quote:

Originally posted by TSE:

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
It's ridiculous how these rabid anti Trumper's say the things they do privately in text messages and emails and other forms of social media about Trump and then try to claim it has no affect on their professional duties. That's humanly impossible imo. You cannot hold strong personal feeling like that then work directly against them on a daily basis. Human nature does not allow such a thing.

And it is equally doubtful these same people just accidentally fell into anti Trump investigations.

I totally believe it! They just happened to be so rabid anti-Trump as to text "viva la resistance" and far wore to co-workers but that didn't affect their professional handling of the extremely objective Clinton email investigation or the need to get FISA warrants on Russian super-spy Carter Page. Any selective editing of FISA evidence or say Flynn's 302's wasn't due to their bias, it was due to their, um, professionalism!

CTH has quite a report up about Clinesmith

The only thing that I think is a problem w the CTH post is that it says "there was no material added in the first renewal"

The original warrant was 83 pages long. The first renewal was 97 pages long. Maybe I am missing something. For the purpose of the CTH post, this is not a big deal.

The post is long and complicated. A summary that doesn't do it justice:

https://theconservativetreehou...get-him/#more-176947

There is a very strong likelihood the documentary material that FBI Lawyer Kevin Clinesmith falsified was actual communication from Carter Page to the FBI where Page was seeking their help in 2017. This revelation would explain and reconcile two seemingly contrasting points:

Point one – The media have asserted, based on leaks from the principal reviews, the woods file manipulation by Clinesmith did not impact the validity of the original FISA application on October 21st, 2017.

Point two – The material Kevin Clinesmith did manipulate was so egregious and unethical, it stands as one of the most clear examples of corrupt FBI abuse of power in recent history.
This outline will highlight a VERY disturbing picture:

Start by remembering the timeline of the Carter Page targeting through the use of a FISA application to the FISA Court (FISC). The original application was submitted on October 21st, 2016. The first FISA renewal was January 12, 2017 (84 days from origination). The second renewal was April 7, 2017 (85 days from prior renewal). The third renewal was on June 29th, 2017 (83 days from prior renewal).

...

The stunning likelihood here is that the email Kevin Clinesmith edited and falsified as part of his FISA renewal manipulation was email communication from Carter Page himself.

It is also important to note the phrase: “and his colleagues“; and then overlay what Carter Page says there with an earlier leaked explanation: “Mr. Clinesmith took an email from an official at another federal agency that contained several factual assertions, then added material to the bottom that looked like another assertion from the email’s author, when it was instead his own.”

If Clinesmith manipulated the June 29th renewal, he did so while he was part of the Mueller investigative team. According to the New York Times and Michael Horowitz: “[Clinesmith] was among the F.B.I. officials removed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after Mr. Horowitz found text messages expressing political animus against Mr. Trump.”

It is entirely possible, perhaps even most likely, the manipulation of evidence that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith created was actually falsified while Clinesmith was working for Peter Strzok, Andrew Weissmann and Robert Mueller on the special counsel team.

Again, another overlay, keep in mind that Robert Mueller asked Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to extend the scope of his investigation twice more after the original appointment of the special counsel.

That could mean Special Counsel Robert Mueller used a falsified FISA warrant after team members within the special counsel became aware the FISA warrant was falsified.

Yeah, this IG report on FISA abuses could be much more consequential than the media would currently like to admit.

Within the FBI Kevin Clinesmith was responsible for material evidence that underpinned the FISA warrant. Clinesmith then hands that material to Sally Moyer. Ms. Moyer is responsible for the legal compliance within the FBI counterintelligence operations that generated FISA applications.

Sally Moyer was FBI unit chief in the Office of General Counsel (counterintelligence legal unit within the FBI Office of General Counsel). Her assembly of the FBI material is to ensure the citations are in place to support the Woods File requirement. Then she hands it off to Main Justice, the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).

Receiving the FISA warrant application in the DOJ-NSD is Tashina Guahar, Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) in the Department of Justice National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) with responsibility over the assembly of FISA applications in Main Justice. In essence, Tashina Guahar is the working Main Justice FISA lawyer.

Shortly after IG Horowitz delivered the draft of his investigative report to AG Bill Barr last September, not only did Kevin Clinesmith leave the FBI but also Tashina Guahar quietly leaves the DOJ-NSD {Go Deep} and is reported to have taken a job with Boeing Corp.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


adding

Sarah Carter is raising an issue I have wondered about for quite a while. If the Carter Page FISA warrants are declared faulty / based on false info, what info was collected and on who.

This could potentially impact multiple prosecutions pursued by Mueller. Wouldn't that be a mess to deal with.

https://thefederalist.com/2019...onfidential-sources/



Last week, the leaks began in anticipation of the expected early-December release of the inspector general report on the propriety of the Carter Page Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance order. CNN broke news on Thursday that “a former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document” related to the 2016 FISA applications.

The press and public are understandably consumed with this news—which is huge if true—but while speculating on that forthcoming report, the media has ignored several significant revelations already detailed in the report Inspector General Michael Horowitz released last week.

