quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
I knew Brennan was a Communist, but never knew Comey was. Very long video that explains the multi generational battle we are in.

Good video. Explains a lot about why Trump is exactly who we need right now.

https://theconservativetreehou...st-700pm-et-tonight/

Few people have read the entire inspector general report on the FBI’s FISA misconduct, and fewer still have an understanding of the depth of troubling findings within it. In an effort to provide information about the content, John Spiropoulos has produced a documentary going over many of the reports’ more important findings.

The exceptionally well produced documentary called “FISA, Spying on Team Trump” is an hour long broadcast created by John Spiropoulos, a former MSM journalist and producer for Channel 7 in Washington DC (1979 – 1989). John spent a month going through every page of the report, pulling out some of the key details and overlaying information from IG Michael Horowitz congressional testimony.

The investigative report will premier tonight at 7:00pm EST / 4:00pm PST on One America News (OAN).


There are new revelations within the documentary, and the report will rebroadcast on Saturday January 18th, and Sunday January 19th at 11am Eastern / 8am Pacific time.

^^^ Here’s an exclusive preview:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

The investigative report will premier tonight at 7:00pm EST / 4:00pm PST on One America News (OAN).

Thank you for the heads up.

back to Michael Flynn

audio interview w Sidney Powell (Flynn lawyer).

good interview

Powell says she has a witness who saw the original FBI 302 about the interview w Flynn. The witness said in the original 302 the agents wrote that Flynn was honest and not lying.


If the case goes to trial, Powell plans to call Comey to testify. Remember him bragging about setting Flynn up ?

https://theconservativetreehou...-original-flynn-302/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

James Comey tweet 20 Jan 2020

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

jimbo,

the oppression and cruelty of bad people like you is indeed an "ultimate tragedy"


if a few good FBI people had come forward and told the truth, this whole FBI coup attempt to overturn the 2016 election would have been stopped in its tracks.

reminder of another person persecuted by the deep state

https://dailycaller.com/2020/0...-roger-stone-prison/

Randy Credico Testified Against Roger Stone. Now He’s Imploring Judge Not To Send Trump Ally To Prison

The government’s key witness in the trial of Roger Stone implored a federal judge Tuesday to spare the longtime Republican operative of jail time when he is sentenced next month.

“I am writing to respectfully yet fervently implore you not to send Roger Stone to prison when he is sentenced before your Honor,” Randy Credico wrote to Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a letter reported by Yahoo! News.

A jury in Washington, D.C., convicted Stone on Nov. 15 of charges that he made false statements to the House Intelligence Committee about his contacts with associates regarding WikiLeaks. He was also convicted on a more serious count of witness intimidation

Prosecutors successfully argued that Stone attempted to intimidate Credico into pleading the Fifth instead of testifying before the House intelligence panel.

Prosecutors cited text messages that Stone sent Credico on April 9, 2018 in which he said he would take Credico’s dog, Bianca, from him. Stone also wrote “prepare to die cocksucker” to Credico during the spat.

Stone and Credico battled publicly throughout 2018 over Stone’s claim that his longtime frenemy was a source of information about WikiLeaks’ plans to release information about the Hillary Clinton campaign. Stone has long maintained that Credico gave him tips about the timing of WikiLeaks’ releases of Clinton information. Credico is longtime friends with a former lawyer for WikiLeaks, but he has denied being a back channel for Stone.

Credico proved to be a less-than-stellar witness for the government.

He testified that he never believed that Stone would take his dog from him, calling Stone a “dog lover.” Credico also testified that he was advised by several associates beyond Stone to plead the Fifth to avoid testifying before Congress.

Credico said in his letter that he stands by his testimony at Stone’s trial but that he felt “limited by the questions asked of me.”

Credico also cited his work in 2004 with Stone to reform drug laws in New York which were considered some of the most severe in the country at the time.

“Stone was an invaluable benefit to the movement,” Credico wrote. “He played a critical role in propelling the movement forward when he convinced his candidate to make the drug law a key issue in the Governor’s race.”

