Tag Archives: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Sequential Planning Behind The Release Of The FISA Memo

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The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about the vote last night to approve the release of the memo involving FISA warrants and possible corruption int he FBI and DOJ. It is a rather complex article, and I suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article. The way this memo was released to the President with the intention of its being made public is not random–there seems to be a much larger plan in place here with the ultimate goal being to drain the swamp.

Some highlights from the article:

The White House has five days to review. Any DOJ or FBI officials who have a position against public release are now responsible to make their case known to the Office of the President who is in charge of them, and the executive branch.

Specifically because the Chief Executive (President Trump) granted permission for FBI Director Christopher Wray to see the intelligence memo prior to the House Intel vote; Director Wray and Asst. AG Rosenstein had an obligation to debrief the executive on their findings. That’s why Wray and Rosenstein were at the West Wing yesterday. However, the vote last evening transferred the declassification decision to the executive.

…With the executive holding the memo, opposing political talking-points will now shift their narrative and claim the President is undermining the DOJ and FBI with a pending release.  Opposition does not want the memo released.  It’s just pantomime politics.

The executive branch IS the DOJ and FBI; the President cannot, therefore, undermine himself.  Media opposition have worked earnestly for two years to create a false illusion of the intelligence apparatus being separate from the executive branch, they’re not. President Trump is the Chief Executive over all the agencies; just like President Obama was accountable for James Comey (FBI) and Loretta Lynch (DOJ) previously.

Then again, the prior political abuse by those agencies explains the reasoning for the media’s attempt to conflate the structure of government.  By creating a false separation they are, in essence, also protecting Obama from the discovery of any prior malfeasance within the executive branch Justice Department: James Comey, Andrew McCabe (FBI), or Loretta Lynch and Sally Yates (DOJ) et al.

Traditionally, Democrats would look to dilute any pending damage from the declassification release by leaking to the media the content therein.  However, in this example, until actually released by the executive, any leaks of content by the legislative branch are felony releases of classified intelligence.   And, remember, there’s a leak task force looking for an opportunity to cull oppositional leakers.

…The more the opposition fights against the memo, the more momentum there is to declassify and release the underlying supportive documents. Ultimately, that’s the goal. President Trump would want to draw all fire upon him and the memo bringing increased attention to it, and simultaneously providing support to release the underlying evidence.

The FBI and DOJ, or their immediate intelligence superior, DNI Dan Coats, can declassify all the underlying documents if needed; so long as they go through the appropriate channels – which means asking the Chief Executive (President Trump) for authority to do so; and going through the process of seeking input from all parties of interest including the National Security Council. Ultimately all declassification needs executive approval.    (Underlines are mine)

The article concludes:

Ultimately, not only does President Trump hold authority over public release of the Intelligence Memo, President Trump also holds the declassification authority for all underlying evidence used in creating the memo.

Now you see why the Democrats were/are so apoplectic about how brilliantly Chairman Nunes gamed out the strategy. That’s why Democrats and Media were so violently trying to besmirch Nunes personally. He strategically outmatched them – and they were counting on using the compartmented structure of internal classified intelligence to keep the most damaging information hidden away from public view.

Where things are today appears to have been well thought out since sometime around April, May or June of 2017.

Key strategists: Dan Coats (DNI), Admiral Rogers (NSA), Chairman Nunes (House Intel), Chairman Goodlatte (House Judiciary) and Chairman Grassley (Senate Judiciary); against the complimentary timeline of Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his year-long Justice Department investigation.

None of this is random. All of this is sequential.

The Democrats in Congress have again been outsmarted by someone they considered too stupid to be President.

Putting 2017 In Perspective

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Victor Davis Hanson posted an article today at a website called American Greatness. It is an amazing article in that it lists all the activities of the anti-Trump people during President Trump’s first year in office. The article is appropriately named, “From Conspiracy Theories to Conspiracies.” As you read the article (I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article–my summary cannot do it justice), remember that the opposition to candidate (and later President) Trump came from Democrats and some Republicans.

My favorite part of the article states:

What better way to derail a presidency would there be than to allow a blank-check special counsel to search out alleged criminal activity on the part of the president? We have seen FBI Director James Comey confess that he deliberately leaked, likely illegally, confidential notes of a meeting with president Trump to the media, with the expressed intent of creating a “scandal” requiring a “special counsel”—a gambit that worked to perfection when Comey’s close friend, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed.

To facilitate those efforts, the counsel would appoint to his team several attorneys who despised the very target of their investigation. In fact, many special investigators have given generously to the campaign of Trump’s past political opponent Hillary Clinton and in at least one case had worked previously for the Clinton Foundation. Note that after nearly a year, the Mueller investigation has not indicted anyone on collusion charges and is unlikely to. Rather, in special counsel trademark, low-bar fashion, it is seeking to indict and convict suspects for not telling the whole truth during interrogations, or violating other statutes. As Peter Strzok—once one of the FBI’s lead investigators in the Mueller investigation—concluded of the “collusion” allegation to his mistress Lisa Page: there was “no big there there.”

The FBI itself would have earlier trafficked in a fraudulent document funded by the Clinton campaign to “prove” Trump and his team were such dangers to the republic that they required surveillance under FISA court warrants and thus should surrender their constitutional rights of privacy. The ensuing surveillance, then, would be widely disseminated among Obama Administration officials, with the likely intent that names would be unmasked and leaked to the anti-Trump press—again, in efforts to discredit, first, the Trump campaign, and later the Trump transition and presidency. A top official of the prior Department of Justice would personally consult the authors of the smear dossier in efforts to ensure that its contents would become useful and known.

It is totally scary that this has happened.

The article concludes:

Subversion as Plain as Day
Key officials of the prior government would likewise weigh in constantly to oppose the subsequent Trump agenda and demonize their own president. Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Ben Rhodes would warn the country of the threats posed by their successor, but fail to disclose that they had previously requested to view FISA surveillance of the Trump team and to unmask the names of U.S. citizens which predictably soon appeared in media reports. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, according to the Jerusalem Post, assured a prominent Palestinian government leader, “that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President Trump’s demands.” Kerry reportedly further assured the Palestinian representative that the president may not be in White House for much longer and would likely not complete his first term. In sum, the former American secretary of state all but advised a foreign government that his own president is illegitimate and thus to be ignored or resisted in the remaining time before he is removed.

If any of these efforts were undertaken in 2009 to subvert the presidency of Barack Obama popular outrage might well have led to criminal indictments. If Hollywood grandees had promised to do to Barack Obama what they boast doing to Donald Trump, the entire industry would have been discredited—or given the Obama investigatory treatment.

Indeed, in many cases between 2009-2017, U.S. citizens the Obama Administration found noncompliant with its agendas became targets of the IRS for their political activity or monitored by the Justice Department. The latter included reporters from the Associated Press and James Rosen of Fox News. Many a journalist’s sources were prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917.  In another case, a filmmaker had his parole revoked and was scapegoated and jailed to advance a false administration narrative about the death of four Americans in Benghazi. Still others were surveilled by using fraudulent documents to obtain FISA court orders.

Everyone should be keen to distinguish conspiracies from conspiracy theories. The above are real events, not the tales told by the paranoid.

In contrast, unhinged conspiracy theorists, for example, might obsess yet again over the machinations of multibillionaire and leftist globalist bogeyman George Soros, and float wild yarns that he would fly to Davos to assure the global elite that he considers Trump “a danger to the world,” while reassuring them that the American president was “a purely temporary phenomenon that will disappear in 2020—or even sooner.” . . . 

