Tag Archives: John Ratcliffe

A Get-Out-The-Popcorn Moment

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On Sunday, The Daily Wire posted an article with an interesting twist of the indictment of President Trump.

The article reports:

Leaked details about Donald Trump‘s indictment are grounds for criminal charges, a top official from the former president’s administration said on Sunday.

John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. congressman and federal prosecutor who served as Trump’s final director of national intelligence, reacted to reports that Trump faces around 30 counts related to business fraud as part of the investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“The only felony of which we can be certain to come out of this Alvin Bragg prosecution in New York is the felony committed either by DA Bragg himself or someone on the grand jury that he’s using for this perversion of our justice system,” Ratcliffe told “Sunday Morning Futures” anchor Maria Bartiromo.

“The accused, Donald Trump, and his lawyers, don’t know what’s in this sealed indictment. But for the past, what? Seventy-two hours, the American public has been discussing supposedly 30 or 34 felony counts,” he added. “Leaking grand jury information is a felony. And so the only people capable of that would be Alvin Bragg’s team or members of the grand jury itself.”

…Ratcliffe isn’t the only person saying there could have been criminal leaks. Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz shared a similar view during an appearance on OANN, noting that such a violation of New York penal law could warrant up to five years behind bars.

Are we about to see another situation where Lady Justice takes her blindfold off? At what point do Americans wake up to the fact that the principle of ‘equal justice under the law’ supposedly guaranteed by our Constitution has been thrown under the bus?

The Way Forward On De-classification

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article detailing the way forward on declassification of all documents related to the Russia hoax. It is amazing that we have not yet seen these documents.

The author of the article is somewhat cynical as to why the documents remain classified:

CTH has a rather unique perspective on the declassification angle. This conversation has traveled with me for over two years as I have talked to people inside the machinery. Ultimately the discussion ends around something like this:

Is the DC political surveillance state, and all of the ramifications within that reality, so fundamentally corrupt and against our nation’s interests, that no entity dare expose the scope and depth of it?  And ultimately… is it the preservation of institutions that is causing so many disconnected outcomes from evidence intentionally downplayed?

If we assume the scale of unconstitutional conduct has become systemic, that likely answers the questions.  Personally, I believe this is the most likely scenario.

That is a scary thought.

The article suggests a plan to make all the related documents public:

President Trump informs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, that he wishes to have a full intelligence briefing on the following documents (more may be added), all documents are to be presented without a single redaction:

  • All versions of the Carter Page FISA applications (DOJ) (FBI) (ODNI).
  • All of the Bruce Ohr 302’s filled out by the FBI. (FBI) (ODNI)
  • All of Bruce Ohr’s emails (FBI) (DOJ) (CIA) (ODNI)
  • All relevant documents pertaining to the supportive material within the FISA application. (FBI) (DOJ-NSD ) (DoS) (CIA) (DNI) (NSA) (ODNI);
  • All supportive documents and material provided by Bruce Ohr to the FBI. (FBI)
  • All intelligence documents that were presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016 that pertain to the FISA application used against U.S. person Carter Page; including all intelligence documents that may not have been presented to the FISA Court. (CIA) (FBI) (DOJ) (ODNI) (DoS) (NSA)
  • All unredacted text messages and email content between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok on all devices. (FBI) (DOJ) (DOJ-NSD) (ODNI)
  • The originating CIA “EC” or two-page electronic communication from former FBI Agent Peter Strzok: and all communication between former CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey that started Operation Crossfire Hurricane in July 2016. (CIA) (FBI) (ODNI)
  • The full and unredacted April 2017 FISA court 99-page opinion written by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer outlining the compliance audit conducted by the NSA in 2016. (NSA) (ODNI) (DOJ) (FBI) (DOJ-NSD)
  • ADD TO THIS – Everything and Anything related to contracts, vendors, services and the intelligence apparatus connected to the 2020 United States election.

The President selects a date for this briefing and through direct orders to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, informs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to advise and coordinate with all executive branch lead intelligence officials, who were/are stakeholders in the compartmented intelligence products as described above, of their request be present for the briefing.

The White House counsel’s office is not to be informed of the intent or purpose of the meeting; however the Presidents’ White House counsel is requested to attend. Further, all of the compartmented intelligence is to be collectively assembled by the ODNI (Ratcliffe) into one volume of a singular Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB). There are to be eighteen printed copies of the PDB assembled and secured for the briefing, post haste.

Additionally, the office of the president personally informs the ODNI (Ratcliffe) of the executives’ request to invite for the briefing each member of the legislative branch Intelligence Community oversight known as the Gang-of-Eight.