Stone’s sentencing date is Feb. 20.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx


all the aggressive FBI/DoJ pressure on people, a swat team arresting Stone w CNN cameras rolling, the entire upper level of the FBI fired or forced to quit, but the persecution of Stone continues

This thread wanders over a lot topics

I said before it would be better titled "FBI/DoJ coup attempt against the 45th U.S. President"

We have learned a lot in the last 2 years

Stefan Halper - the spy used to set up Trump campaign workers. So he could then report the Trump campaign was working w the Russians.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/0...fan-halper-pentagon/

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Wednesday he is expanding his probe of Department of Defense contracts awarded to Stefan Halper, a former professor who was a confidential source for the FBI in its investigation of Trump campaign associates.

The Iowa Republican said he is investigating the Office of Net Assessment’s (ONA) contract compliance after he reviewed “troubling documents” related to Halper’s contracts.

ONA, which is considered the Pentagon’s internal think tank, has awarded more than $1 million in contracts to Halper since 2012 to conduct studies of geopolitical hotspots like China, India and Russia.

The most recent contract was awarded to Halper on Sept. 26, 2016, which was during the same period when the former Cambridge academic was meeting with Trump campaign advisers on behalf of the FBI.

Halper, a veteran of four Republican administrations, met with and secretly recorded Trump associates Carter Page, Sam Clovis, and George Papadopoulos, according to a Justice Department Inspector General’s (IG) report released on Dec. 9.

the IG report that found no evidence of "bias"

Grassley is questioning whether ONA funds awarded to Halper were used in the investigation of the Trump campaign. He is also questioning whether ONA was aware of Halper’s ties to Vyacheslav Trubnikov, a former director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, or SVR

Trubnikov contributed to a study Halper conducted in 2015 on the relationship between Russia and China, and its impact on U.S. national security.

Halper has also hosted Trubnikov at events at Cambridge University. Christopher Steele, the former British spy, named Trubnikov as a possible source of information for his Trump dossier during an Oct. 11, 2016 with State Department officials.

Grassley asked Baker, the ONA director, whether Halper disclosed his relationship with Trubnikov, and whether information that Halper used from the retired spymaster was considered reliable.

Halper began working as an FBI source in 2008, according to the IG report. He was reprimanded and temporarily cut off as a source in 2011 over “aggressiveness” towards his handling agent, and because of “questionable allegiance” to the target of an FBI counterintelligence probe.

The IG report did not accuse Halper of wrongdoing. But it did criticize the FBI for failing to inform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of exculpatory information that Page and Papadopoulos shared with the professor during their conversations.

Halper first met Page at an event at Cambridge on July 10, 2016, and the pair remained in contact for more than a year.

remained in contact until the FISA warrant against Page expired. coincidence ?


He met with Clovis on Aug. 30, 2016, and contacted Papadopoulos days later.

Halper invited Papadopoulos on an all-expense-paid trip to London under the guise of working on an academic paper regarding energy issues in the Mediterranean. Halper offered Papadopoulos $3,000 to write a paper on the topic, which the Trump aide accepted.

Halper pressed Papadopoulos in their meetings about his work on the Trump campaign, and whether anyone on the Trump team was working with Russia to influence the election. Papadopoulos told Halper that he was not aware of any coordination between the campaign and Kremlin, according to portions of a transcript released in the IG report.

So FISC and DoJ admit what most of us have known for a long time.

At least the last 2 warrants against Carter Page were NOT VALID .

16-1182 original warrant against Page
17-52 first extension
17-375 second extension
17-679 third extension

17-375 and 17-679 DoJ says not valid

no DoJ comment yet on the first 2 warrants








"insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe Carter Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power"

I have waited to read those words for a long time. It has been painfully obvious the FBI lied in these warrants.

As Joe Biden would say, this is a BFD


CTH now has a report up on this

https://theconservativetreehou...arrants/#more-181711


The FBI has agreed to “sequester” all information and evidence received as an outcome of all the FISA warrants issued against Carter Page. Meaning, all material, in any court proceeding or subsequent secondary warrant on another target, application, filing, motion, prosecution or downstream use of the information gathered and obtained; the FBI will now assemble all materials, from any location, that stemmed from the Carter Page FISA warrants.