That report, issued on Tuesday, summarized the results of the inspector general’s audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Confidential Human Source (CHS) validation processes. While the media reported the main takeaways summarized in the IG’s press release—that the FBI did not comply with attorney general guidelines and that the current process for validating these sources lacked adequate controls—there were four potential blockbusters buried in the 63-page report.
Burying Evidence to Keep It from the Courts

The most startling revelation in the audit concerned how the FBI handles problems with a CHS’s credibility or accuracy. The report first noted that “validation documents relevant to the credibility of a CHS may be discoverable in judicial proceedings,” explaining that:

Discovery in criminal cases is controlled by case law and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. For example, information in the validation report which refers to the CHS’s motivation or vulnerabilities may be discoverable pursuant to Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) or Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972). ‘Brady’ refers to information known to the government that is material to a criminal case and could tend to exculpate the defendant. ‘Giglio’ refers to information that could be used to impeach a witness for the prosecution.

Then the IG detailed that its investigation revealed several troubling steps the FBI took to avoid the mandates of Brady and Giglio.

We were told by multiple Intelligence Analysts that they received guidance to only state the facts and not to conduct analysis, report conclusions, and make recommendations in the Significant Source Review Panel validation reports. For example, one Intelligence Analyst told us that he was permitted to recommend a CHS receive a polygraph or operational test to the handling agent by phone but not permitted to document the recommendation in the CHS’s validation report. Additionally, multiple FBI officials told us that they believe that field offices do not want negative information documented in a CHS file due to criminal discovery concerns and concerns about the CHS’s ability to testify. For example, one FBI official told us that some U.S. Attorney’s offices will not use a CHS at trial if there is negative documentation in the CHS’s file.

These admissions should outrage Americans: The FBI is intentionally failing to document confidential sources’ credibility and reliability problems so defense attorneys do not learn of them! Or, as the IG report concluded, “by withholding potentially critical information from validation reports, the FBI runs the risks that (1) prosecutors may not have complete and reliable information when a CHS serves as a witness and, thus, may have difficulties complying with their discovery obligations.”

Leslie McAdoo Gordon, a D.C.-based criminal defense attorney and principal at McAdoo Gordon and Associates, branded the FBI’s failure to document issues in a CHS’s validation report a form of evidence tampering. “This ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them’ attitude is cultural,” McAdoo Gordon told The Federalist. “Like all cultural problems, this is caused by a failure of leadership.”

McAdoo Gordon added that “the integrity of our criminal justice system is seriously damaged when investigations are grounded on information that is biased or dishonest and those problems, moreover, are hidden from the defendant’s advocate and the court.” Unfortunately, there is nothing a defense counsel can do, McAdoo Gordon noted, because they don’t know it’s happening.
Affects Future Knowledge of New FBI Agents

Moreover, as the report makes clear, the failure to document a CHS’s credibility or reliability problems also has future ramifications “because handling agents change and new handling agents can only know the risks if they are documented.” This lack of documentation may also deprive future handling agents “of relevant information about the CHS that could not only jeopardize an investigation but also put the agent’s safety and potentially sensitive information at risk,” as the IG report explained.

While these aspects of the IG’s audit raise serious concerns in all criminal cases involving CHSs, these findings directly bear on the FBI’s use of Christopher Steele as a CHS in the Page FISA applications. In the Page FISA applications, after noting that it had suspended Source #1, now known to be Steele, for making “unauthorized disclosure of information to the press,” the government stressed that it still assessed Steele “to be reliable as previous reporting from Source #1 has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.”

But what about previous reporting by Steele that was contradicted or refuted? Or what about previous credibility or reliability issues? Did the FBI insist such negative information be excluded from Steele’s “validation reports” to keep his file clean? We will likely never know.
What About Steele’s Sub-Sources?

Relatedly, the IG’s audit of confidential human sources reveals that the FBI did not maintain validation reports for sub-sources, defined in the report as individuals “who directly acquire[] information that is then provided to the FBI by an FBI CHS.” That omission raised myriad additional problems and concerns.

Specifically, according to the IG report, “Delta,” which “is the FBI’s official electronic record-keeping system for CHS management,” “does not identify and track extraterritorial sub-sources.” As such, the CHS system “will lack complete and accurate information on its CHS coverage stemming from extraterritorial sub-sources.”

That the FBI’s electronic record-keeping system for CHS management does not identify and track extraterritorial sub-sources adds even more concerns to the already overabundant problems plaguing the FBI’s Page FISA applications. Recall that the FISA applications “relied heavily on Mr. Steele’s dossier claims,” and that “the bulk of the application consists of allegations against Page that were disclosed to the FBI by Mr. Steele and are also outlined in the Steele dossier.”

And remember that the dossier consisted, not of information acquired directly by Steele, but of information Steele claimed to have heard from a litany of unnamed sources. In other words the dossier was a summary of sub-source assertions. Yet nowhere in the dossier was there information establishing the reliability of the sub-sources—and courts hold that conclusory statements that informants are “believed to be reliable sources,” “standing alone without any supporting factual information, merit absolutely no weight . . . .”

