did use the alleged Russian connection against Trump.

Q. What else do we know of Brennan's differences with Trump?

A. On Sept. 11, 2016, Brennan disagreed with Trump publicly: "CIA Director John Brennan pushed back against Donald Trump's claim that he could read disapproval of President Barack Obama's policies in the body language of the intelligence officers who gave him a confidential national security briefing."

On November 30, 2016, we read that Brennan expressed another difference with Trump: "The director of the CIA has issued a stark warning to President-elect Donald J. Trump. Tearing up the Iran nuclear deal would be 'the height of folly' and 'disastrous.'"

On January 3, 2016, Charles Schumer said that Trump was "being really dumb" for arguing against the assessments of the intelligence community on Russian hacking. He adds ominously: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

On January 15, 2017, we read "CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday had a stern parting message for Republican Donald Trump days before he assumes the U.S. presidency, cautioning him against loosening sanctions on Russia and warning him to watch what he says. Brennan rebuked the president-elect for comparing U.S. intelligence practices to Nazi Germany in comments that laid bare the friction between Trump and the intelligence community he has criticized and is on the verge of commanding."

Q. What became of the allegations against the three associates of Trump?

A. The three accused men each strongly denied allegations of being paid by the Kremlin. On October 15, the FISA court granted a warrant to intercept communications from two Russian banks. The investigators were looking for evidence that money passed from Russia to the three Trump associates. No such evidence was found.

On January 19, 2017, the continuing investigation by "American law enforcement and intelligence agencies" was confirmed, and Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, was mentioned:

"The counterintelligence investigation centers at least in part on the business dealings that some of the president-elect's past and present advisers have had with Russia . Mr. Manafort has done business in Ukraine and Russia. Some of his contacts there were under surveillance by the National Security Agency for suspected links to Russia's Federal Security Service, one of the officials said."

Mr. Manafort has done nothing illegal, we learn. He has merely done some business in Ukraine and Russia. He merely came into contact with people with suspected links to a Russian intelligence outfit. They weren't even known spies. Mr. Manafort has fallen victim to suspicion by association two or three times removed even from guilt by association.

The other two being investigated are Carter Page and Roger Stone, and we learn that they too are innocent of wrongdoing.

"The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department's financial crimes unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said."

So, we know that a concerted effort has been made to investigate three of Trump's close aides. We know that the CIA was the instigator and that it used its typical murky and unverifiable tips to gain credibility. Finally, we know that this inquiry has produced no evidence of any illegal activities of Trump or his aides.

Q. What other evidence is there of an attempted coup against Trump?

A. On Oct. 7, 2016, there was released the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security". This brief statement on behalf of U.S. intelligence agencies linked the Russian government to hacking: "The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." It stated its belief "that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."

On Nov. 30, 2016, an outfit named PropOrNot with links to the U.S. intelligence community published a report that named 200 websites as propagators of Russian propaganda: "Russia Is Manipulating US Public Opinion through Online Propaganda".

On Dec. 9, 2016, it was reported that "The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency "

Dec. 29, 2016, arrived the FBI-DHS report: "Grizzly Steppe – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity". This was widely denounced as lacking even persuasive circumstantial evidence, never mind direct evidence of Russian involvement.

On Jan. 10, 2017, the Golden Showers report was leaked, accusing Trump of having been compromised by Russian agents and therefore subject to blackmail. This report had been circulating for weeks in intelligence and media circles. It had supposedly been written between July and December by former British MI-6 agent, Christopher Steele.

Once again we observe that a spurious anti-Trump report is purported or arranged to have a foreign origination; but that it is carried to the public by means of the CIA and leaks within the U.S.

On February 13, 2017, the coup perps drew fresh blood when Michael Flynn resigned, despite no evidence of wrongdoing. Their success is attributable to their use of wiretapped phone calls and to leaking these to the media. Since intelligence agents have access to these calls that the NSA collects, we once again observe that intelligence circles are active in seeking to undermine Trump. This is consistent with the conclusion that a coup attempt is ongoing.

Q. Could you summarize, please?

A. In 2016 Trump and the CIA became foes of one another because of vast policy differences. Past and present CIA directors went public against Trump. They instigated a series of reports and leaks to discredit Trump and to link his campaign to Russian meddling in the election. They went after several of his aides, causing Paul Manafort to resign. After the election, they produced new anti-Trump material and managed to get his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, to resign. This adds up to an attempted coup that has had some success.

Q. What happens next?

A. The future is guesswork. We will be surprised at what happens, but here are some guesses. The coup attempt will not cease. There is nothing presently opposing it unless Trump is counterattacking behind the scenes, of which there is no evidence. Trump will eventually sense the coup's efficacy and devise ways to stop it. The anti-Trump media will keep the pot boiling. They will need new stories to exploit. Anti-Trump elements in the CIA can be expected to come up with new, dubious and devious revelations aimed at discrediting Trump's handling of foreign affairs. We can expect former intelligence officials to speak out against Trump at critical times and to recruit allies who will add what appears to be an even more independent criticism of Trump. The coup may transform into an effort to control Trump's policies from outside his administration.

Michael S. Rozeff [ send him mail ] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline .

[Feb 14, 2018] The FBI and the President – Mutual Manipulation by James Petras

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The liberals and Democrats and their allies in the FBI, political police and other elements of the security state apparatus were deeply involved in an attempt to implicate Russian government officials in a plot to manipulate US public opinion on Trump's behalf and corrupt the outcome of the election. However, the FBI, the Justice Department and Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller have produced no evidence of collusion linking the Russian government to a campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton's candidacy in favor of Trump. This is despite thousands of interviews and threats of long prison sentences against former Trump campaign advisers. Instead, they focus their attack on Trump's early campaign promise to find common ground in improving economic and diplomatic ties between the US and Russia, especially in confronting jihadi terrorists. ..."
"... The liberal-progressive FBI cohort turned into rabid Russia-bashers demanding that Trump take a highly aggressive stance against Moscow, while systematically eliminating his military and security advisors who expressed anti-confrontation sentiments. In the spirit of a Joe McCarthy, the liberal-left launched hysterical attacks on any and every Trump campaign adviser who had spoken to, dined with or exchanged eyebrows with any and all Russians! ..."
"... The conversion of liberalism to the pursuit of political purges is unprecedented. Their collective amnesia about the long-term, large-scale involvement by the FBI in the worst criminal violations of democratic values is reprehensible. The FBI's anti-communist crusade led to the purge of thousands of trade unionists from the mid-1940's onward, decimating the AFL-CIO. They blacklisted actors, screen writers, artists, teachers, university academics, researchers, scientists, journalists and civil rights leaders as part of their sweeping purge of civil society. ..."
"... President Trump has pursued an agenda mirroring the police state operations of the FBI – only on a global scale. Trump's violation of international law includes collaboration and support for Saudi Arabia's tyrannical invasion and destruction of the sovereign nation of Yemen; intensified aid and support for Israel's ethnic war against the Palestinian people; severe sanctions and threatened nuclear first-strike against North Korea (DPRK); increased deployment of US special forces in collaboration with the jihadi terrorist war to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria; coup-mongering, sabotage, sanctions and economic blockade of Venezuela; NATO missile and nuclear encirclement of Russia; and the growing naval threats against China ..."
"... Domestically, Trump's response to the FBI's blackmail has been to replace the original political leadership with his own version; to expand and increase the police state powers against immigrants; to increase the powers of the major tech companies to police and intensify work-place exploitation and the invasion of citizens' privacy; to expand the unleash the power of state agents to torture suspects and to saturate all public events, celebrations and activities with open displays of jingoism and militarism with the goal of creating pro-war public opinion. ..."
"... Even the fight within the two-headed reactionary party of the US oligarchy has had a positive effect. Each side is hell-bent on exposing the state-sponsored crimes of the other. In an unprecedented and historic sense, the US and world public is witness to the spies, lies and crimes of the leadership and elite on prime time and on the wide screen. We head in two directions. In one direction, there are the threats of nuclear war, economic collapse, environmental disasters and a full blown police state. In the other direction, there is the demise of empire, a revived and renewed civil society rooted in a participatory economy and a renewed moral order ..."
Feb 09, 2018 | www.unz.com

Few government organizations have been engaged in violation of the US citizens' constitutional rights for as long a time and against as many individuals as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Seldom has there been greater collusion in the perpetration of crimes against civil liberties, electoral freedom and free and lawful expression as what has taken place between the FBI and the US Justice Department.

In the past, the FBI and Justice Department secured the enthusiastic support and public acclaim from the conservative members of the US Congress, members of the judiciary at all levels and the mass media. The leading liberal voices, public figures, educators, intellectuals and progressive dissenters opposing the FBI and their witch-hunting tactics were all from the left. Today, the right and the left have changed places: The most powerful voices endorsing the FBI and the Justice Department's fabrications, and abuse of constitutional rights are on the left, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and famous liberal media corporations and public opinion makers.

The recently published Congressional memo, authored by Congressman Devin Nunes, provides ample proof that the FBI spied on Trump campaign workers with the intent to undermine the Republican candidate and sabotage his bid for the presidency. Private sector investigators, hired by Trump's rival Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, worked with pro-Clinton operatives within the FBI and Justice Department to violate the national electoral process while flouting rules governing wiretaps on US citizens. This was done with the approval of the sitting Democratic President Barack Obama.

The liberals and Democrats and their allies in the FBI, political police and other elements of the security state apparatus were deeply involved in an attempt to implicate Russian government officials in a plot to manipulate US public opinion on Trump's behalf and corrupt the outcome of the election. However, the FBI, the Justice Department and Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller have produced no evidence of collusion linking the Russian government to a campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton's candidacy in favor of Trump. This is despite thousands of interviews and threats of long prison sentences against former Trump campaign advisers. Instead, they focus their attack on Trump's early campaign promise to find common ground in improving economic and diplomatic ties between the US and Russia, especially in confronting jihadi terrorists.

The liberal-progressive FBI cohort turned into rabid Russia-bashers demanding that Trump take a highly aggressive stance against Moscow, while systematically eliminating his military and security advisors who expressed anti-confrontation sentiments. In the spirit of a Joe McCarthy, the liberal-left launched hysterical attacks on any and every Trump campaign adviser who had spoken to, dined with or exchanged eyebrows with any and all Russians!

The conversion of liberalism to the pursuit of political purges is unprecedented. Their collective amnesia about the long-term, large-scale involvement by the FBI in the worst criminal violations of democratic values is reprehensible. The FBI's anti-communist crusade led to the purge of thousands of trade unionists from the mid-1940's onward, decimating the AFL-CIO. They blacklisted actors, screen writers, artists, teachers, university academics, researchers, scientists, journalists and civil rights leaders as part of their sweeping purge of civil society.

The FBI investigated the private lives of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, even threatening their family members. They illegally spied on and infiltrated civil liberties organizations, and used provocateurs and spies in anti-war groups. Individuals lives were destroyed, some were driven to suicide; important popular American organizations were undermined to the detriment of millions. This has been its focus since its beginning and continues with the current fabrication of anti-Russian propaganda and investigations.

President Trump: Victim and Executor

President Trump has pursued an agenda mirroring the police state operations of the FBI – only on a global scale. Trump's violation of international law includes collaboration and support for Saudi Arabia's tyrannical invasion and destruction of the sovereign nation of Yemen; intensified aid and support for Israel's ethnic war against the Palestinian people; severe sanctions and threatened nuclear first-strike against North Korea (DPRK); increased deployment of US special forces in collaboration with the jihadi terrorist war to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria; coup-mongering, sabotage, sanctions and economic blockade of Venezuela; NATO missile and nuclear encirclement of Russia; and the growing naval threats against China .

Domestically, Trump's response to the FBI's blackmail has been to replace the original political leadership with his own version; to expand and increase the police state powers against immigrants; to increase the powers of the major tech companies to police and intensify work-place exploitation and the invasion of citizens' privacy; to expand the unleash the power of state agents to torture suspects and to saturate all public events, celebrations and activities with open displays of jingoism and militarism with the goal of creating pro-war public opinion.

In a word: From the right to the left there are no political options to choose from among the two ruling political parties. Popular political movements and mass demonstrations have risen up against Trump with clear justification, but have since dissolved and been absorbed. They came together from diverse sectors: Women against sexual abuse and workplace humiliation; African-Americans against police impunity and violence; and immigrants against mass expulsion and harassment. They staged mass demonstrations and then declined as their 'anti-Trump' animus was frustrated by the liberal-democrats hell-bent on pursuing the Russian connection.

In the face of the national-political debacle local and regional movements became the vehicle to support the struggles. Women organized at some workplaces and gained better protection of their rights; African-Americans vividly documented and published video evidence of the systematic brutal violation of their rights by the police state and effectively acted to restrain local police violence in a few localities; immigrant workers and especially their children gained broad public sympathy and allies within religious and political organizations; and anti-Trump movements combined with critics of the liberal/democrat apparatus to build broader movements and especially oppose growing war-fever.

Abroad, bi-partisan wars have failed to defeat independent state and mass popular resistance struggles for national sovereignty everywhere – from North Korea, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Venezuela and beyond.

Even the fight within the two-headed reactionary party of the US oligarchy has had a positive effect. Each side is hell-bent on exposing the state-sponsored crimes of the other. In an unprecedented and historic sense, the US and world public is witness to the spies, lies and crimes of the leadership and elite on prime time and on the wide screen. We head in two directions. In one direction, there are the threats of nuclear war, economic collapse, environmental disasters and a full blown police state. In the other direction, there is the demise of empire, a revived and renewed civil society rooted in a participatory economy and a renewed moral order .

[Feb 12, 2018] I am wondering why it is that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... How did Simpson know with such confidence what the "Intelligence Community" was "saying", and who were Simpson's and Steele's sources in the "Intelligence Community"? Rooney failed to inquire. Instead, he and Simpson exchanged question and answer regarding the approach Simpson and Steele made to the FBI when they delivered their dossier. In the details of that, Simpson repeated what he had already told the Senate Judiciary Committee. ..."
"... Sources in London are divided on the question of where Steele's sources came from -- CIA, MI6, or elsewhere. What has been clear for the year in which the dossier's contents have been in public circulation is that the sources the dossier referred to as "Russian" were not. For details of the sourcing . The subsequent identification of the Maltese source Joseph Mifsud, and the Greek-American George Papadopoulos, corroborates their lack of direct Russian sources. Instead, the sources identified in the dossier were either Americans, Americans of Russian ethnic origin, or Russians with no direct knowledge repeating hearsay three or four times removed from source. ..."
"... Another reported version of the FIFA contract is that Steele, Burrows and Orbis were hired by the British Football Association to collect materials on FIFA corruption, and provide them to the FBI and other US investigators, and then to the press. The scheme's objective was reportedly to advance the British bidding for the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 by discrediting the rival bids from Russia and Qatar. Click to read . Were MI6 and CIA sources mobilized by Orbis to feed the FBI with evidence the US investigators were unable to turn up, or was Orbis the conduit through which disinformation targeting Russia was fed to make it appear more credible to the FBI, and to the media? ..."
"... US Congressional investigators have so far failed to notice the similarities between the FIFA and the Trump dossier operations. Early this month two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that they have called for a Justice Department and FBI investigation of Steele for providing false information to the FBI. The provision of the US code making lying a federal crime requires the falsehoods occur "within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States." Simpson has testified that when Steele briefed the FBI on the dossier, he did so at meetings in Rome, Italy. ..."
"... With Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there is some evidence that Clinton and Co. actually wanted to run against Donald Trump, and tried to get their allies to manipulate the Republican primary in favor of a Trump victory (hence all the free corporate media coverage of the Donald). The dossier, fabricated or not, seems to have been one of many 'ace in the holes' that the Clinton campaign thought they could use to discredit Trump (including the Access Hollywood tape, etc.) in the general election. If so, this strategy really blew up in their face – they thought they could manipulate the process, so they could ignore the Rust Belt concerns, and that's what handed Trump the presidency. ..."
"... If the Clintonites were to admit this, however, they'd have to step down from party leadership and let the Sanders Democrats take over, and that's what this is really all about now, their effort to prevent that outcome. ..."
"... And I say "fed to him" when I'm in a generous mood, giving him the benefit of the doubt, because usually I am of the opinion that he's either a really crappy CIA agent posing as a journalist or just a garden variety rat f*!@er. A black job political operative, stitching together a few almost-believable "facts" and out-and-out fabrications with squishy words like "collusion" and "ties." ..."
"... The London experts believe the Senate Committee transcript shows Simpson and Steele were hired for the black job of discrediting the target of their research, Trump; did a poor job; failed in 2016; and now are engaged in bitter recriminations against each other to avoid multi-million dollar court penalties. ..."
"... A source at a London firm which is larger and better known than Steele's Orbis says "standard due diligence means getting to the truth. It's confidential to the client, and not leaked. There are also black jobs, white jobs, and red jobs. Black means the client wants you to dig up dirt on the target, and make it look credible for publishing in the press. White means the client wants you to clear him of the wrongdoing which he's being accused of in the media or the marketplace; it's also leaked to the press. A red job is where the client pays the due diligence firm to hire a journalist to find out what he knows and what he's likely to publish, in order to bribe or stop him. The Steele dossier on Trump is an obvious black job. Too obvious." ..."
"... A bigger bombshell, which of course none of them mentioned, is that Simpson, with his client's consent, was secretly briefing Clinton-friendly reporters on information from Steele's memos, and they used it to write stories based on "unnamed sources." He even admitted that he didn't verify the information before feeding it to the media, said he didn't feel he needed to, because it came from a trustworthy source. Where have we heard that before? ..."
"... I'm wondering why it's that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing. It's well-established that the State Department often acts as a cover for the CIA, and the agency under Secretary Clinton had a strong anti-Russia faction that's on the record as meddling in Ukraine's presidential election. And how much doubt could there be that both Clintons kept the CIA connections they made while in office? ..."
"... Then there was the whole "Grizzly Steppe" report just before Trump's inauguration, presented as a consensus among "17 intelligence agencies" that the Russians "hacked the election" to help Trump win. ..."
"... I'm not 100-percent convinced that U.S. intelligence was behind the dossier, but it's enough of a possibility that I'm not writing it off as some nutty "conspiracy theory." ..."
"... Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I'm wondering why it's that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing. ..."
"... In fact I am fairly certain that it is the case, although from what I understand the FBI and MI6 were also involved. ..."
Feb 12, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

According to Simpson, "foreign intelligence services hacking American political operations is not that unusual, actually, and there's a lot of foreign intelligence services that play in American elections." He mentioned the Chinese and the Indians, not the Israelis. The Mossad, Simpson did tell the Committee, was his source for his belief that Russian intelligence has been operating through the Jewish Orthodox Chabad movement, and the Russian Orthodox Church. "The Orthodox church is also an arm of the Russian State now the Mossad guys used to tell me about how the Russians were laundering money through the Orthodox church in Israel, and that it was intelligence operations."

There are just two references in the Committee transcript to the CIA. One was a passing remark to imply the Russians cannot "break[ing] into the CIA, [so instead] you are breaking into, you know, places where, you know, an open society leaves open."

The second was a bombshell. It dropped during questioning by Congressman Thomas Rooney (right), a 3-term Republican representative from Florida with a career as an army lawyer. Rooney asked Simpson: "Do you or anyone else independently verify or corroborate any information in the dossier?"

Simpson replied by saying, "Yes. Well, numerous things in the dossier have been verified. You know, I don't have access to the intelligence or law enforcement information that I see made reference to, but, you know, things like, you know, the Russian Government has been investigating Hillary Clinton and has a lot of information about her."

Then Simpson contradicted himself, disclosing what he had just denied. "When the original memos came in saying that the Kremlin was mounting a specific operation to get Donald Trump elected President , that was not what the Intelligence Community was saying. The Intelligence Community was saying they are just seeking to disrupt our election and our political process, and that this is sort of kind of just a generally nihilistic, you know, trouble-making operation. And, you know, Chris turned out to be right, it was specifically designed to elect Donald Trump President."

How did Simpson know with such confidence what the "Intelligence Community" was "saying", and who were Simpson's and Steele's sources in the "Intelligence Community"? Rooney failed to inquire. Instead, he and Simpson exchanged question and answer regarding the approach Simpson and Steele made to the FBI when they delivered their dossier. In the details of that, Simpson repeated what he had already told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Rooney then asked what contact had been made with the CIA or "any other intelligence officials". Simpson claimed he didn't understand the question at first, then he stumbled.

Source: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-20180118-SD002.pdf -- page 61 .

What Simpson was concealing in the two pauses, reported in the transcript as hyphens, Rooney did not realize. Simpson was implying that none from Fusion GPS, his consulting company, had been in contact with the CIA, nor him personally. But Simpson left open that Steele had been in contact with the CIA. Rooney followed with a question about "anyone", but that was so imprecise, Simpson recovered his confidence to say "No". That was a cover-up -- and the House Intelligence Committee let it drop noiselessly.

Intelligence community sources and colleagues who know Simpson and Steele say Simpson was notorious at the Wall Street Journal for coming up with conspiracy theories for which the evidence was missing or unreliable. He told the Committee that disbelief on the part of his editors and management had been one of his reasons for leaving the newspaper. "One of the reasons why I left the Wall Street Journal was because I wanted to write more stories about Russian influence in Washington, D.C., on both the Democrats and the Republicans eventually the Journal lost interest in that subject. And I was frustrated that was where I left my journalism career."

When Simpson was asked "do you -- did you find anything to -- that you verified as false in the dossier, since or during?" Simpson replied: "I have not seen anything -- ". Note the hypthen, the stenographer's signal that Simpson was pausing.

"[Question]. So everything in that dossier, as far as you're concerned, is true or could be true?"

"MR. SIMPSON: I didn't say that. What I said was it was credible at the time it came in. We were able to corroborate various things that supported its credibility."

Sources in London are divided on the question of where Steele's sources came from -- CIA, MI6, or elsewhere. What has been clear for the year in which the dossier's contents have been in public circulation is that the sources the dossier referred to as "Russian" were not. For details of the sourcing . The subsequent identification of the Maltese source Joseph Mifsud, and the Greek-American George Papadopoulos, corroborates their lack of direct Russian sources. Instead, the sources identified in the dossier were either Americans, Americans of Russian ethnic origin, or Russians with no direct knowledge repeating hearsay three or four times removed from source.

So were the allegations of the dossier manufactured by a CIA disinformation unit, and fed back to the US through the British agent, Steele? Or were they a Simpson conspiracy theory of the type that failed to pass veracity testing when Simpson was at the Wall Street Journal? The House Intelligence Committee failed to inquire.

One independent clue is what financial and other links Simpson and Steele and their consulting firms, Fusion GPS and Orbis Business Intelligence, have had with US Government agencies other than the FBI, and what US Government contracts they were paid for, before the Republican and Democratic Party organizations commissioned the anti-Trump job?

The House Committee has subpoenaed business records from Fusion, but Simpson's lawyers say they will refuse to hand them over. The financial records of Steele's firm are openly accessible through the UK government company registry, Companies House. Click to read here .

Because the Trump dossier work ran from the second half of 2015 to November 2016, the financial reports of Orbis for the financial years ending March 31, 2016, and March 31, 2017, are the primary sources. For FY 2016 and FY 2017, open this link to read.

The papers reveal that Orbis was a small firm with no more than 7 employees. Steele's business partner and co-shareholder, Christopher Burrows, is another former MI6 spy. They had been hoping for MI6 support of their private business, but it failed to materialize, says an London intelligence source. "Chris Burrows is another from the same background. They all hope to be Hakluyt [a leading commercial intelligence operation in London] but didn't get the nod on departure."

They do not report the Orbis income. Instead, for 2016 the company filings indicate Ł155,171 in cash at the bank, and income of Ł245,017 owed by clients and contractors. Offsetting that figure, Orbis owed Ł317,848 -- to whom and for what purposes is not reported. The unaudited accounts show Orbis's profit jumped from Ł121,046 in 2015 to Ł199,223 in 2016, and Ł441,089 in 2017.

The financial data are complicated by the operation by Steele and Burrows of a second company, Orbis Business Intelligence International, a subsidiary they created in 2010, a year after the parent company was formed. Follow its affairs here .

According to British press reports , Orbis and Steele were paid Ł200,000 for the dossier. Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee the sum was much less -- $160,000 (about Ł114,000). Simpson's firm, he also testified, was being paid at a rate of about $50,000 per month for a total of about $320,000. If the British sources are more accurate than Simpson's testimony, Steele's takings from the dossier represented roughly half the profit on the Orbis balance-sheet.

British sources also report that a US Government agency paid for Orbis to work on evidence and allegations of corruption at the world soccer federation, Fédération Internationale de Football (FIFA). Indictments in this case were issued by the US Department of Justice in May 2015 , and the following December . What role the two-partner British consultancy played in the complex investigations by teams from the Justice Department, the FBI and also the Internal Revenue Service is unclear. That Steele, Burrows and Orbis depended on US government sources for their financial well-being appears to be certain.

Another reported version of the FIFA contract is that Steele, Burrows and Orbis were hired by the British Football Association to collect materials on FIFA corruption, and provide them to the FBI and other US investigators, and then to the press. The scheme's objective was reportedly to advance the British bidding for the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 by discrediting the rival bids from Russia and Qatar. Click to read . Were MI6 and CIA sources mobilized by Orbis to feed the FBI with evidence the US investigators were unable to turn up, or was Orbis the conduit through which disinformation targeting Russia was fed to make it appear more credible to the FBI, and to the media?

US Congressional investigators have so far failed to notice the similarities between the FIFA and the Trump dossier operations. Early this month two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that they have called for a Justice Department and FBI investigation of Steele for providing false information to the FBI. The provision of the US code making lying a federal crime requires the falsehoods occur "within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States." Simpson has testified that when Steele briefed the FBI on the dossier, he did so at meetings in Rome, Italy.

Now then, Part I and this sequel of the Simpson-Steele story having been read and thoroughly mulled over, what can the meaning be?

In the short run, this case was a black job assigned by Republican Party candidates for president, then the Democratic National Committee, for the purpose of discrediting Trump in favour of Hillary Clinton. It failed on Election Day in 2016; the Democrats are still trying.

In the long run, the case is a measurement of the life, or the half-life, of truth. Giuseppe di Lampedusa wrote once that nowhere has truth so short a life as in Sicily. On his clock, that was five minutes. He didn't know the United States, or shall we say the stretch from Washington through New York to the North End of Boston. There, truth has an even shorter life. Scarcely a second.

nonsense factory , January 22, 2018 at 3:35 pm

"The primary reason I generally don't believe in conspiracies is that they can usually be better explained as the result of sheer incompetence and hubris."

I divide conspiracy notions into two categories: grand mal and petit mal . The former are generally implausible due to the large number of participants involved and while occassionally attempted, they are typically exposed pretty quickly. They may still have significant effects – for example, there was a large conspiracy to sell the Iraqi WMD story to the public, involving top levels of the British and American governments and a good section of the corporate media. That's the grand mal version.

Petit mal is your typical small criminal conspiracy. The FBI, for example, almost always includes 'conspiracy to commit mail fraud' on the list of federal charges.

With Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, there is some evidence that Clinton and Co. actually wanted to run against Donald Trump, and tried to get their allies to manipulate the Republican primary in favor of a Trump victory (hence all the free corporate media coverage of the Donald). The dossier, fabricated or not, seems to have been one of many 'ace in the holes' that the Clinton campaign thought they could use to discredit Trump (including the Access Hollywood tape, etc.) in the general election. If so, this strategy really blew up in their face – they thought they could manipulate the process, so they could ignore the Rust Belt concerns, and that's what handed Trump the presidency.

If the Clintonites were to admit this, however, they'd have to step down from party leadership and let the Sanders Democrats take over, and that's what this is really all about now, their effort to prevent that outcome.

Rhondda , January 22, 2018 at 3:57 pm

I pay pretty close attention to this topic and I must say I sometimes wonder if the Russians haven't sold the rope to the American political elite. I read all 311 pages of Simpson's testimony. I was struck that much of what he was "fed" by Steele confirmed his "OMG Russia corruption" biases.

And I say "fed to him" when I'm in a generous mood, giving him the benefit of the doubt, because usually I am of the opinion that he's either a really crappy CIA agent posing as a journalist or just a garden variety rat f*!@er. A black job political operative, stitching together a few almost-believable "facts" and out-and-out fabrications with squishy words like "collusion" and "ties."

From the embedded link in Helmer's text above: http://johnhelmer.net/glenn-simpson-chases-his-shadow-into-a-black-hole/

London due diligence firms say the record of Simpson's firm Fusion GPS and Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence operations in the US has discredited them in the due diligence market. The London experts believe the Senate Committee transcript shows Simpson and Steele were hired for the black job of discrediting the target of their research, Trump; did a poor job; failed in 2016; and now are engaged in bitter recriminations against each other to avoid multi-million dollar court penalties.

A source at a London firm which is larger and better known than Steele's Orbis says "standard due diligence means getting to the truth. It's confidential to the client, and not leaked. There are also black jobs, white jobs, and red jobs. Black means the client wants you to dig up dirt on the target, and make it look credible for publishing in the press. White means the client wants you to clear him of the wrongdoing which he's being accused of in the media or the marketplace; it's also leaked to the press. A red job is where the client pays the due diligence firm to hire a journalist to find out what he knows and what he's likely to publish, in order to bribe or stop him. The Steele dossier on Trump is an obvious black job. Too obvious."

Emphasis mine.

3.14e-9 , January 22, 2018 at 6:49 pm

Rhondaa writes:

I read all 311 pages of Simpson's testimony. I was struck that much of what he was "fed" by Steele confirmed his "OMG Russia corruption" biases.

Same here, but not just about what he was fed by Steele. Simpson claimed to have done some of his own research and said it was consistent with what he got from Steele.

I'm about three-quarters of the way through the transcript of Simpson's interrogation by the House Intelligence Committee, and I've read all 312 pages of the Senate Judiciary Committee transcript, which bears little resemblance to what was reported in the major media – shocking, I know.

Among the "bombshells" the mainstream reported was "proof" that it wasn't the dossier that launched the FBI's investigation of Trump, and therefore the dossier couldn't have been used as justification for a FISA warrant. A bigger bombshell, which of course none of them mentioned, is that Simpson, with his client's consent, was secretly briefing Clinton-friendly reporters on information from Steele's memos, and they used it to write stories based on "unnamed sources." He even admitted that he didn't verify the information before feeding it to the media, said he didn't feel he needed to, because it came from a trustworthy source. Where have we heard that before?

Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I'm wondering why it's that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing. It's well-established that the State Department often acts as a cover for the CIA, and the agency under Secretary Clinton had a strong anti-Russia faction that's on the record as meddling in Ukraine's presidential election. And how much doubt could there be that both Clintons kept the CIA connections they made while in office?

Then there was the whole "Grizzly Steppe" report just before Trump's inauguration, presented as a consensus among "17 intelligence agencies" that the Russians "hacked the election" to help Trump win.

I'm not 100-percent convinced that U.S. intelligence was behind the dossier, but it's enough of a possibility that I'm not writing it off as some nutty "conspiracy theory."

integer , January 23, 2018 at 4:16 am

Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I'm wondering why it's that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing.

FWIW this NC commenter has never had any problem believing that this may be the case. In fact I am fairly certain that it is the case, although from what I understand the FBI and MI6 were also involved.

Adding: Heh. I posted this before looking at Rev Kev's link to the Raimondo article, which comes to the same conclusions. Interesting times!

Scott1 , January 22, 2018 at 4:37 pm

I believe that Seth Abramson or someone put photographs to the Steele dossier showing people in the places & at the times delineated in the Steele dossier. From the very first Steele said he would not & could not reveal his sources. It was from the first indicated that it would be to the FBI & CIA to discover. He said he believed that his sources were credible.

When I was studying Intelligence services the CIA was said to be the private army of the CIA. These days I don't know exactly who the CIA works for, or answers to. I certainly don't think well of the CIA believing they are wrapped up working for their Front businesses more than focusing on the mission of spying in the interests of the American people. Of private intelligence companies I get what I can from IHS Jane's. That the CIA lost 20 assets, human beings, in China for incompetent secret communications methods would lead professionals to withhold as much of identities as possible.

For awhile there I believe Steele was worried about his own health.

David Corn at Mother Jones was reticent to break the story. So now what I see to look for is what Steele said needed to be done, & that being what Mueller is doing at the behest of the DOJ.

The US has been at war, albeit Hybrid war since the imposition of sanctions for their violations of international law as regarded the annexation of Crimea & the attack on the Ukraine. Sanctions are Economic Warfare.

That the US feels the right to engage in warfare of any kind Economic or Hot over violations of International Law leads me to believe that the UN will fail to prevent the apocalyptic riot. But that as regards Trump becomes neither here nor there, correct?

The Rev Kev , January 23, 2018 at 12:29 am

Justin Raimondo has weighed in on this story at https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2018/01/22/russsia-gate-implodes/ and he does not sound like a happy camper.

John Gilberts , January 24, 2018 at 12:25 am

William Binney, former NSA technical official and whistleblower, comments on the FISA memo, that has apparently just been released. Obviously, a major development in 'Russia-gate'.

William Binney Exposes Secret FISA Memo
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48650.htm

[Feb 11, 2018] British spy who meddled in US elections disappears

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... former British MI-6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele was a no-show on Monday at a London courthouse. ..."
"... "There is substantial evidence suggesting that Mr. Steele materially misled the FBI about a key aspect of his dossier efforts, one which bears on his credibility ," reads the unredacted document that refers Steele for criminal prosecution in the US. ..."
"... "it appears that either Mr. Steele lied to the FBI or the British court, or that the classified documents reviewed by the Committee contain materially false statements." pic.twitter.com/KQ2OmVjOMI ..."
"... Fray-Witzer said, "Certainly with respect to Mr. Gubarev, Webzilla and XBT there has never been a single scrap of evidence about them in the dossier." ..."
"... Fray-Witzer stressed in that hearing that the British government "has not asserted" Steele's claims. The attorney has said Steele "is asserting he can't speak about things. We have pointed out that he's spoken to anyone who is willing to listen, every journalist, and the FBI." ..."
"... This second dossier went from Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer, who gave it to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, before it was routed to Christopher Steele ..."
"... Published accounts in the Guardian and the Washington Post have indicated that Clinton associate Cody Shearer was in contact with Steele about anti-Trump research, and Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer was a connection between Steele and the State Department during the 2016 campaign. – Washington Examiner ..."
"... Zerohedge ..."
Feb 11, 2018 | theduran.com

Fox News reports that former British MI-6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele was a no-show on Monday at a London courthouse.

Steele was expected for a long-requested deposition in a multi-million dollar civil case brought against Buzzfeed, which published a salacious and unverified "Trump-Russia" dossier.

Zerohedge reports

Steele may have skipped out over concerns that he would be asked questions about his contacts with various media outlets in connection with at least two dossiers he had a hand in assembling and disseminating -- for which he stands accused by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) of misleading the FBI about his contacts with journalists at various news outlets during the 2016 election.

"There is substantial evidence suggesting that Mr. Steele materially misled the FBI about a key aspect of his dossier efforts, one which bears on his credibility ," reads the unredacted document that refers Steele for criminal prosecution in the US.

12) The Issue at Hand

"it appears that either Mr. Steele lied to the FBI or the British court, or that the classified documents reviewed by the Committee contain materially false statements." pic.twitter.com/KQ2OmVjOMI

-- TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) February 5, 2018

13) We have the statements from the British Court documents but until the #GrassleyMemo is released we cannot identify the contradictions that Grassley found!
British Court Document (pgs 4-20) PDF> https://t.co/ljP02AAuyG pic.twitter.com/w1zl5JOudX

-- TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) February 5, 2018

It therefore stands to reason that Steele wanted to avoid any uncomfortable questions which might apply to ongoing investigations in US House and Senate. Separately, records obtained and reviewed by Fox News from related civil litigation in Florida reveal that Steele maintains that even showing up for a deposition would "implicate state secrets in London."

According to Fox News , Evan Fray-Witzer, a Boston-based attorney representing Russian tech tycoon Aleksej Gubarev in multi-million dollar civil litigation, described Monday's U.K. court actions to Fox News. "My understanding is that Mr. Steele's lawyers spent a good deal of time arguing why they thought he (Steele) should not be required to sit for a deposition and that ultimately the court took the entire matter under advisement."

Gubarev is suing the British-based Steele's company Orbis Business Intelligence because the dossier claimed Gubarev's companies, including XBT Holdings and Webzilla, used "botnets and port traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs and steal data."

Fray-Witzer said, "Certainly with respect to Mr. Gubarev, Webzilla and XBT there has never been a single scrap of evidence about them in the dossier."

Congressional testimony and ongoing Fox News reporting revealed that Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence were paid $168,000 by Fusion GPS' Glenn Simpson to write and promote the dossier among select journalists when it was opposition research funded in part by the Democratic National Committee. As Fox News has reported based upon review of British court records, Steele promoted and met with five media outlets repeatedly between the spring and fall of 2016. At the same time, Steele also was meeting with the FBI in Rome, according to reports.

Meanwhile, records obtained and reviewed by Fox News from related civil ligitation in Florida reveal that Steele maintains that even showing up for a deposition would "implicate state secrets in London."

Fray-Witzer stressed in that hearing that the British government "has not asserted" Steele's claims. The attorney has said Steele "is asserting he can't speak about things. We have pointed out that he's spoken to anyone who is willing to listen, every journalist, and the FBI."

Zerohedge further reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee's January 4 criminal referral of Steele also reveals that the former British spy was involved in a second anti-Trump opposition research dossier. This second dossier went from Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer, who gave it to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, before it was routed to Christopher Steele. It is unknown what happened to the document after that.

According to the referral, Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. In a convoluted scheme outlined in the referral, the foreign source gave the information to an unnamed associate of Hillary and Bill Clinton, who then gave the information to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, who then gave the information to Steele. Steele wrote a report based on the information, but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.

Published accounts in the Guardian and the Washington Post have indicated that Clinton associate Cody Shearer was in contact with Steele about anti-Trump research, and Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer was a connection between Steele and the State Department during the 2016 campaign. – Washington Examiner

Shearer's brother served as an ambassador during the Clinton administration, and his late sister was married to Strobe Talbott, the chief authority on Russia in President Bill Clinton's State Department, according to ProPublica.

Recalling that the dossier was published by Buzzfeed after the election, we're sure that much like the rest of the swamp; Clinton, Obama, Comey, McCabe, Mueller, Rosenstein, Strzok, Page, and the rest of the gang – Christopher Steele thought Hillary would win, and none of this would have ever come to light – Zerohedge

6.14 miles this morn from Home 2 Dome for my bday. 1 hr 23 mins. Left at 4:15AM pic.twitter.com/TukSOe6sIE

-- ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 17, 2015

[Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Not only large elements of the American and British intelligence services, but the 'Borgistas' in both countries, now including large elements of the academic/research apparatus and most of the MSM, really are joined at the hip. ..."
"... A relevant element of such collusion has to do with the creation of the Yeltsin-era Russian oligarchy. On this, a crucial source are interviews given by Christian Michel and Christopher Samuelson, who used to run a company called 'Valmet', to Catherine Belton, then with the 'Moscow Times', later with the 'Financial Times', in the days leading up to the conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in May 2005. ..."
"... On the subject of the competence of MI6, what seems to me a total apposite judgement was provided by the man whom Steele and his associates framed over the death of Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi. ..."
"... 'Litvinenko used to say: They are total retards in the UK, they believe everything we are telling them about Russia.' ..."
"... Throughout life, I have repeatedly come across a game played on certain kinds of élite Westerners, which, in honor of Kipling, who gave brilliant depictions of it, I call 'fool the stupid Sahib.' Both people from other societies, and their own, often play this game, and the underlying mentality not infrequently involves a combination of a sense of inferiority and contempt for the gullibility of people who are thought of -- commonly with justice -- as not knowing how the world really works, and thus being open to manipulation if one tells them what they want to hear. ..."
"... Irrespective of whether Lugovoi was accurately reporting what Litvinenko said, however, a mass of 'open source' evidence testifies to the extreme credulity with which officials and journalists on both sides of the Atlantic treat claims made by members of the 'StratCom' groups created by the oligarchs whose initial training was done by Valmet. ..."
"... (One good example is provided by the way that Sir Robert Owen and his team took what the surviving members of the Berezovsky group told them on trust. Another is the extraordinary way MSM figures continue to claim made by Khodorkovsky and his associates seriously.) ..."
"... When I discover that John Sipher is a 'former member of the CIA's Clandestine Service', who also worked 'on Russian espionage issues overseas, and in support of FBI counterintelligence investigations domestically,' then his apologetics for Steele seem not only to suggest he may be another 'total retard' -- but to point towards how the Anglo-American collaboration actually worked. (See https://www.politico.eu/article/devin-nunes-donald-trump-the-smearing-of-christopher-steele/ .) ..."
"... Another characteristic of these 'retards' is that they seem unable to get their story straight. In his piece last September defending the dossier, Sipher wrote that 'While in London he worked as the personal handler of the Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko.' Apparently he didn't know that the 'party line' had changed -- that when Steele emerged from hiding in May, his mouthpiece, Luke Harding of the 'Guardian', had explained: 'As head of MI6's Russia desk, Steele led the inquiry into Litvinenko's polonium poisoning, quickly concluding that this was a Russian state plot. He did not meet Litvinenko and was not his case officer, friends said.' ..."
"... The whole situation with Russia, of which, be it her economy, history, military, culture etc., is not known to those people, is a monstrous empirical evidence of a complete professional inadequacy of most people populating this bubble. ..."
"... Most of those people are badly educated (I am not talking about worthless formal degrees they hold) and cultured. In dry scientific language it is called a "confirmation bias", in a simple human one it is called being ignorant snobs, that is why this IC-academic-political-media "environment" in case of Russia prefers openly anti-Russian "sources" because those "sources" reiterate to them what they want to hear to start with, thus Chalabi Moment is being continuously reproduced. ..."
Feb 08, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

David Habakkuk , 08 February 2018 at 09:57 AM

All,

A number of points.

1. Not only large elements of the American and British intelligence services, but the 'Borgistas' in both countries, now including large elements of the academic/research apparatus and most of the MSM, really are joined at the hip.

It is thus an open question how far it is useful to speak of British intelligence intervening in the American election, rather than the American section of the 'Borg' and their partners in crime 'across the pond' colluding in an attempt to mount such an intervention with a greater appearance of 'plausible deniability.'

2. A relevant element of such collusion has to do with the creation of the Yeltsin-era Russian oligarchy. On this, a crucial source are interviews given by Christian Michel and Christopher Samuelson, who used to run a company called 'Valmet', to Catherine Belton, then with the 'Moscow Times', later with the 'Financial Times', in the days leading up to the conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in May 2005.

(See http://mikhail_khodorkovsky_society_two.blogspot.co.uk .)

This describes the education in 'Western banking practices' given to him and his Menatep associates by Michel and Samuelson, starting as early as 1989, and also their crucial involvement with Berezovsky.

We are told by Belton that: 'With the help of British government connections, Valmet had already built up a wealthy clientele that included the ruling family of Dubai.' As to large ambitions which Michel and Samuelson had, she tells us: 'Used to dealing with the riches of Arab leaders, they found Menatep, by comparison still relatively small fry. By 1994, however, Menatep had started moving into all kinds of industries, from chemicals to textiles to metallurgy. But for Valmet, which by that time had already partnered up with one of the oldest banks in the United States, Riggs Bank, and for Menatep, the real prize was oil.'

Try Googling 'Riggs Bank' -- a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a 'comprador' oligarchy who could loot Russia's raw materials resources.

3. On the subject of the competence of MI6, what seems to me a total apposite judgement was provided by the man whom Steele and his associates framed over the death of Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi.

In the press conference in May 2007 where he responded to the request for his extradition submitted by the Crown Prosecution Service, he claimed that: 'Litvinenko used to say: They are total retards in the UK, they believe everything we are telling them about Russia.'

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence ">https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence">http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

It seems to me quite likely, although obviously not certain, that this did indeed represent the view of many of the 'StratCom' operators around Berezovsky of people like Steele.

Throughout life, I have repeatedly come across a game played on certain kinds of élite Westerners, which, in honor of Kipling, who gave brilliant depictions of it, I call 'fool the stupid Sahib.' Both people from other societies, and their own, often play this game, and the underlying mentality not infrequently involves a combination of a sense of inferiority and contempt for the gullibility of people who are thought of -- commonly with justice -- as not knowing how the world really works, and thus being open to manipulation if one tells them what they want to hear.

Some fragments of a mass of evidence that this was precisely what Litvinenko did were presented by me in a previous post.

Irrespective of whether Lugovoi was accurately reporting what Litvinenko said, however, a mass of 'open source' evidence testifies to the extreme credulity with which officials and journalists on both sides of the Atlantic treat claims made by members of the 'StratCom' groups created by the oligarchs whose initial training was done by Valmet.

(One good example is provided by the way that Sir Robert Owen and his team took what the surviving members of the Berezovsky group told them on trust. Another is the extraordinary way MSM figures continue to claim made by Khodorkovsky and his associates seriously.)

Accordingly, when I read of anyone treating practically anything that Steele claims as plausible, I try to work out how much of a 'retard' they must be, starting with a baseline of about 50%.

4. In the light of the way that the reliance on the dossier in the FISA applications absent meaningful corroboration is being defended by Comey and others on the basis that Steele was 'considered reliable due to his past work with the Bureau', the question is how many people in the FBI must be considered to have a 'retard' rating somewhere over 90%.

When I discover that John Sipher is a 'former member of the CIA's Clandestine Service', who also worked 'on Russian espionage issues overseas, and in support of FBI counterintelligence investigations domestically,' then his apologetics for Steele seem not only to suggest he may be another 'total retard' -- but to point towards how the Anglo-American collaboration actually worked. (See https://www.politico.eu/article/devin-nunes-donald-trump-the-smearing-of-christopher-steele/ .)

5. Another characteristic of these 'retards' is that they seem unable to get their story straight. In his piece last September defending the dossier, Sipher wrote that 'While in London he worked as the personal handler of the Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko.' Apparently he didn't know that the 'party line' had changed -- that when Steele emerged from hiding in May, his mouthpiece, Luke Harding of the 'Guardian', had explained: 'As head of MI6's Russia desk, Steele led the inquiry into Litvinenko's polonium poisoning, quickly concluding that this was a Russian state plot. He did not meet Litvinenko and was not his case officer, friends said.'

(See http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/a_lot_of_the_steele_dossier_has_since_been_corroborated.html ; https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/07/former-mi6-agent-christopher-steele-behind-trump-dossier-returns-to-work .)

6. In his attempts to defend the credibility of the dossier, Sipher also explains that its -- supposed -- author was President of the Cambridge Union. Here, two profiles of Steele on the 'MailOnline' site are of interest.

In one a contemporary is quoted:

"'When you took part in politics at the Cambridge Union, it was very spiteful and full of people spreading rumours," he said. "Steele fitted right in. He was very ambitious, ruthless and frankly not a very nice guy."

The other tells us that he born in Aden in 1964, and that his father was in the military, before going on to say that contemporaries recall an 'avowedly Left-wing student with CND credentials', while a book on the Union's history says he was a 'confirmed socialist'.

(See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4115070/Chris-Whatsit-brilliant-Cambridge-spy-spent-life-battling-KGB-MI6-agent-wife-s-high-heels-stolen-Kremlin-spooks-revealed-Litvinenko-poisoned-Putin-s-thugs.html ; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4115070/Chris-Whatsit-brilliant-Cambridge-spy-spent-life-battling-KGB-MI6-agent-wife-s-high-heels-stolen-Kremlin-spooks-revealed-Litvinenko-poisoned-Putin-s-thugs.html .)

From my own -- undistinguished and mildly irreverent -- Cambridge career, I can testify that there was indeed a certain kind of student politician, whom, if I may mix metaphors, fellow-students were perfectly well aware were going to arse-lick their way up some greasy pole or other in later life.

It was a world with which I came back in contact when, after living abroad and a protracted apprenticeship in print journalism, I accidentally found employment with what was then one of the principal television current affairs programmes in Britain. In the early 'Eighties I overlapped with Peter -- now Lord -- Mandelson, who became one of the principal architects of 'New Labour.'

7. Given that at this time British intelligence agencies were somewhat paranoid about CND, there is a small puzzle as to why on his graduation in 1986 Steele should have been recruited by MI6. In more paranoid moments I wonder whether he did not already have intelligence contacts through his father, and served as a 'stool pigeon' as a student.

But then, people like Sir John Scarlett and Sir Richard Dearlove may simply have concluded that someone with 'form' in smearing rivals at the Union was ideally suited for the kind of organisation they wanted to run.

8. From experience with Mandelson, and others, there are however other relevant things about this type. One is that they commonly love Machiavellian intrigue, and are very good at it, within the worlds they know and understand.

If however they have to try to cope with alien environments, where they do not know the people and where such intrigues are played much more ruthlessly, they are liable to find themselves hopelessly outclassed. (This can happen not simply with the politics of the post-Soviet space and the Middle East, but with some of the murkier undergrowths of local politics in London.)

Another limitation on their understanding is that the last thing they are interested in his how the world outside the bubbles they prefer to inhabit operates, and they commonly have absolutely contempt for 'deplorables', be they Russian, British or American. This can lead to political misjudgements.

9. So it is not really so surprising that, when Berezovsky's 'StratCom' people told them that the Putin 'sistema' really was the 'return of Karla', people like Steele believed everything they said, precisely as Lugovoi brought out.

There is I think every reason to believe that, from first to last, the intrigues in which he has been involved have involved close collusion between them and elements in American intelligence -- including the FBI. As a result, a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly got into complex undercover contests in the post-Soviet space which ran right out of control, creating a desperate need for cover-ups. A similar pattern applies in relation to the activities of such people in the Middle East.

SmoothieX12 -> David Habakkuk ... , 08 February 2018 at 11:28 AM
Another limitation on their understanding is that the last thing they are interested in his how the world outside the bubbles they prefer to inhabit operates, and they commonly have absolutely contempt for 'deplorables', be they Russian, British or American. This can lead to political misjudgements.

It is not just "can" it very often does. The whole situation with Russia, of which, be it her economy, history, military, culture etc., is not known to those people, is a monstrous empirical evidence of a complete professional inadequacy of most people populating this bubble.

Most of those people are badly educated (I am not talking about worthless formal degrees they hold) and cultured. In dry scientific language it is called a "confirmation bias", in a simple human one it is called being ignorant snobs, that is why this IC-academic-political-media "environment" in case of Russia prefers openly anti-Russian "sources" because those "sources" reiterate to them what they want to hear to start with, thus Chalabi Moment is being continuously reproduced.

In case of Iraq, as an example, it is a tragedy but at least the world is relatively safe. With Russia, as I stated many times for years--they simply have no idea what they are dealing with. None. It is expected from people who are briefed by "sources" such as Russian fugitive London Oligarchy or ultra-liberal and fringe urban Russian "tusovka". Again, the level of "Russian Studies" in Anglophone world is appalling. In fact, it is clear and present danger since removes or misinterprets crucial information about the only nation in the world which can annihilate the United States completely in such a light that it creates a real danger even for a disastrous military confrontation. I would go on a limb here and say that US military on average is much better aware of Russia and not only in purely military terms. In some sense--it is an exception. But even there, there are some trends (and they are not new) which are very worrisome.

[Feb 04, 2018] DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT Security company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... An investigation of the State Dept should bring the focus around to issues of substance. ..."
"... DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT "Security" company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election ..."
"... DNC consultant Andrea Chalupa, unregistered foreign agent whose entire family is tied to Ukrainian Intelligence ..."
"... Further research revealed that Andrea Chalupa and her two siblings are actively involved with other sources of digital terrorism, disinformation and spamming, like TrolleyBust com, stopfake org, and informnapalm. ..."
"... Ms. Chalupa kept cooperating with the Khodorovky owned magazine "The Interpreter." Now, it's a part of RFE/RL run by the government funded Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) whose director, Dr. Leon Aron also a director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute ..."
Feb 04, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

mc888 -> nmewn Feb 3, 2018 12:00 PM Permalink

Sessions is not recused from a Ukraine investigation. An investigation of the State Dept should bring the focus around to issues of substance.

  • Obama repeal of Smith-Mundt to allow State Dept propaganda in the domestic US
  • Obama coup of Ukraine
  • Obama / McCain support of Nazis in Ukraine
  • Adam Schiff relationship with Ukrainian arms dealer Igor Pasternak
  • DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT "Security" company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election
  • DNC consultant Andrea Chalupa, unregistered foreign agent whose entire family is tied to Ukrainian Intelligence

Further research revealed that Andrea Chalupa and her two siblings are actively involved with other sources of digital terrorism, disinformation and spamming, like TrolleyBust com, stopfake org, and informnapalm.

Ms. Chalupa kept cooperating with the Khodorovky owned magazine "The Interpreter." Now, it's a part of RFE/RL run by the government funded Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) whose director, Dr. Leon Aron also a director of Russian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://thesaker.is/guess-whats-neither-meat-nor-fish-but-ms-chalupa-and

[Feb 03, 2018] The FISA Memo, Obama, And The Election that Almost Was not by Tom Luongo

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Then Bruce Ohr, the spouse of Nellie Ohr, who has a background in anti-narcotics and the anti-drug agenda at the Dept. of Justice, he all of a sudden starts meeting with Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele, and he valets this fake dossier, paid for by the DNC, into the Dept. of Justice. ..."
"... The Dept. of Justice and the FBI then use the fake dossier as a basis for a FISA warrant to spy on American citizens. And the reason you know that is because of Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, the same Andrew McCabe whose wife got $700,000 from the closest allies of the Clinton family. Andrew McCabe testifies that there never would have been a FISA warrant, but for the dossier. ..."
"... Then the FISA warrant is in process, it is being sought. To validate the fake dossier, the Dept. of Justice and FBI use an article written by Mr. Isikoff of Yahoo News to be the validating information for the dossier. What's the problem with that? Christopher Steele is the very person who planted the article at Yahoo News. So you've got a fake dossier, paid for by the Democratic Party, served into the process by the spouse of someone hired, functionally, by the Democratic Party, and then validated by a news article planted by the very author of the dossier. It is outrageous, but it gets worse from there. ..."
"... No matter what happens, the FBI needs to be revamped. It cannot be a political organization that has zombies planted in it's organization ready to destroy the next POTUS because of party politics. Since J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO, the FBI has been a law unto itself. ..."
Feb 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
"Round up the usual suspects," will be as far as the Democrats will be willing to go in the wake of the FISA memo's release. There is nothing in that memo that anyone following the Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation doesn't already know.

All the memo does is corroborate the bread crumbs left behind by a drip feed of leaks, counter-leaks and good ol' fashioned investigative journalism. Since the memo is based on actual evidence that the FBI admits is real but will not allow us to see, the memo itself can be taken as fact.

The FBI has the evidence. They've showed it to the House Intelligence Committee. Both agree on the facts. So, by extension, the memo is all the evidence we need.

Put that in your DNC-scripted talking point pipe and blow it out your ass.

Conclusions Matter

Now that the timeline and paper trail have been determined the real implications of the memo and its facts can be discussed. I'm no longer interested in the game of cut and thrust to stop the truth from coming out.

I'm only interested now in the conclusions we can draw from the memo itself.

And those conclusions are chilling.

The out-going Obama administration, at the highest levels in coordination with the media, conspired to create news stories that supported a FISA warrant based on politically-motivated opposition research to undermine the newly-elected President of the United States.

Moreover, it knowingly omitted material facts to the court not once, but four times, to keep that surveillance warrant open in service of this operation. A warrant the FBI deputy director, Andrew McCabe, testified under oath to Congress that was key to its issuance.

They knew the dossier on Trump, compiled by Michael Steele, was unverifiable. They hid its origin and motivation from the court. The information from this warrant and the details of the dossier were used to move public opinion and Congress into supporting Robert Mueller's investigation.

But, to what end? To disgrace and force from office the President of the United States. Thus, these people, and the leadership of the Democratic Party, President Obama himself and Hillary Clinton's staff all conspired to criminally disenfranchise more than 60 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump.

To say that this is bigger than Watergate is like calling World War II a minor kerfuffle.

What About the Voters!?

Think about this for one second and you know what I'm saying.

All of these people are guilty, at a minimum of corruption, conspiracy and fraud. I'm no legal scholar, so I'm sure the list of offenses is longer than one of Hillary Clinton's tirades after someone criticized her latest pantsuit atrocity.

This ultimately opens all of these organizations up to the biggest civil rights class action lawsuit in the history of this country. The Obama administration and the Democratic Party used opposition research to paint a false narrative of corruption in the Oval Office to discredit the election.

How many riots and street demonstrations did we see in 2017 as outraged and triggered liberals ran around smashing in windows and beating people up because of their delusion based on a lie?

How many hours of lost productivity did the country suffer because of FBI complicity in an operation to overturn a legal election?

How many millions in property damage? Destroyed careers?

What about the direct victims of this disgusting display of government corruption taken to its logical conclusion?

Why is Michael Flynn nearly bankrupt after being hounded by Mueller for months only to get a nothing guilty plea on the thinnest of procedural offenses? When the corruption is this venal isn't it our right under the Constitution to petition our government for a redress of grievances? Who do we sue?

Because there's material harm here and someone should be held responsible. This began under Obama's watch. He set this whole process in motion. High ranking members of his cabinet are directly implicated by the facts in the memo.

And the memo is just the beginning of the discovery phase of this very public trial.

Government on Trial

But, I want more than that. I want it all out in the open. And I want those responsible, those for whom the titles, salaries, benefits and power we bestow on them to do our work, to stand up and be accountable. And if they are too venal, feckless and narcissistic to admit these things, then we'll drag them through the most embarrassing of show trials.

And that means stripping them of their wealth, power and privilege. It means turning off their house organs in the media; outing the enablers, leakers, trolls and spooks. It means releasing everything, unredacted, in the name of national security. It means reminding them of just how much all of that depends on our consent, not theirs. Because if we don't demand these things, then next time there won't even be the pretense of an election.

political junkie -> gatorengineer Feb 3, 2018 9:28 PM Permalink

We don't need to 'sway' a single D. We need to jail a good many of them.

This memo is not the only one. Sen Grassley has one coming next week... will add more butthurt. After Grassley memo comes one from Goodlatte... then comes the report from the IG Horowitz (remember the 1.4 m pgs release recently? remember he has been working for over a year with some 400 employees? Hired by Hussein, but like all IGs in his admin hamstringed to do ANYTHING. A tsunami of indictments are coming. Hang on, enjoy the ride.

Any 'bloodshed' will come from the crazed Dem/Clintonites/Soro paid Antifa idiots - who have already proved they are violent and against free speech unless it is what they believe.

POTUS is taking care - going for the roots - any red-blooded American would be doing the same. Justice is coming. to the Fake News also...

Chupacabra-322 -> Slippery Slope Feb 3, 2018 8:57 PM Permalink

@ Slippery,

February 2, 2018: Memo Special Edition

The memo is as troubling as expected, here's a disturbing summary . Listen now.

http://www.bongino.com/february-2-2018-memo-special-edition/

Obamagate is the most significant political scandal of our lifetimes .

This piece lays out the role of the fake Trump dossier in the investigation against the Trump team.

Are the Obama Hillary emails coming out soon? This could be the next bombshell.

Getting a FISA warrant isn't easy, here's an excellent piece that explains the process .

Former Obama administration Director of National Intelligence keeps stepping on himself and changing his story .

Trump approval pops to 49%.

http://www.bongino.com/february-2-2018-ep-647-the-entire-house-of-cards-is-coming-down/

One of We -> Chupacabra-322 Feb 3, 2018 9:15 PM Permalink

The details of the FISA warrants should be interesting to say the least. Can you imagine if Meuller has realtime access to bulk data collection on Trump to this day? Did the warrant allow bugs in the WH, Mar Lago, Camp David, AF1, etc?

One of my main beefs with Trump is his support for illegal surveillance and a bigger police state. Hopefully the experience of Trump's family being in the crosshairs of the illegal spying will get his mind right.

One of We -> Chupacabra-322 Feb 3, 2018 9:57 PM Permalink

Viewing the FISA warrant shenanigans with the context that all the bad actors counted on "Madame President" making it all go away after she was sworn in is key. I don't imagine most of them have had a good night's sleep since Nov.5 2016. That they have run through their playbook to the point they trot out Bobby Kennedy's grandson to give the bolshevik response to Trump's SOTU in a bald face threat to POTUS is shocking and one would have to assume the only round left in the cylinder is assassination. If Schumer looked at me the way he was looking at POTUS during the SOTU I would be glad I usually have a sidearm.

DavyRoySixPack Feb 3, 2018 8:55 PM Permalink

Without Congress, nothing happens. Stalemate. Swept under the rug. Stalling, new investigations..... but nothing will happen.

Looks like they won. I don't see any outrage anywhere , ... where it matters .....

Nope, looks like facts are not needed here ....

WillyGroper -> DuneCreature Feb 3, 2018 9:33 PM Permalink

Lisa Barsoomian

Mrs. Lisa Barsoomian is an attorney; but most importantly is that she is the wife of Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice. Prior to that, he served as the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland. Surely you don't want to read about that, therefore check out the 5 facts we found about Mrs. Barsoomian Rosenstein

50-year-old Mrs. Barsoomian was born on January 15, 1968. She is the daughter of Armenian immigrants. Together they have two beautiful daughters; Julie, 18, and Allison, 15.

She graduated from Georgetown Law. Moreover, according to reports, she represented Hillary Clinton, between 1991 to 2017; she also represented Bill Clinton, James Comey, Barack Obama, Kathleen Sebellius and Robert Muller. Furthermore, Lisa Barsoomian Rosenstein works for R. Craig Lawrence.

R. Craig Lawrence helped seal Obama's college records to prevent inquiry into his application for full scholarship as a foreign exchange student.

MuffDiver69 Feb 3, 2018 8:55 PM Permalink

This is a situation the FBI, DOJ, Democrats and media literally don't want more info in the public eye. The charade was tailored made to bash and trash the President for two years now. Putin's Puppet was used in the first debate and all being scripted by Steele and idiots like FBI Strzok and his horse toothed slut... Carter Page is the one to watch ... he has been destroyed reputation wise and yet not one interview with Mueller or FBI ...

Dilluminati Feb 3, 2018 8:55 PM Permalink

We can all have our own opinions but not or own facts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH3_-TdoNkQ

Here is a congressmen on the committee telling you the facts! https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/02/rep_matt_gaetz_react

REP. MATT GAETZ: Here's what we know now as a consequence of this memo: The Democratic National Committee gave money to the Perkins Law Firm, the Perkins Law Firm then paid the company Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS then hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr, who is a senior official at the Justice Dept, and they hired Christopher Steele, who went and wrote this fake dossier. Then Bruce Ohr, the spouse of Nellie Ohr, who has a background in anti-narcotics and the anti-drug agenda at the Dept. of Justice, he all of a sudden starts meeting with Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele, and he valets this fake dossier, paid for by the DNC, into the Dept. of Justice.

The Dept. of Justice and the FBI then use the fake dossier as a basis for a FISA warrant to spy on American citizens. And the reason you know that is because of Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, the same Andrew McCabe whose wife got $700,000 from the closest allies of the Clinton family. Andrew McCabe testifies that there never would have been a FISA warrant, but for the dossier.

The dossier is the cause of the FISA warrant, that is from Andrew McCabe, no friend of Donald Trump.

Then the FISA warrant is in process, it is being sought. To validate the fake dossier, the Dept. of Justice and FBI use an article written by Mr. Isikoff of Yahoo News to be the validating information for the dossier. What's the problem with that? Christopher Steele is the very person who planted the article at Yahoo News. So you've got a fake dossier, paid for by the Democratic Party, served into the process by the spouse of someone hired, functionally, by the Democratic Party, and then validated by a news article planted by the very author of the dossier. It is outrageous, but it gets worse from there.

The FBI the learns that Mr. Steele has been leaking information to the media. so despite the fact that the FBI has authorized payments to Mr. Steele, they then don't render payment to Christopher Steele. now, do they go on and alert the court that that has happened? Absolutely not. The FISA warrant has to be reauthorized every 90 days, and it is reauthorized multiple times with the signatures on it of the senior officials of the Dept. of Justice all based on a lie. All based on completely false information that has to be validated by the authors of the originally false information.

That's what is so outrageous about this. Not only the original lies and the original application for the FISA warrant, but the reauthorizations and the proof that this entire narrative is built on a rotten foundation.

So in the coming days and weeks, we're going to be seeking to excersize our oversight authority, and Democrats will continue to do what they've always done, attack Chairman Devin Nunes, attack me, attack those of us who are trying to get information in front of the American people about the basis of these claims.

We're going to keep telling the truth, because this is rotten, and this can never happen again in the U.S.A.

You'll be hearing from me soon, thanks for tuning in.

So ERGO and in conclusion it takes a ridiculous cunt or a cocksucker to still believe that this isn't an abuse of power by the top officials at the FBI!

There is no longer an excuse for being a cocksucker or a ridiculous stupid cunt!

Jackprong Feb 3, 2018 9:44 PM Permalink

No matter what happens, the FBI needs to be revamped. It cannot be a political organization that has zombies planted in it's organization ready to destroy the next POTUS because of party politics. Since J. Edgar Hoover and COINTELPRO, the FBI has been a law unto itself.

In 1989, the U. S. Navy battleship USS Iowa experienced a gun turret explosion that killed the gun crew operating the 16 inch gun. The Naval Investigative Service (NIS) was deployed to determine what happened. Instead of conducting a proper investigation of problem solving for a root cause of the explosion, the NIS agency came up with a zany story of a crewmember setting off the explosion over an alleged spurned male love affair, et al.

The investigation had to be taken over and handled by a different team while NIS was dismantled by the Navy under Congressional directive.

The NIS had become sloppy and an unprofessional organization, rotten to the core. The new NCIS was launched to replace NIS. The gun turret explosion root cause was determined by a team at Pax river whereby it was learned that a misalignment of canisters created the explosion. In summary, the FBI needs to become the Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Congress must be a Watch Dog and make this happen immediately.

[Feb 03, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis Habakkuk on 'longtime' sources

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio 4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets, backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives. ..."
"... The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available – evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned. ..."
"... As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone. ..."
"... All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder. For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich. ..."
"... So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster ..."
"... In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames. ..."
"... There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.) ..."
"... It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here, a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story. ..."
"... In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated. ..."
"... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
"... JohnB , 03 February 2018 at 05:17 PM ..."
"... Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat. ..."
"... turcopolier , 03 February 2018 at 06:02 PM ..."
"... It is the closest of all international intelligence relationships. It started in WW2. Before that the Brits were though of as a potential enemy. pl ..."
"... wish you could write more on why the Borg is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them. ..."
"... "There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. " ..."
"... I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them. ..."
"... It is the VERY FACT of Trump EVEN GETTING ELECTED at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
Feb 03, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Habakkuk on 'longtime' sources:

Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'

In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background, which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.'

There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.

This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.

And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area.

Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.

The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.

In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry – the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.

Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier, which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.

(See http://www.newsweek.com/2016/05/20/what-really-happened-robert-levinson-cia-iran-454803.html .)

Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio 4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets, backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.

The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available – evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.

Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.

What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest a sale had been completed.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.

All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder. For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.

(On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews both with Mogilevich and Levinson at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/panorama/transcripts/transcript_06_12_99.txt )

In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.

Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions north of the Litani.

These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.

What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.

Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking 'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.

Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.

So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster .

All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.

(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)

At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate Russia in supplying materials.

There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)

It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional, Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.

It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here, a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.

Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.

In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.

Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain, but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)

That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:

'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear limited life components and you can read for weeks).'

(For this and other articles by Kaszeta, as also his bio, see http://strongpointsecurity.co.uk ')

What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility, in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of ones which lasted longer.

For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.

What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.

In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'

According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?

As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.

In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties, and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another day.

A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.

Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.

Posted at 03:42 PM in As The Borg Turns , Habakkuk , Russia , Russiagate | Permalink

james , 03 February 2018 at 04:33 PM

thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..

it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..

JohnB , 03 February 2018 at 05:17 PM
David,

Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.

turcopolier , 03 February 2018 at 06:02 PM
james

It is the closest of all international intelligence relationships. It started in WW2. Before that the Brits were though of as a potential enemy. pl

Babak Makkinejad -> turcopolier ... , 03 February 2018 at 06:10 PM
I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One. The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
catherine , 03 February 2018 at 06:22 PM
That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.

Re: Levinson

# Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.

# Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson went to Jablonski with it.

# And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson? The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing came of it.

I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.

Ishmael Zechariah , 03 February 2018 at 06:54 PM
DH,
As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.

I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anlo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area." It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".

Be safe.

Ishmael Zechariah

kooshy said in reply to Ishmael Zechariah... , 03 February 2018 at 08:21 PM
IZ
My guess is, that he is unpredictable, instantaneous and therefore can't be consistent and reliable, useful idiot needs to be predictable.
kooshy , 03 February 2018 at 08:43 PM
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. "

David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making. Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.

different clue , 03 February 2018 at 08:49 PM
Ishmael Zechariah,

( reply to comment 6),

I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.

It is the VERY FACT of Trump EVEN GETTING ELECTED at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate.

And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.