In essence, the FBI will now look and retrieve any evidence that stemmed as an outcome of the Carter Page FISA warrant. Some of this material *may* (perhaps likely) will be in the Special Counsel Mueller investigation.

[ie. a proverbial search for the fruit of a poisonous tree. Where is it?]

Once the sequestration has taken place, the DOJ will then be able to determine to the court what collateral impacts they have identified.

The DOJ has yet to inform the court how exactly they plan to do this, or when they anticipate to have completed the task. However, the FBI has agreed to undertake this sequestration for ALL of the FISA applications, not just the two renewals they now admit are invalid

The issue of the validity for the October 21st, 2016, originating FISA application; and/or the issue of the validity for the first renewal January 12th, 2017, is not yet determined.

The FISC brief outlines the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), who is currently doing a review of all FISA applications, will be the one assist the DOJ in reaching that conclusion.

Worth noting in the second paragraph (above): “pending further review of the OIG report and the outcome of any investigations or litigation.” This was a statement made by the DOJ in response to the FISC. It is possible the ongoing investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham is part of this encompassing statement.

The second page of the order by Judge Boasberg is essentially him relaying the law surrounding FISA applications; warning the DOJ that false material submissions -which the DOJ has just admitted- are illegal; and Boasberg wanting to know answers to the same questions many of us have.

Essentially, Judge Boasberg is asking: what did the FBI do with the Title-1 surveillance warrant they received from the court? What material did they collect? Was that material then used in other proceedings and: “disseminated to DOJ prosecutors and other persons outside the FBI”?

The presiding fisa judge also wants to know what the DOJ is doing. Explain what “further review of the OIG report” means? Inform the court what “related investigations and litigation” pertains to, etc

A note of caution. It seems incredulous the DOJ cannot apply the same determination of invalid construct to the original FISA application and first renewal. However, the key issue is with the Steele Dossier – the essential evidence underpinning the FISA itself; and the key question is when did the FBI and/or DOJ know with certainty the Steele Dossier was unfounded and did not merit legal inclusion for the warrant?

By their current admissions, as outlined by Judge Boasberg, the DOJ is admitting that between January 12th and April 7th current investigators are certain there was sufficient information debunking the Steele Dossier, known to the former FBI and DOJ officials, such that no further application (renewal) should have taken place.

Interestingly this timeline and DOJ admission would include the Mueller investigation use of any FISA derived material or evidence when it began May 17, 2017; that is, if the Mueller probe used the Carter Page FISA evidence for any derivative warrant therein.

It seems likely the Mueller probe did use the Page warrant, as former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former DOJ Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein authorized the June 29, 2017, final renewal AFTER the special counsel was in place. That renewal has been admitted as invalid. There could be considerable consequences.

xxxxxxxxxxx


there are significant FBI lies in all 4 warrants

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

quote:

https://theconservativetreehou...arrants/#more-181711

determine to the court

[D]escribe to the court

quote:

It seems incredulous

It seems incredible

I'm glad to have the information once I've pulled it out of the odd thicket of verbiage, but what kind of hungover chimps do they have writing at the CTH these days?

Jay Sekulow - one of the top attorneys defending Donald Trump in the impeachment trial

Jay Sekulow attacks re the Steele dossier

Sekulow smartly connects the lengthy Schiff prosecution point about foreign interference in U.S. elections to Nellie Ohr, the wife of the third ranking DOJ official, Bruce Ohr, working for Fusion-GPS and Hillary Clinton while contracting with British and Ukraine officials for an investigation into Donald Trump. ie. actual foreign interference.

https://youtu.be/d2OJuAH0_dA

from

https://theconservativetreehou...lie-ohr/#more-181822

Sekulow states the Senate has requested an accommodation from the defense to limit opening to 10am-1pm on Saturday. So the defense segment will begin at 10am tomorrow then break after three hours and resume on Monday January 27th.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sekulow gets mixed up and says Bruce Ohr works for the FBI. Ohr works for the DoJ

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

how bold. after it has been exhaustively proven the dossier is fake,

a "leading British spy writer" reveals it is fake.