It is becoming very obvious that some of the people in high government positions belong in jail. The question is whether or not they will go there. If equal justice under the law is truly one of our founding principles, it needs to be practiced at all times–regardless of the political consequence.

What To Expect This Coming Week

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I expect the memo Congress has put together detailing domestic abuses by the FBI and DOJ to be released Tuesday or Wednesday. I also suspect that the Democrats will plan something dramatic to distract Americans from the release of the memo. It should be pointed out that because the Executive Branch of our government is in charge of the FBI and the DOJ, those agencies need to ask President Trump–not Congress–to give them access to the memo.

So what will happen when the memo is released? Democrats will dismiss it as Republican talking points. If that happens, the Republicans may release the source documents–which are not talking points. The Democrats will have to figure out whether it is better to ignore the memo or deal with the source documents. Since the media will help the Democrats whichever path they choose, expect to see a lot of Democratic spin regarding the memo.

If the memo shows that illegal spying took place, will anyone be prosecuted? As much as I would like to see certain people in jail, I suspect the more visible culprits will be pardoned by President Trump. It would make America look like a banana republic if key players in the previous administration were arrested by the administration that followed. I also realize that it makes America look like a banana republic when a sailor who took a picture of his work station goes to jail for having a classified picture on his cell phone and has his life ruined, and the President and Secretary of State routinely send classified documents over an unsecured server with no consequences. However, I believe that the entire upper echelon of the FBI and DOJ needs to be fired. Although I believe the spying was orchestrated at the highest level, the leadership of those agencies had the choice as to whether or not they would participate. If a few of the leaders of the FBI and DOJ had had the courage to resign, questions might have been asked and this whole mess avoided.

It is a safe bet that this week is going to be a roller coaster. Although I believe the memo will be released, there are no guarantees. I also expect that we will see a degree of spin that we haven’t seen since Bill Clinton was in the White House and told us he didn’t have sex with Monica Lewinsky.

The Emails Speak For Themselves

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An article at The Conservative Treehouse posted today includes the following screenshot of an email from Peter Strzok:

The article reports:

Peter Strzok then goes on to say when/if the full FOIA is released, presumably post-election, Jim, Trisha, Dave and Mike are going to have to figure out how to deal with the discrepancy:

…”I’m sure Jim and Trisha and Dave and Mike are all considering how things like that will play out as they talk among themselves.”

“Jim” is likely James Baker, the Chief Legal Counsel for FBI Director James Comey.

“Trish” is likely Trisha Beth Anderson, Office of Legal Counsel for the FBI.  [Anderson was hired for the DOJ, by AG Eric Holder, from Eric Holder’s law firm.]

“Dave” and “Mike” currently remain unknown.

So it would appear, James Baker and Trisha Anderson, the legal advisers at the top of the FBI leadership apparatus, were both aware the September 2nd, 2016, FOIA release was manipulated to conceal part of Hillary Clinton’s questions and answers.

Perhaps now we can better understand the importance of this specific text message as it was released by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

This message by Strzok shows a team of FBI officials intentionally conspiring to withhold “inflammatory” Clinton investigation evidence, from congress. And the decision-making goes directly to the very top leadership within the FBI.

Congress has oversight responsibilities over the FBI and DOJ. It is time that they start making recommendations based on what they have learned. I am sure there are some junior members of both organizations who have not been involved in the chicanery that the senior members have engaged in who would be qualified for promotions. The fact that many of these people still have jobs is totally unbelievable.

Prepare For An Interesting Week

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Theoretically, this is the week the infamous four-page memo detailing constitutional abuses by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) will be released. The battle over the release of that memo and what is supposedly in it continues.

On Thursday, Sharyl Attkisson posted an article at The Hill explaining some aspects of the battle over the release of the memo. Ms. Attkisson formerly worked for CBS. She resigned from CBS after her investigative reporting was getting too close to the truth. Her reporting on the Fast and Furious scandal received an Emmy Award.

The article at The Hill reports:

What happens when federal agencies accused of possible wrongdoing also control the alleged evidence against them? What happens when they’re the ones in charge of who inside their agencies — or connected to them — ultimately gets investigated and possibly charged?

…First, there’s the alleged improper use of politically funded opposition research to justify secret warrants to spy on U.S. citizens for political purposes.

Second, if corruption is ultimately identified at high levels in our intel agencies, it would necessitate a re-examination of every case and issue the officials touched over the past decade — or two — under administrations of both parties.

This is why I think the concerns transcend typical party politics.

It touches everybody. It’s potentially monumental.

It is becoming obvious that America citizens had their Fourth Amendment rights violated. The questions is whether of not anyone is going to be held accountable.

The article continues:

This week, the FBI said it was unfair for the House Intelligence Committee not to provide its memo outlining alleged FBI abuses. The committee wrote the summary memo after reviewing classified government documents in the Trump-Russia probe.

The FBI’s complaint carries a note of irony considering the agency has notoriously stonewalled Congress. Even when finally agreeing to provide requested documents, the Department of Justice uses the documents’ classified nature to severely restrict who can see them — even among members of Congress who possess the appropriate security clearance. Members who wish to view the documents must report to special locations during prescribed hours in the presence of Department of Justice minders who supervise them as they’re permitted to take handwritten notes only (you know, like the 1960s).

What most people don’t know is that the FBI and Department of Justice already know exactly what Congressional investigators have flagged in the documents they’ve reviewed, because three weeks ago the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its own summary memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The committee also referred to the Department of Justice a recommendation for possible charges against the author of the political opposition research file, the so-called Trump dossier: Christopher Steele.

Ms. Attkisson concludes here article by saying:

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has officially warned the House Intelligence Committee not to release its memo. It’s like the possible defendant in a criminal trial threatening prosecutors for having the audacity to reveal alleged evidence to the judge and jury.

This is the first time I can recall open government groups and many reporters joining in the argument to keep the information secret. They are strangely uncurious about alleged improprieties with implications of the worst kind: Stasi-like tactics used against Americans. “Don’t be irresponsible and reveal sources and methods,” they plead.

As for me? I don’t care what political stripes the alleged offenders wear or whose side they’re on. If their sources and methods are inappropriate, they should be fully exposed and stopped.

The memo is supposed to be released next week–mid week–after the President’s State of the Union speech. There have been some suggestions that he read the memo instead of giving the speech. That is not an idea I support, but I understand why some people might suggest it.

The scandals abound. Who actually authorized the sale of uranium to Russia? Who decided Hillary Clinton would not be charged with a crime? What was the basis for a FISA warrant allowing spying on the Trump campaign and transition team? At what point did the upper echelon of the FBI and DOJ become political? Are the FBI and the DOJ subject to the U.S. Constitution?

Hopefully, we will have the answers to at least some of these questions by the end of next week. If the answers are what they seem to be, some of our government needs to answer some very pointed questions.

The Texts Have Been Recovered

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Fox News is reporting today that the Department of Justice has recovered more than 50,000 text messages sent between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page during the time period December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.

The article reports:

In a letter sent to congressional committees, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his office “succeeded in using forensic tools to recover text messages from FBI devices, including text messages between Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page that were sent or received between December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.”

“Our effort to recover any additional text messages is ongoing,” Horowitz said. “We will provide copies of the text messages that we recover from these devices to the Department so that the Department’s leadership can take any management action it deems appropriate.”

Fox News has learned from U.S. government officials that the inspector general recovered the texts by taking possession of “at least four” phones belonging to Strzok and Page.