National Review’s Andrew McCarthy was the first to identify this fatal flaw in the FISA applications, noting:

In applying for a warrant, the government must establish the reliability of the informants who witnessed the alleged facts claimed to support a probable-cause finding. Steele was not one of those witnesses. He is not the source of the facts. He is the purveyor of the sources — anonymous Russians, much of whose alleged information is based on hearsay, sometimes multiple steps removed from direct knowledge.

While the Steele dossier lacked any information bolstering the credibility of his sub-sources and sub-sub-sources, and thus any assessment by Steele that the Russian informants were credible would be entitled to no weight by the FISA court, there was always the possibility that Steele told the FBI the identity of his sub-sources and the FISA applications established that the sub-sources were reliable.

A Jane Mayer puff piece on Steele which The New Yorker ran more than a year ago painted a similar narrative. Citing “three former government officials familiar with” disgraced former FBI Director James Comey’s briefing of then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden, The New Yorker reported that Comey told the previous administration “the F.B.I. had not corroborated the details in the dossier.”

But, according to The New Yorker, Comey “also said that the F.B.I. had ‘confidence’ in the dossier’s author—a careful but definite endorsement—because it had worked not only with him but with many of his sources and sub-sources, whose identities the Bureau knew.” “He’s proven credible in the past, and so has his network,” The New Yorker reported Comey as saying.

The veracity of The New Yorker’s claims is uncertain, but following the IG’s report, we do know that multiple FBI offices keep “negative information” out of a CHS’s file, and that the FBI does not even bother to “identify and track extraterritorial sub-sources.” How, then, could the FBI possibly reliably attest to the veracity of Steele’s extraterritorial sub-sources?
Exempting Sources Like Steele from Routine Validation

A third important point gleaned from last week’s IG report on confidential human sources concerns the attorney general guidelines’ requirement that all long-term sources receive an enhanced validation every five years, except “those CHSs providing information for use in national security investigations or foreign intelligence collections.”

So, under the guidelines, while the FBI must seek and obtain the approval of the Human Source Review Committee (HSRC) every five years for most confidential sources, individuals, such as Steele, who feed the FBI unverified information from supposed foreign-intelligence collections are exempt. Not that a HSRC review would likely matter, in any event, since the HSRC must rely on the Annual Validation Reports and other relevant FBI documentation which, as the IG report revealed, intentionally omits negative information about CHSs.
When Reporters and FBI Sources Swap Info

A final tidbit from last week’s IG report raises an entirely distinct line of questions, but also relevant to the Page FISA applications and the broader question of the handling of the investigation into the Trump campaign. The IG notes in its audit that the AG guidelines “define special categories of CHSs,” including “media CHSs.” While the IG report does not discuss any issues specifically related to a media CHS, the reference to media CHSs spurs the question of whether the FBI used any media CHSs in its targeting of the Trump campaign and administration. If so, was there a quid pro quo: supposed intel from the CHS in exchange for leaks?
‘AP journalists provid[ed] the FBI with a bevy of facts the news organization uncovered during its inquiries into Manafort’s work and finances.’

Here, a July 2018, story from Politico proves especially intriguing. In “Details Emerge on Justice Department Meeting with Reporters on Manafort,” Josh Gerstein highlighted two FBI memos that indicated the Associated Press obtained some information about former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort from the FBI. That meeting was “arranged” by Andrew Weissmann, then the chief of the DOJ’s fraud section, later Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s pit bull, and now an MSNBC legal analyst.

However, according to Gerstein, “the memos indicate that the bulk of the information flow at the meeting went the other way, with the AP journalists providing the FBI with a bevy of facts the news organization uncovered during its inquiries into Manafort’s work and finances.” Gerstein also reported that “one of memos also says the purpose of the meeting was for the FBI to ‘obtain documents from the AP reporters,’ although it’s unclear any documents were shown or changed hands.” And “the memos also show that one of the AP journalists gave the FBI an unusual detail about a storage unit in Alexandria, Virginia that Manafort used to keep records of his worldwide business dealings.

One journalism expert quoted by Gerstein, University of Maryland journalism professor Mark Feldstein, was “taken aback by the AP sharing the code with the FBI,” noting “neither side is supposed to share confidential information with the other, but in fact each often does — perhaps to seek corroboration, perhaps to get other confidential information back in exchange or perhaps to spur on the other side’s investigation.” One must wonder whether in the age of Trump this taboo no longer exists.

If so, that is not a legal concern: Journalists are free to serve as the FBI’s CHSs as much as they like, although one may then question how free the press feels to hold those same officials up to scrutiny. But a legal problem does arise if the media and the FBI maintain a closed circuit of intel, with the Department of Justice using press reports to “verify” FBI sources. We saw this phenomenon play out in the Page FISA applications when the DOJ relied on Steele’s supposed intel and then cited to media reports that Steele himself had sourced as corroboration.

Whether the IG’s report on the Page FISA applications delves into these issues is yet to be seen, but rather than speculate on what is to come, Americans should be outraged by what has already been reported.

Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and current adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

here is a Powerline post about the Chuck Todd interview w the Fusion GPS founders

https://www.powerlineblog.com/...rime-in-progress.php


video at link

It is worth watching the interview.

