Well this "spy in the Trump campaign" theme seems to be heating up.

Here is an article by Andrew McCarthy from this morning

https://www.nationalreview.com...esidential-campaign/

Did the FBI Have a Spy in the Trump Campaign?


I'll just post the first part:

"Something tells me Glenn Simpson did not make a mistake. Something tells me the co-founder of Fusion GPS was dead-on accurate when he testified that Christopher Steele told him the FBI had a “human source” — i.e., a spy — inside the Trump campaign as the 2016 presidential race headed into its stretch run.

When he realized how explosive this revelation was, Simpson walked it back: He had, perhaps, “mischaracterized” what he’d been told by Steele, the former British spy and principal author of the anti-Trump dossier he and Simpson compiled for the Clinton campaign."


good article

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Well this "spy in the Trump campaign" theme seems to be heating up.

Here is an article by Andrew McCarthy from this morning

https://www.nationalreview.com...esidential-campaign/

Did the FBI Have a Spy in the Trump Campaign?


I'll just post the first part:

"Something tells me Glenn Simpson did not make a mistake. Something tells me the co-founder of Fusion GPS was dead-on accurate when he testified that Christopher Steele told him the FBI had a “human source” — i.e., a spy — inside the Trump campaign as the 2016 presidential race headed into its stretch run.

When he realized how explosive this revelation was, Simpson walked it back: He had, perhaps, “mischaracterized” what he’d been told by Steele, the former British spy and principal author of the anti-Trump dossier he and Simpson compiled for the Clinton campaign."


good article

Excellent article. There is an earlier article on Conservative Treehouse from weeks ago where the guess was Downer, the Australian diplomat in London who talked to the drunk Papadopoulos. Now Sundance has guessed the Oxford guy, Halper. Neither of those was “in” the Trump campaign. As far as I have seen, neither were Page or Papadoplouos more than mere handshakes.

I bought a treadmill to try to lose a few pounds. As I was just having "a walk", my old memory cells activated some past events.

Perhaps this is just coincidence, but

British GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom

Three days after Donald Trump was sworn in as President, the director of GCHQ (Robert Hannigan) resigned.

"His sudden resignation – he informed staff just hours before making this decision public – prompted speculation that it might be related to British concerns over shared intelligence with the US in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president.

But the GCHQ press release stressed his decision was exclusively for family reasons. As well as his ill wife, Hannigan has two elderly parents to look after. He will remain in post until a successor is appointed."

above from:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk...obert-hannigan-quits

***************

then in Mar 2017 we had

https://www.realclearpolitics....during_campaign.html


from Andrew Napolitano of Fox

"Sources have told me that the British foreign surveillance service, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s calls. The NSA has given GCHQ full 24/7 access to its computers, so GCHQ -- a foreign intelligence agency that, like the NSA, operates outside our constitutional norms -- has the digital versions of all electronic communications made in America in 2016, including Trump’s. So by bypassing all American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted with no Obama administration fingerprints."

***************

GCHQ denied this. U.S. Intel denied it.

Napolitano was taken off the air by Fox for a while.

Maybe there is no connection to the events unfolding now. And maybe there are no dots to be connected.

But it reads a little different as we learn more about how sophisticated and wide spread this attempt was (and is) to overturn the 2016 election of President Trump.

I know this is vague but- There's another guy (in the usa) who abrubtly resigned around October or November 2016? I think he was invlovled in preparing the FISA Warrants?

It's safe to believe this story is bigger than we realize.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
I bought a treadmill to try to lose a few pounds. As I was just having "a walk", my old memory cells activated some past events.

Perhaps this is just coincidence, but

British GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom

Three days after Donald Trump was sworn in as President, the director of GCHQ (Robert Hannigan) resigned.

"His sudden resignation – he informed staff just hours before making this decision public – prompted speculation that it might be related to British concerns over shared intelligence with the US in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president.

But the GCHQ press release stressed his decision was exclusively for family reasons. As well as his ill wife, Hannigan has two elderly parents to look after. He will remain in post until a successor is appointed."

above from:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk...obert-hannigan-quits

***************

then in Mar 2017 we had

https://www.realclearpolitics....during_campaign.html


from Andrew Napolitano of Fox

"Sources have told me that the British foreign surveillance service, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s calls. The NSA has given GCHQ full 24/7 access to its computers, so GCHQ -- a foreign intelligence agency that, like the NSA, operates outside our constitutional norms -- has the digital versions of all electronic communications made in America in 2016, including Trump’s. So by bypassing all American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted with no Obama administration fingerprints."