The fact that the inspector general recovered the texts and took possession of the phones gives me hope that what is being reported is information that has not been altered in any way.

The article concludes:

In one text exchange, Strzok and Page spoke of a “secret society” within the Department of Justice and the FBI the day after Trump’s victory, according to two lawmakers with knowledge of the messages.

“We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of [Trump’s] election, that there may have been a secret society of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI — to include Page and Strzok — that would be working against him,” Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, said Monday on Fox News.

In another infamous message, Strzok appeared to make reference to an “insurance policy” against a Trump win.

“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…” he wrote.

I would like to remind Congress that according to a statement made in 1913 by United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” The public needs to know what the upper levels of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation have been up to in recent years. We need to #ReleaseTheMemo and we also need to see what Strzok and Page were planning as an insurance policy and with their ‘secret society.’ Healthy representative republics don’t have secret societies attempting to undo a valid election. It is amazing to me that these two people still have jobs.

Watch For Spin

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Recently members of the public became aware of a four-page memo detailing the FISA abuses under the Obama Administration. Generally speaking, most members of the public would like to see the memo. For whatever reason, Democrats in Congress do not want the American public to see the memo. One talking point used by Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been that the American public would not be able to understand the memo and put it into proper perspective. Does this man think Americans have the ability to vote intelligently?

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about Representative Schiff’s latest attempt to block the release of the memo. Representative Schiff claimed that the tweets asking for release of the memo were from ‘Russian bots.’ Representative Schiff and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) went as far as urging Facebook and Twitter to conduct a forensic examination into Twitter users who pushed the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign. Well, it didn’t go as planned.,

The article reports:

It turns out Rep. Adam Schiff’s office was inundated with phone calls from citizens confirming they are not Russian bots.

On Wednesday the far left Daily Beast destroyed Adam Schiff and Senator Feinstein’s conspiracy.

Twitter internal analysis found no evidence of Russian bot involvement in the “ReleaseTheMemo hashtag campaign.

It was just another lie by prominent Democrats and the liberal mainstream media!

Stay tuned–I am sure there is much more to come.

Insight Into Some Questionable Actions By The Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

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Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review today that explains what went on behind the scenes regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server. There are a lot of details in the article, so I strongly suggest that you follow the above link and read the entire article. I will try to list the highlights.

The article reports:

From the first, these columns have argued that the whitewash of the Hillary Clinton–emails caper was President Barack Obama’s call — not the FBI’s, and not the Justice Department’s. (See, e.g., here, here, and here.) The decision was inevitable. Obama, using a pseudonymous email account, had repeatedly communicated with Secretary Clinton over her private, non-secure email account.

These emails must have involved some classified information, given the nature of consultations between presidents and secretaries of state, the broad outlines of Obama’s own executive order defining classified intelligence (see EO 13526, section 1.4), and the fact that the Obama administration adamantly refused to disclose the Clinton–Obama emails. If classified information was mishandled, it was necessarily mishandled on both ends of these email exchanges.

Since President Obama was running the Justice Department during the investigation, it stands to reason that Mrs. Clinton was not going to be charged. Particularly since President Obama was also involved in the mishandling of classified information. The Obama Justice Department was not really known for its justice.

Some insight from the article:

…According to Senator Johnson, a draft dated June 30, 2016 (i.e., five days before Comey delivered the final version), contained a passage expressly referring to a troublesome email exchange between Clinton and Obama. (I note that the FBI’s report of its eventual interview of Clinton contains a cryptic reference to a July 1, 2012, email that Clinton sent from Russia to Obama’s email address. See report, page 2.) The passage in the June 30 draft stated:

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. [Emphasis added.] Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.

The article explains that “according to a Strzok–Page text, a revised draft of Comey’s remarks was circulated by his chief of staff, Jim Rybicki. It replaced “the President” with “another senior government official.”

The powers that be involved in the investigation then realized that the change would not be enough–the press might ask who the senior government official was.

The article continues with what happened next:

Consequently, by the time Comey delivered his remarks on July 5, the decision had been made to avoid even a veiled allusion to Obama. Instead, all the stress was placed on Clinton (who was not going to be charged anyway) for irresponsibly sending and receiving sensitive emails that were likely to have been penetrated by hostile intelligence services. Comey made no reference to Clinton’s correspondent:

We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. [Emphasis added.] Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.

So it was okay to let Hillary Clinton take the fall since she was not going to be held accountable anyway.

The article concludes:

On July 2, with the decision that she would not be indicted long since made, Mrs. Clinton sat for an interview with the FBI — something she’d never have done if there were a chance she might be charged. The farce was complete with the Justice Department and FBI permitting two subjects of the investigation — Mills and Clinton aide Heather Samuelson — to sit in on the interview as lawyers representing Clinton. That is not something law enforcement abides when it is serious about making a case. Here, however, it was clear: There would be no prosecution.

All cleaned up: no indictment, meaning no prosecution, meaning no disclosure of Clinton–Obama emails. It all worked like a charm . . . except the part where Mrs. Clinton wins the presidency and the problem is never spoken of again.

I think Congress has wasted an awful lot of money investigating the wrong people. I also think that the Mueller investigation was set up to make sure that the information that is coming out now would never see the light of day. The talking point will be that all of the corruption at the highest levels of the Obama Administration is just being brought out now to distract from the Mueller investigation. Actually, based on the evidence in each investigation, it is pretty obvious that it is the other way around. The Mueller investigation may be the insurance policy that was discussed in the emails between Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok. Time will tell.

Our Government Is Not A Game To Be Played By A Privileged Few

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PJ Media posted an article yesterday about emails between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok which have recently been turned over to Congress. At this point I would also like to note that the emails between the key dates of December 14, 2017 to May 17, 2017 are missing. However, the emails that were turned over are disturbing.

The following Tweet is included in the article:

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released the following press release:

Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Ca.) released the following statement concerning the 384 pages of new text messages between top FBI officials:

“This weekend we met to discuss the text messages and possible next steps in our oversight of these agencies. The contents of these text messages between top FBI officials are extremely troubling in terms of when certain key decisions were made by the Department of Justice and the FBI, by whom these decisions were made, and the evident bias exhibited by those in charge of the investigation. The omission of text messages between December 2016 and May 2017, a critical gap encompassing the FBI’s Russia investigation, is equally concerning. Rather than clearing up prior FBI and DOJ actions, these recently produced documents cause us to further question the credibility and objectivity of certain officials at the FBI.”

The article at PJ Media further states:

Rep. Ratcliffe said that former FBI director James Comey needs to come back to Capitol Hill to testify again under oath on the question of when the decision to exonerate former secretary of State Hillary Clinton was made. The latest batch of text messages between Strzok and Page suggests that Comey was coordinating with Attorney General Lynch on the decision well ahead of his July 5 press conference.

“It’s really clear to me that the decision was made in May of 2016 — two months before the press conference,” Gowdy said. “Of course Loretta Lynch knew he wasn’t going to be charged. Everyone except the public knew that she was not going to be charged.”

“We knew that Strzok and Page had an intense anti-Trump bias and that’s okay so long as they check it at the door and do their job,” Ratcliffe said. “But we learned today in the thousands of text messages that we reviewed that perhaps they may not have done that.”

Ratcliffe went on to mention one particular text message that referenced a “secret society” at the Bureau. “We know about this insurance policy that was referenced in trying to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president,” he began. “We learned today about information 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 that would be working against him.”