Gee pal, this might have been helpful back in 2017 when you did your "analysis"

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art...rostitutes-wz2hr8zz7

The dossier on Donald Trump compiled by the former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, which accused the US president of being compromised by Russia, was a work of “fabrication”, according to a devastating report by a leading British spy writer.

Nigel West has revealed he was hired by a US Republican law firm to assess the dossier in 2017 and concluded that large parts of it were faked.

Steele’s dossier claimed Russian spies held “kompromat” on Trump, including a video of him cavorting with prostitutes in Moscow, and that Russia had engaged in a conspiracy with Trump’s campaign team to affect the outcome of the 2016 election. It was used by the FBI to justify surveillance of four of Trump’s associates.

....
rest behind a paywall

adding: some of the British press have been strongly supportive of Christopher Steele and his dossier. Unfortunately for all of us, "their guy" FUBAR

“The federal prosecutor in charge of the Justice Department inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation appointed a new criminal division chief.

John Durham, a United States attorney from Connecticut, announced on Monday that the role will be taken by Sarah Karwan, who has prosecuted a wide variety of criminal cases.

“I am thrilled that Sarah Karwan will lead our criminal division,” Durham said in a statement. “During her more than 12 years as an [assistant U.S. attorney], Sarah has done it all, prosecuting violent criminals, drug traffickers, financial fraudsters, corrupt public officials, and a wide variety of other wrongdoers. Given the breadth of her experience and her exceptional lawyering skills, she certainly will be a standout as our new criminal chief.” …”

www.washingtonexaminer.com/new...s-new-criminal-chief

And I hope that she’s a very aggressive prosecutor.

?????

https://thefederalist.com/2020...port-on-fisa-abuses/

Two top Republican senators on Tuesday alleged that claims made in a report from Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz mischaracterized evidence about the government’s secret surveillance of the Trump campaign during and after the 2016 presidential election. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., wrote to Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday demanding that the Justice Department declassify four footnotes in the inspector general’s report on FISA abuses released last December.

The senators sent two letters to the attorney general, one classified and one unclassified, identifying four footnotes they are requesting be made public

Republican senators insinuate that the footnotes in question were classified in the IG report only because they contradict certain claims made in the public version of the inspector general’s report on FISA warrants documenting misconduct in the FBI’s spying operation of the Trump campaign.

“We are concerned that certain sections of the public version of the report are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and probative classified information redacted in four footnotes,” Grassley and Johnson wrote. “This classified information is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report, but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation.”

It is unclear which claims in the report are allegedly contradicted by the footnotes or which footnotes are specifically at issue. The senators also do not specify whether the alleged mischaracterizations were made by Horowitz or subjects of his investigation whose claims are cited in the report. The unprecedented letter from Grassley and John raises questions about whether the FBI or other U.S. intelligence or agencies deliberately classified certain evidence that could potentially show that the Comey-led investigation against the Trump campaign was based on false premises known to the FBI and was therefore legally invalid and not properly predicated.

While the primary conclusion of the report found the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign was not rooted in political bias, its own findings fail to support that claim. The inspector general’s report notes that without the widely discredited Steele Dossier, which itself was a DNC-funded document, there would have been no surveillance on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.

According to Sens. Grassley and Johnson, the reveal of the four footnotes in the report might further debunk the report’s own primary conclusion that there was no political bias motivating the FBI’s deep-state surveillance operation.

“The American people have a right to know what is contained within these four footnotes and, without that knowledge, they will not have a full picture as to what happened during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” the senators wrote.

Following the release of the inspector general’s report on FISA abuses, a judge for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which handles FISA warrant applications slammed the FBI in a court order to reform its FISA process, declaring that the agency’s misconduct has called into question every other warrant the FBI has ever asked for.

