Tag Archives: James Clapper

The Heart Of The Matter

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article listing three major discoveries in the investigation of the Russia Hoax.

The article lists the first of the three as ‘A Team Sport,’ reporting:

“I know that this activity is on a fast-track,” Rogers (National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers) wrote. Yet he expressed “concerns,” such as whether his team “had sufficient access to the underlying intelligence and sufficient time to review that intelligence.”

“I know that you agree that this is something we need to be 100% comfortable with before we present it to the President—we have one chance to get this right, and it is critical that we do so.”

…Clapper (then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper) responded by stating that “it is essential we … be on the same page, and are all supportive of the report—in the highest tradition of ‘that’s OUR story, and we’re stickin’ to it.’”

The article includes a screenshot of the email Director Rogers sent to DNI Clapper. As more information comes to light, I think we are going to see Mike Rogers as a hero in this mess.

The second discovery was the leaking of classified information in an attempt to indict President Trump.

The article notes:

According to a June 2023 FBI memo, Schiff approved leaking classified information to smear Trump.

The staffer told the FBI that “SCHIFF stated the group would leak classified information which was derogatory to President of the United States DONALD J. TRUMP. SCHIFF stated the information would be used to indict President TRUMP.”

One attendee of the meeting “stated this would be illegal and, upon hearing his concerns, unnamed members of the meeting reassured [him] that they would not be caught leaking classified information.”

There was no concern for the legality of what they were doing–only a concern for whether or not they would get caught.

The third item the stopping of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

The article reports:

On Wednesday, Just the News published another declassified memo from 2017, a timeline revealing how top-level intelligence officials directed the suppression of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 election. According to the timeline, analysts attempted to investigate claims of a Clinton Foundation pay-to-play corruption scheme in August 2015, based on the reporting in Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash,” published that May.

When agents inquired about the investigation, their superiors said other agents were already investigating the matter.

Yet superiors like former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates prevented an investigation, according to the timeline.

If nothing else, the article at The Daily Signal illustrates the reason we have to clean house in the intelligence agencies in Washington. I hope the Trump administration is up to the task.

The Quiet Heroes In The Russia Collusion Hoax

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There were a number of heroes in the Russian Collusion Hoax. One obvious hero was the person who saved the classified information in the burn bags. But there was another quiet hero within the intelligence community. Sometimes you have to let bad things go on around you while you quietly take action to mute their impact. That’s what then NSA Director Mike Rogers did. According to The Conservative Treehouse, Admiral Mike Rogers traveled to Trump Tower (after the election) on November 17th without notifying the White House or Clapper.  The next day, November 18th, President-Elect Trump moved the entire Transition Team to his New Jersey country club.  Mike Rogers remains the current head of the NSA.

On Wednesday, The Conservative Treehouse reported:

Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper was always a doofus, sticking his foot in his mouth about all kinds of Intelligence Community stuff. It was his doofusness that led to President Obama keeping him as DNI, while the rest of the IC worked around him (a little funny at the time).

Today, current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified and released the content of an email exchange between then NSA Director Mike Rogers and DNI Clapper about the bogus nature of the rushed December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment, that Obama wanted to help frame the Trump-Russia story.

Adm Mike Rogers is telling James Clapper his NSA team was not comfy with manufacturing and spinning intelligence for a political hit job on the incoming administration. Clapper responds to Rogers telling him to get on board, because this level of IC fabrication requires all key elements to be on the same page. Clapper saying the Russian stuff, “is our story, and we’re sticking to it.”

The article notes:

There’s a reasonable case to be made that all of those previous political players have quite a bit to hide within the construct of the entire narrative. Some like James Comey, and possibly Susan Rice, appear to have violated laws on leaking information and unmasking U.S. citizens within intelligence reports.

Former CIA Director John Brennan has clearly established his own exit from the risk matrix.  While former ODNI James Clapper is almost too inept to be held accountable for any of it.

It would be disingenuous in the extreme to ignore that NSA Director Mike Rogers was the least willing and least engaged intelligence leader within the scheme and simultaneously highly political ODNI James Clapper was calling for him to be fired.

Please follow the link to the article. It includes screenshots of the correspondence mentioned.

Applying The Statute Of Limitations

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article explaining how the Statute of Limitations applies to the potential case against the former Obama intelligence officials who obstructed the investigation and concealed evidence in the Russia Hoax.

The article reports:

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Sunday that the clock began “ticking” on a potential case being brought against former Obama intelligence officials for obstruction the moment “deliberately concealed evidence” was discovered by the Trump administration.

The Russia investigation, which alleged President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to sway the election in his favor, received new scrutiny in July after the FBI reportedly placed former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan under criminal investigation. With allegations and new intelligence surfacing about how Comey, Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper played a role in targeting the Trump campaign, Jarrett was asked by “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo if he believed the Department of Justice (DOJ) “will act” and whether “the statute of limitations apply to conspiracy or not.”

“I would say yes to all three. This does look like a broad criminal conspiracy by unscrupulous officials, dishonest people. I would look at conspiracy to defraud the government, deprivation of rights under color of law, but importantly, obstruction of justice and the cover up,” Jarrett said. “The elaborate cover up has been going on for years, as Stephen Miller pointed out, which extends the statute of limitations in any conspiracy case against malign actors. That’s because the clock begins ticking when deliberately concealed evidence is discovered, which is actually quite recently.”

“So, for example, you were talking about the burn bags that were discovered incriminating documents hidden at the FBI, as well as other records, hard drives squirreled away under lock and key by Comey recently found,” Jarrett added. “So attempting to conceal or destroy evidence relevant to investigations, that’s obstruction. The last overt act in a conspiracy starts the clock anew. So that’s the value of bringing a conspiracy case that includes obstruction.”

If the information we are receiving is proven to be correct, the people involved belong in jail. If we do not deal with this type of illegal behavior, it will continue. There have to be consequences for the illegal actions.

The Truth Is Slowly Leaking Out

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On Tuesday, The Federalist posted an article about some of the behind-the-scenes activities associated with the Russia Hoax.