If there is evidence that proves any of this true (and it seems as if there is), then people need to go to jail and the entire upper echelon of the Justice Department and FBI need to be fired (at the very least). These activities by the Department of Justice and the FBI have totally undermined the credibility of the organizations. I will admit that I became suspicious of the politicization of the Justice Department when the voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panthers was dismissed (article here).

There is always danger in any government that a few people will acquire more power than they can handle and misuse that power. I believe we are watching an unmasking of misuse of government power in the final months of the Obama Administration. This needs to be dealt with quickly and decisively. It is also becoming obvious that more controls are needed on the FISA laws.

 

Corruption By The Numbers

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The Gateway Pundit posted an article about an audit into President Obama’s FISA searches during his time in office.

The article includes a report on the audit:

The article reports:

The FISA Court Ruling shows widespread abuse of the FISA mandate. According to the report, Obama’s FBI and DOJ performed searches on Americans that were against their 4th Amendment rights.  This went on for years.  One paragraph in the report states that 85% of the Section 704 and 705(b) FISA searches made during this time were non-compliant with applicable laws and therefore criminal.

FISA 705 warrants deal with US citizens outside of the country.

In addition, the report cites that at the same time that Obama’s DOJ and FBI were illegally searching Americans against their rights and unbeknownst to them, Obama’s FBI was providing this information to outside contractors who had no business or legal cause or claim the information.

I guess the most transparent administration in history believed that everyone else should be transparent but they were exempt.

More Destroyed Evidence

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The Washington Examiner posted an article yesterday about missing texts in an ongoing Congressional investigation.

The article reports:

Investigators in both House and Senate were stunned late Friday when, receiving a batch of newly-released texts between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, they also received notice from the bureau that the FBI “failed to preserve” Strzok-Page messages from December 14, 2016 through May 17, 2017.

…A number of critical events in the Trump-Russia affair occurred between December 2016 and May 2017, including:

  • Conversations between Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
  • The completion and publication of the intelligence community assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
  • The briefing in which FBI director James Comey told President-elect Donald Trump about the Trump dossier.
  • The president’s inauguration.
  • The nomination and confirmation of new Justice Department leadership.
  • Flynn’s interview with the FBI (conducted by Strzok).
  • Comey’s assurances to Trump that he, Trump, was not under investigation.
  • A variety of revelations, mostly in the Washington Post and New York Times, about various Trump figures under investigation.
  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the Russia probe.
  • The firing of top Obama Justice Department holdover Sally Yates.
  • Trump’s tweet alleging he was wiretapped.
  • Trump’s firing of Comey.
  • And, finally, on May 17, 2017 — the final day of the missing texts — the appointment of Trump-Russia special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Strzok and Page had a lot to talk about.

Isn’t it amazing that the texts between those two people during that time period have disappeared?

Congress does not seem to be convinced that this is simply an incredible coincidence that has nothing to do with their investigation:

On Saturday, Sen. Johnson sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray with a series of questions about the missing texts. Does the FBI have records of any other communications between Strzok and Page? What texts has the FBI produced to the inspector general? How extensive was the alleged glitch that allegedly resulted in the lost texts?

Johnson also asked whether the FBI has “conducted searches of Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page’s non-FBI-issued communications devices or accounts to determine whether federal records exist on those nonofficial accounts.”

That is an apparent reference to instances in the texts in which Strzok and Page told each other that they were switching to iMessage for further conversation, suggesting they might have moved their discussion of sensitive topics from their government-issued Samsung devices to private Apple devices.

Underlying all the questions is a diminished level of trust between some quarters of Congress and the FBI.

“Very suspicious,” said one investigator about the news. “Hard to believe,” said another.

When asked to rate his trust of the FBI on a scale from 1 to 10, the investigator quickly answered, “Zero.”

There are already a lot of Americans who believe that Washington is totally corrupt–on both sides of the aisle. Incidents like this further that belief. If Congress, the FBI, and the DOJ have any intention of restoring their credibility with the American people, they need to find these messages, finish their investigation, and get on with the business of government.

Explaining The Procedures Involved In Releasing The Memo

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All of the information in this article has been taken from an article posted at The Conservative Treehouse yesterday. The #ReleaseTheMemo movement has been successful.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse includes the following:

The article explains what is involved in releasing the memo and the steps that are necessary in the process in order to comply with the law.

The article reports:

Once the House Intelligence Committee votes to declassify the four-page memo, the White House, National Security Adviser (H.R. McMaster) and National Security Council will have five days to review the content. The White House will likely have a brief review by the NSC and the Office of Legal Counsel of the content, and then issue approval for the release.

…Secondly, while it might seem like a good idea for President Trump to declassify the Nunes memo, if given by the Intel Committee, it would not be prudent to do so. Within this classified document Donald Trump is the subject of adverse action outlined therein.

…Therefore the best route as constructed by Nunes and Goodlatte would be for the House to vote to declassify, pass on to the Executive for review, then President Trump grants approval for the request of the House (legislative branch).

By law, all attempts by the legislative branch to declassify intelligence information must be given to the executive branch for review in advance of release. This is because the executive branch needs to see if any current intelligence operations might be compromised by information not known to the legislative branch.

The National Security Council and any impacted offices of the intelligence information (CIA, NSA, FBI, DOJ, U.S. DoS, DOD, etc.) review, provide opinion, and sign off prior to executive approval and release.

It is not just this declassification that goes through this process, all declassification goes through this process. In this example, presumably, the President has no adverse reason to block the declassification request and it is likely all approvals will happen quite quickly.

After the White House approves of the HPSCI request, the Memo then becomes public.

That’s when Democrats will attack the memo as being authored and misrepresented by Chairman Devin Nunes. This is the politics.

We need to remember a few things here. First of all, the Democrats DO NOT want this memo released. It is becoming obvious that there are things in the memo that make the Democratic party look really bad–such as using the government to spy on political opponents. Watergate was simply attempted spying and people went to jail. This allegedly was using government agencies to spy–many people should go to jail. Secondly, if and when the memo is released, the Democrats will do everything they can to discredit it. However, at some point this month, the Inspector General’s report is due out, and I suspect that will confirm much (if not all) of what is in the memo.

The article further notes what will happen if the Democrats claim the memo is not what it seems to be:

If/when this happens (highly likely it will), Chairman Nunes will then request the entire House of Representatives be given the opportunity to see the underlying FISA documentation that led to the summary.

The underlying FISA documentation likely includes the DOJ/FBI FISA application as presented to the FISA court; again, likely to include the “Clinton/Steele Dossier”.

Additionally, the FISA-702 raw data will include the FBI “searches” on Trump officials that led to the upstream collection of information and the subsequent “unmasking” of Trump officials.

Releasing the underlying FISA documentation -that proves the Nunes FISA memo- will likely follow a similar path as the Nunes memo itself. Again, this is a process, and within each of these processes there are revelations as to the scope of the corruption and conspiracy.

The article concludes:

In April and May 2017 Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and NSA Director Admiral Rogers, began assembling a pathway for Devin Nunes to climb out of that intelligence box. ODNI Dan Coats declassified the FISA Court opinion, and that opened the door for Horowitz, Grassley, Goodlatte and Nunes to question the content therein that circled the unlawful action of the DOJ and FBI.

Where we are today is a step in the investigative process that is an outcome of months of work by Coats, Rogers and Horowitz to extract Chairman Devin Nunes and bring all prior DOJ and FBI corruption to the surface.

I strongly suggest that you follow the link to read the entire article. The author is amazingly detailed in his research and lists his various sources at the end of the article.

