Collyer's term on FISC runs out Mar 2020

She is stepping down as presiding FISC judge on 1 Jan 2020





https://twitter.com/charlie_sa...smith-involved-in%2F

FISA Court news: Judge Rosemary Collyer, who I am told has health issues, will step down early as presiding judge & Chief Justice Roberts has tapped Judge James Boasberg to take over that role in the new year. (Collyer will apparently remain a FISA judge; her term ends in March.)

pls take this one w a big 'wait and see if verified"

Sarah Carter reports that a reputable Italian news outlet has a story out that Joseph Mifsud is likely dead.

https://saraacarter.com/italia..._campaign=social-pug

However, a detailed story by the reputable and well known Italian news outlet Il Giornale, Italian journalists Roberto Vivaldelli and Mauro Indelicato, suggest that sources within the Agrigento Public Prosecution office, who brought charges on Mifsud in another criminal matter associated with his work at a public university in Italy, believe he is dead. Their story is published in English at Il Giornale’s blog site Inside Over.

Sources interviewed from the Italian prosecutors office, told the journalists that they believe there is an “80 percent” chance that Mifsud is no longer alive.

Whether, Mifsud is in hiding for his own safety is not known. Why the Italian prosecutors believe he is dead has not been explained, but the work done by these two Italian journalists is very thorough. It’s another piece of the puzzle in understanding the mysterious Mifsud – what role he played and what may of actually happened to him.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
...
Note that Mueller indicted several people long before he issued his report. So we might not have to wait “for quite a few months” to see some interesting developments from Durham’s investigation.

The difference is that Durham is not going to indict anyone and ruin their lives...before all his ducks are in a row. When it happens, he'll be done and the hammer will drop on them in multiples. Could be quite awhile though.

This is a huge, convoluted mess to un-pack.

Court orders review of all FISA filings handled by FBI lawyer facing criminal investigation

https://www.washingtonexaminer...iminal-investigation

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered a review of all Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act filings handled by Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer who altered a key document about Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

The FISA court confirmed Clinesmith had been referred to the Justide Department for a possible criminal investigation. Judge Rosemary Collyer, who leads the FISA court, ordered the DOJ to bring it up to speed on everything it had learned about Clinesmith’s conduct and to explain why there was a delay between the conclusion of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation and the court being told what misconduct had been unearthed.

Specifically, the FISA court ordered the DOJ to “identify all other matters currently or previously before this court that involved the participation” of Clinesmith. The court also ordered the DOJ to “describe any steps taken or to be taken by the Department of Justice or FBI to verify that the United States's submissions in those matters completely and fully described the material facts and circumstances,” unlike the Page FISA filings. Third, court ordered the DOJ to “advise whether the conduct” of Clinesmith has been “referred to the appropriate bar associations for investigation or possible disciplinary action.”

Several months before its first FISA filing against Page, the FBI was informed Page had been a source of information for the CIA in the past, a fact the bureau failed to include in its initial filing or any of its renewals. A liaison from the CIA reminded Clinesmith, who was a part of the team reviewing the Page FISA filings, about Page’s previous relationship with the agency. But instead of accurately informing the FBI supervisory special agent so that the FISA court could be properly informed, Clinesmith altered the email to falsely state that Page was “not a source.”

This public order follows a scathing letter from Collyer directed at the bureau released earlier this week.

"The FBI's handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Horowitz] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above," said Collyer, who approved the initial surveillance warrant against Page.

The judge worried the sheer number of FISA process abuses by the bureau during their investigation into Page might mean the problem was widespread throughout the FBI's hundreds of other FISA investigations.

Horowitz concluded that the FBI’s investigation was flawed and criticized the DOJ and the FBI for 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to secret surveillance court filings targeting Page, which relied on allegations contained within British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier.

Clinesmith was an attorney with the FBI’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch. He worked under FBI General Counsel James Baker and Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson. He also worked on the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Trump-Russia investigation, even working on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team for a time.

In a highly critical July 2018 inspector general report on the FBI's Clinton emails investigation, Clinesmith was criticized at least 56 times as being one of the FBI officials who appeared to convey a bias against Trump in instant messages, along with Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, both of whom have left the bureau.

In a lengthy instant message exchange between Clinesmith and another FBI employee on Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Trump’s electoral victory, he lamented Trump’s win and worried about the role he played in the investigation into Trump and his campaign. “My god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating his staff,” Clinesmith said, adding, “So, who knows if that breaks to him what he is going to do?”