So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

[Jan 31, 2018] Will Congress Face Down the Deep State by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Trump at end of SOTU, "Oh yeah, don't worry, 100%" FISA memo will be released
Trey Gowdy said this week on Fox News that the memo is "embarrassing" to Democrats
Notable quotes:
"... The coming weeks will show whether the U.S. intelligence establishment (the FBI/CIA/NSA, AKA the "Deep State") will be able to prevent its leaders from being held to account. Past precedent suggests that the cabal that conjured up Russia-gate will not have to pick up a "go-to-jail" card. This, despite the widespread guilt suggested by the abrupt way that several senior-echelon DOJ and FBI rats have already jumped ship. Not to mention the manner in which FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was unceremoniously pushed overboard yesterday, after Director Christopher Wray was given a look at the extralegal capers described in the House Intelligence Committee memorandum. ..."
"... "When GW Bush said of the Constitution, 'It's just a goddam piece of paper,' I thought it was just another toss-off bit of hyperbole as he so often would utter. Not so. He, and many in his administration (and out) sincerely believe it and set out to make it so. They may actually have succeeded." ..."
"... I almost feel sorry for what is called "mainstream media" and – even more so – for the majority of Americans deceived by the prevailing narrative on Russia-gate. Even though that narrative now lies in shreds, there is no sign so far that the pundits will fess up and admit to spreading a far-fetched, evidence-impoverished story that was full of holes from the get-go. ..."
"... Adam B. Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, giving hypocrisy a bad name. Schiff said yesterday that it had been a "sad day" for the committee and that Republicans had voted "to politicize the intelligence process." ..."
"... I do think Russia-gate is an over-hyped political campaign. The threat from Russia to our electoral process is like a cult, in which belief is paramount to rational thinking. Evidence. Let's see the evidence for all these things. ..."
"... The weight of evidence is on the side of the debunkers of Russiagate. This "debate" is far from a wash, or a draw. The propaganda and spin are from the Russia blamers, not their refuters. ..."
"... What we have brewing here is a battle between otherwise execrable creatures of the ruling class: the Sean Hannity-Pat Buchanan, et. al. wing of the GOP (which on this PARTICULAR issue happens to be on the righteous side) versus the Zionist-militarist neoliberal imperialist wing of the ruling class which is currently composed of the Schiffs, Warners, DNC, national security state and most of the mass media across the spectrum. (Yes, my quick outline of the two opposing sides is a bit slapdash and doesn't take into account all the players and factions, but you get the picture.) ..."
"... What's absolutely fascinating is that even though Trump's ceded Jerusalem to the Zionist psychopaths and has saber rattled since day one towards Tehran, thus far these positions STILL have not been enough to call off the Schiff-Warner dogs. The DNC and elements of the national security-mass media-state may have dug themselves such a deep whole by propagating this whole Russia-gate canard over the last 14 months that they're now in a difficult spot with little chance of saving face and must faithfully proceed into their own eventual humiliation. ..."
"... Meanwhile the American domestic population is stalked by the specter of massive inequality, un and under employment, repugnant wages doled out essentially by the malicious local Chamber of Commerce, drug addiction, a dental healtcare crises, hopelessness, and political impotence. ..."
"... Ray, you left out Senator Grassley and his committee's work in this 'caper'. Grassley, Nunes and Goodlatte are the one's to watch. It is their three committee's – Senate Judiciary, House Intel, House Judiciary – driving this school bus and it appears they are readying to put that puppy in third gear. ..."
"... If the memo is just evidence free conspiracy theories. The dems would want it released. So that they could rip it to shreds with real evidence. And make the Repubs look like fools. But they don't have any evidence. Just like the evidence they didn't have for their Russia hacking claims. ..."
"... Given Israel's enormous influence in Official Washington and over US. foreign policy, and given Hollywood's influence over American popular culture and what passes for a public discussion, it would seem that any serious discussion of "the Deep State" would of necessity include this question: What is "the Deep State" and what is Israel's role in it? Clearly Israel has a role in "the Deep State" if the US Army and the FBI find it necessary to beg Hollywood producers to stop popularizing torture as an interrogation technique among US troops in wartime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_reaction_to_24#Torture ..."
"... Congress is a junior partner of the Deep State. Don't expect them to go against their Bosses. ..."
"... The Deep State has been scared for quite a while. It's ALL predicated on the Petro-Dollar. The ME wars are ALL about trying to maintain this US lifeblood. This "arrangement" is faltering. The cracks really started to appear with Osama Bin Laden, with his condemnation of the US (who had been helping fund him) occupation of Saudi Arabia. One could make the argument that 9/11 was the event used by the US to slap him down: another US operative gone rogue. Had Bin Laden gained momentum he'd have likely taken down the Royal Family. Even if THIS was all but a big play it still supports the track of holding the Petro-Dollar in place. Keep in mind that the thing that all the over-thrown leaders had in common was they they were flirting with introducing currencies (gold-backed) that would challenge the Petro-Dollar's standing. ..."
"... I am under no illusion that Trump has any real "solution." Reason being is that there IS no solution to an economic system that is based on growth and gets to the point where growth is no longer possible: again, this growth-model has been globalized -- there is no more there to exploit for growth. ..."
"... My money's on the CIA (or the other higher-powered alphabet organization, NSA?) having started the Big Subversion with the push to "oust" Sanders from the running. Only a fool would believe that the CIA (or NSA) wouldn't have known about the crap that was happening with the DNC. That Clapper sand-bagged it tends to show that they were almost certainly complicit in the whole thing: if they weren't then there would have been actual facts/data put out to show Russian interference. ..."
"... Sanders gets whacked by the DNC (CIA and or other high level agencies manipulate the media sphere to blank out Sanders). DNC insiders. dissenters (was it Rich?) counter and whack Clinton, but TPTB (likely with FBI and or CIA assistance) attempt to re-float Clinton's waning support by introducing the DNC insider hit as coming from Russia. ..."
Jan 31, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

With the House Intelligence Committee vote yesterday to release its four-page memorandum reportedly based on documentary evidence of possible crimes by top Justice Department and FBI leaders, the die is cast. Russia-gate and FBI-gate are now joined at the hip.

The coming weeks will show whether the U.S. intelligence establishment (the FBI/CIA/NSA, AKA the "Deep State") will be able to prevent its leaders from being held to account. Past precedent suggests that the cabal that conjured up Russia-gate will not have to pick up a "go-to-jail" card. This, despite the widespread guilt suggested by the abrupt way that several senior-echelon DOJ and FBI rats have already jumped ship. Not to mention the manner in which FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was unceremoniously pushed overboard yesterday, after Director Christopher Wray was given a look at the extralegal capers described in the House Intelligence Committee memorandum.

Granted, at first glance Deep State's efforts to undercut candidate Donald Trump at first seem so risky and audacious as to be unbelievable. By now, though, Americans should be able to wrap their heads around, one, the dire threat that outsider Trump was seen to be posing to the Deep State and to the ease with which it held sway under President Barack Obama; and, two, expected immunity from prosecution if Deep State crimes were eventually discovered after the election, since "everybody knew" Hillary Clinton was going to win. Oops.

Accountability This Time?

There seems to be an outside chance, this time, that the culprits who did actually interfere in the 2016 presidential election in an effort to make sure Trump could not win, and then did all in their power to sabotage him after he his electoral victory, will be held to account by unusually feisty members of the House. It is abundantly clear that members of the House Intelligence and House Judiciary Committees are now in possession of the kind of unambiguous, firsthand documentary evidence needed to get a grand jury convened and, eventually, indictments obtained.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the Republic and the Constitution are at stake. A friend put it the way:

"When GW Bush said of the Constitution, 'It's just a goddam piece of paper,' I thought it was just another toss-off bit of hyperbole as he so often would utter. Not so. He, and many in his administration (and out) sincerely believe it and set out to make it so. They may actually have succeeded."

The Media's Role

I almost feel sorry for what is called "mainstream media" and – even more so – for the majority of Americans deceived by the prevailing narrative on Russia-gate. Even though that narrative now lies in shreds, there is no sign so far that the pundits will fess up and admit to spreading a far-fetched, evidence-impoverished story that was full of holes from the get-go.

Even vestigially honest journalists of the old school, who may themselves have been taken in, will have a Herculean challenge if they attempt to write to right the ship of journalism. As for brainwashed Americans, pity them. It is far easier to deceive folks than to convince them they have been deceived, as Mark Twain once wrote.

From today's online version of the New York Times , for example, the lede headline read, "Taunted by Trump and Pressured From Above, McCabe Steps Down as F.B.I. Deputy."

The Times quotes Representative Adam B. Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, giving hypocrisy a bad name. Schiff said yesterday that it had been a "sad day" for the committee and that Republicans had voted "to politicize the intelligence process."

And this just in: an op-ed from NYT pundit David Leonhardt, titled – you guessed it – "The Nunes Conspiracy."

"Instead of evidence, the memo engages in the same dark and misleading conspiracy theories that have characterized other efforts by President Trump's allies to discredit the Russia investigation," Leonhardt wrote. "But the substance of the claims isn't really the point. Distraction is the point, and the distraction campaign is having an impact."

And so it goes.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and CIA analyst for a total of 30 years and now servers on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Reprinted with permission from Consortium News .

exiled off mainstreet , January 30, 2018 at 11:46 am

This is a big issue no matter what you think of Trump, since it appears that the fix was in to prevent him winning. I agree that, unless the leading figures of the cabal are held responsible that a precedent has been set, but I see things as probably too far gone even if congress holds the culprits accountable, and it looks to me like the police/surveillance state will go forward no matter what unless economic or some sort of collapse renders the system unable to continue.

Seer , January 31, 2018 at 6:29 am

[I'm somewhat back: more voices for facts and truth need to step up now that there's the massive deficit left by the loss of Robert Parry, rest his soul.]]

I'd stated previously that I believed that the CIA was in on assisting the Dems to derail Sanders' campaign. I might have been wrong, that it was the FBI, but I still stand by my "belief" that TPTB (Deep State) didn't want Sanders to come out on top; if they were seeing, as I figure so, the big rise of Trump then it would only go to follow that having someone on the "other side" of the voter ballot similarly with a firm and forceful backing from the "masses" would have been WAY too big of a threat. Clinton, there should be little doubt on this, WAS THE candidate by/for/of TPTB. Clinton was amply marketed such that people would never believe that she could actually lose to Sanders: actual voter meddling occurred within the Democratic Party; this would never be believed by the Anyone-But-Trump crowd, nor the Clinton crowd, so the storyline of it just being a messy primary, sprinkled with the cooked-up distraction of election manipulation by "Russia" Clinton and TPTB (Deep State) would sneak out the "back door of the theatre" unscathed by the scandal.

The Dems and TPTB (Deep State) are scared crap-less because if this thing really unwinds then it unwinds to unveil the subversion of the Sanders campaign. THE REAL CRIME. And what's really scary here is that this could actually leave the Party of Rape coming out high on top: we would have the Dems/Clinton/Deep State to thank for this.

My last thought on this is to realize that the CIA is pretty good about framing up the FBI. No love loss here. The real heavyweight is, and always has been, the CIA. Recall that 9/11 had the FBI in essence living with some of the future 9/11 perps; those perps were, of course, facilitated into the country by the CIA, AND, it was the CIA that locked out the likes of Colleen Rowley; she suggest, in her letter to Mueller ( https://www.wanttoknow.info/911/9-11_summary_articles/020521coleenrowleymemofbidirectormueller ) that it was higher echelon FBI folks that were blocking, and yes, but consider that those blockers could very well be reporting to the CIA (counter intelligence). Don't mean to cloudy the subject at hand, but I feel that this gives weight to the idea/belief that the CIA could very well be the one executing the Big Plans, the FBI is cast into the role of performing, as puppets, the actions and that when the spotlight hits them they scramble to use all internal obfuscations at their disposal (some likely being provide by the CIA, perhaps with the FBI's knowledge, perhaps not).

It's the CIA that murders and does not care one iota about "democracy" or the rule of law. I doubt that they are clean in all of this; and if they are not clean then that would mean they were active, and if active then they'd have to have been to prime movers.

Might be that the CIA did the Big Damage by nixing Sanders and then left the FBI to undermine Trump. If there's an institution that can hide from reproach any better than the CIA I do no know what it is.

BobH , January 30, 2018 at 11:58 am

I like the optimism of Ray McGovern's article but tend to believe the Deep State holds a dossier on too many members of congress to make a full investigation plausible.

john wilson , January 31, 2018 at 5:53 am

Yes BobH, I was thinking something similar. Implicit in the question "will congress face down the deep state" assumes that congress is somehow above or not implicated in the deep state. Its obvious that the deep state is EVERYWHERE and I bet congress is riddled with deep state operatives. That great saying from George Orwell's 1984 "where I sold you and you sold me under the spreading chestnut tree", comes to mind.

Skip Scott , January 30, 2018 at 3:15 pm

I think I'll wait until I actually get to read the memo to judge. The Dems are also pulling out the "National Security" card, saying everything they would need to refute Nunes' memo is "highly classified". What surprises me is that these handful of rebels exist in the House. I'm waiting for Schumer's "six ways from Sunday". Our only hope for any improvement in a post-Trump world is for the "Deep State" to be exposed and neutralized. BTW, I vote Green as well.

SocraticGadfly , January 30, 2018 at 6:38 pm

Skip, that said, a set of leaks and counterleaks would make this more fun! (We already had a bit of that from Dems on Senate Intell, over Fusion.) Oh, and for everybody on this list, while Hillz and the DNC may have cut the final checks for Steele, let's not forget that the candidate who allegedly first asked for this was Jeb! And, in reality, Trump doesn't want the so-called "deep state" neutralized any more than anybody else. He just wants any bias it had against him exposed and neutralized. And, on the House side, especially, Congressional GOP will march in lockstep.

This of course ultimately goes back to Ike, who ramped up the spying-snooping complex to replace the military-industrial complex, something few people mention when touting his comment.

Anon , January 30, 2018 at 12:01 pm

This is the biggest political story of the past 50 years. The level of corruption is beyond comprehension and once the entire story is unraveled and put on display, not much will be left standing.

Bob Van Noy , January 30, 2018 at 12:08 pm

I agree, this is the point where this event either gets thoroughly exposed or hidden. It truly is the biggest political story of a generation. We'll see

JWalters , January 31, 2018 at 12:15 am

I also agree. The threads run deep on this one. And I'm very interested to hear Ray's informed take on these developments, both the hopes and the challenges.

"Even vestigially honest journalists of the old school, who may themselves have been taken in, will have a Herculean challenge if they attempt to write to right the ship of journalism."

No look of America's journalism would be complete without a nod to the blanket omission of all negative news regarding Israel's actions and goals. The odds of such a total omission over many decades rival the odds of all roulette wheels in the universe coming up the same at the same time. Its astronomically improbable. So it was obviously rigged.

An excellent look at Israel suppressing American news is in this documentary about Israel's attack on the USS Liberty, and its cover-up. Many participants testify. "The Day Israel Attacked America" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RE4hMlB9ZU

And for readers who may not have seen it, a succinct history of how Israel took control of the US press and government is in "War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror" http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

j. D. D. , January 30, 2018 at 1:05 pm

Once again Mr. McGovern is right on target, the importance his analysis, cannot be overstated. At stake is not just the future of the nation as a constitutional republic, but the future of peace as well.The two-year-long push by the combined British and U.S. intelligence agencies to destroy Trump's candidacy and presidency has drawn in most of the Democratic Party, abandoning all principles in favor of near-sighted political expediency. Likewise the neocons of the Republican Party, who detest Trump's friendliness toward Russia and China, have shown their displeasure at the persistence of Mr.Nunes by siding against release of the memo. As in the original "Russian hacking" fraud, cite "national security" concerns. What is most important is that this criminal coup operation be defeated, lest it leave the United States a New Cold War police state in which all presidents are controlled by intelligence officials with secret scandals. This Nunes memo and related investigations offer hope and opportunity for its defeat, but if not crushed, these new McCarthyites will settle for nothing less than a fiercely anti-Russia, anti-China President Pence. And we know to where that will lead.

JWalters , January 31, 2018 at 12:36 am

Good points. "Follow the money" implies "Who can afford to buy the British and American intelligence agencies?" And let's not forget how effectively the Israelis buried the news about their attack on the USS Liberty, shutting down an official US Navy investigation and keeping it out of the news all these years. And not forget Hillary's campaign being primarily financed by war-mongering Israelis. Nor the war-mongering Neocons being in essence Israeli agents. Let's not leave those out.

Virginia , January 30, 2018 at 12:14 pm

Talking about the spin the New York Times is putting on the memo contents (The Nunes Conspiracy), please take a look at last night's PBS News Hour. Instead of what Judy Woodruff and Lisa Desjardins should have reported, they spun Andrew McCabe's "stepping aside" as yet another loss of an important high ranking FBI official causing still more vacancies in the many still unfilled offices due to Trump's failure to appoint people, etc. It was unbelievable!

Then Judy interviewed Mark Warner, and his spin was even more astounding -- that most Democrats hadn't read it, implying it was unavailable; also implying that this "memo creation" hadn't gone through proper channels. Nothing on the up and up with Warner! But, I don't think they are going to be able to get by with it. Will the American people agree to be duped by propaganda when the facts are on the table? I'm not seeing that friends of mine are coming around, but do they really believe in Santa Claus? Is there integrity in the land, or will truth continue to be trampled in the streets and sold in the shambles? The house of cards is about to crumble, or will it?

JWalters , January 31, 2018 at 12:54 am

It's painful to say, but the PBS Newshour is a pathetically blatant propaganda outlet. I suspect Judy Woodruff, Mark Shields, etc have nights of troubled sleep.

Regarding Congressman Nunes,

"The current chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R- California, is one of the few politicians who knows and cares about the attack on the Liberty."

from "Still Waiting for USS Liberty's Truth" by Ray McGovern
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/04/still-waiting-for-uss-libertys-truth/

mike k , January 30, 2018 at 12:23 pm

A tenet of the mendacious style of political discourse today is to never, ever admit you were wrong about anything. If you are caught in a pack of lies you have committed, deny everything, and change the subject as soon as possible. Trump is a master of this technique, he is a natural born liar.

Like petulant four year olds, congress critters really feel that they are never wrong, and their opponents always are. This is why their is no real dialog in these venues, nobody listens, everyone just relentlessly pushes their own agenda, no matter what.

Taking responsibility for one's actions is for suckers and losers. Respect for the truth is totally absent in DC. There should be a sign outside Washington, "Entering Truth Free Zone."

Jesse , January 30, 2018 at 12:24 pm

It is probably a very good idea to take a hard look at the Nunes memo, and then an even harder look at the evidence that supports it. Right now there is so much hype on both sides of this that we tend to get caught up at treating speculation and charges as facts.

I do think Russia-gate is an over-hyped political campaign. The threat from Russia to our electoral process is like a cult, in which belief is paramount to rational thinking. Evidence. Let's see the evidence for all these things.

I do not trust the narratives coming out of both camps. They stink of propaganda and spin.

mike k , January 30, 2018 at 12:31 pm

No. The weight of evidence is on the side of the debunkers of Russiagate. This "debate" is far from a wash, or a draw. The propaganda and spin are from the Russia blamers, not their refuters.

rosemerry , January 31, 2018 at 4:05 pm

Even the shining light of the Dems, Bernie Sanders is constantly pro-war and anti-Russia, even now in his comments after the SOTU.

Drew Hunkins , January 30, 2018 at 12:57 pm

This is one of the more extraordinary imbroglios I've witnessed in my 30 years of following the politico-economic scene.

What we have brewing here is a battle between otherwise execrable creatures of the ruling class: the Sean Hannity-Pat Buchanan, et. al. wing of the GOP (which on this PARTICULAR issue happens to be on the righteous side) versus the Zionist-militarist neoliberal imperialist wing of the ruling class which is currently composed of the Schiffs, Warners, DNC, national security state and most of the mass media across the spectrum. (Yes, my quick outline of the two opposing sides is a bit slapdash and doesn't take into account all the players and factions, but you get the picture.)

The latter crew want to torpedo Trump because they view him as not enough of a hawk towards the Kremlin, this threatens their careers and budgets. They were genuinely terrified and dismayed when Trump voiced some non-interventionist rhetoric on the campaign trail. They also need to delegitimize the Trump presidency because it's an embarrassment and refutation to the DNC which ran a horrific Wall Street boot-licking, warmongering candidate. These are dangerous cretins because they're smart, smooth and articulate and are better propagandists than the above referenced former wing. They show no compunction over putting the world on the brink of nuclear war in order to carry out their anti-Trump vendetta. They attack him for the one thing he gets right (easing tensions with Moscow) rather than denouncing him for the truly awful Trump policies, namely his dangerous rhetoric towards Iran, his genuflecting to Israel, and his regressive tax policies, to name a few.

What's absolutely fascinating is that even though Trump's ceded Jerusalem to the Zionist psychopaths and has saber rattled since day one towards Tehran, thus far these positions STILL have not been enough to call off the Schiff-Warner dogs. The DNC and elements of the national security-mass media-state may have dug themselves such a deep whole by propagating this whole Russia-gate canard over the last 14 months that they're now in a difficult spot with little chance of saving face and must faithfully proceed into their own eventual humiliation.

Meanwhile the American domestic population is stalked by the specter of massive inequality, un and under employment, repugnant wages doled out essentially by the malicious local Chamber of Commerce, drug addiction, a dental healtcare crises, hopelessness, and political impotence. And meanwhile, the struggling white male is being vilified as a serial oppressor by many upper middle class professional women who can't see past identity politics and spent more money ni one year on tuition at a private university than many of these exploited white males make in two-year's salary.

BobS , January 30, 2018 at 1:19 pm

" the Sean Hannity-Pat Buchanan, et. al. wing of the GOP (which on this PARTICULAR issue happens to be on the righteous side) versus the Zionist-militarist neoliberal imperialist wing of the ruling class "
Trump, Pence, Kushner, Miller, Adelson, Kelly, Haley, Bolton, Coats, Pompeo, Mnuchin, Chao, Mattis, Pai nope none of the "Zionist-miltarist neoliberal imperialist wing of the ruling class" in this bunch.

Drew Hunkins , January 30, 2018 at 1:30 pm

I do acknowledge that there is overlap. But the crucial point is that Putin bashing and anti-Kremlin hysteria rule the day in the latter camp. The former camp, for all their faults, tend to support a candidate for the wrong reasons but have seen through the Russiagate baloney.

Helen Tansey , January 30, 2018 at 12:58 pm

Virginia, I don't know what's happened to Warner. Once upon a time, he was a relatively stand up kinda politician, but not any more. Since he entered the Senate, he's morphed into someone who appears to be owned rather than the independent minded Governor I knew and came to respect. It's a shame, really, this country could really use some statesman from both sides of the aisle, but all I see are those handful of leaders in the House and one or two in the Senate willing to, you know, represent us rather than the Party and their donors.

Ray, you left out Senator Grassley and his committee's work in this 'caper'. Grassley, Nunes and Goodlatte are the one's to watch. It is their three committee's – Senate Judiciary, House Intel, House Judiciary – driving this school bus and it appears they are readying to put that puppy in third gear.

To Nat and the Consortium News Team, my deepest condolences to all. Nat, your dad was a solid 'just the facts ma'am' journalist. I found this site back in 2000ish when I first delved into the 9/11 tragedy. I've never left and rarely post. I do link to your work here several times a week over at my alt news aggregation site and have been for awhile now. Your's and your dad's work have served as models for so many up and coming alt news journalists. You have so much to be proud of. Trust, we regulars will continue to support your work well into the future. Prayers and Blessings to all of the Parry family.

Virginia , January 30, 2018 at 3:39 pm

Thanks, Helen. Yes indeedy, our Congress and Senate members become deep state the moment they are in, except for a very few. The strong and true are to their country and their profession as Robert Parry was to his. So thankful for their heroic examples, and for the brave souls here at CN.

alley cat , January 30, 2018 at 1:56 pm

I love McGovern's posts. He never gives up on the truth (or by extension, on us). Some would say he's foolishly tilting at deep state windmills, but I think the better view is that he is helping to keep very real dragons from devouring us all.

He asks us to pity brainwashed Americans when it would be so tempting to despise them along with their deceivers: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

His last line, "And so it goes", oozes anguish and despair at human folly. Ray, an ex-CIA analyst, is no Don Quijote, but rather a hard-headed realist who knows that the odds of saving our republic from the onslaught of neocon imperialism are long and getting longer by the minute. He also knows how high the price of losing will be in terms of human lives and suffering.

Geoffrey de Galles , January 30, 2018 at 3:36 pm

Just a footnote: – It sure seems to me that Snowden is about to be vindicated in the most profound manner -- i.e., as a savant, as a luminary, and as a visionary, even -- now that the surveillance state is about to explode up the arseholes of all the many arseholes who engendered and facilitated just such a state of affairs, whether or not utilizing FISA warrants, during the past decade.

And all credit to Bill Binney, Tom Drake, Ray McGovern, and a few others too, all of them good Americans. -- P.S. While I'm at it, let's not forget Assange, who oughta be awarded honorary US citizenship (though I can quite understand and appreciate why he'd want to decline any such offer).

Marshall Smith , January 31, 2018 at 4:39 pm

Yes, I would take Nunes "seriously" regardless of the public sources of his education. Do not forget the limited briefings given to Congress by the intelligence community concerning their operations.

Since Chairman Nunes was one of the 8 members of both Houses of Congress knowledgeable of operations such as the selection of "rebel leaders" in Syria as well as the selection of the heir to the throne in Saudi Arabia, which John Brennan and his friends of the Brookings Institute were unable to control.

Just perhaps, Nunes has some insight into why Brennan and friends hate Pres. Trump for his support for the rival to the former Crown Prince they so loved and trained for so many years!

Billy , January 30, 2018 at 4:18 pm

If the memo is just evidence free conspiracy theories. The dems would want it released. So that they could rip it to shreds with real evidence. And make the Repubs look like fools. But they don't have any evidence. Just like the evidence they didn't have for their Russia hacking claims. If the Repubs release this to the public that'll make coverup nearly impossible. I bet heads are gonna roll, the Repubs are gonna drive it home. Hillary losing kind of messed things up. And the "Russia ate my homework and if you don't believe it you're a Putin lover" crap didn't fix it.

jaycee , January 30, 2018 at 4:25 pm

The broad strokes of this story – that government insiders used unverified "opposition research" to obtain permission to spy on members of the Trump team using the formidable reach of the USA's surveillance networks – has been circulating since December. The legacy mainstream media – NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, etc – have alternately ignored the story, mis-reported issues associated with the story, or actively assisted in creating a defence for this activity (i.e.Papadopoulos' alleged drunken admissions to an Australian diplomat or the recent claim that Dutch intelligence had infiltrated Russian hackers). These media outlets have been extremely partisan in exploiting the rather thin-gruelled Russiagate allegations, but I'm not sure they will be able to spin their culpability away in this case. The purveyors of Russiagate – deep state players, key Democrats, mainstream media – apparently never paused to consider the consequences to their reputations if and when the full story bubbled to the surface.

frank scott , January 30, 2018 at 4:42 pm

the passengers and crew of the titanic are in shallow debate about the status of the captain and whether he and his backers lied about how many gay latino jews were staffing the rec room..that's about what this amounts to in the larger picture of what is really happening to a state in deep deep do-do with a population not only sinking under personal debt of more than a trillion and public debt many times greater but threatening the race and the planet with any continuity of a political economic system we were warned about at its inception and which spends hundreds of billions on war and pets while many of its people live in the street ..the ceo and his opponents are a national problem but what the corporation does, no matter who the ceo or its opponents are, is an infinitely greater problem for the race. thanks to ray mcgovern who approaches genius compared to the schmuck who swallows and digests even more corporate consciousness control slop than anyone should, be we need radical change of the system, not just its staff, of private capitalist control of something called market forces which guarantee private profits only be inflicting ever more dreadful loss on the public.

Andrew Nichols , January 30, 2018 at 5:56 pm

No they wont. Today conveniently a "new" dossier has been conjured up to replace the discredited Steele document. Full steam ahead for the Deep State, and its twin enablers in the US legislature and global media

Stephen J. , January 30, 2018 at 6:01 pm

I believe eventually there will be a day of reckoning. That old saying holds true: "When thieves fall out," and that day is surely coming. The memo, if published could start an internal war. Then justice might prevail for the american people and the suffering Millions around the world.

Millions

Millions are dead, others are still alive
Millions of people are just trying to survive
Millions are refugees wandering the earth
Most have nothing left, of any real worth

Once they had homes and some had businesses too
Then there arrived, the warring hellish crews
They bombed and blitzed a number of countries
Will they ever pay for their evil obscenities?

So called "leaders" of the "democratic" west
"The dogs of war," that think they know best
War criminals that planned hell and destruction
Blood soaked villains oozing satisfaction

Proud of their crimes of "bringing democracy"
A hellish sight is their unctuous hypocrisy
Their partners in war crimes are the monetary villains
Who financed and paid for the missiles from the "heavens"

The assassins in the sky are just obeying orders
Is the madness of militarism definitely a disorder?
Conditioned to obey their be-medaled "superiors"
No matter that the motives are bloody ulterior

Countries destroyed and reduced to smoking rubble
The plotters and planners caused all this hellish trouble
The peoples of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries too
Are the suffering and dead victims of this evil hellish crew

So say a prayer for the once "human race"
Where so-called leaders are a monstrous bloody disgrace
Where hell on earth is plotted and planned
And death and destruction covers the desert sand

The treachery of the "leaders" of "democratic" nations
Are funding and helping both sides in the conflagrations
Treason is permitted and practiced in broad daylight
Taxpayers and head choppers finance the dirty fight

This is "justice" and the so-called "rule of law"?
When well dressed war criminals are "men of straw"
Their crimes have cost society in monetary; trillions
But, worst of all, they are responsible for the deaths of untold million
[More info at link below]

http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/10/millions.html

Seer , January 31, 2018 at 6:43 am

Bang-on!

My money's on this all being under the control of the CIA. I firmly believe that they started it all by teaming up to derail Sanders' campaign: no, I was not a supporter of Sanders (nor any of the candidates): no money, votes or agitation applied by myself toward/against ANY of them. See my posting at the top of this comment section.

Joe Tedesky , January 31, 2018 at 2:06 am

You make a strong arguement, but if we use past White House appointees and their noncompliance then how about a Treasury Secretary owning $25k in taxes, or a NSA adviser found with Secret Documents stuffed down inside his underwear? Granted Manafort, Flynn, and Kushner, should have been called out on their infractions, but then who exactly were these Trumper's colluding with? Well when Israel comes a calling, well then collusion's okay, just don't talk about it.

This new twist of FBI collusion sounds most interesting if we start with Admiral Mike Rogers who had audited these reports early on in the summer of 2016. I learned this from a Joe Degenova in a interview where he went step by step to the findings that the House Committee had found. How DeGenova got this I'm not sure, but I'm willing to let investigations take their course, but at least let's get the facts on the table, and see if any laws were broke. I also don't have a bone to pick with Joe DeGenova, but when I saw him I started seeing the attack dogs come out from both sides suddenly, and thought 'oh no'.

This whole fiasco of FISA manipulation, Russian interferences, is in the end going to get settled quietly then it will disappear. No doubt Russia will still be bad, but Trump will be allowed to get off the hook over Russia Manchurian blackmail charges, and hardly anyone at the FBI will suffer much, and the rest of us Americans will be that much dumbfounded and pissed and then we will all forget about it.

I also thought Ray McGovern was saying the same thing, and that was MSM Politics is now taking it over completely. Joe

JanJ , January 31, 2018 at 3:34 pm

We can all agree that Trump had contacts with some Russians. Trump also had contacts with Israelis and most likely with people who are citizens of other countries. Does this mean that Israel and those other countries also interfered with the 2016 election? With all your examples of contacts, you have not specified exactly what anyone Russian did, let alone the Russian government, to influence the election in Trump's favor. Nor has anyone else.

Michael Gillespie , January 30, 2018 at 9:18 pm

Congress couldn't even face down the pharmaceutical industry without help from 60 Minutes and the Washington Post:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/10/16/a_60_minutes_and_washington_post_investigation_found_tom_marino_and_others.html

Given Israel's enormous influence in Official Washington and over US. foreign policy, and given Hollywood's influence over American popular culture and what passes for a public discussion, it would seem that any serious discussion of "the Deep State" would of necessity include this question: What is "the Deep State" and what is Israel's role in it? Clearly Israel has a role in "the Deep State" if the US Army and the FBI find it necessary to beg Hollywood producers to stop popularizing torture as an interrogation technique among US troops in wartime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_reaction_to_24#Torture

mike k , January 30, 2018 at 9:56 pm

Congress is a junior partner of the Deep State. Don't expect them to go against their Bosses. That's not how our Mafia works. The US Mafia Oligarchy is not designed to reform itself, it's designed not to do that, and to deal harshly with anyone who tries to correct it. But there is more than one Mafia within the whole Deep State configuration. And there is serious competition between these groupings and the leading figures within them to be the Boss of all Bosses. Deep State just refers to the leading power figures and groupings within the Global Oligarchy, which functions beyond all limits of nationality, or language, or ethnic identities. It's membership constitutes a developing Super State whose only language and identity is power.

backwardsevolution , January 30, 2018 at 10:32 pm

Oh, there was Russian collusion, all right. Not between Trump and Russia, but between the Clinton's and Russia on Uranium One (coming soon to a theatre near you). Karma is a bitch, isn't it?

Drew Hunkins – "What's absolutely fascinating is that even though Trump's ceded Jerusalem to the Zionist psychopaths and has saber rattled since day one towards Tehran, thus far these positions STILL have not been enough to call off the Schiff-Warner dogs."

Drew, I see this as a war between the globalists and the non-globalists. One side wants to control the world; the other side wants to get the U.S. house in order. Totally different goals.

And, you're right, even with all the pandering done by Trump (maybe it's the only thing saving his butt right now?), they're still going after him. I figure somebody has got something on that little weasel, Schiff. Nobody could be that stupid. And Lindsay Graham too.

Trump is desperately trying to get the multinational corporations to bring their money back to the U.S. and get "some" manufacturing going again. So much debt was issued under the last few presidents (especially under Obama) just to try and paper over the losses, and Trump knows this. He knows the economy is hanging by a thread, and he knows they are going to try and bring it down around his ankles, blame it all on him.

The Deep State is running scared and twisting in the wind right now. There is much more to come. These guys are going down for obstruction of justice and treason against a duly-elected President.

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , January 31, 2018 at 7:23 am

First indictment in the Uranium One case: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-13/doj-unseals-11-count-indictment-involving-uranium-one-scandal

Seer , January 31, 2018 at 10:32 am

A problem with the "bring back jobs" path/push is that everything is constructed on a global platform. "Bring back jobs" means bringing back robots and making imported good more expensive. There may be a touch of "win" here, but there's a much bigger "loss." And, actually, there really isn't any "win" going forward in any direction/path because global growth is collapsing. The global platform has been an expansion of US imperialism, the US economic system.

Remove the factories from abroad and those countries' consumer base will even less money to purchase US goods. Folks in the US are going to be buying their own products, when everyone is severely in debt? If you look at the CIA World Factbook the data is pretty clear: everyone who is a net energy importer has or is on the path to having a trade deficit. The US escapes this via the Petro-Dollar (pushing USD power over other currencies).

The Deep State has been scared for quite a while. It's ALL predicated on the Petro-Dollar. The ME wars are ALL about trying to maintain this US lifeblood. This "arrangement" is faltering. The cracks really started to appear with Osama Bin Laden, with his condemnation of the US (who had been helping fund him) occupation of Saudi Arabia. One could make the argument that 9/11 was the event used by the US to slap him down: another US operative gone rogue. Had Bin Laden gained momentum he'd have likely taken down the Royal Family. Even if THIS was all but a big play it still supports the track of holding the Petro-Dollar in place. Keep in mind that the thing that all the over-thrown leaders had in common was they they were flirting with introducing currencies (gold-backed) that would challenge the Petro-Dollar's standing.

Trump probably knows and understands little. Doesn't matter. His mistake might be that he believes, in simplistic thinking, that something can be done and that something will upset the existing apple-cart. Well, sure, the apple-cart is all messed up anyway. But I am under no illusion that Trump has any real "solution." Reason being is that there IS no solution to an economic system that is based on growth and gets to the point where growth is no longer possible: again, this growth-model has been globalized -- there is no more there to exploit for growth.

What has happened so far is that the wealthy continue to become wealthier, the MIC continues to grow, and any "MAGA" actions have done nothing for the middle and low classes in the US (and nothing but added terror for the same in many of the rest of the world). His "wall" is no more than another "construction project," which is the only real thing he understands, and I'm afraid he's doing it as he has done for all his construction projects- for his ego (look at what "I" built!).

backwardsevolution , January 30, 2018 at 11:15 pm

Actually a few things are happening all at once, and they have been done purposely to divide and conquer the masses:

Identity politics. As Paul Craig Roberts said, the country used to be split along class lines. It was the rich fighting to keep as much money as possible versus the poor trying to get a fair shake. Identity politics was brought in to divide people: women were pitted against men, blacks and Hispanics were pitted against the "white" man, left fascists against right fascists, etc., all done to keep everyone so occupied fighting each other so they don't turn around and denounce the real enemy – the massive inequality that has built up over the past eight years.

Russiagate. Done to prevent Trump from winning the election, and to tie his presidency in knots when he did. Aim is impeachment.

Outcome of it all: loss of free speech, threat of nuclear war, a divided country, massive inequality, shredded Constitution, and an attempt to overthrow a President.

Bob Van Noy , January 31, 2018 at 11:18 am

backwardsevolution yes, the great accomplishment of the Nixon administration was, with the help of social manager Rodger Ailes, the refinement of the "wedge issue." They successfully wedged the student anti-war movement from Labor (otherwise allies) learned from that "success" and then went on to apply the wedge many times over. Mr. Rove is an advanced expert at this technique

Marshall Smith , January 31, 2018 at 5:22 pm

A good example of the fear of the Establishment of a uniting of the youth with workers was the Summer of 1968 in Paris, when and where the Peace Talks were still arguing over the shape of the table. The "Bernie Campaign" was a reminder of the Summer of 1968 and that challenge was handled by some of the same Democratic leaders who swore to never again have a losing candidate (and platform) of 1972. The Populist Movement that supported Candidate Trump has more historical roots in our Nation as the electoral map of 2016 shows. The genius of Pres. Trump is that he learned the lessons of history, especially the success of his Hero President Andrew Jackson, but has adjusted the lessons of the Age of Jackson to the present era.

Seer , January 31, 2018 at 9:10 am

And which was/is Clapper closets to, the FBI or the CIA? The FBI is being set up to take the hit, not that they don't deserve to be smacked, but it's almost a certainty that they're not the prime movers. So, again

My money's on the CIA (or the other higher-powered alphabet organization, NSA?) having started the Big Subversion with the push to "oust" Sanders from the running. Only a fool would believe that the CIA (or NSA) wouldn't have known about the crap that was happening with the DNC. That Clapper sand-bagged it tends to show that they were almost certainly complicit in the whole thing: if they weren't then there would have been actual facts/data put out to show Russian interference.

Sanders gets whacked by the DNC (CIA and or other high level agencies manipulate the media sphere to blank out Sanders). DNC insiders. dissenters (was it Rich?) counter and whack Clinton, but TPTB (likely with FBI and or CIA assistance) attempt to re-float Clinton's waning support by introducing the DNC insider hit as coming from Russia.

Trump gets whacked by the same folks pushing the Russia story. But, Trump is so slimy, slithery and isn't a creature that TPTB have had to do battle with on the public political scene (at this level) that he squeaks by (with the support of a hardened supporters). It's likely that the CIA started to back off on this, sever any collaboration it may have had with the FBI; scapegoats in the FBI will be sought to close the failing story, likely still allowing "doubt" to linger as it will help handcuff Trump.

geeyp , January 31, 2018 at 7:55 am

Hello Aaron, and a worthy point you make. Methinks the Hoover Org. just took their shenanigans too far this time and got caught with their pants down. Right on to you Seer, also. I am not sure if Joe Tedesky was referencing my post to "Howard" or not; if so, I do not recall the current story of an NSA advisor with papers in his pants. Are you referring to Michael Flynn? I do recall, in the mists of time, an advisor to President Clinton, name of Sandy _erger, pilfering documents on his presidency from the National Archives. Lastly, of course Ray McGovern has added much needed thoughts to the discussion of potential outcome of this current situation. Take care, all of you. Thanks.

Joe Tedesky , January 31, 2018 at 3:11 pm

Yes I was referring to Sandy Berger. I also commented to Howard's post. Good stuff geeyp. Joe

Patricia Victour , January 31, 2018 at 10:07 am

Maybe this memo and the fallout will really "drain the swamp?" Wishful thinking, I know.

Seamus Padraig , January 31, 2018 at 3:39 pm

"Adam B. Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, giving hypocrisy a bad name. Schiff said yesterday that it had been a 'sad day' for the committee and that Republicans had voted 'to politicize the intelligence process.'"

Wow. Give him a Nobel Prize for self-unawareness.

[Jan 27, 2018] As of January 2018 Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner.

Highly recommended!
This quote belongs to Pat Buchanan and was taken from In a Trump Hunt, Beware the Perjury Trap
Jan 27, 2018 | www.unz.com

Consider what is now known of how Comey and the FBI set about ensuring Hillary Clinton would not be indicted for using a private email server to transmit national security secrets. The first draft of Comey's statement calling for no indictment was prepared before 17 witnesses, and Hillary, were even interviewed. Comey's initial draft charged Clinton with "gross negligence," the requirement for indictment. But his team softened that charge in subsequent drafts to read, "extreme carelessness."

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, among others, appears to have known in advance an exoneration of Clinton was baked in the cake. Yet Comey testified otherwise.

Also edited out of Comey's statement was that Hillary, while abroad, communicated with then-President Obama, who had to see that her message came through a private server. Yet Obama told the nation he only learned Hillary had been using a private server at the same time the public did.

A trial of Hillary would have meant Obama in the witness chair being asked, "What did you know, sir, and when did you know it?"

[Jan 27, 2018] In a Trump Hunt, Beware the Perjury Trap by Pat Buchanan

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... For what Mueller is running here is not, as Trump suggests, a "witch hunt." It is a Trump hunt. ..."
"... Mueller's problem: He has no perjury charge to go with it. And the heart of his obstruction case, Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner. ..."
"... More information has also been unearthed about FBI collusion with British spy Christopher Steele, who worked up -- for Fusion GPS, the dirt-divers of the Clinton campaign -- the Steele dossier detailing Trump's ties to Russia and alleged frolics with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. ..."
"... Not only did the Steele dossier apparently trigger a wider FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, it served as the basis of FBI requests for FISA court warrants to put on Trump the kind of full-court press J. Edgar Hoover put on Dr. King for the Kennedys and LBJ. ..."
"... Amazing. Oppo-research dirt, unsourced and unsubstantiated, dredged up by a foreign spy with Kremlin contacts, is utilized by our FBI to potentially propel an investigation to destroy a major U.S. presidential candidate. And the Beltway media regard it as a distraction. ..."
"... This cabal appears to have set goals of protecting Obama, clearing Hillary, defeating Trump, and bringing down the new president the people had elected, before he had even taken his oath. Not exactly normal business for our legendary FBI. What have these people done to the reputation of their agency when congressmen not given to intemperate speech are using words like "criminal," "conspiracy," "corruption" and "coup" to describe what they are discovering went on in the FBI executive chambers? ..."
"... As for Trump, he should not sit for any extended interview by FBI agents whose questions will be crafted by prosecutors to steer our disputatious president into challenging or contradicting the sworn testimony of other witnesses. This a perjury trap. Let the special counsel submit his questions in writing, and let Trump submit his answers in writing. ..."
"... What is going on in the US is a travesty of justice. For an outside observer of American politics, I'm flappergasted about the corruption and criminal energy the top brass of the FBI, the DOJ, together with the Obama and Clinton mafia, to discredit not only candidate Trump but President-elect Trump and finally the sitting President. Mr. Buchanan is right, arguing that Trump should not sit in with Mueller's agents, who want to trap him. ..."
"... After this witch- or Trump hunt is over, the Trump administration has to be clean up the mess in the FBI, DOJ and the other US institutions. Simultaneously, Clinton, Lynch, Chomey, McCabe and all the political criminals, including former President Obama, have to be brought to justice. What this political gang initiated is unprecedented in US history. Even Watergate fades in the face of this conspiracy of American institutions against a sitting president. ..."
Jan 26, 2018 | www.unz.com

Asked if he would agree to be interviewed by Robert Mueller's team, President Donald Trump told the White House press corps, "I would love to do it as soon as possible. under oath, absolutely."

On hearing this, the special counsel's office must have looked like the Eagles' locker room after the 38-7 rout of the Vikings put them in the Super Bowl. If the president's legal team lets Trump sit for hours answering Mueller's agents, they should be disbarred for malpractice. For what Mueller is running here is not, as Trump suggests, a "witch hunt." It is a Trump hunt.

After 18 months investigating Trumpian "collusion" with Putin's Russia in hacking the DNC's and John Podesta's emails, the FBI has hit a stone wall. Failing to get Trump for collusion, the fallback position is to charge him with obstruction of justice. As a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, the tactic is understandable.

Mueller's problem: He has no perjury charge to go with it. And the heart of his obstruction case, Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner.

Consider what is now known of how Comey and the FBI set about ensuring Hillary Clinton would not be indicted for using a private email server to transmit national security secrets. The first draft of Comey's statement calling for no indictment was prepared before 17 witnesses, and Hillary, were even interviewed. Comey's initial draft charged Clinton with "gross negligence," the requirement for indictment. But his team softened that charge in subsequent drafts to read, "extreme carelessness."

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, among others, appears to have known in advance an exoneration of Clinton was baked in the cake. Yet Comey testified otherwise.

Also edited out of Comey's statement was that Hillary, while abroad, communicated with then-President Obama, who had to see that her message came through a private server. Yet Obama told the nation he only learned Hillary had been using a private server at the same time the public did.

A trial of Hillary would have meant Obama in the witness chair being asked, "What did you know, sir, and when did you know it?"

More information has also been unearthed about FBI collusion with British spy Christopher Steele, who worked up -- for Fusion GPS, the dirt-divers of the Clinton campaign -- the Steele dossier detailing Trump's ties to Russia and alleged frolics with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. While the Steele dossier was shopped around town to the media, which, unable to substantiate its lurid and sensational charges, declined to publish them, Comey's FBI went all in.

Not only did the Steele dossier apparently trigger a wider FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, it served as the basis of FBI requests for FISA court warrants to put on Trump the kind of full-court press J. Edgar Hoover put on Dr. King for the Kennedys and LBJ.

Amazing. Oppo-research dirt, unsourced and unsubstantiated, dredged up by a foreign spy with Kremlin contacts, is utilized by our FBI to potentially propel an investigation to destroy a major U.S. presidential candidate. And the Beltway media regard it as a distraction.

An aggressive Republican Party on the Hill, however, has forced the FBI to cough up documents that are casting the work of Comey's cohorts in an ever more partisan and sinister light.

This cabal appears to have set goals of protecting Obama, clearing Hillary, defeating Trump, and bringing down the new president the people had elected, before he had even taken his oath. Not exactly normal business for our legendary FBI. What have these people done to the reputation of their agency when congressmen not given to intemperate speech are using words like "criminal," "conspiracy," "corruption" and "coup" to describe what they are discovering went on in the FBI executive chambers?

Bob Mueller, who inherited this investigation, is sitting on an IED because of what went on before he got there. Mueller needs to file his charges before his own investigation becomes the subject of a Justice Department investigation by a special counsel.

As for Trump, he should not sit for any extended interview by FBI agents whose questions will be crafted by prosecutors to steer our disputatious president into challenging or contradicting the sworn testimony of other witnesses. This a perjury trap. Let the special counsel submit his questions in writing, and let Trump submit his answers in writing.

At bottom, this is a political issue, an issue of power, an issue of whether the Trump revolution will be dethroned by the deep state it was sent to this capital to corral and contain.

If Trump is guilty of attempted obstruction, it appears to be not of justice, but obstruction of an injustice being perpetrated against him.

Trump should be in no hurry to respond to Mueller, for time no longer appears to be on Mueller's side.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."

Ludwig Watzal , Website January 26, 2018 at 7:41 am GMT

What is going on in the US is a travesty of justice. For an outside observer of American politics, I'm flappergasted about the corruption and criminal energy the top brass of the FBI, the DOJ, together with the Obama and Clinton mafia, to discredit not only candidate Trump but President-elect Trump and finally the sitting President. Mr. Buchanan is right, arguing that Trump should not sit in with Mueller's agents, who want to trap him.

After this witch- or Trump hunt is over, the Trump administration has to be clean up the mess in the FBI, DOJ and the other US institutions. Simultaneously, Clinton, Lynch, Chomey, McCabe and all the political criminals, including former President Obama, have to be brought to justice. What this political gang initiated is unprecedented in US history. Even Watergate fades in the face of this conspiracy of American institutions against a sitting president.

To restore the credibility of the FBI, DOJ and all other government institutions, especially the Intel community, the US administration have to clean out the Augean stables.

Zogby , January 26, 2018 at 10:06 am GMT
I think some of the accusations being levelled against Mueller are blown out of proportion and show a misunderstanding of Mueller's task. His job is to investigate what happened, including the possibility that people working for Trump did illegal things that are not Trump's own fault. That doesn't imply Mueller is "out to get Trump".

Let me give an example. Michael Flynn conducted some informal contacts with the Russians during the transition under Trump's instruction and told by Trump not to disclose it. This is perfectly legal and legitimate. Flynn then mislead Pence, and later lied to the FBI about the contacts. This was a tactical mistake by Flynn, because he could have told both that he's under instruction from Trump not to disclose it and refuse to answer. Now Flynn says in his own defense to Mueller that he was acting under Trump's instruction. So Mueller wants to ask Trump if Flynn was acting under Trump's instruction. That doesn't mean it's illegal if Flynn was acting under Trump's instruction. But if Flynn was acting on his own – there may be a case against Flynn.

You could argue that Trump doesn't care about this – even if Flynn was acting on his own – which goes back to Trump having constitutional authority to shut down this fishing expedition because Trump has no interest in it.

The bottom line is that Trump has a problem with Republicans in Congress. Mueller can't do anything against Trump – only Congress can. Trump doesn't trust Republicans in Congress to protect him for doing what any President Elect and certainly President is entitled to do. If Trump could trust Republicans in Congress – he could fire Mueller, Rosenstein and Sessions and end the investigation.

The Alarmist , January 26, 2018 at 10:48 am GMT

Mueller: "Did you fire James Comey?"

Trump: "Yes."

Mueller: "Why?"

Trump: "It is within my Constitutional prerogatives to terminate officers who serve under me."

Mueller: "What were the grounds for the termination?"

Trump: "Asked and answered."

[Lather, rinse, repeat]

Mueller: "What is the nature of your contacts with Russian nationals or the Russian Government?"

Trump: "What contact? Do you have any specific contact in mind?"

Mueller: "Your meeting with X on [date]."

Trump: "Before I answer that, can you tell me and my counsel for the record how you were made aware of that?"

[Jan 26, 2018] Warns The Russiagate Stakes Are Extreme by Paul Craig Roberts

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Many Americans do not seem to understand what is at stake. What America is confronted with is a coup conspiracy organized by top officials of the Obama Justice Department, FBI, CIA, the Hillary DNC, and the presstitute media to overturn the result of a democratic election and remove the president from office. The basis of the coup is a fake dossier purchased for money that consists of unsupported allegations against Trump and that was used to obtain warrants from the FISA count to spy on Trump and various associates hoping to find something that can be used against Trump. Regardless, the false allegations could be fed to the CIA's media assets and used to create a scandal requiring a special prosecutor to investigate Russiagate. ..."
"... If the highest reaches of the police state agencies can get away with an attempted or successful coup against the president of the United States, then that is the complete end of democracy and all accountability in government. The House, Senate, and judiciary will become as powerless as the Roman senate under the caesars. We will live under a dictatorship ruled by police state agencies. ..."
"... This is not minor stuff. This goes to the heart of whether any form of liberty will exist. We all know that the ability of the people to hold government accountable is not assured by democracy. However, there is no prospect of holding government accountable if it is a police state, a road that the US has been going down for some time. The audacious coup attempt against President Trump is our opportunity to stop the momentum to a police state. ..."
"... When Admiral Rodgers, director of the National Security Agency, discovered that the FBI and DOJ were misusing the spy system for partisan political reasons, he let it be known that he was going to inform the FISA court. This caused the FBI and DOJ to rush to the court in advance and confess to "mistakes" and to promise to tighten up procedures so as not to make mistakes in the future. It is these "mistakes" and corrections that the FISA court document reveals. ..."
"... In other words, the information already exists in the pubic domain that proves that Russiagate was a conspiracy organized for the purpose of bringing down the elected president of the United States ..."
"... A case can be made that it would be just as well if the coup succeeds as it would bring an end to Washington's cover as the government of a great democracy with liberty and justice for all. Most other governments, and one would hope certainly the Russian and Chinese governments, would see the coup as America's final transition into a police state and give up their utopian ideas of reaching accommodation with Washington. The constraints on Washington's ability to bully the world would be greatly strengthened by the universal perception that the government of the United States had devolved into a police state. ..."
Jan 26, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The Republicans' delay in releasing the summary of the House Intelligence Committee's Russiagate investigation is giving weight to the presstitutes' claim that the report is not being released, because it is a hack attempt at a Trump cover-up that is not believable. Only Republicans are stupid enough to put themselves in such a situation.

Readers ask me why the summary memo is not released if it is real. There must be some reasons besides the stupidity of Republicans. Yes, that is so. Among the many reasons that might be blocking release are:

1) Republicans are very national security conscious. They don't want to provide precedents for the release of classified information.

2) Many Republican congressional districts host installations of the military/security complex. Upsetting a large employer and directing campaign financing to a challenger is a big consideration.

3) The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney regime was a neoconservative regime. One consequence is that Republicans are influenced by neoconservatives who stress the alleged "Russian threat."

4) The Israel Lobby can unseat any member of the House and Senate. The Israel Lobby is allied with the neoconservatives and this alliance intends to keep the US militarily active against perceived threats to Israel's hegemony in the Middle East and against Russia, which supports Syria and Iran, countries perceived as threats by Israel.

5) Many Republicans are themselves invested in false Russiagate allegations against Trump and would like to replace him with Pence. Other Republicans believe that Trump is undermining Washington's expensively-purchased foreign alliances and, thereby, undermining US power.

Many Americans do not seem to understand what is at stake. What America is confronted with is a coup conspiracy organized by top officials of the Obama Justice Department, FBI, CIA, the Hillary DNC, and the presstitute media to overturn the result of a democratic election and remove the president from office. The basis of the coup is a fake dossier purchased for money that consists of unsupported allegations against Trump and that was used to obtain warrants from the FISA count to spy on Trump and various associates hoping to find something that can be used against Trump. Regardless, the false allegations could be fed to the CIA's media assets and used to create a scandal requiring a special prosecutor to investigate Russiagate.

Once the investigation was under way, the presstitutes kept the scandal alive hoping to convince enough Americans that Trump must have done something -- "where there is smoke, there is fire" -- that justifies his removal. It worked against Richard Nixon, but not against Ronald Reagan, and Trump is no Reagan. If the highest reaches of the police state agencies can get away with an attempted or successful coup against the president of the United States, then that is the complete end of democracy and all accountability in government. The House, Senate, and judiciary will become as powerless as the Roman senate under the caesars. We will live under a dictatorship ruled by police state agencies.

Many Americans say they don't need the House Intelligence Report, because they don't believe the Russiagate BS in the first place. They miss the point. They need the report, because those responsible for this attempt at a coup must be identified, charged, and prosecuted for their act of high treason.

This is not minor stuff. This goes to the heart of whether any form of liberty will exist. We all know that the ability of the people to hold government accountable is not assured by democracy. However, there is no prospect of holding government accountable if it is a police state, a road that the US has been going down for some time. The audacious coup attempt against President Trump is our opportunity to stop the momentum to a police state.

Despite my recent postings, many people do not understand that the somewhat redacted FISA court document that has been declassified and released and explained by myself, William Binney, and former US Attorney Joe di Genova contains admissions by the FBI and DOJ that they improperly spied and obtained warrants from the court under false pretenses. In other words, we have it on the authority of the FISA court itself that the FBI and DOJ have admitted to the court their transgressions. When Department of Justice (sic) congressional liaison Stephen Boyd says the DOJ is "unaware of any wrongdoing," he is lying through his teeth. The DOJ has already confessed its wrongdoing to the FISA court.

(See Lendman on Boyd's claim that releasing the memo would harm national security and ongoing investigations. This is always the claim made when government has to cover up its crimes. )

When Admiral Rodgers, director of the National Security Agency, discovered that the FBI and DOJ were misusing the spy system for partisan political reasons, he let it be known that he was going to inform the FISA court. This caused the FBI and DOJ to rush to the court in advance and confess to "mistakes" and to promise to tighten up procedures so as not to make mistakes in the future. It is these "mistakes" and corrections that the FISA court document reveals.

In other words, the information already exists in the pubic domain that proves that Russiagate was a conspiracy organized for the purpose of bringing down the elected president of the United States.

A case can be made that it would be just as well if the coup succeeds as it would bring an end to Washington's cover as the government of a great democracy with liberty and justice for all. Most other governments, and one would hope certainly the Russian and Chinese governments, would see the coup as America's final transition into a police state and give up their utopian ideas of reaching accommodation with Washington. The constraints on Washington's ability to bully the world would be greatly strengthened by the universal perception that the government of the United States had devolved into a police state.

holdbuysell Jan 26, 2018 12:18 AM Permalink

Why Russia is the enemy is found in the historical record that Collins lays out in a series of articles.

https://philosophyofmetrics.com/category/crown-beast-series/

[Jan 25, 2018] vidence of FBI Conspiracy Grows by Publius Tacitus

Highly recommended!
Missing message might point to the gambit to appoint the Special Prosecutor Mueller
Notable quotes:
"... 18. 13 December 2016 , Christopher Steele prepares, on his own, the 17th report in the dossier and sends it to Senator McCain via David Kramer. ..."
"... This information subsequently was used by FBI Director Comey, with the full knowledge of Strzok and Page, to obtain permission from a FISA court to "eavesdrop"/wiretap Donald Trump. The missing texts are likely to tell a story of FBI corruption and meddling that, if made public, will end the careers of several FBI agents and DOJ personnel. Stay tuned. ..."
"... These text messages are also critical evidence around the appointment of Mueller as special counsel which happened in May 2017. There is a back story there that these "missing" text messages would shed light on. Note that both Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were senior members of Mueller's staff until some of their text messages were released by DOJ IG Horowitz. Strzok was the person that interviewed Flynn in the White House and set him up for the perjury charge. ..."
"... The current batch of released text messages show that Bill Priestap, head of CI at the FBI removed the reference that Hillary emailed Obama from her unsecure server. Obama had previously denied that. ..."
"... There is much more evidence piling up as the Congressional committees continue their investigation. Nunes already knows a lot and his summary memo will likely be released soon to the public. Additionally, many of these people at the FBI & DOJ including Strzok, Page, Priestap, Baker, etc will be testifying under oath to Congress soon as Rosenstein has already agreed to that. Admiral Rogers will also likely provide testimony after he retires from the NSA in couple months. ..."
"... IMO, the critical piece of evidence is the now declassified FISC ruling. Nunes has seen the unredacted version ..."
"... The problem is that russiagate is an article of faith for its adherents. This can be seen by the frequency with which the argument from ignorance is invoked: "Mueller hasn't found anything but that just means he needs more time! In the meantime, we will assume that the most lurid allegations are true!" ..."
"... This also can be seen by the amount of fake news published over russiagate. If the "evidence" were so "overwhelming", why has the MSM walked back so many "bombshell revelations"? Why use lies if the truth is sufficient? ..."
"... Even Peter Strzok didn't believe there was any collusion between Trump and Russia, after all he and others in the "secret society" at the FBI, DOJ and the IC did to build the narrative of collusion. ..."
"... So the FBI had mis-configuration issues with their smart phones - must be the Russians \s. Would another three letter agency not be able to provide a copy of the texts from their records? ..."
"... In my opinion, we are in a very dangerous space here. I would put Strozk and Page in protective custody right now. To me, the lovers texts indicate that the Intelligence community succumbed to "Trump derangement phenomenon" like most of the Liberal population and the mainstream media. They did not see a Trump win coming and were caught flat footed. ..."
"... Lets be clear, what started as a "light hearted" bit of electoral character assassination - the Russian collusion meme, golden showers and all, took on a life of its own after Trump won. Hilary Clinton grabbed it like a life preserver as an excuse for her electoral failure. The FBI and their DOJ colleagues suddenly found that their lighthearted jape was being investigated and that Trump and the saner members of Congress were not amused and now it appears to me that wholesale restructure of DOJ, the FBI and goodness knows what else is likely. To put that another way, if Trump had lost the election, would the Russian dossier etc. still be an issue? No. ..."
"... My guess is that the IC wishes it had never seen that dossier, let alone awarded it a shred of credibility, let alone used it as a pretext for FISA based action. Trump is now going to after the IC community that did this and very probably going to start a restructure as a result. The FBI/DOJ "secret society" is at best petrified that they have been found out and will lose their careers. At worst the IC may believe its existence in its current form is threatened and is taking action to protect its power. ..."
"... When you are part of the establishment, you don't necessarily have to be very good. Mistakes are overlooked, errors in judgment forgiven. n.b. HRC and her email fiasco. If she were a normie, she'd be in a SuperMax ..."
"... The picture says it better than the long explanation. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUPK2BPU8AANkCW.jpg ..."
"... "Mueller is inviting Trump for a little chat." Trump has had and still has the legal and constitutional power to remove Sessions, Rosenstein, Comey, Flynn, Mueller, the present FBI chief, Strzok, etc. In the case of the civil servants he might have to put them, each and every one, in an empty room with a desk and a telephone but he could get rid of all of them. Obstruction of justice as a charge in some forum? The lawyers will tell you that such a charge can only be proven if intent to obstruct in the context of his legal power can by proven to exist. How do you think that would be established? Do you think that he has written something that would establish it? Do you think that one of his associates, Flynn maybe, would rat him out on this? Or do you think that Mueller will trick or provoke him into incriminating himself? Collusion with Russia? Really? are your friends still pushing that? pl ..."
"... As I reviewed the writings of others who were following the story closely and developed the time line for my benefit, it became evident to me that the declassified FISC ruling is a crucial piece of evidence. This is the first document in the public domain that shows that there were systematic violations of FISA 702 in the period leading up to March 2016. A FISA 702 violation can only happen if there were no national security requirements to the queries. This FISC ruling would not have happened if Admiral Rogers didn't first order a compliance review and then go to FISC to report these violations. ..."
"... Nunes and the other Gangof8 have read the unredacted FISC ruling, which means they know who ran the queries and which subcontractors were provided unauthorized access to the data so obtained. They also now have read the FISA application that was granted in October 2016 and know what part the Steele dossier played in that application. Nunes has also read the PDBs leading up to the election, and as he has stated publicly there was no Russia related information but there was information from the incidental collection on American citizens. ..."
"... "When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by [Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter] which studied a small UFO [cult] in Chicago ... and its coping mechanisms after the [destruction of the world] did not occur. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance can account for the psychological consequences of disconfirmed expectations. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in this book." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails ..."
"... Apparently, the doggy dossier was used to obtain a FISA warrant to bug the President-Elect and Peter Strzok purposefully setup a FBI perjury trap to remove the President's National Security Advisor. If this is documented, it is proof that there is an ongoing intelligence community/media counter coup against Donald Trump. This can't be hidden. There can only be one response; restoration of the rule of law and jail time for high-level criminals. If not, the Constitution is dead. The problem is that Trump Derangement Syndrome blinds believers. They can't see that the coup attempt is one of the knives stabbed in the back of democracy. ..."
"... Sid - Indeed we can "cognitive dissonance" in many fields Russiagate, so called "Russian Threat" to Western Democracy's, with Brexit (on both sides of the argument) and of course Syria. ..."
"... I believe is was Adam Schiff who said the memo should not be released publicly as, "the American people just wouldn't understand it". I guess he's just a lot smarter than most of us, ha ha ha. ..."
"... The nation is as divided as I've ever seen it, concerning this question. I continue to believe that truth exists, and truth is not an existential question; but for many of our fellows this concern seems lost. ..."
"... More support for this view involves the FBI's use of the Russian dossier on Trump that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It is almost certain that the FBI used the dossier to get FISA court warrants to spy on Trump associates, meaning it used the opposition research of the party in power to convince a court to let it spy on the candidate of the other party -- likely without telling the court of the dossier's political link. ..."
"... "intelligence professionals hostile to the USA". The Swamp. Got that. ..."
"... The devious villains who have been running this attempt to remove Trump and to neutralize the complaints of the "deplorables" are using the existing legal and media structure to try to do it. In fact, one of the elements of 18 U.S. Code 2384 is that the conspiracy to do one of the five alternative elements has to be done "contrary to the authority thereof [of the U.S. government]". When the backstabbing Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, wrote the directive establishing the "special counsel" Robert Mueller, he created a sub-office that has the authority of the U.S. government. ..."
"... Two points: my nose tells me that there is at least a 50/50 chance that that there were communications between Mueller, Rosenstein and Comey relating to Mueller's appointment before Comey leaked the triggering material to the NYT by washing it through his friend, the law professor at Columbia; point 2 - there is almost no chance whatever, given the alleged overseas sourcing cited in the Steele materials, that there isn't heavy CIA involvement, inclusive of the very political Brennan, in assessing those materials for use. The FBI has no investigative capabilities in Russia and it would have been irresponsible for the FBI to move with that information without at least consulting with the Agency for corroborative support. ..."
"... We are past the point where Christopher Wray should be requesting an independent investigation into this mess, whether it comes from the USAtty's Office in DC or another Special Counsel that would have the authority to pre empt Mueller - the FBI is hemorrhaging Integrity. The only thing that will stem the flow is to get to the bottom of the mess and a post Watergate Style root and branch reform. ..."
"... "Comey leaked the triggering material to the NYT by washing it through his friend, the law professor at Columbia..." The "friend" is now claiming to be Comey's personal attorney. Thus he can claim attorney-client privilege and Comey can explain why he used the word "friend" rather than "my personal attorney" in his testimony before Congress. I can't image the members of the House are all too pleased with Slick Willy 2 Jimmy or the good professor. ..."
"... I recall Admiral Rogers' visit to Trump Tower during the transition period really chapped quite a few asses. If I remember correctly, Rogers was pilloried in the press afterwards--to include recommendations/claims by Brennan and Clapper he be fired. ..."
"... Admiral Rogers discovered FISA violations and unauthorized access to raw data. He ordered a compliance review at the NSA. The result of this review showed many violations. He went personally to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and reported these violations. This happened October 2016. A week after the election, he went to Trump Tower without informing DNI Clapper and informed Trump about the surveillance and probably the violations that were uncovered by the compliance review at the NSA. The next day Trump moved his whole transition team to Bedminster. ..."
Jan 25, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The latest news about the FBI--e.g., they apparently lost 5 months of text messages between star FBI au lovers, Strzok-Page texts, perhaps 50,000--points to incompetence or malfeasance and coverup. I go with the latter.

The dates of the missing texts are the key tell--14 December 2016 thru 17 May 2017. Pay particular attention to the 14 December date in light of what we now know about the Dossier prepared/written by British spy Christopher Steele. Please reference my previous piece on the Dossier timeline :

18. 13 December 2016 , Christopher Steele prepares, on his own, the 17th report in the dossier and sends it to Senator McCain via David Kramer.

Here are the key highlights of that report:

2016/166--13 December 2016 -- US/RUSSIA: FURTHER DETAILS OF SECRET DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUMP CAMPAIGN TEAM, KREMLIN AND ASSOCIATED HACKERS IN PRAGUE

SOURCES: Blacked out/ Not Identified

TRUMP's representative COHEN accompanied to Prague in August/September 2016 by 3 colleagues for secret discussions with Kremlin representat ives and associated operators/hackers

Agenda included how to process deniable cash payments to operatives; contingency plans for covering up operations; and action in event of a CLINTON election victory

Some further details of Russian representatives/ operatives involved; Romanian hackers employed; and use of Bulgaria as bolt hole to "lie low"

Anti-CLINTON hackers and other operatives paid by both TRUMP team and Kremlin, but with ultimate loyalty to Head of PA, IVANOV and his successor/s

This information subsequently was used by FBI Director Comey, with the full knowledge of Strzok and Page, to obtain permission from a FISA court to "eavesdrop"/wiretap Donald Trump. The missing texts are likely to tell a story of FBI corruption and meddling that, if made public, will end the careers of several FBI agents and DOJ personnel. Stay tuned.

Posted at 11:36 AM in Justice , Politics , Publius Tacitus | Permalink

james , 23 January 2018 at 12:08 PM

i also go with the later - malfeasance and coverup... short and to the point pt.. thanks..
blue peacock , 23 January 2018 at 12:30 PM
PT

These text messages are also critical evidence around the appointment of Mueller as special counsel which happened in May 2017. There is a back story there that these "missing" text messages would shed light on. Note that both Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were senior members of Mueller's staff until some of their text messages were released by DOJ IG Horowitz. Strzok was the person that interviewed Flynn in the White House and set him up for the perjury charge.

The current batch of released text messages show that Bill Priestap, head of CI at the FBI removed the reference that Hillary emailed Obama from her unsecure server. Obama had previously denied that.

There is much more evidence piling up as the Congressional committees continue their investigation. Nunes already knows a lot and his summary memo will likely be released soon to the public. Additionally, many of these people at the FBI & DOJ including Strzok, Page, Priestap, Baker, etc will be testifying under oath to Congress soon as Rosenstein has already agreed to that. Admiral Rogers will also likely provide testimony after he retires from the NSA in couple months.

IMO, the critical piece of evidence is the now declassified FISC ruling. Nunes has seen the unredacted version.

Sid Finster , 23 January 2018 at 01:05 PM
The problem is that russiagate is an article of faith for its adherents. This can be seen by the frequency with which the argument from ignorance is invoked: "Mueller hasn't found anything but that just means he needs more time! In the meantime, we will assume that the most lurid allegations are true!"

This also can be seen by the amount of fake news published over russiagate. If the "evidence" were so "overwhelming", why has the MSM walked back so many "bombshell revelations"? Why use lies if the truth is sufficient?

But the real point is that when people are confronted with incontrovertible proof that their core beliefs, the beliefs that make up their self-image and tribal membership are wrong, rather than change beliefs or change tribes to fit the facts, most people, most of the time, will deny the facts in order to avoid changing. Rather than express gratefulness for bringing the truth to light, people will attack the messenger, using words like "heretic", "blasphemer" or even "Putin puppet".

This phenomenon is called "cognitive dissonance", and it is most sharply seen in cult members. However, there are entire religions and political movements based on this principle.

For its partisans, russiagate and other conspiracy theories provide a prime example of cognitive dissonance. Except that this is as a conspiracy theory for establishment types. MSM birthergate.

nard , 23 January 2018 at 01:05 PM
seeing how IG Horowitz had them in his possession August 2017, it beggars belief! https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-22/whos-lying-fbi-says-5-months-texts-lost-yet-ig-horowitz-says-his-office-received
Eric Newhill , 23 January 2018 at 01:11 PM
I guess I always expect there to be Machiavellian palace intrigues and plots. So that doesn't surprise me. It's bad, very bad, but not surprising to this cynical mind.

What really strikes me is the sheer sophomoric idiocy of these people all the way up and down the chain. First, you have the democrats and the McCain cucks trying to undo the democratic process and, basically, arranging a circular firing squad to do it. Could they not imagine that the stupid collusion investigation might ultimately reveal their own unsavory machinations and bring about their own demise?

Then you have these oh so respectable FBI/DOJ types - some of whom deal in counter intelligence - cheating on their spouses and sending emails back and forth like hormone addled teenagers. Moreover, their emails contain incriminating language re; the palace coup. Haven't these intel "experts" ever heard of opsec?

What a shabby bunch of "experts" and "professionals" we have in DC. Very disconcerting.

blue peacock , 23 January 2018 at 01:32 PM
PT

Interesting!

Even Peter Strzok didn't believe there was any collusion between Trump and Russia, after all he and others in the "secret society" at the FBI, DOJ and the IC did to build the narrative of collusion.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-23/jaw-dropping-text-message-fbi-agent-suggests-no-trump-collusion-russia

Barbara Ann , 23 January 2018 at 03:03 PM
So the FBI had mis-configuration issues with their smart phones - must be the Russians \s. Would another three letter agency not be able to provide a copy of the texts from their records?
Walrus , 23 January 2018 at 03:13 PM
In my opinion, we are in a very dangerous space here. I would put Strozk and Page in protective custody right now. To me, the lovers texts indicate that the Intelligence community succumbed to "Trump derangement phenomenon" like most of the Liberal population and the mainstream media. They did not see a Trump win coming and were caught flat footed.

Lets be clear, what started as a "light hearted" bit of electoral character assassination - the Russian collusion meme, golden showers and all, took on a life of its own after Trump won. Hilary Clinton grabbed it like a life preserver as an excuse for her electoral failure. The FBI and their DOJ colleagues suddenly found that their lighthearted jape was being investigated and that Trump and the saner members of Congress were not amused and now it appears to me that wholesale restructure of DOJ, the FBI and goodness knows what else is likely. To put that another way, if Trump had lost the election, would the Russian dossier etc. still be an issue? No.