Chuck Todd at his soft ball best.

Fritsch and Simpson still pretending the Steele dossier is truthful

Watch the interview to see how liars and frauds operate

Putin foe says Fusion GPS was agent for Russia while helping Clinton in 2016

https://www.washingtonexaminer...ping-clinton-in-2016



The company that conducted anti-Trump research for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign also worked for the Russian government, producing material that was used by Moscow to pressure the United States, according to a longtime foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Businessman Bill Browder alleged Fusion GPS acted as an agent for Russian interests in 2016, when the country was trying to combat the Magnitsky Act and its sanctions on Russian officials.

Browder, 55, championed the Magnitsky Act, which was named for his tax lawyer, corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky died in a Russian prison in 2009 after his investigation for Browder's business uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian tax fraud implicating Russian officials.

Putin, who despises the law, retaliated by banning American adoptions of Russian children.

“The work that [Fusion GPS co-founder] Glenn Simpson did involved trying to change the narrative of how Sergei Magnitsky was killed,” said Browder. “He and the Russians paying him wanted people in Washington to believe that Sergei Magnitsky died of natural causes instead of being killed. Glenn Simpson claimed that Sergei Magnitsky wasn’t a whistleblower and that he was criminal. He also claimed that all of my testimonies to have Magnitsky sanctions imposed were untrue.”

Browder said he believes Fusion GPS's work violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He sent a complaint to the Department of Justice in 2016, and then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley urged the department to look into it in 2017.

“We did receive a response from the Justice Department, essentially stating that it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a specific FARA investigation,” Grassley’s office told the Washington Examiner.

The DOJ declined the Washington Examiner’s request for comment, and a lawyer for Fusion GPS didn't respond, though the company has previously said "it was not required to register under FARA and it did not spread false information about William Browder or Sergei Magnitsky."

Browder pointed out that Fusion GPS and Simpson began working for Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who would later make headlines for her meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower, in 2014 and provided her with anti-Magnitsky research for years. Veselnitskaya, a former Russian prosecutor, maintained Russian government ties, according to special counsel Robert Mueller, including lobbying against 2016's expanded Magnitsky Act.

The DOJ alleged that Russia-owned real estate company Prevezon Holdings laundered fraudulent money, and the company later settled with the DOJ for $5.9 million in what the department called "a $230 million Russian tax refund fraud scheme involving corrupt Russian officials."

Veselnitskaya hired law firm BakerHostetler to help Prevezon in court, and the firm hired Fusion GPS, which Simpson confirmed in an interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017.

"Browder was always eager to testify before Congress or appear on TV, but he did not want to answer questions from BakerHostetler lawyers about his role as a whistleblower in the Prevezon case. So the lawyers asked Fusion to figure out how they could get Browder’s testimony. What ensued was a legal game of cat and mouse in which Fusion developed information that would help BakerHostetler subpoena Browder multiple times, forcing him to testify about his business activities in Russia and earning Fusion his everlasting enmity. The U.S. government had staked its case against Prevezon on the credibility of Browder. Yet he was reluctant to explain under oath where he had obtained his evidence. It was an odd position for a human rights crusader to take," Simpson and Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch wrote in their new book, Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump.

“I participated in two all-day depositions, but the case was settled before it went to court," said Browder. "Otherwise, I would’ve been on the witness stand.”

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act documents released in 2018 show the DOJ and the FBI made extensive use of Steele’s dossier in 2016. Fusion GPS was hired by Clinton's campaign and the DNC through the Perkins Coie law firm. Fusion GPS then hired Steele, who allegedly reached out to Russian sources to put together his dossier. Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook said they received briefings from Perkins Coie about Fusion GPS's findings during the campaign.

Browder contended Fusion GPS created a dossier against him, too, by using "false information."

“Since the Russians were working so closely with Simpson on the anti-Magnitsky, anti-Bill Browder dossier, it would seem unlikely to me that the Russians wouldn’t know that there was another dossier being created," Browder said.

Mueller’s report on Russian election interference detailed the June 2016 meeting involving Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and various Russians, including Veselnitskaya. The meeting was pitched to Trump's campaign as an opportunity to get damaging information on Clinton, but Veselnitskaya pulled a bait-and-switch and turned it into a presentation on Russia’s desire to repeal the Magnitsky Act.

Veselnitskaya presented a short dossier echoing nearly identical Kremlin talking points that were passed to a Republican congressman by the Russia prosecutor general's office in April 2016, criticizing the Magnitsky Act and criticizing Browder as a "fugitive criminal" who was engaged in a massive fraudulent financial scheme in support of Democrats. In his Senate testimony, Simpson admitted to researching many of the allegations that appeared in Veselnitskaya's talking points. When Donald Trump Jr. asked Veselnitskaya for proof, she did not provide any, according to Mueller's report. Russian American lobbyist and former Soviet military officer Rinat Akhmetshin and the Russians then complained about U.S. sanctions and mentioned Russian adoption, and the Trump associates considered it a waste of time.

Browder believes that presentation was from Fusion GPS research, though Simpson denies any foreknowledge of the Trump Tower meeting despite seeing Veselnitskaya the day before, the day of, and the day after.