Other messages showed Clinesmith, listed in Horowitz's 2018 report as "FBI Attorney 2," expressed favor toward Clinton and said, “Viva le resistance," in the weeks after Trump's win.

CTH has a post up that provides a key piece of new info

I have a slightly diff spin in describing it

Remember when the Strzok/Lisa Page texts came out, there was a long gap from mid Dec 2016 to May 2017. The FBI later came out and said that "some" FBI phones had lost text messages in that period. How "convenient"

The Horowitz team examined the phones and recovered many of those lost texts

The focus here is on 10 Jan 2017 (Tuesday)

At 2:32 pm, CNN (Jake Tapper) broke the story that Donald Trump had been briefed on the previous Friday on some of the dossier material from a former British intel operative. The past work of the former Brit operative was considered credible (same language Comey always uses. This sounds like an FBI leak)

CTH puts up a Strzok text message that says

10 Jan 2017 3:01 pm

Subj: CNN update

Per Rich. CNN to publish C material today between 4 and 5


CTH believes "C material" is "Crown material". That is how the FBI described the Steele dossier.

Now CNN didn't publish the dossier that day, but at 6:20 pm ET, Buzzfeed published the 35 page dossier.

So some of the pieces don't quite fit, but it is a very suspicious sequence knowing what we do now.

CTH:

https://theconservativetreehou...ot-find/#more-179109



CTH points to a text from Peter Strzok on 10 Jan 2017 3:01 pm

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/ww...-amid-fisa-abuse.amp

quote:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is not expressing any remorse for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was swept up in the yearslong Russia investigation.

In an interview clip released on Friday, "Firing Line" host Margaret Hoover read quotes from Page about how the Russia probe had such a negative impact, including how the FBI spying into his life "ruined his good name" and that he will "never completely have his name restored."

"Do you have any sympathy for Carter Page?" Hoover asked.

"I have to say, you know, Carter Page came before our committee and for hours of his testimony, denied things that we knew were true, later had to admit them during his testimony," Schiff responded. "It's hard to be sympathetic to someone who isn't honest with you when he comes and testifies under oath. It's also hard to be sympathetic when you have someone who has admitted to being an adviser to the Kremlin."

Schiff doubles down on stupid and keeps the lies going.
He is a truly despicable person.

Soros Group Has Given $1.5 Million To Organization Closely Linked To Fusion GPS

https://dailycaller.com/2019/1...-million-fusion-gps/

A group George Soros operates gave $1.5 million in 2017 and 2018 to an organization closely linked to Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele.
Fund for Policy Reform, which is part of Soros’ network of nonprofit groups, made the contributions to The Democracy Integrity Project, or TDIP.
TDIP was formed in January 2017 to continue investigating possible ties between Donald Trump and Russia, as well as Russian meddling in Western elections.
Fusion GPS and Steele are best known for their work on the Trump dossier, which came under heavy scrutiny in a Justice Department watchdog report released on Dec. 9.

A nonprofit group progressive billionaire George Soros controls contributed $1.5 million in 2017 and 2018 to The Democracy Integrity Project, an organization that has worked closely with Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele to investigate President Donald Trump and Russian meddling in Western elections.

Soros’ group, Fund for Policy Reform, Inc., gave a $1 million grant to TDIP in 2017 and followed up with a $500,000 contribution in 2018, according to a database at Open Society Foundations, Soros’ network of nonprofits.

Soros is listed as chairman and director of Fund for Policy Reform, which contributes heavily to left-leaning groups like Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Both of the TDIP grants were for general operating expenses, according to the database. It has been previously reported that Soros gave $1 million to TDIP, but the additional $500,000 has not been publicized.

TDIP is the brainchild of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and Daniel Jones, a former staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee known best for producing a report on the CIA’s torture program following 9/11. (RELATED: Soros-Backed Group Paid Fusion GPS, Steele $3.8 Million)

Simpson and his Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch wrote in a book in November that Jones formed TDIP in late January 2017 after he and Simpson met to discuss how to continue investigating Trump’s possible ties to Russia, as well as Russian interference in Western elections.

TDIP’s activities and funding sources have trickled out slowly over the past two years.

House Intelligence Committee Republicans revealed in a report released on April 28, 2018 that Jones, who once worked for Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, told the FBI in March 2017 about his newly formed organization. He said that he had secured $50 million in funding from seven to 10 wealthy progressives in New York and California and was working with Steele and Fusion GPS.

At the time of Jones’ meeting with the FBI, the bureau was investigating Steele’s allegations, contained in his infamous dossier, that the Trump campaign was part of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” with the Russian government.