Immediately after the briefing by the executive level (cabinet) department officials, while remaining in a closed and classified session, the full and comprehensive content of this collective intelligence product will be discussed with the full assembly of the U.S. Legislative Branch Intelligence Oversight known as the Gang of Eight.

Therefore, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien is instructed to coordinate with the ODNI (Ratcliffe) for the attendance of the Gang of Eight: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority leader Kevin McCarthy, HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff, HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, SSCI Chairman Richard Burr and SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner. [Topic “TBD”]

In order to facilitate the briefing. Each member of the participating group will be provided with one full printed copy of the material assembled by the ODNI during the briefing.

[Each of the participants carries the prerequisite clearances, legal and constitutional authority to engage with the classified document according to their position and status. Only the executive can assemble the product for Go8 review and feedback]

At the conclusion of the briefing; and after hearing from, and engagement with, each of the participating members of the executive intelligence offices and duly authorized legislative oversight representatives; and after listening to their opinion as to the subject material discussed; the president announces to the fully assembled leadership of both the Executive branch (cabinet) and Legislative branch (Go8), it is his opinion the National Interests of the United States can best be served with the American people having a full, transparent and honest review of the material assembled and discussed.

The President, no-one else, only the President, then collects the printed portfolios as they were distributed to the participants, exits the briefing, and walks directly into the James Brady press briefing room within the White House; handing each of the awaiting twelve members of the national media a copy of the briefing material to be published on behalf of the American people.

At exactly the same time as President Trump enters the briefing room, one copy of the assembled portfolio is hand delivered, by President Trump only, to White House communications director Alyssa Farah with instructions to scan and release the content to the public through the White House website.

Done.

The American people are aware…

The system will now turn immediately to destroy Donald J Trump….

…..while we show up en-masse to support him.

Works for me.

Somehow I Don’t Expect To See This In The Mainstream Media

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Today One America News posted an article about the information found on Hunter Biden’s laptop computer.

The article reports:

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has said Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign. In an interview Monday, he called out Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for claiming such.

Ratcliffe stated the Intelligence Community does not believe Schiff’s claims because there is no intelligence to support them. The Republican also has said the laptop is in the jurisdiction of the FBI and the Intelligence Committee has not been involved in the matter.

The emails in question detail Hunter’s ties to corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs and Chinese officials who paid him for introducing them to his father when he was vice president.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) fired off a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray, urging him to disclose if the agency is probing emails reportedly from Hunter’s laptop.

Johnson has asked Wray to inform the panel if the agency has taken any action regarding those emails. The lawmaker also questioned what the FBI knew about Hunter and when they knew it, while noting it speaks to a “larger issue.”

This comes as outrage surrounding the emails continues to grow.

The article includes the following Tweet:

The media is trying to bury this story. Hopefully they will not succeed.

People In The Obama Administration Seem To Have Very Faulty Memories

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The Epoch Times reported yesterday that James Comey has no memory of receiving a recently declassified CIA memo about Hillary Clinton’s plan to smear President Trump with a charge of colluding with Russia.

The article reports:

The three-page referral, released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to members of Congress in partly redacted form, apprised Comey and FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok that intelligence suggested that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had approved a plan concerning the Trump campaign and Russia’s alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Comey claimed not to remember ever receiving the referral.

Ratcliffe sent copies of the partly redacted, three-page referral (pdf) to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, alongside written notes (pdf) taken by CIA Director John Brennan.

Last week, Ratcliffe released a summary (pdf) of the contents of the documents, in which he alleged that Clinton approved the plan on July 26, 2016, and that Brennan’s handwritten notes concern a briefing he provided to President Barack Obama in late July. The information about the plan came from a Russian intelligence analysis obtained by U.S. authorities, according to Ratcliffe.

Please follow the link to the article to see the timeline.

The article concludes:

While a full accounting of the events is yet to be made public, the timing of the events suggests that the FBI may have pivoted its investigation of the DNC email hack into an investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia around the time Clinton allegedly approved the plan to stir up scandal around Trump and Russia.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who took over the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in May 2017, eventually indicted Russian intelligence officers for allegedly hacking the DNC. The indictment suggests that the DNC email hack was part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Last night President Trump authorized the total declassification of all documents related to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and Obamagate without redactions. This could be very interesting. Hopefully people who used their government positions for political purposes will be held accountable.

Searching For Transparency

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Gregg Jarrett has been one of the few people who has investigated the Obama spy scandal from the beginning. Everything he was saying three years ago has turned out to be true. He posted an article on his website today about some recent comments from Representative Devin Nunes.

