Appearing on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo, Michael Flynn’s defense counsel Sidney Powell cuts through the parseltongue to note the Obama administration was not tricked into allowing a smear campaign against Donald Trump and Michael Flynn; the Obama administration was participating in the creation and pushing of the smear campaign.

• July 26, 2016 – ¹Brennan informed by campaign operative that Hillary Clinton, political allies and agents were using and pushing Trump-Russia smear.
• July 28, 2016 – ²Brennan briefs President Obama about smear campaign in White House.
• July 31, 2016 – FBI Agent Peter Strzok opens Trump investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) based on Trump-Russia collusion smear.
• FBI begins using Steele-Dossier created by Fusion-GPS and Clinton Campaign as primary justification for ongoing Trump investigation.

Everyone knew exactly what they were doing. No-one was tricked into participating.

Remember, the four-year democrat narrative (pushed relentlessly by media) was how the professional intelligence community worked diligently to verify the Trump-Russia intelligence, and that every aspect briefed to President Obama went through the highest levels of “by-the-book” verification and authentication. Now those same democrats and media voices are claiming the Brennan briefing material was “Russian disinformation.”

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First, let me set the stage for new readers. No-one is more cynical of DC operations and manipulations than me. I do not sell nor promote ‘hope porn’, and I am not confident that anything is close to being revealed. Indeed, given the scale and scope of what took place in the last eight years, yes eight years; I have expressed doubts that anyone in government would ever actually expose it.

That said, in addition to my own cynicism I have been deep in this “spygate” or “Russiagate” rabbit hole; factually and physically inside the DC network; long enough to see the map of an investigative trail bringing up the rear.

During one great conversation a lawyer said to me: “All of this you know; all of this you have evidence for; but we don’t have the badges”. Thus began my 2020 effort, ultimately a successful effort, to drag the badges into the hole.  That’s the background for an update with new information:

A very important article was written yesterday in the New Yorker [SEE HERE]. While the topic of the article spotlights the ridiculous conspiracy theory surrounding Alfa bank, and the insufferable nonsense about Trump Tower servers having contact -electronic touch signals- with servers from the Russian banking organization, there are aspects to the story that show where the Durham probe has been forced to travel.

Within the article –which everyone should read– some names are very important. The article is framed around defending the New Yorker’s previous reporting on the Alfa Bank conspiracy theory, so the intent of the article is defensive. However, the events being described in the article, and more importantly the people being outlined in the article, are accurate. Especially Daniel Jones and his lawyer William Taylor; and the connection of both to Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson.

According to the article there are two parallel efforts underway to untangle the background of how the false Alfa Bank story was originated. One effort is a set of civil lawsuits by the owners of Alfa bank against those who created the fraudulent story that flowed through Fusion GPS, into Chris Steele’s dossier, into the FBI, and ultimately into the Buzzfeed reporting therein. The owners of the bank are taking all of these entities into court and demanding discovery of sources who framed/created the false impression.

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President Donald Trump has transmitted an epic tweet-storm seemingly targeted toward all officials within the executive branch; and the intelligence apparatus writ large:

One important note of caution: there is a big difference between “authorized” and “ordered”.  On May 23rd, 2019, President Trump authorized AG Bill Barr to declassify all documents and despite much optimism nothing happened {Go DEEP}.  However, President Trump references that lack of inaction in the next series of tweets:

Presumably “people” who “acted very slowly” would pertain to AG Bill Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel, State Dept Secretary Mike Pompeo and former ODNI Dan Coats.   President Trump asks those agencies now to “Act!!!”

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Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has transmitted evidence to the Senate Judiciary Committee showing notes written by CIA Director John Brennan that Hillary Clinton campaign advisors created a “proposal to vilify Trump by stirring up scandal claiming interference by Russian security services” on July 26th of 2016. [pdf link]

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This appears to be the explosive evidence referred to by Senator Lindsey Graham during recent public comments.  The date of the proposal to Brennan, July 26, 2016, is pertinent to the recent op-ed published by Brennan where he says he briefed President Obama two days later, July 28, 2016, where Brennan says in his own words:

[…]  on the afternoon of July 28, 2016, I informed [President Obama] in a hurriedly scheduled meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had authorized his intelligence services to carry out activities to hurt Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and boost the election prospects of Donald Trump. (link)

Hillary Clinton proposing the strategic deployment of a Russian collusion narrative on July 26, 2016, is additionally important because only one day earlier, July 25, 2016, Clinton campaign Manager Robby Mook advocated for this exact narrative on the first day of the 2016 Democrat National Convention in Philadelphia.

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Two media reports today point toward an aspect CTH had noticed happening in the background of the Durham/Aldenberg investigation.