***************

GCHQ denied this. U.S. Intel denied it.

Napolitano was taken off the air by Fox for a while.

Maybe there is no connection to the events unfolding now. And maybe there are no dots to be connected.

But it reads a little different as we learn more about how sophisticated and wide spread this attempt was (and is) to overturn the 2016 election of President Trump.

I wish I could get on a treadmill.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking. The FBI is awfully good at undercover stuff. Remember Donny Brasco? Remember putting a bug at the Ravenite Social Club, John Goti’s HQ, then in the apartment of the widow above where they went to be out of bug range? Remember bugging the mob boss’s Jaguar, in a few hours, in the rain? Remember how Brasco set up a gambling den in Florida, complete eith cameras microphones, tapes, that was raided by the locals?

The FBI had so many undercover agents in Communist Party USA, that it collapsed, of its own inertia.

What if the idea of a mole in the Trump campaign is merely a cover story, to bolster the plausibility of Simpson and Steele? The EC that they are now guarding with their lives won’t check out. That would be Embarrassing.

wouldn't this be sweet ? (yes, I am vengeful and looking for massive payback)

http://www.powerlineblog.com/a...trump-campaign-3.php

Paul Sperry (of NY Post) tweet:

DEVELOPING: A major new front is opening in the political espionage scandal.

In summer 2016, Brennan with his FBI liaison Strzok, along with help from Kerry @ State, were trying to set Russian espionage traps for minor players in the Trump campaign through cultivated intel assets

I'm still looking for the guy who suddenly resigned in 2016 but check this one out from February 8, 2018. There's too many lose threads in this debacle to keep track of.

quote:

Senior Justice Department Official Suddenly Resigns

David Laufman, an experienced federal prosecutor who in 2014 became chief of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, said farewell to colleagues Wednesday. He cited personal reasons.

He and Strzok seem to have had some kind of falling out:

Strzok seemed not to like David Laufman, the DOJ lawyer who he partnered with in interviews with Hillary, Huma, Cheryl Mills, etc. Laufman stepped down at DOJ today for personal reasons.

https://www.redstate.com/strei...al-suddenly-resigns/

brailledriver,

Are you thinking of John Carlin ?

He was DoJ Head of Nat'l Security Division

Carlin resigned 16 Oct 2016.

It has been reported that Carlin signed off on the first FISA warrant against Carter Page.

Yes Thanks. There seems to be a bunch of people deciding to retire in the heat of things.

How did Strzok happen to be at every key point and interview? Strzok interviewed Flynn too.

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:
Yes Thanks. There seems to be a bunch of people deciding to retire in the heat of things.

I found this composite list on another gun board:

quote:

Not seeking re-election.
[Senate]
Bob Corker - Republican
Jeff Flake - Republican
Orrin Hatch - Republican
No Name McCain - Republican [Departure Soon]
[House]
Bill Shuster - Republican
Bob Goodlatte - Republican
Carol Shea-Porter - Democrat
Charles W. Dent - Republican
Darrell Issa - Republican
Dave Reichert - Republican
David Trott - Republican
Dennis Ross - Republican
Edward Royce - Republican
Elizabeth Esty - Democrat
Frank LoBiondo - Republican
Gene Green - Democrat
Gregg Harper - Republican
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - Republican
Jeb Hensarling - Republican
Jim Bridenstine - Republican
Joe Barton - Republican
John Delaney - Democrat
John J. Duncan, Jr. - Republican
Lamar Smith - Republican
Luis V. Gutierrez - Democrat
Lynn Jenkins - Republican
Niki Tsongas - Democrat
Paul Ryan - Republican
Rick Nolan - Democrat
Robert Brady - Democrat
Rodney Frelinghuysen - Republican
Ruben J. Kihuen - Democrat
Ryan Costello - Republican
Sam Johnson - Republican
Sandy Levin - Democrat
Ted Poe - Republican
Thomas Rooney - Republican
Trey Gowdy - Republican
[Resigned]
Al Franken - Democratic U.S. Senate
Blake Farenthold - Republican U.S. House
Jason Chaffetz - Republican U.S. House
John Conyers, Jr. - Democrat U.S. House
Louise Slaughter - Democrat U.S. House
Patrick Meehan - Republican U.S. House
Patrick J. Tiberi - Republican U.S. House
Thad Cochran - Republican U.S. Senate
Tim Murphy - Republican U.S. House
Trent Franks - Republican U.S. House
Xavier Becerra - Democrat Attorney General of California

Goodlatte & Gowdy [important].
Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

flashguy

quote:

How did Strzok happen to be at every key point and interview?

