No more games. Hold Herr Rosenstein and Herr Wray in contempt. Their BLATENT disregard of legitimate, legal, congressional oversight has gone to far.

NO MORE GAMES.

Face it. Our government is completely, totally, unable-to-function for free men corrupt. No election, no appointment, no judicial judgment will change that. It is 2 minutes before midnight on the Doomsday clock and time is running out.

back to the leaker

https://www.politico.com/story...ial-reporters-653914

The government won't demand testimony from reporters in order to prove a criminal case against a former Senate Intelligence Committee aide accused of lying to investigators probing leaks of classified information, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

Speaking at a court hearing for former Senate Intelligence Committee security director James Wolfe, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tejpal Chawla indicated if there's any showdown over subpoenas for reporters, it won't be at the government's request.

"The government is not seeking to subpoena attorneys, SSCI [staffers] or reporters," Chawla told U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. "This is not what the government is seeking. Maybe the defense, but not the government."

Chawla was responding to a comment from one of Wolfe's attorneys, Preston Burton, who told the court that litigation over subpoenas for reporters was one of several issues that could complicate the case.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Burton declined to say whether the defense might subpoena journalists. "Too early to tell," he said. "It may come up."

The indictment doesn't accuse Wolfe of leaking classified information, but does contend that he repeatedly lied about his contacts with journalists, including when he denied disclosing any non-public committee information.

Wolfe pleaded not guilty to the charges a at a hearing last week.

Judge Jackson did not set a trial date in the case Tuesday. She ordered the parties to return for another hearing on July 9.

jumping around some

on previous page there is an FBI ltr talking about how they are complying w congressional info requests.

But from CT = Conservative Treehouse,

http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...jokes-mueller-leaks/

DEM Senator Mark Warner of VA

the Virginia lawmaker hosted over 100 Democrats at his upscale home on Martha’s Vineyard, as part of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s annual retreat.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s vice chairman couldn’t resist mentioning the Russia probe.

“If you get me one more glass of wine, I’ll tell you stuff only Bob Mueller and I know,” Warner joked to party-goers. “If you think you’ve seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. It’s going to be a wild couple of months.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It already has been a wild couple of months, but not in the way Warner wants

His remarks are completely inappropriate. He should be called out to explain himself.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...jokes-mueller-leaks/

DEM Senator Mark Warner of VA

the Virginia lawmaker hosted over 100 Democrats at his upscale home on Martha’s Vineyard, as part of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s annual retreat.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s vice chairman couldn’t resist mentioning the Russia probe.

“If you get me one more glass of wine, I’ll tell you stuff only Bob Mueller and I know,” Warner joked to party-goers. “If you think you’ve seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. It’s going to be a wild couple of months.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It already has been a wild couple of months, but not in the way Warner wants

His remarks are completely inappropriate. He should be called out to explain himself.

If true then Mueller is leaking to one side.Maybe an investigation needs to be opened.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...jokes-mueller-leaks/

DEM Senator Mark Warner of VA

the Virginia lawmaker hosted over 100 Democrats at his upscale home on Martha’s Vineyard, as part of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s annual retreat.

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s vice chairman couldn’t resist mentioning the Russia probe.

“If you get me one more glass of wine, I’ll tell you stuff only Bob Mueller and I know,” Warner joked to party-goers. “If you think you’ve seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. It’s going to be a wild couple of months.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It already has been a wild couple of months, but not in the way Warner wants

His remarks are completely inappropriate. He should be called out to explain himself.

If true then Mueller is leaking to one side.Maybe an investigation needs to be opened.

Or Warner has a wild, vivid imagination which has been on display on a few occasions.

Devin Nunes keeps hammering away.





pretty simple questions on the second page

still confusing why transcripts of FBI campaign spies have to go thru DNI. Unless there are some confidential human sources whose conversations were picked up by intelligence services.

If this ever gets settled, there are a lot of people who need to explain why they tried to keep the American people in the dark.

The game with Rosenstein need to stop. He is acting like a child doing just enough to say "I did what you asked". Hold him in contempt because that is exactly the way he is treating Congress. He has nothing but contempt for them. He truly feels the DOJ is the "fourth branch" of government, beholden to no other branch. Hell he feels the DOJ is "more equal" than the other three.

at the bottom of the previous page, there is a ltr from FBI to Devin Nunes.

At the end of the ltr the FBI writes that requests for transcripts of conversations between human sources and Trump campaign officials have to go to DNI.

Just saw an interview w Nunes where he seemed to shine a little light on that.