The article reports:

A crony of then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper threatened to withhold a promotion from a senior intelligence official unless he concurred in the fake Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, notes obtained exclusively by The Federalist show.

The notes made public for the first time today recount a conversation the top analyst in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) had with an unnamed superior who worked closely with the then-Director James Clapper, according to sources familiar with the document.

The release of the notes represents the latest cache of documents declassified by the Trump administration official concerning the ICA that outgoing President Barack Obama ordered, which falsely assessed that Putin “aspired” to help Trump win the election. An earlier release by the current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, revealed the senior intelligence official — whom her office identified as an ODNI whistleblower — had been charged with conducting a “scrub,” which is a review, of the intelligence in the non-compartmented ICA. Emails released last week by Gabbard show the top analyst expressing shock over the ICA’s reliance on the Steele dossier because the versions the analyst reviewed included no intel relying on the Hillary Clinton-based fairy tale of opposition research.

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the article. It is disturbing.

The sad part of this is that the people who were lying to the American voters for political reasons evidently felt that what they were doing was for a greater purpose. No one gave them the authority to manipulate American voters for political purposes. They were so prideful that they felt justified in providing false information to the voters because they knew better than the voters. They assumed authority they did not have in order to undermine the person elected who did have authority.

The Files In The Burn Bags

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We now have the smoking gun(s) on the Russia Hoax and the Hillary Clinton email scandal. The documents hidden in the back room have been declassified and made public. Whether or not anyone will be held accountable remains to be seen. Someone who I consider a reliable source experienced in handling classified material told me that he believes the documents were saved on purpose by a future whistleblower. Because of the the procedure for dealing with classified information, that makes sense. Normally all no-longer-needed classified information is put in a burn bag and incinerated daily. The security officer on site is supposed to make sure all of it burns before he leaves the premises.

On Thursday, Townhall posted an article about some of the information that has been declassified.

Some highlights from the article:

First, we have George Soros ties, with emails from Open Society Foundations Regional Director Leonard Bernardo that were authentic, which spoke to the Trump-Russia collusion narrative being used against the then-incoming president. The Obama FBI never investigated this angle. Moreover, as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) noted in his press release about the annex, no investigative steps were taken to follow up on any leads related to Russiagate. The answer is simple: they were all in on peddling this operation.

Second, while Barack Obama ordered the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, Hillary Clinton also signed off on using the Russian collusion hoax to attack Trump. Obama-Clinton—quite the gruesome twosome.

The article concludes:

James Clapper seems to be the only member of this plot who has knowingly admitted to lawyering up. Brennan, Obama, and Clinton should be next. They should be charged, especially Brennan, who likely committed perjury in his May 2017 testimony, where he said the Steele Dossier “wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done.”

DNI Tulsi Gabbard set that narrative aflame, nuking it from orbit with her document disclosures. This was a seditious conspiracy, and the media is just as culpable. Without them, this operation dies quickly. We should demand more documents, but for now, we have enough to charge people. 

Obama has already been referred to the DOJ for potential prosecution.

We may never get accountability, but we can consume a lot of popcorn watching the show.

The Pivotal Dates

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On Tuesday, Representative Jim Jordan posted an article at MRCTV listing the three key dates in the Russiafor Collusion Hoax.

The article lists the three dates:

“Never forget there are three key dates here,” Jordan said, beginning with a meeting Pres. Obama had with his top intelligence, CIA and FBI officials the month after Trump’s election in November of 2020:

  1. December 9th: “They had this meeting in the White House: Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Comey, the president. They’re all there and they say, ‘Okay, we’re not going to accept the intelligence community assessment; we’re going to change that.’”
  2. January 3rd: (Democrat Senator) Chuck Schumer goes on one of the Sunday shows and says – talking about then President-Elect Trump – he says, ‘If you mess with the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.”
  3. January 6th: “They all go up to Trump Towers to give Pres. Trump what he believes is his incoming defensive briefing as the new president-elect. He thinks he’s getting the normal defensive briefing. Instead, it’s a set-up.”

The purpose of the briefing is to give credence to the idea that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

The article notes:

Jordan explained how Obama’s officials knowingly used false claims from the infamous Steele Dossier, deception and leaks to the media in their set-up of President Elect Trump:

“They go up there, talk to him about this and then Comey tells him about the dossier – the dossier that they already know is baloney. They know it’s not true, came from the Clinton campaign and everything else.

“But, they brief him on it so that, when that information gets leaked, it has added credibility because, now, it was so important that the FBI talked to the president-elect. The press has got to report it – and off and running goes the Russia Collusion false narrative for the next two years.”

“It was all to undermine President Trump and his presidency,” Rep. Jordan concluded, adding that he hopes the Justice Department gets to the bottom of the conspiracy:

I don’t wish anyone ill, but the actions of President Obama and his cadre do not represent the smooth transition of power. They need to be held accountable for what they did.

How The Deep State Works Against President Trump

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On Monday, Declassified with Julie Kelly posted an article that illustrates how the deep state works and also how at least to hold those who work against the Trump administration accountable.

The article reports:

If John Brennan is furious, good things are happening.

The former CIA director and Russiagate architect is “livid” about the firing last week of two longtime intelligence officers by President Trump’s top spy chief. “It’s appalling and outrageous and demonstrates why Tulsi Gabbard never should have been confirmed as director of national intelligence,” Brennan, his voice trembling with rage, said on MSNBC. “This is going to have real reverberations in the workforce.”

The firings involved people who were part of the politicization of the intelligence community. They were part of the ‘deep state.’

The article continues:

During their tenure, Brennan and Clapper, along with former FBI Director James Comey—last seen using beach rocks to threaten the president—weaponized the intel community to target Obama’s political enemies then worked with friendly news organizations to leak sensitive information to damage Trump.

History is repeating itself. Similar to Brennan’s bogus intelligence assessment claiming the Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump win—a document that successfully sowed doubt over the legitimacy of Trump’s victory, derailed the first half of presidency, and prompted a criminal investigation into alleged Trump-Russia election collusion—the latest intel report is aimed at undermining the president’s Alien Enemies Act (AEA) proclamation.