I think it was based on his job position.

from wiki,

By July 2015, Strzok was serving as the section chief of the Counterespionage Section, a subordinate section of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.[3] He led a team of a dozen investigators during the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server

now that is interesting by itself. The Clinton email investigation was conducted by the counterespionage group

Due to his acknowledged expertise and reliability Strzok rose to the position of Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division

In that capacity, he led the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

*************

from the texts between Strzok and Page, Strzok was very interested in getting promoted. He seemed to always be weighing what positions to apply for based on moving up the chain.

The decision to go on the Mueller team was based on that it would be a big case and offered a path upward to impeach the president.

Strzok advised Lisa Page to join the Mueller team so she too could gain recognition and "glory". He told her she could then leave the FBI and get a private lawyer position at $600k or so.

Remember that Mueller and several of his key team members all came from WilmerHale law firm where they made a million dollars to 4 million per year.

I have been wondering why we haven't heard about Christopher Steele's deposition that was ordered by a London court.

The answer is that he hasn't given it yet.

There are still arguments going on about the limits of the scope of the deposition.

The background is that in the very last report in the dossier (pages 34 and 35), Steele wrote that a company owned by a man named Gubarev had stolen data and transmitted viruses against the Democratic party leadership.

Gubarev is suing Buzzfeed for releasing that information to the public. Gubarev says the claims against him are false.

Gubarev is suing Buzzfeed in Florida.

Gubarev's lawyers got a London court to order Steele to give a deposition about the dossier.

Steele's lawyers argued that since the only mention of Gubarev is in the last report, the deposition should only include questions about that report. Steele's lawyers also argued that there should be no questions about the "sources of the information".

Steele claims that identification of the sources would put their lives at risk.

sound familiar ?

The London court agreed to limit the scope of the deposition.

But now Buzzfeed wants to question Steele on the dossier as a whole. Buzzfeed lawyers will appeal to the London court today to allow broader questioning of Steele.

Steele's lawyers will oppose making the deposition more broad in scope.

Steele sure doesn't want to talk about the dossier now.

"The British government is also taking an interest in the litigation and could decide to issue an order to block Mr Steele from giving certain evidence on the ground of national security."

maybe if you want to worry about Nat'l security, you shouldn't make wild unverified claims against the President of the United States.

Here is the article on this:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art...rce-secret-v9ztv9g9k

Lawyers for Christopher Steele, a former British spy, will fight in a UK court today to protect the sources behind a dossier he compiled that alleged Kremlin links to President Trump.

A Russian businessman is suing Buzzfeed in a Florida court after he was named in the dossier, which the online news organisation published in January. It included allegations that Russia had compromising and salacious information on Mr Trump.

In March the High Court in London agreed that Mr Steele should provide a deposition to be used in the Florida defamation case. It has the power to rule on the extent of the questioning of Mr Steele, who worked for MI6 for almost 20 years. However, its ruling significantly limited the scope of the questions that could be put to him.

The request for Mr Steele to give evidence was originally made by Aleksej Gubarev, the businessman suing Buzzfeed. His lawyers wanted to ask about how Mr Steele compiled the dossier, including his “sources of information”.

Buzzfeed had originally claimed to be “neutral” about Mr Gubarev’s request to question Mr Steele. However, it had asked to be allowed to question him as well in relation to “the dossier as a whole”. Lawyers representing Buzzfeed are due to appear in the High Court today to seek leave to appeal against the ruling in March that limited the scope of the questions.

Last night an associate of the private business intelligence company that Mr Steele co-owns said that Buzzfeed’s actions were “shameful”, given that it should understand the importance of protecting sources. The associate of Orbis Business Intelligence said that Mr Steele’s lawyers would oppose the request “tooth and nail”.

The British government is also taking an interest in the litigation and could decide to issue an order to block Mr Steele from giving certain evidence on the ground of national security.