Nunes said the House Intel investigators found some information. The FBI / DoJ said that info could only be shared w the gang of 8 (House and Senate leaders). Nunes complained, and DoJ said he had to go to DNI. Nunes said they would be meeting w DNI today.

Nunes was frustrated that information his committee dug up was then restricted to just the gang of eight.

If Congress want the document, they should cut next months money in half. If not all the document in July, reduce Aug budget by another half. When there is no more money there will be no more employees to keep them form getting all the documents.

Bill

All of these ahhh, novel and imaginative schemes not withstanding, the President has the power to order these unclassified, or remain classified under whatever conditions he deems in the public interest.

Maybe there is no genuine security implications to the release. Trump has shown himself to be fairly proficient at wading through bullshit to get to the nub of the issues. He should get the justifications from FBI/DOJ, review those with his own staff of advisors, including WH counsel, and decide what can be done.

My understanding is that the Gang of Eight is entitled to see everything the President sees. The Gang of Eight right now is McConnell, Schumer, Ryan, Pelosi, Nunes, Schiff, Burr and Warner.

So where is the hang up?

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
All of these ahhh, novel and imaginative schemes not withstanding, the President has the power to order these unclassified, or remain classified under whatever conditions he deems in the public interest.

Maybe there is no genuine security implications to the release. Trump has shown himself to be fairly proficient at wading through bullshit to get to the nub of the issues. He should get the justifications from FBI/DOJ, review those with his own staff of advisors, including WH counsel, and decide what can be done.

My understanding is that the Gang of Eight is entitled to see everything the President sees. The Gang of Eight right now is McConnell, Schumer, Ryan, Pelosi, Nunes, Schiff, Burr and Warner.

So where is the hang up?

Time? I can't imagine that DJT has a lot of it to just wade through the metric shit tons of info/evidence that should be a little more free flowing to those that are entitled to see it. Sure, he could do de-class what he sees, but he can also just ask folks to do their jobs without being dicks.

I personally like the idea of tightening the purse strings until there is compliance. Kinda like when a kid throws a shit fit and doesn't want to do their chores. FINE....No allowance and while we're at it hand over the cell phone there little Timmy. I pay for that sumbitch.

Watch how quick those fucking chores get done!

Paul Sperry has published this story multiple times. One of those : "Big deal, if true"

IG Horowitz's public testimony has added some credibility because he said there is a highly classified issue about Loretta Lynch and Renteria.

Note the article points out some shady relationships with Diane Feinstein who is obstructing Senator Grassley.

https://www.realclearinvestiga..._loretta_lynch_.html

The FBI had little problem leaking “unverified" dirt from Russian sources on Donald Trump and his campaign aides – and even basing FISA wiretaps on it. But according to the Justice Department’s inspector general, the bureau is refusing to allow even members of Congress with top security clearance to see intercepted material alleging political interference by President Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch.

That material – which has been outlined in press reports – consists of unverified accounts intercepted from putative Russian sources in which the head of the Democratic National Committee allegedly implicates the Hillary Clinton campaign and Lynch in a secret deal to fix the Clinton email investigation.

Lynch and Clinton officials as well as the DNC chairman at the time, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, have denied the allegations and characterized them as Russian disinformation.

True or false, the material is consequential because it appears to have influenced former FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to break with bureau protocols because he didn’t trust Lynch. In his recent book, Comey said he took the reins in the Clinton email probe, announcing Clinton should not be indicted, because of a “development still unknown to the American public” that “cast serious doubt” on Lynch’s credibility – clearly the intercepted material.

The information remains so secret that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz had to censor it from his recently released 500-plus-page report on the FBI’s investigation of Clinton, and even withhold it from Congress.

The contents of the secret intelligence document — which purport to show that Lynch informed the Clinton campaign she’d make sure the FBI didn't push too hard — were included in the inspector general’s original draft . But in the official IG report issued June 14, the information was tucked into a classified appendix to the report and entirely blanked out.

“The information was classified at such a high level by the intelligence community that it limited even the members [of Congress] who can see it, as well as the staffs,” Horowitz explained last week to annoyed Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight authority over Justice and the FBI.

He said he has asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to work with the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to determine if the material can be rewritten to allow congressional oversight. Once the material is appropriately redacted, including protecting alleged “sources and methods,” Horowitz said, he hopes members can then go to the “tank,” or secure reading room in the basement of the Capitol Building, and read it.

Congressional sources told RealClearInvestigations the material is classified "TS/SCI," which stands for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information.

Such security precautions were not taken with the Steele dossier, which alleges corruption within the Trump campaign. Although the FBI and CIA used it as both an investigative and intelligence resource, its contents were readily shared with Congress and widely leaked to the media.