The article reports:

Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican from California and top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has suggested a drastic idea to hold U.S. intelligence agencies accountable.  Specifically, for not turning over information regarding their intel on then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016.

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Rep. Nunes said “every Republican senator and member of Congress should be saying…we want every damn bit of evidence that every intelligence agency has or it’s maybe time to shut those agencies down.”

Rep. Nunes’s comments come after the release of a shocking memo last week from John Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, released through the Senate Judiciary Committee a memo which said “U.S. intelligence agencies obtained intercepted Russian intelligence agencies discussing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s authorization of a plan to link President Donald Trump to the Kremlin’s hacking efforts” reports the Daily Caller.

In the memo, Ratcliffe quoted a U.S. intelligence community investigative referral to the FBI which mentions the “approval of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.”

The key paragraph in the article states:

Nunes’ concerns stem from the fact that a lot of information on the matter is still classified, therefore he and other lawmakers cannot discuss it publicly. Nunes says he has seen those pieces of intelligence which are “definitely smoking guns” that “definitely needs to be made available to the American public.”

We need to know the truth before the election. Voters also need to understand that the misuse of the federal government to spy on political opponents will continue if the people responsible for it in 2015 and 2016 are not held accountable. Do you want to live in a country where a political party uses the instruments of government against its citizens? That is what will happen if the Democrats gain control of the government in November.

This Is Frightening

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Yesterday The Federalist posted an article about some information declassified and released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe yesterday.

The article reports:

Not only were Russian officials aware of Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to accuse Donald Trump of being a Russian asset, top U.S. intelligence authorities knew of Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe disclosed to congressional officials on Tuesday. Before they launched an investigation into whether Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, intelligence agencies learned that Russia knew of Clinton’s plans to tarnish Trump with the collusion smear.

At one point, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan personally briefed then-President Barack Obama and other top U.S. national security officials that Russia assessed Hillary Clinton had approved a plan on July 26, 2016, “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” according to Brennan’s handwritten notes.

Fired former FBI Director James Comey and fired former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok were even sent an investigative referral on September 7, 2016, regarding Russia’s alleged knowledge of Clinton’s plans to smear Trump as a treasonous Russian agent, Ratcliffe wrote. Rather than investigate at the time whether Russian intelligence had infiltrated the Clinton operation’s anti-Trump campaign and sowed Russian disinformation within it, the FBI instead used unverified gossip from a suspected Russian agent to obtain federal warrants to spy on the Trump campaign.

There is no evidence the FBI ever investigated the Clinton campaign’s documented use of Russian agents and intelligence assets to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, raising questions of whether the top federal law enforcement agency may have itself interfered in the election by using its powers to arbitrarily target the campaign of the outgoing administration’s political enemy.

The article concludes:

Clinton personally pushed the Russia collusion claims on multiple occasions. Following her surprising defeat, she immediately pivoted to a campaign of blaming Russia for election meddling with Trump’s assistance. Within the last few weeks, Clinton has repeated her claim that Trump stole the election from her with Russia’s help.

While Comey, Strzok, and other Obama-era FBI officials have claimed that the investigation of Trump was legally predicated, U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is investigating the propriety of the entire Crossfire Hurricane operation, has publicly stated, based on evidence he has obtained, that he does not necessarily believe that to be the case.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. This abuse of federal power is something that needs to be dealt with. It is a safe bet that if Joe Biden wins the election, all of this corruption will be buried and the same techniques used against any opponent of the Democrats. At that point we will no longer have a recognizable America. The voters need to know what happened before the election. Unfortunately the deep state will prevent that from happening in order to continue its war against the American people.

Combating The Leaks

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Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe‘s recent decision to scale back election security briefings in person to Congress because of leaks.

The article reports:

Over the weekend, reports said Ratcliffe and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told the House and Senate intelligence committees that it will still provide written briefings on election security matters. Ratcliffe, in letters to the panels, said that leaks from members of Congress were a primary reason for the change.

Ratcliffe said on Fox News that he had been frequently briefing “not just the oversight committees but every member of Congress.”

But, he said, “within minutes of one of those briefings ending, a number of members of Congress went to a number of different outlets and leaked classified information for political purposes.”

He said that it was designed “to create a narrative that simply isn’t true, that somehow Russia is a greater national security threat than China.”

“I don’t mean to minimize Russia. They are a serious national security threat, but day in, day out, the threats that we face from China are significantly greater,” Ratcliffe said. “Anyone who says otherwise is just politicizing intelligence for their own narrative.”

Obviously Democrats are complaining about the move, but until the leaking stops, I think it is a good idea. The Democrats are still being briefed, but I suspect leaks may be easier to trace. Leaking classified information is punishable by law.