Collins and Langan-Riekhof authored a memo stating:

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TdA (Tren de Aragua) to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with the TdA and is not directing TdA movement to and operations in the United States,” the partially redacted document, released by Gabbard in response to a FOIA request, stated.

The goal of the memo was to undermine the deportation process of those gang members.

The article notes:

The memo on one hand condemned the Maduro regime for “lack of transparency” but simultaneously argued that the nonexistence of “top down directives” from Maduro officials to TdA leaders exonerates any connection between the two.

Further, the memo acknowledged that the unprecedented spike of illegal Venezuelans at the southern border during the Biden years “could include some TdA members.” The mass exodus from Venezuela—nearly 8 million residents have left since 2014 with at least 600,000 illegally entering the U.S. from 2021 to 2023—benefits Maduro as a result of “the logistical, financial, and political headaches that unregulated migrations has caused for the US government, its perceived principal adversary.”

But the memo nonetheless insisted “the Maduro regime probably is not systematically directing Venezuelan outflows.”

…Also in Brennan-like style, well placed leaks to Trump-hostile news organizations spawned the imaginary controversy; an early version of the NIC memo was disclosed to the media a few days after the president signed the AEA proclamation. “American intelligence agencies circulated findings last month that stand starkly at odds with Mr. Trump’s claims, according to officials familiar with the matter,” the New York Times reported on March 20. “The document…summarized the shared judgment of the nation’s spy agencies that the gang was not controlled by the Venezuelan government.”

The article notes that the leaks have a purpose:

That leak presumably is one of at least 11 unauthorized disclosures under investigation by Gabbard’s office. During an interview last week, Gabbard revealed that she has sent three criminal referrals related to leaks to the Department of Justice. They are, Gabbard said, are an attempt to “directly undermine the agenda and actions of President Trump.”

The leakers need to face serious consequences–not just a slap on the wrist.

When Lying Gets You Promoted

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On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some of the appointees to the Biden administration. Some of the names are very familiar.

The article reports:

Several of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed a letter casting doubt on the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 presidential election have ended up serving in roles with President Joe Biden’s administration.

In less than three years, the Biden administration has brought on six out of the 51 former intelligence official signatories of the October 2020 letter arguing that the leak of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Earlier this week, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) selected three signatories of the letter to join a federal “intelligence experts” national security group, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

These 51 intelligence officials already knew that the laptop was real and the information on it was valid, yet they lied to influence an election. They should be in jail–not in government.

In case you have forgotten, in July 2023, The Washington Examiner reported:

An FBI official told the House Judiciary Committee in a transcribed interview this week that at least one top agent and likely others who were warning social media companies about a “hack and dump” operation ahead of the 2020 election knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was real.

Laura Dehmlow, head of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, said, according to excerpts of the testimony obtained by the Washington Examiner, that her then-colleague Brad Benavides “certainly” was aware of the laptop’s authenticity.

The Daily Caller notes:

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe will be members of the new group, which will advise DHS on intelligence and national security matters including “terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology,” according to the DHS announcement. All of them signed onto the October 2020 letter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop before the presidential election.

The Daily Caller News Foundation verified the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop contents in October 2020.

Is there anyone out there who still believes that the 2020 election was legitimate? Is there anyone out there who doesn’t believe that Americans need to do everything they can to make sure 2024 is an honest election?

When The Chickens Come Home To Roost

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When the chickens come home to roost, deny, deny, deny. That is how James Clapper is handling the charges that the letter signed by 51 retired intelligence community leaders influenced the election.

On Thursday, The Washington Examiner reported the following:

In case anyone is wondering who was responsible for the idea that the Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper assures us it was not the 51 retired intelligence community leaders who penned the letter which said it was. Instead, it was the media who mischaracterized their words.

Clapper’s signature topped the list of prominent former government officials willing to stake their reputations on the infamous letter that was written to sow doubt about a story that, if it had not been suppressed, could arguably have changed the result of the 2020 presidential election.

One of the major problems with that statement is that in August on 2017, James Clapper was hired by CNN as a national security analyst. He was the media he is accusing of mischaracterizing his words.

The article notes:

Specifically, Clapper, who is best known for lying to Congress in 2013 about the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ telephone records and for his role in perpetuating the Russian collusion hoax, blamed Politico for “deliberately distorting” their letter in an October 2020 piece titled , “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”

“There was message distortion. All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation,” Clapper told Washington Post “fact checker” Glenn Kessler. “Politico deliberately distorted what we said. It was clear in paragraph five.”

Paragraph five is indeed a disclaimer. It states : “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

But if Clapper felt the letter had been deliberately distorted, he certainly had ample opportunity to clear things up. After leaving office at the end of the Obama administration, Clapper became a political analyst for CNN, giving him a major media platform from which to do so. Yet he remained silent — even as leftist pundits and congressional Democrats spread the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop story had been planted by Russia.

It’s amazing how many things go on in Washington that no one is responsible for. It’s like there are invisible people in that city that are there simply to create havoc!

That’s Not His Job

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On Tuesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent claim made by a former CIA officer.

The article reports:

One of the former CIA officers who signed a letter claiming stories about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were disinformation says he helped swing the 2020 election away from former President Donald Trump.

“I take special pride in personally swinging the election away from Trump,” John Sipher, who served for decades as a senior operations officer at the CIA, wrote in a recent post on Twitter. “I lost the election for Trump? Well then I [feel] pretty good about my influence.”

Sipher and 50 other former U.S. intelligence officials signed the letter on Oct. 19, 2020, alleging that the effort to distribute its contents “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” despite not knowing whether the laptop was legitimate.

The letter was at the core of a story from Politico that claimed the New York Post story about the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

The Post was the first to report about emails on the laptop, which was dropped off at a computer repair store and never picked up by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, according to the store’s owner.

It has since been proven that the laptop was real and the letter was in fact Democrat disinformation. Meanwhile, John Sipher is bragging about influencing an election by lying about something he really did not know. What kind of people are running (or have been running) our government?

The article concludes:

Sipher got into arguments with former acting DNI Richard Grenell and others on Twitter, where he later said his claims of helping Trump lose were sarcasm.