The DOJ and FBI have not publicly commented on the authenticity of the material. No one has explained why Comey believed it to be serious enough to cut Lynch out of the decision loop.

What is known, based on press leaks and a letter Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent Lynch, is that in March 2016, the FBI received a batch of hacked documents from U.S. intelligence agencies that had access to stolen emails stored on Russian networks. One of the intercepted documents revealed an alleged email from then-DNC Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz to an operative working for billionaire Democratic fundraiser George Soros. It claimed Lynch had assured the Clinton campaign that investigators and prosecutors would go easy on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee regarding her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. Lynch allegedly made the promise directly to Clinton political director Amanda Renteria.

The FBI apparently took the document seriously but never interviewed anyone named in it until Clinton’s case was closed by Comey in July 2016. The next month, the FBI quizzed Lynch informally about the allegations. Comey reportedly also confronted the attorney general with the sensitive document and was told to leave her office after getting a frosty reception. No other parties mentioned in the document have been interviewed by the FBI.

Renteria, the Clinton campaign official, who ran for governor of California but failed to secure a top-two spot in the primary, insists the intelligence citing her was disinformation created by Russian officials to dupe Americans and create discord and turmoil during the election.

Lynch, for her part, has never been asked directly and under oath by Congress about the allegation in the document. But in a July 2016 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, she swore, “I have not spoken to anyone on either the [Clinton] campaign or transition or any staff members affiliated with them.”

On Thursday, Grassley announced he wants to subpoena Lynch to testify before his committee about her role in the Clinton email probe. But he said he has to first convince the top Democrat on the panel, Dianne Feinstein, who seems disinclined to support issuing a subpoena. “The ranking member refused to agree to compel” Lynch to testify, Grassley said in a statement earlier in the week.

Under Judiciary Committee rules, the chairman and the ranking member must both agree on the use of subpoenas.

Hill sources say Feinstein’s reluctance may owe to her close relationship with one of Lynch’s top aides at the Justice Department. During the 2016 campaign, Paige Herwig served as counselor to the attorney general, and after Lynch left the department in January 2017, Herwig became Feinstein’s deputy general counsel. Herwig is now working with Clinton’s former press secretary on a campaign to oppose Trump’s judicial nominees.

Feinstein is also close to Renteria, who worked as a Feinstein staffer last decade.

If the senate committee cannot subpoena her due to democratic obstruction, could the house committee do it and interview her over in that chamber?

Good grief. POTUS has to be aware of how much bullshit the American people are putting up with regarding this scandal.

There's got to be a reason he's only yapping about it on Twitter.

This is a pretty wild story, but the author is John Solomon from "The Hill". He has a solid track record

http://thehill.com/opinion/whi...ileaks-immunity-deal

How Comey intervened to kill WikiLeaks' immunity deal

One of the more devastating intelligence leaks in American history — the unmasking of the CIA’s arsenal of cyber warfare weapons last year — has an untold prelude worthy of a spy novel.

Some of the characters are household names, thanks to the Russia scandal: James Comey, fired FBI director. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr. Julian Assange, grand master of WikiLeaks. And American attorney Adam Waldman, who has a Forrest Gump-like penchant for showing up in major cases of intrigue.


Each played a role in the early days of the Trump administration to try to get Assange to agree to “risk mitigation” — essentially, limiting some classified CIA information he might release in the future.

The effort resulted in the drafting of a limited immunity deal that might have temporarily freed the WikiLeaks founder from a London embassy where he has been exiled for years, according to interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate investigators.

But an unexpected intervention by Comey — relayed through Warner — soured the negotiations, multiple sources tell me. Assange eventually unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare capabilities for a long time to come.

This yarn begins in January 2017 when Assange’s legal team approached Waldman — known for his government connections — to see if the new Trump administration would negotiate with the WikiLeaks founder, holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy. They hoped Waldman, a former Clinton Justice Department official, might navigate the U.S. law enforcement bureaucracy and find the right people to engage.

Waldman had helped Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to assist the FBI from 2009 to 2011 in searching for a retired FBI agent captured in Iran; the FBI rewarded Deripaska by granting him entry to the United States after years of being banned.

Assange had a bargaining chip: The U.S. government knew he had a massive trove of documents from classified CIA computers, identifying sensitive assets and chronicling the agency’s offensive cyber warfare weapons.

Waldman contacted Ohr, a Justice official he’d met during the Russia election case.

Ohr consulted his chain of command and the intelligence community about what appeared to be an extraordinary overture that raised hopes the government could negotiate what Assange would release and what he might redact, to protect the names of exposed U.S. officials.