My guess is that the IC wishes it had never seen that dossier, let alone awarded it a shred of credibility, let alone used it as a pretext for FISA based action. Trump is now going to after the IC community that did this and very probably going to start a restructure as a result. The FBI/DOJ "secret society" is at best petrified that they have been found out and will lose their careers. At worst the IC may believe its existence in its current form is threatened and is taking action to protect its power.

The alleged "loss" of five months of texts is to convenient to me to be explained by mere incompetence. My sense is that IC interests are now galvanised in a rear guard action to protect their power and that is why Strozk and Page need to be in custody, and on suicide watch, under the protection of Congress, assuming trusted law enforcement or military forces can be found.

Terry said in reply to Sid Finster... , 23 January 2018 at 03:16 PM
Yup. I still have days where it is hard to get my head around the fact that I live on a planet where the majority are either mentally dysfunctional or mentally ill. Logic and Reason tempered by compassion is rare. There must be a few fine people holding things together out there. Kudos to them.

"Even after the evidence "for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs," the researchers noted. In this case, the failure was "particularly impressive," since two data points would never have been enough information to generalize from."

This article is a good writeup on the science but What is sad and humerous in this article is the last paragraph blaming Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. The author is clueless to her own participation in cognitive bias.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

Sid Finster said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 23 January 2018 at 03:25 PM
When you are part of the establishment, you don't necessarily have to be very good. Mistakes are overlooked, errors in judgment forgiven. n.b. HRC and her email fiasco. If she were a normie, she'd be in a SuperMax.
Tel , 23 January 2018 at 03:45 PM
The picture says it better than the long explanation. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUPK2BPU8AANkCW.jpg
Greco said in reply to blue peacock... , 23 January 2018 at 03:52 PM
That alleged secret society may extend to the State Department. During Comey's investigation into Hillary's private email server use, there were officials at the State Department who allegedly tried in vain to release Hillary's emails all at once so that they could better coordinate among themselves (i.e., get their stories straight). And the deputy secretary, Patrick Kennedy, allegedly offered the investigating agents a quid pro quo bribe.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/17/fbi-releases-100-new-pages-on-clinton-email-probe.html

One revelation in the documents came from an interview with an unidentified person who suggested that Freedom of Information Act requests related to Clinton went through a group sometimes called "the Shadow Government."

"There was a powerful group of very high-ranking STATE officials that some referred to as 'The 7th Floor Group' or 'The Shadow Government.' This group met every Wednesday afternoon to discuss the FOIA process, Congressional records, and everything CLINTON-related to FOIA/Congressional inquiries," the FBI's interview summary said.

That group, according to the summary, argued for a Clinton document release to be conducted all at once "for coordination purposes" instead of on a rolling basis as would normally be the case. But the "Shadow Government" did not get its way, and the agency in charge decided for a rolling release, the FBI summary said.

Another claim from the documents is that one unidentified interviewee said Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy pressured the FBI to unclassify certain emails from Clinton's private server that were previously deemed classified.

The interviewee said Kennedy contacted the FBI to ask for the change in classification in "exchange for a 'quid pro quo.'"

A representative for the State Department categorically denied that claim.

[....]

The FBI also denied such a "quid pro quo" [...]

JerseyJeffersonian -> Eric Newhill... , 23 January 2018 at 04:02 PM
Eric Newhill @ #5,

To paraphrase the "Queen of Mean", Leona Helmsley, opsec is for the little people.

But hey, thank God that these inexpert and non-professional types were so incompetent in their practice (or even understanding of) opsec; .

No quarter should be offered unless it is to obtain actionable information to be used against other participants in this series of interlinked crimes. Some of these people gave an oath to defend the Constitution, after all, and they blatantly went against their oaths to advance their careers and the political fortunes of their own political party.

Rhondda , 23 January 2018 at 04:40 PM
18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy
Fred , 23 January 2018 at 04:42 PM
Publius,

50,000 texts in 151 days? That's more than 300 a day. When the hell was the Chief of the Counterespionage Section of the FBI doing his actual job rather than acting like a teenager overwhelmed by hormones? Why the hell is he now in "human resources" when it quite apparent that his professional judgement is compromised?

Richardstevenhack , 23 January 2018 at 04:45 PM
Alt-right activist Jack Posobiec claims that all FBI Galaxy S5 smart phones come preloaded with the Samsung Knox Security Suite which automatically archives text messages, and that this can't be disabled without FBI IT admin express action.

According to experts, FBI "lost" text messages proving 'Obama-Hillary collusion' can be found (Video)
http://theduran.com/according-to-experts-fbi-lost-text-messages-proving-obama-hillary-collusion-can-be-found-video/

It's also suggested that if any of these people used syncing to their PCs or home PCs that the messages could be found, as well anyone who synced with iMessage, an Apple platform.

The Strzok email explicitly claiming there is no "there there" on Trump collusion is itself a real find. If one of the main architects of Russiagate doesn't think they can prove it, then Mueller doesn't have much hope of doing so.

Fred said in reply to Walrus... , 23 January 2018 at 04:49 PM
Walrus,

Trump and his family are the ones who need additional protection from an assasination attempt. Is Air Force maintenance any better than the US Navy's? You might have read of a few of their snafus. Maybe Melania staying home while the President goes to Davos is about something other than disaffection with her husband from yet another recycled allegation of an extramarital sexual tryst.

Jack said in reply to blue peacock... , 23 January 2018 at 04:52 PM
Thank you Publius Tacitus and blue peacock for keeping us abreast on this momentous conspiracy at the highest levels of our government. It is clear that we don't have a republic anymore. The question is how much sunshine will we get and if anyone is held to account and most importantly will there be a top to bottom clean-up.
TV , 23 January 2018 at 05:00 PM
Incompetent plotting.
These self-important dolts have seen too many movies.
If Strzok is a "star" at the FBI, no wonder it took them and the CIA (another collection of "rocket surgeons") 10 years to uncover that Chinese spy.
These people - through sheer ineptitude - are more dangerous to themselves than anyone else.
You know how these "Inspector Clouseau's" will finally defeat the Chinese and Russian spy services?
The Russians and Chinese will die laughing.
Eric Newhill said in reply to JerseyJeffersonian... , 23 January 2018 at 05:21 PM
JJ,
I agree with the "no quarter" suggestion. These people are traitors, as you basically say, to the Constitution they swore to uphold. The time is now to make examples of such people. The public needs to understand that something very wrong did happen and they will understand that if the punishment meets the crime. Otherwise, it's just more partisan political mudslinging to their minds.

I think that sever punishment is what will happen. Jeff Sessions (and Trump) is now approaching the point where he is unbound from the chains of potential - and likely - allegations of obstruction of justice. He can now deal with Mueller and the rest of them. The swamp will experience a major draining of unprecedented proportions. Some will be jailed. Some will leave office for "personal reasons/more time with family/pursue other opportunities". I can foresee Clinton being brought up on charges stemming from the server/classified emails and god knows what else. Lynch will get wrapped up. Obama himself is probably facing some risk here. McCain will use his brain cancer as an out, but he should go down too. I think they will protect him somewhat though because of his war hero status and because he's on the way out anyhow.

Trump now looks pretty smart and correct for canning Comey (who is facing a world of hurt for lying to Congress and conspiracy in fixing the Clinton email investigation). The entire democrat/leftist meme set is falling apart in a very ugly way across the entire spectrum; from this un-democratic plot to preferring illegal aliens over actual citizens. I predict the left will merely double down on stupid insanity. Nov 2018 is the Republicans' to lose.

It isn't just that people underestimate Trump. It's that those who oppose him are proving to be utterly feeble minded, undisciplined fools. And they're in the wrong. A very bad combination when people like Trey Gowdy are gunning for you.

Sid Finster said in reply to TV... , 23 January 2018 at 05:30 PM
Oh, very well...

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-21/15-year-old-hacker-impersonated-cia-director-and-other-high-ranking-officials

Our Best and Brightest, indeed.

Sid Finster said in reply to Terry... , 23 January 2018 at 05:37 PM
In my feline experience, cognitive dissonance is as much a problem of the intelligent and well educated as it is of the doltish and poorly educated.

Keep in mind that much of "knowledge work" these days consists not at getting at the truth, but of using facts and inferences to support whatever it is that you or the person who is paying you wants them to support.

A particularly egregious example is how the Tobacco Institute for decades engaged highly credentialed scientists, specialists in their respective fields, to argue that first, that there was no link between smoking and cancer, and then, to argue that such a link couldn't be proven, and finally, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that such link was weaker than the evidence made it seem.

turcopolier , 23 January 2018 at 06:25 PM
All

IMO Trey Gowdy R-SC should be named Special Counsel for investigation of this massive conspiracy involving DoJ,FBI,The Clinton Campaign/CIA, etc. He has been a state prosecutor and a federal prosecutor. His district in upland South Carolina is so red that he would certainly be replaced by another conservative Republican. I urge you all to press for his appointment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trey_Gowdy pl

Valissa , 23 January 2018 at 06:28 PM
NOT an Onion article LOL

Comey to teach course on ethical leadership for College of William & Mary https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/comey-to-teach-course-on-ethical-leadership-for-college-of-william-and-mary/2018/01/18/4ea7b2ca-fc8d-11e7-8f66-2df0b94bb98a_story.html
"I am thrilled to have the chance to engage with William & Mary students about a vital topic -- ethical leadership," Comey said in a statement. "Ethical leaders lead by seeing above the short term, above the urgent or the partisan, and with a higher loyalty to lasting values, most importantly the truth. Building and maintaining that kind of leadership, in both the private sector and government, is the challenge of our time. There is no better place to teach and learn about it than the W&M Washington Program."
---------------

Words fail me...

Jack said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 23 January 2018 at 06:54 PM
Eric,

From what I have read, it seems it is Nunes' doggedness that has uncovered the evidence that we see now. His summary memo will be released soon despite the Democrats opposition. That and the testimony of the key conspirators and the IG report as well as the obstruction by the FBI & DOJ will increase the calls for a special counsel.

Let's see how all this plays out in the next few months. Trump is going to come out of this much stronger as many voters see how he was screwed over by the Obama administration.

Jack said in reply to turcopolier ... , 23 January 2018 at 06:57 PM
Sir,

I have read that many on the right are not too keen on Gowdy due to his failure to get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi.

turcopolier , 23 January 2018 at 07:32 PM
jack

What is it that you think happened at Benghazi? What I see is an Obama Administration failure to harden US facilities at Benghazi followed up by an Obama Administration denial of their failure. Far too many people seek perfection of outcome in an imperfect world. pl

Emad , 23 January 2018 at 07:55 PM
PT,

The dog ate my homework much? There're no missing text messages. The NSA has a copy of everything that crosses the towers and servers of U.S. telecommunications companies.

The Trump team can retrieve the text messages between the FBI love birds either via appointing a special counsel or administrative subpoenas.

DC said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 23 January 2018 at 08:31 PM
Exactly. It's certainly ironic that Strzok, a lead FBI investigator of Hillary's stupid use of official email over a private server, would continue to send stupid personal texts over an official line, having learned nothing. Although Hillary's problem was arguably worse for endangering national security.

Is he so cheap that he couldn't afford to use a personal phone to text his mistress (to say nothing of stupid)? All of the cheating dogs I know use more than one phone for such purposes.

DC said in reply to Emad... , 23 January 2018 at 08:39 PM
I expect the FBI will be able to easily recover the text messages, NSA won't be necessary. From what we've seen so far, imo, all it will amount to are more strangled cries of lawyers in love.

However, for anyone who's already tooth-deep in believing the conspiracy narrative against Trump, this is read meat. Big in the news cycle, on the same day we hear that Mueller is inviting Trump for a little chat. The FBI's bureaucrats don't seem too smart but the Republican congress is playing this thing pretty well. It's a good song, play it on repeat.

outthere said in reply to turcopolier ... , 23 January 2018 at 09:05 PM
agree yes
+ an over exuberant USA ambassador who thought his personal charisma was a defense against armed attack
+ a secret CIA operation nearby that was gathering Kadafi arms for shipment to overthrow Syrian government
turcopolier -> DC... , 23 January 2018 at 10:37 PM
DC

"Mueller is inviting Trump for a little chat." Trump has had and still has the legal and constitutional power to remove Sessions, Rosenstein, Comey, Flynn, Mueller, the present FBI chief, Strzok, etc. In the case of the civil servants he might have to put them, each and every one, in an empty room with a desk and a telephone but he could get rid of all of them. Obstruction of justice as a charge in some forum? The lawyers will tell you that such a charge can only be proven if intent to obstruct in the context of his legal power can by proven to exist. How do you think that would be established? Do you think that he has written something that would establish it? Do you think that one of his associates, Flynn maybe, would rat him out on this? Or do you think that Mueller will trick or provoke him into incriminating himself? Collusion with Russia? Really? are your friends still pushing that? pl

Eric Newhill said in reply to DC... , 23 January 2018 at 10:55 PM
DC,

Even worse in funny kinda way...

...Sometimes I think that Page is a source of leaks, texts, etc.; perhaps cooperating with the Rs.

Maybe Strzok promised her he'd leave his wife for her or get her a promotion, something like that, but then didn't deliver. Hell hath no fury....

...and If you're the cheatin kind, you're the cheatin kind.

turcopolier , 23 January 2018 at 11:05 PM
DC

More - Maybe Mueller can accuse Trump of being an undetected sex criminal? Perhaps a failure to register under FARA (if the statute hasn't run), How about a money launderer? Adulterer with some whore? What? pl

DC said in reply to turcopolier ... , 23 January 2018 at 11:07 PM
I dunno, honestly, how they intend to prove it. So far, they've got some stuff that we know about and don't know about, and I don't want to pretend I know the truth. I think prudence requires that I don't judge Trump as innocent before there's enough substance -- not simply innuendo or implication -- for me to believe he's not guilty. This is rather important crucible we're in right now; hot heads and trigger fingers are not what what we should be promoting.
blue peacock , 23 January 2018 at 11:50 PM
Sundance has two interesting posts on how the Russiagate "co-conspirators" are handling these weekly revelations on the Obama administration conspiracy.

One is about the WaPo, writing a story based on "information from a senior official". You know one of those, wherein allegedly McCabe was asked by Trump in the White House if he voted for him. This same McCabe, Comey's deputy, whose wife received a slug of cash from Terry McAuliffe, Clinton consigliere. McCabe is the guy in whose office the FBI lovers who couldn't text each other enough, discussed the "insurance policy". McCabe is being allowed to hang on at the FBI on the taxpayer dime until March so that he can collect his pension.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/23/deep-state-via-washington-post-fights-back-and-defends-andrew-andy-mccabe/

This story got me thinking what will the WaPo, NY Times, CNN, NBC, and the rest of the corporate media, who have invested so much selling the Russiagate narrative do, when it gets blown out of the water with the unraveling of the conspiracy at the highest levels of the Obama administration? What are they gonna do to keep their NeverTrumper vendetta going? They lost big time the first round, when despite their massive efforts, Trump won the election. Then they doubled down with Russiagate, which could actually strengthen Trump not weaken him when the truth comes out as is happening right now.

The next one is about the Democrat leadership. This one is actually hilarious. Dianne Feinstein and Adam Schiff, the ranking members on the Senate & House Intelligence committees, writing Jack Dorsey & Mark Zuckerberg to investigate the Russian collusion in the trending of #ReleaseTheMemo.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/23/adam-schiff-and-dianne-feinstein-demand-twitter-investigate-releasethememo/

LeaNder said in reply to Fred... , 24 January 2018 at 12:01 AM
Fred, you feel it's still possible? Even if I let him work 7 days a week, and 10 hours it feels beyond the power of hormones, I included Dec 14 & May 17 which makes 155 days: 50,000 : 155 = 322.58064...: 10 = 32.2580 Alternatively I assume he does work neither on Saturday, Sunday or on Holidays. Then we get 107 days. We still let him work 10 hours: 50,000 : 467.2897 : 10 = 46,72 In the first scenario he has at least 2 second to mail or respond 30 times per hour.
Lewis E , 24 January 2018 at 12:09 AM
doubtful. You seem as naively credulous as that dumb Maddow woman.
blue peacock said in reply to Jack... , 24 January 2018 at 12:33 AM
Jack,

All the credit goes to Publius Tacitus! He spurred my interest on this story.

As I reviewed the writings of others who were following the story closely and developed the time line for my benefit, it became evident to me that the declassified FISC ruling is a crucial piece of evidence. This is the first document in the public domain that shows that there were systematic violations of FISA 702 in the period leading up to March 2016. A FISA 702 violation can only happen if there were no national security requirements to the queries. This FISC ruling would not have happened if Admiral Rogers didn't first order a compliance review and then go to FISC to report these violations.

Nunes and the other Gangof8 have read the unredacted FISC ruling, which means they know who ran the queries and which subcontractors were provided unauthorized access to the data so obtained. They also now have read the FISA application that was granted in October 2016 and know what part the Steele dossier played in that application. Nunes has also read the PDBs leading up to the election, and as he has stated publicly there was no Russia related information but there was information from the incidental collection on American citizens.

Nunes and Congressional investigators I believe have a pretty good understanding of the conspiracy and who the key players were. They are in the process of collecting additional evidence and putting the puzzle together, while at the same time preparing what they have uncovered in a form that does not compromise "sources & methods" for release to the public. The first step in this will be the declassification and release of the summary memo prepared by Nunes.

The Democrat strategy it seems is fourfold. a)Claim that the Congressional investigation and release of information to the public undermines Mueller. b) Compromises national security c) Is partisan and does not reflect the reality of the underlying evidence d) Keep focusing on Russians behind every corner.

Jack, you noted in the earlier thread about evidence flow. That is an important observation. The evidence flow right now is clearly on the side of proving the conspiracy. Russiagate proponents better start gaining some serious evidence flow soon, or they will be swept by the avalanche of evidence around the conspiracy, that is going to be coming out over the next few months.

JamesT -> Sid Finster... , 24 January 2018 at 12:39 AM
Sid Finster

"When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World is a classic work of social psychology by [Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter] which studied a small UFO [cult] in Chicago ... and its coping mechanisms after the [destruction of the world] did not occur. Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance can account for the psychological consequences of disconfirmed expectations. One of the first published cases of dissonance was reported in this book." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails

The most interesting part of the book (to me) is that the more evidence mounts that their cult is built on a lie - the more the adherents come to believe in it!

turcopolier , 24 January 2018 at 01:10 AM
DC

What a fine American you are! You don't believe that Trump is innocent unless it is proven to you? No presumption of innocence for you! Oh no! What's the matter? Would your limousine liberal friends in Old Town scorn you if you were not "on board?" Your objection to the behavior of these scoundrels in the Deep State is that they are inept and their pretentious little plot is coming apart. pl

VietnamVet , 24 January 2018 at 03:04 AM
PT

Please keep us up to date. Apparently, the doggy dossier was used to obtain a FISA warrant to bug the President-Elect and Peter Strzok purposefully setup a FBI perjury trap to remove the President's National Security Advisor. If this is documented, it is proof that there is an ongoing intelligence community/media counter coup against Donald Trump. This can't be hidden. There can only be one response; restoration of the rule of law and jail time for high-level criminals. If not, the Constitution is dead. The problem is that Trump Derangement Syndrome blinds believers. They can't see that the coup attempt is one of the knives stabbed in the back of democracy.

JohnB said in reply to Sid Finster... , 24 January 2018 at 04:34 AM
Sid - Indeed we can "cognitive dissonance" in many fields Russiagate, so called "Russian Threat" to Western Democracy's, with Brexit (on both sides of the argument) and of course Syria.
LeaNder said in reply to Lewis E... , 24 January 2018 at 04:38 AM
Yes, LE, some times my mind blocks more other times less. Can you help me out or initiate me? Tell me how and were the number surfaced for instance? Or otherwise assist one of the feeble minded in the SST community?

Another offer:

Ok, they were lovers and the mail went backward and forward potentially 24 hours a day for 155 days, as first calculation above including Saturday, Sunday and Holidays. We give both equal chances as sender and recipient and both have 24 hours a day to do the job:

50.000 : 155 = 322.58064 : 2 = 161,29

Both the gallant and the lady still have to send each other 161 mails every single day. Well yes, spread over 24 hours it's strictly only 6-7 mails per hour. It's getting better.

LeaNder said in reply to DC... , 24 January 2018 at 04:43 AM
DC, that's the wrong way round:

that I don't judge Trump as innocent before there's enough substance

It is innocent until proven guilty.

LeaNder said in reply to turcopolier ... , 24 January 2018 at 06:32 AM
Christ Almighty! Should have known. Odd we have the same number again: 50,000. Now that's an effective message.

Donald "The Genius", PR man:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/956012274942128128

BillWade , 24 January 2018 at 07:33 AM
I believe is was Adam Schiff who said the memo should not be released publicly as, "the American people just wouldn't understand it". I guess he's just a lot smarter than most of us, ha ha ha.
DC , 24 January 2018 at 07:37 AM
I will humbly suggest that it is possible for two truths in this case to co-exist: (1) the deep state was so concerned about trump that it conspired to violate due process; and (2) there actually was, and is, cause for concern.
turcopolier , 24 January 2018 at 08:08 AM
DC

What was and is the cause for concern? A lack of good taste? He likes fast food? pl

Fred said in reply to LeaNder... , 24 January 2018 at 08:37 AM
LeaNder,

I'm sure your cognitive abilites are not impacted by the disruption of reading, considering and responding to this volume of text messages. "I assume he does work neither on Saturday, Sunday or on Holidays." What's the working schedule for intellegence professionals hostile to the USA? Do they only work 9-5 or do they have the French 36 hour work week with extended holidays?

J , 24 January 2018 at 08:56 AM
Bottom line -- is anybody going to jail? The FBI thinks they are above the law, at least that's the way they behave, and have behaved in the past on far too many occasions. Will Sessions and Trump make the FBI crooks do a frog-march straight to lock-up?


This is just one more reason IMO why the FBI needs to be dismantled, as our nation doesn't need a national 'political' policia.

If criminal investigations spanning state lines are required, then let there be departmental cooperation between the various state law enforcement agencies. State law enforcement working togeather accomplish more than most federal agencies sticking their fingers in the pie.

Let's do away with the FBI, it serves no useful purpose.

DC said in reply to turcopolier ... , 24 January 2018 at 10:05 AM
Honorable Colonel, the cause(s) for concern is/are writ large in the media, for well over a year. Problem is, which media do you trust. The nation is as divided as I've ever seen it, concerning this question. I continue to believe that truth exists, and truth is not an existential question; but for many of our fellows this concern seems lost. With respect to what Mueller is doing, I imagine a short list of issues include money laundering, financial fraud, tax evasion, international and domestic deals with "the mob," campaign finance violations, and of course "collusion" with a foreign power to undermine the election, and obstruction of justice vis a vis the Comey firing. It will be interesting to read "the facts" with respect to the criminal charges, if or when Mueller is able to put the relevant facts on the table.
Sid Finster , 24 January 2018 at 10:36 AM
DC: let's say that were true. So is your position that due process is de facto optional, as as law enforcement itself decides that the matter is important?

More importantly, once you give the unelected and unaccountable (even Congress doesn't know what their real budgets are) Deep State a veto over election results they don't like, you are no longer living in a Republic, but in something else.

But why worry? Surely history shows that the Praetorian Guard ever always only acted selflessly and in the best and highest interests of Rome and its citizens, right?

Right?

Sid Finster said in reply to VietnamVet... , 24 January 2018 at 10:39 AM
https://nypost.com/2018/01/23/evidence-suggests-a-massive-scandal-is-brewing-at-the-fbi/

"...each day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America's premier law enforcement agency. The reports, which feature talk among agents of a "secret society" and suddenly missing text messages, point to the existence both of a cabal dedicated to defeating Donald Trump in 2016 and of a plan to let Hillary Clinton skate free in the classified email probe.

If either one is true -- and I believe both probably are -- it would mean FBI leaders betrayed the nation by abusing their powers in a bid to pick the president.

More support for this view involves the FBI's use of the Russian dossier on Trump that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It is almost certain that the FBI used the dossier to get FISA court warrants to spy on Trump associates, meaning it used the opposition research of the party in power to convince a court to let it spy on the candidate of the other party -- likely without telling the court of the dossier's political link.

Even worse, there is growing reason to believe someone in President Barack Obama's administration turned over classified information about Trump to the Clinton campaign."

Personally, I question the last paragraph. I suspect that it was either other members of Team R And/or the Clinton campaign that provided the dossier to the FBI.

Sid Finster said in reply to JamesT ... , 24 January 2018 at 10:41 AM
IIRC, the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide, but only after the beaming up did not proceed as originally scheduled. The Jim Jones mass suicide provides another instructive example.
Sid Finster said in reply to Jack... , 24 January 2018 at 10:44 AM
Because the point of Benghazi appears to have been the CIA gathering arms to ship off to the Moderate Jihadi Headchopper Unicorn Army v.20 or somesuch, I don't think Gowdy or other Congressional Republicans would be allowed to get to the bottom of things, even if they tries.
Mark Gaughan , 24 January 2018 at 10:45 AM
What will happen if Mueller finds that President Trump colluded with the Russians and/or obstructed justice, and the HPSCI finds the FBI, DOJ, etc. guilty of crimes?
Sid Finster said in reply to DC... , 24 January 2018 at 10:46 AM
This is fascinating.

You already know without evidence that the Page - Sztrok missing text messages are a nothingburger, just "lawyers in love" (yuck!) but you also know without evidence that Trump must be guilty.

This is like legal procedure as invented by the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Sentence, then verdict, then trial.

turcopolier , 24 January 2018 at 11:28 AM
DC

" ... money laundering, financial fraud, tax evasion, international and domestic deals with "the mob," campaign finance violations, and of course "collusion" with a foreign power to undermine the election, and obstruction of justice vis a vis the Comey firing. It will be interesting to read "the facts" with respect to the criminal charges" How much of that menu of the MSM and Democratic party meme portfolio constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors" and/or could be used in an impeachment and trial? pl

Publius Tacitus -> Mark Gaughan... , 24 January 2018 at 11:29 AM
Mark,
Are you being serious? There is no such CRIME as COLLUSION. What the hell does that even mean? Did Trump take money from the Russian Government to fund his campaign? NO. Did Trump seek out Russian input to his campaign? NO. The entire meme painting Trump as a stooge of Putin was nothing more than a sophisticated information operation that had the help of the FBI and the CIA in trying to smear Trump.
DC said in reply to turcopolier ... , 24 January 2018 at 11:43 AM
Indeed, Sir, "what could be used?" On this point, I suspect we're going to have to read up on the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine (assuming that Mueller is not removed, which would have its own problems):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

Pay particular attention to "exception no. 2." In order to prove that any evidence is "poison," then somehow NSA methods may have to be disclosed. In private, hermetically sealed, court session? Can we expect the public to be comfortable with that? What a mess.

Mark Gaughan said in reply to Publius Tacitus ... , 24 January 2018 at 11:57 AM
Thanks PT.
Sid Finster , 24 January 2018 at 11:58 AM
Mark produces a classic argument from ignorance, a favorite pastime of russiagate partisans.

"Just because no evidence has been found that Mark is in fact Mickey Mouse doesn't mean that evidence won't be someday found - in fact, this just means that we need to look harder! Until conclusive proof is found, we can safely assume that Mark has big round ears and a tail...."

LeaNder said in reply to Fred... , 24 January 2018 at 11:58 AM
Yes, Fred, "intelligence professionals hostile to the USA". The Swamp. Got that. Completely non-MAGA. I give you that.

I'll move towards you one step. Both of course texted and sent emails inside their wider swamp-networks, potentially "perhaps 50,000" times, all in all. In the important highly heated eventful post election day early Trump days. No less.

Some of those mails may prove that Russiagate is really Hillarygate AND also deeply linked to Obamagate: HillaryObamaGate. Meaning: they didn't need to spent all their energy on their love-affair 'cum' Trump-hate, but had to keep the wider network informed too? Save evidence: There were traces to this effect.

Sorry, but this is a déjà vu dive back into a close-up US partisan popular culture clash experience, I prefer to not be reminded of. Meaning: I do feel the need to keep it at arms-length. And maybe that's why I gladly took your offer to look at cold numbers. At the time, I surely prayed for some type of cold type of helpful, clarifying, technical SIGINT, admittedly. ... Felt like the only way out.

But thanks for offering the helping hand. ;)

*********
Somehow I seem to prefer to look into Cyber-rules and debates as mirrored here. What rules was the "conspiracy parties" guided by at the time? Feeling the need to put matters into context.

http://publications.armywarcollege.edu/sitesearch.cfm?q=Cyber

Monk , 24 January 2018 at 12:45 PM
RE: 50000 text messages.
Can anyone shed some light on how this number has been reached? I ask as text messages are 160 characters in length and messages longer than this, while shown as a single message on the handset, will still be broken down into these 160 character messages.
robt willmann said in reply to Rhondda... , 24 January 2018 at 01:24 PM
Rhondda,

Title 18 U.S. Code, section 2384, is a nice, vague criminal law from the standpoint of the government or a prosecutor, and includes that broadest doctrine of all -- conspiracy -- but the problem with trying to use it against those who have been seeking to push down Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump, et. al., is that each of the five alternative elements requires either "by force" or "to levy war"--

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384

The devious villains who have been running this attempt to remove Trump and to neutralize the complaints of the "deplorables" are using the existing legal and media structure to try to do it. In fact, one of the elements of 18 U.S. Code 2384 is that the conspiracy to do one of the five alternative elements has to be done "contrary to the authority thereof [of the U.S. government]". When the backstabbing Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, wrote the directive establishing the "special counsel" Robert Mueller, he created a sub-office that has the authority of the U.S. government.

Pretty slick.

Flavius , 24 January 2018 at 01:48 PM
Two points: my nose tells me that there is at least a 50/50 chance that that there were communications between Mueller, Rosenstein and Comey relating to Mueller's appointment before Comey leaked the triggering material to the NYT by washing it through his friend, the law professor at Columbia; point 2 - there is almost no chance whatever, given the alleged overseas sourcing cited in the Steele materials, that there isn't heavy CIA involvement, inclusive of the very political Brennan, in assessing those materials for use. The FBI has no investigative capabilities in Russia and it would have been irresponsible for the FBI to move with that information without at least consulting with the Agency for corroborative support.

We are past the point where Christopher Wray should be requesting an independent investigation into this mess, whether it comes from the USAtty's Office in DC or another Special Counsel that would have the authority to pre empt Mueller - the FBI is hemorrhaging Integrity. The only thing that will stem the flow is to get to the bottom of the mess and a post Watergate Style root and branch reform.

shepherd , 24 January 2018 at 03:28 PM
I hate to throw a technical wrench in the way of such a massive conspiracy, however the FBI does not run its own cell phone service, and thus does not have ultimate control over this data. This is a piggyback collection system that failed, not the real database. Whatever major carrier they were contracted with has the full records going back a year, probably more. Fox is reporting that the glitch affected 10% of all cell phones at the FBI, but given how this stuff works, I don't imagine that they can't get a backup of the records reasonably quickly. Fox mentions that as well.
Mark Gaughan said in reply to Sid Finster... , 24 January 2018 at 03:36 PM
First off Sid, I am definitely not a Russiagate partisan. Second, I asked a question. I got an answer from PT. I did not produce an argument, let alone a classic one, either from ignorance or not.
Rhondda said in reply to robt willmann... , 24 January 2018 at 03:44 PM
Doesn't backstabbing count as force? Just kidding.

"If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States , or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

I had looked this up at Cornell earlier and it seemed to me there might be opportunities for strong prosecution in the areas I have bolded, above.

From reading the FISC memos, it appears to me they may have also broken a number of serious laws with regard to use of 702, unmasking, etc. 5 years here, 10 years there and we're talking serious time...

That said, I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV. This is way beyond my paygrade, as the saying goes.

I guess mostly I am just so completely outraged by this that I WANT these people to roast over a slow prosecutorial fire with serious consequences. Smokin' that hopium. Sadly, the rot may be too deep for what seem to me to be appropriate consequences.

Thank you for your reply. I always read and respect your comments.

Rhondda said in reply to robt willmann... , 24 January 2018 at 03:51 PM
Oh goodness, I just re-read what I bolded in my reply and I finally see what you mean -- force, force, force. Thank you for gently pushing me. I appreciate that.

I guess our founding fathers and lawmakers of earlier times must never have thought to include a provision for those guilty of a "soft coup." Yes. Pretty dang slick.

Fred , 24 January 2018 at 04:05 PM
Flavius,

"Comey leaked the triggering material to the NYT by washing it through his friend, the law professor at Columbia..." The "friend" is now claiming to be Comey's personal attorney. Thus he can claim attorney-client privilege and Comey can explain why he used the word "friend" rather than "my personal attorney" in his testimony before Congress. I can't image the members of the House are all too pleased with Slick Willy 2 Jimmy or the good professor.

Fred said in reply to LeaNder... , 24 January 2018 at 04:21 PM
LeaNder,

North Korea, The Peoples Republic of China, The Russian Federation and many other nations are not denziens of "the Swamp". Nice try though.
"but this is a déjà vu dive back into a close-up US partisan popular culture clash experience, I prefer to not be reminded of."

Yeah, the great '60s cultural liberation movements that would inaugurate the Age of Aquarius are finally experiencing some cultural blow-back as exemplified by Trump's election. How's that working out in Germany? Has Angela formed a new government? I can't imagine why that hasn't happened yet.

Charles said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 24 January 2018 at 06:59 PM
If a woman will cheat with you, she will cheat on you.
blue peacock , 24 January 2018 at 08:09 PM
President Trump has agreed to be interviewed by special counsel Mueller under oath while reiterating that there was no collusion. Is this the set-up for the wind-up of the Mueller probe?

I am speculating on such an outcome for two reasons. One, if there was a shred of evidence on the alleged collusion it would have been leaked a long time ago. Second, it is getting too hot in the kitchen as more of the conspiracy gets uncovered and Mueller does not have clean hands due to his role in several investigations including UraniumOne and his close associations with a number of people including Comey who was his deputy at the FBI.

Rich said in reply to Sid Finster... , 24 January 2018 at 08:28 PM
Amen, Sid Finster. Nailed it.
The Porkchop Express , 24 January 2018 at 08:37 PM
Col., et. al:

I recall Admiral Rogers' visit to Trump Tower during the transition period really chapped quite a few asses. If I remember correctly, Rogers was pilloried in the press afterwards--to include recommendations/claims by Brennan and Clapper he be fired.

It always struck me as odd. But the swiftness in which the hammer came down on him his "secret trip" definitely raised a few question marks. Logically, It seems that if there were any shenanigans going on that would have likely been the time T-money was apprised of the goings on. I actually went back and looked, and the very next day the whole Trump transition was moved from NYC to NJ. It seems more likely than not?

But I'm sure there are plenty of reasons DIRNSA would meet with the President-elect and there is also the issue of chain of command, but the anger directed at Rogers seemed disproportionate to his actions.

Anyone have a feel on this?

Anna said in reply to Sid Finster... , 24 January 2018 at 09:50 PM
Here is a brutal, and unfortunately truthful, description of the role of tribal membership in the ongoing American scandal: http://www.unz.com/article/its-time-to-drop-the-jew-taboo/
Anna said in reply to blue peacock... , 24 January 2018 at 10:02 PM
"McCabe is being allowed to hang on at the FBI on the taxpayer dime until March so that he can collect his pension."
Was not he involved in the conspiracy? Also, seems that dignity is sompletely outside McCabe' realm
Publius Tacitus -> Mark Gaughan... , 24 January 2018 at 10:24 PM
Mark,
You are correct. It was an appropriate question and you did nothing untoward.Ma
Jack said in reply to The Porkchop Express... , 24 January 2018 at 10:24 PM
To paraphrase what blue peacock has written here and I strongly recommend you read his posts and the time line he put together.

Admiral Rogers discovered FISA violations and unauthorized access to raw data. He ordered a compliance review at the NSA. The result of this review showed many violations. He went personally to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and reported these violations. This happened October 2016. A week after the election, he went to Trump Tower without informing DNI Clapper and informed Trump about the surveillance and probably the violations that were uncovered by the compliance review at the NSA. The next day Trump moved his whole transition team to Bedminster.

Clapper and Brennan must have been furious because Admiral Rogers let the cat out of the bag and Trump knew what had happened and what was going on. That's why they wanted his head but Obama probably was too scared to pull the trigger and then have Admiral Rogers testify to Congress. Recall Trump's tweet that Obama had wiretapped him and how he was derided for that by the media and the establishment. Trump knew because of Admiral Rogers.

[Jan 24, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
This is really a "soft coup", a color revolution against Trump
Notable quotes:
"... It would have been unfortunate enough for Strzok and Page to have their adolescent-sounding texts merely exposed, revealing the reckless abandon of star-crossed lovers hiding (they thought) secrets from cuckolded spouses, office colleagues, and the rest of us. However, for the never-Trump plotters in the FBI, the official release of just a fraction (375) of almost 10,000 messages does incalculably more damage than that. ..."
"... We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process. And that puts in a new and dark context the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community, shadowy characters sometimes called the Deep State. ..."
"... More of the Strzok-Page texting dialogue is expected to be released. And the Department of Justice Inspector General reportedly has additional damaging texts from others on the team that Special Counsel Robert Mueller selected to help him investigate Russia-gate. ..."
"... But the main casualty is the FBI's 18-month campaign to sabotage candidate-and-now-President Donald Trump by using the Obama administration's Russia-gate intelligence "assessment," electronic surveillance of dubious legality, and a salacious dossier that could never pass the smell test, while at the same time using equally dubious techniques to immunize Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers from crimes that include lying to the FBI and endangering secrets ..."
"... Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of breathless searching for "evidence" of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time gumshoes used to call "means, motive and opportunity ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Besides this wildly improbable storyline, there were flat denials from WikiLeaks, which distributed the supposedly "hacked" Democratic emails, that the information came from Russia – and there was the curious inability of the National Security Agency to use its immense powers to supply any technical evidence to support the Russia-hack scenario. ..."
"... on Jan. 6, 2017, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released an evidence-free report that he said was compiled by "hand-picked" analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA, offering an "assessment" that Russia and President Putin were behind the release of the Democratic emails in a plot to help Trump win the presidency. ..."
"... Despite the extraordinary gravity of the charge, even New York Times correspondent Scott Shane noted that proof was lacking. He wrote at the time: "What is missing from the [the Jan. 6] public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies' claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to 'trust us.'" ..."
"... Virtually all skepticism about the evidence-free "assessment" was banned. For months, the Times and other newspapers of record repeated the lie that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had concurred in the conclusion about the Russian "hack." Even when that falsehood was belatedly acknowledged , the major news outlets just shifted the phrasing slightly to say that U.S. intelligence agencies had reached the Russian "hack" conclusion. Shane's blunt initial recognition about the lack of proof disappeared from the mainstream media's approved narrative of Russia-gate. ..."
"... Doubts about the Russian "hack" or dissident suggestions that what we were witnessing was a "soft coup" were scoffed at by leading media commentators. Other warnings from veteran U.S. intelligence professionals about the weaknesses of the Russia-gate narrative and the danger of letting politicized intelligence overturn a constitutional election were also brushed aside in pursuit of the goal of removing Trump from the White House. ..."
"... Justified or not, Trump's feeling of vindication could hardly be more dangerous -- particularly at a time when the most urgent need is to drain some testosterone from the self-styled Stable-Genius-in-Chief and his martinet generals. ..."
"... On the home front, Trump, his wealthy friends, and like-thinkers in Congress may now feel they have an even wider carte blanche to visit untold misery on the poor, the widow, the stranger and other vulnerable humans. That was always an underlying danger of the Resistance's strategy to seize on whatever weapons were available – no matter how reckless or unfair – to "get Trump." ..."
"... Beyond that, Russia-gate has become so central to the Washington establishment's storyline that there appears to be no room for second-thoughts or turning back. The momentum is such that some Democrats and the media never-Trumpers can't stop stoking the smoke of Russia-gate and holding out hope against hope that it will somehow justify Trump's impeachment. ..."
"... Yet, the sordid process of using legal/investigative means to settle political scores further compromises the principle of the "rule of law" and integrity of journalism in the eyes of many Americans. After a year of Russia-gate, the "rule of law" and "pursuit of truth" appear to have been reduced to high-falutin' phrases for political score-setttling, a process besmirched by Republicans in earlier pursuits of Democrats and now appearing to be a bipartisan method for punishing political rivals regardless of the lack of evidence. ..."
"... In June and July 2017 Strzok was the top FBI official working on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia, but was taken off that job when the Justice Department IG learned of the Strzok-Page text-message exchange and told Mueller ..."
"... At this point, the $64 question is whether the various congressional oversight committees will remain ensconced in their customarily cozy role as "overlook" committees, or whether they will have the courage to attempt to carry out their Constitutional duty. The latter course would mean confronting a powerful Deep State and its large toolbox of well-practiced retaliatory techniques, including J. Edgar Hoover-style blackmail on steroids, enabled by electronic surveillance of just about everything and everyone. Yes, today's technology permits blanket collection, and "Collect Everything" has become the motto. ..."
"... Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, with almost four decades of membership in the House and Senate, openly warned incoming President Trump in January 2017 against criticizing the U.S. intelligence community because U.S. intelligence officials have "six ways from Sunday to get back at you" if you are "dumb" enough to take them on. ..."
"... If congressional investigators have been paying attention, they already know what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter shared with Veteran intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) colleagues this week; namely, that Fusion GPS's Glenn Simpson, who commissioned the Russia dossier using Democratic Party money, said he reached out to Steele after June 17, just three days before Steele's first report was published , drawing on seven sources. ..."
"... How, you might ask, could Strzok and associates undertake these extra-legal steps with such blithe disregard for the possible consequences should they be caught? The answer is easy; Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? This was just extra insurance with no expectation of any "death benefit" ever coming into play -- save for Trump's electoral demise in November 2016. The attitude seemed to be that, if abuse of the FISA law should eventually be discovered -- there would be little interest in a serious investigation by the editors of The New York Times and other anti-Trump publications and whatever troubles remained could be handled by President Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... As you know Mr. McGovern the police state seldom loses. ..."
"... Compared to the criminal and corrupt US political system, the mafia is an honor society oriented on values. More and more evidence appears that the whole Russian Gate was precooked by the Obama and Clinton mafia together with crooks like Clapper, Brennan, Comey. Lynch and many of the top brass in the FBI and the DoJ. The installment of Bob Mueller who is hugely biased and a Comey body hired only Clinton supporters as his lawyers. But such a team shows how corrupt the US justice system has already become. ..."
"... Considering all the experience gleaned from 7+ decades of subverting and overthrowing governments around the world, the Deep State thugs must of thought securing the WH for their Killer Queen was a 'slam dunk.' ..."
"... The FBI answers to the CIA. This essay is absurd. ..."
Jan 24, 2018 | www.unz.com

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the third presidential debate in 2016, during which Clinton called Trump Vladimir Putin's "puppet.

Special Report: In the Watergate era, liberals warned about U.S. intelligence agencies manipulating U.S. politics, but now Trump-hatred has blinded many of them to this danger becoming real, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.

Russia-gate is becoming FBI-gate, thanks to the official release of unguarded text messages between loose-lipped FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and his garrulous girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Ten illustrative texts from their exchange appear at the end of this article.)

Despite his former job as chief of the FBI's counterintelligence section, Strzok had the naive notion that texting on FBI phones could not be traced. Strzok must have slept through "Surity 101." Or perhaps he was busy texting during that class. Girlfriend Page cannot be happy at being misled by his assurance that using office phones would be a secure way to conduct their affair(s).

It would have been unfortunate enough for Strzok and Page to have their adolescent-sounding texts merely exposed, revealing the reckless abandon of star-crossed lovers hiding (they thought) secrets from cuckolded spouses, office colleagues, and the rest of us. However, for the never-Trump plotters in the FBI, the official release of just a fraction (375) of almost 10,000 messages does incalculably more damage than that.

We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process. And that puts in a new and dark context the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community, shadowy characters sometimes called the Deep State.

More of the Strzok-Page texting dialogue is expected to be released. And the Department of Justice Inspector General reportedly has additional damaging texts from others on the team that Special Counsel Robert Mueller selected to help him investigate Russia-gate.

Besides forcing the removal of Strzok and Page, the text exposures also sounded the death knell for the career of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, in whose office some of the plotting took place and who has already announced his plans to retire soon.

But the main casualty is the FBI's 18-month campaign to sabotage candidate-and-now-President Donald Trump by using the Obama administration's Russia-gate intelligence "assessment," electronic surveillance of dubious legality, and a salacious dossier that could never pass the smell test, while at the same time using equally dubious techniques to immunize Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers from crimes that include lying to the FBI and endangering secrets.

Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of breathless searching for "evidence" of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time gumshoes used to call "means, motive and opportunity."

Even more unfortunately for Russia-gate enthusiasts, the FBI lovers' correspondence provides factual evidence exposing much of the made-up "Resistance" narrative – the contrived storyline that The New York Times and much of the rest of the U.S. mainstream media deemed fit to print with little skepticism and few if any caveats, a scenario about brilliantly devious Russians that not only lacks actual evidence – relying on unverified hearsay and rumor – but doesn't make sense on its face.

The Russia-gate narrative always hinged on the preposterous notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin foresaw years ago what no American political analyst considered even possible, the political ascendancy of Donald Trump. According to the narrative, the fortune-telling Putin then risked creating even worse tensions with a nuclear-armed America that would – by all odds – have been led by a vengeful President Hillary Clinton.

Besides this wildly improbable storyline, there were flat denials from WikiLeaks, which distributed the supposedly "hacked" Democratic emails, that the information came from Russia – and there was the curious inability of the National Security Agency to use its immense powers to supply any technical evidence to support the Russia-hack scenario.

The Trump Shock

But the shock of Trump's election and the decision of many never-Trumpers to cast their lot with the Resistance led to a situation in which any prudent skepticism or demand for evidence was swept aside.

So, on Jan. 6, 2017, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released an evidence-free report that he said was compiled by "hand-picked" analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA, offering an "assessment" that Russia and President Putin were behind the release of the Democratic emails in a plot to help Trump win the presidency.

Despite the extraordinary gravity of the charge, even New York Times correspondent Scott Shane noted that proof was lacking. He wrote at the time: "What is missing from the [the Jan. 6] public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies' claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to 'trust us.'"

But the "assessment" served a useful purpose for the never-Trumpers: it applied an official imprimatur on the case for delegitimizing Trump's election and even raised the long-shot hope that the Electoral College might reverse the outcome and possibly install a compromise candidate, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the White House. Though the Powell ploy fizzled, the hope of somehow removing Trump from office continued to bubble, fueled by the growing hysteria around Russia-gate.

Virtually all skepticism about the evidence-free "assessment" was banned. For months, the Times and other newspapers of record repeated the lie that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had concurred in the conclusion about the Russian "hack." Even when that falsehood was belatedly acknowledged , the major news outlets just shifted the phrasing slightly to say that U.S. intelligence agencies had reached the Russian "hack" conclusion. Shane's blunt initial recognition about the lack of proof disappeared from the mainstream media's approved narrative of Russia-gate.

Doubts about the Russian "hack" or dissident suggestions that what we were witnessing was a "soft coup" were scoffed at by leading media commentators. Other warnings from veteran U.S. intelligence professionals about the weaknesses of the Russia-gate narrative and the danger of letting politicized intelligence overturn a constitutional election were also brushed aside in pursuit of the goal of removing Trump from the White House.

It didn't even seem to matter when new Russia-gate disclosures conflicted with the original narrative that Putin had somehow set Trump up as a Manchurian candidate. All normal journalistic skepticism was jettisoned. It was as if the Russia-gate advocates started with the conclusion that Trump must go and then made the facts fit into that mold, but anyone who noted the violations of normal investigative procedures was dismissed as a "Trump enabler" or a "Moscow stooge."

The Text Evidence

But then came the FBI text messages, providing documentary evidence that key FBI officials involved in the Russia-gate investigation were indeed deeply biased and out to get Trump, adding hard proof to Trump's longstanding lament that he was the subject of a "witch hunt ."

Peter Strzok, who served as a Deputy Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, second in command of counterintelligence.

Justified or not, Trump's feeling of vindication could hardly be more dangerous -- particularly at a time when the most urgent need is to drain some testosterone from the self-styled Stable-Genius-in-Chief and his martinet generals.

On the home front, Trump, his wealthy friends, and like-thinkers in Congress may now feel they have an even wider carte blanche to visit untold misery on the poor, the widow, the stranger and other vulnerable humans. That was always an underlying danger of the Resistance's strategy to seize on whatever weapons were available – no matter how reckless or unfair – to "get Trump."

Beyond that, Russia-gate has become so central to the Washington establishment's storyline that there appears to be no room for second-thoughts or turning back. The momentum is such that some Democrats and the media never-Trumpers can't stop stoking the smoke of Russia-gate and holding out hope against hope that it will somehow justify Trump's impeachment.

Yet, the sordid process of using legal/investigative means to settle political scores further compromises the principle of the "rule of law" and integrity of journalism in the eyes of many Americans. After a year of Russia-gate, the "rule of law" and "pursuit of truth" appear to have been reduced to high-falutin' phrases for political score-setttling, a process besmirched by Republicans in earlier pursuits of Democrats and now appearing to be a bipartisan method for punishing political rivals regardless of the lack of evidence.

Strzok and Page

Peter Strzok (pronounced "struck") has an interesting pedigree with multiple tasks regarding both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump. As the FBI's chief of counterespionage during the investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's unauthorized use of a personal email server for classified information, Strzok reportedly changed the words "grossly negligent" (which could have triggered legal prosecution) to the far less serious "extremely careless" in FBI Director James Comey's depiction of Clinton's actions. This semantic shift cleared the way for Comey to conclude just 20 days before the Democratic National Convention began in July 2016, that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges against Mrs. Clinton.

Then, as Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, Strzok led the FBI's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election of 2016. It is a safe bet that he took a strong hand in hand-picking the FBI contingent of analysts that joined "hand-picked" counterparts from CIA and NSA in preparing the evidence-free, Jan. 6, 2017 assessment accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of interfering in the election of 2016. (Although accepted in Establishment groupthink as revealed truth, that poor excuse for analysis reflected the apogee of intelligence politicization -- rivaled only by the fraudulent intelligence on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq 15 years ago.)

In June and July 2017 Strzok was the top FBI official working on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia, but was taken off that job when the Justice Department IG learned of the Strzok-Page text-message exchange and told Mueller.

There is no little irony in the fact that what did in the FBI sweathearts was their visceral disdain for Mr. Trump, their cheerleading-cum-kid-gloves treatment of Mrs. Clinton and her associates, their 1950-ish, James Clapperesque attitude toward Russians as "almost genetically driven" to evil, and their (Strzok/Page) elitist conviction that they know far better what is good for the country than regular American citizens, including those "deplorables" whom Clinton said made up half of Trump's supporters.

But Strzok/Page had no idea that their hubris, elitism and scheming would be revealed in so tangible a way. Worst of all for them, the very thing that Strzok, in particular, worked so hard to achieve -- the sabotaging of Trump and immunization of Mrs. Clinton and her closest advisers is now coming apart at the seams.

Congress: Oversee? or Overlook?

At this point, the $64 question is whether the various congressional oversight committees will remain ensconced in their customarily cozy role as "overlook" committees, or whether they will have the courage to attempt to carry out their Constitutional duty. The latter course would mean confronting a powerful Deep State and its large toolbox of well-practiced retaliatory techniques, including J. Edgar Hoover-style blackmail on steroids, enabled by electronic surveillance of just about everything and everyone. Yes, today's technology permits blanket collection, and "Collect Everything" has become the motto.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, with almost four decades of membership in the House and Senate, openly warned incoming President Trump in January 2017 against criticizing the U.S. intelligence community because U.S. intelligence officials have "six ways from Sunday to get back at you" if you are "dumb" enough to take them on.

Thanks to the almost 10,000 text messages between Strzok and Page, only a small fraction of which were given to Congress four weeks ago, there is now real evidentiary meat on the bones of the suspicions that there indeed was a "deep-state coup" to "correct" the outcome of the 2016 election. We now know that the supposedly apolitical FBI officials had huge political axes to grind. The Strzok-Page exchanges drip with disdain for Trump and those deemed his smelly deplorable supporters. In one text message, Strzok expressed visceral contempt for those working-class Trump voters, writing on Aug. 26, 2016, "Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support. it's scary real down here."

The texts even show Strzok warning of the need for an "insurance policy" to thwart Trump on the off-chance that his poll numbers closed in on those of Mrs. Clinton.

An Aug. 6, 2016 text message, for example, shows Page giving her knight in shining armor strong affirmation: "Maybe you're meant to stay where you are because you're meant to protect the country from that menace [Trump]." That text to Strzok includes a link to a David Brooks column in The New York Times, in which Brooks concludes with the clarion call: "There comes a time when neutrality and laying low become dishonorable. If you're not in revolt, you're in cahoots. When this period and your name are mentioned, decades hence, your grandkids will look away in shame."

Another text message shows that other senior government officials – alarmed at the possibility of a Trump presidency – joined the discussion. In an apparent reference to an August 2016 meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok wrote to Page on Aug. 15, 2016, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way he [Trump] gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk." Strzok added, "It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event that you die before you're 40."

Insurance Policy?

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says he will ask Strzok to explain the "insurance policy" when he calls him to testify. What seems already clear is that the celebrated "Steele Dossier" was part of the "insurance," as was the evidence-less legend that Russia hacked the DNC's and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails and gave them to WikiLeaks .

If congressional investigators have been paying attention, they already know what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter shared with Veteran intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) colleagues this week; namely, that Fusion GPS's Glenn Simpson, who commissioned the Russia dossier using Democratic Party money, said he reached out to Steele after June 17, just three days before Steele's first report was published , drawing on seven sources.

"There is a snowball's chance in hell that this is raw intelligence gathered by Steele; rather he seems to have drawn on a single 'trusted intermediary' to gather unsubstantiated rumor already in existence."

Another VIPS colleague, Phil Giraldi, writing out of his own experience in private sector consulting, added: "The fact that you do not control your sources frequently means that they will feed you what they think you want to hear. Since they are only doing it for money, the more lurid the details the better, as it increases the apparent value of the information. The private security firm in turn, which is also doing it for the money, will pass on the stories and even embroider them to keep the client happy and to encourage him to come back for more. When I read the Steele dossier it looked awfully familiar to me, like the scores of similar reports I had seen which combined bullshit with enough credible information to make the whole product look respectable."

It is now widely known that the Democrats ponied up the "insurance premiums," so to speak, for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele's "dossier" of lurid -- but largely unproven -- "intelligence" on Trump and the Russians. If, as many have concluded, the dossier was used to help justify a FISA warrant to snoop on the Trump campaign, those involved will be in deep kimchi, if congressional overseers do their job.

How, you might ask, could Strzok and associates undertake these extra-legal steps with such blithe disregard for the possible consequences should they be caught? The answer is easy; Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? This was just extra insurance with no expectation of any "death benefit" ever coming into play -- save for Trump's electoral demise in November 2016. The attitude seemed to be that, if abuse of the FISA law should eventually be discovered -- there would be little interest in a serious investigation by the editors of The New York Times and other anti-Trump publications and whatever troubles remained could be handled by President Hillary Clinton.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee of Judiciary on Crime and Terrorism, joined Sen. Grassley in signing the letter referring Christopher Steele to the Justice Department to investigate what appear to be false statements about the dossier. In signing, Graham noted the "many stop signs the Department of Justice ignored in its use of the dossier." The signature of committee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, however, was missing -- an early sign that a highly partisan battle royale is in the offing. On Tuesday, Feinstein unilaterally released a voluminous transcript of Glenn Simpson's earlier testimony and, as though on cue, Establishment pundits portrayed Steele as a good source and Fusion GPS's Glenn Simpson as a victim.

The Donnybrook is now underway; the outcome uncertain.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army and CIA intelligence analyst for 30 years; prepared and briefed the President's Daily Brief for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan; and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

... ... ...

SunBakedSuburb , January 15, 2018 at 9:30 pm GMT

Thanks for the article, Mr. McGovern. I sure wish this could be published where some liberal eyeballs could get a look at it. I would also be interested in your opinion on the strange stuff found in some of the John Podesta emails. Although I can understand why you may not want to swim in those murky waters.
niteranger , January 24, 2018 at 5:28 am GMT
The world is controlled by Corporate Fascist Military Industrial Intelligence Police States. They will pick the leaders of the world and no one will tell the differently. This FBI scandal goes through all the intelligence agencies and begins with Obama who basically runs the government in his "third term." This entire election was rigged by Dems starting with the exclusion of Sanders. Unfortunately, for the Dems their plan failed because Hillary was such a terrible candidate. If this is not brought out in the open we will never have a chance of getting a legitimate candidate again.

As you know Mr. McGovern the police state seldom loses.

anonymous Disclaimer , January 24, 2018 at 6:05 am GMT
An excellent, factual summary. (And, in light of the last two weeks, prescient.) This is true journalism, long gone from the rotten husks of what used to be known as the Press.

But the passages about Mr. Strzok helping to alter Mr. Comey's letter picked a scab: Why is there such widespread acceptance of the notion that Mrs. Clinton can not now be charged? I don't believe that Mr. McGovern shares that notion, other than seeing how immunizing people, etc., makes her prosecution more difficult. But many Americans on each "side" seem to see Mr. Comey's exercise of what was Mrs. Lynch's discretion to begin with as the equivalent of a Presidential pardon. In the meantime, applicable statutes of limitation run

The more sunlight, the better. But before getting your hopes up about any of this hullabaloo, or expecting any change in how the USG functions, go back and look for those pictures of Mr. Trump golfing with Mr. Clinton, the Clintons at his wedding(s), etc.

Ludwig Watzal , Website January 24, 2018 at 7:19 am GMT

Compared to the criminal and corrupt US political system, the mafia is an honor society oriented on values. More and more evidence appears that the whole Russian Gate was precooked by the Obama and Clinton mafia together with crooks like Clapper, Brennan, Comey. Lynch and many of the top brass in the FBI and the DoJ. The installment of Bob Mueller who is hugely biased and a Comey body hired only Clinton supporters as his lawyers. But such a team shows how corrupt the US justice system has already become.

The mainstream media are involved in this witch hunt against Trump from the very beginning. Perhaps some of its bog shots were even paid for fabricated political reporting. The NYT, the Post, CNN, MSNBC and all the other so-called opinion leaders spread fake news and kept the legend of "Russian collusion" going over a year, despite presenting not a single piece of evidence. Their task was to manipulate and brainwash the American public.

Just listen to this interview. One understands what was and still is going on in this crooked US political system.

The Alarmist , January 24, 2018 at 11:11 am GMT

" thanks to the official release of unguarded text messages between loose-lipped FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and his garrulous girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page."

Despite the efforts to destroy a significant part of the data trail. You know, in the good old days, evidence of the affair would be enough for their clearances to be revoked, and use of Government telecomms for such purposes would be grounds for firing. Don't know what Sessions is waiting for, but this bubba would like some red meat already. For that matter, he should have told Mueller where to put his subpeona. Sessions really is an empty suit.

bluedog , January 24, 2018 at 12:29 pm GMT
@niteranger

Well in reality it began with Bush the Stupid and his remark that the Constitution was only a GD piece of paper and promptly tore it up,and as long as we continue to have the best government "money can buy" nothing will change,anymore than it will change under Trump, as he switches from the war on terror to the war on competitors (Russia and China)and world domination and its resources..

Greg Bacon , Website January 24, 2018 at 12:32 pm GMT

We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process.

Considering all the experience gleaned from 7+ decades of subverting and overthrowing governments around the world, the Deep State thugs must of thought securing the WH for their Killer Queen was a 'slam dunk.' My believe is that Trump actually got around 70% of the vote, a number that overwhelmed their computerized vote fixing.

All the grief, misery and destruction we've visited upon nations around the world is now coming back to haunt Americans. Only part missing is the violent overthrow or assassination of a leader and don't put the Deep State thugs beyond that.

fnn , January 24, 2018 at 12:43 pm GMT

On the home front, Trump, his wealthy friends, and like-thinkers in Congress may now feel they have an even wider carte blanche to visit untold misery on the poor, the widow, the stranger and other vulnerable humans.

This looks like a disingenuous conflation of Trump (and his handful of presumably more or less dependable allies/minions) with the Ryan-Koch- US Chamber of Commerce GOP establishment. Despite what Jeff Flake says, he's not a dictator, so he has to make concessions to the donor class-controlled wing of the party. This stuff is so obvious I'm embarrassed as I type it out.

bluedog , January 24, 2018 at 12:43 pm GMT
@Wally

Keep right on sucking up that kool-aid,the economy has an up-tick because of government spending, which of course will add another $1.7 trillion (per David Stockman Reagan's budget directer) to the debt that you just wished onto your children,g children and their children (ain't you proud/) and lol if you believe those government figures on the unemployment stats than you must believe in the tooth fairy,and of course along with those bonuses comes the lay-offs, a thousand here a thousand there (on the Lay-off list) as the work is out sourced to other countries,meanwhile a few more billion goes to the military/industrial group.Ah yes utopia at last,well while it last that is .

n230099 , January 24, 2018 at 1:11 pm GMT

"It would have been unfortunate enough for Strzok and Page to have their adolescent-sounding texts merely exposed, revealing the reckless abandon of star-crossed lovers hiding (they thought) secrets from cuckolded spouses, office colleagues, and the rest of us."

True One of the first thoughts I had was that these were, at most, highschool level communications. To think this is 'high level' government in action is, at once, amusing and disturbing.

Jim Christian , January 24, 2018 at 1:49 pm GMT
@RobinG

Now, many companies are cutting corners by using "contract workers" on a temporary basis.

Concur all, but this especially. In the DC area starting with the internet boom and dot.com busts of the late 90s, Indians started coming in and all of a sudden, everyone in IT and computer technologies was being replaced with a contract. After spending years getting certs and continuously upgrading skills and certs, people were ruined with imported contractors. It started at FannyMae and Freddie Mac, the entire board and hierarchy there read like the New Delhi phone book for twenty years now. Between the Chins and Indians, there's been an enormous overclass installed and it's not going anywhere. Someone here recently wrote an article about it but it isn't recent. With the handwriting on the wall so long ago, I gave up chasing Microsoft certs and contracts and went back to analog phone systems and infrastructure and electrical, but I saw a lot of people that tried to follow the professional IT path ruined. Throw in the racial and sexual politics in the offices and the environment is pretty miserable anyway..

Pretty bad as is, but with AI coming about, whole classes of Democrat folks unconcerned with immigration will be replaced by Bots of all sorts, making the immigration hardships look like Disney World.

The Alarmist , January 24, 2018 at 2:29 pm GMT

"Strzok reportedly changed the words "grossly negligent" (which could have triggered legal prosecution) to the far less serious "extremely careless" in FBI Director James Comey's depiction of Clinton's actions. This semantic shift cleared the way for Comey to conclude just 20 days before the Democratic National Convention began in July 2016, that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges against Mrs. Clinton."

It's a thin line between "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness." While "gross negligence" usually involves unintentional acts, they can border on intentional conduct by the very recklessness of the activity. A senior government moving vast amounts of classified data on unsecured networks can't begin to assert she didn't know the risks she was taking. Semantics here are irrelevant: The substance of the law is that HRC was grossly negligent.

As a seasoned lawyer, Comey would know that a prosecutor could very reasonably equate the two and charge on a violation of 18 USC 793 (Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information) There are a couple paragraphs that could be applied, but (f) looks most likely. The mere act of storing classified data on a personal server could also be a violation of 18 USC 798 (Disclosure of classified information). Destroying the same data might also be charged as violations of the 2009 Federal Records Act, and there is plenty of reason to pursue the limb of Obstruction of Justice in light of the other serious charges that could reasonably be made.

In order to be credible, justice must be seen to be done. The longer Sessions and Trump let this charade go uninvestigated for fear that investigating it looks overtly political, the more political it actually becomes, and the less credible the rule of law in America becomes ("Laws and regulations are for the little people!)

Anonymous Disclaimer , January 24, 2018 at 2:47 pm GMT
The deep state coup was the appointment of Trump or it could have been Clinton. You have no choice when you vote. The work of retired spooks like McGovern is to convince you that you live in a Democracy where voting matters. There's no evidence that voting serves anyone other than appearances for the ruling elite.

The FBI is an inherently political organization. I would expect the FBI to tweet things like " that motherfucker is goin' down" or "fuck her" or "Orange son of a bitch, let's make some noise" or more racist "those nigger motherfuckers in the city" or "think you're anonymous on the internet lil'boy?" Those would be the tweets of the FBI that we all know and love.

anonymous Disclaimer , January 24, 2018 at 3:34 pm GMT
This interference into a presidential election by an agency such as the FBI raises the question of whether there's been manipulation of other previous elections. Were some of our previous presidents installed through machinations of an intelligence agency?
bluedog , January 24, 2018 at 4:26 pm GMT
@Wally

Sure they are these companies and corporations are saving millions upon millions due to Trump and the republicans, while throwing a few crumbs to the workers who are suppose to lick their hands, many who only make $10-$11 dollars per hour, and seeing they are bonuses the government will take more than their share, and down the road these same workers will be paying it back in spades ,after all someone has to fund the military/industrial racket

Anonymous Disclaimer , Website January 24, 2018 at 5:16 pm GMT
Trump needs to be impeached. The entire Government is a bad bit of fiction, why not use the symbolic figure head of empire to generate excitement in the mass of American sheep? To that end, throw up any accusation that will stick, make it sound like a Constitutional crisis but simple enough for the average begrudged redneck to understand. The FBI has an agenda, what part of the Government doesn't? The whole point of elections is to have different groups employ every tactic under the sun to manipulate said sheep. Let's get the impeachment show started.
Altai , January 24, 2018 at 6:02 pm GMT
This whole affair also totally destroys the G-Man mythos. From the outside Strzok looks the part. Yet both he and Page write texts like they're particularly dim 20 year old girls.

Strzok – God Hillary should win. 100,000,000-0.

Page– I don't know. But we'll get it back. We're America. We rock.

Page – He's not ever going to become president, right? Right?!

Strzok – OMG did you hear what Trump just said?

Page – Yep. Out to lunch with (redacted) We both hate everyone and everything.

Page – Just riffing on the hot mess that is our country.

Strzok– Donald just said "bad hombres"

This is the level of discourse (Of course this could just be a biased sample to humiliate Strzok but leave the really bad conspiring out of frame) he has with his mistress on an FBI phone as he plans dirty tricks on his own country?

chris , January 24, 2018 at 8:42 pm GMT
The sad part will be to see how they will all, one after the other, get away with everything they've done.

If any of them will even go to trial for anything other than some procedural point, they'll all make a deal with DC-Democratic prosecutors, Hollywood will make a film casting them as heroes and they'll all get a slap on the wrist, a la Petraeus.

The politicians will claim that they have to hide the truth so that the public will not loose their 'trust' in these institutions, they'll name some RINO as the 'compromise' candidate to lead these institutions and it'll be back to business as usual in the heart of the empire, as in all previous times, see James Bovard's article:

http://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/370122-another-software-upgrade-suppressing-evidence-is-fbi-standard-procedure

chris , January 24, 2018 at 9:01 pm GMT
my favoriete quote:

Page– I don't know. But we'll get it back. We're America. We rock.

Such vacuous shallowness, imagining themselves to be the heroes of some cheap Hollywood movie, not even suspecting how 2 dimensional, delusional, and sophomoric it all sounds (of course, it only sound moronic because we found out about it before the plan reach its planned conclusion).

After 14 years of non-stop wars and mass murder, we find out the empire is run by the cheerleading squad, motivating each other with high fives while trying to take 'democracy' down. Still, I suspect there were adults at table also who mad sure to say one step out of the spotlight.

Maple Curtain , January 24, 2018 at 9:12 pm GMT
"Page– I don't know. But we'll get it back. We're America. We rock."

"We're America. We Rock."

And there we have it folks, the type of REAL SERIOUS mature human beings with oodles of gravitas who infest the highest echelons of our bureaucracies.

They rock.

We're deplorable.

That little girl, Page, is stuck emotionally, in junior high. Trump is just not one of the cool kids and he needs to be ostracized.

... ... ...

Twodees Partain , January 24, 2018 at 9:37 pm GMT
@The Alarmist

"It's a thin line between "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness." "

Not in the context of legal language. In fact, it's a great divide. "Extremely careless" is not a federal criminal charge, while "gross negligence" actually is. Never mind about the difference in degree when speaking of the two terms, one is a crime, and the other is merely grounds for an investigation.

Frankie P , January 24, 2018 at 10:16 pm GMT
@Ludwig Watzal

Excellent video, fantastic, in-depth analysis. Thank you.

Frankie P

'Quit digging'.

Anonymous Disclaimer , January 25, 2018 at 1:50 am GMT
The FBI answers to the CIA. This essay is absurd.

[Jan 24, 2018] Whistleblower Confirms Secret Society Meetings Between FBI And DOJ To Undermine Trump

Highly recommended!
The shadow of J. Edgar Hoover is still lingering over FBI.
Notable quotes:
"... On Monday night, Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told Fox News of the "secret society" texts between FBI investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - contained within a 384-page batch of text messages delivered to Congress from the DOJ last Friday. Of note Ratcliffe says that Strzok and Page were included in the clandestine anti-Trump cabal at the highest levels of the American intelligence community . ..."
"... I'm waiting to see when Mueller is implicated in the secret society. Mueller HAD to know. He's best friends with Comey and his appointment was a set up from the beginning. ..."
"... Also need to keep eye out on Bill Priestap, Strzok's immediate boss, and Baker, BFF and legal counsel to Comey and also the guy who was Chief of Staff to Comey. And don't forget all the WAGS of all of them. Wife of Priestap is Goldman Sachs heiress and runs biggest detective agency in DC. ..."
"... Mueller's gravy train ends if he can't find anything. So he's setting perjury traps like IEDs in the Sunni Triangle. ..."
"... Mueller trying to put the onus back on Trump instead of FBI corruption covering up Obama's treason ..."
"... The Dossier scam was supposed to be a flimsy reason they could point to as one of the reasons Trump lost. With Hillary in the WH, the dossier would never be examined...just alluded to in passing. They'd have said Trump had a good start but got hoist on his own uncontrollable personality. ..."
"... Why did Trump sign 702 without hesitation? The same 702 that enabled them to illegally spy on Trump? Moreover, the 702 Trump signed is said to have been modified to make the process of spying easier and with no added safe guards to prevent what happened with the Trump dossier from ever happening again. Does anyone not find it suspicious that no one in the press has questioned Trump directly for an explanation. Someone needs to ask Trump point blank why he signed the re authorization of 702. We need to hear his answer, especially since we are led to believe he has been victimized by it. ..."
"... Andrew McCabe and James Comey had a long time to work on the personnel of the FBI, who rose, who fell, who went to what offices. You can't trust any of the FBI until they prove themselves by tracking down the bad guys in their own ranks. ..."
"... I think that untangling the webs of corruption and compromise is decades, not years. Look at Italy, they still haven't gotten rid of the various mafias. I don't follow Italian politics, but did the issue of Mafia corruption ever die? Or just keep building? Did some areas get clean? ..."
"... Does anyone find it strange that Americans are not allowed to know if their government is corrupt because of national security? Government crimes and violations of the constitution are classified and top secret. That is what you have folks. All of government is a secret society. ..."
"... I know this site is all in on Trump, but did it occur to you that generally people who work in intelligence or have any intelligence would not discuss their illegal ,treasonous, secret society in writing using AGENCY-ISSUED PHONES. ..."
"... You're assumptions are wrong. Arrogance breeds contempt, and they were arrogant, just like Hillary arrogantly put her emails on an unprotected server in contradiction to well established and seriously enforced federal law. No one could be that stupid, but they can be that arrogant - as they were! ..."
"... The disappearance of the txts leaves a presumption of guilt - not innocence . Otherwise culpable parties would wipe the slate clean all day long, as has obviously happened here, and walk away scot free. ..."
"... You overlook the hubris of outsized egos. These people saw themselves as untouchables like Eliot Ness. They thought they could walk people to the edge and push them over and nobody could touch them. ..."
Jan 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

A whistleblower has revealed to Congress that clandestine, offsite meetings between high ranking FBI and DOJ took place in which officials discussed ways to undermine President Trump after the 2016 election, Rep. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Fox News on Tuesday.