Look for the Democrats to stage a major distraction about the time the memo is released. It may be another government shutdown or it may be some sort of march or filibuster. Based on what I have heard, the Democrats will do almost anything to keep this memo off of the front page of the news. Stay tuned.

Why Not Just Put It On Hillary Clinton’s Secret Server And We Can Get It From The Russians?

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Sorry about the sarcasm. I couldn’t resist. The Hill posted an article today about the fight in Congress to keep the American public from finding out what actually went on behind the scenes during the 2016 presidential campaign and President Trump‘s transition team.

The article reports:

A growing number of Republicans are demanding the release of a classified report that they say reveals political bias at the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) in the investigation into President Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow. 

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) spearheaded the effort this week to allow lawmakers to view a top-secret report compiled by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

Scores of Republicans have since viewed the document in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on Capitol Hill. They left expressing shock, saying the special counsel investigation into whether Trump’s officials had improper contacts with Russia is based on politically motivated actions at the highest level of law enforcement.

Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) called the memo “shocking.”

“I’m here to tell all of a America tonight that I’m shocked to read exactly what has taken place,” Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said in a speech on the House floor. 

“I thought it could never happen in a country that loves freedom and democracy like this country. It is time that we become transparent with all of this, and I’m calling on our leadership to make this available so all Americans can judge for themselves.” 

As voters, we need to see this. We need to know exactly what happened–not what the media or the political parties choose to tell us. Why is it classified in the first place? For political purposes?

This is how the process of declassification works:

Meadows and his allies asked GOP leaders in the House to declassify the report as part of a short-term spending bill the House passed late Thursday night. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he wanted to follow House rules on the matter and deferred to Nunes and the Intelligence Committee.

Nunes could call for a vote to release the report on his panel. If a majority on the committee agrees to declassify the report, the executive branch would just need to sign-off to make it public, said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), another Freedom Caucus member.

“It is so alarming the American people have to see this,” Jordan said.

The article includes the following statement:

Lawmakers were tight-lipped about the contents of the memo, as they are barred from unilaterally releasing classified information.

But the lawmakers who have long been claiming that FBI agents and DOJ officials launched a partisan investigation into Trump said the report vindicated their claims.

This story is currently being overshadowed by threats of a government shutdown. I don’t think that is a coincidence.

Congressional Oversight May Get Very Interesting

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The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about Congressional oversight into the FISA violations under President Obama.

The title of the article is, “How The FBI and DOJ Intelligence Units Were Weaponized Around Congressional Oversight…”

I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article, but there are a few things I want to mention here.

The article reports:

NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers has announced to his staff he is resigning. A nominee will be announced to replace him shortly. Rogers departure makes sense.  His incredible accomplishments are complete; he will now be free to testify, unencumbered, to congress.

So why is this important?

Admiral Mike Rogers became NSA director in April 2014.

Sometime in early 2016 Admiral Rogers became aware of “ongoing” and “intentional” violations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Section 702(17) surveillance. Specifically item #17 which includes the unauthorized upstream data collection of U.S. individuals within NSA surveillance through the use of “About Query”.

Section 702 – Item #17 “About Queries” are specifically the collection of electronic messaging, emails and upstream phone call surveillance data of U.S. persons.

The public doesn’t discover this issue, and Director Rogers action, until May 2017 when we learn that Rogers told the FISA court he became aware of unlawful surveillance and collection of U.S. persons.

Put into context, with the full back-story, it appears that 2016 surveillance was the political surveillance now in the headlines; the stuff Chairman Nunes is currently questioning. The dates here are important as they tell a story.

As a result of Rogers suspecting FISA 702(17) 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.

Again, 702 is basically spying on Americans; the actual “spying” part is 702. Item 17 is “About Queries“, which allows user queries or searches of content (messaging, email and phone conversations) based on any subject matter put into the search field.

The NSA compliance officer identified several strange 702 “About Queries” were being conducted. These were violations of the fourth amendment (search and seizure), ie searches, privacy violations, and surveillance without a warrant.  Admiral Rogers was briefed by the compliance officer on October 20th, 2016.

Admiral Mike Rogers ordered the “About Query” activity to stop, reported the activity to the DOJ, and then went to the FISA court.

On October 26th, 2016, full FISA court assembled, NSA Director Rogers personally informed the court of the 702(17) violations.  Additionally, and as an outcome of the NSA systems inability to guarantee integrity, Rogers also stopped “About Query” permanently.

Here we have an honest patriot caught in a den of lying crooks. His testimony should be very interesting.

Felonies Were Committed, What Happens Next?

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The Hill posted an article yesterday about Ex-FBI Director James Comey’s original statement closing out the probe into Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server.

The article reports:

…(the statement) was edited by subordinates to remove five separate references to terms like “grossly negligent” and to delete mention of evidence supporting felony and misdemeanor violations, according to copies of the full document.

…The full draft, with edits, leaves little doubt that Comey originally wrote on May 2, 2016 that there was evidence that Clinton and top aides may have violated both felony and misdemeanor statutes, though he did not believe he could prove intent before a jury.

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statute proscribing gross negligence in the handling of classified information and of the statute proscribing misdemeanor mishandling, my judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey originally penned.

That passage, however, was edited to remove the references to “gross negligence” and “misdemeanor mishandling,” leaving a much more generic reference to “potential violations of the statutes.”

The FBI has told Congress the edits were made by subordinates to Comey and then accepted by the then-director before he made his final announcement July 5, 2016 that he would not pursue criminal charges against Clinton.

This is disturbing.

The article further notes:

“The edits to Director Comey’s public statement, made months prior to the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s conduct, had a significant impact on the FBI’s public evaluation of the implications of her actions,” Johnson (Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote, noting recently released text messages show some senior FBI officials involved in the case harbored political hatred for Trump or preference for Clinton.

“This effort, seen in light of the personal animus toward then-candidate Trump by senior agents leading the Clinton investigation and their apparent desire to create an ‘insurance policy’ against Mr. Trump’s election, raise profound questions about the FBI’s role and possible interference in the 2016 presidential election,” Johnson wrote.

One edit that concerned Johnson was a decision to delete from Comey’s original draft a reference to the FBI working on a joint assessment with the intelligence community about possible national security damage from the classified information that passed through Clinton’s nonsecure email servers.

“We have done extensive work with the assistance of our colleagues elsewhere in the Intelligence Community to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the private email operation,” Comey originally wrote.

The reference to the rest of the intelligence community was edited out, the memos show.

One of the main problems with this nonsecure server is the impact it may have had on the national security of the country. It is widely believed that Hillary Clinton’s private server was easily hacked by unfriendly intelligence services. That is a threat to national security. That is the true problem with the server, other than the question of what was being hidden by the destruction of evidence and the use of a private server.

As I have previously stated, I do not want to see Hillary Clinton go to jail, although I do remember that Charles Colson went to jail after Watergate. Mr. Colson’s time in jail actually had a very positive impact on his life–it changed him from a self-centered, ruthless politician to a man who genuinely cared for the well being of other people. Hmmm.

Awaiting A Constitutional Crisis

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The Conservative Treehouse reminded us today that tomorrow is the deadline for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to turn over to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes documents related to their investigation of the Donald Trump campaign. These documents are under subpoena.

The article reports:

The FBI Counterintelligence Division began an official investigation on/around July 15th, 2016. The target of the investigation was the Donald Trump campaign. The FBI has refused to answer questions or allow investigative oversight toward the origin of their endeavor.