Earlier this month, a secret court ruling made public on Thursday found that at least two of the four FISA warrants to spy on Page were “not valid.” The two warrants found invalid were dated on April 7 and June 29 of 2017. The April 7 warrant application was signed by former FBI Director James Comey and the application dated for June was signed off by the bureau’s former deputy director Andrew McCabe.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz made clear before lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee in December that the conclusions of the department’s report “don’t vindicate anyone,” involved with Crossfire Hurricane.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx


still playing games

a few words about CTH

They do great work. IMO they do the deepest, and most comprehensive, analysis of the phony Russia collusion nonsense and the attempts of the obama administration / deep state to bring down Donald Trump.

Because the federal govt has kept so much of the truth from the American people, CTH has made educated extrapolations to what the truth is. These are well thought out "connect the dots" with lots of back up to show why they came to believe their descriptions.

A number of their very early extrapolations came out to be true as facts became known.

https://theconservativetreehou...otnotes/#more-182146

long article

Mueller never investigated the dossier claims; everyone knew the dossier was a means to an end.

The key to understanding the FISA assembly in 2016 is this:

•Without the Dossier, no FISA.

•Without FISA, no insurance policy.

•Without Dossier & FISA, no Mueller.

The Steele Dossier was absolutely vital because the paramount need was the FISA.

August 2016 – The FBI was denied a FISA warrant internally. The DOJ-NSD told the FBI they did not have enough evidence.

August 2016 – On August 25th, 2016, in Andrew McCabe’s office, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok have the “insurance policy” discussion.

Sept. 2016 – The FBI then asks Oleg Deripaska for help

Sept. 2016 – Christopher Steele, sends more chapters of the Dossier.

Oct. 2016 – The Steele Dossier is added to FISA application

Oct. 2016 – The FISA application is approved.

Christopher Steele completely made up the key points within the dossier, yet he sprinkled in information he was given by Fusion-GPS contracted agent Nellie Ohr

The Nellie Ohr research material was the stuff that primarily checked out. Her material was more innocuous and incidental. Nellie gave contact information with dates and citations that could be validated by open-source materials. Nellie Ohr provided material that would be woven into the completely false story that Chris Steele created.

Nellie used innocuous contacts like Sergei Millian, nationality Belarus, with real estate dealings in Trump orbit; or Emin Agalarov, whose father was a business contact who coordinated bringing the Miss Universe pageant to Russia in 2013; to provide fuel for the narrative. All of which was easily verifiable.

However, the essential Christopher Steele material was entirely fabricated.

In making up the story Christopher Steele needed to assign a plausible citation for those outlandish lies. He used a very specific citation for a primary sub-source. A person who would seem to be deeply connected and credible; and factually did have a relationship with Chris Steele. However, as the IG report identifies, the primary sub-source had no idea that Steele was attributing any of his make-believe stories to him .

As the big picture timeline shows, Andrew McCabe knew the Steele Dossier was nonsense; but the insurance policy aspect; the secret surveillance of Trump if he won the election – & the ability of a special counsel to use it; were contingent upon getting that FISA warrant.

When Lisa Page explains (testimony transcript) the insurance policy was connected to the “use of a source”, and/or possibly “exposing them”, she’s not really lying. The Dossier was dependent on Steele’s exploitation of a former FBI source as a primary sub-source to manufacture the dossier that would get them the FISA.

A former FBI Source who the Robert Mueller FBI turned to in 2009. An FBI source that Andrew McCabe and Bruce Ohr had both worked with before. That former FBI source was the same person McCabe asked for help in September 2016, Oleg Deripaska.

Oleg Deripaska had no idea Chris Steele was going to attribute anything from any conversation they had to create his dossier; but Andrew McCabe did.

Deripaska is just generally talking to Chris Steele, whom Deripaska hired in 2016 as an attorney in the U.K. to represent his interests, not knowing that Steele would use anything Oleg said about Donald Trump in Steele’s fantastical story.

...

The same FBI agents giving the investigative answers to the IG in 2019 are the same FBI agents who used the surveillance warrant in 2016 and 2017 knowing it was nonsense.

There’s buckets of current FBI field agents, supervisory special agents, FBI lawyers, officials and various FBI field offices maintaining this years-long fraud. Heck, the Mueller report said there were 40 rank-and-file FBI agents working with them; and a host of administrative and FBI legal support officials during the two-year investigation.