The bombshell revelation all but confirms a " secret society " alluded to in text messages released last Friday between two anti-Trump FBI employees tasked with investigating both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

" The secret society -- we have an informant talking about a group holding secret meetings off-site ," Johnson said.

"We have to continue to dig into it," he added. " This is not a distraction. This is biased, potentially corruption at the highest levels of the FB I." - The Hill

On Monday night, Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) and Trey Gowdy (R-SC) told Fox News of the "secret society" texts between FBI investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - contained within a 384-page batch of text messages delivered to Congress from the DOJ last Friday. Of note Ratcliffe says that Strzok and Page were included in the clandestine anti-Trump cabal at the highest levels of the American intelligence community .

What we learned today in the thousands of text messages that we've reviewed that perhaps they may not have done that (checked their bias at the door). There's certainly a factual basis to question whether or not they acted on that bias. We know about this insurance policy that was referenced in trying to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.

We learned today from information that in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a secret society of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok to be working against him .

As part of the 384 page document delivery, the Department of Justice notified Congressional investigators that five months of text messages from December 14, 2016 to May 17, 2017 have gone missing (ironically there is a text message about "not keeping texts" from last Friday's release).

And while Strzok and Page's communications for five months after the election apparently won't see the light of day, what we do know is that right before the election, Strzok and Page texted about an " insurance policy " against Donald Trump becoming President.

" I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that there's no way he [Trump] gets elected - but I'm afraid we can't take that risk." writes FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair while spearheading both the Clinton email inquiry and the early Trump-Russia probe, adding " It's like a life insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40 ."

To recap: we now have text messages between Strzok and Page referencing an "insurance policy" and a "secret society" of people within the DOJ and FBI who came together in the "immediate aftermath" of the 2016 election to undermine President Trump... and a whistleblower who has now told Congress that's exactly what happened in the form of secret, offsite meetings between officials at the two agencies.

Betrayed Jan 24, 2018 8:48 PM Permalink

18 U.S. Code § 2385 - Advocating overthrow of Government

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Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons , knowing the purposes thereof --

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms "organizes" and "organize", with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons , include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons .

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808 ; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 2, 70 Stat. 623 ; Pub. L. 87–486 , June 19, 1962, 76 Stat. 103 ; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII , § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148 .)

gwar5 Jan 24, 2018 8:26 PM Permalink

I'm waiting to see when Mueller is implicated in the secret society. Mueller HAD to know. He's best friends with Comey and his appointment was a set up from the beginning.

Also need to keep eye out on Bill Priestap, Strzok's immediate boss, and Baker, BFF and legal counsel to Comey and also the guy who was Chief of Staff to Comey. And don't forget all the WAGS of all of them. Wife of Priestap is Goldman Sachs heiress and runs biggest detective agency in DC.

BigCumulusClouds -> Sizzurp Jan 24, 2018 8:27 PM Permalink

He lost his credibility right away. In 2001 he began the cover up of the controlled demolition of the WTC buildings on nine eleven.

earleflorida -> BigCumulusClouds Jan 24, 2018 8:49 PM Permalink

the CIA clean'd-up the evidence while Mueller was in California to introduce himself to the nations top FBI personnel. thus, unable to fly back to NYC.

coincidence? why the fuck wasn't the meeting held in NYC!?!

New_Meat -> Sizzurp Jan 24, 2018 8:08 PM Permalink

Mueller's gravy train ends if he can't find anything. So he's setting perjury traps like IEDs in the Sunni Triangle.

Anunnaki -> Sizzurp Jan 24, 2018 8:03 PM Permalink

Mueller trying to put the onus back on Trump instead of FBI corruption covering up Obama's treason

Obsidian Samctum Jan 24, 2018 7:16 PM Permalink

This shit is fake. Whistleblower is fake. They're just doing this as damage control. The truth is far worst.

Lord Raglan Jan 24, 2018 7:08 PM Permalink

Imagine if the text messages between these "Secret Society" members talks about killing Trump if the Russia-Russia-Russian Collusion Farce fails. And further imagine if McCabe, Rosenstein, J. Edgar Comey or even some Obama people like Susan Rice and Valerie Jarrett are included in those very text messages. Imagine further if Obama and/or Huma or Hillary are included in any of them...........these people are arrogant enough and so full of themselves and their ability to "fix" the world around them that it is all entirely possible.........

BigCumulusClouds -> Lord Raglan Jan 24, 2018 8:31 PM Permalink

LaRoche says Jarrett and Rice are British agents who recruited Obama to run. They must have guaranteed the cover for all of Obo's homo activity.

Kelley Jan 24, 2018 6:59 PM Permalink

How about this scenario: Hillary and the rest of the Deep State expected her to win via fractional voting. She had a mortal lock, so they thought except Trump snagged 20 to 30 million more votes than Hillary did, overriding the fractional voting scheme they had in place.

The Dossier scam was supposed to be a flimsy reason they could point to as one of the reasons Trump lost. With Hillary in the WH, the dossier would never be examined...just alluded to in passing. They'd have said Trump had a good start but got hoist on his own uncontrollable personality.

With Hillary at the top of all the levers of the government, Trump would have gotten bitch slapped repeatedly with little recourse.

south40_dreams Jan 24, 2018 6:14 PM Permalink

This isn't just a couple of rogue individuals, this is an organized conspiracy at the very top, using all the power of the FBI and DOJ to destroy a sitting president up to and including harming him.

HANG THE BASTARDS

ThreeRs -> south40_dreams Jan 24, 2018 7:27 PM Permalink

Absolutely.

This is an attempted coup.

earleflorida -> ThreeRs Jan 24, 2018 8:14 PM Permalink

"Mueller probe accidentally exposes FBI COVER-UP of Saudi role in 911"

1/24/18 ***oops?!? This is what happens when the Saudi's let China offer the 'Public Offering' of Saudi Aramco' on the Shanghai INE Exchange beginning mid-Feb/2018 if all is finalized. Perhaps this why the opening was delayed?

any thoughts? https://www.sott.net/ Ref: 'puppet masters'

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/mueller-probe-accidentally-exposes-fbi-cover-up-of-Saudi-role-in-9-11/

FreeEarCandy Jan 24, 2018 6:12 PM Permalink

Why did Trump sign 702 without hesitation? The same 702 that enabled them to illegally spy on Trump? Moreover, the 702 Trump signed is said to have been modified to make the process of spying easier and with no added safe guards to prevent what happened with the Trump dossier from ever happening again. Does anyone not find it suspicious that no one in the press has questioned Trump directly for an explanation. Someone needs to ask Trump point blank why he signed the re authorization of 702. We need to hear his answer, especially since we are led to believe he has been victimized by it.

lew1024 -> FreeEarCandy Jan 24, 2018 8:27 PM Permalink

Simple game thinking, I thought. You can't give up the tools they have until you have won.

The good guys have to assume that the bad guys can go on using covert means, likely they have back-doored their own agencies' info systems. If not, they have their people scattered through the organization. Or both.

Andrew McCabe and James Comey had a long time to work on the personnel of the FBI, who rose, who fell, who went to what offices. You can't trust any of the FBI until they prove themselves by tracking down the bad guys in their own ranks.

Great, now we have a 'he said, she said' situation, complete with files that can prove anything, how hard is that to arrange? For all sides?

I think that untangling the webs of corruption and compromise is decades, not years. Look at Italy, they still haven't gotten rid of the various mafias. I don't follow Italian politics, but did the issue of Mafia corruption ever die? Or just keep building? Did some areas get clean?

Problem with all this social stuff is that there isn't a clean in/out test for any group. We are going to find that many of our leading people throughout society have ties in shades from bright white social innocence to partners in crime black, into the blackest of the crimes. everyone has lots of connections. The more prominent you are, the wider the variety of people you have mingled with.

There are political careers in the investigations. Trump and his successors can ride this for 2 decades.

Of course, they will become the issue when in some far distant future the last possible bad guy has died and fortune has dispersed beyond recall, but the surveillance capabilities are greater than ever and the successors of the current good guys refuse to end the situation.

The compromise will be immediately ending all surveillance, everyone owns their data in return for amnesty for confessions, files and loss of 90% of fortunes. Ae open all files to everyone and run a public investigation to understand it all.

https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/amnesty-program-for-israe

FreeEarCandy Jan 24, 2018 6:06 PM Permalink

Does anyone find it strange that Americans are not allowed to know if their government is corrupt because of national security? Government crimes and violations of the constitution are classified and top secret. That is what you have folks. All of government is a secret society.

If one loves words and their meanings take note that freedom is the antithesis of government. If you don't understand the concepts of the words you use, don't complain when you get what you ask for.

juggalo1 Jan 24, 2018 3:56 PM Permalink

I know this site is all in on Trump, but did it occur to you that generally people who work in intelligence or have any intelligence would not discuss their illegal ,treasonous, secret society in writing using AGENCY-ISSUED PHONES. Also someone once said that any anonymous informant should be considered made-up. I'm not denying the agency is anti-Trump. There are all kinds of legitimate reasons to be anti-Trump. I just wish you and Mr. Johnson would bother getting some slightly less flimsy conspiracy theories before you go blaring them on the banners. It makes you look pathetic and desperate.

Kelley -> juggalo1 Jan 24, 2018 4:25 PM Permalink

You're assumptions are wrong. Arrogance breeds contempt, and they were arrogant, just like Hillary arrogantly put her emails on an unprotected server in contradiction to well established and seriously enforced federal law. No one could be that stupid, but they can be that arrogant - as they were!

The disappearance of the txts leaves a presumption of guilt - not innocence . Otherwise culpable parties would wipe the slate clean all day long, as has obviously happened here, and walk away scot free.

You say Johnson looks pathetic while you spew out terms like "flimsy conspiracy theories" as your 'evidence.' Juggalo, you look like a dumb f***ing clown with your head so far up your a$$ you think it's nighttime.

Cloud9.5 -> juggalo1 Jan 24, 2018 4:23 PM Permalink

You overlook the hubris of outsized egos. These people saw themselves as untouchables like Eliot Ness. They thought they could walk people to the edge and push them over and nobody could touch them.

holdbuysell Jan 24, 2018 3:38 PM Permalink

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdMbmdFOvTs

nobodysfool -> JasperEllings Jan 24, 2018 4:35 PM Permalink

No kidding, right? Watched Tucker Carlson last night interviewing Richard Goodstein (former Hillary Campaign Advisor, obviously unemployed) Great segment asking Goodstein to answer a "Revulsion Test"!

It was unreal! The damn ignorant libtard just would not, could not bring himself to say that anything bothered him about the corruption going on in the FBI.

Tucker: Does it bother you that the FBI decided not to bring criminal charges against Hillary BEFORE conducting an investigation of her, or interviewing her.

Goodstein: No

Tucker: Does it bother you that Strozk said he couldn't take the chance that Trump got elected and had an insurance policy in mind to prevent it, while he was on the committee investigating Trump?

Goodstein: No

Listen to the rest here...its hilarious and shows how Diseased Liberals are mentally!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJUWYWRzgPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJUWYWRzgPU

VisionQuest Jan 24, 2018 2:03 PM Permalink

Democrats are the spit and image of the Bolsheviks in 1917 Russia. Democrats in America today despise everything and everyone that is not Democrat in policy, propaganda, attitude, opinion & belief. If the Democrat Party is allowed to continue as it is there will be blood and lots of it.

"You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators."
~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Betrayed Jan 24, 2018 1:46 PM Permalink

Ok congress critters. If all this is true and a lot of it probably is, can someone enlighten me as to why the delay. I really see no advantage in holding back on this. It gives every advantage to the Blue team to organize a response and create more smoke screens. The longer this goes on the more likely this will never see the light of day. Especially when one considers the Red teams past performance. Release it or shut the fuck up.

Throat-warbler -> Betrayed Jan 24, 2018 2:16 PM Permalink

Gives them time to shred, obscure evidence, and get all the stories aligned.

Give Me Some Truth -> Betrayed Jan 24, 2018 2:00 PM Permalink

Re: Our "Congress Critters"

Remember these are the same "group thinkers/actors" who voted something like 415-5 to impose harsh sanctions on Russia to punish Russia for "meddling" in our Democratic processes.

I wonder if any of these critters would take back this vote now?

Maybe they should now vote on imposing "sanctions" on the DOJ and HRC's campaign staffers (Hillary included), as well as the DNC and the MSM organizations/ "journalists" who spread a bogus story-line for nefarious/unpatriotic reasons.

P.S. I also wonder how many stories/posts on Facebook and Twitter advanced this faux story. Probably about 1 billion more than Russian bots managed to sneak into the national dialogue. I understand the owner of Facebook has deep pockets. Give him the "Saudi treatment" - pay up or go to jail, buddy.

CatInTheHat -> sickofthepunx Jan 24, 2018 3:43 PM Permalink

Both parties are part of the cabal, including Trump. Arming the neonazis in the Ukraine that wants war on Russia, as well as US and NATO troops on RUSSIA'S borders. Signing off on the FISA spy ring upon Americans, expanding US WARS, in Syria and Afghanistan and Africa. Wanting war on N. Korea.

If people would just get that the cabal are addicted to WAR and the enrichment that comes from it as well as it's all ZIONIST wars, for which Trump is now owned by Netanyahu, as is our Congressional dual Israeli citizens, we might be able to organize under one banner that never changes witj both parties utterly submissive to the military and security complex. No more WAR .

Clinton+Bush+Obama+Trump = WAR.

Dilluminati Jan 24, 2018 1:22 PM Permalink

If this is as reported, and if there was a convening of a meeting in secret outside of the professional roles of law enforcement, for the purposes of a focused prosecution of a duly elected president, then that is at a minimum an offense that would disbar employment in the federal government. It would also be grounds for disbarring any attorney.

But what I'm finding equally as troubling is the very casual manner in which somebody from say nation A, can hire person in Nation B, to provide paid hearsay evidence from Nation C to initiate an investigation that circumvents Nation A's laws of privacy upon a targeted individual.

That makes the NSA the tool of anyone with money to initiate this type of investigation as described above to harass and intimidate an individual using tax dollar funded services.

I'm not Ok with Republicans or Democrats doing this.

So someone with means initiates NSL's against a person soliciting banking, building, employment, relationships, all designed to use the institutional credibility of the NSA or even the FBI to tarnish the standing of a targeted individual.

The bank isn't going to disclose, but they might not offer a loan!

The zoning bard will not disclose, but will withhold permits.

And the zeal and the bias that there groups exercise in their zeal to assist their government in an investigation cumulatively is damaging. Loan delayed is loan denied. Permit delayed is permit denied.

You want to support legitimate law enforcement activities and investigations, but not this fucking circus.

It is as if you are witnessing the prosecutor receiving cash from a private party, then the prosecutor hand the bailiff cash, who then passes it onto a paid witness prior to testifying and not swearing in, or being available for cross examination. And that folks is bullshit. Meanwhile the judge, jury, prosecutor, and defense all met in private during recess and agreed that facts weren't relevant and to not allow facts to stand in the way of their "convictions!"

Now folks that is fucked up.

SirBarksAlot -> Dilluminati Jan 24, 2018 1:38 PM Permalink

John Perkins said that to get in the CIA, you have to pass a personality test that shows you are less than morally sound. Just imagine the test tube of explosive back-stabbing sociopaths that place must be today.

Give Me Some Truth -> SirBarksAlot Jan 24, 2018 2:24 PM Permalink

Re: Alleged "personality test"

Maybe. I just think these people "self select" their career paths. A certain type of personality type is driven to government bureaucracies and/or political office and/or capitalist positions that reward "cronies" to government. A certain ambitious type learns how to "play the game" and rises up the ranks. The culture in these places rewards corruption (or turning a blind eye to same). These people like the power, prestige and money-making opportunities. They "scratch backs" so their own back can be scratched. Whatever the psychology or personality type, these people work to preserve and protect the Status Quo.

Dilluminati -> SirBarksAlot Jan 24, 2018 1:47 PM Permalink

i don't agree with you on your general premise of immorality. But if things are as reported and as I describe above, then the NSA is nothing more than the errand chasers of those with cash and connection, and that that service is paid for by the US taxpayer to be abused by those whom would misuse it as I described. And if that is the way the system is being misused then there is a problem.

I don't do the hate America first bullshit but I do call em like I see em..

Jon_Locke -> NickPeeMe Jan 24, 2018 1:57 PM Permalink

So the 5000+ missing texts is not enough, the murder of Seth Rich is not enough, the 30K missing hilary emails is not enough...

moonman Jan 24, 2018 1:00 PM Permalink

But 17 intelligence agencies pinky sweared Trump was dirty

Give Me Some Truth -> moonman Jan 24, 2018 1:08 PM Permalink

A line pushed repeatedly by Hillary. That was a lie of course. Only a few (hand-picked) "analysts" from three or four of these agencies signed off on that important "conclusion."

I also think of all the "intelligence experts" who immediately knew that Assad bombed his own people with banned chemicals. Whatever they say, you know the opposite must be the truth.

MK ULTRA Alpha Jan 24, 2018 12:52 PM Permalink

How can General Flynn be charged with lying to the FBI when the FBI agent he lied to is plotting to over throw the president?

Who were the coup leaders? It was McCabe's office that set up the meeting with Flynn. Flynn didn't know the meeting was about Flynn talking with the Russian Ambassador. Which is normal for an incoming National Security Advisor. There were no witnesses to the meeting except two FBI agents, one of which is the disgraced FBI agent. Flynn thought like a former Intel General, he was protecting national security information on a need to know basis.(standard military SOP).

It looks like Flynn was set up to frame Trump. Flynn's charges need to be dropped.

Small Governme Jan 24, 2018 12:38 PM Permalink

Hey! Special Prosecutor Mueller! Are you investigating this collusion between members of the FBI?

If you have not investigated this Mr. Mueller, you are not only fired.

For not having investigated this obvious internal FBI collusion, you will be indicted as an accomplice!

Give Me Some Truth -> newmacroman Jan 24, 2018 1:57 PM Permalink

In one year, I associate Sessions with three issues:

1) Doubling down on the "War on Weed."

2) Doubling down on "civil forfeiture" statutes.

3) Considering the arrest and prosecution of Julian Assange a DOJ "priority."

By extension, I guess Trump supports all three of these (very wrong) positions as well. Sigh.

Pundit Jan 24, 2018 12:22 PM Permalink

Oh, my! It looks like things are beginning to clarify! Dear American public has it ever occured to you that this whole Trump colluding with Russia as well as the Russia meddling in the election narrative is just a one big lie. Too big to swallow?

Was clear to me from day one.

Give Me Some Truth -> Pundit Jan 24, 2018 1:47 PM Permalink

If "Russia" wanted to swing or rig an election, they couldn't. The whole premise is preposterous. "Russia" convinced millions of voters in a dozen swing states to change their votes? With a few Facebook entries? Good God.

dvfco -> Pundit Jan 24, 2018 12:53 PM Permalink

I think it was clear to most of us. It was those who couldn't accept Hillary's defeat who wanted the narrative to keep them sane. They were the same as Strock, et. al. - too stupid to see the train coming straight down the tracks. When they realized they would lose their lifetime of job safety and corruption, they panicked.

Who in the US didn't know Hillary was the most corrupt politician and ruthless sub-human animal ever to run for office? They were the ones profiting either directly or indirectly from all the criminality.

Give Me Some Truth -> dvfco Jan 24, 2018 1:32 PM Permalink

You know who has/had Hillary and Bill pegged better than anyone else? Linda Tripp. I wish I had the link to a recent feature on her. Her main take-away: The rules of society and laws do not apply to her. She (and her husband) can and had gotten away with everything. But the scary part is how seemingly everyone in D.C. and the Establishment is allied with them and has/had no issue with their MO. The Swamp is full of the same type of people and their defenders. These are the type people who are attracted to "government service" and move up the ranks once embedded. Not just in government, but the press corps and the worlds of finance as well.

I'll say again. If Trump had been sincere in draining the swamp - and had did it - he would have gone down as the greatest president in U.S. history.

That he is not committed to this mission - or quickly abandoned it - is a tragic disappointment.

(For those who say he is still trying to drain the swamp, explain why he never made an effort to investigate and expose "Crooked Hillary," has no interest at all in auditing the Fed, signed legislation imposing severe sanctions on Russia for "meddling" and filled his administration with Goldman Sachs alums, among other swamp-protecting activities).

Dark star Jan 24, 2018 11:54 AM Permalink

There are very senior members of the Intelligence Community who risk exposure, ignominy, and possibly even death if their treason is exposed to the light of day.

These people are the artists who create false flag events and change foreign Governments at the drop of a hat.

If the Intelligence Community needs to start a war to escape the consequences of their treason; that is what they will do; without the slightest hesitation.

The rest of the world needs to be extremely sceptical regarding "Intelligence" from the U.S., and wide awake to the risk.

Get everything out in the open before it's too late for the human race.

AriusArmenian Jan 24, 2018 11:47 AM Permalink

Secret teams.

This is exactly what Prouty wrote about in "The Secret Team".

We have so far found out about two teams: the Brennan team at the CIA and the FBI team.

Isn't it interesting how the focus is only the FBI?

The CIA is happy to have the FBI take all the heat.

dvfco -> AriusArmenian Jan 24, 2018 1:00 PM Permalink

The Secret Team - Quote from Wikipedia:

"This is the fundamental game of the Secret Team. They have this power because they control secrecy and secret intelligence and because they have the ability to take advantage of the most modern communications system in the world, of global transportation systems, of quantities of weapons of all kinds, and when needed, the full support of a world-wide U.S. military supporting base structure. They can use the finest intelligence system in the world, and most importantly, they have been able to operate under the canopy of an assumed, ever-present enemy called "Communism." It will be interesting to see what "enemy" develops in the years ahead. " [L. Fletcher Prouty, Alexandria, VA 1997]

Give Me Some Truth -> AriusArmenian Jan 24, 2018 12:56 PM Permalink

For the record, we have 17 (known) "intelligence agencies" in the U.S. Government. The NSA alone employs 70,000 people.

We know as much about the real activities of the CIA as we do about the real activities of The Fed.

Close them all down. Expose every "secret."

America - and the world - would be a much SAFER place.

YouPi Jan 24, 2018 11:44 AM Permalink

Adam Schiff

Don't Release FISA Memo Because 'American People to Dumb to Understand it''

[Jan 23, 2018] Operation Condor – How NSA Director Mike Rogers Saved The U.S. From a Massive Constitutional Crisis by sundance

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility ..."
"... This compartmented structure is what led to the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI. The 911 commission recommended the office to serve as a hub able to ensure intelligence sharing; that is – to ensure intelligence was not intentionally withheld from other compartments when needed. In 2016 the ODNI for President Obama was James Clapper. ..."
"... It is doubtful the 911 commission ever gave thought to what might happen when intelligence is weaponized as a political tool. The DNI is a political appointment, a cabinet member, of the President. If the executive branch, the President, wanted to weaponize intelligence as a political tool, he/she would have control over such weaponization as an outcome of their political appointees within the: FBI (Comey, McCabe), DOJ (Lynch/Yates), CIA (Brennan), DNI (Clapper), or DoD (Ash Carter), etc. ..."
"... The civilian (representative) oversight into the compartmented intelligence falls to a very select group known as the Intelligence Gang of Eight . Four Democrats and Four Republicans (four minority party and four majority party political leaders) for a total of eight. Four from the House and Four from the Senate. – Understand the Gang of Eight Here – The Gang-of-Eight can, if they choose, interact with the intelligence product with the same level of security clearance as the compartment being reviewed. ..."
"... Only these eight members can interact with the intelligence product in this way. This ensures their ability to conduct oversight. It is critical to understand the difference between the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Gang of Eight. Only two members from the House Intelligence Committee (chair and minority), and two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee (chair and vice-chair) are participants. The other four are Speaker of the House, minority leader of House, Leader of Senate and Minority leader of Senate. The latter four are not part of any other intel committee. ..."
"... On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016. FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.* I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important detail . Again, notice how Comey doesn't use FBI Counterintelligence Director WH "Bill" Priestap's actual name, but refers to his position and title. Again, watch the first three minutes: ..."
"... FBI Director James Comey was caught entirely off guard by that first three minutes of that questioning. He simply didn't anticipate it. ..."
"... Obviously, based on what we have learned since March 2017, and what has surfaced recently, we can all see why the FBI would want to keep it hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate. After all, as FBI Agent Peter Strzok said it in his text messages, it was an "insurance policy". ..."
"... FBI Director James Comey told congress on March 20th, 2017, the reason he didn't inform the statutory oversight "Gang of Eight" was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn't do it. The originating intelligence agency agency, in these examples the DOJ National Security Division and/or FBI Counterintelligence Division, holds the proprietary intelligence they create in their SCIF. They may also receive intelligence products created for them, which they will also host in their unique SCIF. Thus, intelligence is compartmentalized. ..."
"... In 2015 Sally Yates blocked any inspector general oversight of the DOJ National Security Division ( SEE Pdf HERE ). The Office of Inspector General. Michael Horowitz, requested oversight over the DOJ National Security Division and it was Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58-page legal explanation saying, essentially, ' nope – not allowed ..."
"... Putting the "Oversight" structure together with the "Compartmented" intelligence security you will note that only a few people 'could' traditionally access the full PDB. However, under President Obama the President's Daily Brief went to almost everyone at top levels in his administration. Regarding the Obama PDB : ..."
"... "Deputy Secretaries of national security departments" ..."
"... During an MSNBC interview about her unmasking U.S. citizens within intelligence reports, in April 2017 , President Obama's National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, defined the Obama national security departments to include: "State" – "Defense" (Pentagon includes NSA) and "CIA" . ..."
"... Deputy Asst. Secretaries of Defense ..."
"... It is not coincidental that immediately following DNI Dan Coat's ability to provide that information Chairman Devin Nunes first reported his concerns. After Devin Nunes review the information March 22nd 2017, Nunes stated the intelligence product he reviewed was " not related to Russia, or the FBI Russian counter-intelligence investigation ". ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Devin Nunes, then held a brief press conference and stated he has been provided intelligence reports brought to him by unnamed sources that include 'significant information' about President-Elect Trump and his transition team. ..."
"... When Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes explained his concern in March 2017 about what he saw from a review of 2016 intelligence gathering, reporting and subsequent unmasking, the issue behind his concern was clouded in mystery. Indeed the larger headlines at the time were about demanding a special prosecutor and driving the Russia conspiracy narrative. ..."
"... In hindsight, and with information from our assembled timelines of 2016 though today, we can now revisit that concern expressed by Chairman Nunes with a great deal more perspective and information. Understanding the latest information will help us all understand the totality of Nunes original frame of reference . ..."
"... Later, during the December 2016 and Jan, Feb, March, April 2017 Russian Conspiracy frenzy, when the entire intelligence community seemed to be collectively leaking against Trump's interests, those suspicions gained even greater likelihood. However, what we learned in 2017 about the activity in 2016 almost guarantees that was exactly what happened. That back-story also ties into both the FISA issue and the Devin Nunes concern. ..."
"... Sometime in early 2016 Admiral Rogers became aware of "ongoing" and "intentional" violations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Section 702 surveillance. Specifically item #17 which includes the unauthorized upstream data collection of U.S. individuals within NSA surveillance. Section 702 – Item #17 "About Queries" is specifically the collection of emails, and phone call surveillance of U.S. persons. ..."
"... As a result of Rogers suspecting [FISA 702 (#17 – email and phone calls)] surveillance activity was being used for reasons he deemed unlawful, in mid 2016 Rogers ordered the NSA compliance officer to run a full audit on 702 NSA compliance. ..."
"... The NSA compliance officer identified several strange 702 "About Queries" that were being conducted. These were violations of the fourth amendment (search and seizure), ie. unlawful surveillance and gathering. Admiral Rogers was briefed by the compliance officer on October 20th, 2016 . ..."
"... On October 26th, 2016 , full FISC assembly, NSA Director Rogers personally informed the court of the 702(17) violations. Additionally, Rogers also stopped " About Query " permanently. ..."
"... The DOJ National Security Division set Admiral Mike Rogers up to take the fall for their unlawful conduct. They preempted Rogers by filing a notification with the FISA Court on 26th September 2016 ( look at the pdf ). DOJ-NSD head John P Carlin was setting up Rogers as the scapegoat while knowing the NSA FISA compliance officer was still reviewing their conduct. Carlin wouldn't notify the court unless he was trying to cover something. Carlin then announced his resignation. The NSA compliance officer did not brief Admiral Rogers until 20th Oct 2016 . Admiral Rogers notified the FISC on 26th Oct 2016 . ..."
"... Also in October 2016 the DOJ lawyers formatted the FBI information (Steele Dossier etc.) for the Trump FISA application; the head of the NSD, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin, left his job . It would have specifically been John Carlin's responsibility to ensure a valid legal basis for the FISA application submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). ..."
"... The heads of the Pentagon and the nation's intelligence community have recommended to President Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed. ..."
"... The recommendation, delivered to the White House last month, was made by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr ., according to several U.S. officials familiar with the matter. ..."
"... In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower . That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters. ( link ) ..."
"... Important reminder. Remember, in 2015 Sally Yates blocked any inspector general oversight of the DOJ National Security Division ( SEE Pdf HERE ). The OIG, Michael Horowitz, requested oversight and it was Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58-page legal explanation saying, essentially, ' nope – not allowed ..."
"... Obama's political operatives within the DOJ-NSD were using FISA 702(17) surveillance "about inquiries" that would deliver email and phone communication for U.S. people (Trump campaign). The NSD unit was working in coordination with the FBI Counterintelligence Unit (Peter Strzok etc.). In an effort to stop the activity NSA Director Mike Rogers initiated a full 702 compliance review. However, before the review was complete the DOJ-NSD had enough information for their unlawful FISA warrant which worked retroactively to make the prior FBI surveillance (began in July '16 per James Comey) lawful. Rogers stopped the process on October 26th 2016. As a result of his not going along, Rogers became a risk; Clapper demanded he be fired. ..."
"... On November 18th, 2016 , the Trump Transition Team announced they were moving all transition activity to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. – SEE HERE – Where they interviewed and discussed the most sensitive positions to fill. Defense, State, CIA, ODNI. ..."
"... It would appear Obama's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, is up to his eyeballs in this; though he denies participating . The FBI counterintelligence unit was monitoring Trump through FISA 702(17) upstream surveillance collected by a DOJ National Security Division that had no oversight. ..."
"... I forget the name of the individual that gave this information to Nunes about the surveilling of Trump and his team. He was, however, a very trusted attorney and was fired shortly after this (annoying) press conference. Nunes himself was trounced for this and put on suspension from head of this committee for a period of time so that an investigation into his (patriotic) actions could take place. Adam (the Snake) Schiff was the loudest outraged voice. Glad he is back to work on this. ..."
"... Quite shocking really. I knew most of this but never put it all together. I thought I would never hear old Evelyn Farkus mentioned again after her first gaffe. She was the Obama dummy that actually believed he was omnipotent. I hope they drag her in for some serious questioning. ..."
"... Compelling that the evidence is forming a consistent timeline with documentation and events lining up. Conversely the 'Russia' narrative is ever changing and collapsing. Said narrative nearly always reliant upon hearsay and innuendo often coming from convoluted extraneous sources outside the US. ..."
"... The level of intellect, patriotism, selfless heroism leaves one speechless; One falls to knees and Thanks God in Heaven for such people, for such person as Admiral Roger ..."
"... Amazing patriotism and courage! Media would have us believe it has died! So glad i have prayed for those who are still willing to take a stand, at their own peril. Thanking God every day for men and women who are still Serving this country. Not serving themselves. A book should be written on this. These were the most perilous times for the republic to survive. Our young need to see some true heroes. So a movie shoul also come out of this. ..."
Jan 05, 2018 | theconservativetreehouse.com
This outline is the story of how the FBI Counterintelligence Division and DOJ National Security Division were weaponized. This outline is the full story of what House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes is currently working to expose. This outline exposes the biggest political scandal in U.S. history. This outline is also the story of how one man's action likely saved our constitutional republic.

His name is Admiral Mike Rogers.

... ... ...

[Jan 22, 2018] Joe diGenova Brazen Plot to Frame Trump

Highly recommended!
Brilliant summary of the situation. You should listen this interview. False Russiagate was from the beginning a plot to derail and then depose Trump. They created false facts.
Brazen port to exonerate Hillary Clinton and then derail Trump
Notable quotes:
"... It is rare to see a man of integrity and a lawyer who speaks in plain English and speaks about facts and conclusions of law. The problem we face today is far too many lawyers with no integrity in positions of government that protect blatant criminals holding public office who are also lawyers. Lawyers always protect other lawyers, except this wonderful man! ..."
Jan 22, 2018 | www.youtube.com

Rick W , 1 day ago

It is rare to see a man of integrity and a lawyer who speaks in plain English and speaks about facts and conclusions of law. The problem we face today is far too many lawyers with no integrity in positions of government that protect blatant criminals holding public office who are also lawyers. Lawyers always protect other lawyers, except this wonderful man!

Charles H , 1 day ago

Breathtaking information. Thanks so much for airing.

Walter 1408 , 1 day ago

All those Clinton Foundation millions bought a lot of FBI agents. They need a major house cleaning.

Caleb Engineering, LLC , 1 day ago

The punishments should be harsh to deter future attempts to do the same to future presidents.

Patricia Herman , 1 day ago

Love Joe to bad he can't become the new AG and why isn't this interview on the news at least Fox, Hannity, Tucker, Laura. And we know CNN, MSNBC, and the rest are all in the bag for Obummer and Killary. 😎

Teddy Dunford , 1 day ago

Remember HRC said if he (( Trump )) wins we are all going to HANG and I hope this is one time the Satan worshiping witch told the truth .

The last iconoclast , 1 day ago

Three heroes will go down in history: Journalist Julian Asange Adm. Mike Rogers Rep. Devin Nunes

Elisabeth Vancamp , 1 day ago

I am speechless. Best cohesive explanation! Man reaps what he sows.

James Stamulis , 1 day ago

All because Trump is MAGA and that was not the cabals game plan.

eh10000 , 1 day ago

RELEASE THE MEMO

Peter Sprague , 1 day ago

NY Times Buzzfeed Washington Post CNN ABC CBS NBC are all complicit in perpetrating these lies Just watch Colbert Jimmy Farrel or Jimmy Kimmel These bad actors pretending to be entertainers need to hang

Wide Awake , 1 day ago

Never forget what Hilary said: If Trump wins, we'll all hang. And so they should.

Pat Defeo , 15 hours ago

Joe D should have been our AG he is tough and has the ability to explain WTH is going on in plain english

Robin Ricks , 1 day ago

Mueller carried the sample of Uranium to the Russians. Mueller was paid off, as was Comey. So glad President Trump can confiscate all their money. Now to catch Daddy Bush and Jr for having all those people in New York killed on 9/11! Go Trump!!

David Gray , 1 day ago

# Release The Memo.

FindLiberty , 1 day ago

OUTSTANDING RESCUE OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC - (...proceed to lock 'em all up)

Thomas Rocco , 1 day ago

Fantastic interview. Saw it's entirety

Jeffrey Robert-Dicken , 1 day ago

treason

Samuel Anderson , 1 day ago

There needs to be an arrest of ALL the top MSM owners and chairpeople of all the affiliates including those who stand in front of the camera pushing false information. Their license needs to be rescinded and taken away. Bankrupt the news affiliates and sell off their assets.

Jerk Joker , 1 day ago

This is a truly excellent and clear explanation of how our government was corrupted by Team Hillary. I reckon she needs to pay the Ultimate price: a thorough investigation into her crimes: A fair trial... and maybe execution, followed by her being reviled down the centuries as one of the most evil women in History. Every little girl should be told: Do not be like this woman!

John Brooks , 1 day ago

A hell storm is coming !!! People need to be tried and possibly executed to send a massage that ALL these swamp creatures will understand.

Jeffrey Robert-Dicken , 1 day ago

you have a jezabel clinton the most dangerous couple ever ...what happened to JFK junior ?

Giant Sequoia , 1 day ago

Excellent, excellent, excellent report Bill!!!

Rachael SOJ , 1 day ago

Thank you, Mr. Still, for reporting on this, it was a very informative video!💛

james goodwin , 1 day ago

Thank god she didn't win

FilthyMcDumpin'Clips , 1 day ago

Bill, don't forget to mention that those same entities also include those working for CNN and MSNBC who were funded by Clinton donations to push the false media on the country. Can you say lawsuits?

DrewTronics , 1 day ago

Holy wow, thanks for posting Bill!

Noel B , 1 day ago (edited)

What about Clapper and Brennan they started this before they were replaced. They also are to blame.

Granville Higgins , 1 day ago

Trump let them dig their own graves.

Suzie Smith , 1 day ago

Amazing piece! Pulls so many things together! Thank you!

snowbunny20328 , 1 day ago

What a very important review of what this country has endured!!! Thank you Joe!

Jeffrey Robert-Dicken , 1 day ago

can someone wake sessions up?

James Pope , 1 day ago

This is the guy who should be the Director of tbe FBI, or AG

Susan Bennett , 1 day ago

Hillary will NEVER be exonerated, or ANY of those treasonous swamp rat sycophants!!!

JUNITO84 , 1 day ago

Thank you very much admiral Rodgers! the american people love you and appreciate you stress/gutsy actions to do the right thing 🙂

Tom Smith , 1 day ago

The last thing Seth Rich saw before he was murdered was an FBI special agents badge.

AVALON DEJAVU , 1 day ago

THANKS for explaining this so clearly!!! #LockThemUp No JUSTICE No PEACE!

ak6781fan , 1 day ago

Mr. Still you are very astute and observant. Your statement that this is the darkest hour for our great country since the Civil War is spot-on.

Rich P , 1 day ago

Do you have any doubt these people are capable of genociding all who disagree with there Marxist agenda?

[Jan 22, 2018] Not Only Did Loretta Lynch Know in Advance Of Comey's Findings On Hillary the DOJ Helped Comey Write His Memo by streiff

Highly recommended!
So FBI worked all the time against Senator Sanders... nice...
Notable quotes:
"... Strzok and Page are under pressure to clear Clinton after Cruz drops out of the race. ..."
"... The loss of records from this period is concerning because it is apparent from other records that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page communicated frequently about the investigation. In February 2016, Ms. Page texted Mr. Strzok that then-candidate Trump "simply can not [Sic] be president." On May 4, 2016–after then-Director Comey began drafting his July 5 statement clearing Secretary Clinton -- Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok communicated about "pressure" building to finish the investigation following candidate Trump's likely nomination: ..."
"... Mr. Strzok: Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE. ..."
"... The reference to the MYE by Mr. Strzok refers to the "midyear exam," the case name for the Clinton investigation. ..."
"... This is sort of a strange statement if one doesn't assume there was a "stop Trump" movement of some type, formal or informal, within the FBI. The implication of the statement is that they would have taken their good old time finishing the investigation if Ted Cruz had stayed in the race, that is a decision that would have hurt Clinton. That they felt pressure to wind up the Clinton investigation deserves some serious exploration. ..."
"... The same afternoon, after FBI officials edited the draft to replace "the President" with "another senior government official," Mr. Strzok sent a text message to Ms. Page notifying her of the change. ..."
"... Director Comey's statement as ultimately delivered on July 5 omitted a reference to either President Obama or "another senior government official." ..."
"... The fact that Comey had made a decision to clear Clinton months in advance was known. The fact that DOJ knew and seemingly inserted "not coordinated" into the statement. Though the fact that DOJ knew of the results and provided input into Comey's memo seems a helluva lot like coordination. ..."
"... The FBI was energized to clear Hillary by Cruz dropping out of the race, while they seemed sort of nonchalant about Cruz staying in the race. Comey concealed the significance of the likely compromise of Hillary Clinton's email from the public. DOJ and the FBI worked together on Comey's statement clearing Clinton. ..."
Jan 21, 2018 | www.redstate.com

I posted a bit earlier on the FBI using the "dog ate my homework" excuse for five critical months of text messages from Peter Strzok, the number two guy in the FBI's counterintelligence operation, and his colleague and bedmate, Lisa Page.

But a recently released letter from Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, there are other questions that need answered.

Strzok and Page are under pressure to clear Clinton after Cruz drops out of the race. To fully appreciate what follows, this is the key timeline.

  • August 2015: FBI gets control of Hillary's server and personal devices. Mostly.
  • November 2015. FBI investigation expands from storage of email to examining if Clinton jeopardized national security.
  • May 2016. James Comey begins circulating a draft of conclusions.
  • May 3, 2016. Ted Cruz drops out of GOP primary.
  • June 2016. Loretta Lynch meets with Bill Clinton.
  • July 1, 2016. Loretta Lynch says she will abide by any FBI recommendation.
  • July 2, 2016. Hillary Clinton interviewed by FBI.
  • July 5, 2016. Comey clears Clinton.

From Johnson's letter :

The loss of records from this period is concerning because it is apparent from other records that Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page communicated frequently about the investigation. In February 2016, Ms. Page texted Mr. Strzok that then-candidate Trump "simply can not [Sic] be president." On May 4, 2016–after then-Director Comey began drafting his July 5 statement clearing Secretary Clinton -- Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok communicated about "pressure" building to finish the investigation following candidate Trump's likely nomination:

Ms. Page: And holy shit Cruz just dropped out of the race. It's going to be a Clinton Trump race. Unbelievable.

Mr. Strzok: What?!?!??

Ms. Page: You heard it right my friend.

Mr. Strzok: I saw trump [sic] won, fgured it would be a bit

Mr. Strzok: Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE.

Ms. Page: It sure does. We need to talk about follow up call tomorrow. We still never have.

The reference to the MYE by Mr. Strzok refers to the "midyear exam," the case name for the Clinton investigation.

This is sort of a strange statement if one doesn't assume there was a "stop Trump" movement of some type, formal or informal, within the FBI. The implication of the statement is that they would have taken their good old time finishing the investigation if Ted Cruz had stayed in the race, that is a decision that would have hurt Clinton. That they felt pressure to wind up the Clinton investigation deserves some serious exploration.

James Comey concealed the extent of Hillary's Stupidity from the public.

In addition, Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page discussed the drafting of Director Comey's July 5 statement exonerating Secretary Clinton. On June 30, 2016, FBI personnel circulated a draft of Director Comey's statement that noted that Secretary Clinton had emailed with President Obama from the private server while abroad in the "territory of sophisticated adversaries." The passage read:

We also assess that Secretary Clinton?s use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including from the territory of sophisticated adversaries. That use included an email exchange with the President while Secretary Clinton was on the territory of such an adversary. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton?s personal email account.

The same afternoon, after FBI officials edited the draft to replace "the President" with "another senior government official," Mr. Strzok sent a text message to Ms. Page notifying her of the change. The exchange read:

Mr. Strzok: K. Rybicki just sent another version.

Ms. Page: Bill just popped his head in, hopefully to talk to him. [Note: I believe Bill is Bill Priestap, FBI director for counterintelligence and Strzok's boss.]

Mr. Strzok: Hope so. Just left Bill. Talked about the speech, the [redacted] stuff relating to the case, and what I told you about earlier.

Mr. Strzok: He changed President to "another senior government official"

Director Comey's statement as ultimately delivered on July 5 omitted a reference to either President Obama or "another senior government official."

This would have had a significant impact on the Clinton campaign. The central theme of her spinmeisters was that none of the emails she sent was particularly important. It is kind of hard to argue this when the recipient is the president. The fact that Comey obscured this fact is nothing more than a lie by omission.

Loretta Lynch knew a week before Comey's announcement and a day before Hillary Clinton was interviewed that Hillary Clinton would be cleared.

On July 1, 2016–the same day as Attorney General Lynch's announcement, but before the FBI had interviewed Secretary Clinton and before Director Comey had announced his recommendation–Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok exchanged the following messages:

Mr. Strzok: Holy cow. . . .nyt breaking Apuzzo, [sic] will accept whatever rec D and career prosecutors make. No political appointee input.

Mr. Strzok: Timing not great, but whatever. Wonder if that's why the no coordination language added.

Ms. Page: No way. This is a purposeful leak following the airplane snafu.

Mr. Strzok: Timing looks like hell. Will appear to be choreographed. All major news networks literally leading with "AG to accept FBI D's recommendation."

Ms. Page: Yeah, that is awful timing. Nothing we can do about it.

Mr. Strzok: What I meant was, did DOJ tell us yesterday they were doing this, so added that language.

Mr. Strzok: Yep. I told Bill the same thing. Delaying just makes it worse.

Ms. Page: And yes. I think we had some warning of it. I know they sent some statement to rybicki, be he called andy. [Note: rybicki is FBI chief of staff Jim Rybicki and andy is, of course, deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.]

Ms. Page: And yeah, it's a real profile in couragw [sic], since she knows no charges will be brought.

The fact that Comey had made a decision to clear Clinton months in advance was known. The fact that DOJ knew and seemingly inserted "not coordinated" into the statement. Though the fact that DOJ knew of the results and provided input into Comey's memo seems a helluva lot like coordination.

We cam argue motives and motivations on this until the cows come home but, to me, there are three salient points:

The FBI was energized to clear Hillary by Cruz dropping out of the race, while they seemed sort of nonchalant about Cruz staying in the race. Comey concealed the significance of the likely compromise of Hillary Clinton's email from the public. DOJ and the FBI worked together on Comey's statement clearing Clinton.

None of this looks good and all of it needs investigation.

[Jan 22, 2018] The Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice has given congressional investigators additional text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page. The FBI also told investigators that five months worth of text messages, between December 2016 and May 2017, are unavailable because of a technical glitch

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... But, according to the letter, the FBI told the department that its system for retaining text messages sent and received on bureau phones had failed to preserve communications between Strzok and Page over a five-month period between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 7, 2017. The explanation for the gap was "misconfiguration issues related to rollouts, provisioning, and software upgrades that conflicted with the FBI's collection capabilities." ..."
"... Technical glitches obviously do happen but I can't help getting a bit of a Lois Lerner flashback upon hearing that five months of messages are missing from the time right after Trump was elected until 10 days before Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel. So if you were hoping for any follow up on that comment about an insurance policy, it looks like you can forget it. That's a well-timed glitch. ..."
"... But it seems the DOJ did turn over some additional texts that are worth considering. One involves an early draft of the Comey memo clearing Hillary Clinton. Originally the draft pointed out that Clinton had exchanged emails with President Obama while she was "on the territory" of a hostile power. Eventually, Obama's name was scrubbed from the document and finally all reference to the incident was removed. So that's one more example of the statement being watered down over time. And finally there is this : ..."
"... In another exchange, the two express displeasure about the timing of Lynch's announcement that she would defer to the FBI's judgment on the Clinton investigation. That announcement came days after it was revealed that the attorney general and former President Bill Clinton had an impromptu meeting aboard her plane in Phoenix, though both sides said the email investigation was never discussed ..."
"... Strzok said in a July 1 text message that the timing of Lynch's announcement "looks like hell." And Page appears to mockingly refer to Lynch's decision to accept the FBI's conclusion in the case as a "real profile in courag(e) since she knows no charges will be brought ..."
"... Comey himself had suggested Lynch appeared biased in the email probe and that he felt the need to act independently from her. ..."
"... "And she said, 'Yes, but don't call it that, call it a matter,'" Mr. Comey continued. "And I said, 'Why would I do that?' And she said, 'Just call it a matter.'" ..."
"... Mr. Comey said the "conclusive" episode that persuaded him to make his own announcement in the Clinton investigation rather than leave it to Ms. Lynch came last June, when former President Bill Clinton spontaneously boarded her plane on a tarmac and sat down to talk with her. ..."
"... So the story was that Lynch was biased (she was) but that Comey acted to protect the independence of the investigation. In fact, Lynch knew what Comey was going to say days before he said it. ..."
Jan 22, 2018 | hotair.com

The Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice has given congressional investigators additional text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page. The FBI also told investigators that five months worth of text messages, between December 2016 and May 2017, are unavailable because of a technical glitch .

... ... ...

[Jan 19, 2018] #ReleaseTheMemo Extensive FISA abuse memo could destroy the entire Mueller Russia investigation by Alex Christoforou

Highly recommended!
Looks like Rosenstein might lose his position.
Jan 19, 2018 | theduran.com

Classified documents obtained by members of Congress reportedly show extensive FISA abuses.

André De Koning , January 19, 2018 5:16 AM

What a bombshell! Finally some truth about the "Justice system" in the US.

Following on from this should be the whole subsequent story of the DNC-Fusion-Steele dossier in detail, exposing the MSM too for what it has been worth.
Perhaps then Trump dares to go against the deep state swamp and stop wars instead of following the dictates of CIA, Israel and Military Industrialists. That would be a real POTUS PLUS result.

foxenburg , January 19, 2018 5:13 AM

I thought Trump explained all this last March when he said his campaign was wiretapped, and he called for a Congressional investigation?

"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

12:35 PM - Mar 4, 2017

Rick Manigault foxenburg , January 19, 2018 6:01 AM

Trump gave in to the lie about Russian interference and the republicans who hated him went along with this hoax until recently.

louis robert , January 19, 2018 3:07 PM

""It's troubling. It is shocking," North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. "Part of me wishes that I didn't read it because I don't want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.""

***

Come on, child! Enough with that spectacle. Get real. Have the basic courage to know and to admit what everybody has known about your country for ages!... The entire world already knows.

Franz Kafka , January 19, 2018 11:28 AM

More proof, if any were needed, that the only threat to the people of the USA comes from their own government. The 'external threat' is a fiction calculated to enslave the US population and enrich the Oligarchy.

Gano1 , January 19, 2018 8:11 AM

The DOJ, FBI and Democrats have colluded 100%.

Franz Kafka Gano1 , January 19, 2018 11:29 AM

Why omit the US Masked [sic] Media?

Franz Kafka , January 19, 2018 11:31 AM

If the 'swamp' gets drained all at once, can the bottom fall out of the pond?

WeAreYourGods , January 19, 2018 8:14 AM

Somebody's going to leak this in short order. Let's take a real look at what both Dems and Repubs just expanded, let's look at the monster they are feeding in broad daylight.

Rick Manigault , January 19, 2018 6:00 AM

This should be the focus until there are actual convictions of high level perpetrators.

Franz Kafka , January 19, 2018 2:05 PM

Why is Hannity afraid of using the 'C' word? CONSPIRACY!

Sueja , January 19, 2018 4:57 PM

Has the House Intelligence committee's Twitter account really been shut down. How corrupt is Twitter?

[Jan 16, 2018] The Russia Explainer

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Historians will come to view Aug. 8, 2008, as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Russia's attack on sovereign Georgian territory marked the official return of history, indeed to an almost 19th-century style of great-power competition , complete with virulent nationalisms, battles for resources, struggles over spheres of influence and territory, and even -- though it shocks our 21st-century sensibilities -- the use of military power to obtain geopolitical objectives. ..."
"... Administration officials said Mr. Putin had miscalculated and would pay a cost regardless of what the United States did, pointing to the impact on Russia's currency and markets. "What we see here are distinctly 19th- and 20th-century decisions made by President Putin to address problems," one of the officials said. "What he needs to understand is that in terms of his economy, he lives in the 21st-century world, an interdependent world." ..."
"... The dossier's claim that Putin talked about the "ideals-based international order" also rings false. Putin only ever refers to Western ideals when saying that Western countries' leaders are hypocrites for not adhering to them. ..."
"... The more straightforward explanation is that, knowing that this is opposition research, Steele and his sources provided information that rang true with what the client already believed and would want to hear. This is the first report in the series–in effect, a teaser trailer–and no consultant working on a monthly retainer is going to tell you in the first memo that his services aren't needed. If Steele had indicated that there was no dirt to investigate, the $15,000/mo. (as estimated by Vanity Fair ) contract wouldn't have lasted longer than a month or two. ..."
"... The dossier's use of the phraseology "Trump and his team" and "Trump team" and the like is confusing in reference to the pre-2016 campaign period. Other than his lawyer Michael Cohen, there's nothing I've seen to indicate that the other Trump campaign people mentioned by name in the dossier (Paul Manafort and Carter Page) knew Trump before 2016. By all appearances, the key members of Trump's team before 2016 were his children, and maybe his talent agent. ..."
"... It also seems out of character for Trump to have the foresight and planning that it would take to seek out intelligence on Hillary Clinton several years back. Several years ago, Trump and the Clintons were friends , and the Clintons attended Trump's wedding and Bill and Donald played golf together. ..."
"... Russians are very cautious about what they talk about, even amongst each other. Therefore, with the story about [sexual acts] in the Moscow Ritz Carlton, the idea you have managed to triple source it via an employee at the hotel, a serving FSB [Russian security service] officer, and the security officer at the hotel, who inevitably will be at least a former FSB or GRU [Russian intelligence agency] officer It just doesn't make sense. If such a thing had taken place, it would be a Russian state secret. ..."
"... Seems more likely that it's just a piece of "scuttlebutt" that Steele's sources, pressed to find anything juicy on Trump, saw in the newspaper or in a news search on Google or on Russian search engine Yandex . ..."
"... Whatever the truth of the matter, Page is clearly someone who was very keen to network with powerful Russians in 2016 and was not shy about leveraging his affiliation with the Trump campaign to do it. ..."
"... But at the same time, this would also mean Page was a loose cannon and a huge potential liability to the Trump campaign. Igor Sechin is, and was in July 2016, on the Specially Designated Nationals list of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. This means that it's a crime for any US citizen to do any business with Sechin personally (though not with Rosneft as a corporate entity). ..."
"... Page, by all appearances, is reckless and kind of an idiot . He had to have known that his activities (even if they were limited to just non-treasonous networking with Russians) carried a huge risk of blowback for Trump. He didn't care. Carter Page's willingness to toe the Russian line on foreign policy, publicly and on the record, goes beyond even what the most Russophile Western expats in Moscow say in private conversations. I think it's a perfectly valid question to ask why and how Carter Page came to be affiliated with the Trump campaign, why he visited Russia alone at least twice in 2016, and what contacts he's had with Russian officials (he definitely met with some of them, at least at the New Economic School graduation reception on Jul. 8, at which there were several senior Russian officials present and Carter Page was commencement speaker and an honored foreign guest). ..."
"... And why send him to give a public university commencement speech in which he rails against US foreign policy, ensuring wide media coverage? ..."
"... A meeting with a Trump adviser on the sidelines of such a noisy, high-profile trip–with both the Russian and foreign press speculating in real-time what the hell Page was doing in Moscow–seems like an extremely incautious setting for a meeting to discuss the most scandalous quid pro quo since the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. ..."
"... To sum up, I have serious doubts that a meeting took place as described. But I also think that Carter Page was–at the very least–trying to leverage his connection to Trump in Russia for personal gain at the very earliest opportunity he got. ..."
"... *This report doesn't have a date. However, the July 19 report is numbered "2016/94" and the July 26 report is numbered "2016/097" so it seems like this is where the report should go. ..."
"... This is the central allegation against the Trump campaign – that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to take actions aimed at defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The one thing that I'd add (or, rather, remind) is that by late July, the story of allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election was in full swing . Manafort's history in the former Soviet Union was being widely reported . Carter Page, as mentioned above, had traveled to Moscow for unknown purposes a few weeks before, a trip that was covered in the Russian and US media. ..."
"... What I'd like to point out here -- in terms of the timing of the information in this report -- is that the DNC hacked e-mail dumps on WikiLeaks that led to Debbie Wassermann Schultz resigning as head of the DNC happened on July 22, 2016 , and even before the WikiLeaks dumps the DNC had been attributing the hack to Russia. ..."
"... Since this report refers to the WikiLeaks dump of DNC e-mails that happened on July 22, even though it's undated we know that the report must have been made after that, as well as after the Republican National Convention that happened on July 18, as well as after reports had emerged that the Trump team had been behind a change in the Republican Party platform to remove a reference to providing lethal arms to Ukraine. The allegation made here closely tracks what was being reported in the media at the time. ..."
"... FBI director James Comey made a point of saying that US intelligence services were struck by how unusually noisy the Russians had been in their election interference, as if they wanted to be discovered. ..."
"... *The actual date on the report is "26 July 201 5 " (in the British style), but since it refers to events that happened as recently as June 2016, and based on the news reports that said that Steele was hired in June 2016, I assume this is just a typo. ..."
"... This strains credulity. So there's a single Russian emigre who not only knows the internal mood of the Trump team, but also knows what the Russian leadership is thinking (about a matter that, remember, according to the dossier is top-top secret)? And I know what you're thinking – well, if they were in collusion, of course there's such a person. But who is it? You'd think that there couldn't be too many people who fit this description – being a Russian emigre, close to the Trump campaign, and also with top-level Kremlin access. ..."
"... This is described as someone's opinion so it's hard to argue against or fact-check. I will note that the e-mails from John Podesta's Gmail account started being published by WikiLeaks in October 2016, and since the e-mails run only through March 2016, and given that WikiLeaks usually takes time to prepare for a dump, whoever broke into Podesta's Gmail account was likely very active at the time when this report was dated. If you believe that it was the Russians who broke into Podesta's Gmail account, then this intelligence report is precisely wrong. Eleven days after this report, on August 10, Guccifer 2.0 published the personal contact info of 200 prominent Democrats, so if you believe that Guccifer 2.0 was the alter ego of the Russian government, this intelligence report was precisely wrong. ..."
"... This report is dated precisely one week before Sergei Ivanov was dismissed from his post and moved to a less political role as Putin's special envoy for the environment. If you want to be charitable to the dossier, you could say that this report foreshadows Ivanov's dismissal (later reports say that the dismissal was unexpected). But on the other hand, clearly Ivanov's move to his new position was already in the works on Aug. 5 – it was reported that rumors of the move had been circulating since spring. Why hadn't Steele's "well-placed and established" sources heard those rumors? ..."
"... Peskov is widely considered not to be an independent political player in the Kremlin. He is seen as being a sort of assistant to Putin in addition to his role as spokesman, but someone who likes the spotlight, celebrity and glamour a bit too much. ..."
"... About Turkey: Peskov started his career in the Russian diplomatic corps as a Turkey specialist and worked as the third secretary of the Russian embassy in Ankara in the early '90s. He speaks Turkish. So hearing him mentioned in connection with Turkey makes some sense. ..."
"... Russia was reported to have given advance warning to Erdogan, based on intelligence intercepts, that a coup was being planned. Peskov denied these reports. Just a few weeks earlier, Turkish president Erdogan had apologized to Putin for shooting down a Russian fighter jet on the Turkey-Syria border and Medvedev had announced that Russia would begin lifting the sanctions it had imposed on Turkey in connection with the incident. ..."
"... So in early August 2016 it seemed like Russia-Turkey relations had turned a corner and were being handled quite well – as a matter of fact, over the course of 2016, Turkey went from being the US's partner on Syria to being in a de facto alliance with Russia . The turnaround is stunning – in January 2016 , the US and Turkey were conducting joint operations in Syria, and in January 2017 , Turkey and Russia were conducting joint operations in Syria. Whoever was handling Russia's relationship with Turkey, they did a good job by any objective measure – hard to see how this can be considered "botched." ..."
"... Around this time , there was a lot of speculation in the media about whether Trump would drop out of the race. It's remarkable how the "intelligence" in the dossier follows what was being reported in the news at the time. ..."
"... Ivanov was leading the operation to "hack the US election" literally days before he was fired? That doesn't make sense. ..."
"... This ethnic Russian associate of Trump – who is it? Is it Sergei Millian ? He's supposed to be Source D , a "close associate" of Trump, but he might also be the ethnic Russian (even though Millian is technically from Belarus) associate referred to here and elsewhere. ..."
"... Here we have Carter Page telling the maybe-Millian about his collusion with Russian intelligence on the DNC leaks. Do people really go around confessing crimes willy-nilly? According to this dossier, they do. ..."
"... The big Trump campaign news of August 2016, of course, was that on Aug. 17, Steve Bannon replaced Paul Manafort as head of Trump's campaign. This news was absolutely huge. If Steele's source would have said on Aug. 9 that Bannon would be replacing Manafort, or even that a change of campaign management was being discussed, then in retrospect, you would have to admit that this source was well-informed. But if on Aug. 9, this source was talking about "a rethink and a likely change of tactics," s/he either was not very close to the campaign or was holding back on Steele. ..."
"... So this associate was so close to the campaign that he was privy to all of the team's discussions about collusion with the Russians, but he didn't know that Steve Bannon was about to be named as the new campaign head? ..."
"... But my main beef with this paragraph involves the phrase "kick-back payments to MANAFORT as alleged." Manafort wasn't accused of receiving kickbacks (as I'll explain in a moment, that doesn't make any sense) – he was accused of being paid cash by Yanukovich's political party in an off-the-books scheme, and this was widely covered in the press after the story broke in The New York Times on Aug. 14. ..."
"... That's not a kickback. A kickback is when a government or other organization is offering a contract to an outside contractor, typically in a competitive bid situation, and then when the winner is selected the winner kicks back some of the contract proceeds to the person who manipulated the contract selection process. ..."
"... So if there were kickbacks involved in Manafort's work for Yanukovich, it would've been Manafort kicking back money to Yanukovich, not the other way around. ..."
"... However, what Manafort was actually accused of in the press -- receiving money not properly accounted for under Ukrainian law -- is a crime under American law only if he received income that he didn't report to the IRS, or engaged in money laundering, even if an indisputable "documentary trail" emerges. ..."
"... It is difficult to imagine Putin and his inner circle being fearful of political vulnerability and embarrassment in connection with Manafort. As even Julia Ioffe–a journalist opposed to both Trump and Putin–conceded i n a recent article i n The Atlantic , the political consulting work that Manafort did for Yanukovich and others in the former Soviet Union was hardly unusual. ..."
"... Just to point out – there's a certain implication in the dossier's description of Manafort's work for Yanukovich that this work was "exposed" during the 2016 US election campaign. That's not the case. Manafort just wasn't a household name before 2016, so no one cared. He was just another American political consultant who was more than happy to offer his services to unsavory foreign politicians, like Sandra Bullock's character in "Our Brand is Crisis." ..."
"... Manafort's work for Yanukovich was public knowledge in Ukraine as early as 2005, and was reported actively in the Ukrainian press. By 2016 it was part of Manafort's resume. ..."
"... The report on the Alfa Group (yes, Steele spelled it wrong) is actually the only place in the whole dossier where the dossier was ahead of the mainstream news cycle. The report doesn't give any context for why a special report on the relationship between Putin and Alfa was requested. But on Halloween 2016, the story broke that in Spring and Summer 2016, white-hat hackers had been tracking electronic communications between Trump's e-mail server and an Alfa-Bank (part of Alfa Group) computer in Russia, posting their findings on Reddit – so it was in the public domain but you really had to be paying attention (as apparently a few New York Times journalists and probably the FBI were). I doubt that Steele or his sources were following hacker forums on Reddit. ..."
"... So here's what I think happened: by September, Steele's ultimate client was the Democrats. Someone tipped off the Hillary Clinton campaign (and/or the Clinton-aligned group that was paying Fusion GPS / Orbis) about the electronic link to Alfa, and then Orbis (Steele) got a call asking for an intelligence report on Alfa Group's connections to Putin, without saying why. However, since it was on the phone, the Orbis person heard it as "Alpha Group," and their Russian sources didn't correct the error. ..."
"... Vladimir Putin was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg from 1992 to 1996 . In August 1996 Putin moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow to be Deputy Chief of the Presidential Property Management Directorate (Yeltsin was president at the time, of course). He needed a new job because his boss, St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak , lost his re-election bid. ..."
"... Alfa-Bank was a direct competitor to Khodorkovsky's Bank Menatep (a subsidiary of Rosprom) at the time. So there's no way Fridman and Aven used Govorun to deliver cash to Putin when Putin was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. The dates don't line up. There was an 8-month gap after Putin left St. Petersburg and before Govorun started working at Alfa. ..."
"... How could Steele's sources have made this mistake? Because Govorun's Wikipedia page omits his time at Rosprom, and makes it look like Govorun worked at Alfa-Bank from 1993 to 2000. This is why you don't prepare your report based on Wikipedia, kids! ..."
"... Or if Steele was feeling particularly lazy, he could've gone to Trump's Twitter feed, where Trump proudly told his millions of followers that he'd just spent the weekend with Aras Agalarov and that he wanted to do more business with him. Maybe in Steele's world, being "well-placed" to hear intel about Trump's connections with Russian businesspeople means reading Donald Trump's tweets? ..."
"... There's no other word but "fraud" to describe an "intelligence report" that tries to make it look like the connection between Trump and the Agalarov family is some kind of inside information that you'd need "well-placed sources" to obtain. It took some serious balls for Steele to present it that way, since all anyone would have to do is Google the names mentioned in the report and it would be instantly clear that the intelligence was worthless. ..."
"... Hmm. This is the intelligence that Hillary's people were getting less than one month from Election Day. Intelligence that they paid for. Makes you feel sorry for her; I strongly suspect she was being conned with these reports. ..."
"... In December 2016, Rosneft did indeed sell 19.5% of its shares to two investors using a complicated financing structure. Some have pointed to this as an example where the dossier correctly predicted something would happen. However, the sale of 19.5% of Rosneft to an investor was part of Russia's privatization plan for 2016, which the Russian government announced in December 2015 , and the timeline for the privatization (referring to the 19.5% figure) was updated throughout the year . Anyone who was following Russian business news in 2016 knew that Rosneft was planning to sell 19.5% to an investor that year. ..."
"... Sucks to be Michael Cohen! Unless the dossier is true, he should sue for libel. ..."
"... Sechin is a very big deal in Russia, and a total badass that you don't want to mess with. He is an intimidating guy who is as serious as a heart attack. Carter Page is a dumbass. But the account of this conversation makes it sound like Page was running the meeting like a seasoned pro, leaving Sechin hanging, keeping things vague and noncommittal. I, on the other hand, think that Sechin would never bother meeting with a nobody like Carter Page to discuss something as consequential as billion-dollar oil deals and international relations unless Page had made his bona fides abundantly clear. ..."
"... "Unexpectedly." This looks suspiciously like ass-covering as to why Steele's earlier reports dated mere days before Ivanov's dismissal, containing statements attributed directly to Ivanov, made no mention that these were his last days on the job. ..."
"... Most political observers believed at the time that it was Bernie Sanders, not Russia, who pushed Hillary Clinton away from supporting TPP. This is because Bernie Sanders said openly that he was pressuring Hillary to drop support for TPP. Strangely, the only place where the "veterans' pensions ruse" was ever reported was in the Steele dossier, and the media haven't been tipped off to it to this day. Dodged a bullet! Remember, this is after Putin had supposedly directly ordered all Kremlin insiders, all of whom are tried-and-true Putin loyalists, not to talk about these matters even in private. ..."
"... Steele's team has made the bold decision to misspell Paul Manafort's name as MANNAFORT (Mannafort from heaven?) throughout this report. ..."
"... Gubarev sued BuzzFeed and its editor-in-chief for libel and slander and, lacking any basis other than the dossier itself for these allegations, BuzzFeed blacked out the identifying information. ..."
"... This is quite a cinematic portrayal of hacking. The implication seems to be that there were teams of hackers in a room somewhere and they were ordered to "stand down." Is that how hacking works? Especially in this case, where the hacking that resulted in the 2016 DNC and Podesta leaks had taken place several months before this alleged meeting? This also seems to contradict the declassified US intelligence community findings that said that the hacks were done by Russian government hacker teams called "Cozy Bear" and "Fancy Bear" that were working for the GRU, a Russian intelligence agency that isn't mentioned once in the dossier. The Romanian angle apparently refers t o Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be Romanian but was also believed to be a Russian intelligence agency alter ego only pretending to be Romanian. If these were Russian government hackers, why would they be ordered to cross international borders and "lay low" in Bulgaria, a member of NATO? ..."
"... Also, given that Russia allegedly had huge wins in their 2016 election meddling, why would they be so stingy as to demand that Trump pay his share for the hacking? Especially if they were so concerned about covering their tracks? This only would implicate the Trump campaign and create a paper trail leading directly to Trump transition team members in the United States, plus they would be involving themselves in a criminal conspiracy to violate US money laundering laws, RICO and the like. ..."
Apr 04, 2017 | russiaexplainer.com

THE DOSSIER

... ... ...