In 2016, Fusion GPS and Steele provided leads from the dossier to a handful of reporters in Washington, D.C. The FBI also relied heavily on Steele’s information in applications for surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

But a Justice Department inspector general’s report poured cold water on the work of Steele and Fusion GPS. In a report released on Dec. 9, the inspector general said the FBI was unable to corroborate any of Steele’s allegations about Page and other Trump associates. It also said that Steele’s primary source of information disputed much of what Steele attributed to him in the dossier. (RELATED: DOJ Watchdog Report Puts Final Nail In Steele Dossier Coffin)

It is unclear if Steele relied on his same sourcing network for his work with TDIP.

Jones told the FBI that TDIP planned to provide information gathered in its investigation to the media, law enforcement and lawmakers. He also offered his research to the FBI.

TDIP’s 2017 tax filings show the group took in more than $7 million in revenue and paid Fusion GPS $3.3 million of that. The organization paid another $250,000 to a company owned by Steele, who is based in London.

The payments to Fusion and Steele far surpassed what both made in 2016 for the work on the dossier. Perkins Coie, the law firm for the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign, paid just over $1 million to Fusion GPS in 2016. Fusion in turn paid Steele just over $170,000.

An attorney who met with Jones in March 2017 first revealed TDIP’s Soros funding. The lawyer, Adam Waldman, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Jones said he was working with Fusion GPS and that their project had received money from Soros and other wealthy donors. Jones also indicated in text messages to Waldman that he helped produce anti-Trump stories that ended up in the media.

Soros had given $1 million to TDIP and was considering donating more to the group, The New York Times reported in October 2018.

Details about the arrangement remain unclear. Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment. TDIP also did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Simpson and Fritsch wrote in their book that TDIP investigated whether Russia interfered in the Brexit election, as well as in French, Italian and Hungarian politics.

TDIP also investigated Trump real estate projects in Panama City and Toronto, according to Fusion’s co-founders.

The book also said that Fusion GPS and TDIP partnered in 2018 with a cyber analysis firm called New Knowledge to monitor Russian disinformation in the mid-term congressional elections. New Knowledge would gain notoriety after The New York Times reported that the company created fake online personas and used bots to post fake campaign-style ads on Facebook and Twitter ahead of the Alabama special election for Senate in 2017.

Despite its own involvement in a disinformation campaign, New Knowledge provided research for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the Kremlin’s use of social media to sow discord in American politics.

Fund for a Better Future, a dark money group, contributed $2 million to TDIP in 2017, according to tax filings. The ultimate source of those funds is unknown. Fund for a Better Future is what’s known as a donor-advised fund, which means that it serves as a middleman for grants, and allows donors to shield their identities.

Part 1 of 3

This post is about an interview with Devin Nunes.

If you want to go straight to the interview, it is here:

https://theconservativetreehou...spygate/#more-179167

Very very informative

The interview is long. Almost 60 mimutes. So I'll write some highlights. But I have a mantra. If you want to fully understand something, always go to the source documents.

For a long time I dismissed Dan Bongino as someone who was not particularly well sourced, but he tagged along with people like John Solomon and Sarah Carter.

But this interview shows Bongino "evolved" into someone w good sources.

Highlights:

Nunes used tweets from Bongino followers to come up w investigation ideas.

Nunes: "You and I didn’t speak for a long time. But we were tracking you and your info. We kept asking who is giving you this info ? Dan Bongino was spying on me."

Bongino laughed and said he had other sources than Nunes staffers

Clearly Nunes and Bongino have a good relationship

In 2014, someone set up Gen Flynn and reported that to the FBI

Brennan was Dir CIA then.

Michael Flynn was the top military intel officer and was a change agent. He did not support the obama Iran deal. He got railroaded out of the obama administration

Brennan and some Brits did the railroad job.

They claimed Flynn had an affair w a woman born in Russia (but now British citizen). She sat next to Flynn at a dinner party. Sounds like a real fabricated set up.

obama administration spying started way before Donald Trump.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nunes still doesn't know who Mifsud was working for.

Nunes is confident he never worked directly for the FBI in this case. Horowitz proved that

Was he working for foreign govt or individuals ? Likely not working for Putin

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nunes suspects Steven Schrage was involved in setting up Sam Clovis, Stephen Miller, Papadopoulos and Carter Page. Schrage was point man for the "Cambridge club". Invitations were sent to the Trump campaign people to attend sessions at Cambridge University (UK).

