**BUMPED** Today, Sunday September 11, 2022, is the 600th day of Joe Biden in office. It is also the 10th anniversary of the attack at a U.S. embassy outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

The “Benghazi Brief” remains the most in-depth research report CTH has ever produced. The brief took two years of research to assemble and contains hundreds of very specific citations supporting it.  Eight years after the brief was originally written in 2014, nothing within the outline has ever been identified as inaccurate. It has been updated below adding context depth from current events.

The Benghazi Brief

We know from the Bret Baier interview with Hillary Clinton that she was physically located at her 7th floor office in Washington DC on the night of the attack 9/11/12.

Unfortunately, we also know during the November 2012 Thanksgiving holiday a mysterious fire took place in that building. Well, actually directly above her exact office – cause undetermined.

A “fire” which preceded an unfortunate slip and fall for the Secretary, resulting in a concussion, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, that ultimately delayed her congressional testimony before a Senate Hearing into the events of the night in question.

We know the Libyan uprising began on February 10th of 2011, and we also know that sometime around the end of February 2011 President Obama signed a presidential directive authorizing the State Dept and CIA to begin a covert operation to arm the Libyan “rebels”.

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Lawyers representing the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) and lawyers representing President Trump have presented their list of candidates for Special Master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. [8-page pdf Here]

The DOJ-NSD has listed their candidates including:

♦ The Honorable Barbara S. Jones (ret.) – retired judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, partner in Bracewell LLP, and special master in In re: in the Matter of Search Warrants Executed on April 28, 2021 and In the Matter of Search Warrants Executed on April 9, 2018.

♦ The Honorable Thomas B. Griffith (ret.) – retired Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, special counsel in Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.

President Trump lawyers have listed their candidates including:

♦ The Honorable Raymond J. Dearie (ret.) – former Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, formerly the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

♦ Paul Huck, Jr.—founder, The Huck Law Firm, former Jones Day partner, former General Counsel to the Governor, former Deputy Attorney General for the State of Florida.

The majority of the remaining filing lists the agreements of both the DOJ-NSD and Trump lawyers, as well as points of disagreement for how the special master process should continue.   The position of the DOJ-NSD is the special master should not review any documents they deem classified or vital to national security, regardless of whether they contain markings or not.   The DOJ just doesn’t want anyone to review what they are calling “classified documents.”

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U.S. District Judge from the Southern District of Florida, Aileen M. Cannon, has ordered a special master to “review the seized property, manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, and evaluate claims for return of property,” related to the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. [pdf Ruling Here]

There are interesting aspects outlined within the 24-page ruling that deconstruct the position of the Dept of Justice and media, including a footnote [fn5] stating Trump lawyers asked for a special master appointment on the morning after the raid.

Within the ruling [pg 9] Judge Cannon outlines the issues at the heart of the legal matter, including the government taking President Trump’s personal medical records which has nothing to do with the nature of the warrant.

“According to the Privilege Review Team’s Report, the seized materials include medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information. … The Government also has acknowledged that it seized some “[p]ersonal effects without evidentiary value” and, by its own estimation, upwards of 500 pages of material potentially subject to attorney-client privilege.”

The DOJ was previously questioned in court about justice dept leaks to media creating an unfair and prejudicial bias against President Trump. The DOJ lawyers denied leaking yet admitted the media reports were evidence that someone within the organization was leaking information to the media, thereby creating a framework of public opinion the defendant cannot easily refute. Cannon writes:

“the Court takes into account the undeniably unprecedented nature of the search of a former President’s residence; Plaintiff’s inability to examine the seized materials in formulating his arguments to date; Plaintiff’s stated reliance on the customary cooperation between former and incumbent administrations regarding the ownership and exchange of documents; the power imbalance between the parties; the importance of maintaining institutional trust; and the interest in ensuring the integrity of an orderly process amidst swirling allegations of bias and media leaks.”

Judge Cannon also cited examples of the DOJ review team failing in their duty to separate attorney-client privilege material.

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Joe Biden has hired John Podesta to be the new Clean Energy Czar [Announcement Here] citing his experience in progressive causes.  Hilariously, the New York Times is running with a justification that Podesta holds some prior experience in advancing the climate change agenda. [See Here]

(NYT) […] In bringing on Mr. Podesta, Mr. Biden continues to surround himself with veterans of past Democratic administrations, old hands who can step into challenging positions without on-the-job training.

“His deep roots in climate and clean energy policy and his experience at senior levels of government mean we can truly hit the ground running,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Podesta in a statement. (more)

If Podesta is the new Clean Energy Czar, it begs the question of what the heck John Kerry is doing now?  I digress.

You might remember that Steven Chu was the Obama Climate Change Czar for the first clean energy boondoggle that came as an outcome of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), those shovel ready jobs that didn’t materialize and carried the Solyndra spending nonsense.

John Podesta had nothing to do with the Obama-era clean energy initiatives or energy spending programs. Podesta was inserted into Obama’s orbit in the second term (2013) specifically to watch out for Hillary Clinton’s interests when she left to run for President.   Podesta later joined her in 2015 and took over the strategy team.

Bottom line, John Podesta is being now being hired to divvy up the $316 billion in Green New Deal money recently authorized by congress.  That is what Podesta specializes in, the distribution of taxpayer money to DNC allied groups and networks in advance of the 2022 midterms.   Podesta, Hillary’s fixer, is a bagman, nothing more.