Simpson "was a person who was coordinating an advocacy campaign for Natalia Veselnitskaya, and the Trump Tower meeting seemed to be part of that advocacy campaign,” said Browder. “It seems a little odd that he would know about everything else but not that one meeting.”

Veselnitskaya attended the meeting with fellow Russian anti-Magnitsky Act advocates, including Akhmetshin. Simpson told the Senate that BakerHostetler instructed Fusion GPS to pass anti-Browder research to Akhmetshin, who lobbied Congress against the Magnitsky Act. Akhmetshin, who is in Browder’s FARA complaint, criticized Browder in congressional testimony in 2017 and filed a lawsuit against him in 2018.

In January, the DOJ unsealed an indictment against Veselnitskaya, now out of reach in Russia, alleging she’d obstructed justice during the Prevezon case through secret collaboration with Russia.

Fusion GPS's co-founders said in their book that Prevezon's court case was separate from its anti-Magnitsky Act activities.

“In early 2016, Prevezon — apart from the court case — had launched a lobbying campaign against the Global Magnitsky Act, working with Akhmetshin, in a backhanded effort to discredit Browder in the halls of Congress,” they wrote.

The firm never registered under FARA, they said, because it was not lobbying.

"Fusion had no say in the matter if Prevezon decided to take evidence from a court case and repurpose it. But all this would come back to haunt Fusion," they wrote.

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

Prosecutors Request Flynn’s Upcoming Hearing Be Suspended Pending IG Report

Government prosecutors in the case of former National Security Advisor Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn requested from the court late Tuesday night to suspend Flynn’s upcoming hearing

The prosecutors cited in their motion that the government is waiting for the completion of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the bureau’s probe into President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, as well as an expected ruling by the court on Flynn’s attorney’s request for exculpatory evidence.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is presiding over former National Security Adviser Flynn’s case, canceled the hearing. Sullivan cited Powell’s motion, which accused the government of a litany of misconduct allegations. She is seeking exculpatory evidence that she contends the government is withholding in Flynn’s case. The hearing last month had been scheduled for Nov. 7.

The court had rescheduled the sentencing hearing for Flynn on Dec. 18 but the joint motion requests that the sentencing be vacated.

U.S. Prosecutor Jessie K. Liu noted in Tuesday’s late night filing “the Court had not yet issued its ruling on the defendant’s Motion to Compel. Both parties share the Court’s goal to move this case along expeditiously.” Liu said in the motion that Horowitz’s report, which is expected to be made public on Dec. 9, may contain information pertinent to Flynn’s case.

The new move by prosecutors is significant, said Flynn’s defense attorney Sidney Powell. She told SaraACarter.com that “it is the only thing for the government to do–short of producing the information we have requested or dismissing the case on it’s own motion.”

“This gives us time to digest the pending IG Report and the thousand plus pages of facts it contains,” said Powell. “Clearly, we will have additional motions to file upon receipt of Judge Sullivan’s order and additional evidence.”

....

clarification: Both prosecutors and Flynn defense asked to suspend dates

From Techno Fog:

Flynn sentencing is 12/18/19. The parties have sentencing memos due in early December.

The parties request the court suspend these dates until the IG report comes out and Judge Sullivan issues his ruling on Flynn's Motion to Compel.

The "Motion to Compel" was Sidney Powell's request that the prosecutors release a large list of documents that would show the FBI and prosecutors set Flynn up

Sidney Powell is my choice for “Woman of the Year”. She is flat out wonderful.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Sidney Powell is my choice for “Woman of the Year”. She is flat out wonderful.

I believe Trump will pardon General Flynn IF anything comes of the corrupt court system.

And yes, Powell is doing an outstanding job.

Contrast the media's treatment of Gen. Flynn with that food blister "Lt.Col." Vindman.

Disgusting.

The radical left does not give up. They won't let go of the Steele dossier no matter what the Horowitz report says or Durham investigates.

Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch have done several more CNN / MSNBC interviews after the one w Chuck Todd

https://dailycaller.com/2019/1...ichael-cohen-prague/

“Did Michael Cohen go to Prague? Where do we stand on that question?” ABC News producer Matthew Mosk asked Fusion co-founders Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson during an interview on Tuesday.

“I mean, it’s unresolved. If you look at the Mueller report, Mueller report reports what Michael Cohen told him,” Fritsch said. Asked if they are sticking by the Cohen-Prague allegation, Fritsch said that “we’re sticking by the credibility of Chris’s reporting” — a reference to Steele.

“ We believe it’s credible. Whether it’s true or not is another matter ,” said Fritsch.

as if Mueller didn't have all the juice, authority, and resources to determine if Cohen went to Prague

“Do you think that Mueller simply couldn’t prove some of these things and that they actually may in fact be true? Or what are your thoughts about some of these allegations that haven’t proven out?” asked Dilanian.

Fritsch ducked the question. “I think the best metaphor for this is Pearl Harbor,” he said.

Pearl Harbor ??

“Here was a report, and we have to think about the meta theme of the report, which is that here was a report that said the Russians are trying to affect the outcome of an American election with the specific goal of electing Donald Trump president,” he added.