The Washington Examiner and New York Times are writing about Durham investigating 2016 efforts from Main Justice DOJ to block FBI efforts to investigate the Clinton Foundation.  The interesting part is what the media ignore (emphasis mine):

WASH EXAMINER– […] The New York Times report Thursday said that Clinton Cash “caught the attention of FBI agents, who viewed some of its contents as additional justification to obtain a subpoena for foundation records,” but former officials said “top Justice Department officials denied a request in 2016 from senior FBI managers in Washington to secure a subpoena.” The outlet said that “the decision frustrated some agents who believed they had enough evidence beyond the book, including a discussion that touched on the foundation and was captured on a wiretap in an unrelated investigation.”  (more)

Who was one of the “top Justice Department officials” in position to deny the 2016 request from senior FBI managers in Washington?  As TechnoFog notes:  “The DOJ Criminal Division Fraud Section (FSCD) would have overseen prosecutions relating to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (ie. bribery that crosses borders).”

Who was Chief, of the DOJ Criminal Division Fraud Section in 2016?

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The Washington Examiner has an interesting article based on a book excerpt by Washington Post journalist Devlin Barrett: “October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election.”

CTH readers will remember Devlin Barrett was Lisa Page & Peter Strzok’s favored journalist to receive FBI leaks from Clinton email investigation known as the “mid-year-exam;” during the time when the ‘small group’ was framing the preferred narrative.

According to the article the NY FBI Agent who raised the alarm bells was a man named John Robertson.  Robertson was cited in the IG report, but not named.  According to the recent discoveries…

“Robertson wrote a “Letter to Self” in late October after an Oct. 19, 2016, meeting, during which he implored Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Kramer of the Southern District of New York to push FBI leadership to look at the thousands of emails he had unearthed.”

“I have very deep misgivings about the institutional response of the FBI to the congressional investigation into the Hillary Clinton email matter. … Put simply: I don’t believe the handling of the material I have by the FBI is ethically or morally right. But my lawyer’s advice — that I simply put my SSA on notice should cover me — is that I have completed CYA [Cover Your Ass], and I have done so,” Robertson wrote. “Further, I was told by [Kramer] that should I ‘whistleblow,’ I will be prosecuted.” (read more)

Robertson fills in the background to our earlier research.  CTH identified how the FBI never actually investigated the emails, as the FBI and specifically former FBI Director James Comey, claimed: “due to the wizardry of technology.”

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To honor the memory of those lost on September 11th/12th 2012:

The Benghazi Brief

The “Benghazi Brief” remains the most controversial research report we have ever produced. The brief contains over two years of research and hundreds of very specific factual citations supporting it. Six years after it was originally written, in 2014, and not a single aspect outlined within the brief has ever been identified as inaccurate.

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The FBI spied on the inner circle of candidate Donald Trump’s campaign staff in 2016 and during the first 8 months of his administration. Even though Carter Page was the named target of the search warrant, 2-hop spying allowed the FBI to spy on all the people he contacted. John Spiropoulos explains how:

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The Steele Dossier, an outcome of the Fusion contract, contained two purposes: (1) the cover-story and justification for the pre-existing surveillance operation (protect Obama); and (2) facilitate the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign (assist Clinton).

An insurance policy would be needed. The Steele Dossier becomes the investigative virus the FBI wanted inside the system. To get the virus into official status, they used the FISA application as the delivery method and injected it into Carter Page.

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Author Jack Cashill shares a great perspective on the current political dynamics as contrast against a history of DOJ, FBI and CIA operations.  In the fist eight minutes of the interview Cashill outlines the challenge to AG Bill Barr considering that 96 percent of the DC population supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Cashill surmises that any actual evidence against the officials who were involved in operations against Donald Trump will likely have to wait until after the election due to the overall DC sentiment to diminish any outcome as politically motivated.   Additionally, the entire functional apparatus of the DOJ is “entirely loaded with operatives” who protect the administrative state.  [Cashill Website Here]

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Last night the FBI interview notes (known as a “302 report”) with Maltese Professor Joseph Mifsud were released. The story of Mr. Mifsud and his discussions with former Trump campaign aid George Papadopoulos was said to be the originating seed for the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign contacts with Russia known as “Crossfire Hurricane”.

A narrative, pushed through a series of FBI leaks in 2017 outlining Mifsud as a Russian entity, was at the center of how the media justified the FBI targeting the Trump campaign for colluding with Russia. Later the special counsel used FBI conversations with Papadopoulos to claim he was less than honest about his contacts with Mifsud.

However, the actual FBI interview notes with Mifsud on February 10, 2017, show a remarkably different story.

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