He also wrote that “the letter didn’t say the laptop was disinformation,” but, in May 2021, posted a link to the Politico story that did say that.

Nick Shapiro, once a top aide to former CIA Director John Brennan—both Shapiro and Brennan signed the missive—and who provided it to Politico, hasn’t responded to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

Most of the other signers didn’t respond to requests for comment or declined the requests, the Post reported.

Former DNI James Clapper told the paper that he stands by the statement “made AT THE TIME.”

“I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate,” Clapper said.

“The letter explicitly stated that we didn’t know if the emails were genuine, but that we were concerned about Russian disinformation efforts,” said Russ Travers, former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “I spent 25 years as a Soviet/Russian analyst. Given the context of what the Russians were doing at the time (and continue to do—Ukraine being just the latest example), I considered the cautionary warning to be prudent.”

What garbage.

The Fourth Branch Of Government

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Today The Conservative Treehouse posted an article in a series on their blog titled, “The Fourth Branch of Government, The Intelligence Branch.”  Yesterday they previewed the series. Today’s article is very complex, and I strongly suggest that you follow the link above to read the complete article. The article explains a lot of the inequities that have arisen in our justice system in recent years.

The article reports:

Factually, the modern intelligence apparatus uses checks and balances in their favor.  The checks create silos of proprietary information that works around oversight issues. That’s part of the problem.

Ironically the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created in the aftermath of 9/11/01 expressly to eliminate the silos of information which they felt led to a domestic terrorist attack that could have been prevented.  The ODNI was created specifically upon the recommendation of the 9/11 commission.

The intent was to create a central hub of intelligence information, inside the executive branch, where the CIA, NSA, DoD, DoS, and DIA could deposit their unique intelligence products and a repository would be created so that domestic intelligence operations, like the DOJ and FBI could access them when needed to analyze threats to the U.S.   This, they hoped, would ensure the obvious flags missed in the 9/11 attacks would not be missed again.

The DNI office created a problem for those who operate in the shadows of proprietary information.  You’ll see how it was critical to install a person uniquely skilled in being an idiot, James Clapper, into that willfully blind role while intelligence operatives worked around the office to assemble the Intelligence Branch of government.

♦ The last federal budget that flowed through the traditional budgetary process was signed into law in September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008 by George W Bush.  Every budget since then has been a fragmented process of continuing resolutions and individual spending bills.

Why does this matter?  Because many people think defunding the IC is a solution; it ain’t… not yet.  Worse yet, the corrupt divisions deep inside the U.S. intelligence system can now fund themselves from multinational private sector partnerships (banks, corporations and foreign entities).

That is just a preview. The article explains how the surveillance state has been used for political purposes since the Obama administration. It illustrates how the foundation was laid for the political prosecutions we are currently seeing. We are not in a good place, and I am not sure we will be able to get out of the bad place where we currently reside.

There Will Be No Consequences, But The Truth Does Matter

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Slowly but surely, documents from the Russian Hoax are being declassified. These documents tell a story that is very different from the one told to Congress by the people involved. Unfortunately, most of the bureaucrats who lied under oath to Congress will probably never be held accountable for their lies.

Yesterday Just the News posted an article about a recent document that was declassified.

The article reports:

The very day in January 2017 that then-FBI Director James Comey signed a FISA surveillance warrant application declaring content from Christopher Steele’s dossier had been “verified,” he wrote President Obama’s outgoing intelligence community chief with a very different assessment of the British spy’s intelligence on Russia collusion, a newly released memo shows.

“We are not able to sufficiently corroborate the reporting,” Comey wrote in a Jan. 12, 2017 email to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that was declassified and made public through an open records lawsuit by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

The memo recounts an internal debate inside the U.S. intelligence community during one of the most delicate moments in the FBI’s then six-month old Crossfire Hurricane probe.

CIA officials had already informed Comey’s FBI that the target of the FISA warrant, Carter Page, wasn’t a Russian spy but rather an asset helping U.S. intelligence. The bureau had received warnings about Steele and the reliability of his source network, including that it might have been compromised by Russian disinformation. Agents had also just recommended on Jan. 4, 2017 shutting down the probe’s inquiry into incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for lack of evidence.

The FBI had been warned the previous summer that Hillary Clinton’s campaign may have planted the false Russia collusion story as a way to “vilify” Trump and distract from her email scandal, and agents were about to interview Steele’s primary sub-source, who would discount much of the information in the dossier attributed to him as bar talk and unconfirmed rumor not worthy of official intelligence.

The article concludes:

The FBI also failed to disclose to the FISA judge that the source known as Person 1 was under a separate counterintelligence investigation by the FBI, the IG report footnotes show.

In fact on Jan. 12, 2017, the very day Comey signed the FISA and engaged with Clapper, the FBI had received clear warnings in a report that some of Steele’s dossier information about Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations,” according to another declassified footnote from the IG report.

In other words, Comey’s representations to Clapper and sworn avowals of verification to the FISA court had already been directly undercut by his bureau’s own evidence.

Unfortunately I have no doubt that the illegal surveillance of American citizens is continuing under the Biden administration. Because there were no consequences under the Obama administration for these actions, there really is no incentive to end the illegal behavior.

 

Sunlight Is The Best Disinfactant

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Townhall is reporting today that Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has declassified documents showing the Obama administration officials allegedly involved in the “unmasking” of Michael Flynn in transcripts of calls he had with Russia’s former ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

The article reports:

Information on the Flynn-Kislyak phone call was leaked to The Washington Post in 2017, leading many to wonder whether an Obama administration official had illegally disclosed classified information.

In 2017, Rep. Devin Nunes, who was then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he had evidence “current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information.”

He continued, “The committee has learned that one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama administration.”

The article notes:

Both former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were pressed by GOP senators in 2017 about their role in alleged unmasking abuses, and denied any wrongdoing. There were reports that United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power unmasked hundreds of U.S. persons, but she has said this is “absolutely false.”

Former FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 that the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI, and the Justice Department all had the ability to unmask individuals.