How many of the FBI people working with Mueller can plausibly claim they didn’t know the two-year investigation was based on Russia-conspiracy fabrications, Russia-interference manipulations, and Russia, Russia, Russia lies?

Is it any wonder Oleg Deripaska, speaking through his U.S. lawyer Adam Waldman, felt used in 2017 after the FBI, DOJ, Treasury Dept. and intelligence apparatus locked him out of the USA and started seizing his assets?

Adam Waldman was the lawyer for both Christopher Steele and Oleg Deripaska. Additionally, Waldman was the liaison Senator Mark Warner (Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman) was using to try and set-up a secret meeting with Christopher Steele.

Deripaska was blocked from testifying to congress. It was obviously not from the 2017 HPSCI (Chairman Devin Nunes) but rather by the Senate Intel Committee, Mark Warner.

It’s highly likely the 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 FBI would be risk averse to former FBI source Oleg Deripaska’s uncontrolled testimony

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

important: CTH is theorizing Oleg Deripaska was a prime source for Steele. We don't know that yet from what the govt has revealed to us.

CTH does not trust AG Barr. I do.
I don't trust Christopher Wray
YMMV

CTH's "forecasts" of what the truth might turn out to be, help us understand things as the govt slowly and ever so reluctantly tells us of the dirtiest coup attempt we have experienced as a nation.

quote:

There’s buckets of current FBI field agents, supervisory special agents, FBI lawyers, officials and various FBI field offices maintaining this years-long fraud.

The party line is that this criminal fiasco was orchestrated and run by only a few at the very top of the FBI/DOJ, and that the field level agents are all above board and would never go along with such a scheme. Seems like the tentacles run a bit deeper than suspected.

back to Michael Flynn

from Techno Fog

NEW - declaration from Gen. Flynn:

"I did not lie."

He was mindful of the need to "protect sensitive or classified information."

He knew the Kislyak calls were recorded.

Flynn has filed his Supplemental Motion to Withdraw his plea.

Flynn "did not lie to the FBI agents who interviewed him in the White House on January 24, 2017."

Flynn's prior lawyers at Covington - who prepared the FARA filing - were informed that the Special Counsel was focusing on the FARA issues.

They didn't inform Flynn of this development for weeks - not until after his proffer sessions started w/ team Mueller.

Flynn's prior lawyers did not inform him, before the plea was signed, that both FBI Agents "did not believe he was lying" and "saw no indication of deception."




xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


remember - when Flynn was talking to Strzok and Pientka - he thought this was a routine discussion. Why would he share sensitive discussions w the Russian ambassador w 2 FBI agents who were making him perfectly comfortable and "at ease" ?

Flynn didn't even feel they had a right to know.







...

The Michael Flynn situation continues to go crazy

from CTH



So Flynn was set up by Comey and McCabe for the 24 Jan 2017 FBI interview. The 2 agents who interviewed him are in disgrace. See above

Flynn's new lawyer (Sidney Powell) is hammering the FBI and DoJ.

For some mysterious reason, Pientka has a protective court order requiring the redaction of his name

Previously DoJ recommended no jail time for Flynn.

Then Flynn refused to lie in a case against his former business partner.

The DoJ pulled back their recommendation of no jail time.

Now that Powell is exposing how corrupt, lying, and hopefully illegal the FBI handled Flynn, now the DoJ is back to recommending no jail time and offered probation

https://twitter.com/adamgoldma.../1222634662910218240





Flynn should be let go immediately

The govt should cover all his lawyer costs

Strzok, Pientka, and the DoJ prosecutors should be charged and prosecuted for the most biased and unfair persecution in recent history

This might add to the above post.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Flynn's Defense Files Motion Saying His Former Legal Team "Betrayed Him"

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...al-team-betrayed-him

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn filed a supplemental motion to withdraw his guilty plea Wednesday citing failure by his previous counsel to advise him of the firm’s ‘conflict of interest in his case’ regarding the Foreign Agents Registration Act form it filed on his behalf, and by doing so “betrayed Mr. Flynn,” stated Sidney Powell, in a defense motion to the court.