[Jan 14, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis The Trump Dossier Timeline, A Democrat Disaster Looming by Publius Tacitus

Highly recommended!
It was a coup d'état.
Notable quotes:
"... When the entire episode about the creation of the Trump dossier (by former Brit spy, Christopher Steele) and its dissemination (by Steele and the Democrat hired contractor, FUSION GPS,) to the FBI and the press, is fully exposed, the American people will be confronted with the stark dilemma of how to deal with the fact that there was a failed domestic coup attempted by members of the U.S. intel and law enforcement community. The facts will show that the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA and the FBI conspired and meddled in the 2016 Presidential election. They lied to a Federal judge about the origins of the dossier and used those lies to get permission to spy on Trump and members of his campaign staff. ..."
"... But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian's leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News. ..."
"... The response to the information from the FBI, he recalled, was "shock and horror." After a few weeks, the bureau asked him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. He was also asked to continue to send copies of his subsequent reports to the bureau. These reports were not written, he noted, as finished work products; they were updates on what he was learning from his various sources. ..."
"... "I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results. The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount. . ." ..."
"... Michael Isikoff referenced those briefings : "The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and "high ranking sanctioned individuals" in Moscow over the summer as evidence of "significant and disturbing ties" between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau." ..."
"... September 2016. FBI used the Steele memos as part of the basis for requesting a FISA warrant according to reports by the NY Times and the Washington Post : ..."
"... We do not know exactly when the FISA warrant was granted, but the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported, citing U.S. government sources, that this occurred in September 2016 (see here , here , and here ). ..."
"... After Mr. Page, 45 -- a Navy veteran and businessman who had lived in Moscow for three years -- stepped down (26 September 2016) from the Trump campaign in September, the F.B.I. obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing the authorities to monitor his communications on the suspicion that he was a Russian agent. ..."
"... The Justice Department obtained a secret court-approved wiretap last summer on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald J. Trump 's presidential campaign, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent, a government official said Wednesday. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the warrant, the official said, after investigators determined that Mr. Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign, which began distancing itself from him in early August. ..."
"... The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page's communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials. ..."
"... Loretta Lynch, Attorney General under President Obama, approved the FISA application. (Note--federal law requires that the attorney general approve every application to the FISA court.) ..."
"... End of September--Steele revealed in a London court filing earlier this year that he was directed by Fusion GPS to brief reporters at outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Yahoo! News and Mother Jones about his Trump findings. ..."
"... End of September--Steele informs Simpson (i.e. Fusion GPS) that the FBI wants to meet him in Rome. ( Senate Judiciary Committee 0n 22 August 2017, p. 171 ) ..."
"... 6 January 2017--FBI Director Comey briefs Trump on the Steele dossier, which Comey describes as "salacious and UNVERIFIED." : ..."
"... The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing. (Comey's statement before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 8 June 2017) ..."
"... Describing his reports in the Mother Jones interview, Steele asserted, "This was something of huge significance, way above party politics." Things changed, though, when Steele was sued for libel after the dossier was published in early 2017. Suddenly, when he was in a forum where it was clear to him that making exaggerated or false claims could cost him dearly, he decided his allegations were not of such "huge significance" after all . . . .According to Steele's courtroom version, the dossier is merely a compilation of bits of "raw intelligence" that were "unverified" and that he passed along because they "warranted further investigation" -- i.e., not because he could vouch for their truthfulness. (kudos to Rowan Scarborough who initially broke the story). ..."
"... I think one has to start with the assumption that everyone at the highest levels of the federal government, especially the national security apparatus, is a swamp creature. They just don't get there unless they are one. Weasels like Clapper, Brennan, Hayden. Of course that does not mean a person with honor & integrity doesn't get up there. Just far and few between. ..."
"... It is extremely difficult to uncover malfeasance in government in the best of circumstances and it is practically impossible within the national security apparatus as they have the ever present shield of "state secrets". In this context we have to be thankful for small gifts of transparency coming from inside like these disclosures by IG Horowitz as well as by whistleblowers like Snowden. ..."
"... Are you sure the"insurance policy" referred to a way to destroy Trump if he were to be elected? What if FBI counterintelligence agents were involved in illegal surveillance activities that could possibly come to light if Trump were president? The dossier in fact was the insurance policy that they retroactively used to launder previous illegal searches that would have been covered up if Hillary had won. ..."
"... The primary purpose of the "insurance policy" was to protect FBI agents against accusations of malfeasance, which at present, appears to be an accurate description of their behavior. ..."
"... The ENTIRE SYSTEM of FISA-702 surveillance and data collection was weaponized against a political campaign. The DOJ and FBI used the FISA Court to gain access to Trump data, and simultaneously justify earlier FISA "queries" by their contractor, Fusion GPS. FISA-702 queries were used to gather information on the Trump campaign which later became FBI counterintelligence surveillance on the officials therein. ..."
"... So, the snooping began much before Steele was hired by Fusion GPS. Sundance for example believes that the FBI provided this "unauthorized" access to its subcontractor Fusion GPS. This is how Fusion GPS was paid by the FBI. ..."
"... When the time line and interactions are put together it seems that it all begins at the FBI during March 2016, pretty early in the primary season, possibly with Fusion GPS as the subcontractor. Steele only comes on the scene, after the meeting of Mary Jacoby, Glen Simpson's wife at the White House and Fusion is hired by the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... This post and PT's previous ones on the same topic, concern what many here suspect to be an orchestrated attempt to remove the Constitutionally-elected head of state via extra Constitutional means. In other words a soft coup. Rather than "Trump_vs_deep_state", I think the motivations for exploring this possibility here, by and large, come from feelings of patriotism. Particularly from those who swore to defend the Constitution (not the President) from enemies, both foreign and domestic. ..."
"... The question of whether the Rule of Law, or the observance of contitutional propriety, is being upheld is what is being examined here. That second issue is independent of the first. That is as it should be. If it were so that the FBI had played politics against Mrs Clinton that would be as disturbing as if they had played politics against Mr Trump. ..."
"... It will be most interesting to see Trump's most devoted congressional supporters and 'swamp beast fighters' utilize the timeline and verified facts and (unknown-to-indy investigators) details in the 'private' source, to bring justice to bear on this extremely serious matter. Why hasn't the DOJ appointed a special prosecutor; considering what PT and many others here and elsewhere are "piecing together?" ..."
"... I didn't vote Trump but I was shocked by the obvious coup d'etat to overthrow Trump after the election. You see some of us support the rule of law, our constitution, and established process for political change. Just because someone is elected that is unpopular with the losing side doesn't mean you throw away everything and become a willing banana Republic. While this was going on I predicted that if they had succeeded they would have over a million angry people in Washington and I would have been one of them ..."
"... To amplify your point, Terry: once you give the unelected and unaccountable "intelligence community" (or any other part of the Deep State) a de facto veto over election results, you will never get that power back. ..."
"... You as a country have crossed the Rubicon, and when you get to the other side, you are no longer in a constitutional republic, but in something else. ..."
"... In my view, the deep state......... CIA, FBI, NSA....... had the opportunity to prove their commitment to the welfare of the nation...... given they had the means and opportunity to sway the election. ..."
"... Given that the FBI made no serious effort to analyze the DNC servers after the alleged "hack" and, according to Seymour Hersh, are sitting on an FBI report that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the supplier of the DNC emails to Wikileaks, these two facts also support the conclusion that the FBI at the highest levels are in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow Trump ..."
"... The FBI IS a criminal enterprise ..."
"... The FBI never investigated the DNC servers because they decided to accept CrowdStrike's analysis despite CrowdStrike being run by a Russian ex-pat who hates Russia and sees Russians under every bed. Now they want to try to accuse Trump associates of "hacking"? Seriously? ..."
"... Second, according to Seymour Hersh, the FBI is sitting on a report that explicitly fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the source for the DNC emails received by Wikileaks. ..."
Jan 12, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The Trump Dossier Timeline, A Democrat Disaster Looming by Publius Tacitus

When the entire episode about the creation of the Trump dossier (by former Brit spy, Christopher Steele) and its dissemination (by Steele and the Democrat hired contractor, FUSION GPS,) to the FBI and the press, is fully exposed, the American people will be confronted with the stark dilemma of how to deal with the fact that there was a failed domestic coup attempted by members of the U.S. intel and law enforcement community. The facts will show that the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the CIA and the FBI conspired and meddled in the 2016 Presidential election. They lied to a Federal judge about the origins of the dossier and used those lies to get permission to spy on Trump and members of his campaign staff.

Here are the facts as we know them now. (Please note, these facts are sourced and are not my opinion).

  1. Perkins Come was retained by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC in April 2016.
  2. Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie (a Seattle based law firm) and sought an engagement to continue research it had started on Donald Trump. (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4116755-PerkinsCoie-Fusion-PrivelegeLetter-102417.html)
  3. The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump's connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin. (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4116755-PerkinsCoie-Fusion-PrivelegeLetter-102417.html, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?utm_term=.14d16b270afd).
  4. Christopher Steele (Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd) was hired by Fusion GPS in May or June of 2016 (Glen Simpson testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee 0n 22 August 2017, p. 77 )
  5. The first report of the Dossier was dated 20 June 2017 and made the following allegations:
    1. Russian regime had been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years.
    2. TRUMP declined various business deals offered him in Russia but accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.
    3. Russian intelligence officer claims FSB has material to blackmail TRUMP.
    4. The Russians had a dossier on Clinton but "nothing embarrassing."
  6. Christopher Steele tells Glen Simpson that he wants to take the info in the 20 June report to the FBI (this conversation occurred late June/early July according to Glen Simpson testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee, p. 161, 165
  7. July 2016, Christopher Steele meets with FBI (name of contact unknown) and passes on content from the 20 June memo.
  8. Third report, dated 19 July 2016 , claims that TRUMP advisor Carter PAGE held secret meetings in Moscow with SECHIN and senior Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN. ( See dossier ).
    1. But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian's leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.
  9. 15 August 2016 FBI Agent Strzok's text about the meeting in McCabe's office is dated August 15, 2016. . . According to Agent Strzok, with Election Day less than three months away, Page, the bureau lawyer, weighed in on Trump's bid: "There's no way he gets elected."
  10. According to David Corn, Christopher Steele was sending all of his subsequent reports to the FBI :
    1. The response to the information from the FBI, he recalled, was "shock and horror." After a few weeks, the bureau asked him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. He was also asked to continue to send copies of his subsequent reports to the bureau. These reports were not written, he noted, as finished work products; they were updates on what he was learning from his various sources.
  11. 27 August 2016. Senate and House leaders briefed by "intelligence community" on the contents of the Steele memos-- A letter from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, dated 27 August 2017 states :
    1. "I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results. The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount. . ."
    2. Michael Isikoff referenced those briefings : "The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and "high ranking sanctioned individuals" in Moscow over the summer as evidence of "significant and disturbing ties" between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau."
  12. September 2016. FBI used the Steele memos as part of the basis for requesting a FISA warrant according to reports by the NY Times and the Washington Post :
    1. We do not know exactly when the FISA warrant was granted, but the New York Times and the Washington Post have reported, citing U.S. government sources, that this occurred in September 2016 (see here , here , and here ).
      1. After Mr. Page, 45 -- a Navy veteran and businessman who had lived in Moscow for three years -- stepped down (26 September 2016) from the Trump campaign in September, the F.B.I. obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing the authorities to monitor his communications on the suspicion that he was a Russian agent.

      2. The Justice Department obtained a secret court-approved wiretap last summer on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald J. Trump 's presidential campaign, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent, a government official said Wednesday. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the warrant, the official said, after investigators determined that Mr. Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign, which began distancing itself from him in early August.

      3. The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page's communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.
      4. Loretta Lynch, Attorney General under President Obama, approved the FISA application. (Note--federal law requires that the attorney general approve every application to the FISA court.)
  13. End of September--Steele revealed in a London court filing earlier this year that he was directed by Fusion GPS to brief reporters at outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Yahoo! News and Mother Jones about his Trump findings.
  14. End of September--Steele informs Simpson (i.e. Fusion GPS) that the FBI wants to meet him in Rome. ( Senate Judiciary Committee 0n 22 August 2017, p. 171 )
  15. 8 November 2016 , Senator John McCain, accompanied by David Kramer (a Senior Director at Senator McCain's Institute for International Leadership), met in London with an Associate of Orbis, former British Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, to arrange a subsequent meeting with Christopher Steele in order to read the now infamous Steele Dossier.
  16. David Kramer and Christopher Steele met in Surrey on 28 November 2016 , where Kramer was briefed on the contents of the memos.
  17. Once Senator McCain and David Kramer returned to the United States, arrangements were made for Fusion GPS to provide Senator McCain hard copies of the memoranda.
  18. 13 December 2016 , Christopher Steele prepares, on his own, the 17th report in the dossier and sends it to Senator McCain via David Kramer.
  19. 6 January 2017--FBI Director Comey briefs Trump on the Steele dossier, which Comey describes as "salacious and UNVERIFIED." :
    1. The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing. (Comey's statement before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 8 June 2017)

One of the more interesting developments in the dossier case came as a result of depositions and testimony in the defamation case that Aleksej Gubarev filed against Christoper Steele in the United Kingdom last year. When pressed to defend the authenticity and accuracy of the dossier and the allegations against President Trump, Christopher Steele became a British version of Michael Jackson and moon-walked backwards. Andy McCarthy describes the situation beautifully :

Describing his reports in the Mother Jones interview, Steele asserted, "This was something of huge significance, way above party politics." Things changed, though, when Steele was sued for libel after the dossier was published in early 2017. Suddenly, when he was in a forum where it was clear to him that making exaggerated or false claims could cost him dearly, he decided his allegations were not of such "huge significance" after all . . . .According to Steele's courtroom version, the dossier is merely a compilation of bits of "raw intelligence" that were "unverified" and that he passed along because they "warranted further investigation" -- i.e., not because he could vouch for their truthfulness. (kudos to Rowan Scarborough who initially broke the story).

There are some very interesting unanswered questions. Here are some that I believe are most relevant:

  1. Why does a former MI-6 officer reach out on his own to the FBI when the normal point of contact would be the CIA?
  2. Who did Steele contact at the FBI?
  3. Who at the FBI asked Steele to travel to Rome in October 2016? [Note--this request is quite odd given the fact that the FBI has a very large presence in London and, if the purpose was simply to inform the FBI about possible nefarious Russian activity, could have easily walked over to the US Embassy at Grosvenor Square rather than travel to Rome.]

The failure of the FBI and the CIA to disclose to members of Congress and the President that the information they briefed from the dossier had been paid for by the Clinton campaign is much more than gross negligence and incompetence. It is prima facie evidence of collusion and meddling in a U.S. domestic election. Only the culprits weren't the Russians. As Pogo once said , "we have met the enemy and he is us."

blue peacock , 11 January 2018 at 06:37 PM

PT

Thanks for spurring my interest on this monumental deceit with your many posts.

I knew nothing about FISA & mass surveillance other than our government was collecting all communications of every American, before you began posting on this topic. I've learned more since and it is revolting if one is a staunch believer in the Bill of Rights as what makes America different.

IG Mike Horowitz was barred from investigating the DOJ National Security Division by the Obama administration. It required an act of Congress and Obama signed it after the election, to allow the IG the ability to investigate all of DOJ. The DOJ NSD and FBI CounterIntelligence had a big role to play in all this as all the FISA applications originated there. What we know about Peter Strzok & Lisa Page, Bruce & Nellie Ohr and the Clinton exoneration all came from the IG. In testimony to Congress, Rosenstein used the IG investigation to stall the production of documents and witness interviews. It seems the IG report will become available in a few weeks. That will hopefully shed more light.

Considering that in our country the rule of law does not apply to high officials in government, I am not holding my breath that any of these miscreants will be held accountable or there will be any changes to the surveillance laws.

M. Smyth , 11 January 2018 at 07:45 PM
So, is IG Michael Horowitz one of the honorable guys in this whole thing? You'd never guess judging by his bio. And his ties to the Democrats and Comey. I've lost all respect for the FBI. And the IC.

https://heavy.com/news/2017/01/michael-e-horowitz-inspector-general-department-of-justice-fb-investigation-james-comey-hillary-clinton-email-review/

Pilot44236 , 11 January 2018 at 07:45 PM
Sundance's view reporting on the whole affair.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/11/the-doj-and-fbi-worked-with-fusion-gps-on-operation-trump/#more-144446

blue peacock said in reply to M. Smyth... , 11 January 2018 at 10:06 PM
M. Smyth

I think one has to start with the assumption that everyone at the highest levels of the federal government, especially the national security apparatus, is a swamp creature. They just don't get there unless they are one. Weasels like Clapper, Brennan, Hayden. Of course that does not mean a person with honor & integrity doesn't get up there. Just far and few between.

I don't have any basis to judge Michael Horowitz since I didn't even know about him until a few weeks ago. What we know in this case is he has allowed us to learn about some of the activities of Peter Strozk & Lisa Page as well as Bruce & Nellie Ohr which has helped further understand Russiagate.

It is extremely difficult to uncover malfeasance in government in the best of circumstances and it is practically impossible within the national security apparatus as they have the ever present shield of "state secrets". In this context we have to be thankful for small gifts of transparency coming from inside like these disclosures by IG Horowitz as well as by whistleblowers like Snowden.

blue peacock said in reply to Publius Tacitus ... , 11 January 2018 at 10:12 PM
PT

Both Christopher Wray and Rosenstein in separate testimony were unable to confirm that any of the contents in the Steele dossier was verified, with the exception of Carter Page's visit to Russia.

doug , 11 January 2018 at 11:19 PM
It's becoming quite clear that Trump, as President, appeared to be such an appalling concept amongst some highly placed functionaries that "insurance" was needed to deal with the possibility. And these people had contacts with the media, which, by and large, were as appalled. Thus the current situation.

Quite unfortunately, Trump's unbounded hubris has played into this mess. Trump is very fortunate that his party is in control of the legislative branches. One thinks of Hercules and the Aegean stables.

Newmarket , 11 January 2018 at 11:19 PM
PT,r

Great compilation and analysis of the available facts. No need to publish the following, but I would suggest that your work is important enough to correct a couple of typos and provide a clarification which I will identify by paragraph number.
1. Perkins Coie (a Seattle Law Firm)--you get the name right in #2.
9. Put "Lisa" in front of "Page" in order to let the reader know you are referring to Lisa Page.
19. Rowan Farrow, I think, not Rowan Scarborough.
Keep posting and keep up the good work. Bob Randolph

Cvillereader said in reply to doug... , 11 January 2018 at 11:19 PM
Are you sure the"insurance policy" referred to a way to destroy Trump if he were to be elected? What if FBI counterintelligence agents were involved in illegal surveillance activities that could possibly come to light if Trump were president? The dossier in fact was the insurance policy that they retroactively used to launder previous illegal searches that would have been covered up if Hillary had won.

The primary purpose of the "insurance policy" was to protect FBI agents against accusations of malfeasance, which at present, appears to be an accurate description of their behavior.

Reggie said in reply to DC... , 11 January 2018 at 11:50 PM
DC, It is quite simple:

The ENTIRE SYSTEM of FISA-702 surveillance and data collection was weaponized against a political campaign. The DOJ and FBI used the FISA Court to gain access to Trump data, and simultaneously justify earlier FISA "queries" by their contractor, Fusion GPS. FISA-702 queries were used to gather information on the Trump campaign which later became FBI counterintelligence surveillance on the officials therein.

blue peacock , 12 January 2018 at 12:26 AM
PT

Here's something that's puzzling. The FBI directly or indirectly through Fusion GPS or another a subcontractor, began querying the NSA database around March 2016 as per the FISC ruling. That's pretty early in the primary. I don't think anyone at that point was thinking Trump was going to clinch the GOP nomination.

Do you think they were doing this on other candidates too? Bernie? Were they already an arm of the Clinton campaign? Or just snooping on all or some of the candidates communications?

The Twisted Genius , 12 January 2018 at 12:44 AM
Publius Tacitus,

Here's a stab at your relevant unanswered questions.

"Why does a former MI-6 officer reach out on his own to the FBI when the normal point of contact would be the CIA?"
"Who did Steele contact at the FBI?"
"Who at the FBI asked Steele to travel to Rome in October 2016?"

Steele's CIA contacts were probably more of the bureaucratic liaison variety. Hardly memorable. However, he worked closely with the FBI Eurasian Joint Organized Crime Squad on several operations. He formed strong friendships doing these "heady things" as Steele describes . When he decided to bring his concerns to the FBI, he found one of these old FBI friends stationed in Rome. This FBI friend is who he reached out to. This FBI Special Agent seems to be identified in Steele's Judicial Committee testimony, but the name and position is redacted. Someone in Comey's Russian investigation team probably decided to continue this established relationship and venue for the October 2016 meeting. Perhaps it was Comey himself.

Walrus said in reply to DC... , 12 January 2018 at 12:44 AM
DC you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts. Both the FBI and Steele in his court case have stated that there is no confirmation of anything in the reports. They are purely hearsay at absolute best and more likely a deliberate fabrication for political purposes in the opinion of far more knowledgeable people than you.

To put that another way, the chances of your opinion being valid are judged as zero.

Publius Tacitus -> The Twisted Genius ... , 12 January 2018 at 01:22 AM
Keep your eyes tightly closed. Your hatred of Trump blinds you to what is really going on. Deal with these two indisputable facts: 1) Comey, under oath, almost one year after the info became available, still said it was UNVERIFIABLE; 2) Steele, himself, also under oath, now disavows the importance of what he originally claimed was so essential. You should write a novel. You're very good at spinning a tale without having a shred of evidence to go on.
blue peacock said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 12 January 2018 at 02:05 AM
TTG

If you look at the FISC ruling that has been declassified but heavily redacted, you will notice the FBI provided a sub-contractor "unauthorized" access to the NSA database in March 2016. This access to the raw FISA data was discontinued on April 18, 2016.

So, the snooping began much before Steele was hired by Fusion GPS. Sundance for example believes that the FBI provided this "unauthorized" access to its subcontractor Fusion GPS. This is how Fusion GPS was paid by the FBI.

When the time line and interactions are put together it seems that it all begins at the FBI during March 2016, pretty early in the primary season, possibly with Fusion GPS as the subcontractor. Steele only comes on the scene, after the meeting of Mary Jacoby, Glen Simpson's wife at the White House and Fusion is hired by the Clinton campaign.

Peter AU , 12 January 2018 at 03:11 AM
Not being an academic, mathematician, nor pollster, I simply run an image search on both Clinton and Trump election rallies. These showed that Trump would win. Early in the campaign, there were several pics of large crowds at Clinton rallies, but from about six months out, the images all showed her speaking to fifty to hundred people, whereas Trump images always showed packed stadiums.

The Dossier. A person as portrayed in the Steele would be corrupt/dishonest in most everyday business dealings. With the attacks against Trump, by intelligence and investigative agencies, any dishonesty, breaking the law in business dealings, would have been brought up. This tells me he has always operated within the letter of the law. Perhaps sharp and ruthless, but within the letter of the law.

Trump's ideology/culture is USA through and through. Russia has no ideology, and its own culture.

There is no ideology nor religion involved, so why would a man like Trump that has always operated within the letter of the law be nefariously colluding with a foreign state?

Needs to be a lot more digging like you are doing PT, as the saying goes "Without fear or favor".

blue peacock , 12 January 2018 at 03:56 AM
Here's a timeline based on Sundance's work to supplement PT's timeline. I did this for my benefit so likely contain errors. Others here at SST can correct.
  • - Before March 2016: a)Fusion GPS hired by Washington Free Beacon to do oppo research on Trump. I have read elsewhere that it was billionaire fund manager Paul Singer who paid for this, presume to provide GOP candidate he supported in the primary oppo research. b) FBI provides unauthorized FISA 702 access to a subcontractor who conducts numerous FISA 702(16)(17) searches on NSA database, which lead to FISA 702 violations. Speculation subcontractor is Fusion GPS. The subcontractor's name is redacted in declassified FISC ruling.
  • - March 9, 2016: DOJ oversight personnel learn that FBI has disclosed raw FISA information to a subcontractor that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI's request.
  • - Early April 2016: Admiral Rogers learns of FISA 702 violations and orders compliance review at NSA.
  • - April 18, 2016: Access to raw FISA information by subcontractor ended presume after FBI learns that Admiral Rogers is on to the FISA violations.
  • - April 19, 2016: White House log shows Mary Jacoby, wife of Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS visits White House.
  • - Later in April 2016: Clinton campaign hires Fusion GPS to do oppo research on Trump. See PT's timeline.
  • - March/April 2016: Fusion GPS hires Nellie Ohr, who also works with CIA and is the the wife of DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr.
  • - May 2016: Fusion GPS hires Christopher Steele. See PT's timeline. Presume that Steele receives whatever prior oppo research the Fusion GPS did which may include info obtained from FISA 702 searches (if Fusion GPS is the FBI subcontractor) and whatever stuff Nellie Ohr has written up until then.
  • - May 23, 2016: Mary Jacoby applies for ham radio license. Presume to communicate with Steele without getting "collected" in NSA hoover.
  • - June 2016 on: Steele dossier dissemination. See PT's timeline for more detail.
  • - August 2016: Peter Strzok's "insurance policy" text message. See PT's timeline.
  • - October 2016: a) NSA compliance review completed and Admiral Rogers goes to FISC to report FISA 702 violations and ends FISA 702(17) searches. b) DOJ NSD prepares FISA application that in part includes content from Steele dossier. c) FISC grants warrant.
  • - A week after election: a) Admiral Rogers goes to Trump Tower and spills the beans b) Next day Trump transition moves out of Trump Tower to Trump Golf Club in Bedminster.
Lee A. Arnold -> Publius Tacitus ... , 12 January 2018 at 07:08 AM
Publius Tacitus: "When James Comey testified in June of 2017 that the dossier was "SALACIOUS AND UNVERIFIED," he made it very clear that Steele's so-called "raw intelligence" had no value nor corroboration. If Comey had said, "WE HAVE VERIFIED KEY ELEMENTS OF THE DOSSIER BUT WILL HAVE TO DISCUSS THAT IN CLOSED SESSION," then Trump would have been a dead man walking."

Then Trump is in big trouble. In the June 2017 transcript, Senator Burr questions first. After about a dozen questions:

"BURR: In the public domain is this question of the "Steele dossier," a document that has been around out in for over a year. I'm not sure when the FBI first took possession of it, but the media had it before you had it and we had it. At the time of your departure from the FBI, was the FBI able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the Steele document?

COMEY: Mr. Chairman, I don't think that's a question I can answer in an open setting because it goes into the details of the investigation."

Barbara Ann -> Stonevendor ... , 12 January 2018 at 08:40 AM
Stonevendor

This post and PT's previous ones on the same topic, concern what many here suspect to be an orchestrated attempt to remove the Constitutionally-elected head of state via extra Constitutional means. In other words a soft coup. Rather than "Trump_vs_deep_state", I think the motivations for exploring this possibility here, by and large, come from feelings of patriotism. Particularly from those who swore to defend the Constitution (not the President) from enemies, both foreign and domestic.

This said, if Trump actually does go to war with Iran (rather than just threaten it) I will agree with your comparison re Bush and the neocons of his era.

Barbara Ann -> blue peacock... , 12 January 2018 at 08:54 AM
Minor correction: Nellie Ohr is the Ham radio enthusiast:

http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/LicArchive/license.jsp?archive=Y&licKey=12382876

Publius Tacitus -> Lee A. Arnold ... , 12 January 2018 at 09:05 AM
Nice try Lee, but he still does not contradict his sworn testimony, i.e. UNVERIFIED. Not being able to discuss "details of the investigation" could have opened up questions about when the FBI first learned of the reports in the dossier. That would have raised even more uncomfortable questions about the FBIs conduct.
English Outsider -> Stonevendor ... , 12 January 2018 at 09:14 AM
"I check in with this site from time to time because I find coverage of the Middle East that I will not find elsewhere. It has always been informative. But it is curious to find this remarkable devotion to Trump_vs_deep_state."

Right on the first point. Wrong on the second. To my occasional regret the dream of 2016 had and has few all-in adherents here.

The merits of what you term "Trump_vs_deep_state" are examined from time to time on the Colonel's site. The question of whether the Rule of Law, or the observance of contitutional propriety, is being upheld is what is being examined here. That second issue is independent of the first. That is as it should be. If it were so that the FBI had played politics against Mrs Clinton that would be as disturbing as if they had played politics against Mr Trump.

From my point of view - I'm English, as you might notice - the question of whether the UK Security Services helped play politics in a US presidential election is relevant whoever the target was. I like to think that our Security Services work as part of our defence forces, not as political hit men.

Fred said in reply to bks ... , 12 January 2018 at 09:24 AM
bks,

The Kremlin targeted "educated youth"? Which ones, the Bernie supporters who were going to be screwed by the rigged democratic primary? How did they do the targeting, by that $100K ad spend with Zuckerberg? Isn't he then also guilty by association or is he still the good billionaire? Which other US citizens maintain ties to rich businessmen from Axerbaijan? Which law does that violate?

Annem , 12 January 2018 at 09:43 AM
Two small points:

When the MSM was all a-flutter with coverage of Simpson's testimony in the Capitol, I heard none of the TV hosts mention that it was the Clinton folks who hired Fusion. If that is not the case, please let me know.

In his testimony, Simpson supposedly said that Russia was just one country that research into Trump's business contacts were conducted, the others being the likes of South East Asia and Latin America. We have heard nothing about the outcome of that research.

Dr. Puck , 12 January 2018 at 09:59 AM
It will be most interesting to see Trump's most devoted congressional supporters and 'swamp beast fighters' utilize the timeline and verified facts and (unknown-to-indy investigators) details in the 'private' source, to bring justice to bear on this extremely serious matter. Why hasn't the DOJ appointed a special prosecutor; considering what PT and many others here and elsewhere are "piecing together?"

If Trump wanted to do so, he could have all this factual stuff published on the WH web site; yes? If he did so the counter-narrative would be instantly annihilated, right?

Terry said in reply to Stonevendor ... , 12 January 2018 at 10:09 AM
I didn't vote Trump but I was shocked by the obvious coup d'etat to overthrow Trump after the election. You see some of us support the rule of law, our constitution, and established process for political change. Just because someone is elected that is unpopular with the losing side doesn't mean you throw away everything and become a willing banana Republic. While this was going on I predicted that if they had succeeded they would have over a million angry people in Washington and I would have been one of them

What I find remarkable isn't Trump_vs_deep_state - but rather the blind emotional partisanship that drives far too many people and how willing so many people are to commit treason and tear apart constitutional law just to "win".

Greco said in reply to blue peacock... , 12 January 2018 at 10:28 AM
Further to your points:

- November 2016: Clapper recommended that Rogers be fired. This was soon after Rogers' meeting with Trump.

- March 2017: Trump tweeted that Trump Tower had it's "wires tapped."

Sundance's theory is very interesting. Given the circumstances and the timeline of events, it seems plausible to say the least that Rogers tipped off Trump.

Sid Finster said in reply to blue peacock... , 12 January 2018 at 10:42 AM
I have believed that the FISA courts and procedures are a flat violation of the Sixth Amendment (which guarantees public trials, the right to confront witnesses and the right of the accused to be made aware of the charges against them) ever since the day I became aware of them.
Sid Finster said in reply to Terry... , 12 January 2018 at 10:50 AM
To amplify your point, Terry: once you give the unelected and unaccountable "intelligence community" (or any other part of the Deep State) a de facto veto over election results, you will never get that power back.

You as a country have crossed the Rubicon, and when you get to the other side, you are no longer in a constitutional republic, but in something else.

TimmyB , 12 January 2018 at 10:54 AM
Americans should be able to put their personal beliefs about Trump aside and realize that our country has a serious problem when one-sided opposition research containing little more than rumors is used as the basis for starting a FBI investigation on a presidential candidate during an election. This is especially true when, as we all know, the "news" of such an investigation would soon be leaked to the press.

Personally, I have a very low opinion of Trump and his policies. However, this whole "Russiagate" thing, from what evidence I've seen, is complete bullshit. To see that such obvious bullshit was used to start an FBI spying operation and witch hunts by both the press and a special prosecutor against Trump is outrageous. It is also a crime under our laws. If it can happen to Trump, it can happen to anyone.

One would think the great harm caused by allowing our government intelligence agencies to spy on political candidates and then leak both true and false information about those candidates to the press would be obvious. I hope the people who caused this outrage are prosecuted for the many crimes they committed.

Laura , 12 January 2018 at 11:07 AM
And then...there is this: http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/368671-russia-linked-hackers-targeting-us-senate
Flavius , 12 January 2018 at 11:11 AM
Very, very well done. Andy McCarthy's and Publius Tacitus's combined work in clearing the political and MSM smoke from around this Beltway debacle alone is more than is needed to predicate a full criminal investigation.

In my opinion, another Special Counsel is neither needed nor desirable: a competent apolitical United States Attorney with a special Grand Jury and a couple of squads of FBI Agents brought in from some place like Chicago should be adequate to the job; or the American taxpayer has not been getting its money's worth. A not inconsiderable side benefit would be that our system of justice and the FBI might start to reclaim some of their reputation that is lying in tatters.

The only thing I would add is that I would integrate into the design of the case the multiple unmaskings and unfettered leaks. This case points directly towards the Obama White House and it is reasonable to suspect that it may include Obama himself.

Dr. George W. Oprisko , 12 January 2018 at 11:52 AM

In my view, the deep state......... CIA, FBI, NSA....... had the opportunity to prove their commitment to the welfare of the nation...... given they had the means and opportunity to sway the election.

I'm speaking of Sanders... There was enough dirt on HRC to blackmail her into giving the nomination to Sanders. There was enough dirt on DT to show him as the plaything of the Zionists/ Russians. They had both the Post and Times in their pockets, not to mention Fox and CNN. Only Sanders had a domestic program which could put money into households and thus grow demand and the economy, and Sanders was/is a hawk. They didn't. Their loyalty to HRC trumped the nation.... The question left un asked......... WHY??? What did they have to gain from HRC that no one else offered?

INDY

Richardstevenhack , 12 January 2018 at 12:29 PM
Given that the FBI made no serious effort to analyze the DNC servers after the alleged "hack" and, according to Seymour Hersh, are sitting on an FBI report that fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the supplier of the DNC emails to Wikileaks, these two facts also support the conclusion that the FBI at the highest levels are in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow Trump.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the FBI's history of conducting illegal, criminal activities against various dissident groups in the US and covering up evidence of criminal activity by their own informants - including murder - and also covering up evidence of criminal activity by other law enforcement agencies such as the Bureau of Prisons.

The FBI IS a criminal enterprise.

Richardstevenhack , 12 January 2018 at 12:51 PM
And now we have this...

Mueller adds DOJ cybercrime prosecutor to his team https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/10/russia-special-counsel-mueller-adds-cybercrime-prosecutor-276499

If any of Trump's associates knew about and encouraged the hacking of Democrats' emails and computer servers, they could be charged under the statute.

In November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mueller's team was letting the original DOJ prosecutors retain the investigation of the actual cyber intrusions into the DNC and other targets.

This is beyond ridiculous.

The FBI never investigated the DNC servers because they decided to accept CrowdStrike's analysis despite CrowdStrike being run by a Russian ex-pat who hates Russia and sees Russians under every bed. Now they want to try to accuse Trump associates of "hacking"? Seriously?

Second, according to Seymour Hersh, the FBI is sitting on a report that explicitly fingers murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich as the source for the DNC emails received by Wikileaks.

These two facts - along with the compromised FBI personnel involved in the Fusion GPS scandal - demonstrate that the FBI at the highest levels were involved in a criminal conspiracy to prevent Trump from winning the election.

This establishes that the entire "Russiagate" investigation is nothing but more of the same. The real scandal is that the FBI, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies are involved in a "soft coup" against an elected President.

Publius Tacitus -> Lee A. Arnold ... , 12 January 2018 at 02:01 PM
I can keep smacking you around all day. Here's what Corn reported in January 2017 about his first conversations with Steele: The former spy said he soon decided the information he was receiving was "sufficiently serious" for him to forward it to contacts he had at the FBI. He did this, he said, without permission from the American firm that had hired him. "This was an extraordinary situation," he remarked.

The response to the information from the FBI, he recalled, was "shock and horror." After a few weeks, the bureau asked him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. He was also asked to continue to send copies of his subsequent reports to the bureau. These reports were not written, he noted, as finished work products; they were updates on what he was learning from his various sources. But he said, "My track record as a professional is second to no one."

When I spoke with the former spy, he appeared confident about his material -- acknowledging these memos were works in progress -- and genuinely concerned about the implications of the allegations. He came across as a serious and somber professional who was not eager to talk to a journalist or cause a public splash. He realized he was taking a risk, but he seemed duty bound to share information he deemed crucial. He noted that these allegations deserved a "substantial inquiry" within the FBI.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/spy-who-wrote-trump-russia-memos-it-was-hair-raising-stuff/
Of course, if you had actually read carefully what I wrote you would have known this.

[Jan 14, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
The Russia-gate narrative always hinged on crazy idea that Putin somehow foresaw ago what Donald Trump is a viable Presidential candidate and bet of him This makes him a political genius who is able to see the future. In reality Putin understands much more simper and more sinister fact: in foreign policy the POTUS is a ceremonial figure and it is deep state that determine the US policy, not the President. so it does not really matter who is elected from Russian point of view.
In any case as of Jan 12, 2018 it is clear that Russiagate became FBI-gate -- an attempt of FBI brass to subvert the US Presidential elections in favor of Hillary Clinton. And Ray McGovern played an important role in this making this fact public, first of all discrediting the idea of DNC hack (which was actually an internal leak) which logically led to the analyses of Crowdstrike role and the hypothesis that Crowdstrike injected malware from CIA collection in DNC server(s) and later discovered it implicate Russians. Performing a classic false flag operation.
Notable quotes:
"... In the Watergate era, liberals warned about U.S. intelligence agencies manipulating U.S. politics, but now Trump-hatred has blinded many of them to this danger becoming real, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes. ..."
"... Russia-gate is becoming FBI-gate, thanks to the official release of unguarded text messages between loose-lipped FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and his garrulous girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Ten illustrative texts from their exchange appear at the end of this article.) ..."
"... We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process. And that puts in a new and dark context the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community, shadowy characters sometimes called the Deep State. ..."
"... Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of breathless searching for "evidence" of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time gumshoes used to call "means, motive and opportunity." ..."
"... Even more unfortunately for Russia-gate enthusiasts, the FBI lovers' correspondence provides factual evidence exposing much of the made-up "Resistance" narrative – the contrived storyline that The New York Times and much of the rest of the U.S. mainstream media deemed fit to print with little skepticism and few if any caveats, a scenario about brilliantly devious Russians that not only lacks actual evidence – relying on unverified hearsay and rumor – but doesn't make sense on its face. ..."
"... The Russia-gate narrative always hinged on the preposterous notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin foresaw years ago what no American political analyst considered even possible, the political ascendancy of Donald Trump. According to the narrative, the fortune-telling Putin then risked creating even worse tensions with a nuclear-armed America that would – by all odds – have been led by a vengeful President Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... So, on Jan. 6, 2017, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released an evidence-free report that he said was compiled by "hand-picked" analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA, offering an "assessment" that Russia and President Putin were behind the release of the Democratic emails in a plot to help Trump win the presidency. ..."
"... Despite the extraordinary gravity of the charge, even New York Times correspondent Scott Shane noted that proof was lacking. He wrote at the time: "What is missing from the [the Jan. 6] public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies' claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to 'trust us.'" ..."
"... But the "assessment" served a useful purpose for the never-Trumpers: it applied an official imprimatur on the case for delegitimizing Trump's election and even raised the long-shot hope that the Electoral College might reverse the outcome and possibly install a compromise candidate, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the White House. Though the Powell ploy fizzled, the hope of somehow removing Trump from office continued to bubble, fueled by the growing hysteria around Russia-gate. ..."
"... Virtually all skepticism about the evidence-free "assessment" was banned. For months, the Times and other newspapers of record repeated the lie that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had concurred in the conclusion about the Russian "hack." Even when that falsehood was belatedly acknowledged , the major news outlets just shifted the phrasing slightly to say that U.S. intelligence agencies had reached the Russian "hack" conclusion. Shane's blunt initial recognition about the lack of proof disappeared from the mainstream media's approved narrative of Russia-gate. ..."
"... Doubts about the Russian "hack" or dissident suggestions that what we were witnessing was a "soft coup" were scoffed at by leading media commentators. Other warnings from veteran U.S. intelligence professionals about the weaknesses of the Russia-gate narrative and the danger of letting politicized intelligence overturn a constitutional election were also brushed aside in pursuit of the goal of removing Trump from the White House. ..."
"... It didn't even seem to matter when new Russia-gate disclosures conflicted with the original narrative that Putin had somehow set Trump up as a Manchurian candidate. All normal journalistic skepticism was jettisoned. It was as if the Russia-gate advocates started with the conclusion that Trump must go and then made the facts fit into that mold, but anyone who noted the violations of normal investigative procedures was dismissed as a "Trump enabler" or a "Moscow stooge." ..."
"... But then came the FBI text messages, providing documentary evidence that key FBI officials involved in the Russia-gate investigation were indeed deeply biased and out to get Trump, adding hard proof to Trump's longstanding lament that he was the subject of a "witch hunt ." ..."
"... Justified or not, Trump's feeling of vindication could hardly be more dangerous -- particularly at a time when the most urgent need is to drain some testosterone from the self-styled Stable-Genius-in-Chief and his martinet generals ..."
"... Yet, the sordid process of using legal/investigative means to settle political scores further compromises the principle of the "rule of law" and integrity of journalism in the eyes of many Americans. After a year of Russia-gate, the "rule of law" and "pursuit of truth" appear to have been reduced to high-falutin' phrases for political score-setttling, a process besmirched by Republicans in earlier pursuits of Democrats and now appearing to be a bipartisan method for punishing political rivals regardless of the lack of evidence. ..."
"... Then, as Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, Strzok led the FBI's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election of 2016. It is a safe bet that he took a strong hand in hand-picking the FBI contingent of analysts that joined "hand-picked" counterparts from CIA and NSA in preparing the evidence-free, Jan. 6, 2017 assessment accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of interfering in the election of 2016. (Although accepted in Establishment groupthink as revealed truth, that poor excuse for analysis reflected the apogee of intelligence politicization -- rivaled only by the fraudulent intelligence on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq 15 years ago.) ..."
"... There is no little irony in the fact that what did in the FBI sweathearts was their visceral disdain for Mr. Trump, their cheerleading-cum-kid-gloves treatment of Mrs. Clinton and her associates, their 1950-ish, James Clapperesque attitude toward Russians as "almost genetically driven" to evil, and their (Strzok/Page) elitist conviction that they know far better what is good for the country than regular American citizens, including those "deplorables" whom Clinton said made up half of Trump's supporters. ..."
Jan 12, 2018 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

Special Report: In the Watergate era, liberals warned about U.S. intelligence agencies manipulating U.S. politics, but now Trump-hatred has blinded many of them to this danger becoming real, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.

Russia-gate is becoming FBI-gate, thanks to the official release of unguarded text messages between loose-lipped FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and his garrulous girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Ten illustrative texts from their exchange appear at the end of this article.)

Despite his former job as chief of the FBI's counterintelligence section, Strzok had the naive notion that texting on FBI phones could not be traced. Strzok must have slept through "Security 101." Or perhaps he was busy texting during that class. Girlfriend Page cannot be happy at being misled by his assurance that using office phones would be a secure way to conduct their affair(s).

It would have been unfortunate enough for Strzok and Page to have their adolescent-sounding texts merely exposed, revealing the reckless abandon of star-crossed lovers hiding (they thought) secrets from cuckolded spouses, office colleagues, and the rest of us. However, for the never-Trump plotters in the FBI, the official release of just a fraction (375) of almost 10,000 messages does incalculably more damage than that.

We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process. And that puts in a new and dark context the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community, shadowy characters sometimes called the Deep State.

More of the Strzok-Page texting dialogue is expected to be released. And the Department of Justice Inspector General reportedly has additional damaging texts from others on the team that Special Counsel Robert Mueller selected to help him investigate Russia-gate.

Besides forcing the removal of Strzok and Page, the text exposures also sounded the death knell for the career of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, in whose office some of the plotting took place and who has already announced his plans to retire soon.

But the main casualty is the FBI's 18-month campaign to sabotage candidate-and-now-President Donald Trump by using the Obama administration's Russia-gate intelligence "assessment," electronic surveillance of dubious legality, and a salacious dossier that could never pass the smell test, while at the same time using equally dubious techniques to immunize Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers from crimes that include lying to the FBI and endangering secrets.

Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of breathless searching for "evidence" of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time gumshoes used to call "means, motive and opportunity."

Even more unfortunately for Russia-gate enthusiasts, the FBI lovers' correspondence provides factual evidence exposing much of the made-up "Resistance" narrative – the contrived storyline that The New York Times and much of the rest of the U.S. mainstream media deemed fit to print with little skepticism and few if any caveats, a scenario about brilliantly devious Russians that not only lacks actual evidence – relying on unverified hearsay and rumor – but doesn't make sense on its face.

The Russia-gate narrative always hinged on the preposterous notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin foresaw years ago what no American political analyst considered even possible, the political ascendancy of Donald Trump. According to the narrative, the fortune-telling Putin then risked creating even worse tensions with a nuclear-armed America that would – by all odds – have been led by a vengeful President Hillary Clinton.

Besides this wildly improbable storyline, there were flat denials from WikiLeaks, which distributed the supposedly "hacked" Democratic emails, that the information came from Russia – and there was the curious inability of the National Security Agency to use its immense powers to supply any technical evidence to support the Russia-hack scenario.

The Trump Shock

But the shock of Trump's election and the decision of many never-Trumpers to cast their lot with the Resistance led to a situation in which any prudent skepticism or demand for evidence was swept aside.

So, on Jan. 6, 2017, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released an evidence-free report that he said was compiled by "hand-picked" analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA, offering an "assessment" that Russia and President Putin were behind the release of the Democratic emails in a plot to help Trump win the presidency.

Despite the extraordinary gravity of the charge, even New York Times correspondent Scott Shane noted that proof was lacking. He wrote at the time: "What is missing from the [the Jan. 6] public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies' claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to 'trust us.'"

But the "assessment" served a useful purpose for the never-Trumpers: it applied an official imprimatur on the case for delegitimizing Trump's election and even raised the long-shot hope that the Electoral College might reverse the outcome and possibly install a compromise candidate, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the White House. Though the Powell ploy fizzled, the hope of somehow removing Trump from office continued to bubble, fueled by the growing hysteria around Russia-gate.

Virtually all skepticism about the evidence-free "assessment" was banned. For months, the Times and other newspapers of record repeated the lie that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had concurred in the conclusion about the Russian "hack." Even when that falsehood was belatedly acknowledged , the major news outlets just shifted the phrasing slightly to say that U.S. intelligence agencies had reached the Russian "hack" conclusion. Shane's blunt initial recognition about the lack of proof disappeared from the mainstream media's approved narrative of Russia-gate.

Doubts about the Russian "hack" or dissident suggestions that what we were witnessing was a "soft coup" were scoffed at by leading media commentators. Other warnings from veteran U.S. intelligence professionals about the weaknesses of the Russia-gate narrative and the danger of letting politicized intelligence overturn a constitutional election were also brushed aside in pursuit of the goal of removing Trump from the White House.

It didn't even seem to matter when new Russia-gate disclosures conflicted with the original narrative that Putin had somehow set Trump up as a Manchurian candidate. All normal journalistic skepticism was jettisoned. It was as if the Russia-gate advocates started with the conclusion that Trump must go and then made the facts fit into that mold, but anyone who noted the violations of normal investigative procedures was dismissed as a "Trump enabler" or a "Moscow stooge."

The Text Evidence

But then came the FBI text messages, providing documentary evidence that key FBI officials involved in the Russia-gate investigation were indeed deeply biased and out to get Trump, adding hard proof to Trump's longstanding lament that he was the subject of a "witch hunt ."

Justified or not, Trump's feeling of vindication could hardly be more dangerous -- particularly at a time when the most urgent need is to drain some testosterone from the self-styled Stable-Genius-in-Chief and his martinet generals.

On the home front, Trump, his wealthy friends, and like-thinkers in Congress may now feel they have an even wider carte blanche to visit untold misery on the poor, the widow, the stranger and other vulnerable humans. That was always an underlying danger of the Resistance's strategy to seize on whatever weapons were available – no matter how reckless or unfair – to "get Trump."

Beyond that, Russia-gate has become so central to the Washington establishment's storyline that there appears to be no room for second-thoughts or turning back. The momentum is such that some Democrats and the media never-Trumpers can't stop stoking the smoke of Russia-gate and holding out hope against hope that it will somehow justify Trump's impeachment.

Yet, the sordid process of using legal/investigative means to settle political scores further compromises the principle of the "rule of law" and integrity of journalism in the eyes of many Americans. After a year of Russia-gate, the "rule of law" and "pursuit of truth" appear to have been reduced to high-falutin' phrases for political score-setttling, a process besmirched by Republicans in earlier pursuits of Democrats and now appearing to be a bipartisan method for punishing political rivals regardless of the lack of evidence.

Strzok and Page

Peter Strzok (pronounced "struck") has an interesting pedigree with multiple tasks regarding both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump. As the FBI's chief of counterespionage during the investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's unauthorized use of a personal email server for classified information, Strzok reportedly changed the words "grossly negligent" (which could have triggered legal prosecution) to the far less serious "extremely careless" in FBI Director James Comey's depiction of Clinton's actions. This semantic shift cleared the way for Comey to conclude just 20 days before the Democratic National Convention began in July 2016, that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges against Mrs. Clinton.

Then, as Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, Strzok led the FBI's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election of 2016. It is a safe bet that he took a strong hand in hand-picking the FBI contingent of analysts that joined "hand-picked" counterparts from CIA and NSA in preparing the evidence-free, Jan. 6, 2017 assessment accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of interfering in the election of 2016. (Although accepted in Establishment groupthink as revealed truth, that poor excuse for analysis reflected the apogee of intelligence politicization -- rivaled only by the fraudulent intelligence on "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq 15 years ago.)

In June and July 2017 Strzok was the top FBI official working on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia, but was taken off that job when the Justice Department IG learned of the Strzok-Page text-message exchange and told Mueller.

There is no little irony in the fact that what did in the FBI sweathearts was their visceral disdain for Mr. Trump, their cheerleading-cum-kid-gloves treatment of Mrs. Clinton and her associates, their 1950-ish, James Clapperesque attitude toward Russians as "almost genetically driven" to evil, and their (Strzok/Page) elitist conviction that they know far better what is good for the country than regular American citizens, including those "deplorables" whom Clinton said made up half of Trump's supporters.

But Strzok/Page had no idea that their hubris, elitism and scheming would be revealed in so tangible a way. Worst of all for them, the very thing that Strzok, in particular, worked so hard to achieve -- the sabotaging of Trump and immunization of Mrs. Clinton and her closest advisers is now coming apart at the seams.

[Jan 13, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, with almost four decades of membership in the House and Senate, openly warned incoming President Trump in January 2017 against criticizing the U.S. intelligence community because U.S. intelligence officials have "six ways from Sunday to get back at you" if you are "dumb" enough to take them on. ..."
"... Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says he will ask Strzok to explain the "insurance policy" when he calls him to testify. What seems already clear is that the celebrated "Steele Dossier" was part of the "insurance," as was the evidence-less legend that Russia hacked the DNC's and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails and gave them to WikiLeaks . <img src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fbiseal-291x300.jpg" alt="" width="291" height="300" srcset="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fbiseal-291x300.jpg 291w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/fbiseal.jpg 350w" sizes="(max-width: 291px) 100vw, 291px" /> ..."
"... There is a snowball's chance in hell that this is raw intelligence gathered by Steele; rather he seems to have drawn on a single 'trusted intermediary' to gather unsubstantiated rumor already in existence. ..."
"... "The fact that you do not control your sources frequently means that they will feed you what they think you want to hear. Since they are only doing it for money, the more lurid the details the better, as it increases the apparent value of the information. The private security firm in turn, which is also doing it for the money, will pass on the stories and even embroider them to keep the client happy and to encourage him to come back for more. When I read the Steele dossier it looked awfully familiar to me, like the scores of similar reports I had seen which combined bullshit with enough credible information to make the whole product look respectable." ..."
"... How, you might ask, could Strzok and associates undertake these extra-legal steps with such blithe disregard for the possible consequences should they be caught? The answer is easy; Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? This was just extra insurance with no expectation of any "death benefit" ever coming into play -- save for Trump's electoral demise in November 2016. The attitude seemed to be that, if abuse of the FISA law should eventually be discovered -- there would be little interest in a serious investigation by the editors of The New York Times and other anti-Trump publications and whatever troubles remained could be handled by President Hillary Clinton. ..."
Jan 11, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

Special Report: In the Watergate era, liberals warned about U.S. intelligence agencies manipulating U.S. politics, but now Trump-hatred has blinded many of them to this danger becoming real, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.

... ... ...

[Jan 13, 2018] Peter Strzok committed treason with anti-Trump texts, president says by Dave Boyer

Highly recommended!
Jan 13, 2018 | www.washingtontimes.com

President Trump said in an interview Thursday that an FBI agent in the special counsel's Russia probe committed "treason" by texting his lover an anti- Trump message, and he called for Republican investigators in Congress to conclude their probes swiftly.

Mr. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that Peter Strzok , an FBI agent who was a top investigator on the special counsel Robert Mueller 's team investigating whether Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election, committed treason with his text suggesting an "insurance policy" against a Trump victory.

"A man is tweeting to his lover that if [Democrat Hillary Clinton ] loses, we'll essentially do the insurance policy. We'll go to phase two and we'll get this guy out of office," said Mr. Trump . "This is the FBI we're talking about -- that is treason. That is a treasonous act. What he tweeted to his lover is a treasonous act."

Aitan Goelman, an attorney for Mr. Strzok , told the Journal: "It is beyond reckless for the president of the United States to accuse Pete Strzok, a man who has devoted his entire adult life to defending this country, of treason. It should surprise no one that the president has both the facts and the law wrong."

In an August 2016 text, Mr. Strzok wrote to a woman with whom he was having an affair: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."

[Jan 12, 2018] The DOJ and FBI Worked With Fusion GPS on Operation Trump

Highly recommended!
CIA trace in color revolution against Trump
Notable quotes:
"... Sally Yates essentially said 'all DOJ is subject to oversight, except the National Security Division'. ..."
"... In short, FISA "queries" from any national security department within government are allowed without seeking court approval. ..."
"... We know NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers became aware of an issue with unauthorized FISA-702(17) " About Queries " early in 2016. As a result of a FISA court ruling declassified in May of 2017 we were able to piece a specific timeline together. ..."
"... At the same time Christopher Steele was assembling his dossier information (May-October 2016), the NSA compliance officer was conducting an internal FISA-702 review as initiated by NSA Director Mike Rogers. The NSA compliance officer briefed Admiral Mike Rogers on October 20th 2016. On October 26th 2016, Admiral Rogers informed the FISA Court of numerous unauthorized FISA-702(17) "About Query" violations. Subsequent to that FISC notification Mike Rogers stopped all FISA-702(17) "About Queries" permanently . They are no longer permitted. ..."
"... Mike Rogers discovery becomes the impetus for him to request the 2016 full NSA compliance audit of FISA-702 use. It appears Fusion-GPS was the FBI contracted user identified in the final FISA court opinion/ruling on page 83. ..."
"... What plan came from that April 19th,2016 White House meeting? What plan did Mary Jacoby and Glenn Simpson present to use the information they had assembled? How and who would they feed their information to; and how do they best use that 'valuable' information? This appears to be where Fusion-GPS contracting with Christopher Steele comes in. ..."
"... Contacted by Fox News, investigators for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) confirmed that Nellie H. Ohr, wife of the demoted official, Bruce G. Ohr, worked for the opposition research firm last year. ..."
"... The precise nature of Mrs. Ohr's duties – including whether she worked on the dossier – remains unclear but a review of her published works available online reveals Mrs. Ohr has written extensively on Russia-related subjects. HPSCI staff confirmed to Fox News that she was paid by Fusion GPS through the summer and fall of 2016. ( link ) ..."
"... DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie Ohr had a prior working relationship with Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson. Together they worked on a collaborative CIA Open Source group project surrounding International Organized Crime. ( pdf here ) Page #30 Screen Shot Below . ..."
"... Nellie Ohr is a subject matter expert on Russia, speaks Russian, and also is well versed on CIA operations. Nellie Ohr's skills would include how to build or create counterintelligence frameworks to give the appearance of events that may be entirely fabricated. ..."
"... Knowing the NSA was reviewing FISA "Queries"; and intellectually accepting the resulting information from those queries was likely part of the framework put together by Glenn Simpson and Mary Jacoby; we discover that GPS employee Nellie Ohr applied for a HAM radio license [ May 23rd 2016 ] (screen grab below). ..."
"... Accepting the FBI was utilizing Fusion-GPS as a contractor, there is now an inherent clarity in the relationship between: FBI agent Peter Strzok, Fusion-GPS Glenn Simpson, and 'Russian Dossier' author Christopher Steele. They are all on the same team. ..."
"... The information that Fusion-GPS Glenn Simpson put together from his advanced work on the 'Trump Project', was, in essence, built upon the foundation of the close relationship he already had with the FBI. ..."
"... Simpson, Jacoby and Ohr then passed on their information to Christopher Steele who adds his own ingredients to the mix, turns around, and gives the end product back to the FBI. That end product is laundered intelligence now called "The Trump/Russia Dossier". ..."
"... The FBI turn around and use the "dossier" as the underlying documents and investigative evidence for continued operations against the target of the entire enterprise, candidate Donald Trump. As Peter Strzok would say in August 2016: this is their "insurance policy" per se'. ..."
"... In October 2016, immediately after the DOJ lawyers formatted the FBI information (Steele Dossier etc.) for a valid FISA application, the head of the NSD, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin, left his job . His exit came as the NSD and Admiral Rogers informed the FISC that frequent unauthorized FISA-702 searches had been conducted. Read Here . ..."
"... Yes, the FBI was working with Christopher Steele through their contractor Fusion-GPS. Yes, the FBI and Clinton Team were, in essence, both paying Christopher Steele for his efforts. The FBI paid Steele via their sub-contractor Fusion-GPS. ..."
"... Lastly, when the DOJ/FBI used the Steele Dossier to make their 2016 surveillance activity legal (the October FISA application), they are essentially using the outcome of a process they created themselves in collaboration with both Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... All research indicates the intelligence information the DOJ and FBI collected via their FISA-702 queries, combined with the intelligence Fusion GPS created in their earlier use of contractor access to FISA-702(17) "about queries", was the intelligence data delivered to Christopher Steele for use in creating "The Russian Dossier". ..."
"... Christopher Steele was just laundering intelligence. The Steele "dossier" was then used by the DOJ to gain FISA-702 approvals – which provided retroactive legal cover for the prior campaign surveillance, and also used post-election to create the "Russian Narrative". ..."
"... The ENTIRE SYSTEM of FISA-702 surveillance and data collection was weaponized against a political campaign. The DOJ and FBI used the FISA Court to gain access to Trump data, and simultaneously justify earlier FISA "queries" by their contractor, Fusion GPS. FISA-702 queries were used to gather information on the Trump campaign which later became FBI counterintelligence surveillance on the officials therein. ..."
Jan 12, 2018 | theconservativetreehouse.com
Following the released transcript of Fusion-GPS Co-Founder Glenn Simpson's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee by Senator Dianne Feinstein , several media outlets have begun questioning the relationship between the FBI investigators, Glenn Simpson and dossier author Christopher Steele.

What we have discovered highlights the answer to those relationship questions; and also answers a host of other questions, including: Did the FBI pay Christopher Steele? Yes, but now how media has stated. Was the FBI connected to the creation of the Steele Dossier? Yes, but again, not the way the media is currently outlining.

... ... ...

[Jan 12, 2018] There are strong suspecions that Fusion GPs was CIA front company

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Much of Steele's dossier information appears to have come from his/their Russian contacts: rumors and made-up stories. If the illegal wiretaps had actually found anything of substance we can guarantee that would have been used against Trump by now. ..."
Jan 12, 2018 | theconservativetreehouse.com
bill says: January 12, 2018 at 2:49 pm
You need to realize that Brennan is claiming to be doing an investigation on a Russia Collusion being created by the FBI and DOJ and reporting on its progress to Obama. Note: He says!, He is working with the FBI. NSA in a video. But, he also working with Fusion GPS since they are CIA!

Like Liked by 1 person Reply

1hear2learn says: January 12, 2018 at 2:58 pm
To be frank, I'm po'd about this not being the top story for any news outlet, except Hannity basically.
I just cannot imagine that this news isn't being spread far and wide. I agree with several mentions above, that it won't lead the news cycle until someone is arrested and charged, but I fear that what they have done will end up being an outrage, but no charges due to some legal loopholes. Even so, I think most Americans believe there is a possibility that government is storing all communications, but until it all comes out about how 702 queries are being run by 3rd parties accessing already stored US citizen's information – will Americans really KNOW their communications are ALL being captured and stored, just awaiting any government employee, or 3rd party yahoo to access it legally or illegally and then maybe they'll be as po'd as we already are about this sham.

bill says: January 12, 2018 at 3:23 pm
CIA has farmed out much of its work to hand full of companies. Care to guess who's on a list of U.S. intel contractors? Fusion GPS. Anyone think that the Former CIA director John Brennan did not know what his contractors at Fusion GPS were doing?

phoenixRising says: January 12, 2018 at 3:33 pm
Sundance,

I have suspected Fusion GPS is CIA for sometime now (CIA acting domestically? Illegal for starters, right? But as CIA is Deep State and is attempting to destroy borders, make US part of their big plantation all the rules are out the window, right?)

George Webb says Fusion GPS is Paperclip II

today's video covers Fusion GPS' holding co. Bean LLC, (a fella called Terry Bean) and Nellie Ohr, Russian analyst etc Operation Cassandra. Caudex (another holding co. is covered in today's video ) [there's lots more on GPS in other videos)

Geo Webb has said over and over that Hillary has been using McCabe for 20 years to do
illegal wiretapping Webb maintains in 2nd link above that McCabe did 'white van thing' on Trump Tower etc.

phoenixRising says: January 12, 2018 at 3:38 pm
Here's another on Coudex – from Webb. Shows Simpson's LLC's are front companies
bill says: January 12, 2018 at 3:48 pm
So now, we have a CIA contractor called Fusion GPS working for the FBI in order to construct and distribute a fake Dossier to the MSM and to get a FISA approved for spying on Trump and his people.

This of course means that the Former CIA director Brennan knew what his contractors (Fusion GPS) were doing since according to a video. He was keeping former President Obama early on.

I wonder if Fusion GPS people were getting paid twice from the FBI and CIA?

Steve Outtrim says: January 12, 2018 at 3:36 pm
You guys are doing a really outstanding job in your reporting of this story. However the suggestion that information from FISA about requests became the contents of the Steele dossier gives undue credence to the garbages document.

Much of Steele's dossier information appears to have come from his/their Russian contacts: rumors and made-up stories. If the illegal wiretaps had actually found anything of substance we can guarantee that would have been used against Trump by now.

Bonitabaycane says: January 12, 2018 at 3:38 pm
Sundance, as usual, has done an outstanding job of defining who, and describing what this traitorous Crime Family has done. Make no mistake, however; every Crime Family has a leader. That leader is none other than Obama bin Lyin'. This criminal subversion of the Constitution was approved, overseen, and led by The Community-Organizer-in-Chief.
phoenixRising says: January 12, 2018 at 3:40 pm
Lots of folks, including myself, believe Hussein to be CIA plant in the White House
phoenixRising says: January 12, 2018 at 3:45 pm
Day 84.1 Peter Strzok Was an FBI Agent 20 Years Ago, He's a Shared Dropbox Now

https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=UUrQ-wHKVi0JDWjQGcuoYnew&hl=en_US

"One continuous counter-intellligence operation" Using blackberries

Zimbalistjunior says: January 12, 2018 at 4:48 pm
Bingo makes one want to take a nice look at his employment history pre becoming state senator .after college, works for a known CIA front company after law school, though -- who was he informing on as a 'community organizer'? who was he recruiting as a professor? was he snitching on Rev Wright? there's 20 years of shadiness to review

more fun for another day.

H&HC 2nd-16th says: January 12, 2018 at 3:54 pm
And Mueller keeps plugging along ..
hardworkingsob says: January 12, 2018 at 3:56 pm
and we pay these people to abuse us. just remember that, if you ever pass one of these #@$%#& on the street.
bill says: January 12, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Just my summary:

On Video: Former CIA director John Brennan admitting that he instigated the entire intelligence operation re: Russia Trump. He proceeds to tell the committee that in July 2016 he instigated a multi agency operation and that he keep then President Obama well informed.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/sGg8gpGqr-w?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

So why should we believe Brennan (above) "Comey surely assumed that Brennan has put Reid up to writing the letter -- and even worse, he knew that his counterpart at Langley was talking about it with *their boss*. Last August, the White House began convening high-level meetings to discuss Russian interference in the 2016 elections. It began, according to a June 23, 2017, Washington Post article, when "an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried "eyes only" instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.""

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/251897/obama-steele-dossier-russiagate

CIA has apparently farmed out much of its work to a hand full of companies. Care to guess who's on this list of U.S. intel contractors? Fusion GPS. Anyone think that the Former CIA director John Brennan did not know what his contractors at Fusion GPS were doing?

As we know the FBI was working with CIA Contractor Fusion GPS to construct the FISA application and with unsupervised access to the FISA Database.

So, I am reading all of this to mean that Obama was not only aware of this Dossier but was apparently getting reports. The only kind reports that make since are those on its progress.

[Jan 08, 2018] Was Flynn Framed? by Tim Suereth

Highly recommended!
Looks like classic, textbook case of entrapment...
Notable quotes:
"... Strzok also played a key role in analyzing and validating the Dodgy Dossier that was given to the FBI by operatives of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, which has been used to get FISA search warrants to spy on Trump confidants during and after the presidential campaign. ..."
"... Strzok is the same agent ..."
"... When Flynn was interviewed at the White House by the FBI on January 24th , he had no idea he was entering an interrogation. He was initially contacted by Deputy FBI Director Andrew Macabe, by phone, to tell him that there were some FBI agents on their way over and that they had clearance to get through the gate. Flynn thought that the agents were coming over to do some additional training of security protocols around the White House that had been going on through the previous week so he was completely unprepared for the interrogation. He did not realize he was even being interviewed until a few minutes into a conversation with the FBI agents at his office. He did not have an attorney present, or was given the opportunity to have one. Instead, FBI agent Peter Strzok was successful in confusing and rattling General Flynn until he got the lie he was looking for. ..."
"... A former U.S. intelligence official told Hannity.com , "with the recent revelation that Strzok was removed from the Special Counsel investigation for making anti-Trump text messages it seems likely that the accuracy and veracity of the Flynn's interview as a whole should be reviewed and called into question. The most logical thing to happen would be to call the other FBI Special Agent present during Flynn's interview before the Grand Jury to recount his version. How logical is it that Flynn is being charged for lying to an agent whose character and neutrality was called into question by the Special Counsel." ..."
"... The FBI surveillance of General Flynn began out of an illegal unmasking of Trump associates and presidential campaign staff by Obama's National Security Advisor Susan Rice during the 2016 election, and due to the now discredited DNC funded Dodgy Dossier. So the Obama administration illegally surveil the incoming NSA Advisor and then use it to set up a perjury trap for Flynn who is engaged in perfectly legal and patriotic activity. #entrapment#BSIndictment#set- up. ..."
| stonecoldtruth.com

The FBI has gone light on Democrats such as Hillary Clinton in the past but they have been going after Trump associates with a vengeance. A clear example of partisan prosecution is evidenced by the man who was sent by Special Prosecutor Bob Mueller to interview General Flynn.

His name is Peter Strzok, an ardent Trump hater, who was recently fired by the FBI for inappropriate anti-trump messages he was sending to other FBI colleagues, including FBI Deputy Director Andrew Mcabe's attorney, Lisa Page – who happens to be the girlfriend of Peter Strzok .

Strzok also played a key role in analyzing and validating the Dodgy Dossier that was given to the FBI by operatives of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, which has been used to get FISA search warrants to spy on Trump confidants during and after the presidential campaign.

Strzok is the same agent who altered former FBI Director James Comey's analysts of the Clinton email server scandal that changed Comey's assessment of Hillary Clinton from "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless,"

Why would Special Prosecutor Bob Mueller send a known Trump hater to interview Flynn? It is another unethical and suspicious move by the special prosecutors office that makes us all question their motives and integrity.

When Flynn was interviewed at the White House by the FBI on January 24th , he had no idea he was entering an interrogation. He was initially contacted by Deputy FBI Director Andrew Macabe, by phone, to tell him that there were some FBI agents on their way over and that they had clearance to get through the gate. Flynn thought that the agents were coming over to do some additional training of security protocols around the White House that had been going on through the previous week so he was completely unprepared for the interrogation. He did not realize he was even being interviewed until a few minutes into a conversation with the FBI agents at his office. He did not have an attorney present, or was given the opportunity to have one. Instead, FBI agent Peter Strzok was successful in confusing and rattling General Flynn until he got the lie he was looking for.

A former U.S. intelligence official told Hannity.com , "with the recent revelation that Strzok was removed from the Special Counsel investigation for making anti-Trump text messages it seems likely that the accuracy and veracity of the Flynn's interview as a whole should be reviewed and called into question. The most logical thing to happen would be to call the other FBI Special Agent present during Flynn's interview before the Grand Jury to recount his version. How logical is it that Flynn is being charged for lying to an agent whose character and neutrality was called into question by the Special Counsel."

The FBI surveillance of General Flynn began out of an illegal unmasking of Trump associates and presidential campaign staff by Obama's National Security Advisor Susan Rice during the 2016 election, and due to the now discredited DNC funded Dodgy Dossier. So the Obama administration illegally surveil the incoming NSA Advisor and then use it to set up a perjury trap for Flynn who is engaged in perfectly legal and patriotic activity. #entrapment#BSIndictment#set- up.

After an election has been decided, a president-elect, and his staff, have the absolute right to communicate with dignitaries, future co-workers or exiting employees, in their transition into office, especially for someone like Flynn who was a leading member of Trumps transition team. Any member of the presidential transition team is a federal government employee, paid by the federal government, and they possess a federal email address.

It is common practice for candidates and president-elects to use emissaries with foreign leaders during a campaign and during the transition, and it is perfectly legal to have diplomatic back channel communications while president elect, especially if the prior administration is passing laws during their last month in office that they know are contrary to the next administrations policies.

Candidates often meet with world leaders throughout an election campaign to show the public that they are capable of international negotiations. It's hardly a case of treason. If so, Obama should be in jail for the rest of his life for the grand diplomatic tour he took during his presidential campaign. To threaten Flynn with a 5-year prison sentence for making a phone call to a diplomat during the presidential transition term seems extreme – and politically motivated.

During Obama's 2008 presidential election, CNN reported, " Obama is expected to meet Israel's top leaders : President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu; and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad. Obama can expect a friendly reception in Europe, where he will meet Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In addition to Merkel, Obama is slated to meet with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron as well as French President Nicolas Sarkozy."

Obama also openly used emissaries to meet with foreign leaders during his presidential transition.

Flynn and the Trump administration had good reason for reaching out to Russia. They were requesting that Russia does not retaliate for the recent sanctions Obama placed on their country on the last days of his presidency. Just a few days after Trump won the presidential election, his team cautioned the Obama administration to not pursue any new damaging foreign policy initiatives that did not align with President Trumps priorities, but within his last month in office, during the transition, Obama enacted new sanctions against Russia, for apparent meddling in the U.S election.

[Jan 07, 2018] CONFIRMED: CLINTON OPERATIVES IN FBI MANUFACTURED RUSSIAGATE by Roger Stone

Highly recommended!
Roger stone overplays Uranium one deal for his own partisan purposes. But he is write in his assessment of the "Appointment of the Special Prosecutor gambit".
Notable quotes:
"... This incredible scheme perpetrated by the criminal Clintons and their coterie of minions and fellow travelers, implicates top officials of our federal government including and especially the U.S Department of Justice, including and especially Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein. ..."
"... Mueller's decades as an establishment federal careerist, which only ended with his ceding of the FBI's top job to his good pal, criminal leaker and manipulator Big Jim Comey, offer more than enough grounds for Mueller's disqualification for merely the appearances of impropriety and professional conflicts of interest they raise, just at the outset. ..."
"... That Mueller took the Special Counsel appointment without even blinking, despite his own close professional and personal connections to key figures implicated in the DOJ, NSA and FBI corruption in service to ulterior partisan ends, via the Clinton crime family, was a major red flag, right from the beginning. ..."
"... Reinforcing this red flag was the fact that Mueller's entire (supposed) vetting for this sensitive, consequential special counsel position amounted a single-sentence approval letter signed by some faceless Deputy AG barely a day after the appointment was promulgated ..."
Dec 20, 2017 | stonecoldtruth.com
Conspiracy to overthrow elected president by criminal mafia confirmed

As I noted in an editorial last week, President Donald Trump has only one viable option to repel the partisan lynch mob now nipping at his heels in the form of a taxpayer-funded pack of legal hyenas, masquerading as objective prosecutors under the droopy eyes of old reliable deep state hatchet man Robert Swan Mueller III, the special counsel appointed to "investigate" the Clinton-Podesta-Schiff-Democrat Party-Corporate Media fabricated Russia collusion delusion.