Buzzfeed said: “We believe that Mr Steele’s testimony about his work on the dossier is essential to the public’s understanding of the ongoing federal investigations into a critical document that was circulating and informing decisions at the highest level of government. We have made it clear to the UK courts that we are not seeking Mr Steele’s confidential sources.”

Mr Steele declined to speak publicly about the matter.

John Solomon from The Hill has written quite a story

Here is the link:

http://thehill.com/opinion/whi...o-a-russian-oligarch


I will try to capture a few highlights:

background (from wiki)

Russian Oleg Deripaska was once Russia's richest man, worth $28 billion, but nearly lost everything due to mounting debts amid the 2007–08 financial crisis. As of May 2017, his wealth was estimated by Forbes at $5.2 billion Deripaska is also known for his close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, as well as his connection to American political consultant Paul Manafort, whom Deripaska employed from at least 2005 to 2009

from the linked article:

In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.

Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither involve nor harm his homeland.

One agent who helped court Deripaska was Andrew McCabe

Deripaska’s lawyer said the Russian ultimately spent $25 million assembling a private search and rescue team that worked with Iranian contacts under the FBI’s watchful eye. Photos and videos indicating Levinson was alive were uncovered.

Then in fall 2010, the operation secured an offer to free Levinson. The deal was scuttled, however, when the State Department become uncomfortable with Iran’s terms, according to Deripaska’s lawyer and the Levinson family.

that would be State Dept under Hillary Clinton

“We tried to turn over every stone we could to rescue Bob, but every time we started to get close, the State Department seemed to always get in the way,” said Robyn Gritz, the retired agent who supervised the Levinson case in 2009

FBI officials ended the operation in 2011, concerned that Deripaska’s Iranian contacts couldn’t deliver with all the U.S. infighting. Levinson was never found; his whereabouts remain a mystery, 11 years after he disappeared.

“Deripaska’s efforts came very close to success,” said David McGee, a former federal prosecutor who represents Levinson’s family. “We were told at one point that the terms of Levinson’s release had been agreed to by Iran and the U.S. and included a statement by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointing a finger away from Iran. At the last minute, Secretary Clinton decided not to make the agreed-on statement.”

The FBI rewarded Deripaska for his help. In fall 2009, according to U.S. entry records, Deripaska visited Washington on a rare law enforcement parole visa. And since 2011, he has been granted entry at least eight times on a diplomatic passport, even though he doesn’t work for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Former FBI officials confirm they arranged the access.

Then, over the past two years, evidence emerged tying him to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the first defendant charged by Mueller’s Russia probe with money laundering and illegal lobbying.

Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money.

Mueller’s indictment of Manafort makes no mention of Deripaska , even though prosecutors have evidence that Manafort contemplated inviting his old Russian client for a 2016 Trump campaign briefing. Deripaska said he never got the invite and investigators have found no evidence it occurred. There’s no public evidence Deripaska had anything to do with election meddling.

Deripaska also appears to be one of the first Russians the FBI asked for help when it began investigating the now-infamous Fusion GPS “Steele Dossier.” Waldman, his American lawyer until the sanctions hit, gave me a detailed account, some of which U.S. officials confirm separately.

Two months before Trump was elected president, Deripaska was in New York as part of Russia’s United Nations delegation when three FBI agents awakened him in his home; at least one agent had worked with Deripaska on the aborted effort to rescue Levinson. During an hour-long visit, the agents posited a theory that Trump’s campaign was secretly colluding with Russia to hijack the U.S. election.

“Deripaska laughed but realized, despite the joviality, that they were serious,” the lawyer said. “So he told them in his informed opinion the idea they were proposing was false. ‘You are trying to create something out of nothing,’ he told them.”

The agents left though the FBI sought more information in 2017 from the Russian, sources tell me

as the FBI prepared to get authority to surveil figures on Trump’s campaign team, did it disclose to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that one of its past Russian sources waived them off the notion of Trump-Russia collusion?

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told me he believes Mueller has a conflict of interest because his FBI previously accepted financial help from a Russian that is, at the very least, a witness in the current probe.

“The real question becomes whether it was proper to leave [Deripaska] out of the Manafort indictment, and whether that omission was to avoid the kind of transparency that is really required by the law,” Dershowitz said.

Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted.