Wiki: In July 2016, Dr. Schrage convened a high-profile conference at the University of Cambridge on the upcoming U.S. presidential election, entitled 2016’s Race to Change the World, which was based on his Harvard and Cambridge research and experience on Campaigns and Foreign Policy

At the symposium, FISA warrant subject Carter Page met FBI spy Stefan Halper for the first time

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nunes was never able to interview Schrage.

Were the Brits behind it ? Fusion GPS ? Brennan ? McCabe ? all are possibilities

Nunes says Durham needs to look into it

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nunes: CNN laundered info for Adam Schiff. Can’t take anything from CNN to be true

The FBI story that the investigation started 31 July 2016 is bogus.

The spy ring was working spring and summer of 2016. When Trump named Papadopoulos and Carter Page as being on his campaign team, they became immediate targets.

In a 2018 interview of Papadopoulos by Bongino, Papadopoulos laid out things that Nunes had not heard of before

The DoJ IG report describes the Alexander Downer input re Papadopoulos as coming from an FFG (friendly foreign govt). Nunes said he never heard the term FFG before.

Remember Nunes was chair of the House Intel comm. Nunes said he thinks FFG means it was just foreign gossip and not intel.

Does Nunes believe the investigation started because of the Papaopoulos / Downer conversation ? Nunes: No

They needed some reason to open an official umbrella investigation into the Trump campaign

While Crossfire Hurricane "started" 31 July 2016, the FBI was looking at Donald Trump and Michael Flynn in the fall / winter of 2015

Then they saw a huge opportunity when Trump announced Papadopoulos and Page on his team.

The Cambridge club party had all the hallmarks of a set up.

Part 2 of 3

Nunes: There was massive obstruction of a congressional investigation

The real obstruction came in 2017 and 2018 by the FBI and DoJ

When asked about spying, they said they couldn’t talk about that

Nunes said by late Jan / Feb 2017, it was clear there were no Russians involved in the "Russia/Trump campaign" collusion investigation

The mtg between Papadopoulos and Downer occurred on 10 May 2016. Strzok's boss Bill Priestap was on travel to London that week. Strzok sent a text on 11 May 2016 about the next version of an affidavit coming in and the Deputy Dir (McCabe) needing to contact State Dept

Nunes said they never got to the bottom of the texts

I have a feeling if the texts were ever completely released w no redactions, many mysteries would be cleared up and it would be utterly damning for the FBI

Other sources told Nunes the Australian embassy and Downer brought this to the USG before late July 2016

But he doesn’t know the exact date

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Will we learn more about Mifsud from Durham ?
Nunes thinks so

Nunes: Who is Joseph Mifsud ? He is at the heart of this. Mueller was quite telling when he just said he had “Russian connections”.

So what ? Comey is the only guy who called Mifsud a Russian agent



Nunes : Comey would not accept his clearance being reinstated so they couldn’t ask him classified questions


can Comey sink any lower ?

A little confusing but Nunes seems to be saying that when things broke in Sep 2016, Mitch MConnell and Paul Ryan went to the FBI and asked "What do you have?" The answer was crickets

Nunes: " It is not against the law to lie to the FISA Court "

yeah, read that again

But Nunes made a criminal referral about conspiracy to fool the FISC. "Conspiracy" is against the law


Same thing for manipulating intelligence for political purposes not necessarily illegal

Can leave some things out - that is ok
not illegal
but conspiring to do it is against the law

Nunes criminal referrals :

Comey etc manipulation of FISA

Brennan / CIA conspiring in the intel assessment after the election

Part 3 of 3

What was Fusion GPS cooperation w the FBI ?
Who was at the ground level ?

SSA 1 (Supervisory Special Agent #1) in Horowitz report
suspected to be FBI agent Joseph Pientka

SSA 1 was the workhorse organizing the various schemes and day-to-day FBI manipulations.

The FBI always blanked out Pientka's name when things were released

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

What is the probability that obama knew nothing of this political spying ?

Nunes: zero to none

Regarding the midnight run where Nunes snuck into the WH to conspire w WH officials - it was all a media fabrication.

Nunes: sources came to him from within the intel agencies

something was not right

leaks and spying were occurring on transition officals (about the time the Wash Post leaked about the Flynn phone call to the Russian ambassador)

By late Jan 2017, there was something really wrong w Trump transition team was bring spied on and ending up in intel reports

The whole National Security Council was a den of spies (obama holdovers)

The only place Nunes could go to see the evidence was at the old Executive Office Bldg. He went during the day, not at midnight.

He saw records of dozens of unmaskings that had nothing to do w Russia.