As the GOP Congress finally begins to stir, as rapid-fire events make it increasingly impossible to deny the true nature of Mueller's handpicked partisan hit squad of Trump-hating, Hillary-supporting D.C. swamp lawyers and arrogant federal careerists, as firings and other departures quickly erode the carefully-contrived, totally-counterfeit veneer of credibility ascribed to Mueller and his henchpeople, my advice to the president has only become more apropos and more imperative.

President Trump can, and must, kill two birds with one stone.

First, the president must completely disempower and dismantle Robert S. Mueller's fraudulent rogue prosecution gang, which is merely an extension of a larger corruption of power that is unparalleled in our history.

Second, the president must use every resource at his disposal to prosecute the almost-seditious abuses of power by lawless Clinton-Obama FBI and NSA apparatchiks who:

  1. Politically weaponized the federal government's electronic intelligence capabilities to spy on a presidential candidate and his campaign,
  2. Colluded with foreign and non-state intelligence agents to manufacture evidence used as false pretexts for securing FISA warrants(s) that employed the national security laws of the United States to give illicit, illegal cover to this political espionage,
  3. Used the fruits of this political espionage activity to damage or otherwise hinder this candidate once they had become president-elect and eventually President of the United States through surreptitious releases of the criminally-procured information,
  4. Fabricated and instigated false allegations about foreign state collusion implicating the president's election campaign and family members, and
  5. Perpetuated this massive criminal fraud on the American people for nearly a full year by manipulating and abusing the investigatory and prosecutorial powers of the Department of Justice.

To this end, President Trump must begin at the intersection of these seditious current and former federal officials who had previously facilitated and covered up a similarly-breathtaking and brazen criminal fraud on the country during the previous presidential administration, to include the previous president.

The president must order his Attorney General to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Obama-Clinton-Mueller-Rosenstein criminal collusion that enriched the Clinton-Democrat crime syndicate by 100s of millions of dollars and further embedded the power of the deep state operators who facilitated what may be the most brazen of self-serving criminal treasons in American history: the multi-billion-dollar Uranium One pay-to-play scam.

This incredible scheme perpetrated by the criminal Clintons and their coterie of minions and fellow travelers, implicates top officials of our federal government including and especially the U.S Department of Justice, including and especially Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein.

This course of action is manifestly in the best interests of this country and of justice. It is not some political maneuver against the president's cynical partisan persecutors or some clever machination to spare his presidency from the illegitimate cabal that is single-minded in its intent to fraudulently remove the president from office, by any means possible.

This action by the president is both legally and constitutionally necessary to preserve any remaining credibility in our institutions of government, which now hinges on whether or not justice will, once and for all, be visited upon the Clintons and their well-placed partisan accomplices, finally vindicating our system of law and justice after decades of brazen, yet-unpunished corruption that the Clintons and their ilk have insinuated into these institutions, bringing unparalleled and a now-accelerating degradation to American civic life itself.

Pro-active Republican lawmakers have already demanded the resignation of Robert Mueller, as a start, and are calling for a thorough probe of his entire ad hoc operation, which is now coming apart at the seams with almost daily revelations of its rotten fraudulent core.

Mueller's decades as an establishment federal careerist, which only ended with his ceding of the FBI's top job to his good pal, criminal leaker and manipulator Big Jim Comey, offer more than enough grounds for Mueller's disqualification for merely the appearances of impropriety and professional conflicts of interest they raise, just at the outset. They are of such incestuous nature as it concerns key figures of the conspiracy to remove the president that Mueller should never even have been considered for appointment.

That Mueller took the Special Counsel appointment without even blinking, despite his own close professional and personal connections to key figures implicated in the DOJ, NSA and FBI corruption in service to ulterior partisan ends, via the Clinton crime family, was a major red flag, right from the beginning.

Reinforcing this red flag was the fact that Mueller's entire (supposed) vetting for this sensitive, consequential special counsel position amounted a single-sentence approval letter signed by some faceless Deputy AG barely a day after the appointment was promulgated.

... ... ...

This article originally appeared on Infowars .

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fi4OjUrKgo0

[Jan 02, 2018] Some investigators ask a sensible question: "It is likely that all the Russians involved in the attempt to influence the 2016 election were lying, scheming, Kremlin-linked, Putin-backed enemies of America except the Russians who talked to Christopher Steele?"

Highly recommended!
"If one argues the document is unverified and never will be, it is critical to learn the identity of the sources to support that conclusion. If one argues the document is the whole truth, or largely true, knowing sources is equally critical."
Notable quotes:
"... there is another reason to know Steele's sources, and that is to learn not just the origin of the dossier but its place in the larger Trump-Russia affai ..."
"... Really incredible that it is assumed that everyone will believe any loopy paid-by-Soros "sources" the CIA trots out. ..."
"... I'll not bother with the CIA's repugnant history of overthrowing governments all over the planet. But I do have to ask: when are the Russia-did-it enthusiasts going to stop making fools of themselves? ..."
"... Steele's contacts might just be a bunch of washed-up spies like himself, feeding him garbage ... because he was paying for it. ..."
Dec 30, 2017 | theduran.com

According to Zerohedge, there is another reason to know Steele's sources, and that is to learn not just the origin of the dossier but its place in the larger Trump-Russia affair.

As the WashEx adds, there is a belief among some congressional investigators that the Russians who provided information to Steele were using Steele to disrupt the American election as much as the Russians who distributed hacked Democratic Party emails. In some investigators' views, they are the two sides of the Trump-Russia project, both aimed at sowing chaos and discord in the American political system.

Still, investigators who favor this theory ask a sensible question: " It is likely that all the Russians involved in the attempt to influence the 2016 election were lying, scheming, Kremlin-linked, Putin-backed enemies of America – except the Russians who talked to Christopher Steele? "

On the other hand, the theory is still just a theory, for now and as the Examiner's Byron York correctly points out, to validate -or refute – it House investigators will seek Steele's sources – and is why they will try to compel Kramer to talk.

journey80 , December 28, 2017 12:32 PM

Are we supposed to believe that the CIA doesn't have any Russian spooks on its payroll? Any Russian "sources" are going to be taken as gold? Really incredible that it is assumed that everyone will believe any loopy paid-by-Soros "sources" the CIA trots out.

https://www.thenation.com/a...

I'll not bother with the CIA's repugnant history of overthrowing governments all over the planet. But I do have to ask: when are the Russia-did-it enthusiasts going to stop making fools of themselves?

Franz Kafka journey80 , December 28, 2017 9:59 PM

They have an audience which chooses to believe that the fools are wise-men.

stevek9 , December 29, 2017 8:56 AM

There is another theory: the 'Kremlin' did not direct any of this. Steele's contacts might just be a bunch of washed-up spies like himself, feeding him garbage ... because he was paying for it.

[Jan 01, 2018] British Intervention into 2016 U.S. Election

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... [ Print version of this article ] ..."
"... MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
Jan 01, 2018 | www.larouchepub.com

A Timeline and Key Players

[ Print version of this article ]

Christopher Steele, Key British Operative

• April 1990 to April 1993. MI6 agent Christopher Steele stationed in Moscow.

• 1998. British Embassy in Paris, serving officially as First Secretary Financial.

• 1999. Outed online as MI6 agent.

• 2006. MI6 Russia desk in London.

• 2009. Left MI6 to set up Orbis (22 years in MI6).

• 2010. Fusion GPS set up by Glenn Simpson in 2010.

• According to Luke Harding, author of Collusion , Simpson specialized as a journalist on the intersection between organized crime and the Russian state.

• According to Harding, Steele and Simpson knew the same FBI agents, shared expertise on Russia, and began a professional partnership.

• Harding, the author of Collusion, was a correspondent for the London Guardian in Russia from 2007 until 2011, after which he was refused re-entry to Russia. In 2011 book Mafia State, he describes Russia under Putin as a mafia state.

Chronology, 2010 to Present 2010

• In the summer of 2010, members of a New York-based FBI squad assigned to investigate "Eurasian Organized Crime" met Steele in London to discuss allegations of possible corruption in FIFA, the Zurich, Switzerland-based body that also organizes the World Cup tournament.

• FBI agent Andrew McCabe began work as a supervisory special agent at the Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force in 2003.

2014

• Steele authored more than 100 reports on Russia and Ukraine between 2014 and 2016, which were written for an unidentified private client and shared with the U.S. State Department; sent to Secretary of State John Kerry and Victoria Nuland.

• The FBI obtains a FISA warrant to surveil Paul Manafort in 2014, based on his political consulting work in Ukraine. Were Steele's reports used to obtain the 2014 authorization to surveil Manafort?

• Ukrainian President Yanukovych was forced to flee Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, following a coup d'etat by followers of Ukrainian World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. According to Stephen Dorril, author of MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service , Bandera's organization, OUN-B, was re-formed in 1946 under the sponsorship of MI6. The organization had been receiving some support from MI6 since the 1930s. Bandera was recruited by MI6 to work in London in 1948. Bandera's second in command, Mykola Lebed, was brought to New York City in the same year by the CIA's Allen Dulles.

• Flynn wrote a letter in 2014 on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz on his official Pentagon stationery. He gave a public interview in 2015 supporting Gritz and offered to testify on her behalf. His offer put him as a hostile witness in a case against McCabe, who was accused by Gritz of sexual discrimination. McCabe never recused himself from Flynn investigation.

2015

• McCabe attends a meeting in March 2015 with Clinton ally Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, for the purpose of gaining support for his wife Jill McCabe to run for state legislature against State Senator Richard Black, a leading opponent of Obama's regime change policy and supporter of General Flynn. McCabe is now being investigated for violation of the Hatch Act.

• Donald Trump announces candidacy for President on June 16, 2015.

• GCHQ surveilled Trump associates beginning late 2015. The alleged intelligence was passed to the United States over the next several months.

2016

FEBRUARY

• Andrew McCabe in February 2016 becomes Deputy Director of FBI, gains oversight of Clinton email server investigation, despite the fact that his wife Jill McCabe received several hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from Clinton supporter McAuliffe. He only recuses himself on November 1, 2016 after the investigation is over.

APRIL

• The DNC and Clinton campaign in April 2016 hired Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie law firm and attorney Marc Elias.

• Fusion GPS hired Steele at end of April 2016. His first assignment to investigate Paul Manafort.

JUNE

• Steele issues his first memo in June 2016; total of 16 memos June to early Nov. 2016.

• Steele flew in June 2016 to Rome to brief his FBI contact in the Eurasian serious crime division, a unit previously supervised in New York City by Andrew McCabe.

• Robert Hannigan, head of GCHQ flew to U.S. in the Summer of 2016 to brief John Brennan. Brennan launched interagency investigation; meanwhile the FBI had already been briefed by Steele through the FBI Eurasian serious crime division contact.

JULY

• July 2. FBI led by Peter Strzok interviews Hillary Clinton.

• July 5. FBI Director James Comey reports there will be no charges against Hillary Clinton, language changed from earlier drafts from "grossly negligent" to "extremely recklessly," reportedly at insistence of Strzok.

• July 19. Trump wins the Republican nomination for President.

• July 22. WikiLeaks publishes the first DNC emails, Democrats claim Russia responsible, FBI never inspects the server.

• July. Investigation opened into collusion between Trump campaign and Russia. Document signed by Peter Strzok.

SEPTEMBER

• Steele flew back to Rome to meet the "FBI leadership team," possibly including Peter Strzok.

• According to NY Times , Steele heard back from his FBI contact that the agency wanted to see the material he collected right away, while offering to pay him $50,000.

• Later in September, Steele held meetings with the NY Times , Washington Post , Yahoo, New Yorker and CNN.

• FISA court authorized surveillance of Carter Page in Sept. 2016.

OCTOBER

• Mid-October. Steele visited New York City and met reporters again.

• Late October. Steele spoke to Mother Jones . Article appeared Oct. 31, 2016.

NOVEMBER

• Nov. 8. Andrew Weismann, now the lead attorney of Robert Mueller's Special Council team, attends Hillary Clinton's election night party.

2017

JANUARY

• Strzok, on January 24, interviews Michael Flynn. Strzok's mistress Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, works for Andrew McCabe. Andrew McCabe called Flynn to tell him FBI agents were coming to the White House to meet with him, without telling Flynn it was a criminal investigation interview.

FEBRUARY

• CNN, on February 17, reports "The FBI interviewers believed Flynn was cooperative and provided truthful answers."

MAY

• Comey is fired May 9.

• Rosenstein appoints Mueller Special Counsel May 17.

AUGUST

• Mueller removes Strzok August 16, stonewalls Congressional requests for information on Strzok firing for nearly 4 months.

DECEMBER

• Flynn pleads guilty to lying to FBI on Dec. 1.

• The Washington Post and NY Times receive a leak on Dec. 2 that Strzok removed from Special Counsel team.

• Bruce G. Ohr, Associate Deputy Attorney General under Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, ousted on Dec. 7 after House Intelligence discovered he met during the 2016 campaign with Christopher Steele. He also met shortly after the election around Thanksgiving with Glenn Simpson. It is believed that Ohr and Simpson were put in contact by Steele, whose contacts with Ohr are said by senior DOJ officials to date back to 2006. According to his biography, "Mr. Ohr was an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (1991-99), and was Chief of the Violent Gangs Unit in that office (1998-99). Mr. Ohr joined the Criminal Division in 1999 and served as Chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section until 2011, when he became Counselor for Transnational Organized Crime and International Affairs in the Criminal Division, serving in that position until November 2014." Bruce Ohr's wife Nellie Ohr works for Fusion GPS throughout the 2016 campaign.

[Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater

Highly recommended!
What a pitiful pressitute this Like Harding is...
The fact that he is employed by Guardia tells a lot how low Guardian fall. It's a yellow press (owned by intelligence agencies if we talk about their coverage of Russia).
Notable quotes:
"... In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy Scahill accurately described as "brutal". ..."
"... Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the appearance of a legitimate argument. ..."
"... That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument. ..."
Dec 28, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

Have you ever wondered why mainstream media outlets, despite being so fond of dramatic panel debates on other hot-button issues, never have critics of the Russiagate narrative on to debate those who advance it? Well, in a recent Real News interview we received an extremely clear answer to that question, and it was so epic it deserves its own article.

Real News host and producer Aaron Maté has recently emerged as one of the most articulate critics of the establishment Russia narrative and the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, and has published in The Nation some of the clearest arguments against both that I've yet seen. Luke Harding is a journalist for The Guardian where he has been writing prolifically in promotion of the Russiagate narrative, and is the author of New York Times bestseller Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.

In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy Scahill accurately described as "brutal".

The term Gish gallop , named after a Young Earth creationist who was notoriously fond of employing it, refers to a fallacious debate tactic in which a bunch of individually weak arguments are strung together in rapid-fire succession in order to create the illusion of a solid argument and overwhelm the opposition's ability to refute them all in the time allotted. Throughout the discussion the Gish gallop appeared to be the only tool that Luke Harding brought to the table, firing out a deluge of feeble and unsubstantiated arguments only to be stopped over and over again by Maté who kept pointing out when Harding was making a false or fallacious claim.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Ikf1uZli4g

In this part here , for example, the following exchange takes place while Harding is already against the ropes on the back of a previous failed argument. I'm going to type this up so you can clearly see what's happening here:

Harding: Look, I'm a journalist. I'm a storyteller. I'm not a kind of head of the CIA or the NSA. But what I can tell you is that there have been similar operations in France, most recently when President Macron was elected ? -

Maté: Well actually Luke that's not true. That's straight up not true. After that election the French cyber-intelligence agency came out and said it could have been virtually anybody.

Harding: Yeah. But, if you'll let me finish, there've been attacks on the German parliament ? -

Maté: Okay, but wait Luke, do you concede that the France hack that you just claimed didn't happen?

Harding: [pause] What? -- ?that it didn't happen? Sorry?

Maté: Do you concede that the Russian hacking of the French election that you just claimed actually is not true?

Harding: [pause] Well, I mean that it's not true? I mean, the French report was inconclusive, but you have to look at this kind of contextually. We've seen attacks on other European states as well from Russia, they have very kind of advanced cyber capabilities.

Maté: Where else?

Harding: Well, Estonia. Have you heard of Estonia? It's a state in the Baltics which was crippled by a massive cyber attack in 2008, which certainly all kind of western European and former eastern European states think was carried out by Moscow. I mean I was in Moscow at the time, when relations between the two countries were extremely bad. This is a kind of ongoing thing. Now you might say, quite legitimately, well the US does the same thing, the UK does the same thing, and I think to a certain extent that is certainly right. I think what was different last year was the attempt to kind of dump this stuff out into kind of US public space and try and influence public opinion there. That's unusual. And of course that's a matter of congressional inquiry and something Mueller is looking at too.

Maté: Right. But again, my problem here is that the examples that are frequently presented to substantiate claims of this massive Russian hacking operation around the world prove out to be false. So France as I mentioned; you also mentioned Germany. There was a lot of worry about Russian hacking of the German elections, but it turned out? -- ?and there's plenty of articles since then that have acknowledged this? - ? that actually there was no Russian hack in Germany.

In the above exchange, Maté derailed Harding's Gish gallop, and Harding actually admonished him for doing so, telling him "let me finish" and attempting to go on listing more flimsy examples to bolster his case as though he hadn't just begun his Gish gallop with a completely false example .

That's really all Harding brought to the debate. A bunch of individually weak arguments, the fact that he speaks Russian and has lived in Moscow, and the occasional straw man where he tries to imply that Maté is claiming that Vladimir Putin is an innocent girl scout. Meanwhile Maté just kept patiently dragging the debate back on track over and over again in the most polite obliteration of a man that I have ever witnessed.

The entire interview followed this basic script. Harding makes an unfounded claim, Maté holds him to the fact that it's unfounded, Harding sputters a bit and tries to zoom things out and point to a bigger-picture analysis of broader trends to distract from the fact that he'd just made an individual claim that was baseless, then winds up implying that Maté is only skeptical of the claims because he hasn't lived in Russia as Harding has.

jeremy scahill 0
@jeremyscahill
This @aaronjmate interview is brutal. He makes mincemeat of Luke Harding, who can't seem to defend the thesis, much less the title, of his own book: Where's the 'Collusion' - YouTube
11:03 AM-Dec 25, 2017
Q 131 11597 C? 1,148

The interview ended when Harding once again implied that Maté was only skeptical of the collusion narrative because he'd never been to Russia and seen what a right-wing oppressive government it is, after which the following exchange took place:

Maté: I don't think I've countered anything you've said about the state of Vladimir Putin's Russia. The issue under discussion today has been whether there was collusion, the topic of your book.
Harding: Yeah, but you're clearly a kind of collusion rejectionist, so I'm not sure what sort of evidence short of Trump and Putin in a sauna together would convince you. Clearly nothing would convince you. But anyway it's been a pleasure.

At which point Harding abruptly logged off the video chat, leaving Maté to wrap up the show and promote Harding's book on his own.

You should definitely watch this debate for yourself , and enjoy it, because I will be shocked if we ever see another like it. Harding's fate will serve as a cautionary tale for the establishment hacks who've built their careers advancing the Russiagate conspiracy theory , and it's highly unlikely that any of them will ever make the mistake of trying to debate anyone of Maté's caliber again.

The reason Russiagaters speak so often in broad, sweeping terms? - saying there are too many suspicious things happening for there not to be a there there, that there's too much smoke for there not to be fire? - ? is because when you zoom in and focus on any individual part of their conspiracy theory, it falls apart under the slightest amount of critical thinking (or as Harding calls it, "collusion rejectionism"). Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the appearance of a legitimate argument.

Well, Harding did say he's a storyteller.

* * *

Thanks for reading! My work here is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following me on Twitter , bookmarking my website , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . Our Hidden History 4 days ago (edited) That Harding tells Mate to meet Alexi Navalny, who is a far right nationalist and most certainly a tool of US intelligence (something like Russia's Richard Spencer) was all I needed to hear to understand where Luke is coming from.

He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western intelligence agencies.

That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument.

Few in the US know about these cases or what occurred, or of the many forces inside of Russia that might be involved in murdering journalists just as in Mexico or Turkey. But these cases are not explained - blame is merely assigned to Putin himself. Of course if someone here discusses he death of Michael Hastings, they're a "conspiracy theorist", but if the crime involves a Russian were to assign the blame to Vladimir Putin and, no further explanation is required.

[Dec 31, 2017] EXCLUSIVE FBI s Own Political Terror Plot; Deputy Director and FBI Brass Secretly Conspired to Wage Coup Against Flynn Trump

Highly recommended!
At the congregation where McCabe went off the political rails and vowed to destroy Flynn and Trump, there were as many as 16 top FBI officials, inside intelligence sources said. No lower-level agents or support personnel were present.
Notable quotes:
"... This was one of several such meetings held in seclusion among key FBI leaders since Trump was elected president, FBI sources confirm. At the congregation where McCabe went off the political rails and vowed to destroy Flynn and Trump, there were as many as 16 top FBI officials, inside intelligence sources said. No lower-level agents or support personnel were present. ..."
"... If you are among the millions of Americans who have pondered in recent months whether the Obama-era "Deep State" intelligence apparatus and FBI are working for or against Trump, this is the first definitive proof that the country's once-premiere law enforcement agency has gone rogue. ..."
"... Embattled FBI Director James Comey did not attend these private meetings of his interoffice revolutionaries, sources said, though he was aware of the gatherings yet did not discourage them or McCabe's inflammatory and dangerous rhetoric. Some FBI agents have questioned if the Anti-Trump attitude shared in the secret sit downs with the bureau's top brass is now the official platform of the FBI. The FBI, many agents quietly agree, has proven no friend to the newly minted US president. And they are beginning to understand why. ..."
"... Democratic factions controlled by a Hillary Clinton insider paid the deputy director of the FBI's wife almost $700,000 in campaign funds before McCabe, who was supervising Clinton's investigation, lobbied against charging her criminally, according to records and interviews obtained by True Pundit. ..."
"... According to one FBI insider, the McAuliffe-generated campaign funds may have ultimately bought Clinton some strategic breathing room ..."
"... "McCabe was one of the few people who backed Comey's decision not to refer Hillary Clinton to the Justice Department for indictment," a FBI source said of the July 2016 decision not to refer Clinton for criminal charges for violating email and document safeguards for classified and Top Secret national security intelligence. "McCabe and Comey are both lawyers. They aren't street agents. They're more political. We wanted her (Clinton) indicted. They did not." ..."
"... McAuliffe's contributions to Dr. McCabe's campaign match the exact time frame of the FBI's parallel Clinton investigation. No contributions were made prior to the FBI's probe of Clinton. McCabe was overseeing personnel decisions, including assigning agents to the Clinton investigation team, at the FBI's Washington D.C.'s field office when his wife began her 2015 campaign. His wife lost the election after spending an estimated $1.8 million on the senate run. Three months later, Comey promoted McCabe to FBI Deputy Director in February 2016. The promotion helped fill a very large void created by the retirement of John Giacalone, who was the supervisor of the bureau's National Security Branch and also the FBI brains and genesis behind the Clinton email and private server investigation. Since the inception of the case, Giacalone had spearheaded the Clinton investigation, and helped hand select top agents who were highly skilled but also discreet. Many of those agents were concerned when Giacalone abruptly resigned in the middle of the investigation. ..."
"... FBI insiders said Giacalone used the term "sideways" to describe the direction the Clinton probe had taken in the bureau. Giacalone lamented privately he no longer had confidence in the direction the investigation was headed. ..."
"... in the midst of the Clinton investigation, Giacalone handed the bureau his retirement papers in February 2016. ..."
"... The day after Giacalone's departure, Comey tapped McCabe to help oversee the ongoing Clinton case and personally serve "as the eyes and ears" for Comey, sources confirmed. Since early July 2016, Comey has come under intense fire from critics and the majority of Americans who believe he granted Clinton a get-out-of-jail-free card by refusing to refer the case to the Justice Department for a probable slam-dunk indictment on at least one of potential dozens of criminal charges. ..."
"... Now Comey, McCabe and their rogue FBI Sanhedrin face a new dilemma: Colleagues who have blown the whistle on the partisan agency, specifically how personal and political philosophies have crept into the FBI and commandeered the bureau's powerful reach and resources to tamper with law-abiding White House personnel, including the president. That's called public corruption, a crime the FBI is tasked with investigating ..."
Mar 14, 2017 | www.prisonplanet.com

Mere days before Gen. Michael Flynn was sacked as national security advisor, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe gathered more than a dozen of his top FBI disciples to plot how to ruin Flynn's aspiring political career and manufacture evidence to derail President Donald Trump, according to FBI sources.

McCabe, the second highest ranking FBI official, emphatically declared at the invite-only gathering with raised voice: "Fuck Flynn and then we Fuck Trump," according to direct sources. Many of his top lieutenants applauded and cheered such rhetoric. A scattered few did not.

This was one of several such meetings held in seclusion among key FBI leaders since Trump was elected president, FBI sources confirm. At the congregation where McCabe went off the political rails and vowed to destroy Flynn and Trump, there were as many as 16 top FBI officials, inside intelligence sources said. No lower-level agents or support personnel were present.

If you are among the millions of Americans who have pondered in recent months whether the Obama-era "Deep State" intelligence apparatus and FBI are working for or against Trump, this is the first definitive proof that the country's once-premiere law enforcement agency has gone rogue.

The non-elected hierarchy that steer the FBI have declared war on President Trump and his White House inner circle. Make no mistake.

Days after the McCabe tirade, Flynn was forced to resign. That was no coincidence. This is how secret coups waged by the top law enforcement personnel in the top law enforcement agency in any country operate. Efficiently. If the FBI wants you silenced or out of a job, you'll be unemployed. Ask Michael Flynn and countless others.

Part of the plan hatched at that gathering was to make sure Flynn's wiretapped conversations were leaked to the media, FBI and intelligence sources said. They were. Did the FBI leak this classified intelligence to the news media? Isn't that a question President Trump and Congress should be posing? If nothing else, McCabe and his FBI secret council are certainly now suspects of who possibly leaked the intelligence. Seems that a number of polygraphs should be in order.

Embattled FBI Director James Comey did not attend these private meetings of his interoffice revolutionaries, sources said, though he was aware of the gatherings yet did not discourage them or McCabe's inflammatory and dangerous rhetoric. Some FBI agents have questioned if the Anti-Trump attitude shared in the secret sit downs with the bureau's top brass is now the official platform of the FBI. The FBI, many agents quietly agree, has proven no friend to the newly minted US president. And they are beginning to understand why.

As far as waging political coups go: So far, so good. The FBI's secret plan to ruin Flynn worked. And fast. Flynn is long gone. Now they can focus on ruining President Trump. After all, Isn't that the role of the FBI? Tampering with the president of the United States and his inner circle, neither of whom have broken any laws?

It turns out, however, the FBI isn't very good at the spy game. McCabe's dictatorial tone ruffled a number of agents at FBI headquarters who still believe the mission of the bureau is not to wage clandestine warfare against the sitting president and his administration.

McCabe and Comey did not respond to requests for comment. Flynn could not be reached for comment.

This isn't McCabe's first rodeo in the cross-hairs of controversy at the FBI where he is outranked only by Comey. In fact, McCabe garnered problematic headlines during the 2016 presidential election.

Democratic factions controlled by a Hillary Clinton insider paid the deputy director of the FBI's wife almost $700,000 in campaign funds before McCabe, who was supervising Clinton's investigation, lobbied against charging her criminally, according to records and interviews obtained by True Pundit.

Dr. Jill McCabe was a Virginia state senate candidate in 2015. Longtime Clinton family consigliere and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, sent her approximately $675,000 to fund the Democrat hopeful's campaign coffers. Dr. McCabe, a physician, is married to the FBI deputy director. Mrs. McCabe is a registered Democrat. FBI agents who work with McCabe say he and his wife were both staunch Hillary Clinton supporters.

According to one FBI insider, the McAuliffe-generated campaign funds may have ultimately bought Clinton some strategic breathing room.

"McCabe was one of the few people who backed Comey's decision not to refer Hillary Clinton to the Justice Department for indictment," a FBI source said of the July 2016 decision not to refer Clinton for criminal charges for violating email and document safeguards for classified and Top Secret national security intelligence. "McCabe and Comey are both lawyers. They aren't street agents. They're more political. We wanted her (Clinton) indicted. They did not."

Gov. McAuliffe has been an important Clinton family insider for decades. During Bill Clinton's presidential candidacy and subsequent reelection, McAuliffe often spearheaded investigations into Clinton critics and helped silence women who alleged Bill Clinton harassed or sexually assaulted them, sources said.

Ironically, McAuliffe is currently under investigation by the FBI for alleged campaign-related finance infractions.

McAuliffe's contributions to Dr. McCabe's campaign match the exact time frame of the FBI's parallel Clinton investigation. No contributions were made prior to the FBI's probe of Clinton. McCabe was overseeing personnel decisions, including assigning agents to the Clinton investigation team, at the FBI's Washington D.C.'s field office when his wife began her 2015 campaign. His wife lost the election after spending an estimated $1.8 million on the senate run. Three months later, Comey promoted McCabe to FBI Deputy Director in February 2016. The promotion helped fill a very large void created by the retirement of John Giacalone, who was the supervisor of the bureau's National Security Branch and also the FBI brains and genesis behind the Clinton email and private server investigation. Since the inception of the case, Giacalone had spearheaded the Clinton investigation, and helped hand select top agents who were highly skilled but also discreet. Many of those agents were concerned when Giacalone abruptly resigned in the middle of the investigation.

FBI insiders said Giacalone used the term "sideways" to describe the direction the Clinton probe had taken in the bureau. Giacalone lamented privately he no longer had confidence in the direction the investigation was headed. He felt it was simpler to quietly step aside, walk away instead of fight to keep the investigation on its proper track. Giacalone was a true heavyweight agent at FBI. In fact, he likely should have been running the entire show. His pedigree included running and creating FBI divisions in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and even serving as deputy commander in the Iraqi theater of operations. But in the midst of the Clinton investigation, Giacalone handed the bureau his retirement papers in February 2016.

The day after Giacalone's departure, Comey tapped McCabe to help oversee the ongoing Clinton case and personally serve "as the eyes and ears" for Comey, sources confirmed. Since early July 2016, Comey has come under intense fire from critics and the majority of Americans who believe he granted Clinton a get-out-of-jail-free card by refusing to refer the case to the Justice Department for a probable slam-dunk indictment on at least one of potential dozens of criminal charges.

Now Comey, McCabe and their rogue FBI Sanhedrin face a new dilemma: Colleagues who have blown the whistle on the partisan agency, specifically how personal and political philosophies have crept into the FBI and commandeered the bureau's powerful reach and resources to tamper with law-abiding White House personnel, including the president. That's called public corruption, a crime the FBI is tasked with investigating.

Just like it "investigated" $700,000 in donations from the Clinton family to the wife of the FBI's deputy director who, during the exact time frame was tasked with overseeing the investigation of Hillary Clinton. She ultimately was never charged with any crime and McCabe received a FBI promotion. Does anyone have the phone number for the FBI's public corruption unit? Or does that line ring directly to McCabe and Comey?

We would normally demand a federal investigation into such allegations of collusion. But who would conduct it, the FBI?

[Dec 27, 2017] Mueller investigation can be viewed as an attempt to avoid going after Clinton and hide the fact that a corrupted intelligence service worked to derail Sanders

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... It should be Clinton-Gate not Russia-Gate. It seems that once again, as with late 02 and into 03, the populace has been hoodwinked into believing government falseness--as with the non-existent WMD and invasion of Iraq. ..."
Dec 27, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org

Sid2 , Dec 26, 2017 8:24:09 PM | 55

It's very difficult to get the head wrapped around the Mueller investigation as a contrivance to avoid going after Clinton, which shows a corrupted intelligence service working for political ends and saving the Democratic Party, which needs replacing. The evidence against Clinton is much more substantial than the continuing Mueller foray into inconsequence.

If you need more on Clinton beyond the massive email problems she had to avoid revealing how much pay money she was getting, search on the DNC convention entirely corrupted over to her and then the Uranium One deal. Why is all this not being investigated?

It should be Clinton-Gate not Russia-Gate. It seems that once again, as with late 02 and into 03, the populace has been hoodwinked into believing government falseness--as with the non-existent WMD and invasion of Iraq.

[Dec 22, 2017] Rosenstein knew that he is authorizing a fishing expedition against Trump, so he is a part of the cabal

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... While it's clear that this political cage-match is going to persist for some time to come, we'd like to make two points. First, that there was never sufficient ..."
"... While it's clear that this political cage-match is going to persist for some time to come, we'd like to make two points. First, that there was never sufficient reason to appoint a Special Counsel. The threshold for making such an appointment should have been probable cause, that is, deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should have shown why he thought there was 'reasonable basis to believe that a crime had been committed.' That's what's required under the Fourth Amendment, and that's the standard that should have been met. But Rosenstein ignored that rule because it improved the Special Counsel's chances of netting indictments ..."
"... the loosey-goosy standard Rosenstein has applied is an invitation for an open ended fishing expedition aimed at derailing the political agenda of the elected government. This puts too much power in the hands of unelected agents in the bureaucracy who may be influenced by powerbrokers operating behind the scenes who want to disrupt, obstruct, or paralyze the government. And this, in fact, is exactly what is taking place presently. ..."
"... Naturally, a broad-ranging mandate like Rosenstein's will result in excesses, and it has. Of the four people who have been caught up in Mueller's expansive dragnet, exactly zero have been indicted on charges even remotely connected to the original allegation of "collusion with Russia to sway the presidential election in Trump's favor." Clearly, people's civil liberties are being violated to conduct a political jihad on an unpopular president and his aids. ..."
"... The daily blather in the media does not meet that standard nor does the much ballyhooed Intelligence Community Assessment that was supposed to provide ironclad proof of Russian meddling in the elections. The ICA even offered this sweeping disclaimer at the beginning of the report which admits that the intelligence gathered therein should not in any way be construed to represent solid evidence of anything. ..."
"... Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents ..."
"... The fact is, Mueller is no elder statesman or paragon of virtue. He's a political assassin whose task is to take down Trump at all cost. Unfortunately for Mueller, the credibility of his investigation is beginning to wane as conflicts of interest mount and public confidence dwindles. After 18 months of relentless propaganda and political skullduggery, the Russia-gate fiction is beginning to unravel ..."
"... The skepticism about Mueller probably has less to do with the man, than it does with Washington in general ..."
"... That may be the case among those who have never bothered to look past the mainstream TV news for information about Mueller. Those who have kept up with his career in the swamp have been skeptical (to say the least) about Mueller's appointment because he's so obviously a criminal himself ..."
Dec 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

While it's clear that this political cage-match is going to persist for some time to come, we'd like to make two points. First, that there was never sufficient

While it's clear that this political cage-match is going to persist for some time to come, we'd like to make two points. First, that there was never sufficient reason to appoint a Special Counsel. The threshold for making such an appointment should have been probable cause, that is, deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should have shown why he thought there was 'reasonable basis to believe that a crime had been committed.' That's what's required under the Fourth Amendment, and that's the standard that should have been met. But Rosenstein ignored that rule because it improved the Special Counsel's chances of netting indictments

Even so, there's no evidence that a crime has been committed. None. And that's been the main criticism of the investigation from the get go. It's fine for the New York Times and the Washington Post to reiterate the same tedious, unsubstantiated claims over and over again ad nauseam. Their right to fabricate news is guaranteed under the First Amendment and they take full advantage of that privilege. But it's different for professional attorney operating at the highest level of the Justice Department to appoint a Special Counsel to rummage through all manner of private or privileged documents, transcripts, tax returns, private conversations, intercepted phone calls and emails -- of the democratically-elected president -- based on nothing more than the spurious and politically-motivated allegations made in the nation's elite media or by flagrantly-partisan actors operating in the Intelligence Community or law enforcement.

Can you see the problem here? This is not just an attack on Trump (whose immigration, environmental, health care, tax and foreign policies I personally despise.) It is an attempt to roll back the results of the election by bogging him down in legal proceedings making it impossible for him to govern. These attacks are not just on Trump, they're on the legitimate authority of the people to choose their own leaders in democratic elections. That's what's at stake. And that's why there must be a high threshold for launching an investigation like this.

Consider this: On May 17, 2017, when Rosenstein announced his decision to appoint a Special Counsel he said the following:

"In my capacity as acting attorney general I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter. My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination. What I have determined is that based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command." Rosenstein wrote that his responsibility is to ensure a "full and thorough investigation of the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election." As special counsel, Mueller is charged with investigating "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump."

That's not good enough. There's no evidence that "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" were improper, unethical or illegal. Nor do any such presumed "links and/or coordination" imply a crime was committed. Rather, the loosey-goosy standard Rosenstein has applied is an invitation for an open ended fishing expedition aimed at derailing the political agenda of the elected government. This puts too much power in the hands of unelected agents in the bureaucracy who may be influenced by powerbrokers operating behind the scenes who want to disrupt, obstruct, or paralyze the government. And this, in fact, is exactly what is taking place presently.

Naturally, a broad-ranging mandate like Rosenstein's will result in excesses, and it has. Of the four people who have been caught up in Mueller's expansive dragnet, exactly zero have been indicted on charges even remotely connected to the original allegation of "collusion with Russia to sway the presidential election in Trump's favor." Clearly, people's civil liberties are being violated to conduct a political jihad on an unpopular president and his aids.

So, how does one establish whether there's a reasonable basis to believe that a crime has been committed?

The daily blather in the media does not meet that standard nor does the much ballyhooed Intelligence Community Assessment that was supposed to provide ironclad proof of Russian meddling in the elections. The ICA even offered this sweeping disclaimer at the beginning of the report which admits that the intelligence gathered therein should not in any way be construed to represent solid evidence of anything.
Here's the from the report:

"Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents."

... ... ...

The fact is, Mueller is no elder statesman or paragon of virtue. He's a political assassin whose task is to take down Trump at all cost. Unfortunately for Mueller, the credibility of his investigation is beginning to wane as conflicts of interest mount and public confidence dwindles. After 18 months of relentless propaganda and political skullduggery, the Russia-gate fiction is beginning to unravel.

Twodees Partain , December 22, 2017 at 11:59 am GMT

"The skepticism about Mueller probably has less to do with the man, than it does with Washington in general."

That may be the case among those who have never bothered to look past the mainstream TV news for information about Mueller. Those who have kept up with his career in the swamp have been skeptical (to say the least) about Mueller's appointment because he's so obviously a criminal himself.

That segment of the general public, as it were, have been opposed to the establishment of the investigation itself from the first day it was proposed.

[Dec 16, 2017] Former US attorney says FBI wants to frame the President

Highly recommended!
Pretty interesting and revealing video of the interview...
There is indeed probable cause to conclude, meaning indictable offenses, that employees of the Department of Justice and/or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sympathetic to the Democrat Party, used the power of their offices and with the assistance of foreign nationals to influence the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton, first to exonerate her and then obtain information to prevent the election of Donald Trump or to provide a basis for his impeachment should he win.
From the Congressional investigations involving the Department of Justice and the FBI it looks like that those institutions protecting themselves at the expense of transparency and accountability to the American people.
In other words, the government employees involved consider the survival of the Deep State more important than the survival of the Constitution. That is the definition of tyranny.
Dec 16, 2017 | www.youtube.com

William Branstetter , 9 hours ago

Treason is exactly what these people have committed! They should be tried, if convicted hung by the neck until dead or firing squad their choice!

Scott SonofJohn , 9 hours ago

"Comey sold his soul to the devil."

[Dec 14, 2017] Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan?

Highly recommended!
That question arise during recent senate session of Rosenstein
It's been suggested that Strzok's job as counterintelligence deputy would have made him the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director Brennan.
Notable quotes:
"... Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post paid any price for their promotion of the invasion and destruction of Iraq. They might not get off as easy this time. One can hope. ..."
"... I can add one more. It's been suggested that Strzok's job as counterintelligence deputy would have made him the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director Brennan. At least this point was made explicitly in a recent LarouchePAC Live broadcast on Youtube (perhaps Will Wertz's presentation at last Saturday's Manhattan Project event) though I don't know what their evidence is. So we can ask: Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan? ..."
consortiumnews.com

Zachary Smith , December 13, 2017 at 11:00 pm

I've been seeing all sorts of places where this fellow Strzok's name pops up. Things like a FISA judge recusing himself. Things like him possibly arranging things so Hillary was able to continue her run for President. At a super-right-wing site I found these "questions".

  1. Did Peter Strzok receive the Steele Dossier from Hillary Clinton on July 4th when he interviewed her?
  2. If Hillary didn't give Strzok the dossier, who did?
  3. Did Peter Strzok put together the FISA Court material, which included the Steele Dossier?
  4. Did Peter Strzok go to the FISA Court and ask for the surveillance of the Trump team based on the Steele Dossier?
  5. Did James Comey assign Peter Strzok to the Clinton email case?
  6. Did James Comey assign Peter Strzok to the Trump surveillance case?
  7. Did James Comey know that Peter Strzok was compromised when he sent him to interview Michael Flynn (where surveillance was used to interview him based on the Steele Dossier that was presented to the FISA Court that Strzok put together?)

Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post paid any price for their promotion of the invasion and destruction of Iraq. They might not get off as easy this time. One can hope.

Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 8:36 am

I can add one more. It's been suggested that Strzok's job as counterintelligence deputy would have made him the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director Brennan. At least this point was made explicitly in a recent LarouchePAC Live broadcast on Youtube (perhaps Will Wertz's presentation at last Saturday's Manhattan Project event) though I don't know what their evidence is. So we can ask: Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan?

[Dec 14, 2017] The Foundering Russia-gate 'Scandal' Consortiumnews

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The disclosure of fiercely anti-Trump text messages between two romantically involved senior FBI officials who played key roles in the early Russia-gate inquiry has turned the supposed Russian-election-meddling "scandal" into its own scandal, by providing evidence that some government investigators saw it as their duty to block or destroy Donald Trump's presidency. ..."
"... As much as the U.S. mainstream media has mocked the idea that an American "deep state" exists and that it has maneuvered to remove Trump from office, the text messages between senior FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page reveal how two high-ranking members of the government's intelligence/legal bureaucracy saw their role as protecting the United States from an election that might elevate to the presidency someone as unfit as Trump. ..."
"... In the text messages, Strzok also expressed visceral contempt for working-class Trump voters, for instance, writing on Aug. 26, 2016, "Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support. it's scary real down here." ..."
"... Another text message suggested that other senior government officials – alarmed at the possibility of a Trump presidency – joined the discussion. In an apparent reference to an August 2016 meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok wrote to Page on Aug. 15, 2016, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk." ..."
"... The scheme involved having some Democratic electors vote for former Secretary of State Colin Powell (which did happen), making him the third-place vote-getter in the Electoral College and thus eligible for selection by the House. But the plan fizzled when enough of Trump's electors stayed loyal to their candidate to officially make him President. ..."
"... After that, Trump's opponents turned to the Russia-gate investigation as the vehicle to create the conditions for somehow nullifying the election, impeaching Trump, or at least weakening him sufficiently so he could not take steps to improve relations with Russia. ..."
"... And, the new revelations of high-level FBI bias puts Clapper's statement about "hand-picked" analysts in sharper perspective, since any intelligence veteran will tell you that if you hand-pick the analysts you are effectively hand-picking the analysis. ..."
"... Although it has not yet been spelled out exactly what role Strzok and Page may have had in the Jan. 6 report, I was told by one source that Strzok had a direct hand in writing it. Whether that is indeed the case, Strzok, as a senior FBI counterintelligence official, would almost surely have had input into the selection of the FBI analysts and thus into the substance of the report itself. [For challenges from intelligence experts to the Jan. 6 report, see Consortiumnews.com's " More Holes in the Russia-gate Narrative. "] ..."
"... If the FBI contributors to the Jan. 6 report shared Strzok's contempt for Trump, it could explain why claims from an unverified dossier of Democratic-financed "dirt" on Trump, including salacious charges that Russian intelligence operatives videotaped Trump being urinated on by prostitutes in a five-star Moscow hotel, was added as a classified appendix to the report and presented personally to President-elect Trump. ..."
"... That discovery helped ensnare another senior Justice Department official, Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who talked with Steele during the campaign and had a post-election meeting with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Recently, Simpson has acknowledged that Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS last year to investigate Trump. ..."
"... But the story soon collapsed when it turned out that the date on the email was actually Sept. 14, 2016, i.e., the day after ..."
"... Yet, despite the cascade of errors and grudging corrections, including some belated admissions that there was no "17-intelligence-agency consensus" on Russian "hacking" – The New York Times made a preemptive strike against the new documentary evidence that the Russia-gate investigation was riddled with conflicts of interest. ..."
"... Pursuing the truth can be a fascinating hobby, that leads to a person awakening. Make it interesting, awaken your friend's curiosity. ..."
"... Weeks before the 2016 election, Peter Strzok's FBI team agreed to pay former MI6 agent and Fusion GPS operative Christopher Steele $50,000 if he could verify the claims contained within the dossier – which relied on the cooperation of two senior Kremlin officials. (One more time for you, Walter Devine -- "if he [Steele] could verify the claims"). When Steele was unable to verify the claims in the dossier, the FBI wouldn't pay him according to the New York Times. ..."
"... Despite the fact that Steele was not paid by the FBI for the dossier, Peter Strzok used it to launch a counterintelligence investigation into President Trump's team. Steele was ultimately paid $168,000 by Fusion GPS to assemble the dossier. ..."
"... Of interest to me is why the Republicans did not hammer Hillary for placing an ambassador in what was essentially a CIA compound in the first place. My guess and I can only guess is that they no objection to its being a ratline to ship Libya's stolen armaments to head-chopping jihadists (with USA blessing) fighting Assad. So to raise the issue of why putting an ambassador there would have opened the door to sensitive questions -- if the press would ask them, of course. ..."
"... That's the real Benghazi story the MSM won't talk about. Although I suspect the armaments were given to the head choppers by the CIA, and then they rebelled at having them transferred to the head choppers in Syria after they had succeeded in killing Ghaddafi. ..."
"... "Madame Secretary, WHY was it necessary to destroy Libya?" No republican asked THAT question. ..."
"... Hello Skip, nice to read your good comments again and to exchange info. Here is an article which talks about the weapons ratline in Syria. Within four days, the powerful anti-tank missiles that CIA bought in Bulgaria and (supposedly) delivered to "moderate" rebels, ended up in ISIS hands. The only problem with the article's narrative is that it is still drawing the official line that the lack of oversight is to blame for such, whilst it was clearly a deliberate action to supply weapons to ISIS wrapped up in plausible deniability of passing them through the hands of some poor inept souls serving as intermediaries. ..."
"... Starting a grand-scale investigation on the basis of allegations of conspiracy with another government and treason is rather dubious when these allegations from dirty campaign tactics are not based on any tangible facts. It is true that the Muller team does not leak as much to the press as the intelligence services did previously. This investigation still plays an important role for the media propaganda that still pushes the Russiagate conspiracy theory even though there had never been any factual basis for it and no evidence has been found in over a year. Since there is still this investigation is going on, they can use it for justifying their daily minutes of hate against Russia, their calls for censorship and denounciation of any political position that diverges from the neoconservative and neoliberal ideology. ..."
"... the most dubious thing was, of course, the lobbying related to a UN security council resolution vote, but that might at best hint at colluding with Israel, it certainly does not fit the Russiagate conspiracy theory ..."
"... So, if we judge the Muller investigation by its results, it is not going anywhere. Obviously, that is what should be expected when a commission is set up for investigating a conspiracy theory for which there had never been any evidence to begin with. I suppose the result would be similar if the Illuminati, the Elders of Zion, or reptiloids were officially investigated. ..."
"... It seems that the Muller team wants to delay that moment when they have to confess that the conspiracy theory has broken down, but that won't necessarily make it easier, either. ..."
"... Think you nailed it. The bankster regime changers already tried once to structurally adjust Russia into being a US puppet state in the 90s under Clinton. Russia was robbed blind while Yeltzin drank himself into a stupor. Putin is the one who put a stop to the looting. That is his crime against the western oligarchs and why he is enemy #1. ..."
"... There's no 'lack of discussion about what they have uncovered' which has basically amounted to a pile of dirt. Have not read from the VIPS and William Binney? Uncovering shady business with oligarchs doesn't show collusion, but the dossier oppo does, but it's business as usual. Denying the FBI-DNC server subpoena was odd don't you think? ..."
"... "Fusion GPS appears to be in the center of a web of corruption. Who hired Fusion GPS to ramp up its opposition research against Trump? Hillary Clinton and the DNC. the wife of Justice Department official Bruce G. Ohr worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 presidential election. Nellie Ohr is listed as working for the CIA's Open Source Works department in a 2010 DOJ report." Look how the CIA, FBI, and DNC have found each other and made a friendship forever. ..."
"... Also, do you personally have any concern about the murder of Seth Rich? -- Donna Brazil has become afraid of being Seth-Riched. How come? What kind of scum the Democratic apparatus has become? -- Guess Tony Podesta and Bill Clinton and madame "we came, we saw, he died ha, ha, ha " are the composite face of the Democratic Party today. ..."
"... Have at it Walter. What exactly have they uncovered? The "process" lost credibility long ago. The "intelligence" report of January 6th was garbage and it's been all downhill since. ..."
"... Obama's expulsion of the Russian diplomats after Trump's election, with no reason based on fact/danger to the USA gave a good start to the Russophobia encouraged by the Clinton losers and leading on to the ludicrous extreme situation still going on. ..."
"... Since the whole Guccifer 2.0 operation appears to be an attempt to falsely smear WikiLeaks as a Russian agent (by publicly claiming to be a hacker associated with WikiLeaks and then being "caught" releasing documents (the ones of June 15, 2016) with "Russian fingerprints"), perhaps his uploading files (Sept 13, 2016) to a server with (past) ties to someone associated with WikiLeaks (Kim Dot Com) would have been part of the same effort. ..."
"... Such a reversal of evidence and conclusion bespeaks deliberate deception. The motive is unclear, as the failed Newsweek is said to have been revived in 2013 by a Korean-American Christian fundamentalist David Jang formerly of Moon's Unification Church, whose followers consider him the Second Coming of JC, according to the linked source. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/03/newsweek-ibt-olivet-david-jang/ ..."
"... It's been a year and a half since Hillary Clinton first accused Donald Trump of being a Putin puppet and in collusion with the Kremlin. Any fool should be able to understand that if there existed any real evidence to support this accusation the world would have seen it under banner headlines long ago. ..."
"... Thank you for your spot-on analysis! The motives of the deep state – including FBI operatives, NY Times and WAPO – is crystal clear. They do not want Trump to be president, and are determined to either remove him or handcuff him indefinitely. But why? Why has the establishment gone crazy? Is it simply political, or something deeper and darker? ..."
"... The real "deep" reason is the PNAC plot to make sure that the USA remains the sole super power that can impose its will anywhere in the world. Trump's campaign position of seeking detente with Russia would have led us into a multi-polar world giving Russia a sphere of influence. That is unacceptable to the empire. ..."
"... RussiaGate is an attempt to remove Trump from power, or at a minimum make it impossible for him to seek detente. I am no Trump apologist, but I do think our only hope for a future in this nuclear age is to seek peace and cooperation in a multi-polar world that respects national sovereignty and the rule of law. I suspect Trump will continue to be brought to heel, with or without the success of RussiaGate. And there is always the JFK solution as a last resort. ..."
"... Where is William Binney's "Thin String" signals intelligence (SIGINT) software when it's needed? Wouldn't it be lovely to focus it on the communications of our own government? Binney says applying it after 9/11 to the pre-9/11 communications streams did successfully predict the 9/11 attacks. If only we had stored all communications of government officials dating back to . hey, let's say 1774 or so, what truths might we now know, and what proofs might we now have? What would FDR's communications prior to Pearl Harbor reveal? What about the JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X assassinations? ..."
Dec 14, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

Exclusive: Taking on water from revealed FBI conflicts of interest, the foundering Russia-gate probe – and its mainstream media promoters – are resorting to insults against people who note the listing ship, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The disclosure of fiercely anti-Trump text messages between two romantically involved senior FBI officials who played key roles in the early Russia-gate inquiry has turned the supposed Russian-election-meddling "scandal" into its own scandal, by providing evidence that some government investigators saw it as their duty to block or destroy Donald Trump's presidency.

Peter Strzok, who served as a Deputy Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, second in command of counterintelligence.

As much as the U.S. mainstream media has mocked the idea that an American "deep state" exists and that it has maneuvered to remove Trump from office, the text messages between senior FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page reveal how two high-ranking members of the government's intelligence/legal bureaucracy saw their role as protecting the United States from an election that might elevate to the presidency someone as unfit as Trump.

In one Aug. 6, 2016 text exchange, Page told Strzok: "Maybe you're meant to stay where you are because you're meant to protect the country from that menace." At the end of that text, she sent Strzok a link to a David Brooks column in The New York Times, which concludes with the clarion call: "There comes a time when neutrality and laying low become dishonorable. If you're not in revolt, you're in cahoots. When this period and your name are mentioned, decades hence, your grandkids will look away in shame."

Apparently after reading that stirring advice, Strzok replied, "And of course I'll try and approach it that way. I just know it will be tough at times. I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps."

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, criticized Strzok's boast that "I can protect our country at many levels." Jordan said: "this guy thought he was super-agent James Bond at the FBI [deciding] there's no way we can let the American people make Donald Trump the next president."

In the text messages, Strzok also expressed visceral contempt for working-class Trump voters, for instance, writing on Aug. 26, 2016, "Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support. it's scary real down here."

Another text message suggested that other senior government officials – alarmed at the possibility of a Trump presidency – joined the discussion. In an apparent reference to an August 2016 meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok wrote to Page on Aug. 15, 2016, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk."

Strzok added, "It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event that you die before you're 40."

It's unclear what strategy these FBI officials were contemplating to ensure Trump's defeat, but the comments mesh with what an intelligence source told me after the 2016 election, that there was a plan among senior Obama administration officials to use the allegations about Russian meddling to block Trump's momentum with the voters and -- if elected -- to persuade members of the Electoral College to deny Trump a majority of votes and thus throw the selection of a new president into the House of Representatives under the rules of the Twelfth Amendment .

The scheme involved having some Democratic electors vote for former Secretary of State Colin Powell (which did happen), making him the third-place vote-getter in the Electoral College and thus eligible for selection by the House. But the plan fizzled when enough of Trump's electors stayed loyal to their candidate to officially make him President.

After that, Trump's opponents turned to the Russia-gate investigation as the vehicle to create the conditions for somehow nullifying the election, impeaching Trump, or at least weakening him sufficiently so he could not take steps to improve relations with Russia.

In one of her text messages to Strzok, Page made reference to a possible Watergate-style ouster of Trump, writing: "Bought all the president's men. Figure I needed to brush up on watergate."

As a key feature in this oust-Trump effort, Democrats have continued to lie by claiming that "all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred" in the assessment that Russia hacked the Democratic emails last year on orders from President Vladimir Putin and then slipped them to WikiLeaks to undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign.

That canard was used in the early months of the Russia-gate imbroglio to silence any skepticism about the "hacking" accusation, and the falsehood was repeated again by a Democratic congressman during Wednesday's hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

But the "consensus" claim was never true. In May 2017 testimony , President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that the Jan. 6 "Intelligence Community Assessment" was put together by "hand-picked" analysts from only three agencies: the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.

Biased at the Creation

And, the new revelations of high-level FBI bias puts Clapper's statement about "hand-picked" analysts in sharper perspective, since any intelligence veteran will tell you that if you hand-pick the analysts you are effectively hand-picking the analysis.

Although it has not yet been spelled out exactly what role Strzok and Page may have had in the Jan. 6 report, I was told by one source that Strzok had a direct hand in writing it. Whether that is indeed the case, Strzok, as a senior FBI counterintelligence official, would almost surely have had input into the selection of the FBI analysts and thus into the substance of the report itself. [For challenges from intelligence experts to the Jan. 6 report, see Consortiumnews.com's " More Holes in the Russia-gate Narrative. "]

If the FBI contributors to the Jan. 6 report shared Strzok's contempt for Trump, it could explain why claims from an unverified dossier of Democratic-financed "dirt" on Trump, including salacious charges that Russian intelligence operatives videotaped Trump being urinated on by prostitutes in a five-star Moscow hotel, was added as a classified appendix to the report and presented personally to President-elect Trump.

Though Democrats and the Clinton campaign long denied financing the dossier – prepared by ex-British spy Christopher Steele who claimed to rely on second- and third-hand information from anonymous Russian contacts – it was revealed in October 2017 that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign shared in the costs, with the payments going to the "oppo" research firm, Fusion GPS, through the Democrats' law firm, Perkins Coie.

That discovery helped ensnare another senior Justice Department official, Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who talked with Steele during the campaign and had a post-election meeting with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Recently, Simpson has acknowledged that Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS last year to investigate Trump.

Bruce Ohr has since been demoted and Strzok was quietly removed from the Russia-gate investigation last July although the reasons for these moves were not publicly explained at the time.

Still, the drive for "another Watergate" to oust an unpopular – and to many insiders, unfit – President remains at the center of the thinking among the top mainstream news organizations as they have scrambled for Russia-gate "scoops" over the past year even at the cost of making serious reporting errors .

For instance, last Friday, CNN -- and then CBS News and MSNBC -- trumpeted an email supposedly sent from someone named Michael J. Erickson on Sept. 4, 2016, to Donald Trump Jr. that involved WikiLeaks offering the Trump campaign pre-publication access to purloined Democratic National Committee emails that WikiLeaks published on Sept. 13, nine days later.

Grasping for Confirmation

Since the Jan. 6 report alleged that WikiLeaks received the "hacked" emails from Russia -- a claim that WikiLeaks and Russia deny -- the story seemed to finally tie together the notion that the Trump campaign had at least indirectly colluded with Russia.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, Arizona. March 21, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

This new "evidence" spread like wildfire across social media. As The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald wrote in an article critical of the media's performance, some Russia-gate enthusiasts heralded the revelation with graphics of cannons booming and nukes exploding.

But the story soon collapsed when it turned out that the date on the email was actually Sept. 14, 2016, i.e., the day after WikiLeaks released the batch of DNC emails, not Sept. 4. It appeared that "Erickson" – whoever he was – had simply alerted the Trump campaign to the public existence of the WikiLeaks disclosure.

Greenwald noted , "So numerous are the false stories about Russia and Trump over the last year that I literally cannot list them all."

Yet, despite the cascade of errors and grudging corrections, including some belated admissions that there was no "17-intelligence-agency consensus" on Russian "hacking" – The New York Times made a preemptive strike against the new documentary evidence that the Russia-gate investigation was riddled with conflicts of interest.

The Times' lead editorial on Wednesday mocked reporters at Fox News for living in an "alternate universe" where the Russia-gate "investigation is 'illegitimate and corrupt,' or so says Gregg Jarrett, a legal analyst who appears regularly on [Sean] Hannity's nightly exercise in presidential ego-stroking."

Though briefly mentioning the situation with Strzok's text messages, the Times offered no details or context for the concerns, instead just heaping ridicule on anyone who questions the Russia-gate narrative.

"To put it mildly, this is insane," the Times declared. "The primary purpose of Mr. Mueller's investigation is not to take down Mr. Trump. It's to protect America's national security and the integrity of its elections by determining whether a presidential campaign conspired with a foreign adversary to influence the 2016 election – a proposition that grows more plausible every day."

The Times fumed that "roughly three-quarters of Republicans still refuse to accept that Russia interfered in the 2016 election – a fact that is glaringly obvious to everyone else, including the nation's intelligence community." (There we go again with the false suggestion of a consensus within the intelligence community.)

The Times also took to task Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, for seeking "a Special Counsel to investigate ALL THINGS 2016 – not just Trump and Russia." The Times insisted that "None of these attacks or insinuations are grounded in good faith."

But what are the Times editors so afraid of? As much as they try to insult and intimidate anyone who demands serious evidence about the Russia-gate allegations, why shouldn't the American people be informed about how Washington insiders manipulate elite opinion in pursuit of reversing "mistaken" judgments by the unwashed masses?

Do the Times editors really believe in democracy – a process that historically has had its share of warts and mistakes – or are they just elitists who think they know best and turn away their noses from the smell of working-class people at Walmart?

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ).

mike k , December 13, 2017 at 9:54 pm

The NYT is just another tool of the multi-billionaire oligarchs who rule this USA from the shadows. They fear nothing more than the light. When that investigative light gets strong enough, more and more ordinary folks will begin to awake to the massive fraud that has been perpetrated at their expense. And when that happens, we will finally see the Oligarchy begin to crumble under the pressure of the 99%. The truth will out, then heads will roll ..

mike k , December 13, 2017 at 10:00 pm

Keep up the pressure – get your friends interested, tell them about CN, Counterpunch, Strategic-Culture, Chris Hedges, etc. Pursuing the truth can be a fascinating hobby, that leads to a person awakening. Make it interesting, awaken your friend's curiosity.

incontinent reader , December 14, 2017 at 12:04 am

How about also including RT in your list? It's a news and commentary site with strong journalistic values and credibility, notwithstanding what the Administration or the MSM may say or imply.

T.J , December 14, 2017 at 8:45 am

If RT didn't have the qualities you describe, attempts by the Administration and the MSM to discredit it would have been successful. However they will attempt to silence it by other means.

Adam Kraft , December 14, 2017 at 11:59 am

Very true TJ. I found counterpunch when wapo / propornot blacklisted them. Gave 'em creds imo. I also like mint press, occupy, naked capitalism, **world socialist website**, disobedient media, truthout, some of Glenns work on the Intercept and my youtube subs include: wearechange, **anonymous Scandinavia**, **the jimmy dore show**, RT America, TeleSUR English*, Zoon Politikon, **democracy at work**, HA Goodman, theRealNews*, mintpressnews, watching the hawks, secular talk, laura kinhtlinger, judicial watch, empire files, redacted tonight, TBTV, a little from Julian Assange's twitter.

tina , December 14, 2017 at 11:06 pm

what about Al-Jazeera?

Erik G , December 14, 2017 at 8:03 am

Good suggestion; in such persuasion, one must respectfully suggest better sources and avoid any conflict.

Mr. Parry has well summarized for beginners these essential counterpoints to the mass media propaganda.

Those who would like to petition the NYT to make Robert Parry their senior editor may do so here:
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-times-bring-a-new-editor-to-the-new-york-times?recruiter=72650402&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
While Mr. Parry may prefer independence, and we all know the NYT ownership makes it unlikely, and the NYT may try to ignore it, it is instructive to them that intelligent readers know better journalism when they see it. A petition demonstrates the concerns of a far larger number of potential or lost subscribers.

Amyg , December 14, 2017 at 1:40 pm

I like this use of "awakened," in contrast to the establishment culture's fascination with "woke." People don't need to get woke. They need to become awakened. Thanks to Robert Parry.

Walter Devine , December 13, 2017 at 10:15 pm

I thought we were waiting to hear what the evidence is found. The lack of discussion about what they have uncovered seems to me to speak of a professional operation. Once they are done and present what they have found, then everyone can get on their soap boxes and let loose. As for Bias, that exists in everyone to some extent or another, where was the moral outrage from the Republicans charging this today when the Benghazi investigation was being conducted by folks with known axes to grind themselves? It is the Washington hypocrisy machine at its most obvious. As for the media, print or otherwise, they are just preaching to their choirs in order to sell whatever their particular consumers are buying. Frankly I have come to expect more from you than this article Mr. Parry, here's hoping

Robert Gardner , December 13, 2017 at 10:45 pm

I've been skeptical out the Russian conspiracy so far, but I agree with what Walter Devine wrote.

tina , December 13, 2017 at 11:42 pm

I am still waiting . Mr. Parry can ride on his story back in the 1980's. We are in 2017, The internet is good. What did those people in Washington do today? get rid of net neutrality? Love you all people on CN, Happy Hanukah Merry Christmas, and Kwanzaa, And the winter solstice. Peace to all. Love, tina everyone is going to believe that they want to believe.

incontinent reader , December 14, 2017 at 12:08 am

Are you kidding about Benghazi? Obviously you have still not informed yourself about the egregious security breakdown of the Administration or how the Benghazi facility factored into the CIA's proxy war in Syria. (And, btw, where was Hillary "Rod up her Hiney" Clinton when that '3AM call' came in at 4pm?

Larco Marco , December 14, 2017 at 4:32 am

Hillary Rodham Clinton AND William Hamrod Clinton

Anna , December 14, 2017 at 12:56 am

Thank you for bringing attention to the Benghazi scandal: "FBI Chief Instructed Agents To Lie About Benghazi To Protect Hillary" http://yournewswire.com/fbi-lie-benghazi-hillary/

"By placing the interests of the Obama administration over the public's interests, the order is yet another data point highlighting the politicization of the FBI: After the September 11, 2012 attack against U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, the Obama administration peddled a lie, telling the public that the attack was related to Muslims who had become enraged at an anti-Islam YouTube video, and not a planned act of terrorism – despite Hillary Clinton emailing Chelsea Clinton from her unsecure @clintonemail.com server the night of the attack to say exactly that."

-- On a topic of evidence: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-13/anti-trump-texts-between-fired-fbi-agents-having-extramarital-affair-leak-and-theyre "

In 2016, [the FBI] received the infamous anti-Trump "dossier" The "dossier" was a compendium of allegations about then-candidate Trump and others around him that was compiled by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The firm's bank records, obtained by House investigators, revealed that the project was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Weeks before the 2016 election, Peter Strzok's FBI team agreed to pay former MI6 agent and Fusion GPS operative Christopher Steele $50,000 if he could verify the claims contained within the dossier – which relied on the cooperation of two senior Kremlin officials. (One more time for you, Walter Devine -- "if he [Steele] could verify the claims"). When Steele was unable to verify the claims in the dossier, the FBI wouldn't pay him according to the New York Times.

Despite the fact that Steele was not paid by the FBI for the dossier, Peter Strzok used it to launch a counterintelligence investigation into President Trump's team. Steele was ultimately paid $168,000 by Fusion GPS to assemble the dossier.

-- More evidence" "FBI Texts Reveal "Insurance Policy" To Prevent Trump Presidency" http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-13/we-cant-take-risk-fbi-texts-reveal-insurance-policy-prevent-trump-presidency

-- Have you noticed the numbers for payments? The bank records? The names? -- these are the evidence. Or you believe that there a Bias against the miserable Steele?

bobzz , December 14, 2017 at 3:06 pm

Of interest to me is why the Republicans did not hammer Hillary for placing an ambassador in what was essentially a CIA compound in the first place. My guess and I can only guess is that they no objection to its being a ratline to ship Libya's stolen armaments to head-chopping jihadists (with USA blessing) fighting Assad. So to raise the issue of why putting an ambassador there would have opened the door to sensitive questions -- if the press would ask them, of course.

Skip Scott , December 14, 2017 at 4:28 pm

That's the real Benghazi story the MSM won't talk about. Although I suspect the armaments were given to the head choppers by the CIA, and then they rebelled at having them transferred to the head choppers in Syria after they had succeeded in killing Ghaddafi.

Jon Adams , December 14, 2017 at 6:17 pm

"Madame Secretary, WHY was it necessary to destroy Libya?" No republican asked THAT question.

Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 7:16 pm

Hello Skip, nice to read your good comments again and to exchange info. Here is an article which talks about the weapons ratline in Syria. Within four days, the powerful anti-tank missiles that CIA bought in Bulgaria and (supposedly) delivered to "moderate" rebels, ended up in ISIS hands. The only problem with the article's narrative is that it is still drawing the official line that the lack of oversight is to blame for such, whilst it was clearly a deliberate action to supply weapons to ISIS wrapped up in plausible deniability of passing them through the hands of some poor inept souls serving as intermediaries.

Thus, the CIA kept being surprised that its powerful weapons kept ending up in ISIS hands but kept doing the same over and over: oops an oversight mistake, oops and another one, oops one more, and another one, . the two hundredth one

https://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/blowback-isis-got-a-powerful-missile-the-cia-secretly?utm_term=.joevpx9dG#.lxegj54A7

Adrian Engler , December 14, 2017 at 3:44 am

Starting a grand-scale investigation on the basis of allegations of conspiracy with another government and treason is rather dubious when these allegations from dirty campaign tactics are not based on any tangible facts. It is true that the Muller team does not leak as much to the press as the intelligence services did previously. This investigation still plays an important role for the media propaganda that still pushes the Russiagate conspiracy theory even though there had never been any factual basis for it and no evidence has been found in over a year. Since there is still this investigation is going on, they can use it for justifying their daily minutes of hate against Russia, their calls for censorship and denounciation of any political position that diverges from the neoconservative and neoliberal ideology.

I wonder how long this can go on. So far, the indictments of the Muller team have had nothing to do with the Russiagate conspiracy theory. Paul Manafort was indicted for tax evasion related to lobbying business with Ukraine, mostly years ago. Michael Flynn was indicted because when he reported a call from his holidays to the Russian ambassador to the FBI more than three weeks later, he left out two elements (the FBI had the recordings from the NSA, anyway, so they wouldn't have had to ask him about the telephone call). There was nothing illegal about the contents of the telephone call (the most dubious thing was, of course, the lobbying related to a UN security council resolution vote, but that might at best hint at colluding with Israel, it certainly does not fit the Russiagate conspiracy theory). It seems quite plausible that Flynn just forgot these two elements of a telephone call in which quite a large number of points was raised and that he pleaded guilty because of a plea deal (otherwise he might have been indicted in connection with his lobbying work for Turkey). Superficially, the closest to the idea of Russiagate is the indictment of Papadopoulos, someone who played a minor role in the Trump campaign and was looking for contacts with Russians, but, as it seems did not get very far (for some reasons he seemed to think a Russian woman he was talking with was a relative of Putin). His actions may have been naïve or misguided, but nothing about them was illegal, like in the case of Michael Flynn, he is only accused of lying to the FBI about normal, legal actions.

So, if we judge the Muller investigation by its results, it is not going anywhere. Obviously, that is what should be expected when a commission is set up for investigating a conspiracy theory for which there had never been any evidence to begin with. I suppose the result would be similar if the Illuminati, the Elders of Zion, or reptiloids were officially investigated.

The question is how they will wind down. If they just say that apart from things like Manafort's possible tax evation and Flynn's lobbying for Israel, they have not found anything – certainly nothing that confirms the Russiagate conspiracy theory -, that will be quite difficult, people will demand that it is investigated how it came about that such a conspiracy was spread and played such an influential role in political discourse for some time. It seems that the Muller team wants to delay that moment when they have to confess that the conspiracy theory has broken down, but that won't necessarily make it easier, either.

Antiwar7 , December 14, 2017 at 7:24 am

How long should we wait until we hear of ONE, that's right, ONE piece of evidence backing these claims up? Please answer: 2 years? 10 years? The only evidence so far amounts to "trust us".

And that's ignoring the monumental number of pieces of false evidence that have been put forward. That in itself makes the whole "investigation" suspicious. On top of the long, documented history of the CIA planting false stories in the press.

bobzz , December 14, 2017 at 3:09 pm

I don't know. How long did it take the Dutch to cook the evidence to condemn Russian partisans for the downing of the Malaysian airliner -- with Ukraine holding a gun to their heads.

Dunno , December 14, 2017 at 4:43 pm

Dear Mr. 7, I have come to the grudging conclusion that Russia-gate is and has always been more about Russia and Putin than about the crooked Don. If we stop to think about it, Trump has succumbed to the deep control of the Deep-State colossus. Russia evil; Israel good! Got it? When the pathetic wiener & crotch-grabber isn't bitchin' for Bibi and doing little pooch tricks for Israel, he is being programmed by the pentagon and the Deep State, and making sure that the super-rich get super richer. His own SOS Tillerson called him an effin' moron. Enough said!

