I hope Gen. Flynn escapes this persecution by ordinary legal procedures. But if not, I have no doubt that President Trump will pardon him when, and if, Mueller decides to terminate his witch hunt. Maybe Barr can help Mueller make that decision.

Flynn was only officially in the National Security Advisor position for 4 days when the FBI sprung their "interview". He probably had a lot going on and was very busy.

Given the FBI did everything they could to make him relaxed, I think it is more easy to see how they trapped him. We'll know more if we ever see the 302.

At the time of the first interview, the Trump administration did not know there was an intense FBI investigation going on to frame Donald Trump, his campaign, and anyone associated with his administration. They all had bull's-eyes painted on them, but they didn't know it.

When Comey briefed Trump in January 2016, he only talked about the sex tape part of the dossier. Comey did NOT tell Donald Trump about all the other dossier claims.

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Different topic

This is another frustrating report from the OIG. It just came out.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...ok-and-page-n2537436

The Department of Justice Inspector a General released a report Thursday showing thousands of text messages sent by fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page were not properly preserved and presented a “gap” in investigating their misconduct at the Bureau.

BUT the report released to the public does not have the actual texts

"The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General initiated this investigation upon being notified of a gap in text message data collection during the period December 15, 2016 through May 17, 2017, from Federal Bureau of Investigation mobile devices assigned to FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page relevant to a matter being investigated by the OIG's Oversight and Review Division. Specifically, the OIG's Cyber Investigations Office was asked to attempt recovery of these missing text message for the referenced period from FBI issued mobile devices issued to Strzok and Page," the report states. "In view of the content of many of the text messages between Strzok and Page, the OIG also asked the Special Counsel's Office to provide the OIG the DOJ issues iPhones that had been assigned to Strzok and Page during their respective assignments to the SCO."

After a number of steps by the OIG, "was the recovery of thousands of text messages within the period of the missing text messages, December 15, 2016 through May 17, 2017, as well as hundreds of other text messages outside the gap period that had not been produced by the FBI due to technical problems with its text message collection tool."

The time period in question is after the 2016 presidential election and up to the appointment of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel. Page worked on the Special Counsel investigation until July 2017 and used the same phone during that time period. The same goes for Strzok, who also worked for Mueller and had the same phone. When Page and Strzok left the Special Counsel, their phones were wiped by Special Counsel Records Officer. DOJ maintains this was simply standard procedure in order to give the device to another user.

The OIG did not produce the content of the text messages in its report.

"The OIG forensically recovered thousands of text messages from FBI mobile devices issued to Strzok and Page through its multiple extraction efforts. Approximately 9,311 text messages were recovered from Strzok's S5 [Samsung]," the report states. "Approximately 10,760 text messages were recovered from Page's S5."

Report:

https://oig.justice.gov/report...18/i-2018-003523.pdf


adding: this is a confusing report. Will take some time to digest. Not sure how useful this report will be

adding: some of this report was previously reported by the OIG

The report describes how the IG team inspected phones from Strzok and Page. There was originally a gap in the messages from Dec 2016 to May 2017.

The IG recovered the following numbers of messages from that period thru detailed analysis by multiple activities:

9311 texts on Strzok phone (8358 were from/to Lisa Page)

10760 texts on Page's phone (9717 were from/to Strzok)

The IG concluded that the lost messages were not because of any tampering.

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

Call me paranoid, but this makes me ill

Saw this on Techno Fog's site

Comey sent Strzok and another agent to entrap Flynn on 24 Jan 2017.

Andrew McCabe is known to have planted news articles.

Here is a Washington Post article from 23 Jan 2017 (the day before the Flynn interview)

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.35b8c8adffdb

FBI reviewed Flynn’s calls with Russian ambassador but found nothing illicit

The FBI in late December reviewed intercepts of communications between the Russian ambassador to the United States and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn — national security adviser to then-President-elect Trump — but has not found any evidence of wrongdoing or illicit ties to the Russian government, U.S. officials said.

The calls were picked up as part of routine electronic surveillance of Russian officials and agents in the United States, which is one of the FBI’s responsibilities, according to the U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss counterintelligence operations.

Nonetheless, the fact that communications by a senior member of Trump’s national security team have been under scrutiny points up the challenge facing the intelligence community as it continues its wide-ranging probe of Russian government influence in the U.S. election and whether there was any improper back-channel contacts between Moscow and Trump associates and acquaintances.

Although Flynn’s contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were listened to, Flynn himself is not the active target of an investigation, U.S. officials said. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that U.S. counterintelligence agents had investigated the communications between Flynn and Kislyak.

Of particular note was a Dec. 29 telephone conversation, initiated in an exchange of text messages the day before. Trump officials previously had said the call took place on the 28th. On the 29th, the Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia and expelled 35 officials from the Russian Embassy in response to what the U.S. intelligence community has said was interference in the presidential election on Trump’s behalf.