Assange made clear through the lawyer that he would never compromise his sources, or stop publishing information, but was willing to consider concessions like redactions.

Although the intelligence community reviled Assange for the damage his past releases caused, officials “understood any visibility into his thinking, any opportunity to negotiate any redactions, was in the national security interest and worth taking,” says a senior official involved at the time.

“Subject to adequate and binding protections, including but not limited to an acceptable immunity and safe passage agreement, Mr. Assange welcomes the opportunity to discuss with the U.S. government risk mitigation approaches relating to CIA documents in WikiLeaks’ possession or control, such as the redaction of agency personnel in hostile jurisdictions and foreign espionage risks to WikiLeaks staff,” Waldman wrote Laufman on March 28, 2017.

Not included in the written proffer was an additional offer from Assange: He was willing to discuss technical evidence ruling out certain parties in the controversial leak of Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election. The U.S. government believes those emails were hacked by Russia; Assange insists they did not come from Moscow.

“Mr. Assange offered to provide technical evidence and discussion regarding who did not engage in the DNC releases,” Waldman told me. “Finally, he offered his technical expertise to the U.S. government to help address what he perceived as clear flaws in security systems that led to the loss of the U.S. cyber weapons program.”

Just a few days after the negotiations opened in mid-February, Waldman reached out to Sen. Warner; the lawyer wanted to see if Senate Intelligence Committee staff wanted any contact with Assange, to ask about Russia or other issues.

Warner engaged with Waldman over encrypted text messages, then reached out to Comey. A few days later, Warner contacted Waldman with an unexpected plea.

“He told me he had just talked with Comey and that, while the government was appreciative of my efforts, my instructions were to stand down, to end the discussions with Assange,” Waldman told me. Waldman offered contemporaneous documents to show he memorialized Warner’s exact words.

Waldman couldn’t believe a U.S. senator and the FBI chief were sending a different signal, so he went back to Laufman, who assured him the negotiations were still on. “What Laufman said to me after he heard I was told to ‘stand down’ by Warner and Comey was, ‘That’s bullshit. You are not standing down and neither am I,’” Waldman recalled.

A source familiar with Warner’s interactions says the senator’s contact on the Assange matter was limited and was shared with Senate Intelligence chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). But the source acknowledges that Warner consulted Comey and passed along the “stand down” instructions to Waldman: “That did happen.”

Multiple sources tell me the FBI’s counterintelligence team was aware and engaged in the Justice Department’s strategy but could not explain what motivated Comey to send a different message around the negotiations through Warner. A lawyer for Comey did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

While the negotiations survived the Warner-Comey intervention, the episode sowed distrust in Assange’s camp.

“The constructive, principled discussions with DOJ that occurred over nearly two months were complicated by the confusing ‘stand down’ message,” Waldman recalled.

On April 7, 2017, Assange released documents with the specifics of some of the CIA malware used for cyber attacks. It had immediate impact: A furious U.S. government backed out of the negotiations, and then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo slammed WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service.”

Soon, the rare opportunity to engage Assange in a dialogue over redactions, a more responsible way to release information, and how the infamous DNC hacks occurred was lost — likely forever.

Why Did DOJ And FBI Ignore Lack Of Evidence For Russiagate? They Fell In Love With Their Source

http://thefederalist.com/2018/...te-fell-love-source/

The FBI fell in love with their source. The information Christopher Steele was providing so perfectly fit into a narrative of collusion and conspiracy by the Republican presidential candidate and his staff that it was impossible to ignore, and almost too good to check. They tried to check it—desperately, I would guess—yet, according to those who have read the four separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) packets on Carter Page, they were never able to verify the information he provided.

There are two paths available when facing this situation. You can either dump your source and alert the intelligence community of your inability to verify the source’s information, or you can ignore the flashing red lights and rationalize the inconsistencies.

This information made sense, after all. It was explosive, it was sensational, and it was damning. If it was true, the ramifications—to the election, to the Trump team, to the nation, and to the FBI—were mind-boggling. To again paraphrase Deputy Assistant Director Strzok, we’re talking impeachment here.

U.S. agencies chose the second path. The FBI and DoJ decided that their “love” for their source overcame their inability to validate his information, so they decided that vouching for the source would supersede their responsibility (and inability) to verify the information. “We couldn’t independently validate the information, but we can represent to you with confidence that our source has been, and is, credible. We therefore are certifying that the information in that dossier is credible.”

the source here is a man who makes a lot of money selling information

this never ends well. Those lights flash for a reason. Steele’s denial of interactions with the media; freely expressed hatred for the target of the dossier; admitted inclusion of unsolicited and uncorroborated information in the dossier; the prevalence of easily debunked allegations—professional intelligence collectors ignore flashing lights like these at their peril.