Therefore, 7, Russia-gate is all about keeping the pot boiling for the presidential election in Russia next year. Demonizing Putin and Russia is the new great game of our era. The NWO Nebula lusts after Russia's geostrategic location and its abundant resources. It's 1905-1925 all over again. Read the book, "Wall Street and the Russian Revolution 1905-1925" by Richard B. Spence and also take a gander at Trine Day books' website of suppressed books. The deep-state Plutocrats and their secret societies hatch their evil little plots, while trying to keep the rest of us in the dark. Right now, Trump is a convenient platform for anti-Russian propaganda.

Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 8:24 pm

Think you nailed it. The bankster regime changers already tried once to structurally adjust Russia into being a US puppet state in the 90s under Clinton. Russia was robbed blind while Yeltzin drank himself into a stupor. Putin is the one who put a stop to the looting. That is his crime against the western oligarchs and why he is enemy #1.

Sam F , December 14, 2017 at 8:10 am

Once more the standard troll line about being a prior supporter, which plainly "Devine" is not.
We are well over a year into this matter with nothing but speculation and manufactured claims.
It is clear that Russia-gate = Israel-gate, a diversion from zionist control of the DNC.
Where is the concern of "Devine" for the lack of investigation of control of elections and mass media by Israel?
Why does he seek to cover up the complete destruction of democracy by the foreign power Israel?

Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 8:43 pm

Oliver Stone had this to say on the matter on FaceBook. If you're on FB, here is the link.

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=oliver%20stone

Adam Kraft , December 14, 2017 at 12:16 pm

facts don't show bias walt. yeah, media sells to the public, but they're also selling (or trading narratives for access) to the gov't. Wikileaks exposed the MSM – DNC collusion and we've witnessed the leaks and anonymous sources from the IC. Trust the CIA?

There's no 'lack of discussion about what they have uncovered' which has basically amounted to a pile of dirt. Have not read from the VIPS and William Binney? Uncovering shady business with oligarchs doesn't show collusion, but the dossier oppo does, but it's business as usual. Denying the FBI-DNC server subpoena was odd don't you think?

I personally believe that progressive hope dies at the DNC and exposing the party's lies (their private and public views) and undemocratic practices (preliminary process, fundraising) is the best thing for the country. It brings us one step closer to potentially building a third party that represents the proletariat and petty bourgeois classes.

Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 8:49 pm

I agree with your sentiment, but I'm finding it disturbing how many so called progressives are convinced beyond any doubt, despite the evidence I produce to instill doubt, that Russia interfered in "our democracy."

They have come unglued to the point of idiocy over Trump. They are firmly in the clutches of the CIA Deep State apparatus.

Anna , December 14, 2017 at 1:56 pm

Hey, Walter Devine, here is more for your whining about evidence: There are plenty of evidence when the disgusting clintonistas are concerned: http://theduran.com/fusion-gps-admits-that-it-hired-wife-of-doj-official-to-investigate-then-candidate-trump/

"Fusion GPS appears to be in the center of a web of corruption. Who hired Fusion GPS to ramp up its opposition research against Trump? Hillary Clinton and the DNC. the wife of Justice Department official Bruce G. Ohr worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 presidential election. Nellie Ohr is listed as working for the CIA's Open Source Works department in a 2010 DOJ report." Look how the CIA, FBI, and DNC have found each other and made a friendship forever.

Also, do you personally have any concern about the murder of Seth Rich? -- Donna Brazil has become afraid of being Seth-Riched. How come? What kind of scum the Democratic apparatus has become? -- Guess Tony Podesta and Bill Clinton and madame "we came, we saw, he died ha, ha, ha " are the composite face of the Democratic Party today.

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , December 14, 2017 at 3:06 pm

@ Walter Devine: "Once they are done and present what they have found, then everyone can get on their soap boxes and let loose."

But overlook that the Democrats and mainstream media are doing the opposite? It seems to me that this is precisely the point that Mr. Parry's reporting has been aimed at, that the Democrats and mainstream media are jumping enormously to RussiaGate conclusions without disclosing any evidence to back up their incredibly dangerous claims and that there *is* very strong evidence of ulterior motives.

Gregory Herr , December 14, 2017 at 8:22 pm

Have at it Walter. What exactly have they uncovered? The "process" lost credibility long ago. The "intelligence" report of January 6th was garbage and it's been all downhill since.

Peter de Klerk , December 14, 2017 at 8:53 pm

I had great respect Parry's earlier writing which had a healthy dose of MSM skepticism (albeit largely for personal reasons). This whole business of jumping to conclusions on the Russia meddling has put me off him totally. All the reporting seems to be in service of defending a forgone conclusion. I wonder if this has anything to do with fundraising.

falcemartello , December 13, 2017 at 10:28 pm

This whole Russia ate my lunch has entered the realm of alternate truth. The MSM are now actually stating that the Russian hacking the 2016 election as fact. Just like all the other false and fabricated statements of world events in the last 20 years . Fro Yugoslavia, Milosovic exonerated for the falsely laid charges of genocide . How convenient after his death . Qadaffi murdering and slaughtering his own people hence RPL interventionist and voila the highest standard of living in the African continent is now reduced to takfiri heaven for the NATO proxy army recruiting centre. MH17 disaster is still being paroled as Russian deliberate murder. No facts no evidence that would stand even in a Stalinist show trial. Assad gassing his own people. More than debunked by multiple sources and US academics to boot no still being paroled as fact by western MSM.

The whole charade post 9/11 has gone into this Orwellian nightmare that just keep on growing and news and information has become pure Hollwoodian fantasy that the sheeple are sleep walking into this futuristic hell hole that these vile masters of the universe will not be able to back track without losing face and without causing the populace to stand up and be counted and kick tjhese vile players out for good.

john wilson , December 14, 2017 at 6:00 am

Take heart Falcemartello, its not all bad. Over here in the Britain RT has its own free to view TV channel which sits next to the BBC news and the parliament programme. It is now widely watched by the public and has millions of viewers with many using RT as their main news source. The fact that the American deep state criminals have made things difficult for RT America in the US, is a clear indication that the fake news masters otherwise known as the MSN, and their handlers in the deep state are rattled by the ever growing alternative voice. Its up to you, me and the rest of the posters on CN to tell our friends colleagues and others about CN, RT etc. If only one percent take a look then alternative opinion will start to filter through and more importantly, show the public what liars and criminals are in charge of their country.

Skip Scott , December 14, 2017 at 8:15 am

Thanks for the info John. I am really glad that at least Britain has a reasonable degree of freedom of the press. If it spreads across Europe, the USA may eventually find itself so isolated by its own propaganda that the whole evil empire scheme will implode, and we will have to learn to wage peace in a multi-polar world. That is my Christmas wish.

BobS , December 14, 2017 at 11:36 am

It's not difficult to get RT in the US- I watch it regularly on Dish Network. Youtube is another option- I'm guessing it's big and rich enough to survive any changes in net neutrality that will result from the Trump/Pai FCC (of course, Obama and Clinton were just as bad, DEEP STATE!!!!, etc.).
If you're going to tout conspiracies, get your facts straight.

rosemerry , December 14, 2017 at 4:48 pm

John Pilger has an article in counterpunch explaining the importance of documentaries (not just his!). It is notable that his first one, on Cambodia, in 1970, was shown free to air on TV in the UK and thirity other countries, with huge audience impact, but refused by PBS as too disturbing!!

The free press in the USA is in tune with the ptb.

rosemerry , December 14, 2017 at 5:06 pm

I see the Pilger article is here on consortiumnews. It is worth a read, like the rest here!

Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 7:58 pm

What you wrote john wilson is simply not the complete truth, although I wish it was. It is true that RT UK has its own terrestrial digital TV channel. It appears that Margarita Simonyan bid for such channel at an auction when Britain was converting from analogue to digital TV and got it. Thus, the British TV viewers can now see RT without any subscription or special equipment, "next to BBC" as you optimistically say.

What you did not mention john wilson is that the British Government regulator Ofcom is putting severe pressure on RT because their news offered an alternative view to the British propaganda. They rinse and repeat the same biased-news allegations almost every year, keeping RT UK under constant threat of the loss of its broadcasting licence due to "breach of truth standards" = "fake news". They even banned the lightbox, radio and other media advertising campaign of RT in Britain, the so called "RT is the second opinion", only because the campaign claimed that if RT existed before UK attack on Iraq in 2003, Tony Blair may have not been successful in passing the war resolutions through the parliament.

What most people do not appreciate is that the methods of suppression are not the same in all Western countries, and why should they be? Simonyan got a terrestrial TV channel and the broadcasting licence because of the British propaganda hubris – the British still believed that their post-imperial propaganda is the best in the World, just because it was the best in the world during the empire. They simply never expected the Russians to be so successful, just the same as US.

In summary:
US => force RT to register as a foreign agent to force reporting of every little detail of its operations; refuse journalistic credentials to Congress etc to disadvantage its reporting
UK => keep constant threat of the loss of broadcasting licence to skew the reporting towards the British Government version of the news

I post the links relevant to what I wrote here separately to avoid being put on hold.

Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 8:00 pm

https://secondopinion.rt.com/

https://www.rt.com/about-us/press-releases/rt-uk-second-opinion/

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/10/russia-today-ofcom-sanctions-impartiality-ukraine-coverage

https://theintercept.com/2015/03/02/uk-media-regulator-threatens-rt-bias-airing-anti-western-views/

Joe Tedesky , December 13, 2017 at 10:32 pm

Philip Giraldi writes about a shift occurring over at the CIA in Trump's favor, Politico's interview with a somewhat repentant Trump hater Mike Morell now saying 'maybe our plan wasn't that well thought out' , and now these MSM Russia Gate screwups coupled with a discovery of FBI Trump haters, is a result of Trump's recognizing Jerusalem as it being Israel's capital? Just say'n.

rosemerry , December 14, 2017 at 4:52 pm

Obama's expulsion of the Russian diplomats after Trump's election, with no reason based on fact/danger to the USA gave a good start to the Russophobia encouraged by the Clinton losers and leading on to the ludicrous extreme situation still going on.

BobH , December 14, 2017 at 1:43 pm

Amen

Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 8:19 pm

Spot on Bob, the unfortunate and idealistic Mr Seth Rich became the DNC's bottom line, the shining example of its "anything goes as long as we have friends in the right places" (FBI, DOJ, CIA, etc etc).

Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 9:04 pm

Agreed. Let's not forget Process Server for the DNC Fraud Lawsuit Shawn Lucas who died mysteriously 2 weeks after serving the DNC either.

I never would have believed the rot in the Democratic Party establishment would rival the Republicans, but here we are.

Anon , December 14, 2017 at 8:23 am

"Tina" is a troll assigned to CN to claim extremism, and never presents evidence or argument.

Steven A , December 13, 2017 at 11:16 pm

This is another great review by Robert Parry. However, he again uses the formulation that "WikiLeaks published" and "WikiLeaks released" purloined DNC emails on September 13, 2016. Greenwald and the Washington Post have stated, more carefully, that WikiLeaks "promoted" the data source of these emails by means of a Tweet on that date.

Adam Carter noted in a comment under Parry's previous article that the DNC emails in question are the NGP/VAN files associated with Guccifer 2.0's pre-announced "hack" on July 5, 2016 and reportedly released by him on Sept 13, 2016.

In fact, they are certainly not part of WikiLeak's official archive. One can see from their website that they published nothing between the times of the DNC emails release of July 22, 2016 and the Podesta emails release of October 7. So "published" is clearly the wrong word.

Whether or in what sense it may fairly be stated that WikiLeaks "released", "promoted" or "uploaded" (as according to the Erickson email, which probably represents nothing more than an outsider's impression) the September 13 files needs to be cautiously assessed. Their Tweet did include an access key, as did the Erickson email, and the address for the file given in the latter was a "mega.nz" address. I assume that this address is associated with Kim Dot Com, who also claims to have been involved with WikiLeaks.

Did Guccifer 2.0 himself upload the files to mega.nz? Did he play Kim Dot Com to use the latter's association with Wikileaks to get Wikileaks itself to put out the Sept 13 Tweet advertising the data release? I'm not sure how this all worked, but it seems that it is misleading to simply refer to this set of emails as having been "published" by Wikileaks.

incontinent reader , December 14, 2017 at 12:12 am

Didn't you read the VIPS analyses of the DNC leaks?

Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 8:21 am

Yes, I did, but not while writing my comment above. Do they say anything relevant to the question of whether it is accurate to correct the false media report that the Trump campaign was given access to the NGP/VAN DNC emails before WikiLeaks published them with a "corrected" statement that the Trump campaign was notified (but may never have noticed) of a link to those files by a random member of the public _after WikiLeaks had already published them_? As I recall, the original VIPS memo was itself somewhat confused about the distinction between the NGP/VAN material and the five DNC documents made public by "Guccifer 2.0" on June 15, 2016, so I'm not sure one will find anything relevant to my question there.

While it is true that the "correction" here is _much_ closer to the truth than the original misinformation, the underlined part at the end of my question still seems misleading in that the "publication" is attributed to WikiLeaks without qualification. And it seems Parry is not the only one to make this mistake. As Adam Carter pointed out two days ago, he was very surprised that almost no one has been noticing that the files in question came from "Guccifer 2.0" and not from WikiLeaks. While Parry's attribution misleading, I am still not clear in my own mind about precisely what did happen, i.e. how WikiLeaks came to "promote" the release of the files and whether in some loose or indirect sense WikiLeaks did "release" them.

mike k , December 14, 2017 at 11:08 am

Is there really any other purpose in your involved questioning but seeking to cloud and confuse the obvious issues in the "Russia hacked" affair?

Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 2:05 pm

How is it clouding the issue to suggest, as Adam Carter did, that one element in Parry's (and others') description of the facts in an otherwise excellent article seems to be misleading?

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , December 14, 2017 at 2:33 pm

@ "the address for the file given in the latter was a "mega.nz" address. I assume that this address is associated with Kim Dot Com, who also claims to have been involved with WikiLeaks."

Kim Dot Com's relationship with Mega was already extremely strained by the time of the Guccifer leaks and to the extent he ever had control of the company it had apparently ended. See e.g., https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-warns-mega-users-to-backup-their-files-160421/

Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 3:17 pm

These are the sort of details I haven't been familiar with and about which I was hoping to learn more – so thanks! I was relying on a vague impression from memory when I made the link between the "mega.nz" address seen in the email from Erickson and Kim Dot Com.

Since the whole Guccifer 2.0 operation appears to be an attempt to falsely smear WikiLeaks as a Russian agent (by publicly claiming to be a hacker associated with WikiLeaks and then being "caught" releasing documents (the ones of June 15, 2016) with "Russian fingerprints"), perhaps his uploading files (Sept 13, 2016) to a server with (past) ties to someone associated with WikiLeaks (Kim Dot Com) would have been part of the same effort.

A contemporary article says this about the release: "'Guccifer 2.0' released over 670 megabytes of documents at a cybersecurity conference in London Tuesday . The documents were released on a file storage system and not on WikiLeaks or on Guccifer 2.0's website." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hacker-guccifer-2-0-releases-more-dnc-docs-including-tim-n647921

Thus the statement that "WikiLeaks published" the files in question (repeated by Parry, Justin Raimondo and others) appears to be false. I share the surprise expressed by Adam Carter (under Parry's previous piece) that few appear to have noticed or bothered to correct this error – even though they were on target in exposing the main part of the latest MSM lie.

robjira , December 14, 2017 at 12:17 am

Great related reporting on BAR.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/entire-russian-hacking-narrative-invalidated-single-assange-tweet
https://www.blackagendareport.com/russsiagate-and-collapse-obamas-war-against-syria

Bob Van Noy , December 14, 2017 at 4:37 pm

Excellent links, robjira. Thanks.

Karl Sanchez , December 14, 2017 at 12:57 am

Those of us who live within the Outlaw US Empire have been seduced by lies Big and small since we could understand language. RussiaGate is an example of a Big Lie, just as the Outlaw US Empire being a democracy is a Big Lie–both are indoctrinational. Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Great Pumpkin, Sand Man, Cupid, et al are other excellent examples of indoctrinational Big Lies. One of the most severe is the maxim delivered from parents: You must share and play nice, when the real world acts in the exact opposite fashion. What's more, RussiaGate serves as a cover-up for several major crimes–some by Clinton, some by DNC, some by FBI, some by Justice Department, and some by CIA: None of them are being actively investigated despite there being lots of evidence existing in the public domain, which is why we know those crimes occurred.

I very highly suggest reading this article, https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/13/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was/

Marko , December 14, 2017 at 2:22 am

The last great hope for the Dems :

"A Russian hacker accused of stealing from Russian banks reportedly confessed in court that he hacked the U.S. Democratic National Committee (DNC) and stole Hillary Clinton's emails under the direction of agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB)"

PUTIN ORDERED THEFT OF CLINTON'S EMAILS FROM DNC, RUSSIAN HACKER CONFESSES
BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 12/12/17

http://www.newsweek.com/russian-hacker-stealing-clintons-emailshacking-dnc-putinsfsb-745555

irina , December 14, 2017 at 4:03 am

And on PBS tonite the author of this Atlantic article got to put in her two cents about Putin:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/putins-game/546548/

in which she stated that not only did Putin 'annex Crimea' but also invaded Ukraine, among other things. None of her statements were backed up by any facts, which apparently are irrelevant anymore. Wikipedia has an interesting bio on her.

Bob Van Noy , December 14, 2017 at 9:57 am

Thank you irina for that "catch". I'm a long time reader of "The Atlantic Magazine" well aware of its long, liberal history and was surprised to find David Frum reporting there. David was a speech writer for W. Bush and apparently came up with the infamous "Axis of Evil" tag for President Bush's State Of The Union speech. I'll link the Wikipedia page below for those interested. I'm concerned that propaganda has spread far and wide

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil

Sam F , December 14, 2017 at 8:56 am

Despite its extremely conclusive title and substance, the Newsweek article later admits the extremely suspect nature of the accusation, and the lack of any evidence whatsoever:

"Andrei Soldatov an expert on Russian cybersecurity, said he believes Kozlovsky invented the story about his direction from the FSB for personal gain. 'I've been communicating with [Kozlovsky] for four months, and he has failed to give me any proof or answer my questions," Soldatov told Newsweek .'He was put in jail by these guys so it could be out of revenge, or he wanted to make a deal with the FSB,'"

Such a reversal of evidence and conclusion bespeaks deliberate deception. The motive is unclear, as the failed Newsweek is said to have been revived in 2013 by a Korean-American Christian fundamentalist David Jang formerly of Moon's Unification Church, whose followers consider him the Second Coming of JC, according to the linked source. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/03/newsweek-ibt-olivet-david-jang/

Perhaps another quasi-religious CIA front like Fethullah Gulen's madrassas in Turkey and across central Asia.

exiled off mainstreet , December 14, 2017 at 3:13 pm

They keep publishing the same horseshit just like Pravda did in the Soviet era and just like the Voelkischer Beobachter and Stuermer did during the Nazi era. I guess the uninformed hoi polloi get so used to it in these situations that they accept the situation, like ducks and frogs accept watery ponds as their environments.

Manfred Whimplebottem , December 14, 2017 at 9:20 pm

I think I heard a similar story from newsweek months ago, looks like someone took the deal(?).

FBI Probe Into Clinton Emails Prompted Offer of Cash, Citizenship for Confession, Russian Hacker Claims

"On October 5, 2016, days before U.S. intelligence publicly accused Russia of endorsing an infiltration of Democratic Party officials' emails, Nikulin was arrested in Prague at the request of the U.S. on separate hacking charges. Now, Nikulin claims U.S. authorities tried to pin the email scandal on him."

"ikulin's lawyer, Martin Sadilek, [claims] that the FBI visited him at least a couple of times, offering to drop the charges and grant him U.S. citizenship as well as cash and an apartment in the U.S. if the Russian national confessed to participating in the 2016 hacks of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta's emails in July."

"[They told me:] you will have to confess to breaking into Clinton's inbox for [U.S. President Donald Trump] on behalf of [Russian President Vladimir Putin]," Nikulin wrote"

http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-investigation-clinton-emails-russia-hack-607538

Wm. Boyce , December 14, 2017 at 2:33 am

I'm curious as to why this is still an issue. Here's a link to an article from last August:
http://www.businessinsider.com/top-fbi-investigator-peter-strzok-steps-away-from-russia-probe-2017-8

At that time, it wasn't known why Mr. Strzok was transferred/whatever from counter-intelligence, but since then it has been revealed that Mr. Mueller did so for his ( Strzok) political opinions. That would seem a fair thing to do. What's the problem? Might be right-wing fear.

Marko , December 14, 2017 at 4:43 am

" What's the problem? "

C'mon , man. Given Strzok's position and his influence on Russiagate AND the earlier Hillarygate investigations , the fact that he was transferred in July is of little comfort. Any damage he could do he'd already done by then. Jim Jordan will explain it to you , in six minutes :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=cShxjlUfmhk

exiled off mainstreet , December 14, 2017 at 3:16 pm

The problem is that when that story first appeared, nothing else was disclosed. The damning material took months to emerge, as did Strzok's links to the Clinton coverups and the links to the fake dossier and the FBI's "anti-Trump" insurance policy. Those who want to believe the regime's falsehoods can always come up with rationales such as "I guess the government people know best" which was typical of the answers to sceptics against the Viet Nam war in the mid '60s.

Realist , December 14, 2017 at 2:43 am

It's been a year and a half since Hillary Clinton first accused Donald Trump of being a Putin puppet and in collusion with the Kremlin. Any fool should be able to understand that if there existed any real evidence to support this accusation the world would have seen it under banner headlines long ago. Instead, we get nothing but one set of sensational fake headlines unsupported by any actual facts time and again, all in an attempt to fool the mentally-challenged public. Yet the NYT and the rest of the yellow press continue to insist that the evidence continues to mount against Trump. What a laugh. Moreover, these deceivers are the people that want what they define as "fake news" to be systematically rooted out and stricken from the public record so no thinking person can ever see it. And, they tell us this is a free and democratic country. Got any more jokes?

Homina , December 14, 2017 at 3:48 am

Totally agree. And it reminds me of some reality "quest" shows about finding Bigfoot or the Oak Island treasure, etc.

If those were actually found, it would be reported a day or two later, unless every single one of the producers, actors, workers, etc. were under an NDA enough to wait until some season finale a year or two later. Ridiculous. If Bigfoot exists that will come to us on news, and big news, international. It won't come on a 4th season of some Bigfoot-finding show.

So yeah, season two of the Trump-Russia whatever.

Maddow/MSNBC and the likes have gone utterly insane. Bigfoot behind every door. Scant or zero facts, who cares. This isn't like Benghazi or White Water or Bush's air service this is 24/7 inane terrible journalism from nearly every journalist publisher in the US.

exiled off mainstreet , December 14, 2017 at 3:30 am

I think that the new evidence discussed provides Trump the cover to pull the plug on the whole Mueller operation despite the Alabama debacle. Sure the media talkers would compare it to the Saturday Night Massacre, but the proven falsity of the whole absurd circus renders risible such comparisons. While I don't expect much out of Trump, the championing of this absurd theory by the mainstream democrats renders them an existential threat to civilization itself based on the fact that enmity with Russia seems to be their be-all and end-all. It is all not only criminal but profoundly stupid.

Homina , December 14, 2017 at 3:40 am

"The primary purpose of Mr. Mueller's investigation is not to take down Mr. Trump. It's to protect America's national security and the integrity of its elections by determining whether a presidential campaign conspired with a foreign adversary to influence the 2016 election – a proposition that grows more plausible every day."

1. How is Russia an "adversary"? And even if Russia is, that's weasel-words and subjective. Is Turkey a foreign adversary? Is Israel? China? Mexico?

2. Why wasn't there decades ago a special Election Panel looking into foreign influence? I guess it just started to happen in this last election though .Only with Putin!

3. "more plausible" .this fucking idiot. After a year of headlines of "this is what will finally take down Trump" and such, all with zero reasons, zero facts .Is naught more plausible than naught?

4. I detest Trump. I more detest hypocrites and idiots.

But sure, "blah blah more possible take trump down" says some idiot or collective NYT idiocy. Bore me more your next op-ed, you partisan morons.

Sam F , December 14, 2017 at 6:27 pm

Yes, the NYT is mere propaganda. We already know that "a presidential campaign conspired with a foreign adversary to influence the 2016 election" because Clinton's top ten donors were all Zionists, and she supported all wars for Israel.

Rich Monahan , December 14, 2017 at 3:57 am

Thank you for your spot-on analysis! The motives of the deep state – including FBI operatives, NY Times and WAPO – is crystal clear. They do not want Trump to be president, and are determined to either remove him or handcuff him indefinitely. But why? Why has the establishment gone crazy? Is it simply political, or something deeper and darker?

Skip Scott , December 14, 2017 at 8:59 am

The real "deep" reason is the PNAC plot to make sure that the USA remains the sole super power that can impose its will anywhere in the world. Trump's campaign position of seeking detente with Russia would have led us into a multi-polar world giving Russia a sphere of influence. That is unacceptable to the empire.

RussiaGate is an attempt to remove Trump from power, or at a minimum make it impossible for him to seek detente. I am no Trump apologist, but I do think our only hope for a future in this nuclear age is to seek peace and cooperation in a multi-polar world that respects national sovereignty and the rule of law. I suspect Trump will continue to be brought to heel, with or without the success of RussiaGate. And there is always the JFK solution as a last resort.

M C Martin , December 14, 2017 at 6:08 am

Where is William Binney's "Thin String" signals intelligence (SIGINT) software when it's needed? Wouldn't it be lovely to focus it on the communications of our own government? Binney says applying it after 9/11 to the pre-9/11 communications streams did successfully predict the 9/11 attacks. If only we had stored all communications of government officials dating back to . hey, let's say 1774 or so, what truths might we now know, and what proofs might we now have? What would FDR's communications prior to Pearl Harbor reveal? What about the JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X assassinations?

While I can't endorse our government's illegal and immoral collection and storing of virtually all communications among people, if the store is there and is used against petty criminals, why couldn't or shouldn't it be used to detect and prove the illegal acts of our government power brokers?

What's good for the goose

[Dec 11, 2017] Strzok-Gate And The Mueller Cover-Up by Alexander Mercouris

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... If there were secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence such as might give rise to genuine concern that the national security of the United States might be compromised – for example because they were intended to swing the US election from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump – then the FBI would have a legitimate reason to investigate those contacts even if no actual crimes were committed during them. ..."
"... The point is however is that eighteen months after the start of the Russiagate investigation no evidence either of criminal acts or of secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence which might have placed the national security of the United States in jeopardy has come to light. ..."
"... There is no evidence of a criminal conspiracy by anyone in the Trump campaign involving the Russians. or the hacking of John Podesta's and the DNC's computers in order to steal emails from those computers and to have them published by Wikileaks; ..."
"... There is also no evidence of any secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the election which might have placed the national security of the United States in jeopardy. ..."
"... If no evidence either of a criminal conspiracy or of inappropriate secret contacts by the Trump campaign and the Russians has been found after eighteen months of intense investigation by the biggest and mightiest national security and intelligence community on the planet, then any reasonable person would conclude that that must be because no such evidence exists. ..."
"... Some months I expressed doubts that Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would countenance fishing expeditions . It turns out I was wrong. On any objective assessment it is exactly such fishing expeditions that the Mueller investigation is now engaging in. ..."
"... Deutsche Bank is a German bank not a Russian bank. To insinuate that the Russians control Deutsche Bank – one of the world's leading international banks – because Deutsche Bank has had some previous financial dealings with various Russian banks and businesses is quite simply preposterous. I doubt that there is a single important bank in Germany or Austria of which that could not also be said. ..."
"... Which again begs the question why? Why are Mueller and the Justice Department resorting to these increasingly desperate actions in order to prove something which it ought to be obvious by now cannot be proved? ..."
"... My colleague Alex Christoforou has recently pointed out that the recent indictment of Michael Flynn seems to have been partly intended to shield Mueller from dismissal and to keep his Russiagate investigation alive. Some time ago I made exactly the same point about the indictments against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates and about the indictment against George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... Those indictments were issued directly after the Wall Street Journal published an editorial saying that Mueller should resign. ..."
"... It is the Wall Street Journal editorial which in fact provides the answer to Mueller's and Rosenstein's otherwise strange behaviour and to the way that Mueller has conducted the investigation up to now. The Wall Street Journal's editorial says that Mueller's past as the FBI's Director means that he is too close to the FBI to take an objective view of its actions. ..."
"... It is universally agreed that the FBI's then Director – Mueller's friend James Comey – broke protocols by the way he announced that Hillary Clinton had been cleared. ..."
"... By failing to bring charges against Hillary Clinton the FBI ensured that she would win the Democratic Party's nomination, and that she not Bernie Sanders would face off against Donald Trump in the election in the autumn. That is important because though the eventual – completely unexpected – election outcome was that Donald Trump won the election, which Hillary Clinton lost, every opinion poll which I have seen suggests that if the election had been between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump then Bernie Sanders would have won by a landslide. ..."
"... They played Sessions like a violin. Sessions recluses himself for a bullcrap Kisnyak speech, where he did not even meet him. Rosenstein then recommends Trump fire Comey -- who wanted to be fired so they would appoint a special prosecutor -- which Rosenstein does -- Mueller, to the acclamation of ALL of Con and the Senate-including Republicans. ..."
"... Trump was pissed because they removed his only defender from Mueller -- the head of the DOJ. He knew it was a setup, so went ballistic when he found out about Sessions recusing. ..."
"... Strzok was obviously at a VERY senior pay grade. It would be very surprising if HR had any jobs at Strzok's pay grade. ..."
"... once this special prosecutor is done, congress needs to rewrite the special prosecutor law to narrow their mandate to just the item allowed to be investigated - no fishing expeditions - enough of this stupidity - and maybe put a renewal clause in there so that it has to be renewed every 12 months... ..."
"... This is, and always has been a sideshow for the "true believers" in the Democrap party and all Hitlary supporters to accuse Trump of EXACTLY what Hitlary did ..."
Dec 10, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Alexander Mercouris via TheDuran.com,

Almost eighteen months after Obama's Justice Department and the FBI launched the Russiagate investigation, and seven months after Special Counsel Robert Mueller took the investigation over, the sum total of what it has achieved is as follows

(1) an indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates which concerns entirely their prior financial dealings, and which makes no reference to the Russiagate collusion allegations;

(2) an indictment for lying to the FBI of George Papadopoulos, the junior volunteer staffer of the Trump campaign, who during the 2016 Presidential election had certain contacts with members of a Moscow based Russian NGO, which he sought to pass off – falsely and unsuccessfully – as more important than they really were, and which also does not touch on the Russiagate collusion allegations; and

(3) an indictment for lying to the FBI of Michael Flynn arising from his perfectly legitimate and entirely legal contacts with the Russian ambassador after the 2016 Presidential election, which also does not touch on the Russiagate collusion allegations, and which looks as if it was brought about by an act of entrapment .

Of actual evidence to substantiate the claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election Mueller has so far come up with nothing.

Here I wish to say something briefly about the nature of "collusion".

There is no criminal offence of "collusion" known to US law, which has led some to make the point that Mueller is investigating a crime which does not exist.

There is some force to this point, but it is one which must be heavily qualified:

(1) Though there is no crime of "collusion" in US law, there most certainly is the crime of conspiracy to perform a criminal act.

Should it ever be established that members of the Trump campaign arranged with the Russians for the Russians to hack the DNC's and John Podesta's computers and to steal the emails from those computers so that they could be published by Wikileaks, then since hacking and theft are serious criminal acts a criminal conspiracy would be established, and it would be the entirely proper to do to bring criminal charges against those who were involved in it.

This is the central allegation which lies behind the whole Russiagate case, and is the crime which Mueller is supposed to be investigating.

(2) The FBI is not merely a police and law enforcement agency. It is also the US's counter-espionage agency.

If there were secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence such as might give rise to genuine concern that the national security of the United States might be compromised – for example because they were intended to swing the US election from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump – then the FBI would have a legitimate reason to investigate those contacts even if no actual crimes were committed during them.

Since impeachment is a purely political process and not a legal process, should it ever be established that there were such secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence which might have placed the national security of the United States in jeopardy, then I have no doubt that Congress would say that there were grounds for impeachment even if no criminal offences had been committed during them.

The point is however is that eighteen months after the start of the Russiagate investigation no evidence either of criminal acts or of secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence which might have placed the national security of the United States in jeopardy has come to light.

Specifically:

(1) There is no evidence of a criminal conspiracy by anyone in the Trump campaign involving the Russians. or the hacking of John Podesta's and the DNC's computers in order to steal emails from those computers and to have them published by Wikileaks; and

(2) There is also no evidence of any secret contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the election which might have placed the national security of the United States in jeopardy.

Such contacts as did take place between the Trump campaign and the Russians were limited and innocuous and had no effect on the outcome of the election. Specifically there is no evidence of any concerted action between the Trump campaign and the Russians to swing the election from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.

As I have previously discussed, the meeting between Donald Trump Junior and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya is not such evidence .

If no evidence either of a criminal conspiracy or of inappropriate secret contacts by the Trump campaign and the Russians has been found after eighteen months of intense investigation by the biggest and mightiest national security and intelligence community on the planet, then any reasonable person would conclude that that must be because no such evidence exists.

Why then is the investigation still continuing?

Some months I expressed doubts that Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would countenance fishing expeditions. It turns out I was wrong. On any objective assessment it is exactly such fishing expeditions that the Mueller investigation is now engaging in.

How else to explain the strange decision to subpoena Deutsche Bank for information about loans granted by Deutsche Bank to Donald Trump and his businesses?

Deutsche Bank is a German bank not a Russian bank. To insinuate that the Russians control Deutsche Bank – one of the world's leading international banks – because Deutsche Bank has had some previous financial dealings with various Russian banks and businesses is quite simply preposterous. I doubt that there is a single important bank in Germany or Austria of which that could not also be said.

Yet in the desperation to find some connection between Donald Trump and Russia it is to these absurdities that Mueller is reduced to.

Which again begs the question why? Why are Mueller and the Justice Department resorting to these increasingly desperate actions in order to prove something which it ought to be obvious by now cannot be proved?

My colleague Alex Christoforou has recently pointed out that the recent indictment of Michael Flynn seems to have been partly intended to shield Mueller from dismissal and to keep his Russiagate investigation alive. Some time ago I made exactly the same point about the indictments against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates and about the indictment against George Papadopoulos.

Those indictments were issued directly after the Wall Street Journal published an editorial saying that Mueller should resign.

The indictment against Manafort and Gates looks sloppy and rushed. Perhaps I am wrong but there has to be at least a suspicion that the indictments were issued in a hurry to still criticism of Mueller of the kind that was now appearing in the Wall Street Journal.

Presumably the reason the indictment against Flynn was delayed was because his lawyers had just signaled Flynn's interest in a plea bargain, and it took a few more weeks of negotiating to work that out.

It is the Wall Street Journal editorial which in fact provides the answer to Mueller's and Rosenstein's otherwise strange behaviour and to the way that Mueller has conducted the investigation up to now. The Wall Street Journal's editorial says that Mueller's past as the FBI's Director means that he is too close to the FBI to take an objective view of its actions.

In fact the Wall Street Journal was more right than it perhaps realised. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the FBI's actions are open to very serious criticism to say the least, and that Mueller is simply not the person who can be trusted to take an objective view of those actions.

Over the course of the 2016 election the FBI cleared Hillary Clinton over her illegal use of a private server to route classified emails whilst she was Secretary of State though it is universally agreed that she broke the law by doing so.

The FBI does not seem to have even considered investigating Hillary Clinton for possible obstruction of justice after it also became known that she had actually destroyed thousands of her emails which passed through her private server, though that was an obvious thing to do.

It is universally agreed that the FBI's then Director – Mueller's friend James Comey – broke protocols by the way he announced that Hillary Clinton had been cleared.

By failing to bring charges against Hillary Clinton the FBI ensured that she would win the Democratic Party's nomination, and that she not Bernie Sanders would face off against Donald Trump in the election in the autumn. That is important because though the eventual – completely unexpected – election outcome was that Donald Trump won the election, which Hillary Clinton lost, every opinion poll which I have seen suggests that if the election had been between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump then Bernie Sanders would have won by a landslide.

In other words it was because of the FBI's actions in the first half of 2016 that Bernie Sanders is not now the President of the United States.

In addition instead of independently investigating the DNC's claims that the Russians had hacked the DNC's and John Podesta's computers, the FBI simply accepted the opinion of an expert – Crowdstrike – paid for by the DNC, which it is now known was partly funded and was entirely controlled by the Hillary Clinton campaign, that hacks of those computers had actually taken place and that the Russians were the perpetrators.

As a result Hillary Clinton was able to say during the election that the reason emails which had passed through those computers and which showed her and her campaign in a bad light were being published by Wikileaks was because the Russians had stolen the emails by hacking the computers in order to help Donald Trump.

It is now known that the FBI also met with Christopher Steele, the compiler of the Trump Dossier, who is now known to have been in the pay of the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign. The first meeting apparently took place in early July 2016, shortly before the Russiagate investigation was launched.

Whilst there is some confusion about whether the FBI actually paid Steele for his information, it is now known that Steele was in contact with the FBI throughout the election and continued to be so after, and that the FBI gave credence to his work.

Recently it has also come to light that Steele was also directly in touch with Obama's Justice Department, a fact which was only disclosed recently.

The best account of this has been provided by Byron York writing for The Washington Examiner

The department's Bruce Ohr, a career official, served as associate deputy attorney general at the time of the campaign. That placed him just below the deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, who ran the day-to-day operations of the department. In 2016, Ohr's office was just steps away from Yates, who was later fired for defying President Trump's initial travel ban executive order and still later became a prominent anti-Trump voice upon leaving the Justice Department.

Unbeknownst to investigators until recently, Ohr knew Steele and had repeated contacts with Steele when Steele was working on the dossier. Ohr also met after the election with Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, the opposition research company that was paid by the Clinton campaign to compile the dossier.

Word that Ohr met with Steele and Simpson, first reported by Fox News' James Rosen and Jake Gibson, was news to some current officials in the Justice Department. Shortly after learning it, they demoted Ohr, taking away his associate deputy attorney general title and moving him full time to another position running the department's organized crime drug enforcement task forces.

It is also now known that over the course of the election the FBI – on the basis of information in the Trump Dossier – obtained at least one warrant from the FISA court which made it possible for it to undertake surveillance during and after the election of persons belonging to involved the campaign team of Hillary Clinton's opponent Donald Trump.

In response to subpoenas issued at the instigation of the Congressman Devin Nunes the FBI has recently admitted that the Trump Dossier cannot be verified .

However the FBI and the Justice Department have so far failed to provide in response to these subpoenas information about the precise role of the Trump Dossier in triggering the Russiagate investigation.

The FBI's and the Justice Department's failure to provide this information recently provoked an angry exchange between FBI Director Christopher Wray and Congressman Jim Jordan during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

During that hearing Jordan said to Wray the following

Let's remember a couple of things about the dossier. The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, which we now know were one and the same, paid the law firm who paid Fusion GPS who paid Christopher Steele who then paid Russians to put together a report that we call a dossier full of all kinds of fake news, National Enquirer garbage and it's been reported that this dossier was all dressed up by the FBI, taken to the FISA court and presented as a legitimate intelligence document -- that it became the basis for a warrant to spy on Americans.

In response Wray refused to say officially whether or not the Trump Dossier played any role in the FBI obtaining the FISA warrants.

This was so even though officials of the FBI – including former FBI Director James Comey – have slipped out in earlier Congressional testimony that it did.

This is also despite the fact that this information is not classified and ought already to have been provided by the Justice Department and the FBI in response to Congressman Nunes's subpoenas.

There is now talk of FBI Director Christopher Wray and of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein being held in contempt of Congress because of the failure of the Justice Department and the FBI to comply with Congressman Nunes's subpoenas.

During the exchanges between Wray and Jordan at the hearing in the House Judiciary Committee Jordan also had this to say

Here's what I think -- I think Peter Strozk (sic) Mr. Super Agent at the FBI, I think he's the guy who took the application to the FISA court and if that happened, if this happened , if you have the FBI working with a campaign, the Democrats' campaign, taking opposition research, dressing it all up and turning it into an intelligence document so they can take it to the FISA court so they can spy on the other campaign, if that happened, that is as wrong as it gets

Peter Strzok is the senior FBI official who is now known to have had a leading role in both the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's misuse of her private server and in the Russiagate investigation.

Strzok is now also known to have been the person who changed the wording in Comey's statement clearing Hillary Clinton for her misuse of her private email server to say that Hillary Clinton had been "extremely careless'" as opposed to "grossly negligent".

Strzok – who was the FBI's deputy director for counter-intelligence – is now also known to have been the person who signed the document which launched the Russiagate investigation in July 2016.

Fox News has reported that Strzok was also the person who supervised the FBI's questioning of Michael Flynn. It is not clear whether this covers the FBI's interview with Flynn on 24th January 2017 during which Flynn lied to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. However it is likely that it does.

If so then this is potentially important given that it was Flynn's lying to the FBI during this interview which made up the case against him and to which he has now pleaded guilty. It is potentially even more important given the strong indications that Flynn's interview with the FBI on 24th January 2017 was a set-up intended to entrap him by tricking him into lying to the FBI.

As the FBI's deputy director of counter-intelligence it is also highly likely that it was Strozk who was the official within the FBI who supervised the FBI's contacts with Christopher Steele, and who would have been the official within the FBI who was provided by Steele with the Trump Dossier and who would have made the first assessment of the Trump Dossier.

Recently it has been disclosed that Special Counsel Mueller sacked Strzok from the Russiagate investigation supposedly after it was discovered that Strzok had been sending anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton messages to Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer with whom he was having an affair.

These messages were sent by Strzok to his lover during the election, but apparently only came to light in July this year, when Mueller supposedly sacked Strzok because of them.

It seems that since then Strzok has been working in the FBI's human resources department, an astonishing demotion for the FBI's former deputy director for counter-intelligence who was apparently previously considered the FBI's top expert on Russia.

Some people have questioned whether the sending of the messages could possibly be the true reason why Strzok was sacked. My colleague Alex Christoforou has reported on some of the bafflement that this extraordinary sacking and demotion has caused.

Business Insider reports the anguished comments of former FBI officials incredulous that Strzok could have been sacked for such a trivial reason. Here is what Business Insider reports one ex FBI official Mark Rossini as having said

It would be literally impossible for one human being to have the power to change or manipulate evidence or intelligence according to their own political preferences. FBI agents, like anyone else, are human beings. We are allowed to have our political beliefs. If anything, the overwhelming majority of agents are conservative Republicans.

This is obviously right. Though the ex-FBI officials questioned by Business Insider are clearly supporters of Strzok and critics of Donald Trump, the same point has been made from the other side of the political divide by Congressman Jim Jordan

If you get kicked off the Mueller team for being anti-Trump, there wouldn't be anybody left on the Mueller team. There has to be more

Adding to the mystery about Strzok's sacking is why the FBI took five months to confirm it.

Mueller apparently sacked Strzok from the Russiagate investigation in July and it was apparently then that Strzok was simultaneously sacked from his previous post of deputy director for counter-espionage and transferred to human resources. The FBI has however only disclosed his sacking now, five months later and only in response to demands for information from Congressional investigators.

There is in fact an obvious explanation for Strzok's sacking and the strange circumstances surrounding it, and I am sure that it is the one which Congressman Jordan had in mind during his angry exchanges with FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Recently the FBI has admitted to Congress that it has failed to verify the Trump Dossier.

I suspect that Congressman Jordan believes that the true reason why Strzok was sacked is that Strzok's credibility had become so tied to the Trump Dossier that when its credibility collapsed over the course of the summer when the FBI finally realised that it could not be verified his credibility collapsed with it.

If so then I am sure that Congressman Jordan is right.

We now know from a variety of sources but first and foremost from the testimony to Congress of Carter Page that the Trump Dossier provided the frame narrative for the Russiagate investigation until just a few months ago.

We also know that the Trump Dossier was included in an appendix to the January ODNI report about supposed Russian meddling in the 2016 election which was shown by the US intelligence chiefs to President elect Trump during their stormy meeting with him on 8th January 2017.

The fact that the Trump Dossier was included in an appendix to the January ODNI report shows that at the start of this year the top officials of the FBI and of the US intelligence community – Comey, Clapper, Brennan and the rest – believed in its truth.

The June 2017 article in the Washington Post (discussed by me here ) also all but confirms that it was the Trump Dossier that provided the information which the CIA sent to President Obama in August 2016 which supposedly 'proved' that the Russians were interfering in the election.

As the BBC has pointed out , it was also the Trump Dossier which Congressman Adam Schiff – the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Community, who appears to be very close to some of the FBI investigators involved in the Russiagate case – as well as the FBI's Russiagate investigators were using as the narrative frame when questioning witnesses about their supposed role in Russiagate.

These facts make it highly likely that it was indeed the Trump Dossier which provided the information which the FBI used to obtain all the surveillance warrants the FBI obtained from the FISA court during the 2016 election and afterwards.

Strzok's position as the FBI's deputy director for counter-intelligence makes it highly likely that he was the key official within the FBI who decided that the Trump Dossier should be given credence, whilst his known actions during the Hillary Clinton private server investigation and during the Russiagate investigation make it highly likely that it was he who was the official within the FBI who sought and obtained the FISA warrants.

Given Strzok's central role in the Russiagate investigation going back all the way to its start in July 2016, there also has to be a possibility that it was Strzok who was behind many of the leaks coming from the investigation which so destabilised the Trump administration at the start of the year.

This once again points to the true scandal of the 2016 election.

On the strength of a fake Dossier paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign the Justice Department, the FBI and the US intelligence community carried out surveillance during the election of US citizens who were members of the campaign team of Hillary Clinton's opponent Donald Trump.

Given the hugely embarrassing implications of this for the FBI, it is completely understandable why Strzok, if he was the person who was ultimately responsible for this debacle – as he very likely was – and if he was responsible for some of the leaks – as he very likely also was – was sacked and exiled to human resources when it was finally concluded that the Trump Dossier upon which all the FBI's actions were based could not be verified.

It would also explain why the FBI sought to keep Strzok's sacking secret, so that it was only disclosed five months after it happened and then only in response to questions from Congressional investigators, with a cover story about inappropriate anti-Trump messages being spread about in order to explain it.

This surely is also the reason why in defiance both of evidence and logic the Russiagate investigation continues.

Given the debacle the Justice Department, the FBI and the US intelligence community are facing, it is completely understandable why they should want to keep the Russiagate investigation alive in order to draw attention away from their own activities.

Put in this way it is Robert Mueller's investigation which is the cover-up, and the surveillance which is the wrongdoing that the cover up is trying to excuse or conceal, which is what I said nine months ago in March .

Congressman Jordan has again recently called for a second Special Counsel to be appointed .

When the suggestion of appointing a second Special Counsel was first floated last month the suggestion was that the focus of the second Special Counsel's investigation would be the Uranium One affair.

That always struck me as misconceived not because there may not be things to investigate in the Uranium One case but because the focus of any new investigation should be what happened during the 2016 election, not what happened during the Uranium one case.

Congressman Jordan has now correctly identified the surveillance of US citizens by the US national security bureaucracy during the election as the primary focus of the proposed investigation to be conducted by the second Special Counsel.

In truth there should be no second Special Counsel. Since there is no Russiagate collusion to investigate the Russiagate investigation – ie. the investigation headed by Mueller – should be wound up.

There should be only one Special Counsel tasked with looking into what is the real scandal of the 2016 election: the surveillance of US citizens carried out during the election by the US national security bureaucracy on the basis of the Trump Dossier.

I remain intensely skeptical that this will happen. However the fact that some members of Congress such as Congressman Nunes (recently cleared of charges that he acted inappropriately by disclosing details of the surveillance back in March) and Congressman Jordan are starting to demand it is a hopeful sign.

BennyBoy -> MozartIII , Dec 10, 2017 1:29 PM

Top Clinton Aides Face No Charges After Making False Statements To FBI

Neither of the Clinton associates, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, faced legal consequences for their misleading statements, which they made in interviews last year with former FBI section chief Peter Strzok.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/04/clinton-aides-went-unpunished-after-making-false-statements-to-anti-trump-fbi-supervisor/

zorba THE GREEK -> Cynicles II , Dec 10, 2017 12:53 PM

These are acts to overthrow the legitimate government of the USA and therefore constitute treason. Treason is still punishable by death. It is time for some public hangings. Trump should declare martial law. Put Patraeus and Flint in charge and drain the swamp like he promised...

Oldwood -> zorba THE GREEK , Dec 10, 2017 2:57 PM

Absolutely. This is not political, about justice or corruption or election coercion, this is about keeping the fires lit under Trump, no matter how lame or lying, in the hopes that something, anything, will arise that could be used to unseat Trump. Something that by itself would be controversial but ultimately a nothing-burger, but piled upon the months and years of lies used to build a false consensus of corruption, criminality and impropriety of Trump. Their goal has always been to undermine Trump by convincing the world that Trump is evil and unfit using nothing but lies, that without Trump's endless twitter counters would have buried him by now. While they know that can't convince a significant majority that these lies are true, what they can do is convince the majority that everyone else thinks it true, thereby in theory enabling them to unseat Trump with minimal resistance, assuming many will simply stand down in the face of a PERCEIVED overwhelming majority.

This is about constructing a false premise that they can use minimal FACTS to confirm. They are trying and testing every day this notion with continuing probes and jabs in hopes that something....anything, sticks.

Hikikomori -> zorba THE GREEK , Dec 10, 2017 3:26 PM

Just part of the War on Men. Trump is a man. He lost to It's Her Turn. Therefore he must be taken down.

robertsgt40 -> Cynicles II , Dec 10, 2017 1:03 PM

Solve the Seth Rich murder and we'll know who "hacked" the DNC emails. Paging John Podesta.

Lumberjack -> NoDebt , Dec 10, 2017 12:44 PM

More Clinton ties on Mueller team: One deputy attended Clinton party, another rep'd top aide

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/08/more-clin...

turbojarhead -> NoDebt , Dec 10, 2017 2:12 PM

I have a question, if someone could answer.

Mueller is a lot of things, but he is a politician, and skilled at that, as he has survived years in Washington.

So why choose KNOWN partisans for your investigation? He may not have known about Strzok, but he surely knew about Weitsmann's ties to HRC, about Rhee being Rhodes personal attorney,..so why put them on, knowing that the investigations credibility would be damaged? No way most of this would not come out, just due to the constant leaks from the FBI/DOJ.

What is the real goal, other than taking Trump down and covering up FBI/DOJ/Obama Admin malfeasance? These goons are all highly experienced swamp dwellers, so I think there is something that is being missed here..

MissCellany , Dec 10, 2017 1:03 PM

" The fact that the Trump Dossier was included in an appendix to the January ODNI report shows that at the start of this year the top officials of the FBI and of the US intelligence community – Comey, Clapper, Brennan and the rest – believed in its truth. "

Oh, bull crap. None of them believed a word of it, and at least some of them were in on the dossier's creation.

They just wanted to put over their impeach/resist/remove scam on us deplorables so they could hang on to power and maintain secrecy over all their years of criminal activity.

lester1 , Dec 10, 2017 1:33 PM

Obama weaponized the NSA and FBI to try and take out Trump.

Obama figured Hillary would win and everything would be swept under the rug.

Hopefully Trump fires Mueller over the Christmas weekend!

Reaper , Dec 10, 2017 1:34 PM

The FBI is a fraud on the sheeple. Indoctrinated sheeple believe FBI testimony. The M.O. of the FBI is entrapment of victims and entrapped witnesses against victims using their Form 302 interrogations. The FBI uses forensic evidence from which gullible juries trust the FBI financed reports. Power corrupts. The power to be believed because of indoctrination corrupts absolutely.

https://boingboing.net/2013/05/07/dont-ever-speak-to-the-fbi-w.html

https://www.nationofchange.org/2015/04/21/doj-admits-fbi-forensic-examin...

Trump as Chief Executive can end the FBI policy of interviews without recordings being used to entrap victims and witnesses.

thebigunit , Dec 10, 2017 1:34 PM

EXCELLENT ANALYSIS! A+++

Strzok-Gate And The Mueller Cover-Up

It makes perfect sense.

Stopdreaming -> loveyajimbo , Dec 10, 2017 1:54 PM

They have the goods on Sessions...he was blackmailed. No other logical explanation for his lack of fortitude.

thebigunit -> loveyajimbo , Dec 10, 2017 2:03 PM

Keep your powder dry. Hold your fire until you see the whites of their eyes.

All this crap comes down to ONE THING: Sessions ... why he refuses to fire a mega-conflicted and corrupt POS Mueller...

Investigative reporter Sarah Carter hinted (last Friday?) that something big would be happening "probably within the next forty-eight hours". She related this specifically to a comment that Sessions had been virtually invisible.

I will make a prediction:

THE COMING WEEK WILL BE A TUMULTUOUS WEEK FOR THOSE OBSESSED BY THE "RUSSIA COLLUSION CONSPIRACY" .

First, Sessions will announce significant findings and actions which will directly attack the Trump-Russia-Collusion narrative.

And then, the Democrats/Media/Hillary Campaign will launch a hystierical, viscious, demented political counter attack in a final onslaught to take down Trump.

Expect to see Soros mobs in the streets.

Either Mueller goes, or Trump goes.

turbojarhead -> loveyajimbo , Dec 10, 2017 2:37 PM

They played Sessions like a violin. Sessions recluses himself for a bullcrap Kisnyak speech, where he did not even meet him. Rosenstein then recommends Trump fire Comey -- who wanted to be fired so they would appoint a special prosecutor -- which Rosenstein does -- Mueller, to the acclamation of ALL of Con and the Senate-including Republicans.

When Trump tries to get out of the trap by leaking he is thinking about firing Sessions, Lispin Lindsey goes on television to say that will not be allowed too happen. If he fires Sessions, Congress would not approve ANY of Trump's picks for DOJ-leaving Rosenstein in charge anyway.

Trump was pissed because they removed his only defender from Mueller -- the head of the DOJ. He knew it was a setup, so went ballistic when he found out about Sessions recusing.

thebigunit , Dec 10, 2017 1:40 PM

There is good reason for optimism: Trumpus Maximus is on the case.

I remain intensely skeptical that this will happen. However the fact that some members of Congress such as Congressman Nunes (recently cleared of charges that he acted inappropriately by disclosing details of the surveillance back in March) and Congressman Jordan are starting to demand it is a hopeful sign.

The design has been exposed. It is now fairly clear WHAT the conspirators did.

We now enter the neutralization and mop-up phase.

And, very likely, people who know things will be EAGER to talk:

FBI agents, like anyone else, are human beings. We are allowed to have our political beliefs. If anything, the overwhelming majority of agents are conservative Republicans.

ClowardPiven2016 , Dec 10, 2017 1:51 PM

Strozk demoted to HR...but his take home pay is probably the same

thebigunit -> ClowardPiven2016 , Dec 10, 2017 2:02 PM

EXACTLY!

Strozk demoted to HR...but his take home pay is probably the same

Strzok was obviously at a VERY senior pay grade. It would be very surprising if HR had any jobs at Strzok's pay grade.

Mzhen , Dec 10, 2017 1:57 PM

Bloomberg fed a fake leak that Mueller had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank. Democrats (Schiff) on the House Intelligence Committee fed fake information about Don Jr. that was leaked to CNN. Leading to an embarrassing retraction. ABC's Brian Ross fed a fake leak about the Flynn indictment. Leading to an embarrassing retraction.

Maybe the operation that Sessions set up some time ago to catch leakers is bearing fruit after all. And Mueller should realize that the ice is breaking up all around him.

Angelo Misterioso , Dec 10, 2017 1:57 PM

once this special prosecutor is done, congress needs to rewrite the special prosecutor law to narrow their mandate to just the item allowed to be investigated - no fishing expeditions - enough of this stupidity - and maybe put a renewal clause in there so that it has to be renewed every 12 months...

Nunyadambizness , Dec 10, 2017 2:34 PM

This is, and always has been a sideshow for the "true believers" in the Democrap party and all Hitlary supporters to accuse Trump of EXACTLY what Hitlary did, in the classic method of diversion. Sideshow magicians have been doing it for millenia--"Look over there" while the real work is done elsewhere. The true believers don't want to believe that Hitlary and the Democrap party are complicit in the selling of Uranium One to the Ruskies for $145 million. No, no, that was something completely different and Hitlary is not guilty of selling out the interests of the US for money. Nope, Trump colluded with the Russians to win the election. Yep, that's it.

Mueller is now the official head of a shit show that's coming apart at the seams. He was too stupid to even bring on ANY non-Hitlary supporting leftists which could have given him a smidgen of equibility, instead he stacked the deck with sycophant libtard leftists who by their very nature take away ANY concept of impartiality, and any jury on the planet would see through the connivance like glass. My guess is he's far too stupid to stop, and I happily await the carnage of his actions as they decimate the Democrap party.

Show's on, who's bringing the chips?

[Jul 17, 2017] Tucker Carlson Goes to War Against the Neocons by Curt Mills

Highly recommended!
max Book is just anothe "Yascha about Russia" type, that Masha Gessen represents so vividly. The problem with him is that time of neocon prominance is solidly in the past and now unpleasant question about the cost from the US people of their reckless foreign policies get into some newspapers and managines. They cost the USA tremedous anount of money (as in trillions) and those money consititute a large portion of the national debt. Critiques so far were very weak and partially suppressed voices, but defeat of neocon warmonger Hillary signify some break with the past.
Notable quotes:
"... National Interest ..."
"... Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump. This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird our policies." ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. . . . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject. ..."
"... New York Observer ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . . . Nobody is paying attention to it, " ..."
"... : Flickr/Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0. ..."
Jul 14, 2017 | nationalinterest.org

This week's primetime knife fights with Max Boot and Ralph Peters are emblematic of the battle for the soul of the American Right.

To be sure, Carlson rejects the term "neoconservatism," and implicitly, its corollary on the Democratic side, liberal internationalism. In 2016, "the reigning Republican foreign-policy view, you can call it neoconservatism, or interventionism, or whatever you want to call it" was rejected, he explained in a wide-ranging interview with the National Interest Friday.

"But I don't like the term 'neoconservatism,'" he says, "because I don't even know what it means. I think it describes the people rather than their ideas, which is what I'm interested in. And to be perfectly honest . . . I have a lot of friends who have been described as neocons, people I really love, sincerely. And they are offended by it. So I don't use it," Carlson said.

But Carlson's recent segments on foreign policy conducted with Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and the prominent neoconservative journalist and author Max Boot were acrimonious even by Carlsonian standards. In a discussion on Syria, Russia and Iran, a visibly upset Boot accused Carlson of being "immoral" and taking foreign-policy positions to curry favor with the White House, keep up his ratings , and by proxy, benefit financially. Boot says that Carlson "basically parrots whatever the pro-Trump line is that Fox viewers want to see. If Trump came out strongly against Putin tomorrow, I imagine Tucker would echo this as faithfully as the pro-Russia arguments he echoes today." But is this assessment fair?

Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump. This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird our policies."

Even if Carlson doesn't want to use the label neocon to describe some of those ideas, Boot is not so bashful. In 2005, Boot wrote an essay called "Neocons May Get the Last Laugh." Carlson "has become a Trump acolyte in pursuit of ratings," says Boot, also interviewed by the National Interest . "I bet if it were President Clinton accused of colluding with the Russians, Tucker would be outraged and calling for impeachment if not execution. But since it's Trump, then it's all a big joke to him," Boot says. Carlson vociferously dissents from such assessments: "This is what dumb people do. They can't assess the merits of an argument. . . . I'm not talking about Syria, and Russia, and Iran because of ratings. That's absurd. I can't imagine those were anywhere near the most highly-rated segments that night. That's not why I wanted to do it."

But Carlson insists, "I have been saying the same thing for fifteen years. Now I have a T.V. show that people watch, so my views are better known. But it shouldn't be a surprise. I supported Trump to the extent he articulated beliefs that I agree with. . . . And I don't support Trump to the extent that his actions deviate from those beliefs," Carlson said. Boot on Fox said that Carlson is "too smart" for this kind of argument. But Carlson has bucked the Trump line, notably on Trump's April 7 strikes in Syria. "When the Trump administration threw a bunch of cruise missiles into Syria for no obvious reason, on the basis of a pretext that I question . . . I questioned [the decision] immediately. On T.V. I was on the air when that happened. I think, maybe seven minutes into my show. . . . I thought this was reckless."

But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. . . . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject.

Boot objects to what he sees as a cavalier attitude on the part of Carlson and others toward allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and also toward the deaths of citizens of other countries. "You are laughing about the fact that Russia is interfering in our election process. That to me is immoral," Boot told Carlson on his show. "This is the level of dumbness and McCarthyism in Washington right now," says Carlson. "I think it has the virtue of making Max Boot feel like a good person. Like he's on God's team, or something like that. But how does that serve the interest of the country? It doesn't." Carlson says that Donald Trump, Jr.'s emails aren't nearly as important as who is going to lead Syria, which he says Boot and others have no plan for successfully occupying. Boot, by contrast, sees the U.S. administration as dangerously flirting with working with Russia, Iran and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. "For whatever reason, Trump is pro-Putin, no one knows why, and he's taken a good chunk of the GOP along with him," Boot says.

On Fox last Wednesday, Boot reminded Carlson that he originally supported the 2003 Iraq decision. "You supported the invasion of Iraq," Boot said, before repeating, "You supported the invasion of Iraq." Carlson conceded that, but it seems the invasion was a bona fide turning point. It's most important to parse whether Carlson has a long record of anti-interventionism, or if he's merely sniffing the throne of the president (who, dubiously, may have opposed the 2003 invasion). "I think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," Carlson told the New York Observer in early 2004. "It's something I'll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have done that. . . . I'm enraged by it, actually." Carlson told the National Interest that he's felt this way since seeing Iraq for himself in December 2003.

The evidence points heavily toward a sincere conversion on Carlson's part, or preexisting conviction that was briefly overcome by the beat of the war drums. Carlson did work for the Weekly Standard , perhaps the most prominent neoconservative magazine, in the 1990s and early 2000s. Carlson today speaks respectfully of William Kristol, its founding editor, but has concluded that he is all wet. On foreign policy, the people Carlson speaks most warmly about are genuine hard left-wingers: Glenn Greenwald, a vociferous critic of both economic neoliberalism and neoconservatism; the anti-establishment journalist Michael Tracey; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation ; and her husband, Stephen Cohen, the Russia expert and critic of U.S. foreign policy.

"The only people in American public life who are raising these questions are on the traditional left: not lifestyle liberals, not the Williamsburg (Brooklyn) group, not liberals in D.C., not Nancy Pelosi." He calls the expertise of establishment sources on matters like Syria "more shallow than I even imagined." On his MSNBC show, which was canceled for poor ratings, he cavorted with noninterventionist stalwarts such as Ron Paul , the 2008 and 2012 antiwar GOP candidate, and Patrick J. Buchanan. "No one is smarter than Pat Buchanan," he said last year of the man whose ideas many say laid the groundwork for Trump's political success.

Carlson has risen to the pinnacle of cable news, succeeding Bill O'Reilly. It wasn't always clear an antiwar take would vault someone to such prominence. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney could be president (Boot has advised the latter two). But here he is, and it's likely no coincidence that Carlson got a show after Trump's election, starting at the 7 p.m. slot, before swiftly moving to the 9 p.m. slot to replace Trump antagonist Megyn Kelly, and just as quickly replacing O'Reilly at the top slot, 8 p.m. Boot, on the other hand, declared in 2016 that the Republican Party was dead , before it went on to hold Congress and most state houses, and of course take the presidency. He's still at the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the New York Times (this seems to clearly annoy Carlson: "It tells you everything about the low standards of the American foreign-policy establishment").

Boot wrote in 2003 in the Weekly Standard that the fall of Saddam Hussein's government "may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history" comparable to "events like the storming of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall, after which everything is different." He continued, "If the occupation goes well (admittedly a big if ), it may mark the moment when the powerful antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into the diseased environment of the Middle East, and began to transform the region for the better."

Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . . . Nobody is paying attention to it, "

Carlson seems intent on pressing the issue. The previous night, in his debate with Peters, the retired lieutenant colonel said that Carlson sounded like Charles Lindbergh, who opposed U.S. intervention against Nazi Germany before 1941. "This particular strain of Republican foreign policy has almost no constituency. Nobody agrees with it. I mean there's not actually a large group of people outside of New York, Washington or L.A. who think any of this is a good idea," Carlson says. "All I am is an asker of obvious questions. And that's enough to reveal these people have no idea what they're talking about. None."

Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest . Follow him on Twitter: @CurtMills .

Image : Flickr/Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.

[Jul 12, 2017] Stephen Cohens Remarks on Tucker Carlson Last Night Were Extraordinary

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better. ..."
"... Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'. ..."
"... It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia. ..."
"... "The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in this bashing of Trump and Putin. ..."
"... Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring - 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch. ..."
Jul 12, 2017 | russia-insider.com
Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better.

Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'.

Ahh, the power of the apt phrase.

It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/5L2F4ocEIZw

Last night he was the featured guest on the most watched news show in the country, being cheered on by the host, who has him on as a regular. And Cohen isn't remotely a conservative. He is a contributing editor at the arch-liberal Nation magazine, of which his wife is the editor. It doesn't really get pinker than that.

Some choice quotes here, but the whole thing is worth a listen:

"The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in this bashing of Trump and Putin.

As a historian let me tell you the headline I would write instead:

"What we witnessed today in Hamburg was a potentially historic new detente. an anti-cold-war partnership begun by Trump and Putin but meanwhile attempts to sabotage it escalate." I've seen a lot of summits between American and Russian presidents, ... and I think what we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting ... since the Cold War.

The reason is, is that the relationship with Russia is so dangerous and we have a president who might have been crippled or cowed by these Russiagate attacks ... yet he was not. He was politically courageous. It went well. They got important things done. I think maybe today we witnessed president Trump emerging as an American statesman."

Cohen goes on to say that the US should ally with Assad, Iran, and Russia to crush ISIS, with Carlson bobbing his head up and down in emphatic agreement.

Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring - 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch.

Things are getting better in the US media, but we aren't quite able to call a spade a spade in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

[Feb 19, 2017] The deep state is running scared!

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... ..."Multiple reports show that my former colleagues in the intelligence community have decided that they must leak or withhold classified information due to unsettling connections between President Trump and the Russian Government... ..."
"... The deep state is running scared! I never+ attribute to coincidence that which is the FBI trampling the bill of rights. It is coincidence the deep state (fbi, nsa, various CIA and DoD spooks) tapped Russia spies who talk to private citizens who have no opportunity at espionage. Then the innuendo is leaked to the Clinton media! ..."
"... Worse on Trump for calling them out for leaking rather than as a civil liberty trampling Gestapo. Ben Franklin was right, give the democrat run spooks the power to protect you and you lose liberty and protection! ..."
Feb 19, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc : February 18, 2017 at 05:32 PM
This is running now on FoxNews.com, total fabrication especially the last sentence but Trumpers believe this Fake News. I think this is where ilsm gets his intell insights from, phoney former intell officers, they sound exactly like him - check it out for yourself

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/02/18/im-democrat-and-ex-cia-but-spies-plotting-against-trump-are-out-control.html

"I'm a Democrat (and ex-CIA) but the spies plotting against Trump are out of control"

By Bryan Dean Wright...February 18, 2017...Foxnews.com

..."Multiple reports show that my former colleagues in the intelligence community have decided that they must leak or withhold classified information due to unsettling connections between President Trump and the Russian Government...

Days ago, they delivered their verdict. According to one intelligence official, the president "will die in jail."..."

ilsm -> im1dc... , February 18, 2017 at 06:08 PM
The deep state is running scared! I never+ attribute to coincidence that which is the FBI trampling the bill of rights. It is coincidence the deep state (fbi, nsa, various CIA and DoD spooks) tapped Russia spies who talk to private citizens who have no opportunity at espionage. Then the innuendo is leaked to the Clinton media!

Worse on Trump for calling them out for leaking rather than as a civil liberty trampling Gestapo. Ben Franklin was right, give the democrat run spooks the power to protect you and you lose liberty and protection!

+40 years around the puzzlers.

[Jul 11, 2016] 5 Reasons The Comey Hearing Was The Worst Education In Criminal Justice The American Public Has Ever Had by Seth Abramson

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The reality is that prosecutors don't normally consider the legislative history or possible unconstitutionality of criminal statutes. Why? Because that's not their job. ..."
"... We can say, accurately, that the judgment of the FBI in its investigation into Clinton and her associates ― and Comey confirmed Clinton was indeed a "subject" of the investigation ― is that Clinton is a criminal. ..."
"... whether criminal statutes on the books had been violated ..."
"... criminal statutes had been violated ..."
"... So, my first point: for Comey to imply that there is any prosecutor in America uncomfortable with the "constitutionality" of criminal statutes predicated on "negligent," "reckless," or "knowing" mental states is not just laughable but an insult to both the prosecutorial class and our entire criminal justice system. Whatever issue Comey may have had with the felony statute he agrees Clinton violated, that wasn't it. ..."
"... specific intent ..."
"... Black's Law Dictionary ..."
"... First he asked, "What would other prosecutors do?" That's not a question prosecutors are charged to ask, and we now see why: as Comey himself concedes, countless prosecutors have already come out in public to say that, had they been investigating Clinton, they would have prosecuted her. A standard for prosecutorial discretion in which you weigh what others in your shoes might do based on some sort of a census leads immediately to madness, not just for the reasons I'm articulating here but many others too numerous to go into in detail in this space. ..."
"... Comey found credible that Clinton had created her private basement server set-up purely out of "convenience"; yet he also found that old servers, once replaced, were "stored and decommissioned in various ways." Wait, "various ways"? If Clinton was trying to create a streamlined, convenient personal process for data storage, why were things handled so haphazardly that Comey himself would say that the servers were dealt with "in various ways" over time? ..."
"... And indeed, the evidence Comey turned up showed that Clinton's staff was aware ― was repeatedly and systematically made aware ― that the Secretary's set-up had the effect of evading FOIA requests. And Clinton was, by her own admission, clear with her inferiors that "avoiding access to the personal" was key to her private basement-server set-up. That's very different from "convenience." ..."
"... completely different and more stringent protocols and requirements for data storage ..."
"... simply by looking at their headers ..."
"... every other action ..."
www.huffingtonpost.com
1. According to Comey, Clinton committed multiple federal felonies and misdemeanors. Many people will miss this in the wash of punditry from non-attorneys in the mainstream media that has followed Comey's public remarks and Congressional testimony.

The issue for Comey wasn't that Clinton hadn't committed any federal crimes, but that in his personal opinion the federal felony statute Clinton violated (18 U.S.C. 793f) has been too rarely applied for him to feel comfortable applying it to Clinton. This is quite different from saying that no crime was committed; rather, Comey's position is that crimes were committed, but he has decided not to prosecute those crimes because (a) the statute he focused most on has only been used once in the last century (keeping in mind how relatively rare cases like these are in the first instance, and therefore how rarely we would naturally expect a statute like this to apply in any case), and (b) he personally believes that the statute in question might be unconstitutional because, as he put it, it might punish people for crimes they didn't specifically intend to commit (specifically, it requires only a finding of "gross negligence," which Comey conceded he could prove). Comey appears to have taken the extraordinary step of researching the legislative history of this particular criminal statute in order to render this latter assessment.