U.S. Attorney John Durham is reportedly investigating the leaks of potentially classified information related to Flynn to the media in early 2017. (Washington Examiner)

There were many things that went on during the Obama administration regarding classified information that need to be examined. Things that should have remained classified were leaked for political purposes, and things that were classified solely for the purpose of hiding illegal surveillance activities by the administration were kept secret. It’s time to examine that and correct the misdeeds.

Complicated, But Important

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the ongoing case of Sharyl Attkisson, a CBS journalist who was spied on by the government as she investigated the Fast and Furious scandal and later Benghazi.. I strongly suggest that you follow the link to the article as it includes a lot of detail about the case.

The article reports:

According to a recent court filing [Source Here] a person who was engaged in the “wrongful activity” has come forward to provide Ms. Attkisson with details about the operation.  As a result of those whistle-blower revelations Attkisson is able to name specific individuals who were running the operation

…Former DOJ Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is named as the person who was in charge of the operation; and the former head of the FBI DC field office, Shawn Henry is also outlined.

Mr. Henry is the head of Crowdstrike, a contractor for the government and a politically connected data security and forensic company.  Those who have followed the aspects related to the FBI use of the NSA database to illegally monitor U.S. persons; and those who followed the DNC cover story of Russia “hacking”; will be familiar with Crowdstrike.

According to the updated lawsuit (full pdf below) Rod Rosenstein, as the U.S. Attorney for Maryland, was in charge of the Obama 2011 and 2012 operation to monitor journalists specific to Ms. Attkissons reporting on Fast-n-Furious and Benghazi.

The article concludes:

This is the same time-frame when DNI James Clapper falsely denied to congress about the U.S. government -through the NSA- collecting metadata on all U.S. electronic communication.  This is the same time-frame where CIA Director John Brennan was monitoring the computer networks of congressional intelligence oversight staff.

When you overlay the new information from the Attkisson lawsuit, what emerges is the picture of an intentional effort by the Obama administration to weaponize the ability to collect electronic information on domestic political opposition.  It’s one long continuum.

This is not acceptable government behavior in a representative republic. It remains to be seen what will be done about it.

There Are A Few Honest Patriots Left In Washington

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The Conservative Treehouse reported yesterday that former NSA Director, Admiral Mike Rogers, has been working with U.S. Attorney John Durham for several months during his investigation into the origin of the 2016 intelligence operation against candidate Trump.

Who is Admiral Rogers? In May 2018, I posted an article about him.

In the article I quoted The American Thinker:

The FBI is asked–way back as early as 2015, but who knows? — to be helpful to the Dems and they agree. What they do is they hire non-government consultants with close Dem ties to do “analytical work” for them, which happens to include total access to NSA data. Advantages? For the Dems, obviously, access to EVERYTHING digital. A gold mine for modern campaign research. For the FBI there’s also an advantage. They get to play dumb — gosh, we didn’t know they were looking at all that stuff! They also don’t have to falsify anything, like making [stuff] up to “justify” opening a FI [full investigation]on an American citizen and then lying to the FISC to get a FISA on the USPER [US person] and having to continually renew the FISA and lie all over again to the FISC each renewal. And the beauty of it all is, who’s ever going to find out? And even if they do, how do you prove criminal intent?

So everything’s humming along until a pain in the a** named Mike Rogers at NSA does an audit in 4/2016, just as the real campaign season is about to start. And Rogers learns that 85% of the searches the FBI has done between 12/2015 and 4/2016 have been totally out of bounds. And he clamps down — no more non-government contractors, tight auditing on searches of NSA data. Oh sh*t! What to do, just give up? Well, not necessarily, but there’s a lot more work involved and a lot more fudging the facts. What the FBI needs to do now is get a FISA that will cover their a** and provide coverage on the GOPers going forward. That means, first get a FI on an USPER [US person] connected to the Trump campaign (who looks, in [April] or [May] 2016, like the GOP candidate) so you can then get that FISA. That’s not so easy, because they’ve got to find an USPER with that profile who they can plausibly present as a Russian spy. But they have this source named Halper.

So they first open a PI [preliminary investigation]. That allows them to legally use NatSec Letters and other investigative techniques to keep at least some of what they were doing going. But importantly this allows them to legally use Halper to try to frame people connected to the Trump campaign — IOW, find someone to open a FI on so they can then get that FISA. However the PI is framed, that’s what they’re looking to do. It has legal form, even if the real intent is to help the Dems. And you can see why this had to be a CI [counterintelligence] thing, so in a sense the Russia narrative was almost inevitable — no other bogeyman would really fit the bill, and especially on short notice.

So that’s what they do, and Halper helps them come up with Papadopoulos and Page, so by the end of July they’ve got their FI. Problem. Their first FISA is rejected, but eventually, 10/2016, they get that.

And then Trump wins and Rogers visits Trump Tower. And the Deep State has a fit.

The Conservative Treehouse reports:

♦ On November 17th, 2016, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers went to see President-Elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower, New York. –SEE HERE– Director Rogers never told his boss DNI, James Clapper or anyone else in the intelligence community.

♦ 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.

The transition team was set up in Trump Tower. The very next day, November 18th 2016, Trump moves the entire transition team to Bedminister New Jersey?

The information the FBI collected, and the stuff Fusion GPS was creating via Christopher Steele, was used to create the Russian Narrative and also to manipulate the FISC into giving them a FISA warrant. ie. “The Insurance Policy”.

Ultimately, the people within all of these intercepts is what Devin Nunes discovered when he looked at the “unmasking requests” which were a result of those FISA 702(17) collections on Team Trump. That’s why Devin Nunes was so stunned at what he saw in February and March 2017.

Back to FISA Judge Collyer.

On October 26th, 2016, NSA Director Rogers wouldn’t know what Collyer knew about the FBI requesting a surveillance warrant on Carter Page and by extension the Trump campaign. However, Collyer would be putting the briefing about database searches together with her knowledge of the FISA application she authorized.

In her mind, those Trump Tower searches would likely be part of the arc of the FBI investigation. To FISC Judge Collyer everything may seem to be in the lane of legal, albeit stretched on the database (FISA-702) searches, up and until she is informed the underlying evidence for the FISA application was built on FBI fraud and misrepresentations to the court in 2019 by IG Horowitz.