“That warning about an attack on Pearl Harbor turned out to be correct. In light of current events, I think no one can question of whether or not Donald Trump is capable of inciting a foreign government to help himself.”

Simpson asserted that few of the allegations in the dossier have been disproven.

“There isn’t a long list of things in the dossier that have been disproven. There are many things that have not been resolved as to whether or not they are true,” he said.

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NYT jumps in too

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/1...fusion-gps-book.html

There are two very big lies that Donald Trump and his sycophants have used, through aggressive, bombastic repetition, to shape the public debate about impeachment, and about Trump’s legitimacy more broadly.

The first big lie is that “the people” elected Trump, and that the constitutional provision of impeachment would invalidate their choice. In fact, Trump is president only because a constitutional provision invalidated the choice of the American people. Trump lost the popular vote and might have lost the Electoral College without Russian interference, and yet many Democrats and pundits have been bullied into accepting the fiction that he has democratic, and not just constitutional, legitimacy.

The second big lie is that Russia didn’t help elect Trump, and that the president has been absolved of collusion.

It’s true that the report by Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, did not find enough evidence to prove a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russian state actors. But the Mueller report found abundant evidence that the campaign sought Russian help, benefited from that help and obstructed the F.B.I. investigation into Russian actions.

His investigation resulted in felony convictions for Trump’s former campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, personal lawyer, first national security adviser, and longtime political adviser, among others.

all having nothing to do w Trump campaign collusion w Russia

Had public life in America not been completely deformed by blizzards of official lies, right-wing propaganda and the immovable wall of Republican bad faith, the Mueller report would have ended Trump’s minoritarian presidency.

"minoritarian" presidency. We need a descriptor beyond "bullshit"


Instead, something utterly perverse happened. Democrats, deflated by the Mueller report’s anticlimactic rollout, decided to move on rather than keep the focus on Trump’s world-historic treachery. Republicans, meanwhile, started screaming about a “Russia hoax” ostensibly perpetrated on their dear leader. Among them was the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who in 2016 was surreptitiously recorded telling his congressional colleagues that he thinks President Vladimir Putin of Russia pays Trump. “Swear to God,” he said at the time.

McCarthy back then was a never-Trumper , along w Paul Ryan

Democrats understand that the Ukraine scandal is an outgrowth of the Russia scandal — as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last month, with Trump, “all roads seem to lead to Putin.” Yet they’ve made the political calculation that reopening the broader story of how Trump has been compromised by Russia is a political loser.

...

Write Simpson and Fritsch, “In the end, the Mueller probe sidestepped the question that so unnerved Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele in the summer of 2016: Was the president of the United States under the influence of a foreign adversary?” Republicans have used all the power at their command to defame people who’ve asked this question

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We are living an intense and fraudulent propaganda campaign against Donald Trump that is hard to comprehend because it is so vast and coming at us from every direction. Journalism is dead in this country. Journalism has become a threat to freedom and truth.

more on the motion in the Flynn case.

While it was filed jointly by prosecutors and Flynn defense, Powell says the prosecutors first raised the issue

https://thefederalist.com/2019...l-flynns-sentencing/

Also interesting is that the government sought out the sentencing delay—not Flynn’s attorney. Powell told The Federalist that prosecutors raised the issue of a delay just Tuesday morning, but that she did not see a draft motion until late afternoon.

Powell thought the government had no other option, though, telling The Federalist, “This is the government’s only option—short of dismissing the case on its own or producing all the evidence we requested.” Flynn’s attorney also looks forward to the extra time they need to process the IG report and the facts it likely will contain to assist the defense, assuming Judge Sullivan grants the motion.

“We expect it to include evidence of additional Brady violations,” Powell said. “We shall see.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


The guy really thinking about all this is Judge Sullivan. If he would sentence Flynn to jail time, and then significant additional evidence of FBI corruption and lying comes out, he will look like a total fool.

The prosecution of Flynn looks worse and worse.

The Flynn prosecutors who are still in DoJ should get fired for this persecution.


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adding:

Judge Sullivan granted the motion to suspend the briefing schedule for the Flynn sentencing

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

sorry to keep bouncing around. lots happening



British spy chiefs were briefed on Christopher Steele’s dossier before Donald Trump knew of its existence.

Heads of MI5, MI6 + one of Theresa May’s most trusted security advisers all knew of the Russian links claims before Trump.

The Fusion GPS founders confirm Charles Farr was given memos by Steele

BTW, Charles Farr died 15 Feb 2019



from last May

https://twitter.com/benrileysm.../1130225239265284098

Lots is known about how the FBI handled the Steele dossier - 17 memos compiled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele about Trump campaign’s Russia links.

But the story of what UK intelligence leaders knew is revealed for the first in tomorrow’s @Telegraph

Throughout the summer + autumn of 2016 Steele had uncovered a string of concerning allegations.

Among them - that Trump campaign figures had secretly met Russians, the Kremlin was trying to tilt the election + there was “kompromat” on the candidate himself (always denied).

Before the Nov 2016 election Steele had been determined to warn the Americans, passing on what he knew to the FBI.