Earlier this month and on Monday, during his first official White House news conference, press secretary Sean Spicer said that the call covered several subjects. They included a Russian invitation to the Trump administration to take part in Russian-sponsored Syrian peace talks that began Monday in Kazakhstan. The men also talked about logistics for a post-inauguration call between Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

Flynn also conveyed condolences for a Russian plane crash that killed a famed military band the day before the call, said Spicer, who said that Kislyak initiated the call after he and Flynn exchanged holiday greetings by text. Spicer also said Monday that the two had followed up with a subsequent call “two days ago . . . three days ago” to further discuss a Trump-Putin call.

In remarks when the Dec. 28 call was first reported this month, Spicer and other officials said there had been no mention of the sanctions that were announced the next day. On Monday, he said he was unaware of any other conversations between Flynn and members of the Russian government. Spicer said he asked Flynn if there had been conversations with any other Russian officials “beyond the ambassador. He said no.”

Earlier news media reports had also cited a Flynn call to Kislyak on Dec. 19 to express condolences for the terrorist killing of the Russian ambassador to Turkey that day.

Although Flynn has written critically about Russia, he also was paid to deliver a speech at a 2015 Moscow gala for RT, the Kremlin-sponsored international television station, at which he was seated next to Putin.

The FBI’s counterintelligence agents listen to calls all the time that do not pertain to any open investigation, current and former law enforcement officials said. Often, said one former official, “they’re just monitoring the other [foreign official] side of the call.”

Both Flynn, a former head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency, and Kislyak, a seasoned diplomat, are probably aware that Kislyak’s phone calls and texts are being monitored, current and former officials said. That would make it highly unlikely, the individuals said, that the men would allow their calls to be conduits of illegal coordination.


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"they wanted Flynn to be relaxed"

quote:

The report describes how the IG team inspected phones from Strzok and Page. There was originally a gap in the messages from Dec 2016 to May 2017.

The IG recovered the following numbers of messages from that period thru detailed analysis by multiple activities:

9311 texts on Strzok phone (8358 were from/to Lisa Page)

10760 texts on Page's phone (9717 were from/to Strzok)

01 Dec 2016 to 31 May 2017 = 181 days.
8358 texts/181 days = 46 texts/day
9717 texts/181 = 53 texts/day

How did these two have any time for actual work if they were texting each other that much?

quote:

How did these two have any time for actual work if they were texting each other that much?

Weren't both these assholes married? I bet they did all that texting while "working" WTF!

quote:

Originally posted by Sigforall:

quote:

How did these two have any time for actual work if they were texting each other that much?

Weren't both these assholes married? I bet they did all that texting while "working" WTF!

I'm guessing many of these texts were sexually explicit and some picture texts no doubt between these two. Would not want to read or see either.
But anything relating to Trump and nefarious political meddling needs to be public.

Any inappropriate text violating FBI rules or involving illegal activity, conspiring against a Presidential candidate or a sitting President should be made public knowledge.

The public should know if they were sexting each other on FBI phones.

Why should they be treated any differently than any other FBI agent, to the extent they should be held more accountable due to their positions at the FBI.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
Any inappropriate text violating FBI rules or involving illegal activity, conspiring against a Presidential candidate or a sitting President should be made public knowledge.

The public should know if they were sexting each other on FBI phones.

Why should they be treated any differently than any other FBI agent, to the extent they should be held more accountable due to their positions at the FBI.

I read an article yesterday saying two iPhones assigned to them were found factory reset and wiped completely clean. A third phone, assigned to Page, has yet to be located. How convenient...

Mark Meadows had said John Huber was going to give his committee an update.

Didn't happen

Huber's spokeswoman, Melodie Rydalch, confirmed that Huber wouldn't testify.

“Consistent with conversations between the department and the committee, Mr. Huber will not appear at the hearing,” she said.

So the mysterious Huber remains mysterious even to congress

quote:

So the mysterious Huber remains mysterious even to congress

He's warm and snug in his swamp dwelling.

quote:

So the mysterious Huber remains mysterious even to congress

LOL. Ok, it would be funny if it wasn't so true.
No real oversight.
This "mysterious Huber" was Sessions answer to why there was no investigation of Hillary. No second "special counsel" other than the rabid partisan Mueller witch-hunt. Hillary is the true witch. Let's hunt her.

Having drifted sometimes from the "dossier" that started the thread, how well have the dossier claims stood up ?

FBI and DoJ endlessly proclaim the dossier did not initiate the counterintelligence investigation or Mueller probe. I wonder why?

Comey has said the dossier is unverified.


The dossier said the conspiracy was managed by Manafort until he was fired from the campaign. Manafort has been charged w a lot of stuff, but nothing that says he managed any mythical conspiracy.