Now, it’s all out in the open and no longer subject to opinion.

After the DOJ inspector general informs, positively affirms, Judge Collyer was purposely misled into cooperating with, and authorizing, a fraudulent FBI investigation…. well, now Collyer is also likely rethinking those Trump Tower searches Director Rogers told her about back in 2016.

There are a few honest men in Washington. Admiral Rogers is one of them.

The Glass Isn’t Even Half Full–It’s Broken

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We all have that one friend that we care about but is just hard to be around. If someone handed them a handful of hundred dollar bills, they would complain that they weren’t new bills. If they won the lottery, they would complain about the taxes they would have to pay. You get the picture. This morning President Trump announced that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed by American Special Forces soldiers. Unfortunately we have become so divided as a nation that the Democrats and their media allies could not share in rejoicing at the death of a very evil man.

Townhall posted an article today that illustrates that point.

Before President Donald Trump’s press conference on Sunday confirming the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” to discuss what he was hoping to hear the president say.

One of the biggest things Clapper was interested in was seeing “the contributions the intelligence community made” that led to al-Baghdadi’s death. 

He admitted “taking down” al-Baghdadi has “huge symbolic meaning,” especially because he has been a target for quite some time. 

But Clapper warned the move could “galvanize” the Islamic State.

“What is going to be interesting is to the extent to which this negatively affects ISIS or does it galvanize ISIS, the remnants of ISIS, which still survives as an ideology and has franchises in other places besides Syria,” he explained. 

Good grief. There was a time when we assassinated the leaders of Al Qaeda as soon as they became leaders. After a while, no one wanted to lead the organization. We may have to do the same thing again, but in the meantime, a horrible man is no longer a threat to anyone. Thank God we were not this divided during World War II–we would all be speaking German now if we had been.

Does America Have Equal Justice Under The Law?

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We are about to find out if the same rules apply to everyone. One America News Network is reporting today that Attorney General William Barr’s probe into the origins of the Russia investigation is turning into a criminal case. For those listening to the mainstream media spin that this is just retribution for impeachment, have you considered the Constitutional protections that were violated when there was massive surveillance on the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, and even the Trump presidency? Have you looked at the changes made in the handling of classified information that took place in the final days of the Obama administration that made leaking information much easier?

The article notes:

The change reportedly allows U.S. attorney John Durham, who was chosen by Barr to lead the probe, to subpoena documents as well as witness testimonies and to file criminal charges if necessary. This comes after reports last week said Barr was expanding the investigation after Durham found something “significant.:” However, it’s still not clear what exactly prompted the switch.

The probe was first launched in May as an administrative review into the origins of the Russia hoax. President Trump has repeatedly denounced former special council Robert Mueller’s Russia probe by calling it a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” When asked whether he prompted the attorney general to open the investigation, however, the president said he hadn’t, but also said he appreciates Barr’s work.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, Durham has reportedly expressed interest in investigating former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan, who were in charge while the since-debunked Steele dossier was released. This led to the secret surveillance of Trump campaign officials in 2016.

It was recently reported that multiple CIA officials have pursued legal council because of Durham’s legal review. Horowitz has said his report will be released in the near future.

Spying on Americans by the CIA is illegal. However, if the CIA used overseas resources to accomplish what was illegal, they need to be held accountable. One of the things that the Obama administration was known for was the politicization of government agencies–the IRA targeted conservative groups by slow walking their 501(c)(3) applications, the administration dismissed charges against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation when there was video evidence, the administration eavesdropped on James Rosen and his parents because they didn’t like his reporting, etc. It would not really be a surprise if they had used the government to further their political agenda. It will be interesting to see if anyone is held accountable for the violations of the civil rights of American citizens that occurred during the Obama administration.

Fighting Back Legally

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The American Spectator posted an article today about the ongoing legal case of General Flynn. As you know, General Flynn’s new lawyer, Sidney Powell, is the author of the book Licensed to Lie, which details government abuses in cases against Enron and Ted Stevens among others. Ms. Powell has a very clear understanding of prosecutorial misconduct and how to deal with it.

The article at The American Spectator details a case in which a policeman charged with rape was able to get the charges dropped by shedding light on the actions of the prosecutors regarding the witnesses. The article refers to this as ‘graymail’ and suggests that this tactic will be used by Ms. Powell to defend General Flynn.

The article reports:

As you may recall, there are many disturbing questions surrounding the federal government’s investigation, arrest, and prosecution of Flynn. Although he has pled guilty to a flimsy and corruptly contrived charge of lying to the FBI, that plea came about after he had — according to media reports — bankrupted himself by paying $4 million in legal fees to the Washington law firm that represented him prior to Powell. In short, it appears that Flynn pled guilty because he couldn’t afford any more justice.

In addition to the law firm’s impressive professional achievement of turning a mere guilty plea proceeding into a reported $4 million payday, the known facts and circumstances surrounding the Flynn case are equally remarkable. We know that the charges arise out of an ambush interview orchestrated by former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe regarding contacts that Flynn, the incoming Trump administration’s National Security Adviser, had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. According to Powell’s thorough, broadly worded, and aggressive discovery motion, recently produced (and previously withheld) government documents disclosed that “Flynn passed his polygraph test in 2016 and his security clearance was renewed. This was at the same time the FBI seems to have been investigating him under the pretext that he was an ‘agent of Russia’ and/or of Turkey. Interestingly, the new production also shows that [former Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper refused to assist in the investigation for Mr. Flynn’s security clearance, which Mr. Flynn received after a full investigation despite Mr. Clapper’s actions.” In addition, at the bar of the Court, Powell advised U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan that the recently disclosed documents showed the government had concluded that Flynn was neither a Russian nor a Turkish agent.

The article notes:

So why and how was Flynn targeted for destruction by the FBI and Justice Department? Powell’s discovery motion seeks answers to these questions by demanding the production of evidence exposing the links between the investigation and prosecution of Flynn to the Obama administration’s efforts to target, spy on, and frame Donald Trump.

The article goes on to list the documents requested.