Numerous leaks from the FBI imply the leadership is attempting to shape the narrative surrounding the origin.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is complicated and detailed. I will do my best to hit the highlights, but there is a lot here.

The article states:

In October 2016, immediately after the DOJ lawyers formatted the FBI information (Steele Dossier etc.) for the FISA application, the head of the NSD, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin, left his job.  During his exit John Carlin informed the FISA court the DOJ-NSD frequently provided false information to the court to gain FISA warrants – Read Here.

Chairman Devin Nunes wants answers to the origin of the FBI counterintelligence operation.  Back in February 2017 Devin Nunes went to a secure SCIF and saw some of the unmasking reports that stemmed from that operation.

A copy of that letter is included in the article.

The story includes the timeline that led to the surveillance:

Those who have followed the back-story closely can see clear political outline of the 2016 operation. Here’s the way the entire construct looks in simple outline.

Career officials, managers and staff within the DOJ and FBI wanted to help ensure Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election. Those people were ideologically aligned with President Obama, and held the goal of maintaining progressive advances as part of their motive.

A “small group” was formed within the DOJ and FBI to facilitate this goal. The first goal was to remove Clinton from the burden of the FBI email investigation.

Once that goal was achieved, they moved on to Clinton’s 2016 challenger. By the time the 2016 GOP convention drew near, everyone accepted that challenger would be Donald Trump.

As such the FBI “small group” began monitoring candidate Donald Trump in June/July 2016 as part of a plan toward the benefit of candidate Hillary Clinton.

However, the FBI and DOJ officials also needed an actual basis, a legal justification for their behavior and the time they were spending. The plan to justify that behavior was to create an official counterintelligence operation.

To get the counterintelligence operation going, they needed a reasonable basis for creating one. That basis was the formative seeds of claims of Russian connections to the Trump campaign.

To establish the basis the Russian elements needed for the operation; the DNC and Clinton campaign has earlier paid Fusion GPS (April ’16) to contract Christopher Steele to write a dossier that would form the legal grounding for the counterintelligence operation.

The wife of Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS), Mary B. Jacoby, with years of Russia-angled reporting –including Donald Trump– visits the White House on April 19th 2016.

Fusion GPS (Mary B. Jacoby, and Glenn Simpson) hired DOJ Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, who was well versed in counterintelligence operations, CIA operations, and using CIA tradecraft to create illusions.

This is just ugly. Please read the entire article to learn the rest of the story. It is a chilling example of using the power of government for political purposes. Thank God it didn’t work.

At Least Congress Is Paying Attention

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The case of Hillary Clinton’s emails is a disgrace to our justice system. A young sailor’s life was ruined because he took a picture of his workplace on his cell phone–he did jail time and is on probation. Hillary Clinton had classified information on an unsecured server and subsequently destroyed information that was under subpoena and was charged with nothing. Something is dreadfully off balance here.

The Hill is reporting tonight on Congressional investigations into this injustice.

The article reports:

The investigators also confirmed that the FBI began drafting a statement exonerating Clinton of any crimes while evidence responsive to subpoenas was still outstanding and before agents had interviewed more than a dozen key witnesses.

Those witnesses included Clinton and the computer firm employee who permanently erased her email archives just days after the emails were subpoenaed by Congress, the investigators said.

Lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee who attended a Dec. 21 closed-door briefing by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe say the bureau official confirmed that the investigation and charging decisions were controlled by a small group in Washington headquarters rather the normal process of allowing field offices to investigate possible criminality in their localities. The Clinton email server in question was based in New York.

In normal FBI cases, field offices where crimes are believed to have been committed investigate the evidence and then recommend to bureau hierarchy whether to pursue charges with prosecutors. In this case, the bureau hierarchy controlled both the investigation and the charging decision from Washington, a scenario known in FBI parlance as a “special,” the lawmakers said.

This part of the story should make General Michael Flynn furious:

The FBI also confirmed that a key witness, a computer technician who deleted Clinton emails from her server in March 2015 after a congressional subpoena had been issued for them, originally lied to the FBI during his interviews, memos show. The witness’s name was redacted from documents released by the FBI but he was identified as an employee of a computer firm that helped maintained Clinton’s email server.

His admission of false statements came one day after the Comey statement was already being drafted, investigators told The Hill.

The computer employee originally told the FBI in a February 2016 interview that he did not recall making any deletions from Clinton’s server in March 2015, FBI records show.

But then on May 3, 2016, the same employee in a subsequent FBI interview told agents he had an “oh shit moment” and in late March 2015 deleted Clinton’s email archive from the server, according to FBI documents reviewed by The Hill.

Lying to the FBI is a federal felony, a crime that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn recently pleaded guilty to. But the FBI decided not to pursue criminal charges against the witness, and instead gave the technician an immunity deal so he could correct his story, congressional investigators said.

The article concludes:

The longtime Senate chairman went to the Senate floor before the holidays to raise another concern: the FBI did not pursue criminal charges when Clinton’s email archives were permanently deleted from her private server days after a subpoena for them was issued by a congressional committee investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

The deletion occurred on the same day Clinton’s former chief of staff and her lawyer had a call with the computer firm that handled the erasure using an anti-recovery software called BleachBit, Grassley said.

“You have a conference call with Secretary Clinton’s attorneys on March 31, 2015, and on that very same day her emails are deleted by someone who was on that conference call using special BleachBit software,” Grassley said. “The emails were State Department records under subpoena by Congress.

“What did the FBI do to investigate this apparent obstruction?” Grassley asked. “According to affidavits filed in federal court — absolutely nothing. The FBI focused only on the handling of classified information.”

Can you imagine any ordinary citizen destroying evidence and not being charged? I am not a person who wants to see Hillary Clinton in jail, but I think it’s time to investigate the Clinton Foundation and deal with the mishandling of classified information she engaged in while Secretary of State. Breaking the law needs to have consequences.

When Laws Are Broken And People Suspect That Laws Have Been Broken, Just Deflect Their Attention

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It seems as if certain elements of our news media have become experts at avoiding the truth or avoiding the real story. The New York Times posted an article on Saturday stating that the investigation of Donald Trump‘s ties to Russia began with a barroom conversation between George Papadopoulos and an Australian diplomat. Unfortunately, as The Gateway Pundit and Power Line Blog point out, that account doesn’t hold water. So why did The New York Times post the story? It is fairly common knowledge that the Trump campaign team and the Trump transition team were under electronic surveillance by the Obama Administration (probably with information passed on to the press and to the Hillary Clinton campaign). The question is, “Who authorized that surveillance and why?”

Under most circumstances, the surveillance (on American citizens with names unmasked) is illegal, so who authorized it and what was the justification? It is becoming obvious that the justification was the infamous Christopher Steele dossier originally contracted by mainstream Republican leaders, later paid for by the Clinton campaign, and even later, possibly funded with FBI money. Since none of the information in the dossier has been proven true–it was simply campaign opposition research paper–it really does not justify the issuing of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrants to wiretap either the Trump campaign or transition team. That is the conclusion that The New York Times is attempting to avoid reaching. That is the reason the article on George Papadopoulos appeared in the New York Times yesterday.

Some excerpts from The Gateway Pundit:

If the dossier wasn’t used in order to obtain a FISA warrant, then SHOW THE PUBLIC THE FISA APPS!

Papadopoulos was already charged. He wasn’t charged with ‘Russian collusion’. Papadopoulos was charged with making a false statement to the FBI because talking to Russians is not illegal, yet he’s what prompted the Russia investigation?