But after Trump’s shock win, he decided the claims he uncovered were now an issue of British national security.

It was time to approach the UK government...

The man Steele approached was Sir Charles Farr.

He was head of the Joint Intelligence Committee - the body that assess intelligence. He had also been a top counter-terrorism adviser in May’s Home Office.

Plus Steele had known Farr for 20 years. He would know what to do.

Steele and Farr met a week after Trump’s election win.

The venue was Farr’s detached house on a suburban street in Wimbledon, South London - an incongruous venue given what they were to discuss.

For hours the pair went through Steele’s explosive memos line by line. Farr would ask questions. Steele would spell out what he knew.

After their meeting, Farr reached a conclusion - the dossier had to go up the chain of command.

Within days, according to well-placed sources, the allegations were shared with the most senior intelligence figures in Britain.

MI5 director general Andrew Parker and MI6 chief Alex Younger are both understood to have been briefed

Britain’s spy chiefs then had a decision - should they tell May?

The PM was used to receiving classified intel from her Home Office days. She is likely to have been aware of Steele’s work from the Litvinenko inquest.

But also, she needed to build a relationship with Trump.

Steele’s information was “marked up to the top”, according to sources.

But Number 10 figures say categorically that she was not briefed on the dossier.

Exactly why the intel chiefs shielded May from the claims is not known.

Possible reasons could include protecting May given the political need to build a relationship with Trump, uncertainty about elements of the dossier, or delay while verification took place.

Eventually Trump himself would learn about the dossier - but not until Jan 6 2017. That was the day James Comey briefed him one-on-one in Trump Tower.

Just a few days later, on Jan 10, Buzzfeed published the whole thing. Everyone could read the dossier for themselves.

By the end of that month, May flew to Washington to appear by Trump’s side, becoming the first world leader hosted in his White House.

She praised his “stunning” election victory. She also delivered an invite from the Queen for a state visit.

He takes up that offer next month.

What is the significance of our disclosure?

One, it suggests British intel figures treated the Steele dossier with gravity, escalating it rapidly up the system.

That is in marked contrast to Trump’s position, which is that the dossier is “fake” and “phony”.

Two, it risks deteriorating UK-US relations.

Trump has tweeted criticism of Steele + his dossier more than 50 times in office. He’s also tweeted a claim that British intel services helped spy on his campaign.

What will he think of them knowing about the dossier before him?

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we should do something official to repay the Brit intel for their duplicity

Their boy wonder severely damaged the Trump administration and U.S. / UK relations

I originally didn't put much interest in this story about Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and Russian Maria Butina.

Byrne seemed a bit unstable.

But CTH keeps connecting dots, and perhaps this is another example of FBI treachery.

https://theconservativetreehou...in-2015/#more-177264


A few highlights of the story:

former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne claims he talked to DoJ about Maria Butina.

Byrne claims he was asked to participate in an FBI intelligence operation and to introduce, and/or facilitate the introduction of, Ms. Butina to the campaigns of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

In December of 2015 Mr. Byrne said he became suspicious of the FBI motives because he warned FBI officials of the potential that his efforts, his reputation and those who trust him, may result in Butina gaining entry into campaign confidences. The FBI agents told Mr. Byrne that was exactly the intent.

People high up in the FBI wanted Ms. Butina to gain deep access into the Trump campaign. Mr. Byrne became suspicious of a corrupt political motive, but didn’t say anything at the time.

In/around Feb or March 2016 Byrne was told to focus Ms. Butina’s attention to the campaign of Donald Trump and to diminish any attention toward Rubio or Cruz.

Later in June & July (2016), FBI agents requested Mr. Byrne to focus on developing a closer romantic relationship with Ms. Butina and to use his influence to target her to closer proximity with the Trump family and Trump campaign.

It was within these June and July 2016 engagements where FBI agents were apologetic about the requests and specifically mentioned their instructions were coming from three principle FBI officials Byrne described as “X, Y and Z”. Later Byrne identified FBI Director James Comey as “Z”. Mr. Byrne said the specific instructions were coming to the agents from Special Agent Peter Strzok as he relayed the requests of those above him [X, Y and Z (Comey)].

Conducting FISA-702(16)(17) database searches and electronic surveillance on U.S. persons who would meet with Butina would be justifiable and legal.

From the operational description of Mr. Patrick Byrne it would appear Ms. Butina was used by the FBI to “dirty-up” political targets, opening them up for surveillance.

In a Fox Business interview, Patrick Byrne described being offered a $1 billion bribe of sorts to stay quiet in 2018. This piqued many curious questions; however, it is worth noting a bribe as described could come in a multitude of forms for a businessman who operates a massive corporation.

In 2018 Mr. Byrne’s company, Overstock, was also under an SEC investigation.

FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok’s wife, Melissa Hodgman, happens to be the Assoc. Director of the SEC Enforcement Division, who happened to be leading the SEC investigation of Patrick Byrne’s company

So the wife of the FBI agent who was directing Patrick Byrne in the sketchy FBI operation targeting Donald Trump… just happens to open an investigation of Byrne shortly after the corrupt FBI operation containing her husband first hit the headlines in early 2018.