The article concludes:

Moreover, if Judge Sullivan grants the defense even partial relief, the prosecutors will then be faced with a bitter choice, to wit:

(a) They can produce the damning evidence of the government’s corrupt activities in order to continue the prosecution of their ludicrous and petty false statements case against Flynn. Or (b) the prosecutors can do the smart thing by dropping the charges and quietly disappearing into the witness protection program.

If the prosecutors want my advice, in the event Judge Sullivan grants any part of Powell’s lethal motion, they should pick option (b) and ask the U.S. Marshal’s Service to relocate them to Arizona. I hear it’s nice there in the winter, and retirees can live comfortably on even a modest government pension.

I really like Plan B.

It Is Scary That This Happened In America

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Yesterday Jay Sekulow posted an article at Fox News about new information found in recently disclosed documents.

The article reports:

Stunning new information just released by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) shows that the Obama administration stepped up efforts – just days before President Trump took office – to undermine Trump and his administration.

The ACLJ, where I serve as chief counsel, has obtained records that show the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, under Director James Clapper, eagerly pushed to get new procedures as part of an anti-Trump effort. The procedures increased access to raw signals intelligence before the conclusion of the Obama administration, just days before President Trump was inaugurated.

By greatly expanding access to classified information by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, the Obama administration paved the way for a shadow government to leak classified information – endangering our national security and severely jeopardizing the integrity and reputation of our critical national security apparatus – in an attempt to undermine President Trump.

Consider the fact that had Hillary Clinton been elected, this would never have been done. This is further evidence that the Obama administration considered itself an arm of the Democrat party–the did not consider themselves accountable to the American people for their actions.

The article continues:

As I told Sean Hannity on his Fox News Channel program, the documents were obtained as a result of one of our Freedom of Information Act lawsuits – this one against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency.

The documents confirmed what we suspected: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence rushed to get the new “procedures signed by the Attorney General before the conclusion of this administration,” referring to the Obama administration.

The documents also reveal that Robert Litt, who worked in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense’s Director of Intelligence Strategy, Policy, & Integration: “Really want to get this done … and so does the Boss.” Presumably “the Boss” is a reference to Director Clapper. 

And documents the ACLJ received that were produced by the National Security Agency show that NSA officials discussed that they “could have a signature from the AG as early as this week, certainly prior to the 20th of Jan.” In other words, certainly before President Trump’s inauguration.

Consider what we now know about the nature and degree of Deep State opposition to President Trump.

The article also notes:

In this particular instance, it concerned us when we heard that, according to The New York Times, “in its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.”

On December 15, 2016 – after President Trump’s election – Director of National Intelligence Clapper executed a document titled “Procedures for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence Information by the National Security Agency Under Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333.”

On January 3, 2017 – just days before President Trump’s inauguration – then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch executed the document, indicating her approval.

According to The New York Times, “the new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations.”

Changing the law may have been legal, but does anyone actually doubt the intention?

This Incidental Information Is Going To Be Very Important In The Near Future

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Before you read this article, I want you to consider how the Democrats (particularly the Clintons) have avoided being held accountable for skirting the law in the past. Generally speaking, the playbook means keeping questions about whatever the scandal is in the news until everyone is sick of hearing about the scandal. At that point, when the answers begin to come out, everyone tunes out because they are totally bored with anything having to do with whatever behavior went on. That is exactly the playbook that is being used on the question of how the Russian-collusion investigation began and why members of President Trump’s campaign and transition team were under surveillance. Keep that in mind as you read the following.

Today Breitbart posted an article with the following headline, “Biden Present at Russia Collusion Briefing Documented in ‘Odd’ Susan Rice Email.”

The article reports:

Vice President Joe Biden was documented as being present in the Oval Office for a conversation about the controversial Russia probe between President Obama, disgraced ex-FBI chief James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and other senior officials including Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice.

In an action characterized as “odd” last year by then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Rice memorialized the confab in an email to herself describing Obama as starting “the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book.’”

Grassley, in a letter to Rice, commented: “It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation.”

Grassley noted the unusual timing of the email sent by Rice to herself more than two weeks after the January 5, 2017 White House meeting on the Russia investigation, but mere hours before she vacated the White House for the incoming Trump administration.

The email, Grassley documented, was sent by Rice to herself on Trump’s inauguration day of January 20, 2017.

“If the timestamp is correct, you sent this email to yourself at 12:15 pm, presumably a very short time before you departed the White House for the last time,” Grassley wrote to Rice in a letter seeking clarification on a number of issues regarding the email and the Oval Office briefing at which Biden was documented as being present.

The article cites a Washington Post article describing how few people were involved in the Trump/Russia investigation:

The lengthy Washington Post article from 2017 detailed the closed circle of Obama administration officials who were involved in overseeing the initial efforts related to the Russia investigation — a circle than was narrowly widened to include Biden, according to the newspaper report.

According to the newspaper, in the summer of 2016, CIA Director 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 Post described the unit as so secretive it functioned as a “sealed compartment” hidden even from the rest of the U.S. intelligence community; a unit whose workers were all made to sign additional non-disclosure forms.

The unit reported to top officials, the newspaper documented:

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.

The number of Obama administration officials who were allowed access to the Russia intelligence was also highly limited, the Post reported. At first only four senior officials were involved, and not Biden. Those officials were CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and then-FBI Director James Comey. Their aides were all barred from attending the initial meetings, the Post stated.

This is looking more and more like an attempted political coup.

I Can’t Believe He Said That

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Yesterday CNS News posted an article that included the following:

Clapper told CNN the “logical thing to do” would be to wait for the Justice Department inspector general to finish his investigation into the FBI’s actions.

“Are you concerned here that these administration officials and the attorney general are doing this for political reasons?” host Jim Sciutto asked Clapper.

“Well, you have to wonder about that,” Clapper said.

“Is there a political dimension? This obviously complies with the longstanding request of President Trump that the investigators be investigated.

As far as I know…when I was DNI, I didn’t see anything improper or unlawful. And I think we’re losing sight here of what the big deal is, which is the Russians. That’s what started all this.