In the meantime, the episode highlights an oft-forgotten truism: The cat-and-mouse maneuvers between Moscow and Washington are often portrayed in black-and-white terms. But the truth is, the relationship is enveloped in many shades of gray.



video of John Solomon interview w Laura Ingraham:

https://youtu.be/P8vFRGD5g4k

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

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by braillediver:
Yes Thanks. There seems to be a bunch of people deciding to retire in the heat of things.

I found this composite list on another gun board:

quote:

Thats from Q. Lol

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

Now Devlin Nunes is talking about a "set up" of the Trump campaign.

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05...ump-campaign-set-up/

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes of California said the Trump campaign might have been set up by the federal government back in 2016.

“Let’s talk about how did this get started? You had Fusion GPS that was hired by the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign to draw up a dossier on the president — or as the president was running for president,” Nunes said Tuesday on “Fox & Friends.” “What happened with that is that in [Glen Simpson’s] testimony he mentioned that there was a source within the campaign.”

Nunes said Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS, told Congress he was being truthful about a mole within the Trump campaign and predicted the fallout would tarnish the FBI and DOJ.


“Glenn Simpson said that in what was closed testimony. Then it became public. Now he’s confirmed that he was telling Congress the truth, which is probably a good idea,” Nunes continued. “We believe he was telling the truth. And what we’re trying to do is get the documents to figure out — did they actually have, what methods were used to open this counter intelligence investigation?”

“I think if the campaign was somehow set up, I think that would be a problem. Right? If they were somehow meetings that occurred and all of this was a setup,” Nunes said. “Because we have yet to see any credible evidence or intelligence that led to the opening of this investigation.”


video at link

since Stefan Halper is getting so much chatter on the internet, here is a time line of some events being reported

How does Halper qualify as a mole within the Trump campaign organization?

For that matter, how do Papadopoulos and Page qualify as campaign aides?

"how do Papadopoulos and Page qualify as campaign aides?"

In reality they were the smallest of bit players who tried to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

But when President Trump said:

RYAN: Thank you… We’ve heard you’re going to be announcing your foreign policy team shortly… Any you can share with us?

TRUMP: Well, I hadn’t thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names… Walid Phares, who you probably know, PhD, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page , PhD; George Papadopoulos , he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy; the Honorable Joe Schmitz, [former] inspector general at the Department of Defense; [retired] Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; and I have quite a few more. But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do, but that’s a representative group.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.30f3d47c67ba

in March 2016, he painted targets on their backs for exploitation operators like Glenn Simpson, Sid Blumenthal, Cody Shearer, and as it turns out, James Comey.

******************

Stefan Halper. We don't know if the redacted name is Halper. A lot of people are guessing. Some are saying Halper tried to set up people who were in the campaign.

Note the report that Halper offered to help the campaign.

Some are viewing the entire sequence w Papadopoulos (Mifsud, Downer, Halper) as all being connected and part of the plot.

Halper appears to be connected to FBI/CIA and MI6.

The description that was leaked to the Wash Post about the "spy" fit Halper pretty well.

We need Nunes to keep pushing.

Imagine how foolish Rosenstien will look if the redacted name, that must be "protected", is Halper.

When Glenn Simpson testified to the Senate Judiciary committee, he said there was a human source within the Trump campaign to back up Steele.

When that became public, a Fusion rep said Simpson had misspoke.

But, in reality, Simpson's lawyer sent a ltr to Grassley stating Simpson stood by his testimony. It seems like people are just now becoming aware of that letter from January 2018

quote:

how do Papadopoulos and Page qualify as campaign aides?"

In reality they were the smallest of bit players who tried to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

But when President Trump said:

RYAN: Thank you… We’ve heard you’re going to be announcing your foreign policy team shortly… Any you can share with us?

TRUMP: Well, I hadn’t thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names… Walid Phares, who you probably know, PhD, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page , PhD; George Papadopoulos , he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy; the Honorable Joe Schmitz, [former] inspector general at the Department of Defense; [retired] Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; and I have quite a few more. But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do, but that’s a representative group.

IOW, somewhere between those who put a bumper sticker on their car, and those who actually had a yard sign.

What if this whole Russian collusion/FBI scandal is merely to distract from those Congressional computer workers recently fled to ME, with embezzled cash?

Why aren’t we hearing more about that incredible fiasco?

Where is the FBI investigation on that?