Within today’s reporting from the New York Times and NBC, a key aspect is how CIA analysts are worried about explaining and/or justifying the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).  As such it is well worth remembering information about John Durham’s originating focus from June, 2019:
Against the backdrop of the DOJ admitting FBI investigators never had access to the DNC servers to verify a Russian hack; and with new information about the FBI receiving partial and redacted analysis from Crowdstrike; the review by U.S. Attorney John Durham toward the downstream assessment/claims of the CIA takes on new meaning.
CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.
The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment. The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.
The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. While the majority of content was from the CIA, some of the content within the ICA was written by FBI Agent Peter Strzok who held a unique “insurance policy” interest in how the report could be utilized in 2017.  NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.
(more…)

The activity of the “small group” of coup plotters consists of three generalized subsidiary agencies: (1) DOJ/FBI, (2) CIA/ODNI, and (3) The State Department.
Within each “small group faction” a years-long review of their narrative constructs shows the groups have specific and unique media outlets for their offensive (’16, ’17) and defensive (’18, ’19) propaganda efforts.
•The DOJ/FBI faction of the “small group” leaks to narrative engineers at the New York Times and NBC. •The CIA/ODNI faction utilize the Washington Post and ABC; and •the State Dept. faction use CNN and CBS. Each faction uses the same reporters & pundits for their distribution. This pattern, albeit generalized, has been consistent for several years.

The originating media entity -utilizing the leaks, opinions and agenda of the faction most concerned- starts the process. The secondary media groups come in for support – reporting on the reporting; and then reporting on the reporting of the reporting… and so on. This process provides a concentric distribution effort to bolster the originating premise.
Similar to the Journ-o-list effort of Ezra Klein, all of the ideologically aligned reporters share information for the larger process of defending the prior activity and advancing a unified narrative. [Reference Buzzfeed’s Ali Watkins sharing leaks from SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to her peers at WaPo and New York Times while she had sex with the source to keep the information pipeline open.]
It is important to remember this concerted process whenever we are reviewing media articles concerning the matters of interest to each of the “small group” factions.
In essence, the propagandists within the media are the same; and the sources for the positions reflected in the articles are the same. Wash, rinse and repeat depending on the identified risk.
So today we see NBC and the New York Times going “out front” on behalf of their interests. Referencing the faction each outlet represents we see the *reporting* is to defend the interests of the DOJ and FBI.
(more…)

Inside an otherwise innocuous court filing (full pdf below), General Mike Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, files a motion to compel (MTC) in an effort to gain discovery of the content from two cell phones belonging to Joseph Mifsud.   [Hat Tip Techno Fog]
Apparently, according to the information within the filing, the DOJ has somehow gained custody of two cell phones belonging to Mr. Mifsud:

(Source Link)

The filing notes that “western intelligence” likely tasked Mr. Mifsud against General Flynn as early as 2014 in order to set up “connections with certain Russians” for later use against him.  Essentially, an intelligence entrapment scheme.
Unfortunately the filing only identifies the cell phones along with the request for production of the content therein.  However, the fact the DOJ has two cell phones belonging to Joseph Mifsud opens up a whole bunch of questions:
(more…)

Maria Bartiromo had initially reported the IG report on the Carter Page FISA situation was going to be released around the end of this week.  Ms. Bartiromo is now reporting a delay:

It’s the “classifications being made” part that raises concern.  President Trump granted Attorney General Bill Barr with declassification authority on May 23rd, 2019, so that any classification issues could be minimized and maximum transparency afforded.
(more…)

North Carolina republican Mark Meadows has been one of the key republican leaders who have remained in Washington DC during the recess break so that he can quickly attend the secret back-room hearings being held by Chairman Adam Schiff.  In this interview Mr. Meadows discusses the current status of the impeachment effort.
Additionally, Meadows discusses what he knows of the documents provided to Inspector General Horowitz for his pending release of the FISA investigation.   Meadows predicts the IG report will be a “scathing rebuke” of the FBI; however, Meadows also predicts the accountability aspect will only end with recommendations for FISA process changes.
[wpvideo DikGDx5w]
(more…)

Representative Doug Collins appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the specific strategy behind the Pelosi-Shiff and Lawfare ongoing impeachment effort.
Collins explains why Adam Schiff is holding hearings behind closed doors so they can selectively leak out information that supports the Democrat narrative of impeachment, while also hiding the evidence that refutes their construct.  Additionally, Rep Collins explains his expectations for the upcoming FISA review by Inspector General Horowitz.
[wpvideo vWqlCZkB]
Speaker Pelosi, with forethought and planning by the Lawfare Alliance, is intentionally using non-jurisdictional committees because she is manipulating the process.  It’s the same reason why the House Intelligence, House Foreign Affairs and House Oversight committees cannot legally send out “Impeachment-based Subpoenas“; they have no impeachment jurisdiction.  {Go Deep} and {Go Deep} to understand why.
The “impeachment” subpoenas’ are not technically subpoenas because the basis for the requests, impeachment inquiry, is not within the jurisdiction of the three committees. So the committees are sending out demand letters, calling them subpoenas (media complies with the narrative), and hoping the electorate do not catch on to the scheme.
The House democrats will keep doing this until someone in the media begins to hit them with hard questions that expose the nonsense.
(more…)