In this case, they ignored them at the peril of Page

According to every FISA expert available to our cable news networks, the FBI was obligated to provide only corroborated, validated information to the FISA court in seeking a probable cause ruling that this American citizen was an agent of a foreign power.

The FBI succeeded in obtaining that ruling—four times—using, as a central part of their case, the uncorroborated information provided by a source with whom they were deeply, hopelessly in love

They wanted the judge to love him as much as they did, so they hid those warts and imperfections from the court.

the FBI chose to focus on Steele’s good side—the side that supported their suspicion that Trump and his associates were deeply involved in collusive relationships with Russian intelligence agents. They also hid his bad side—the side that would provoke a suitably informed judge contemplating secret action against an American citizen to ask more questions, or demand more proof, before granting the warrant to spy on Page.

I still think that Steele dossier is more like third rate gossip, hardly meriting the term “intelligence.”

Would anyone with Intel experience, humint especially, be willing to say that it is typical, first rate, plausible info, what you get all the time in that line?

I think Steele and Fusion GPS were both very unhappy that the full dossier got published.

Probably some at the FBI were not happy either.

As long as just snips came out, the general public couldn't see how obviously shaky the product was.

I repeat it a lot, because it is so important:

Adam Schiff revealed that only the dossier part about Carter Page was presented to the FISA court.

So the FISA judge didn't see the pee tape part, the Trump working w the Russians for over 5 years part, Cohen paying off the Russian hackers, Trump campaign infiltrating the DNC, etc etc.

The full blown dossier would have (or should have) triggered dozens of questions from the judge. But all that was never presented to the judge (per Adam Schiff).

Then when Comey briefed Donald Trump in January 2017, the only part Comey talked about was the pee tape. Comey sand bagged Donald Trump. Comey didn't tell him there was a counterintel op going on investigating collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. Even Donald Trump personally.

The person who is most often identified as the one who gave Buzzfeed the complete dossier is the John McCain aide David Kramer.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Would anyone with Intel experience, humint especially, be willing to say that it is typical, first rate, plausible info, what you get all the time in that line?

Although I haven’t bothered to read the “dossier” in any depth, intelligence analysts do have an obligation to evaluate to the best of their ability the validity of any information they receive from any source. There is a rating scale for intelligence information that has been around for at least 50 years, and the usual practice for the collectors and analysts of such information is to assign a rating to anything that’s received before passing it on for possible action.

According to Wikipedia, these are the military intelligence rating scales, and although they differ somewhat from what I remember the criteria being long ago, they are probably current.

Source Reliability

A - Reliable: No doubt about the source’s authenticity, trustworthiness, or competency. History of complete reliability.
B - Usually reliable: Minor doubts. History of mostly valid information.
C - Fairly reliable: Doubts. Provided valid information in the past.
D - Not usually reliable: Significant doubts. Provided valid information in the past.
E - Unreliable: Lacks authenticity, trustworthiness, and competency. History of invalid information.
F - Cannot be judged: Insufficient information to evaluate reliability. May or may not be reliable.

Information Reliability

1 - Confirmed: Logical, consistent with other relevant information, confirmed by independent sources.
2 - Probably true: Logical, consistent with other relevant information, not confirmed.
3 - Possibly true: Reasonably logical, agrees with some relevant information, not confirmed.
4 - Doubtfully true: Not logical but possible, no other information on the subject, not confirmed.
5 - Improbable: Not logical, contradicted by other relevant information.
6 - Cannot be judged: The validity of the information can not be determined.

As I say, I haven’t looked at the dossier in much detail, but based on what little I do know, I would rate the source of the information as “F” (unknown reliability) or B or C if it was decided that a former MI6 officer would surely not lie about such thing.

As for the information itself, though, I’d have to be ready to believe some pretty outrageous things to rate it better than 4, “doubtfully true.” When I was involved in such things, it was common for people to refer to the worst possible information as “F6,” but in fact it should be E5.

The first question anyone who received such a dossier should have been asking himself and the source is, “How do you know this?” Without a good, solid answer, the rating of both the source and the information should drop significantly. In my long ago experience, very little information rated lower than 2 was passed up the chain.

I don’t know, however, what sort of rating standards, if any other than a desire to believe, the FBI uses. As the song goes, “A man hears [believes] what he wants to hear [believe], and disregards the rest.”