Intel was being gathered on Americans and they were being unmasked. Samantha Power and a few others had hundreds of unmaskings.

Nunes briefed the Speaker of the House (Ryan ?)

The Speaker agreed the WH needed to know.

Nunes briefed the president. Nunes came out and did a press briefing.

What did the press do ? They attacked Nunes for revealing classified information on Russia to the president.

Nunes was saying this had nothing to do w Russia. And the president has the highest clearance in the land. But Nunes got constantly attacked.

Devin Nunes - American Hero

quote:

Originally posted by DrDan:

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
In regard to my post, a few above, about AG Barr not expecting Durham’s report on the origins of the Russia investigation “for quite a few months.”

Note that Mueller indicted several people long before he issued his report. So we might not have to wait “for quite a few months” to see some interesting developments from Durham’s investigation.

Good point. Maybe Hunter Biden will get an indictment, then Joe can change his campaign slogan to, "Elect me President so I can pardon my son!"

Yeah, elect him president so he can pardon his son and others for all the corruption Junior did in Ukraine! Billions!!!

But then, if biden was president all he would have to do is pardon his cohorts.

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...i-lawyer-clinesmith/

FISA is ordering a review of every single warrant application involving the now-former FBI lawyer under criminal investigation Kevin Clinesmith.

I would want a review of every warrant approved by the 4 judges who were duped by the FBI re Carter Page

The FISA may not come down too hard on Obama-era FBI personnel involved in the surveillance of the Trump presidential campaign

The court announced that its presiding judge, Rosemary M. Collyer, is stepping down nine weeks earlier than planned for health reasons. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of the Supreme Court has selected Judge James E. Boasberg to succeed her in that role in the new year.

He will be the first judge appointed by a Democrat to lead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court since 1995.

great, an obama judge presiding over FISC

Comey said that the reason he signed the FISA was that he believed in “probable cause” that “Page was an agent for a foreign power.”

The source that Comey believed provided probable cause was the discredited Christopher Steele, who was also hired by Hillary Clinton.

Horowitz’s audit also found that former President Barack Obama may have been aware of the FBI spying of the Trump presidential campaign.

Schiff Stands by Belief That FISA Probe on Page Was Legitimate
BY ZACHARY STIEBER
December 23, 2019

THE HILL > https://www.theepochtimes.com/...a-abuse_3182630.html

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who insisted that Republicans were wrong about abuse of the FISA court, and who read salacious, unconfirmed claims about Trump 2016 campaign associate Carter Page during a congressional hearing, indicated he has no sympathy for Page.

A report from Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz showed rampant abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) system, including the bombshell that an FBI lawyer changed a detail in an email that contained exculpatory information about Page.

Horowitz’s team also found that the FBI relied on former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s dossier to apply to spy on Page without verifying the information and even as Steele conceded that a source was unreliable. That source later told agents they were passing along a rumor when discussing some of the details Steele included in the dossier, which has been largely debunked.

Page was spied on for a year and was widely reported to be an agent of Russia, a charge that lacked evidence, Horowitz concluded. Schiff helped promote the campaign against Page by reading out accusations from Steele during a 2017 committee hearing.

When Republicans said in a memo the next year that there was FISA abuse, Schiff released a counter-memo claiming, “FBI and DOJ officials did not abuse the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”

During an interview with PBS’ “Firing Line,” Schiff declined to offer sympathy for Page, saying: “I have to say Carter Page came before our committee and dissembled for hours of his testimony, denied things that we knew were true, later had to admit them during his testimony.”

“It’s hard to be sympathetic to someone who isn’t honest with you when he comes and testifies under oath. It’s also hard to be sympathetic when you have someone who has admitted to being an adviser to the Kremlin.”

Schiff didn’t specify what Page wasn’t honest about. Special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigative report didn’t accuse Page of making false statements to Congress. Page also hasn’t admitted to advising the Kremlin.

Page responded in a statement on Twitter, saying: “There have been various allegations of dishonesty regarding FBI lawyer [Kevin] Clinesmith. On information, belief and firsthand experience since 2017, I have actually found @RepAdamSchiff to be even more untrustworthy and dangerous with his misuse of @DNC lies.”"

At least Schiff is consistent. He is a disgusting vile sack of excrement who would not know the truth if it slapped him in the face. I hope he likes heat. He’s going to be roasting for a long time.

WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/r...er-dodge-11576886961

Why did the special counsel not tell America that Christopher Steele’s information was false?