I wonder if the elimination of that SEC investigation was worth, oh, say $1 billion.

Huh, imagine that?

Coincidences.

Small world.

Wow.

I hate to say/admit it, but I think the Left has won this whole dossier issue. It's so complicated and confusing at this point (by design) that no normal everyday person could possibly understand it. As such, it is going to be near impossible to rally the kind of public support necessary to fully root out and punish everyone involved. I hope the IG report can add enough to the equation that at least a few of the worst offenders get what they're due.

Melissa Hodgman

In 2008, her govt salary was $139,369

https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-217.html

Washington D.C., Oct. 14, 2016 —

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Melissa Hodgman has been named Associate Director in the SEC’s Enforcement Division

quote:

It's so complicated and confusing at this point (by design) that no normal everyday person could possibly understand it.

I am afraid that is true

Here is yet another suspicious linkage :

Michael Atkinson is the Intel IG who rewrote the "rules" to allow the WB Eric Ciaramella to offer formal complaints about things that Ciaramella did not witness

Kathryn Atkinson is Michael's wife

In April 2015, Kathryn Atkinson was named to Global Investigations Review's (GIR) Women in Investigations 2015

https://www.millerchevalier.co...-investigations-2015

This special inaugural feature profiles 100 women investigations specialists from around the world. According to GIR, the goal of the publication is to highlight "lawyers, government prosecutors, barristers, forensic accountants and various in-house counsel, all of whom can serve as inspirations to current and future generations of investigations professionals."

Global Investigations Review provides global coverage of the ever-changing landscape of government enforcement and regulation. It covers the latest developments in the law and practice of cross-border investigations: anti-bribery and corruption, financial services misconduct, antitrust, fraud, money laundering, tax and more.

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https://twitter.com/ClimateAud.../1200250455571480577

wife of Michael Atkinson as an associate of Mary Jacoby (wife of Fusion Glenn Simpson)

Mary Jacoby knew and worked w Christopher Steele, Nellie Ohr, Peter Strzok, Melissa Hodgman, David Kramer, Jonathan Winer (State Dept), and Sidney Blumenthal

Lisa Page declares herself a victim

https://www.thedailybeast.com/...me-at-all?ref=scroll

long article.

a very small part:


“At the end of July in 2017, I am informed by the DOJ Inspector General's office that I’m under investigation for political text messages and honestly, I have no idea what they're talking about,” she told me.

70,000 text messages, but she has no idea ??

“I have no recollection. And initially they’re very coy about it. They don’t tell me much about it. I don't have the first clue what they're talking about.

What I do know is that my text messages will reveal that I had previously had an affair. I’m overwhelmed by dread and embarrassment at the prospect that OIG investigators, Andy, and my colleagues, now know or could learn about this deeply personal secret.

She doesn’t think for a minute that her texts with Peter Strzok are too political. They are largely devoted to work and to talking about family members and various articles they read.

The Inspector General’s office had guaranteed Page and Strzok that the affair would not be made public. But then, The Washington Post included the affair in its story. And in a slip of a second, Page goes from being an anonymous government lawyer to playing an unwilling and recurring role in Trump’s twisted tweetstorms.

“So now I have to deal with the aftermath of having the most wrong thing I’ve ever done in my life become public,” she says. “And that’s when I become the source of the president’s personal mockery and insults. Because before this moment in time, there’s not a person outside of my small legal community who knows who I am or what I do. I’m a normal public servant, just a G-15, standard-level lawyer, like every other lawyer at the Justice Department.”

Page felt abandoned by the FBI and Justice because of the release of the messages and because the bureau issued no statement defending her and Strzok

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these people really live in another world

Drain The Swamp.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
Lisa Page declares herself a victim

https://www.thedailybeast.com/...me-at-all?ref=scroll
I’m a normal public servant, just a G-15, standard-level lawyer, like every other lawyer at the Justice Department.”

What pay scale is Lisa referring to?
I thought the pay scale went from G-1 to G-15, which would not seem to correlate with “just a G-15, standard-level lawyer”.

related to the Lisa page article

a good read

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...ily-beast-interview/


but here is a part hardly anyone is talking about:

If you’re in the FBI, especially among the elite, as Strzok and Page were, and you’re having an affair you want hidden from your respective spouses, you are begging to be blackmailed, you are leaving yourself wide open to being compromised, and for reasons no need explain, that makes you a serious threat to national security.

“What I do know is that my text messages will reveal that I had previously had an affair. I’m overwhelmed by dread and embarrassment at the prospect that OIG investigators, Andy, and my colleagues, now know or could learn about this deeply personal secret,” she says.

And that’s the whole point. Anyone with access to classified information with that kind of secret is a prime target for blackmail.

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this is a big deal w periodic investigations of people w TS/SCI clearances. Is there anything about you that could be used as blackmail leverage to make you turn traitor ?


BTW "I'm a normal public servant, just a G-15"

In Wash DC, a midlevel GS15 makes 150 to 160 k per year.

And yes GS15 is the top of the normal govt scale. The step above GS is Senior Executive Service.