The reality is that prosecutors don't normally consider the legislative history or possible unconstitutionality of criminal statutes. Why? Because that's not their job. Their job is to apply the laws as written, unless and until they are superseded by new legislation or struck down by the judicial branch. In Comey's case, this deep dive into the history books is even more puzzling as, prior to Attorney General Loretta Lynch unethically having a private meeting with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac, Comey wasn't even slated to be the final arbiter of whether Clinton was prosecuted or not. He would have been expected, in a case like this, to note to the Department of Justice's career prosecutors that the FBI had found evidence of multiple federal crimes, and then leave it to their prosecutorial discretion as to whether or not to pursue a prosecution. But more broadly, we must note that when Comey gave his public justification for not bringing charges ― a public justification in itself highly unusual, and suggestive of the possibility that Comey knew his inaction was extraordinary, and therefore felt the need to defend himself in equally extraordinary fashion ― he did not state the truth: that Clinton had committed multiple federal crimes per statutes presently on the books, and that the lack of a recommendation for prosecution was based not on the lack of a crime but the lack of prosecutorial will (or, as he might otherwise have put it, the exercise of prosecutorial discretion).

The danger here is that Americans will now believe many untrue things about the executive branch of their government. For instance, watching Comey's testimony one might believe that if the executive branch exercises its prosecutorial discretion and declines to prosecute crimes it determines have been committed, it means no crimes were committed. In fact, what it means (in a case like this) is that crimes were committed but will not be prosecuted. We can say, accurately, that the judgment of the FBI in its investigation into Clinton and her associates ― and Comey confirmed Clinton was indeed a "subject" of the investigation ― is that Clinton is a criminal. She simply shouldn't, in the view of the FBI, be prosecuted for her crimes. Prosecutorial discretion of this sort is relatively common, and indeed should be much more common when it comes to criminal cases involving poor Americans; instead, we find it most commonly in law enforcement's treatment of Americans with substantial personal, financial, sociocultural, and legal resources.

Americans might also wrongly believe, watching Comey's testimony, that it is the job of executive-branch employees to determine which criminal statutes written by the legislative branch will be acknowledged. While one could argue that this task does fall to the head of the prosecuting authority in a given instance ― here, Attorney General Loretta Lynch; had an independent prosecutor been secured in this case, as should have happened, that person, instead ― one could not argue that James Comey's role in this scenario was to decide which on-the-books criminal statutes matter and which don't. Indeed, Comey himself said, during his announcement of the FBI's recommendation, that his role was to refer the case to the DOJ for a "prosecutive decision" ― in other words, the decision on whether to prosecute wasn't his. His job was only to determine whether criminal statutes on the books had been violated.

By this test, Comey didn't just not do the job he set out to do, he wildly and irresponsibly exceeded it, to the point where its original contours were unrecognizable. To be blunt: by obscuring, in his public remarks and advice to the DOJ, the fact that criminal statutes had been violated ― in favor of observing, more broadly, that there should be no prosecution ― he made it not just easy but a fait accompli for the media and workaday Americans to think that not only would no prosecution commence, but that indeed there had been no statutory violations.

Which there were.

Americans might also wrongly take at face value Comey's contention that the felony statute Clinton violated was unconstitutional ― on the grounds that it criminalizes behavior that does not include a specific intent to do wrong. This is, as every attorney knows, laughable. Every single day in America, prosecutors prosecute Americans ― usually but not exclusively poor people ― for crimes whose governing statutes lack the requirement of "specific intent." Ever heard of negligent homicide? That's a statute that doesn't require what lawyers call (depending on the jurisdiction) an "intentional" or "purposeful" mental state. Rather, it requires "negligence." Many other statutes require only a showing of "recklessness," which likewise is dramatically distinct from "purposeful" or "intentional" conduct. And an even larger number of statutes have a "knowing" mental state, which Comey well knows ― but the average American does not ― is a general- rather than specific-intent mental state (mens rea, in legal terms).

And the term "knowingly" is absolutely key to the misdemeanors Comey appears to concede Clinton committed, but has declined to charge her for.

To discuss what "knowingly" means in the law, I'll start with an example. When I practiced criminal law in New Hampshire, it was a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to "knowingly cause unprivileged physical contact with another person." The three key elements to this particular crime, which is known as Simple Assault, are "knowingly," "unprivileged," and "physical contact." If a prosecutor can prove each of these elements beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant could, at the discretion of a judge, find themselves locked in a cage for a year. "Physical contact" means just about exactly what you'd expect, as does "unprivileged" ― contact for which you have no claim of privilege, such as self-defense, defense of another, permission of the alleged victim, and so on. But what the heck does "knowingly" mean? Well, as any law student can tell you, it means that you were aware of the physical act you were engaged in, even if you didn't intend the consequences that act caused. For instance, say you're in the pit at a particularly raucous speed-metal concert, leaping about, as one does, in close proximity with many other people. Now let's say that after one of your leaps you land on a young woman's foot and break it. If charged with Simple Assault, your defense won't be as to your mental state, because you were "knowingly" leaping about, even if you intended no harm in doing so. Instead, your defense will probably be that the contact (which you also wouldn't contest) was "privileged," because the young lady had implicitly taken on, as had you, the risks of being in a pit in the middle of a speed-metal concert. See the difference between knowingly engaging in a physical act that has hurtful consequences, and "intending" or having as your "purpose" those consequences? Just so, I've seen juveniles prosecuted for Simple Assault for throwing food during an in-school cafeteria food fight; in that instance, no one was hurt, nor did anyone intend to hurt anybody, but "unprivileged physical contact" was "knowingly" made all the same (in this case, via the instrument of, say, a chicken nugget).

So, my first point: for Comey to imply that there is any prosecutor in America uncomfortable with the "constitutionality" of criminal statutes predicated on "negligent," "reckless," or "knowing" mental states is not just laughable but an insult to both the prosecutorial class and our entire criminal justice system. Whatever issue Comey may have had with the felony statute he agrees Clinton violated, that wasn't it.

What about the misdemeanor statute?

Well, there's now terrifying evidence available for public consumption to the effect that Director Comey doesn't understand the use of the word "knowingly" in the law ― indeed, understands it less than even a law student in his or her first semester would. Just over an hour (at 1:06) into the six-hour C-SPAN video of Comey's Congressional testimony, Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) makes a brief but absolutely unimpeachable case that, using the term "knowingly" as I have here and as it is used in every courtroom in America, Secretary Clinton committed multiple federal misdemeanors inasmuch as she, per the relevant statute (Title 18 U.S.C. 1924), "became possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States....and knowingly removed such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location." Comey, misunderstanding the word "knowingly" in a way any law school student would scream at their TV over, states that the FBI would still, under that statutory language, need to prove specific intent to convict Clinton of a Title 18 U.S.C. 1924 violation. Lummis points out that Comey is dead wrong ― and she's right, he is wrong. Per the above, all Clinton had to be aware of is that (a) she was in possession of classified documents, and (b) she had removed them to an unauthorized location. Comey admits these two facts are true, and yet he won't prosecute because he's added a clause that's not in the statute. I can't emphasize this enough: Comey makes clear with his answers throughout his testimony that Clinton committed this federal misdemeanor, but equally makes clear that he didn't charge her with it because he didn't understand the statute. (At 1:53 in the video linked to above, Representative Ken Buck of Colorado goes back to the topic of Title 18 U.S.C. 1924, locking down that Comey is indeed deliberately adding language to that federal criminal statute that quite literally is not there.)

Yes, it's true. Watch the video for yourself, look up the word "knowingly" in Black's Law Dictionary, and you'll see that I'm right. This is scary stuff for an attorney like me, or really for any of us, to see on television ― a government attorney with less knowledge of criminal law than a first-year law student.

2. Comey has dramatically misrepresented what prosecutorial discretion looks like. The result of this is that Americans will fundamentally misunderstand our adversarial system of justice.

Things like our Fourth and Fifth Amendment are part and parcel of our "adversarial" system of justice. We could have elected, as a nation, to have an "inquisitorial" system of justice ― as some countries in Europe, with far fewer protections for criminal defendants, do ― but we made the decision that the best truth-seeking mechanism is one in which two reflexively zealous advocates, a prosecutor and a defense attorney, push their cases to the utmost of their ability (within certain well-established ethical strictures).

James Comey, in his testimony before Congress, left the impression that his job as a prosecutor was to weigh his ability to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt not as a prosecutor, but as a member of a prospective jury. That's not how things work in America; it certainly, and quite spectacularly, isn't how it works for poor black men. In fact, what American prosecutors are charged to do is imagine a situation in which (a) they present their case to a jury as zealously as humanly possible within the well-established ethical code of the American courtroom, (b) all facts and inferences are taken by that jury in the prosecution's favor, and then (c) whether, given all those conditions, there is a reasonable likelihood that all twelve jurors would vote for a conviction.

That is not the standard James Comey used to determine whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

What Comey did was something else altogether.

First he asked, "What would other prosecutors do?" That's not a question prosecutors are charged to ask, and we now see why: as Comey himself concedes, countless prosecutors have already come out in public to say that, had they been investigating Clinton, they would have prosecuted her. A standard for prosecutorial discretion in which you weigh what others in your shoes might do based on some sort of a census leads immediately to madness, not just for the reasons I'm articulating here but many others too numerous to go into in detail in this space.

The second thing Comey did was ask, "Am I guaranteed to win this case at trial?" Would that this slowed the roll of prosecutors when dealing with poor black men! Instead, as I discuss later on, prosecutors ― via the blunt instrument of the grand jury ― usually use the mere fact of misdemeanor or felony charges against a defendant as a mechanism for ending a case short of trial. Even prosecutors who ultimately drop a case will charge (misdemeanor) or indict (felony) it first, if only to give themselves time ― because defendants do have speedy trial rights, and statutes of limitation do sometimes intercede ― to plan their next move.

Third, Comey imagined his case at trial through the following lens: "How would we do at trial if the jury took every fact and presumption ― as we already have ― in Clinton's favor?" Indeed, I'm having more than a hard time ― actually an impossible time ― finding a single unknown or unclear fact that Comey took in a light unfavorable to Clinton (including, incredibly, the facts that became unknowable because of Clinton's own actions and evasions). Instead, Hillary was given the benefit of the doubt at every turn, so much so that it was obvious that the only evidence of "intent" Comey would accept was a full confession from Clinton. That's something prosecutors rarely get, and certainly (therefore) never make a prerequisite for prosecution. But Comey clearly did here.

I have never seen this standard used in the prosecution of a poor person. Not once.

3. Comey left the indelible impression, with American news-watchers, that prosecutors only prosecute specific-intent crimes, and will only find a sufficient mens rea (mental state) if and when a defendant has confessed. Imagine, for a moment, if police officers only shot unarmed black men who were in the process of confessing either verbally ("I'm about to pull a gun on you!") or physically (e.g., by assaulting the officer). Impossible to imagine, right? That's because that's not how this works; indeed, that's not how any of this works. Prosecutors, like police officers, are, in seeking signs of intent, trained to read ― and conceding here that some of them do it poorly ― contextual clues that precede, are contemporaneous with, and/or follow the commission of a crime.

But this apparently doesn't apply to Hillary Clinton.

It would be easier to identify the contextual clues that don't suggest Clinton had consciousness of guilt than those that do ― as there are exponentially more of the latter than the former. But let's do our best, and consider just a few of the clear signs that Clinton and her team, judging them solely by their words and actions, knew that what they were doing was unlawful.

For instance, Clinton repeatedly said she used one server and only one device ― not that she thought that that was the correct information, but that she knew it was. Yet the FBI found, per Comey's July 5th statement, that Clinton used "several different servers" and "numerous mobile devices." So either Clinton didn't know the truth but pretended in all her public statements that she did; or she was given bad information which she then repeated uncritically, in which case a prosecutor would demand to know from whom she received that information (as surely that person would know they'd spread misinformation); or she knew the truth and was lying. A prosecutor would want clear, on-the-record answers on these issues; instead, Comey let other FBI agents have an unrecorded, untranscripted interview with Clinton that he himself didn't bother to attend. It's not even clear that that interview was much considered by the FBI; Comey declared his decision just a few dozen hours after the interview was over, and word leaked that there would be no indictment just two hours after the interview. Which, again, incredibly ― and not in keeping with any law enforcement policy regarding subject interviews I'm aware of ― was unrecorded, untranscripted, unsworn, and unattended by the lead prosecutor.

This in the context of a year-long investigation for which Clinton was the primary subject. Since when is an hours-long interview with an investigation's subject so immaterial to the charging decision? And since when is such an interview treated as such a casual event? Since never. At least for poor people.

And since when are false exculpatory statements not strong evidence of intent?

Since never - at least for poor people.

Comey found credible that Clinton had created her private basement server set-up purely out of "convenience"; yet he also found that old servers, once replaced, were "stored and decommissioned in various ways." Wait, "various ways"? If Clinton was trying to create a streamlined, convenient personal process for data storage, why were things handled so haphazardly that Comey himself would say that the servers were dealt with "in various ways" over time? Just so, Comey would naturally want to test Clinton's narrative by seeing whether or not all FOIA requests were fully responded to by Clinton and her staff in the four years she was the head of the State Department. Surely, Clinton and her staff had been fully briefed on their legal obligations under FOIA ― that's provable ― so if Clinton's "convenience" had caused a conflict with the Secretary's FOIA obligations that would have been immediately obvious to both Clinton and her staff, and would have been remedied immediately if the purpose of the server was not to avoid FOIA requests but mere convenience. At a minimum, Comey would find evidence (either hard or testimonial) that such conversations occurred. And indeed, the evidence Comey turned up showed that Clinton's staff was aware ― was repeatedly and systematically made aware ― that the Secretary's set-up had the effect of evading FOIA requests. And Clinton was, by her own admission, clear with her inferiors that "avoiding access to the personal" was key to her private basement-server set-up. That's very different from "convenience."

Even if Comey believed that "avoiding access to the personal," rather than "convenience," was the reason for Clinton's server set-up, that explanation would have imploded under the weight of evidence Clinton, her team, and her attorneys exercised no due caution whatsoever in determining what was "personal" and what was not personal when they were wiping those servers clean. If Clinton's concern was privacy, there's no evidence that much attention was paid to accurately and narrowly protecting that interest ― rather, the weight of the evidence suggests that the aim, at all times, was to keep the maximum amount of information away from FOIA discovery, not just "personal" information but (as Comey found) a wealth of work-related information.

But let's pull back for a moment and be a little less legalistic. Clinton claimed the reason for her set-up was ― exclusively ― "convenience"; nevertheless, Comey said it took "thousands of hours of painstaking effort" to "piece back together" exactly what Clinton was up to. Wouldn't that fact alone give the lie to the claim that this system was more "convenient" than the protocols State already had in place? "Millions of email fragments ended up in the server's 'slack space'," Comey said of Clinton's "convenient" email-storage arrangement. See the contradiction? How would "millions of email fragments ending up in a server's 'slack space'" in any way have served Clinton's presumptive desire for both (a) convenience, (b) FOIA complicance, (c) a securing of her privacy, and (d) compliance with State Department email-storage regulations? Would any reasonable person have found this set-up convenient? And if not ― and Comey explicitly found not ― why in the world didn't that help to establish the real intent of Clinton's private basement servers? Indeed, had Clinton intended on complying with FOIA, presumably her own staff would have had to do the very same painstaking work it took the FBI a year to do. But FOIA requests come in too fast and furious, at State, for Clinton's staff to do the work it took the FBI a year to do in a matter of days; wouldn't this in itself establish that Clinton and her staff had no ability, and therefore well knew they had no intention, of acceding to any of the Department's hundreds or even thousands of annual FOIA requests in full? And wouldn't ignoring all those requests be not just illegal but "inconvenient" in the extreme? And speak to the question of intent?

It took Clinton two years to hand over work emails she was supposed to hand over the day she left office; and during that time, she and her lawyers, some of whom appear to have looked at classified material without clearance, deleted thousands of "personal" emails ― many of which turned out the be exactly the sort of work emails she was supposed to turn over the day she left State. In this situation, an actor acting in good faith would have (a) erred on the side of caution in deleting emails, (b) responded with far, far more alacrity to the valid demands of State to see all work-related emails, and (c) having erroneously deleted certain emails, would have rushed to correct the mistake themselves rather than seeing if they could get away with deleting ― mind you ― not just work emails but work emails with (in several instances) classified information in them. How in the world was none of this taken toward the question of intent? Certainly, it was taken toward the finding of "gross negligence" Comey made, but how in the world was none of it seen as relevant to Clinton's specific intent also? Why does it seem the only evidence of specific intent Comey would've looked at was a smoking gun? Does he realize how few criminal cases would ever be brought against anyone in America if a "smoking gun" standard was in effect? Does anyone realize how many poor black men wouldn't be in prison if that standard was in effect for them as well as Secretary Clinton?

4. Comey made it seem that the amount and quality of prosecutorial consideration he gave Clinton was normal. The mere fact that Comey gave public statements justifying his prosecutorial discretion misleads the public into thinking that, say, poor black men receive this level of care when prosecutors are choosing whether to indict them.

While at least he had the good grace to call the fact of his making a public statement "unusual" ― chalking it up to the "intense public interest" that meant Clinton (and the public) "deserved" an explanation for his behavior ― that grace ultimately obscured, rather than underscored, that what Comey did in publicly justifying his behavior is unheard of in cases involving poor people. In the real America, prosecutors are basically unaccountable to anyone but their bosses in terms of their prosecutorial discretion, as cases in which abuse of prosecutorial discretion is successfully alleged are vanishingly rare. Many are the mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers of poor black men who would love to have had their sons' (or brothers', or fathers') over-charged criminal cases explained to them with the sort of care and detail Hillary Clinton naturally receives when she's being investigated. Clinton and the public "deserve" prosecutorial transparency when the defendant is a Clinton; just about no one else deserves this level of not just transparency but also ― given the year-long length of the FBI investigation ― prosecutorial and investigative caution.

What's amazing is how little use Comey actually made of all the extra time and effort. For instance, on July 5th he said that every email the FBI uncovered was sent to the "owning" organization to see if they wanted to "up-classify" it ― in other words, declare that it should have been classified at the time it was sent and/or received, even if not marked that way at the time. One might think Comey would want this information, the better to determine Clinton's intent with respect to those emails (i.e., given Clinton's training, knowledge, and experience, how frequently did she "miss" the classified nature of an email, relative to the assessment of owning agencies that a given email was effectively and/or should have been considered classified ― even if not marked so ― at the time Clinton handled it?) Keep in mind, here, that certain types of information, as Clinton without a doubt knew, are "born classified" whether marked as such or not. And yet, just two days after July 5th, Comey testified before Congress that he "didn't pay much attention" to "up-classified" emails. Why? Because, said Comey, they couldn't tell him anything about Clinton's intent. Bluntly, this is an astonishing and indeed embarrassing statement for any prosecutor to make.

Whereas every day knowledge and motives are imparted to poor black men that are, as the poet Claudia Rankine has observed, purely the product of a police officer's "imagination," the actual and indisputable knowledge and motives and ― yes ― responsibilities held by Clinton were "downgraded" by Comey to that of merely an average American. That is, despite the fact that Clinton was one of the most powerful people on Earth, charged with managing an agency that collects among the highest number of classified pieces of information of any agency anywhere; despite the fact that Clinton's agency had the strictest policies for data storage for this very reason; despite the fact that State is, as Clinton well knew, daily subjected to FOIA requests; despite all this, Comey actually said the following: "Like many email users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted emails..."

What?

How in the world does the "many email users" standard come into play here? Clinton's server, unlike anyone else's server, was set up in a way that permitted no archiving, an arrangement that one now imagines led (in part) to the person who set up that server taking the Fifth more than a hundred times in interviews with the FBI; even assuming Clinton didn't know, and didn't request, for her server to be set up in this astonishing way ― a way, again, that her own employees believe could incriminate them ― how in the world could she have been sanguine about deleting emails "like many email users" when the agency she headed had completely different and more stringent protocols and requirements for data storage than just about any government agency on Earth? Just so, once it was clear that Clinton had deleted (per Comey) "thousands of emails that were work-related" instead of turning them over to State, in what universe can no intent be implied from the fact that her attorneys purged 30,000 emails simply by looking at their headers? At what point does Clinton, as former Secretary of State, begin to have ill intent imputed to her by not directing her attorneys to actually read emails before permanently destroying them and making them unavailable to the FBI as evidence? If you were in her situation, and instead of saying to your team either (a) "don't delete any more emails," or (b) "if you delete any emails, make sure you've read them in full first," would you expect anyone to impute "no specific intent" to your behavior?

The result: despite saying she never sent or received emails on her private basement server that were classified "at the time," the FBI found that 52 email chains on Clinton's server ― including 110 emails ― contained information that was classified at the time (eight chains contained "top secret" information; 36, "secret" information; and another eight "confidential" information). Moreover, Clinton's team wrongly purged ― at a minimum ― "thousands" of work-related emails. (And I'm putting aside entirely here the 2,000 emails on Clinton's server that were later "up-classified.") At what point does this harm become foreseeable, and not seeing it ― when you're one of the best-educated, smartest, most experienced public servants in U.S. history, as your political team keeps reminding us ― become evidence of "intent"? Comey's answer? Never.

Indeed, Comey instead makes the positively fantastical observation that "none [of the emails Clinton didn't turn over but was supposed to] were intentionally deleted." The problem is, by Comey's own admission all of those emails were intentionally deleted, under circumstances in which the problems with that deletion would not just have been evident to "any reasonable person" but specifically were clear ― the context proves it ― to Clinton herself. During her four years as Secretary of State Clinton routinely expressed concern to staff about her own and others' email-storage practices, establishing beyond any doubt that not only was Clinton's literal key-pressing deliberate ― the "knowing" standard ― but also its repeated, systemic effect was fully appreciated by her in advance. Likewise, that her attorneys were acting entirely on their own prerogative, without her knowledge, is a claim no jury would credit.

Clinton's attorneys worked Clinton's case in consultation with Clinton ― that's how things work. In other words, Clinton's lawyers are not rogue actors here. So when Comey says, "They [Clinton and her team] deleted all emails they did not produce for State, and the lawyers then cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery," we have to ask, what possible reason would an attorney have for wiping a server entirely within their control to ensure that no future court order could access the permanently deleted information? In what universe is such behavior not actual consciousness of guilt with respect to the destruction of evidence? Because we must be clear: Comey isn't saying Clinton and her lawyers accidentally put these emails outside even a hypothetical future judicial review; they did so intentionally.

There's that word again.

The result of these actions? The same as every other action Clinton took that Comey somehow attributes no intent to: a clear legal benefit to Clinton and a frustration, indeed an obstruction, of the FBI's investigation. As Comey said on July 5th, the FBI can't know how many emails are "gone" (i.e., permanently) because of Clinton and her team's intentional acts after-the-fact. So Comey is quite literally telling us that the FBI couldn't conclude their investigation with absolute confidence that they had all the relevant facts, and that the reason for this was the intentional destruction of evidence by the subject of the investigation at a time when there was no earthly reason to destroy evidence except to keep it from the FBI.

In case you're wondering, no, you don't need a legal degree to see the problem there.

As an attorney, I can't imagine destroying evidence at a time I knew it was the subject of a federal investigation. And if I ever were to do something like that, I would certainly assume that all such actions would later be deemed "intentional" by law enforcement, as my intent would be inferred from my training, knowledge, and experience as an attorney, as well as my specific awareness of a pending federal investigation in which the items I was destroying might later become key evidence. That Clinton and her team repeatedly (and falsely) claimed the FBI investigation was a mere "security review" ― yet another assertion whose falseness was resoundingly noted by Comey in his public statements ― was clearly a transparent attempt to negate intent in destroying those emails. (The theory being, "Well, yes, I destroyed possible evidence just by looking at email headers, but this was all just a 'security review,' right? Not a federal investigation? Even though I knew the three grounds for referral of the case to the FBI, and knew that only one of them involved anything like a 'security review'?")

And certainly, none of this explains Comey's (again) gymnastic avoidance of stating the obvious: that crimes were committed.

Listen to his language on July 5th: "Although we did not find clear evidence that Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information" (emphasis in original) ― actually, let's stop there. You'd expect the second half of that sentence to be something like, "...they nevertheless did violate those laws, despite not intending to." It's the natural continuation of the thought. Instead, Comey, who had prepared his remarks in advance, finished the thought this way: "....there is evidence that they were extremely careless with very sensitive, highly classified information" (emphasis in original).

Note that Comey now uses the phrase "extremely careless" instead of "gross negligence," despite using the latter phrase ― a legal phrase ― at the beginning of his July 5th remarks. That matters because at the beginning of those remarks he conceded "gross negligence" would lead to a statutory violation. So why the sudden shift in language, when from a legal standpoint "extreme carelessness" and "gross negligence" are synonymous ― both indicating the presence of a duty of care, the failure to meet that duty, and moreover a repeated failure on this score? Comey also avoids finishing his sentence with the obvious thought: that they may not have intended to violate criminal statutes, but they did nonetheless. Remember that, just like our hypothetical raver may not have intended to commit a Simple Assault by stepping on that poor young woman's foot, he nevertheless could be found to have done so; just so, had Comey accepted the statute as written, Clinton's "gross negligence" would have forced him to end the above sentence with the finding of a statutory violation, even if there had been no "specific intent" to do so.

This is how the law works. For poor black men, just not for rich white women.

5. Comey, along with the rest of Congress, left the impression, much like the Supreme Court did in 2000, that legal analyses are fundamentally political analyses. Not only is this untrue, it also is unspeakably damaging to both our legal system and Americans' understanding of that system's operations.

I'm a staunch Democrat, but I'm also an attorney. Watching fellow Democrats twist themselves into pretzels to analyze Clinton's actions through a farcically slapdash legal framework, rather than merely acknowledging that Clinton is a human being and, like any human being, can both (a) commit crimes, and (b) be replaced on a political ticket if need be, makes me sick as both a Democrat and a lawyer. Just so, watching Republicans who had no issue with George W. Bush declaring unilateral war in contravention of international law, and who had no issue with the obviously illegal behavior of Scooter Libby in another recent high-profile intel-related criminal case, acting like the rule of law is anything they care about makes me sick. Our government is dirty as all get-out, but the one thing it's apparently clean of is anyone with both (a) legal training, and (b) a sense of the ethics that govern legal practice. Over and over during Comey's Congressional testimony I heard politicians noting their legal experience, and then going on to either shame their association with that august profession or honor it but (in doing so) call into question their inability or unwillingness to do so in other instances.

When Comey says, "any reasonable person should have known" not to act as Clinton did, many don't realize he's quoting a legal standard ― the "reasonable person standard." A failure to meet that standard can be used to establish either negligence or recklessness in a court of law. But here, Clinton wasn't in the position of a "reasonable person" ― the average fellow or lady ― and Comey wasn't looking merely at a "reasonableness" standard, but rather a "purposeful" standard that requires Comey to ask all sorts of questions about Clinton's specific, fully contextualized situation and background that he doesn't appear to have asked. One might argue that, in keeping with Clinton's campaign theme, no one in American political history was more richly prepared ― by knowledge, training, experience, and innate gifts ― to know how to act properly in the situations Clinton found herself. That in those situations she failed to act even as a man or woman taken off the street and put in a similar situation would have acted is not indicative of innocence or a lack of specific intent, but the opposite. If a reasonable person wouldn't have done what Clinton did, the most exquisitely prepared person for the situations in which Clinton found herself must in fact have been providing prosecutors with prima facie evidence of intent by failing to meet even the lowest threshold for proper conduct. Comey knows this; any prosecutor knows this. Maybe a jury would disagree with Comey on this point, but his job is to assume that, if he zealously advocates for this extremely powerful circumstantial case, a reasonable jury, taking the facts in the light most favorable to the government, would see things his way.

Look, I can't possibly summarize for anyone reading this the silly nonsense I have seen prosecutors indict people for; a common saying in the law is that the average grand jury "would indict a ham sandwich," and to be clear that happens not because the run-of-the-mill citizens who sit on grand juries are bloodthirsty, but because the habitual practice of American prosecutors is to indict first and ask questions later ― and because indictments are absurdly easy to acquire. In other words, I've seen thousands of poor people get over-charged for either nonsense or nothing at all, only to have their prosecutors attempt to leverage their flimsy cases into a plea deal to a lesser charge. By comparison, it is evident to every defense attorney of my acquaintance that I've spoken to that James Comey bent over backwards to not indict Hillary Clinton ― much like the hundreds of state and federal prosecutors who have bent over backwards not to indict police officers over the past few decades. Every attorney who's practiced in criminal courts for years can smell when the fix is in ― can hear and see when the court's usual actors are acting highly unusually ― and that's what's happened here. The tragedy is that it will convince Americans that our legal system is fundamentally about what a prosecutor feels they can and should be able to get away with, an answer informed largely, it will seem to many, by various attorneys' personal temperaments and political prejudices.

No one in America who's dedicated their life to the law can feel any satisfaction with how Hillary Clinton's case was investigated or ultimately disposed of, no more than we can feel sanguine about prosecutors whose approach to poor black defendants is draconian and to embattled police officers positively beatific. What we need in Congress, and in prosecutor's offices, are men and women of principle who act in accordance with their ethical charge no matter the circumstances. While James Comey is not a political hack, and was not, I don't believe, in any sense acting conspiratorially in not bringing charges against Hillary Clinton, I believe that, much like SCOTUS did not decide in the 2000 voting rights case Bush v. Gore, Comey felt that this was a bad time for an executive-branch officer to interfere with the workings of domestic politics. Perhaps Comey had the best of intentions in not doing his duty; perhaps he thought letting voters, not prosecutors, decide the 2016 election was his civic duty. Many Democrats could wish the Supreme Court had felt the same way in 2000 with respect to the role of judges. But the fact remains that the non-indictment of Hillary Clinton is as much a stain on the fair and equal administration of justice as is the disparate treatment of poor black males at all stages of the criminal justice system. I witnessed the latter injustice close up, nearly every day, during my seven years working as a public defender; now America has seen the same thing, albeit on a very different stage, involving a defendant of a very different class and hue.

To have prosecuted Clinton, said Comey, he would need to have seen "clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information, or vast quantities of information exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct, or....efforts to obstruct justice..." When Comey concludes, "we do not see those things here," America should ― and indeed must ― wonder what facts he could possibly be looking at, and, moreover, what understanding of his role in American life he could possibly be acting upon. The answers to these two questions would take us at least two steps forward in discussing how average Americans are treated by our increasingly dysfunctional system of justice.

Seth Abramson is the Series Editor for Best American Experimental Writing (Wesleyan University) and the author, most recently, of DATA (BlazeVOX, 2016).

[Jul 06, 2016] FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook by Andrew C. McCarthy

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18) ..."
"... The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence. ..."
"... It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. ..."
"... Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged. ..."
"... Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we've decided she shouldn't be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information. ..."
"... To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case. ..."
National Review

Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was "extremely careless" and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.

In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.

... ... ...

It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged.

Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged. It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States.

Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we've decided she shouldn't be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information. I think highly of Jim Comey personally and professionally, but this makes no sense to me. Finally, I was especially unpersuaded by Director Comey's claim that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI.

To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook

Continued

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[Oct 21, 2020] This Is Not A Russian Hoax 'Nonpublic Information' Debunks Letter From '50 Former Intel Officials' Published on Oct 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Oct 20, 2020] Glenn Greenwald- Media and Intel Community Working Together To Manipulate The American People - Video - RealClearPolitics Published on Oct 20, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com

[Oct 01, 2020] 'Clueless' former FBI Director James Comey admits the agency's Trump-Russia probe was a ball of bungled confusion by David Haggith Published on Oct 01, 2020 | www.rt.com

[Sep 30, 2020] DNI Letter Supports Allegation That Hillary Clinton Created 'Russiagate' by b Published on Sep 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Sep 23, 2020] Another sign of the crisis of legitimacy of neoliberal elite: FBI Agent Who Discovered Hillary's Emails On Weiner Laptop Claims He Was Told To Erase Computer Published on Sep 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Sep 09, 2020] Proof of collusion at last! - IRRUSSIANALITY Published on Sep 09, 2020 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

[Aug 16, 2020] CIA Behind Guccifer Russiagate A Plausible Scenario Published on Aug 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Aug 08, 2020] Russia Hoax- Are We All Being Played- Put Up Or Shut Up! - Zero Hedge Published on Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jul 21, 2020] This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier. Published on Apr 20, 2019 | theduran.com

[Jun 12, 2020] Flynn Case 85 Lies, Contradictions, Oddities, Unusual Occurrences by Petr Svab Published on Jun 11, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jun 03, 2020] Rule of law in Murrika is kaput Published on Jun 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 24, 2020] Obamagate as the reaction of managerial class neoliberals on the crisis of neoliberalism Published on May 24, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

[May 22, 2020] Time to Break up the FBI by William S. Smith Published on May 18, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[May 20, 2020] Newly Revealed Texts Show Strzok, Page Altered Flynn Interview Notes Published on Apr 30, 2020 | www.newsmax.com

[May 18, 2020] FBI under Comey as an uncontrolled political police operating without any oversight from Justice Department Published on May 18, 2020 | www.washingtontimes.com

[May 17, 2020] General Flynn investigation 'has tarnished Obama's legacy' - YouTube Published on May 17, 2020 | www.youtube.com

[May 17, 2020] Apparently, the FBI, and not the CIA, are the real government. Published on Jan 15, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 13, 2020] From RussiaGate To ObamaGate The End Of Boomerville by Tom Luongo Published on May 13, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 11, 2020] Lee Zeldin Adam Schiff 'should resign today' for role in Russia investigation by Dominick Mastrangelo Published on May 11, 2020 | www.washingtonexaminer.com

[May 11, 2020] Twin Pillars of Russiagate Crumble by Ray McGovern Published on May 11, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

[May 10, 2020] Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security by Kevin R. Brock Published on May 10, 2020 | thehill.com

[May 10, 2020] Does Obama now feels his potential liability for staging coup d' tat and gaslighting the whole nation? Published on May 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

[May 07, 2020] There's No Question It's A Fraud Fmr Trump Attorney Says Mueller Badly Misled White House, Schiff Is Nancy's Liar Zero Published on May 07, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 05, 2020] Newly released FBI documents show Israel intervened in 2016 election to help Trump Published on May 05, 2020 | caucus99percent.com

[May 03, 2020] Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak. There was no reason to hide such a discussion Published on May 03, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Apr 17, 2020] Declassified Horowitz Footnotes Show Obama Officials Knew Steele Dossier Was Russian Disinfo Designed To Target Trump Zero He Published on Apr 17, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 17, 2020] Barr just said the Russia collusion probe was a travesty, had no basis and was intended to sabotage Trump. Published on Apr 17, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Feb 22, 2020] The Red Thread A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy by Diana West Published on Feb 22, 2020 | www.amazon.com

[Feb 04, 2020] The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice the American Way" Published on Feb 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org

[Jan 17, 2020] Ukraine is a deeply sick patient. The destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic. Diaspora is greedy and want a piece of cake immediately Published on Jan 17, 2020 | www.unz.com

[Jan 09, 2020] It looks like UK and the USA intelligences agencies run the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops Published on Nov 24, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Dec 22, 2019] So US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks. That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack was born -- distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam Published on Dec 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Dec 20, 2019] Did John Brennan's CIA Create Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks by Larry C Johnson Published on Dec 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Dec 19, 2019] Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials, often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and incipient tyranny. Published on Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Dec 17, 2019] Judge Denies Flynn's Requests For Exculpatory Information, Case Dismissal by Peter Svab Published on Dec 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Dec 17, 2019] History Doesn t Repeat, But It Often Rhymes: Wilson in UK was subjected to the similar attack by rogue elements in MI5 as Trump in the USA Published on Dec 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Dec 14, 2019] Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation Published on Dec 14, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[Dec 12, 2019] The FBI - Pushed By John Brennan - Lied To The Court Seven Times To Spy On The Trump Campaign Published on Dec 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Dec 10, 2019] Carter Page may have just let slip that he's an FBI and CIA informant by Bill Palmer Published on Apr 21, 2017 | www.palmerreport.com

[Dec 04, 2019] The central question of Ukrainegate is whether CrowdStrike actions on DNC leak were a false flag operation designed to open Russiagate and what was the level of participation of Poroshenko government and Ukrainian Security services in this false flag operation by Factotum Published on Dec 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Dec 04, 2019] Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns with the facts John Solomon Reports Published on Dec 04, 2019 | johnsolomonreports.com

[Dec 04, 2019] Common Funding Themes Link 'Whistleblower' Complaint and CrowdStrike Firm Certifying DNC Russia 'Hack' by Aaron Klein Published on Sep 28, 2019 | www.breitbart.com

[Dec 04, 2019] DNC Russian Hackers Found! You Won't Believe Who They Really Work For by the Anonymous Patriots Published on Jan 01, 2017 | themillenniumreport.com

[Dec 04, 2019] June 4th, 2017 Crowdstrike Was at the DNC Six Weeks by George Webb Published on Nov 27, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[Dec 04, 2019] Cyberanalyst George Eliason Claims that the "Fancy Bear" Who Hacked the DNC Server is Ukrainian Intelligence – In League with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike Published on Dec 04, 2018 | www.reddit.com

[Dec 04, 2019] Fancy Bear - Conservapedia Published on Dec 04, 2019 | www.conservapedia.com

[Dec 04, 2019] June 2nd, 2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams by George Webb Published on Nov 27, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[Nov 30, 2019] CrowdStrike: a Conspiracy Wrapped in a Conspiracy Inside a Conspiracy by Oleg Atbashian Published on Nov 29, 2019 | www.frontpagemag.com

[Nov 29, 2019] Where s the Collusion Published on Dec 28, 2017 | www.youtube.com

[Nov 28, 2019] WSJ story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton. Published on Nov 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Nov 03, 2019] Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis Published on Nov 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Sep 17, 2019] The Spy Who Failed by Scott Ritter Published on Sep 14, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Sep 15, 2019] How the UK Security Services neutralised the country s leading liberal newspaper by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis Published on Jan 01, 2019 | dailymaverick.co.za

[Sep 11, 2019] John Brennan's and Jim Clappers' Last Gasp by Larry C Johnson Published on Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Sep 10, 2019] Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein by Larry C Johnsons Published on Sep 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Aug 23, 2019] Spygate The Inside Story Behind the Alleged Plot to Take Down Trump by Jeff Carlson Published on Mar 28, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[Aug 21, 2019] Solomon If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed Published on Aug 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Aug 17, 2019] The Unraveling of the Failed Trump Coup by Larry C Johnson Published on Aug 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Aug 12, 2019] Bruce Ohr 302s by Larry C Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis Published on Aug 12, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Aug 12, 2019] Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized Published on Aug 12, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Jul 27, 2019] Understanding the Roots of the Obama Coup Against Trump by Larry C Johnson Published on Jul 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 09, 2019] Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate by Ray McGovern Published on Jul 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Jun 30, 2019] USG's Bizarre Change of Position in the Roger Stone Case by Larry C Johnson Published on Jun 30, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jun 05, 2019] Do Spies Run the World by Israel Shamir Published on May 22, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 30, 2019] Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the Earth Published on May 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[May 27, 2019] The Campaign to Paint Trump as a Russian Stooge Started on May 4, 2016 by Larry C Johnson Published on May 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 20, 2019] The dirty art of politicians entrapment: Blackmail, smear campaigns, various traps via honey or corruption, hookers, gay sex, pedophilia, or what-have-you, all or in combination Published on May 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[May 19, 2019] Intel agencies of the UK and US are guilty of fabricating evidence, breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing fake analysis and operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity Published on May 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 15, 2019] Barr s Investigator John Durham Once Probed Mueller In A Shocking Case Published on May 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 13, 2019] Angry Bear Senate Democratic Jackasses and Elmer Fudd Published on May 04, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

[May 11, 2019] Just worth noting that in the hand-written notes taken by Bruce Ohr after meetings with Chris Steele, there is the comment that the majority of the Steele Dossier was obtained from an expat Russian living in the US, and not from actual Russian sources in Russia Published on Aug 30, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

[May 11, 2019] Crowdstrike planted the malware on DNC systems, which they discovered later discovered and attributed to Russians later Published on Mar 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 11, 2019] Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart -- Say Hello to Fancy Bear Published on Dec 29, 2017 | www.washingtonsblog.com

[May 11, 2019] Whitney Judgment Day Looms For John Brennan Published on May 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 11, 2019] Intel and Law Enforcement Tried to Entrap Trump by Larry C Johnson Published on May 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 11, 2019] Doug Ross @ Journal A TIMELINE OF TREASON How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election [Updated] Published on Jan 04, 2018 | directorblue.blogspot.com

[May 11, 2019] Christopher Steele, FBI s Confidential Human Source by Publius Tacitus Published on Aug 08, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 11, 2019] Nunes Memo Details Weaponization of FISA Court for Political Advantage by Elizabeth Lea Vos Published on Feb 05, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 11, 2019] CIA Paid $100,000 To Shadowy Russian For Dirt on Trump, Including Sex Video by Chuck Ross Published on Feb 10, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 10, 2019] Biden is up to neck in Spygate dirt by Jeff Carlson Published on May 02, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] Obama administration raced to obtain FICA warrant on Carter Page before Rogers investigation closes on them and that was definitely an obstruction of justice and interference with the ongoing investigation Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] What was the meaning of the term "insurance policy" in Stzok messages to Lisa Page Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 10, 2019] The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe Published on May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[May 08, 2019] Obama Spied on Other Republicans and Democrats As Well by Larry C Johnson Published on May 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report Published on May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

[May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions Published on Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor Published on Mar 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

[May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move... Published on May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain Published on May 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté Published on Mar 26, 2019 | outline.com

[Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed Published on Apr 22, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney Published on Apr 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi Published on Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda Published on Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender Published on Apr 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Apr 21, 2019] 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 Published on Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak. Published on Apr 21, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

[Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson Published on Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse. Published on Apr 20, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation Published on Feb 23, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org

[Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump Published on Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning. Published on Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times Published on Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org

[Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End Published on Apr 07, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader Published on Apr 04, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook Published on Mar 25, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

[Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson Published on Oct 12, 2018 | www.theepochtimes.com

[Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate Published on Mar 25, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com

[Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report Published on Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr. Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary Published on Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle. Published on Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies Published on Mar 03, 2006 | www.nytimes.com

[Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings Published on Mar 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

[Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings Published on Mar 13, 2019 | Consortiumnews

[Mar 14, 2019] Manafort's Ukrainians were actually pro-West? - Habakkuk Published on Mar 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this Published on Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson Published on Mar 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry Published on Feb 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Feb 16, 2019] Death Of Russiagate: Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud s Network Published on Jan 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library Published on Feb 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

[Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald Published on Jan 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever. Published on Jan 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene Published on Jan 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke Published on Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames Published on Jan 11, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything Published on Jan 11, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International Published on Jan 08, 2019 | sputniknews.com

[Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative Published on Jan 05, 2019 | www.defenddemocracy.press

[Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. Published on Jan 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Dec 21, 2018] Virtually no one in neoliberal MSM is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter Published on Jul 25, 2017 | www.unz.com

[Dec 14, 2018] MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given Published on Dec 08, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Dec 10, 2018] One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did Published on Dec 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Dec 05, 2018] Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly against a Trump threat to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate by Philip Giraldi Published on Dec 05, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Dec 02, 2018] Muller investigation has all the appearance of an investigation looking for a crime Published on Dec 01, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Nov 24, 2018] MI6 Scrambling To Stop Trump From Releasing Classified Docs In Russia Probe Published on Nov 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Nov 24, 2018] Anonymous Exposes UK-Led Psyop To Battle Russian Propaganda Published on Nov 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Nov 24, 2018] British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns Published on Nov 24, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Nov 24, 2018] When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots psyops, you tend to come up with plots for psyops . The word entrapment comes to mind. Probably self-serving also. Published on Nov 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Nov 12, 2018] Obama s CIA Secretly Intercepted Congressional Communications About Whistleblowers Published on Nov 02, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Oct 25, 2018] DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus Published on Oct 25, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Oct 08, 2018] British intelligence now officially is a by-word for organized crime by John Wight Published on Oct 08, 2018 | www.rt.com

[Oct 04, 2018] Brett Kavanaugh's 'revenge' theory spotlights past with Clintons by Lisa Mascaro Published on Oct 03, 2018 | www.chicagotribune.com

[Oct 02, 2018] Recovered memory is a Freudian voodoo. Notice how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged Published on Oct 02, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Oct 02, 2018] I m puzzled why CIA is so against Kavanaugh? Published on Oct 02, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Sep 24, 2018] Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues. Published on Sep 22, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Sep 23, 2018] UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited Grave Concerns Over Steele Involvement Published on Sep 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Sep 16, 2018] Looks like the key players in Steele dossier were CIA assets Published on Aug 23, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Sep 15, 2018] BBC is skanky state propaganda Published on Aug 30, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

[Sep 09, 2018] DNC Papadopoulos s UK contact may be dead Published on Sep 09, 2018 | thehill.com

[Sep 07, 2018] New York Times Undermining Peace Efforts by Sowing Suspicion by Diana Johnstone Published on Sep 07, 2018 | ronpaulinstitute.org

[Sep 07, 2018] Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a legitimate request to neoliberal MSM - Stop Bugging Me About The New York Times' Trump Op-Ed Published on Sep 07, 2018 | www.huffingtonpost.com

[Aug 24, 2018] The priorities of the deep state and its public face the MSM Published on Aug 24, 2018 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

[Aug 18, 2018] Pentagon Whistleblower Demoted After Exposing Millions Paid To FBI Spy Halper, Clinton Crony Published on Aug 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Aug 18, 2018] MoA - John Brennan Is No Match For Trump Published on Aug 18, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Aug 14, 2018] US Intelligence Community is Tearing the Country Apart from the Inside by Dmitry Orlov Published on Jul 28, 2018 | russia-insider.com

[Aug 08, 2018] Sergei Skripal was linked to a consultant with former UK spy Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence Published on Aug 06, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jul 31, 2018] Is not the Awan affair a grave insult to the US "Intelligence Community? Published on Jul 31, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax Published on Jul 20, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer Published on Jul 20, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Jul 17, 2018] I think there is much more to the comment made by Putin regarding Bill Browder and his money flows into the DNC and Clinton campaign. That would explain why the DNC didn t hand the servers over to the FBI after being hacked. Published on Jul 17, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jul 16, 2018] Putin Claims U.S. Intelligence Agents Funneled $400K To Clinton Campaign Zero Hedge Published on Jul 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jul 13, 2018] False flag operation covering DNC leaks now involves Mueller and his team Published on Jul 13, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jul 03, 2018] Russia has a lot of information about Lybia that could dig a political grave for Hillary. They did not release it Published on Jul 03, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Jul 03, 2018] Musings II The "Intelligence Community," "Russian Interference," and Due Diligence Published on Jun 29, 2018 | jackmatlock.com

[Jun 13, 2018] How False Flag Operations Are Carried Out Today by Philip M. GIRALDI Published on Apr 26, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org

[Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare Published on May 31, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern Published on Jun 09, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[May 23, 2018] Mueller role as a hatchet man is now firmly established. Rosenstein key role in applointing Mueller without any evidence became also more clear with time. Was he coerced or did it voluntarily is unclear by Lambert Strether Published on May 23, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[May 22, 2018] Cat fight within the US elite getting more intense Published on May 22, 2018 | www.unz.com

[May 14, 2018] You will never see a headline in WSJ which reads something like FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign . Published on May 14, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[May 03, 2018] Mueller's questions to Trump more those of a prosecuting attorney than of an impartial investigator by Alexander Mercouris Published on May 03, 2018 | theduran.com

[Apr 21, 2018] On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al by Ray McGovern Published on Apr 21, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Apr 18, 2018] The Great American Unspooling Is Upon Us Published on Apr 18, 2018 | russia-insider.com

[Mar 27, 2018] Perfidious Albion The Fatally Wounded British Beast Lashes Out by Barbara Boyd Published on Mar 18, 2018 | LaRouchePAC

[Mar 27, 2018] Let's Investigate John Brennan, by Philip Giraldi Published on Mar 27, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Mar 24, 2018] Assange Suggests British Government Was Involved In Plot To Bring Down Trump by Steve Watson Published on Mar 23, 2018 | www.infowars.com

[Mar 23, 2018] Skripal Poisoning a Desperate British Attempt To Resurrect Their American Coup by Barbara Boyd Published on Mar 18, 2018 | www.larouchepub.com

[Mar 22, 2018] I hope Brennan is running scared, along with Power. It's like the Irish Mafia. Published on Mar 21, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[Mar 21, 2018] Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared by Ray McGovern Published on Mar 19, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[Mar 13, 2018] The CIA takeover of the Democratic Party by Patrick Martin Published on Mar 13, 2018 | www.wsws.org

[Mar 11, 2018] The Elephant In The Room by Craig Murray Published on Mar 11, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk

[Mar 10, 2018] Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko s death. Published on Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this Published on Mar 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 10, 2018] They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose. Published on Feb 03, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 08, 2018] Mueller determines the US foreign policy toward Russia; The Intel Community Lies About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus Published on Mar 07, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Mar 08, 2018] Cue bono question in Scripal case? Published on Mar 08, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Mar 02, 2018] Contradictions In Seth Rich Murder Continue To Challenge Hacking Narrative Published on Mar 02, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Feb 28, 2018] Perjury traps to manufacture indictments to pressure people to testify against others is a new tool of justice in a surveillance state Published on Feb 28, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com

[Feb 26, 2018] It looks like Christopher Steele's real role was laundering information which had been obtained through continued Inquiries of the NSA mega-file by our Ambassador to the UN Published on Feb 26, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Feb 26, 2018] Democrat Memo Lays Egg by Publius Tacitus Published on Feb 26, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Feb 19, 2018] Nunes FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial by Ray McGovern Published on Feb 19, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[Feb 19, 2018] The Russiagate Intelligence Wars What We Do and Don't Know Published on Feb 19, 2018 | www.thenation.com

[Feb 15, 2018] Trump's War on the Deep State by Conrad Black Published on Feb 15, 2018 | nationalinterest.org

[Feb 14, 2018] Recused Judge in Flynn Prosecution Served on FISA Court Published on Feb 14, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Feb 14, 2018] The Anti-Trump Coup by Michael S. Rozeff Published on Feb 21, 2017 | www.lewrockwell.com

[Feb 14, 2018] The FBI and the President – Mutual Manipulation by James Petras Published on Feb 09, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Feb 12, 2018] I am wondering why it is that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing Published on Feb 12, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

[Feb 11, 2018] British spy who meddled in US elections disappears Published on Feb 11, 2018 | theduran.com

[Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources Published on Feb 08, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Feb 04, 2018] DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT Security company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election Published on Feb 04, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Feb 03, 2018] The FISA Memo, Obama, And The Election that Almost Was not by Tom Luongo Published on Feb 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Feb 03, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis Habakkuk on 'longtime' sources Published on Feb 03, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jan 31, 2018] Will Congress Face Down the Deep State by Ray McGovern Published on Jan 31, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[Jan 27, 2018] As of January 2018 Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner. Published on Jan 27, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Jan 27, 2018] In a Trump Hunt, Beware the Perjury Trap by Pat Buchanan Published on Jan 26, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Jan 26, 2018] Warns The Russiagate Stakes Are Extreme by Paul Craig Roberts Published on Jan 26, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 25, 2018] vidence of FBI Conspiracy Grows by Publius Tacitus Published on Jan 25, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jan 24, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern Published on Jan 24, 2018 | www.unz.com

[Jan 24, 2018] Whistleblower Confirms Secret Society Meetings Between FBI And DOJ To Undermine Trump Published on Jan 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jan 23, 2018] Operation Condor – How NSA Director Mike Rogers Saved The U.S. From a Massive Constitutional Crisis by sundance Published on Jan 05, 2018 | theconservativetreehouse.com

[Jan 22, 2018] Joe diGenova Brazen Plot to Frame Trump Published on Jan 22, 2018 | www.youtube.com

[Jan 22, 2018] Not Only Did Loretta Lynch Know in Advance Of Comey's Findings On Hillary the DOJ Helped Comey Write His Memo by streiff Published on Jan 21, 2018 | www.redstate.com

[Jan 22, 2018] The Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice has given congressional investigators additional text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page. The FBI also told investigators that five months worth of text messages, between December 2016 and May 2017, are unavailable because of a technical glitch Published on Jan 22, 2018 | hotair.com

[Jan 19, 2018] #ReleaseTheMemo Extensive FISA abuse memo could destroy the entire Mueller Russia investigation by Alex Christoforou Published on Jan 19, 2018 | theduran.com

[Jan 16, 2018] The Russia Explainer Published on Apr 04, 2017 | russiaexplainer.com

[Jan 14, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis The Trump Dossier Timeline, A Democrat Disaster Looming by Publius Tacitus Published on Jan 12, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

[Jan 14, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern Published on Jan 12, 2018 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

[Jan 13, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern Published on Jan 11, 2018 | consortiumnews.com

[Jan 13, 2018] Peter Strzok committed treason with anti-Trump texts, president says by Dave Boyer Published on Jan 13, 2018 | www.washingtontimes.com

[Jan 12, 2018] The DOJ and FBI Worked With Fusion GPS on Operation Trump Published on Jan 12, 2018 | theconservativetreehouse.com

[Jan 12, 2018] There are strong suspecions that Fusion GPs was CIA front company Published on Jan 12, 2018 | theconservativetreehouse.com

[Jan 08, 2018] Was Flynn Framed? by Tim Suereth Published on | stonecoldtruth.com

[Jan 07, 2018] CONFIRMED: CLINTON OPERATIVES IN FBI MANUFACTURED RUSSIAGATE by Roger Stone Published on Dec 20, 2017 | stonecoldtruth.com

[Jan 02, 2018] Some investigators ask a sensible question: "It is likely that all the Russians involved in the attempt to influence the 2016 election were lying, scheming, Kremlin-linked, Putin-backed enemies of America except the Russians who talked to Christopher Steele?" Published on Dec 30, 2017 | theduran.com

[Jan 01, 2018] British Intervention into 2016 U.S. Election Published on Jan 01, 2018 | www.larouchepub.com

[Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater Published on Dec 28, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

[Dec 31, 2017] EXCLUSIVE FBI s Own Political Terror Plot; Deputy Director and FBI Brass Secretly Conspired to Wage Coup Against Flynn Trump Published on Mar 14, 2017 | www.prisonplanet.com

[Dec 27, 2017] Mueller investigation can be viewed as an attempt to avoid going after Clinton and hide the fact that a corrupted intelligence service worked to derail Sanders Published on Dec 27, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org

[Dec 22, 2017] Rosenstein knew that he is authorizing a fishing expedition against Trump, so he is a part of the cabal Published on Dec 22, 2017 | www.unz.com

[Dec 16, 2017] Former US attorney says FBI wants to frame the President Published on Dec 16, 2017 | www.youtube.com

[Dec 14, 2017] Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan? Published on consortiumnews.com

[Dec 14, 2017] The Foundering Russia-gate 'Scandal' Consortiumnews Published on Dec 14, 2017 | consortiumnews.com

[Dec 11, 2017] Strzok-Gate And The Mueller Cover-Up by Alexander Mercouris Published on Dec 10, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

[Jul 17, 2017] Tucker Carlson Goes to War Against the Neocons by Curt Mills Published on Jul 14, 2017 | nationalinterest.org

[Jul 12, 2017] Stephen Cohens Remarks on Tucker Carlson Last Night Were Extraordinary Published on Jul 12, 2017 | russia-insider.com

[Feb 19, 2017] The deep state is running scared! Published on Feb 19, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com

[Jul 11, 2016] 5 Reasons The Comey Hearing Was The Worst Education In Criminal Justice The American Public Has Ever Had by Seth Abramson Published on www.huffingtonpost.com

[Jul 06, 2016] FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook by Andrew C. McCarthy Published on National Review

Oldies But Goodies

[Dec 10, 2016] Why the US elite loves so much to demonise Russia

[Jul 11, 2016] 5 Reasons The Comey Hearing Was The Worst Education In Criminal Justice The American Public Has Ever Had by Seth Abramson

[Jul 06, 2016] FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook by Andrew C. McCarthy

[Dec 31, 2017] What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater

[Nov 29, 2019] Where s the Collusion

[Dec 31, 2017] EXCLUSIVE FBI s Own Political Terror Plot; Deputy Director and FBI Brass Secretly Conspired to Wage Coup Against Flynn Trump

[Dec 27, 2017] Mueller investigation can be viewed as an attempt to avoid going after Clinton and hide the fact that a corrupted intelligence service worked to derail Sanders

[Dec 22, 2017] Rosenstein knew that he is authorizing a fishing expedition against Trump, so he is a part of the cabal

[Dec 16, 2017] Former US attorney says FBI wants to frame the President

[Dec 14, 2017] Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan?

[Dec 14, 2017] The Foundering Russia-gate 'Scandal' Consortiumnews

[Dec 11, 2017] Strzok-Gate And The Mueller Cover-Up by Alexander Mercouris

[Jul 17, 2017] Tucker Carlson Goes to War Against the Neocons by Curt Mills

[Jul 12, 2017] Stephen Cohens Remarks on Tucker Carlson Last Night Were Extraordinary

[Feb 19, 2017] The deep state is running scared!

[Dec 21, 2018] Virtually no one in neoliberal MSM is paying attention to the fact that a group of Pakistani muslims, working for a Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, had full computer access to a large number of Democrat Representatives. Most of the press is disinterested in pursuing this matter

[Dec 14, 2018] MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given

[Dec 10, 2018] One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did

[Dec 05, 2018] Beleaguered British Prime Minister Theresa May is wailing loudly against a Trump threat to reveal classified documents relating to Russiagate by Philip Giraldi

[Dec 02, 2018] Muller investigation has all the appearance of an investigation looking for a crime

[Nov 24, 2018] MI6 Scrambling To Stop Trump From Releasing Classified Docs In Russia Probe

[Nov 24, 2018] Anonymous Exposes UK-Led Psyop To Battle Russian Propaganda

[Nov 24, 2018] British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns

[Nov 24, 2018] When you are paid a lot of money to come up with plots psyops, you tend to come up with plots for psyops . The word entrapment comes to mind. Probably self-serving also.

[Nov 12, 2018] Obama s CIA Secretly Intercepted Congressional Communications About Whistleblowers

[Oct 25, 2018] DNC Emails--A Seth Attack Not a Russian Hack by Publius Tacitus

[Oct 08, 2018] British intelligence now officially is a by-word for organized crime by John Wight

[Oct 04, 2018] Brett Kavanaugh's 'revenge' theory spotlights past with Clintons by Lisa Mascaro

[Oct 02, 2018] Recovered memory is a Freudian voodoo. Notice how carefully manicured these charges are such that they can never be falsified? This is the actual proof she is a liar and this whole thing is staged

[Oct 02, 2018] I m puzzled why CIA is so against Kavanaugh?

[Sep 24, 2018] Given Trumps kneeling to the British Skripal poisoning 'hate russia' hoax I suspect there is no chance he will go after Christopher Steele or any of the senior demoncrat conspirers no matter how much he would love to sucker punch Theresa May and her nasty colleagues.

[Sep 23, 2018] UK Begged Trump Not To Declassify Russia Docs; Cited Grave Concerns Over Steele Involvement

[Sep 16, 2018] Looks like the key players in Steele dossier were CIA assets

[Sep 15, 2018] BBC is skanky state propaganda

[Sep 09, 2018] DNC Papadopoulos s UK contact may be dead

[Sep 07, 2018] New York Times Undermining Peace Efforts by Sowing Suspicion by Diana Johnstone

[Sep 07, 2018] Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a legitimate request to neoliberal MSM - Stop Bugging Me About The New York Times' Trump Op-Ed

[Aug 24, 2018] The priorities of the deep state and its public face the MSM

[Aug 18, 2018] Pentagon Whistleblower Demoted After Exposing Millions Paid To FBI Spy Halper, Clinton Crony

[Aug 18, 2018] MoA - John Brennan Is No Match For Trump

[Aug 14, 2018] US Intelligence Community is Tearing the Country Apart from the Inside by Dmitry Orlov

[Jul 31, 2018] Is not the Awan affair a grave insult to the US "Intelligence Community?

[Jul 20, 2018] Doubting The Intelligence Of The Intelligence Community by Ilana Mercer

[Jul 20, 2018] So many (ex-) MI6 operators (Steele, Tait, etc) involved in the story. It is interesting that the media don t question the intense involvement of the British in all this. And of course, the British haven t been laggards in adding fuel to the fire by the whole novichok hoax

[Jul 17, 2018] I think there is much more to the comment made by Putin regarding Bill Browder and his money flows into the DNC and Clinton campaign. That would explain why the DNC didn t hand the servers over to the FBI after being hacked.

[Jul 16, 2018] Putin Claims U.S. Intelligence Agents Funneled $400K To Clinton Campaign Zero Hedge

[Jul 13, 2018] False flag operation covering DNC leaks now involves Mueller and his team

[Jul 03, 2018] Russia has a lot of information about Lybia that could dig a political grave for Hillary. They did not release it

[Jul 03, 2018] Musings II The "Intelligence Community," "Russian Interference," and Due Diligence

[Jun 13, 2018] How False Flag Operations Are Carried Out Today by Philip M. GIRALDI

[Jun 09, 2018] Spooks Spooking Themselves by Daniel Lazare

[Jun 09, 2018] Still Waiting for Evidence of a Russian Hack by Ray McGovern

[May 23, 2018] Mueller role as a hatchet man is now firmly established. Rosenstein key role in applointing Mueller without any evidence became also more clear with time. Was he coerced or did it voluntarily is unclear by Lambert Strether

[May 22, 2018] Cat fight within the US elite getting more intense

[May 14, 2018] You will never see a headline in WSJ which reads something like FBI spy infiltrated the Trump campaign .

[May 03, 2018] Mueller's questions to Trump more those of a prosecuting attorney than of an impartial investigator by Alexander Mercouris

[Apr 21, 2018] On the Criminal Referral of Comey, Clinton et al by Ray McGovern

[Apr 18, 2018] The Great American Unspooling Is Upon Us

[Mar 27, 2018] Perfidious Albion The Fatally Wounded British Beast Lashes Out by Barbara Boyd

[Mar 27, 2018] Let's Investigate John Brennan, by Philip Giraldi

[Mar 24, 2018] Assange Suggests British Government Was Involved In Plot To Bring Down Trump by Steve Watson

[Mar 23, 2018] Skripal Poisoning a Desperate British Attempt To Resurrect Their American Coup by Barbara Boyd

[Mar 22, 2018] I hope Brennan is running scared, along with Power. It's like the Irish Mafia.

[Mar 21, 2018] Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared by Ray McGovern

[Mar 16, 2018] Will the State Department Become a Subsidiary of the CIA

[Mar 13, 2018] The CIA takeover of the Democratic Party by Patrick Martin

[Mar 11, 2018] The Elephant In The Room by Craig Murray

[Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this

[Mar 10, 2018] Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko s death.

[Mar 10, 2018] There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this

[Mar 10, 2018] They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.

[Mar 08, 2018] Mueller determines the US foreign policy toward Russia; The Intel Community Lies About Russian Meddling by Publius Tacitus

[Mar 08, 2018] Cue bono question in Scripal case?

[Mar 08, 2018] Given the CrowdStrike itself is a massively compromised organization due to its founder and CEO, those "certified true images" are themselves tainted evidence

[Mar 02, 2018] Contradictions In Seth Rich Murder Continue To Challenge Hacking Narrative

[Feb 28, 2018] Perjury traps to manufacture indictments to pressure people to testify against others is a new tool of justice in a surveillance state

[Feb 26, 2018] It looks like Christopher Steele's real role was laundering information which had been obtained through continued Inquiries of the NSA mega-file by our Ambassador to the UN

[Feb 26, 2018] Democrat Memo Lays Egg by Publius Tacitus

[Feb 19, 2018] Nunes FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial by Ray McGovern

[Feb 19, 2018] The Russiagate Intelligence Wars What We Do and Don't Know

[Feb 15, 2018] Trump's War on the Deep State by Conrad Black

[Feb 14, 2018] Recused Judge in Flynn Prosecution Served on FISA Court

[Feb 14, 2018] The Anti-Trump Coup by Michael S. Rozeff

[Feb 14, 2018] The FBI and the President – Mutual Manipulation by James Petras

[Feb 12, 2018] I am wondering why it is that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing

[Feb 11, 2018] British spy who meddled in US elections disappears

[Feb 08, 2018] Try Googling Riggs Bank – a lot of interesting information emerges, on matters such as their involvement with Prince Bandar. So, what we are dealing with is a joint Anglo-American attempt to create a comprador oligarchy who could loot Russia s raw materials resources

[Feb 04, 2018] DNC collusion with Ukrainian IT Security company Crowdstrike tied to the Atlantic Council to push false narrative of DNC hack and malware to influence US election

[Feb 03, 2018] The FISA Memo, Obama, And The Election that Almost Was not by Tom Luongo

[Feb 03, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis Habakkuk on 'longtime' sources

[Jan 31, 2018] Will Congress Face Down the Deep State by Ray McGovern

[Jan 27, 2018] As of January 2018 Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look like something Trump should have done sooner.

[Jan 27, 2018] In a Trump Hunt, Beware the Perjury Trap by Pat Buchanan

[Jan 26, 2018] Warns The Russiagate Stakes Are Extreme by Paul Craig Roberts

[Jan 25, 2018] vidence of FBI Conspiracy Grows by Publius Tacitus

[Jan 24, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern

[Jan 24, 2018] Whistleblower Confirms Secret Society Meetings Between FBI And DOJ To Undermine Trump

[Jan 23, 2018] Operation Condor – How NSA Director Mike Rogers Saved The U.S. From a Massive Constitutional Crisis by sundance

[Jan 22, 2018] Joe diGenova Brazen Plot to Frame Trump

[Jan 22, 2018] Not Only Did Loretta Lynch Know in Advance Of Comey's Findings On Hillary the DOJ Helped Comey Write His Memo by streiff

[Jan 22, 2018] The Associated Press is reporting that the Department of Justice has given congressional investigators additional text messages between FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page. The FBI also told investigators that five months worth of text messages, between December 2016 and May 2017, are unavailable because of a technical glitch

[Jan 19, 2018] #ReleaseTheMemo Extensive FISA abuse memo could destroy the entire Mueller Russia investigation by Alex Christoforou

[Jan 16, 2018] The Russia Explainer

[Jan 14, 2018] Sic Semper Tyrannis The Trump Dossier Timeline, A Democrat Disaster Looming by Publius Tacitus

[Jan 14, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern

[Jan 13, 2018] The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate by Ray McGovern

[Jan 13, 2018] Peter Strzok committed treason with anti-Trump texts, president says by Dave Boyer

[Jan 12, 2018] The DOJ and FBI Worked With Fusion GPS on Operation Trump

[Jan 12, 2018] There are strong suspecions that Fusion GPs was CIA front company

[Jan 08, 2018] Was Flynn Framed? by Tim Suereth

[Jan 07, 2018] CONFIRMED: CLINTON OPERATIVES IN FBI MANUFACTURED RUSSIAGATE by Roger Stone

[Jan 02, 2018] Some investigators ask a sensible question: "It is likely that all the Russians involved in the attempt to influence the 2016 election were lying, scheming, Kremlin-linked, Putin-backed enemies of America except the Russians who talked to Christopher Steele?"

[Jan 01, 2018] British Intervention into 2016 U.S. Election

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report

[May 03, 2019] Former high-ranking FBI officials on Andrew McCabe's alarming admissions

[May 03, 2019] Andrew McCabe played the key role in the appointment of the special prosecutor

[May 03, 2019] The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now Kunstler Fears The Desperate Resistance Next Move...

[May 02, 2019] Checkmate - How President Trump s Legal Team Outfoxed Mueller by Will Chamberlain

[Apr 29, 2019] The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory by Aaron Maté

[Apr 28, 2019] The British Role in Russiagate Is About to Be Fully Exposed

[Apr 28, 2019] Tit For Tat: Why Did Mueller Let Trump Off the Hook by Mike Whitney

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi

[Apr 22, 2019] FBI top brass have been colluding with top brass of CIA and MI6 to pursue ambitious anti-Russian agenda

[Apr 21, 2019] Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender

[Apr 21, 2019] 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

[Apr 21, 2019] Muller report implicates Obama administration in total and utter incompetence, if not pandering to the foreign intervention into the USA elections. The latter is called criminal negligence in legal speak.

[Apr 21, 2019] Special Counsel Mueller -- Disingenuous and Dishonest by Larry C Johnson

[Apr 20, 2019] Sure, blame those guys over there for Hillary fiasco and hire Mueller to get the goods . That s the ultimate the dog ate my homework excuse.

[Apr 17, 2019] Deep State and the FBI Federal Blackmail Investigation

[Apr 16, 2019] CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump

[Apr 15, 2019] War is the force that gives America its meaning.

[Apr 10, 2019] Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times

[Apr 07, 2019] Nunes The Russian Collusion Hoax Meets An Unbelievbable End

[Apr 04, 2019] Was John Brennan The Russia Lie Ringleader

[Mar 25, 2019] Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged, self-harming neoliberal capitalism by Jonathan Cook

[Mar 25, 2019] Spygate The True Story of Collusion (plus Infographic) by Jeff Carlson

[Mar 25, 2019] Nuland role in Russiagate

[Mar 24, 2019] The accountability that must follow Mueller's report

[Mar 24, 2019] "Russia Gate" investigation was a color revolution agaist Trump. But a strnge side effect was that Clintons have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug to the status of some kind of martyr.

[Mar 24, 2019] With RussiaGate Over Where's Hillary

[Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

[Mar 18, 2019] Journalists who are spies

[Mar 18, 2019] Doublethink and Newspeak Do We Have a Choice by Greg Guma

[Mar 17, 2019] Mueller uses the same old false flag scams, just different packaging of his forensics-free findings

[Mar 17, 2019] VIPS- Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings

[Mar 14, 2019] Manafort's Ukrainians were actually pro-West? - Habakkuk

[Mar 11, 2019] Bruce Ohr, Liar or Moron by Larry C Johnson

[Feb 18, 2019] Do You Believe in the Deep State Now by Robert W. Merry

[Feb 16, 2019] Death Of Russiagate: Mueller Team Tied To Mifsud s Network

[Feb 08, 2019] To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library

[Jan 21, 2019] Beyond BuzzFeed The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing US Media Failures On The Trump-Russia Story by Glenn Greenwald

[Jan 20, 2019] Doctor, nurse, Chief Nursing Officer of the Army, whatever.

[Jan 19, 2019] Coincidence - Chief Nurse Of British Army Was First Person To Arrive At Novichoked Skripal Scene

[Jan 13, 2019] As FBI Ramped Up Witch Hunt When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke

[Jan 11, 2019] New Documents Reveal a Covert British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine Meddling In American Politics by Mark Ames

[Jan 11, 2019] Facts does not matter in the current propoganda environment, the narrative is everything

[Jan 08, 2019] Shock Files- What Role Did Integrity Initiative Play in Sergei Skripal Affair- - Sputnik International

[Jan 08, 2019] Skripal spin doctors- Documents link UK govt-funded Integrity Initiative to anti-Russia narrative

[Jan 06, 2019] British elite fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.

Sites

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: January, 24, 2021