Flynn’s case is now in its final phase and his sentencing date, which was scheduled for Jan. 28, in a D.C. federal court before Judge Emmet Sullivan was changed to Feb. 27. The change came after Powell filed the motion to withdraw his plea just days after the prosecutors made a major reversal asking for up to six months jail time. The best case scenario for Flynn, is that Judge Sullivan allows him to withdraw his guilty plea, the sentencing date is thrown-out and then his case would more than likely would head to trial.

Powell alleged in a motion in December, 2019 that Flynn was strong-armed by the prosecution into pleading guilty to one count of lying to FBI investigators regarding his conversation with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Others, close to Flynn, have corroborated the accounts suggesting prosecutors threatened to drag Flynn’s son into the investigation, who also worked with his father at Flynn Intel Group, a security company established by Flynn.

In the recent motion Flynn denounced his admission of guilt in a declaration,

“I am innocent of this crime, and I request to withdraw my guilty plea. After I signed the plea, the attorneys returned to the room and confirmed that the [special counsel’s office] would no longer be pursuing my son.”

He denied that he lied to the FBI during the White House meeting with then FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka. The meeting was set up by now fired FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was also fired for lying to Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigators. Strzok was fired by the FBI for his actions during the Russia investigation.

Flynn stated:

“When FBI agents came to the White House on January 24, 2017, I did not lie to them. I believed I was honest with them to the best of my recollection at the time. I still don’t remember if I discussed sanctions on a phone call with Ambassador Kislyak nor do I remember if we discussed the details of a UN vote on Israel.”

Powell Targets Flynn’s Former Legal Team

Powell noted in Wednesday’s motion that Flynn’s former defense team at Covington & Burling, a well known Washington D.C. law firm, failed to inform Flynn that their lawyers had made “some initial errors or statements that were misunderstood in the FARA registration process and filings.” She also reaffirmed her position in the motion that government prosecutors are continuing to withhold exculpatory information that would benefit Flynn.

A spokesperson with Flynn’s former law firm Covington & Burling, stated in an email to SaraACarter.com that “Under the bar rules, we are limited in our ability to respond publicly even to allegations of this nature, absent the client’s consent or a court order.”

In Powell’s motion, she stated that Covington and Burling was well aware that it had a ‘conflict of interest’ in representing Flynn after November 1, 2017. She stated in the motion it was on that day, when Special Counsel prosecutors had notified Covington that “it recognized Covington’s conflict of interest from the FARA registration.” Moreover, the government had asked Covington lawyers to discuss the discrepancy and conflict with Flynn, Powell stated in the motion.

“Mr. Flynn’s former counsel at Covington made some initial errors or statements that were misunderstood in the FARA registration process and filings, which the SCO amplified, thereby creating an ‘underlying work’ conflict of interest between the firm and its client,” stated Powell in the motion.

“Government counsel specified Mr. Flynn’s liability for ‘false statements’ in the FARA registration, and he told Covington to discuss it with Mr. Flynn,” states the motion.

“This etched the conflict in stone. Covington betrayed Mr. Flynn.”

Powell included in her motion an email from Flynn’s former law firm Covington & Burling between his former attorney’s Steven Anthony and Robert Kelner. The email was regarding the Special Counsel’s then-charges against Paul Manafort, who had been a short term campaign manager for Trump. Manafort and his partner Rick Gates, were then faced with ‘multiple criminal violations, including FARA violations.”
Internal Email From the motion:

In the internal email sent to Kelner, Anthony addresses his concerns after the Manafort order was unsealed.

I just had a flash of a thought that we should consider, among many many factors with regard to Bob Kelley, the possibility that the SCO has decided it does not have, [with regard to] Flynn, the same level of showing of crime fraud exception as it had [with regard to] Manafort. And that the SCO currently feels stymied in pursuing a Flynn-lied-to-his-lawyers theory of a FARA violation. So, we should consider the conceivable risk that a disclosure of the Kelley declaration might break through a wall that the SCO currently considers impenetrable.