The predicate for this was what the Russians were doing to engage with the Trump camp. And now we know that there were dozens of such encounters or attempts, many by identified Russian operatives.

So to me, the kind of the implicit message here is, well, it would have been better if we ignored the Russian’s meddling, which I think would have been completely irresponsible.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Let the record show that President Obama chose to ignore reports of Russian meddling until after Hillary Clinton lost the election. Let the record also show that the group conducting the supposedly impartial investigation of Russian meddling was made up of Clinton donors and Clinton supporters who somehow overlooked the role of the Steele Dossier in the beginning of the investigation.

I person wiser than I once said that if you want to know what the Democrats are up to, look at what they are accusing their opponents of. I suspect the the investigation now being carried out may turn out to be the proof of that statement.

 

 

The Saga Continues

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As the Russian collusion charges are exposed as a hoax, many of those involved are heading for the tall grass or implicating others. There is no honor among thieves, and many of these people compromised their principles long ago.

Today The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some recent remarks made by James Clapper to Anderson Cooper.

The article reports:

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The 2017 assessment that the President says he now agrees with, that was done while you and then NCI Director John Brennan were still in office. So, how can we reconcile the President attacking you, but apparently after a very long time finally, allegedly saying — or saying he allegedly agrees with the product of the intelligence community that you, yourself oversaw?

JAMES CLAPPER: Yes, well, this is — yes, as we’ve come to know the President, he is not a stalwart for a consistency or coherence. So it’s very hard to explain that. One point I’d like to make, Anderson, that I don’t think has come up very much before, and I’m alluding now to the President’s criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn’t do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling. If it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, special counsel Mueller’s investigation.

President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place. I think it’s an important point when it comes to critiquing President Obama.

That sounds to me as if James Clapper is blaming President Obama for the surveillance of the Trump campaign and later the transition team of President Trump. That spying violated the civil rights of a number of Americans. There are also some serious questions about the basis for the FISA warrants. It seems that a number of laws were violated and the people who violated those laws need to be held accountable.

Why I Have Concerns About Our Justice System

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John Solomon at The Hill posted an article yesterday about some of the information in the Russian investigation that should be made public.

The article reports:

If President Trump declassifies evidence in the Russia investigation, Carter Page’s summer bike ride to a Virginia farm and George Papadopoulos’s hasty academic jaunt to London may emerge as linchpin proof of FBI surveillance abuses during the 2016 election.

The two trips have received scant attention. But growing evidence suggests both Trump campaign advisers made exculpatory statements — at the very start of the FBI’s investigation — that undercut the Trump-Russia collusion theory peddled to agents by Democratic sources.

The FBI plowed ahead anyway with an unprecedented intrusion into a presidential campaign, while keeping evidence of the two men’s innocence from the courts.

Page and Papadopoulos, who barely knew each other, met separately in August and September 2016 with Stefan Halper, the American-born Cambridge University professor who, the FBI told Congress, worked as an undercover informer in the Russia case.

Papadopoulos was the young aide that the FBI used to justify opening a probe into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016, after he allegedly told a foreign diplomat that he knew Russia possessed incriminating emails about Hillary Clinton.

Page, a volunteer campaign adviser, was the American the FBI then targeted on Oct. 21, 2016, for secret surveillance while investigating Democratic Party-funded allegations that he secretly might have coordinated Russia’s election efforts with the Trump campaign during a trip to Moscow.

To appreciate the significance of the two men’s interactions with Halper, one must understand the rules governing the FBI when it seeks a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant such as the one secured against Page.

First, the FBI must present evidence to FISA judges that it has verified and that comes from intelligence sources deemed reliable. Second, it must disclose any information that calls into question the credibility of its sources. Finally, it must disclose any evidence suggesting the innocence of its investigative targets.

Thanks to prior releases of information, we know the FBI fell short on the first two counts. Multiple FBI officials have testified that the Christopher Steele dossier had not been verified when its allegations were submitted as primary evidence supporting the FISA warrant against Page.

Likewise, we know the FBI failed to tell the courts that Steele admitted to a federal official that he was desperate to defeat Trump in the 2016 election and was being paid by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to gather dirt on the GOP candidate. Both pieces of information are the sort of credibility-defining details that should be disclosed about a source.

To put it succinctly, the whole investigation into Russian collusion was based on false premises and was a distraction to avoid looking at the abuses of the Justice Department during the Obama administration. It’s time we put Russia aside and ask why Lois Lerner, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, et al, are not under investigation. Using government bureaucrats to spy on an opposition party candidate is a new low in America. Those responsible need to be held accountable so that it will not happen again.

The Plot May Be Beginning To Unravel

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One of the problems with trying to maintain a conspiracy is that as it begins to unravel, people begin to say things to distance themselves from responsibility for any wrongdoing that has occurred. I believe that is what is happening regarding the wiretapping of the Trump campaign and possibly regarding the Mueller investigation.

The Gateway Pundit quoted President Obama’s Former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, today. James Clapper made the following statement on CNN yesterday:

If it weren’t for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today including Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.

We need to put this into perspective in terms of what was going on during the final days of the Obama administration. During the final year of the Obama administration, Susan Rice, Ambassador to the United Nations. made an unprecedented number of requests for unmasking Americans whose conversations were inadvertently captured in wiretapped conversations. (article here) Americans were routinely being spied on by their government at this time.

Most Americans, particularly those familiar with procedures in the intelligence community were reluctant to believe what was reportedly going on with domestic spying. However, the truth has become obvious in recent days.

The following is an interview with Andrew McCarthy, who was initially skeptical that the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court was being used for political purposes. The interview is posted at YouTube:

I believe that the Mueller investigation is the ‘insurance policy’ discussed in Andrew McCabe’s office. We know that Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were involved in that discussion. We don’t know if anyone else was. The investigation was supposed either to create enough turmoil to remove President Trump from office (before he could cut taxes, appoint judges, or actually accomplish anything) or to cripple his presidency to the point where he accomplished nothing. Obviously the plan has created a lot of turmoil, but not a lot of the results the plotters were aiming for.

Ideally we will see this entire charade resolved within the next year. I am hopeful, but not necessarily optimistic.