In her public order Tuesday, Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court didn’t mention Robert Mueller. But her stinging rebuke of the FBI for abusing the FISA process to obtain a warrant to spy on Carter Page invites the question: How could the special counsel have ignored the Steele dossier?

simple answer - because then the American would know the truth. The FBI can't afford that

Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirms the FBI sought to verify the claims former British spy Christopher Steele made in his dossier. Yet during an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20, 2017, when Mr. Comey was asked directly if the bureau was investigating them, Mr. Comey answered: “I’m not gonna comment on that.”

He had good reason to dodge. By that time, the Horowitz report makes clear, the FBI knew that most of the Steele dossier’s claims were unreliable.

Yet rather than take a hard look at it, Team Mueller made a deliberate choice to tiptoe around it. In his opening statement to Congress when he testified this July, Mr. Mueller declared he would not address “matters related to the so-called Steele dossier,” which he said were out of his purview.

Mueller is a comical joke

This makes no sense. The Steele dossier was central to obtaining the Page warrant, and the leaks about the dossier fanned two years of media theories about Russian collusion that was one reason Mr. Mueller was appointed as special counsel. Mr. Mueller owed the public an explanation of how much of the dossier could be confirmed or repudiated.

Instead he abdicated, and the mystery is why. Perhaps as a former FBI director, Mr. Mueller wanted to protect the bureau’s reputation . But the best way to do that was to lay out the truth and explain any mistakes. A less generous explanation is that Mr. Mueller was more a figurehead as special counsel, and that the investigation was really run by his deputy Andrew Weissmann.

or maybe Mueller has been part of the deep state illegally spying on U.S. citizens for a long time

Remember that Justice official Bruce Ohr —who served as a conduit between Mr. Steele and the FBI—says Mr. Weissmann was among those at Justice he briefed that Mr. Steele hated Mr. Trump and that the dossier was opposition research. Before Mr. Mueller made him deputy, Mr. Weissmann also praised then Acting Attorney General Sally Yates in an email for refusing to implement a Trump executive order. This November he appeared on MSNBC to suggest that Mr. Trump had broken the law and that he didn’t have faith in Attorney General William Barr to honestly handle the work of career prosecutors.

Mr. Mueller’s dodge on the Steele dossier—and Mr. Weissmann’s partisanship—vindicates our view from 2017 that Mr. Mueller was the wrong man to be special counsel

Mueller was the wrong man to ever lead the FBI.

On the evidence in the Horowitz report, the special counsel team had to know the truth about the Steele dossier and false FBI claims to the FISA court, but they chose to look the other way.

CTH has been doing an outstanding job of analyzing and connecting dots of the disgraceful FBI actions to spy on the Trump campaign and assist in the attempted coup.

Can't give them enough credit.

They have a very interesting report up today.

The report looks at the DoJ IG report and revisits a former Trump campaign person.

The person is Mike Rogers (not ADM Rogers formerly of the NSA). This Mike Rogers was a congressman who was the chair of the House Intel Comm before Devin Nunes.

CTH is theorizing that Rogers was a Confidential Human Source for the FBI.

full article:

https://theconservativetreehou...ampaign/#more-179335

Rogers was a former FBI agent. (makes you sick after awhile). His wife was president and CEO of Aegis LLC, a security defense contractor. She won part of a multiaward 10 billion dollar, 5 year contract with the State Dept.

This was in Oct 2010. (Hillary Clinton was Sec State)

Mike Rogers was House Intel chair from 2011 to 2015


https://www.defenseindustrydai...rity-Contract-06594/

CTH writes that Aegis LLC got 10 Bil, but they were one of several contractors that won the contract. Still big money.

CTH also theorizes that Mike Rogers may have helped the Benghazi cover up.

We may never know the total number of spies that the FBI/CIA threw at the 2016 Trump Campaign.

Here is a list of people who have varying degrees of confirmation as being sent by the obama administration agencies to spy on and set up Donald Trump (some perhaps coordinated w foreign govts)

Stefan Halper
Azra Turk
Patrick Byrne
Ex Congressman Mike Rogers
Joseph Mifsud
Alexander Downer
Charles Tawil

I am tied up in some personal / family things that are dominating my time. It is so frustrating not to be able to dig into the IG report. Sounds like there is a lot there even though the "conclusions" are typically weak stuff.

IG Report Reveals Steele Funneled Claims Through John McCain After FBI Dropped Him

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...ter-fbi-dropped-him/

Late Senator John McCain provided disgraced former FBI chief James Comey with five separate reports from Christopher Steele that the FBI didn’t previously possess related to unsubstantiated allegations of collusion between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign, the Justice Department’s recent Inspector General report revealed.