The article at Power Line Blog includes the following tweet by Kimberley Strassel:

Another article at Power Line Blog concludes:

It’s also important to remember that the question of whether the dossier prompted, or helped lead to, the FBI investigation is separate from the question of what role the dossier played when the Justice Department obtained a warrant from the FISA court to engage in electronic surveillance of members of Trump’s team.

The media is holding up a lot of shiny objects for us to look at. The thing to remember is that there are laws protecting the privacy of Americans. If those laws were broken, people need to be punished. That is the story the media does not want us to hear.

We Seem To Have A Problem With Our Intelligence Community Understanding That It Is Supposed To Work Within The Constraints Of Our Representative Republic

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Townhall posted an article today by Sharyl Attkisson about misconduct by the intelligence community of our government.

The article lists ten examples of the intelligence community running amok:

Telecom takeover

Joe Nacchio, CEO of telecom giant Qwest, said that after he refused to spy on his customers for the National Security Agency (NSA) without a warrant in February of 2001, the government retaliated by yanking a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars and filing an insider trading case against him. He went to prison. The government denied charges of retaliation. 

Olympic spying

In 2002, the NSA reportedly engaged in “blanket surveillance” of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, collecting and storing “virtually all electronic communications going into or out of the Salt Lake City area, including … emails and text messages” to “experiment with and fine tune a new scale of mass surveillance.” NSA officials had denied such a program existed.

Spying on Congress

In 2005 intel officials intercepted and recorded phone conversations between then-Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.)  and pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage.

[…]

Journalist “witch hunts”

Internal emails from a “global intelligence company” executive in 2010 stated: “Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.

[…]

Misleading on mass spying

On March 12, 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress that intel officials were not collecting mass data on tens of millions of Americans.

[…]

More spying on Congress

CIA officials improperly accessed Senate Intelligence Committee computers, according to an Inspector General report in July 2014, contradicting denials by then-CIA Director Brennan.

[…]

NSA privacy violations

In fall 2016, the government confessed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “significant non-compliance” of crucial procedures designed to protect privacy rights of U.S. citizens.

[…]

Intel mutiny?

Government requests to see or “unmask” names of Americans whose communications are “incidentally” captured during national security surveillance are supposed to be rare and justified.

[…]

Politically motivated press leak

In May 2017, former FBI Director James Comey secretly orchestrated a “leak” to The New York Times of negative memos he said he wrote contemporaneously about President Trump, with the motive of spurring the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the president’s alleged Russia ties.

[…]

Conflicted investigators

One purpose of special counsel investigations, such as the Russia investigation being led by former FBI Director Mueller, is to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. But multiple investigators working on Mueller’s team have been removed after being caught in compromising positions.

The swamp has been operating successfully for a number of years. It is time for the leadership in the intelligence community to resign. The intelligence community needs to go back to doing their job of protecting Americans–not spying on people who disagree with their political philosophy.

The article reminds us:

This issue has special meaning to the former CBS reporter, who alleges she was spied on by the Obama administration. She’s documented the reported Obama surveillance timeline on her website as well. Even left leaning journalists, like Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, said the leaks from the intelligence community are a prescription to the destruction of our government. Granted, Greenwald’s publication is set up as a safe space for leakers, and to protect them, as they disseminate information relating to government corruption or wrongdoing. Leaking because Hillary Clinton lost isn’t any of those things. Now, Greenwald fears both the deep state and the Trump White House, but noted the former doesn’t have the institutional constraints to keep their power in check.

 

The Insurance Policy

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Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review today titled, “Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?” It is a rather lengthy article, and I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article. However, there are two sections of the article that I think tell the whole story.

The article states:

The Obama-era FBI and Justice Department had great faith in Steele because he had previously collaborated with the bureau on a big case. Plus, Steele was working on the Trump-Russia project with the wife of a top Obama Justice Department official, who was personally briefed by Steele. The upper ranks of the FBI and DOJ strongly preferred Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, to the point of overlooking significant evidence of her felony misconduct, even as they turned up the heat on Trump. In sum, the FBI and DOJ were predisposed to believe the allegations in Steele’s dossier. Because of their confidence in Steele, because they were predisposed to believe his scandalous claims about Donald Trump, they made grossly inadequate efforts to verify his claims. Contrary to what I hoped would be the case, I’ve come to believe Steele’s claims were used to obtain FISA surveillance authority for an investigation of Trump.

There were layers of insulation between the Clinton campaign and Steele — the campaign and the Democratic party retained a law firm, which contracted with Fusion GPS, which in turn hired the former spy. At some point, though, perhaps early on, the FBI and DOJ learned that the dossier was actually a partisan opposition-research product. By then, they were dug in. No one, after all, would be any the wiser: Hillary would coast to victory, so Democrats would continue running the government; FISA materials are highly classified, so they’d be kept under wraps. Just as it had been with the Obama-era’s Fast and Furious and IRS scandals, any malfeasance would remain hidden.

The best laid schemes . . . gang aft agley.

I honestly don’t know if President Trump is going to be able to drain the swamp, but the above statement makes it obvious that had Hillary Clinton become President, the swamp would only have gotten bigger.

The article concludes:

In conclusion, while there is a dearth of evidence to date that the Trump campaign colluded in Russia’s cyberespionage attack on the 2016 election, there is abundant evidence that the Obama administration colluded with the Clinton campaign to use the Steele dossier as a vehicle for court-authorized monitoring of the Trump campaign — and to fuel a pre-election media narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies believed Trump was scheming with Russia to lift sanctions if he were elected president. Congress should continue pressing for answers, and President Trump should order the Justice Department and FBI to cooperate rather than — what’s the word? — resist.

Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves.

 

 

Behind The Scenes In The Inspector General Investigation Of The FBI and DOJ

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the Congressional attempts to get information from Deputy FBI Director Andrew “Andy” McCabe and his role in the 2016 “Trump Project”.

Here are some highlights from the article:

♦It is increasingly clear the entire purpose of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe was not to investigate some nefarious and innocuous Russian election interference; but rather with a Trump victory the same people who weaponized the FBI and DOJ to conduct the “Trump Project” needed to generate a shield or firewall to protect them from sunlight. The Mueller probe is that shield.

…♦Secondly, the same FBI and DOJ officials, along with career FBI and DOJ lawyers and administrators, who are at risk from exposure within the plot, do not want to answer questions in public hearings. They are using closed sessions under the auspices of everything therein being “classified”. This venue and manner of testimony blocks congressional representatives from talking about the content publicly.

Everything is being structured to avoid public scrutiny. In essence these career co-conspirators are using the familiar DC system to protect themselves from ramifications of their plot reaching the public.

♦Having said that, it certainly appears we have one person on the side of justice who predicted this was going to happen. By all external appearances DOJ Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz has moved proactively to set up as much transparency as possible upon his years-long investigation into the politicization of the FBI and DOJ.

The article goes on to list some of the things the Inspector General has released to the press in order to increase transparency in the FBI and DOJ:

IG Stimulated Releases of Information:

♦Release #1 was the FBI Agent Strzok and Attorney Lisa Page story; and the repercussions from discovering their politically motivated bias in the 2015/2016 Clinton email investigation and 2016/2017 Russian Election investigation.

♦Release #2 outlined the depth of FBI Agent Strzok and FBI Attorney Page’s specific history in the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton to include the changing of the wording [“grossly negligent” to “extremely careless”] of the probe outcome delivered by FBI Director James Comey.