Is there anyone in the world more investigated than Paul Manafort? (maybe Donald Trump)

The dossier said Manafort used Carter Page as an intermediary.

Page said he never met Manafort.

The dossier also said:

- Carter Page conceived and promoted the idea of leaking DNC emails to swing Bernie Sanders supporters away from Clinton

- Page had secret meetings in Moscow

After being scrutinized for over a year by the most intense counterintelligence tools available, Carter Page has not been charged w anything.

The dossier said Michael Cohen was brought in to clean up the Manafort and Page “mess”

and that Cohen, and 3 colleagues, met w Russians in Prague

Cohen also has been put through an intense investigation. No charges related to Prague. Cohen still maintains he saw no Russian collusion w the Trump campaign.

The dossier identified a number of Russians, by name, who participated in the conspiracy. None of those named were charged by Mueller.

Several of them are suing Christopher Steele and Buzzfeed. Steele has battled to keep those proceedings sealed. Although from what little has been released, Steele has acknowledged the dossier was not verified by him in any way. He was just passing along what some unnamed sources were told by other unnamed sources.

But Steele passed the dossier information to the FBI, Bruce Ohr, the State Dept, UK Intelligence, Wash Post, Yahoo News, New Yorker, NYT, CNN, Mother Jones, and John McCain.

Mueller's team interviewed Steele. No charges of lying to the FBI. hmmmm Would like to see that 302

Michael Cohen filed a $100 mil lawsuit against Steele, but he dropped it when he got crushed by Mueller. That was too bad because such a lawsuit might have revealed a lot.

More on Flynn

Stranger and stranger

I have a sense there is a big piece of the puzzle that is not on the table so I am not going to try to draw conclusions, just post what is being reported.

This post is based on a CTH report:

https://theconservativetreehou...w-notes/#more-157756

From that report, here is the Mueller response to Judge Sullivan who requested more info about the 24 Jan 2017 Flynn interview by agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka

https://www.scribd.com/documen...st-for-FBI-302-Notes

CTH notes that Mueller (at least in this formal response) did not provide the original 302 from Jan 2017. What is in the Mueller response is a 302 interview from July 2017. It is an interview of special counsel reps with Peter Strzok.

Perhaps the Jan 2017 302 was provided separately, but if not, that is a big deal.

From the July 2017 302 w Strzok:

- Strzok and Pientka got access to the WH with the assistance of an FBI WH detailee (?)

- Strzok asked questions, Pientka took notes

- Both FBI agents had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying (that is in conflict w recent Comey statements)

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The special counsel filing says that "nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements"

That is lawyer speak where it is technically true, but incredibly misleading.

Strzok came to the Mueller team in mid July 2017 and was fired from the team in late July 2017. (exact dates are hard to come by)

The 302 interview w Strzok was conducted on 19 July 2017. The date of the 302 write up is 22 Aug 2017.

Note 22 Aug 2017 is after Strzok was fired from Mueller team because DoJ IG told Mueller of the Strzok/Page texts.

This is all very confusing.

If Mueller didn't provide the original Jan 2017 "302" write up on the Flynn interview, this smells really bad.

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adding: Joe Pietnka's name is not in the Mueller filing. He was identified as the "other" agent interviewing Flynn. I think Sen Grassley was the first one to publicly identify Pientka. Grassley has been asking for the original 302 for a long time.

quote:

Grassley has been asking for the original 302 for a long time.

Congress created the FBI. Congress can end it.
It's up to Congress whether the FBI gets a nickel of funding for 2019. Why do they act like they have no power over the FBI?
Congress is our elected law making body. Why do agencies of the Federal government believe they can thwart the law making body? Yes, the day-to-day administration of the law is turned over to the executive branch, but they are still accountable to the law making body? Are they not?

From a Mar 2018 ltr from Sen Grassley to Rosenstein

Mueller Team Scrubbed Peter Strzok’s Texts Before Giving Phone to Inspector General

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...o-inspector-general/

The Office of the Special Counsel deleted text messages from the iPhone of fired FBI agent Peter Strzok before turning it over to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG), according to a report released by the federal watchdog.

On Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report stating thousands of text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page could not be recovered after Mueller’s team wiped clean the phones it had issued them.

“SCO’s Records Officer told the OIG that as part of the office’s records retention procedure, the officer reviewed Strzok’s DOJ issued iPhone after he returned it to the SCO and determined it contained no substantive text messages,” the watchdog report reads. As Conservative Review national security reporter Jordan Schachtel first discovered, the OIG said Strzok’s cell phone was “reset to factory settings,” deleting all data stored on the device.