There have long been questions about why it was necessary for McCain to pass Steele’s anti-Trump dossier to Comey on December 9, 2016, several weeks after the November 2016 presidential election. By then, Steele had already met numerous times with FBI agents to provide them with his controversial reports. Steele, however, was terminated as an FBI source in the fall of 2016 because he spoke to the news media.

The IG report discloses that McCain gave five new Steele reports to Comey that the FBI did not previously possess, showing that McCain served as a conduit for Steele’s information to reach the FBI even after the British ex-spy was formally cut off as an FBI source.

It is not clear whether McCain knew at the time that Steele had previously been terminated as an FBI source.

The IG report also verifies that a McCain aid obtained the Steele reports directly from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, meaning that when McCain transferred the anti-Trump charges to Comey he had to have known that the material originated with a firm that specializes in controversial opposition tactics.

Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Trump’s primary political opponents, namely Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.

States the IG report:

Several weeks later, on December 9, 2016, Senator John McCain provided Corney with a collection of 16 Steele election reports, 5 of which Steele had not given the FBI. McCain had obtained these reports from a staff member at the McCain Institute. The McCain Institute staff member had met with Steele and later acquired the reports from Simpson.

The unnamed McCain staff member is known to be David J. Kramer, who also infamously provided BuzzFeed with the Steele dossier.

BuzzFeed published Steele’s full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to Comey but he refused repeated requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office by this reporter.

In his book published last year, McCain maintained he had an “obligation” to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he would even do it again. “Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell,” McCain exclaimed.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


John McCain - so consumed w hatred for Donald Trump that he screwed all U.S. citizens for petty revenge

This is an old June 2017 report from Judicial Watch.

It has special relevance today though

https://www.judicialwatch.org/...erial-obama-library/

The National Security Council (NSC) informed us by letter on May 23, 2017, that the materials regarding the unmasking by Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” have been removed to the Obama Library.

The NSC will not fulfill our April 4 request for records regarding information relating to people “who were identified pursuant to intelligence collection activities.”

The agency also informed us that it would not turn over communications with any intelligence community member or agency concerning the alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election; the hacking of DNC computers; or the suspected communications between Russia and Trump campaign/transition officials. Specifically, the NSC told us:

Documents from the Obama administration have been transferred to the Barack Obama Presidential Library. You may send your request to the Obama Library. However, you should be aware that under the Presidential Records Act, Presidential records remain closed to the public for five years after an administration has left office.

the records could be squirreled away from the public for at least five years, but there are ways they can be obtained almost immediately under law. The exceptions to Obama Library records restricted access are as follows:

“subject to any rights, defenses, or privileges which the United States or any agency or person may invoke, Presidential records shall be made available–

(A) pursuant to subpoena or other judicial process issued by a court of competent jurisdiction for the purposes of any civil or criminal investigation or proceeding;

(B) to an incumbent President if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of current business of the incumbent President’s office and that is not otherwise available; and

(C) to either House of Congress, or, to the extent of matter within its jurisdiction, to any committee or subcommittee thereof if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of its business and that is not otherwise available;

Often I wonder how President Trump has survived this swamp of deep state

saw the link to this Politico article at CTH

first snip:

Gina Haspel, CIA dir, was the CIA’s station chief in London in 2016 when the U.S. Embassy there was made aware of Mifsud’s contact with a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, by Australian diplomat Alexander Downer.

https://www.politico.com/news/...a-gina-haspel-089834

The prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Bill Barr to examine the origins of the Russia investigation is focusing much of his attention on the CIA, placing the agency’s director, Gina Haspel, at the center of a politically toxic tug-of-war between the Justice Department and the intelligence community.

The prosecutor, John Durham, has reportedly asked the CIA for former director John Brennan’s communications as he examines the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened in the election specifically to help Donald Trump.

Barr has been skeptical of the agency’s conclusions about Putin’s motivations, despite corroboration by the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee and an adversarial review by former CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

But intelligence community veterans say the Durham probe could force Haspel to choose between protecting her agency from Trump’s wrath and bowing to Barr’s wishes; they point to FBI chief Chris Wray, who has found himself at odds with the president in recent weeks over a watchdog report about the bureau’s conduct in the Russia probe.

And they say the Barr-Durham probe represents overreach by an attorney general who seems to have already made up his mind and is bent on imposing his own skeptical view of the Russia investigation on the intelligence community.