♦Release #3 was the information about DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr being in contact with Fusion GPS at the same time as the FISA application was submitted and granted by the FISA court; which authorized surveillance and wiretapping of candidate Donald Trump; that release also attached Bruce Ohr and Agent Strzok directly to the Steele Dossier.

♦Release #4 was information that Deputy Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was an actual contract employee of Fusion GPS, and was hired by F-GPS specifically to work on opposition research against candidate Donald Trump. Both Bruce Ohr and Nellie Ohr are attached to the origin of the Christopher Steele Russian Dossier.

♦Release #5 was the specific communication between FBI Agent Strzok and FBI Attorney Page. The 10,000 text messages that included evidence of them both meeting with Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to discuss the “insurance policy” against candidate Donald Trump in August of 2016.

The Inspector General’s report is due out in January. If the media chooses to report on it, I suspect it will be very interesting reading for all Americans. I also expect that it may put an abrupt end to the idea that President Trump colluded with the Russians.

It Just Gets Slimier

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The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article yesterday (and updated it today) about the FBI offering Christopher Steele (the author of the Trump dossier) $50,000 if he could verify the charges in the dossier. As far as investigators can tell, he was never able to do that and collect the money.

The article reports:

“I believe, just from examining the public sources, that the FBI offered Christopher Steele $50,000 if he could corroborate the dossier. He either couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t, and they didn’t pay him the money,’ news analyst Andrew Napolitano told Stuart Varney on Fox Business Monday.

Former MI6 agent Steele’s dossier claims the Russians possess compromising information that could be used to blackmail Trump, and alleges the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Napolitano appears to be basing his claim on an April report from the New York Times, which cited two sources claiming that an FBI agent met Steele in Rome in October of 2016, just weeks before the presidential election. 

The agent offered Steele $50,000 if he could get ‘solid corroboration of his reports’, which the FBI ultimately never paid out, the report said.

Last week, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein refused to tell the House Judiciary Committee whether the FBI had paid or offered to pay for the dossier.

This is further proof that we need to remove the top few layers of personnel at the FBI.

The Problem With Special Prosecutors Is That They Don’t Have Limits Even When They Are Supposed To Have Limits

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If we think back to recent (a year) history, Robert Mueller was appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate whether or not there was Russian interference in the 2016 election. He has been searching for a year, and so far has charged two people formerly associated with the Trump Administration with crimes unrelated to the purpose of his investigation. It seems as if he is using his unlimited budget to follow rabbit trails. Now there is a new controversy about some of those rabbit trails.

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about some recent problems with the Mueller investigation.

The article reports:

According to Axios, special counsel Robert Mueller has confiscated thousands of e-mails and communications from President Donald J. Trump’s transition team, including from notable figures such as Jared Kushner and other high profile aides.

“Trump officials discovered Mueller had the emails when his prosecutors used them as the basis for questions to witnesses, the sources said.

The emails include 12 accounts, one of which contains about 7,000 emails, the sources said.

The accounts include the team’s political leadership and the foreign-policy team, the sources said.”

These e-mails supposedly all occurred after  the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s investigation is explicitly to determine if there was any Russian interference before the election that could have rigged the results for Donald Trump. But, according to Axios’ source “Mueller is using the emails to confirm things, and get new leads.”

If these are the emails of the transition team, they have nothing to do with events before the election–they are the records of the new administration organizing its policies. They are subject to executive privilege and to the Fourth Amendment. It sounds as if neither was honored.

The article concludes:

As Fox News notes, Langhofer says that Mueller’s team gained access to the e-mails via the General Services Administration. The Transition team was using the GSA’s office space and e-mails severs. Trump’s attorneys say that in doing so, Mueller may have violated the 4th amendment by asking the GSA for e-mails which were supposed to be private and secure. 

According to Reuters, the letter says “career staff members at the agency unlawfully produced TFA’s private materials, including privileged communications, to the Special Counsel’s Office.”

Stay tuned.

This Keeps Getting Uglier

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The Hill is not known to be a conservative news outlet, but lately their investigative reporting has certainly not been slanted left.

Yesterday The Hill reported that California lawyer Lisa Bloom, a well-known women’s rights lawyer, was paying women to accuse President Trump of sexual impropriety. First of all, I would like to mention to all the Trump-haters breathlessly awaiting his impeachment or resignation that a President cannot be impeached for things he did before he took office. I would also like to point out that the voters understood that Trump was not a saint. They also understood that the was not part of the corruption of the last administration.

The article reports:

California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill.

The women’s accounts were chronicled in contemporaneous contractual documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The Hill, including an exchange of texts between one woman and Bloom that suggested political action committees supporting Hillary Clinton were contacted during the effort.

The story concludes:

“If you are interested I would recommend Inside Edition or Dr. Phil as they are much bigger. Dr. Phil is doing a show on Trump accusers next Tuesday in LA and would fly you here and put you up in a nice hotel, and pay for your meals as well, with your daughter if you like,” Bloom’s text added. “Media moves very quickly so you need to decide and then once confirmed, you need to stick to it.”

Representatives of “Inside Edition” and “Dr. Phil” said they did not pay any Trump accusers for appearances last year.

Bloom’s firm sent the woman a “media-related services” contract to represent her for “speaking out against Donald Trump” that laid out business terms for selling a story in the most direct terms.

“You will compensate the Firm thirty-three percent (33%) of the total fee that you collect, whether the media deal or licensing fees is for print, Internet, radio, television, film or any other medium,” Bloom’s proposed contract, dated Oct. 10, 2016, read. The woman said she signed the contract.

When Bloom found out in early November that the woman and the friend had discussions with CBS News about doing an interview on their own, the lawyer texted back: “CBS does not pay for stories.”

A little later Bloom sent another text suggesting the arrangements she was making could be impacted by the unauthorized media contacts. “You and your friends should not be shopping the story it will come back to bite you,” Bloom texted. “And this whole thing we have worked so hard to make happen will go away.”

Yuck. Just yuck.

This Raises More Questions About What Was Going On In The State Department Under President Obama

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Frontpage Magazine posted an article today about documents removed from the State Department by Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin.

The article reports:

Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton’s former National Security Adviser, stole classified documents about the terror failures of the Clinton administration, hid documents under a construction trailer, lied about taking them and destroyed some of them.

 Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to “separate” damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating security lapses surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward with the story.

“When Cheryl saw me, she snapped, ‘Who are you?’” Maxwell says. “Jake explained, ‘That’s Ray Maxwell, an NEA deputy assistant secretary.’ She conceded, ‘Well, OK.’”

Maxwell says the two officials, close confidants of Clinton, appeared to check in on the operation and soon left.

…The new records also show that Huma Abedin was allowed to take five boxes of “physical files” out of the State Department that include records described as “Muslim Engagement Documents.”

Huma Abedin has family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and at one point worked as an editor or writer for their magazine. It is very interesting to me that the “Muslim Engagement Documents” were removed from the State Department.

I would like to note here that John Brennan, in 2011, during his time as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism received at request form Farhana Khere, President and Executive Director of Muslim Advocates requesting that all material relating to Islamic-based terrorism be removed from government documents and briefings. According to the book Catastrophic Failure by Stephen Coughlin, “The Department of Defense followed shortly thereafter with a Soviet-style purge of individuals along with disciplinary actions and re-education.” Why our government put the interests of a Muslim-Brotherhood related group above the security interests of America is anyone’s guess. I have personally met a CIA agent who was no longer allowed to brief our diplomats and military after this change was made.

I would love to know exactly what was in those “Muslim Engagement Documents.”