The federal watchdog said in the report it found “no discernible patterns” about the content of thousands of messages the FBI was able to recover between Strzok and Page. Both have been part of Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Strzok and Page testified before Congress this summer, and the former FBI agent admitted that he had not turned over all of his communications with Page to the Inspector General from his personal phone, even though their recovered conversations showed the two suggesting they move to apps like iMessage or Gmail. Strzok told outgoing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) that it is a “safe assumption” that he sent messages to Page from his personal phone that were similar in nature to the widely-publicized messages attacking Trump supporters. He told House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that he himself determined which messages on that phone were “relevant to FBI business” that the Inspector General could review.

At that time of their exchanges, the FBI was investigating whether former secretary of state and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton improperly used a private email account while she was Secretary of State. Strzok, a senior counterintelligence agent, was assigned to the case, as was Page. Reports claimed the two were romantically involved during this time. Strzok was ultimately fired after anti-Trump text messages between him and Page were discovered by the special counsel.

Thursday’s report said the FBI used special software to collect more than 20,000 text messages from the pair’s phones, but not all were sent between Strzok and Page. Investigators have already released some of the controversial texts, including a message from Strzok saying he would “stop” President Donald Trump from winning the election.

Missing text messages from the pair’s iPhones, though, continue to elude the FBI.

Early this year, the Office of the Inspector General contacted Verizon Wireless to determine if the carrier retains old text messages. Verizon said messages are retained for up to seven days after they are sent, and then erased. The missing messages in question were much older than a week by that time and Verizon no longer had them.

So at this point, we really need a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Special Prosecutor. Lets see what we have so far; willful destruction of evidence, willful hiding of exculpatory evidence, fabricated evidence, news leaks, witness intimidation, etc. (probably a few others I left out).

Thursday night, award winning journalist John Solomon revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has a document with exculpatory information that would exonerate Gen. Flynn – yet they are refusing to release it!

“Let me say this about Mike Flynn. In May 2017 there was a document identified to a small number of people in the United State government. It’s in the possession of the Defense Intelligence Agency. For 18 months there’s been an effort to resist declassifying that document,” Solomon said. “I know that that document contains extraordinary exculpatory information about General Flynn. I don’t believe the president has ever been told about this document. One lawmaker discovered it but he was thwarted by the Defense Intelligence Agency in his ability to disclose it. I think we all should ask for that declassification! Get that out. It may enlighten the judge!”

In August of 2017, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Director Vincent R. Stewart asking for the declassification of a document related to General Flynn.



https://www.judiciary.senate.g...0Flynn%20letter).pdf

https://www.thegatewaypundit.c...exonerate-gen-flynn/

In response to a FOIA, the FBI has released the 2 pages of notes that Comey used to brief Donald Trump in private (one on one) on 6 Jan 2017. Donald Trump was not sworn in as President yet.

https://www.redstate.com/eliza...mey-lied-vital-fact/


The briefing was about the Steele dossier. Comey has publicly said he only discussed the sex tape parts of the dossier.

Here is the FBI release:

https://www.politico.com/f/?id...35-adef-fff5758a0001

Almost completely redacted. All the sections labeled Top Secret or Secret. And this is supposed to be about the dossier.

The 35 page dossier that has been released to the public.

Comey said he didn't give these notes to President Trump, he just gave him a verbal brief based on the 2 pages of notes.

From the little part of the doc that is not redacted:

"The source is an executive of a private business intelligence firm and a former employee of a friendly intelligence service who has been compensated for previous reporting over the past three years. The source maintains and collects information from a layered network of identified and unidentified subsources, some of which has been corroborated in the past. The source collected this information on behalf of private clients and was not compensated for it by the FBI.

The source’s reporting appears to have been acquired by multiple Western press organizations starting in October."

This does provide another confirmation that Steele was an FBI human source "over the past three years" (2014 to 2016).

The information was collected "on behalf of private clients".

It was collected on behalf of the Clinton campaign.

The FOIA listed reasons for the redactions are:

b1 kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy

b3 specifically exempted from disclosure by statute

b7A disclosure would interfere w enforcement proceedings

b7D disclosure would reveal confidential sources

b7E disclosure would reveal investigation techniques

It is difficult to imagine what is TS today about Jan 2017 notes on the Steele dossier. (McCabe testified the only thing "verified" was that Carter Page made a trip to Moscow to give a speech)

Unfortunately this looks like another instance of the FBI keeping the public in the dark.

In the brief, Comey told President-elect Trump that the dossier had been released to news media and the media were looking for "a hook" to publish the material that was described as unverified.

Comey briefed Donald Trump on Friday 6 Jan.

CNN got their hook. Someone told CNN of the brief.

CNN came out with the story on Tuesday 10 Jan 2017. Buzzfeed published the complete dossier later on the same day (10 Jan 2017)

This was all orchestrated and coordinated.

quote:

It was collected on behalf of the Clinton campaign.

I thought Comey testified before Congress last year that he didn't know Clinton had paid for the Dossier.