Haspel, a veteran intelligence officer known for her fierce loyalty to the CIA and acute political antennae, has rarely made headlines during her 19-month tenure atop the nation’s top spy agency, turning her focus inward on building morale and boosting recruitment. That strategy has kept her out of Trump’s sights and largely protected the CIA’s more than 20,000 employees from the kinds of political attacks that have hobbled the FBI.

When it comes to Durham, Haspel is likely “confident there has been no serious wrongdoing, and will therefore find a means to cooperate” with the investigation, said John Sipher, a 28-year CIA veteran.

how gracious of her

Trump often attacks the intelligence community, and said last summer that “the intelligence agencies have run amok” and needed to be reined in. But he’s never openly criticized Haspel, instead calling her “highly respected” and tweeting last year that “there is nobody even close to run the CIA!”

Haspel’s plight, though, may depend on how deeply Durham investigates an uncorroborated theory pushed by Trump allies that a key player in the Russia probe, a Russia-linked professor named Joseph Mifsud, was actually a Western intelligence asset sent to discredit the Trump campaign — and that the CIA, under Brennan, was somehow involved.

Haspel was the CIA’s station chief in London in 2016 when the U.S. Embassy there was made aware of Mifsud’s contact with a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, by Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. Haspel was briefed on Downer’s outreach to the embassy, according to a person familiar with the matter, but it’s unclear whether she was then made aware of the FBI’s plans to interview him or knew about the bureau’s use of an informant in London.

An inspector general report released earlier this month said the embassy’s deputy chief of mission at the time briefed the FBI’s legal attache and another official—whose title is redacted, but is Haspel, according to another person familiar with the matter—on Downer’s outreach. The attache told the inspector general that Haspel, upon being briefed, said the Downer information sounded “like an FBI matter.”

One former intelligence official said it’s unlikely Haspel would have been read in to the FBI’s subsequent operation given how closely held it was within the bureau and the Justice Department. But Trump’s allies have been asking questions about what Haspel knew about the probe since before she was sworn in as director.

Barr, who has taken a hands-on approach to the Durham investigation, was reportedly in London over the summer discussing the probe with British intelligence officials. He told NBC that the purpose of his recent travel to the U.K. and other friendly foreign governments “was to introduce Durham to the appropriate people and set up a channel through which he could work with these countries.”

“A U.S. attorney doesn’t just show up to your doorstep in some of these countries and say ‘Hey, I want to talk to your intelligence people,” Barr said. “The countries wanted to initially talk to me to figure out, ‘What is this about? What are the ground rules? Is this going to be a criminal case?’”

Former CIA officials, however, said a U.S. attorney shouldn’t be showing up at a foreign government intelligence service’s doorstep at all.

“It is unprecedented and inappropriate to do this via Justice Department prosecutors, who will tend to apply the standards of a courtroom to the more nuanced, and often more challenging world of intelligence analysis,” said John McLaughlin, who served as both deputy director and acting director of the CIA from 2000 to 2004.

also unprecedented to have a coup attempt in the U.S.

Sipher asked why such a review would be “done over the head of” the intelligence community’s inspector general.

because that IG is deep state w no doubt

“I find this troubling, and I suspect many inside the intelligence community do as well,” Sipher said, specifically pointing to the CIA’s Brennan records review. The inquiry “was initiated and sold in a partisan manner and this news only highlights that concern,” he said.

Another issue former officials have flagged: It isn’t clear whether Durham has consulted with the intelligence community inspector general, Michael Atkinson, as part of his review, which reportedly evolved into a criminal probe in October.

Normally, potential intelligence community misconduct is reviewed by an agency’s internal watchdog, who would then recommend criminal charges if warranted to a U.S. attorney with jurisdiction, noted Greg Brower, a former FBI assistant director.

“It appears that the cart has been put before the horse,” said Brower. “Here, Durham appears to be acting as a sort of super IG and prosecutor in one. The difference: Durham works for the attorney general, while the IC IG, like any IG, operates independently from executive branch direction.”

so what happens when that independent IC IG goes rogue ?

In May, Trump gave Barr unprecedented authority to review the intelligence community’s “surveillance activities” during the 2016 election, issuing a sweeping declassification order that granted Barr extensive powers over the nation’s secrets.

The attorney general has since emerged as a chief protector and defender of the president, going so far as to disagree publicly with a finding by DOJ’s inspector general that the FBI’s Russia probe was properly predicated. And he’s now leaning on Durham’s investigation to produce a more fulsome picture of the intelligence community’s actions in 2016, he told Fox last week.

“He is looking at all the conduct, both before and after the election,” Barr said of Durham. “I certainly will rely on John.”

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