In February, 2017, then Department of Justice official David Laufman had called Flynn’s lawyers to push them to file a FARA, the motion states. In fact, it was a day after Flynn was fired as the National Security Advisor for Trump. Laufman made the call to the Covington and Burling office “to pressure them to file the FARA forms immediately,” according to the motion.

Laufman’s push for Flynn’s FARA seemed peculiar considering, Flynn’s company ‘Flynn Intel Group’ had filed a Lobbying Registration Act in September, 2016. Former partner to Flynn Bijan Rafiekian, had been advised at the time by then lawyer Robert Kelly that there was no need for the firm to file a FARA because it was not dealing directly with a foreign country or foreign government official, as stated during his trial. In Rafiekian’s trial Kelly testified that he advised the Flynn Intel Group that by law they only needed to file a Lobbying Disclosure Act and suggested they didn’t need to file a FARA when dealing with a foreign company. In this instance it was Innova BV, a firm based in Holland and owned by the Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin.
Flynn’s former Partner’s Case Overturned, Powell Cites Case In Motion

In September, 2019, however, in a stunning move Judge Anthony Trenga with the Eastern District of Virginia Rafiekian’s conviction was overturned. Trenga stated in his lengthy acquittal decision that government prosecutors did not make their case and the “jury was not adequately instructed as to the role of Michael Flynn in light of the government’s in-court judicial admission that Flynn was not a member of the alleged conspiracy and the lack of evidence sufficient to establish his participation in any conspiracy…”

An important side note, Laufman continually posts anti-Trump tweets and is frequently on CNN and MSNBC targeting the administration and its policies.

Powell said prosecutors reversed course on their decision to not push for jail time for Flynn in early January because she said, her client “refused to lie for the prosecution” in the Rafiekian case.

Well, well, well.


Ex-Trump aide Carter Page files suit against DNC over dossier: ‘This is only the first salvo’
https://www.foxnews.com/politi...only-the-first-salvo

quote:

EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court against the Democratic National Committee, law firm Perkins Coie and its partners tied to the funding of the unverified dossier that served as the basis for highly controversial surveillance warrants against him.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois’ Eastern Division Thursday morning, and was described by his attorneys as the “first of multiple actions in the wake of historic” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse.

DOJ WATCHDOG UNCOVERS 'SIGNIFICANT' FBI ERRORS IN FISA

“This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied,” attorney John Pierce said Thursday. “Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state.”

He added: “This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high. … The rule of law will prevail.”

Page first filed a defamation suit on his own against the parties in October 2018 in federal court in Oklahoma, but that suit was dismissed in January 2019 after the judge ruled the court lacked jurisdiction over the case because neither Page nor the DNC had strong enough ties to the state.

Page is now represented by Pierce, the global managing partner of Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP. They filed in Illinois because they allege the relationship with the firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, was “orchestrated” through law firm Perkins Coie's Chicago office. The suit also claims the DNC "has a historical pattern” of making Chicago its principal place of business.

Pierce called the suit the first in a “campaign to restore Dr. Page’s name and hold those who targeted him accountable.”

Page’s lawsuit does not specify the amount sought, instead seeking “compensatory, special and punitive damages in appropriate amounts to be established at trial.”

The suit alleges that the DNC, Perkins Coie and partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussman “used false information, misrepresentations and other misconduct to direct the power of the international intelligence apparatus and the media industry against” Page “to further their political agenda.”

The dossier in question was filled with salacious claims about Trump and his associates and has been the subject of fierce controversy ever since its public emergence around the time of President Trump’s inauguration. The document was authored by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, and funded by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie.

In December, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a long-awaited report finding that the FBI made repeated errors and misrepresentations before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as the FBI sought to monitor Page in 2016 and 2017.

Horowitz confirmed that the FBI’s FISA applications to monitor Page heavily relied on the dossier and news reports rooted in Steele’s unverified research.

Just last week, the FISC released a newly declassified summary of a Justice Department assessment revealing at least two of the FBI’s surveillance applications to monitor Page lacked probable cause.

Continued at link.