Well, this was entirely predictable.  First the impeachment strategy needed the anonymous CIA gossiper to testify.  Then it leaked about how HPSCI Chairman Adam Shiff and his Lawfare staff actually created the “gossiper’s” silly third-hand complaint to an inspector general; who then changed ‘gossip’ rules to allow second and third-hand hearsay.
It was all becoming more brutally sketchy, and the impeachment jenga blocks were tenuous at best.  As a result, republicans were going to inquire about how the CIA gossiper constructed his complaint; and then the complaint attorney’s started saying the gossiper would not appear in person, but rather write more complaint letters instead of testifying.
The shift from sketchy testimony to “Dear Sir” letters was ridiculous in the extreme. So what happens next?  Well, this is predictable…. Chairman Adam Schiff now says there will likely be no gossiper testimony because now he doesn’t need it.  [@4:52 video]

[Transcript]  REP. SCHIFF: You know and I think initially, before the president started threatening the whistleblower, threatening others calling them traitors and spies and suggesting that you know we used to give the death penalty to traitors and spies and maybe we should think about that again. Yes we were interested in having the whistleblower come forward. Our primary–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Not anymore?

(more…)

There is a serious problem here…

FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA database being exploited for unauthorized reasons.  We have a large amount of supplemental research to see through most of Collyer’s report and we are now starting the same process for Boasberg.  However, an alarming possibility makes it important to outline a rough draft of what appears present.
Initially when Collyer’s report was declassified in April 2017 we were able to start assembling additional circumstantial and direct evidence.  Two years of releases allowed us to see a more detailed picture.
Additional documents, direct testimony from NSA Director Mike Rogers, and later connected material from court filings, classified releases and ODNI statements made the understanding much clearer.  What became visible was a process of using the NSA database for political surveillance. [SEE HERE]
With the Boasberg report we do not yet have enough supportive material to identify specific purposes.  However, directly from the report itself there is a lot of information that shows a continuum of database activity that did not stop after Collyer’s warnings, and the NSA promises.   It seems, the political exploitation continues; and with that in mind some recent events are much more troubling.
Boasberg notes the “about” query option that NSA Director Mike Rogers halted, technically didn’t stop.   Instead operators used the “to and from” option almost identically as the “about” queries for downstream data review and extraction.  The FISA Appellate Court appointed amici curiae to review Boasberg’s opinion and reconcile counter claims by the FBI.   Boasberg was never satisfied despite the FISC-R amicus assurances. His opinion reflects valid judicial cynicism within his reluctant re-authorization.
(more…)

Last week the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, testified behind closed doors to congress. Atkinson testified about his role in bringing the ‘whistle-blower’ complaint forward.  The details of that testimony are now starting to surface and thankfully congress is taking a closer look at the sketchy background of Michael Atkinson.

Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson

There are numerous aspects to the whistle-blower (likely CIA operative Michael Barry), and the complaint, that just don’t add up. One of the areas of focus is the backdating of changes made to the ‘whistle-blower’ complaint form.  As Sean Davis notes:

(Via Federalist) […] Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general, told HPSCI lawmakers during a committee oversight hearing on Friday that the whistleblower forms and rules changes were made in September, even though the new forms and guidance, which were not uploaded to the ICIG’s website until September 24, state that they were changed in August.

(more…)

The inspector general for the Intelligence Community is Michael Atkinson. He is very sketchy.  Atkinson was previously legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD during the ‘stop-Trump’ tenure of John Carlin and Mary McCord. As a result, Atkinson was a participant in the weaponizing of the DOJ-NSD via FISA abuse, along with NSA database exploitation and tenuous FARA legal theories used to target political opposition.
In short, Atkinson seems dirty.  At the very least he hangs around dirty characters.
Today, according to Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge, ICIG Michael Atkinson testified the anti-Trump CIA ‘whistle-blower’, likely to be Michael Barry, did not inform Atkinson that Barry and his legal team already contacted staff working for HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff when he submitted his complaint.  More sketchy.

After he took the complaint, ICIG Michael Atkinson then changed the rules for the ICIG office allowing a second-hand hearsay complaint to be processed.  Again, sketchy.
According to New York Times reporting earlier this week, the ‘whistle-blower’ (likely CIA operative Michael Barry) first tried to push the hearsay claims to CIA management through a colleague.  Fearing CIA management would not take the gossip seriously “the officer then approached a democrat House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump.”  Chairman Schiff never told anyone.
Buckets of sketchy.
(more…)