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Republicans created the Patriot Act, the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The same agencies that Barack Obama later weaponized with the creation of the Dept of Justice National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).

The root issue around domestic surveillance and ultimately power & control, underlines Washington DC’s united opposition to Donald Trump.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; the institutions were already weaponized by the Patriot Act.  The Patriot Act turned the surveillance radar from pointing outwardly, to pointing inwardly, monitoring activity inside our nation.  We The People were now the threat being monitored.

What President Obama and AG Eric Holder did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons of government conducting surveillance only targeted one side of the political continuum.  Domestic terrorists were now defined through the prism of political opposition.

Ultimately this retooled system surfaces in 2022 with the FBI saying domestic terror threats from right-wing extremists are the biggest national security threat.   This is why the Biden administration says, without pause, that Trump voters are a “threat to democracy.”  The origin of that surveillance inflection point explains where we are today.

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The DOJ has filed a response to the motion by President Trump for the court to appoint a special master to review the seized material from the DOJ/FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. [Court pdf Here] Additionally, the outside government Lawfare group has filed an amicus brief supporting the DOJ-NSD position [Amici court pdf Here]

Essentially the position of the DOJ boils down to… They have already reviewed the material. Yes, there was attorney-client privilege material seized; but they swear the internal team segregated the legally confidential material and the DOJ investigators & prosecutors didn’t see it – double pinkie swear, yer honor.

Additionally, in a nice lawfare maneuver, the DOJ claims President Trump never formally evoked ‘executive privilege‘ on any material at Mar-a-Lago; therefore, despite his position as a former President, he was/is legally considered an ordinary citizen for the purpose of raiding his home to seize material the government considers vital to national security.

To complement the created DOJ narrative for media consumption, and to assist the media effort for direct distribution of the DOJ position, Main Justice released a picture as an example of the documents seized.  The DOJ literally staged and created this photo for media to use, then released it in the court filing. Slick lawfare:

The cover sheets are essentially non sequitur as they do not necessarily describe or affirm the nature of the documented material underneath. “HCS-P/SI/TK” looks all officially looming; however, it doesn’t necessarily mean any of the information is classified as HCS (HUMINT Control System, or human intelligence), SI (special intelligence), or TK (talent keyhole), or SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information), aka the silos.

One word or paragraph could be considered ‘special intelligence’. Example “FISA” or “FISC”. You might remember our prior discussions that every document that contains the designation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, FISA or FISC, literally those words or abbreviations, is considered classified special intelligence.

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During an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s television show, former house intel staff and Trump aide Kash Patel confirms the documents targeted by the DOJ/FBI raid on Trump’s home were documents of evidence showing DOJ/FBI political corruption in the Trump-Russia probe.

President Trump declassified documents that show how the institutions within the U.S. government targeted him.  However, the institutions that illegally targeted President Trump are now the same institutions seeking control of the specific evidence of their unlawful targeting.  WATCH:

An FBI raid cannot be predicated on a document conflict between the National Archives and a former president.

The DOJ-NSD warrant, and the subsequent raid on Mar-a-Lago could only be predicated and justified on records the U.S. government deems “classified” and material vital to national security interests.  That’s the Main Justice cover story to retrieve the evidence of their own wrongdoing. Hence, DOJ National Security Division involvement.

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During his opening monologue tonight, Tucker Carlson becomes the first mainstream pundit to point out the lies in the central bank argument.

The federal reserve and EU central banks claim they are raising interest rates to stop inflation by slowing demand.  A demand side approach.  However, it isn’t demand driving inflation; it’s the cost of energy driving inflation. That’s a supply side issue.

The central banks cannot admit what they are doing, or people would catch on.  They are intentionally reducing economic activity in order to support having scarce energy production. WATCH:

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Here we go… It was only a matter of time before the DOJ-NSD architects of the Trump targeting operation came out from the shadows.  This is the moment long-time readers of CTH should have been waiting for.  For the past five years Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.

Mary McCord led the support team who created the Carter Page FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier to replace the required ‘Wood’s file’.  McCord was the DOJ-NSD official who traveled with DOJ Deputy AG Sally Yates to talk to former White House counsel Don McGhan which weaponized the Flynn-Kislyak call to remove Trump’s National Security Advisor.

Mary McCord was the person who organized Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella to construct the first impeachment effort.  Additionally, it was Mary McCord along with her former legal counsel, turned Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who changed the ICIG whistleblower rules allowing an anonymous complaint to underpin the false accusations from Ciaramella against Trump.

It was also Mary McCord who was appointed by FISA court Judge James Boasberg as an amici curia to the court, intercepting issues of false information in filings from the DOJ-NSD to the court as constructed by Kevin Clinesmith.

It was Mary McCord who then took up the lead congressional position within the impeachment construct created by Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, and it was Mary McCord who then joined the January 6 Committee in the committee fight to obtain President Trump’s white house records.

Mary McCord surfaces today with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to outline what her team has currently constructed, including the specific targeting approaches her DOJ-NSD and Lawfare crew have put together.

As noted by McCord, the ‘obstruction of justice’ angle is a repeat of the threat used by the Deep State to keep the criminal conduct of the DOJ-NSD from being exposed.  WATCH:

When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’).  That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important.  It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump.

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“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.” ~ Niccolò Machiavelli

ABC’s Director of narrative engineering, George Stephanopoulos, interviews Senator Roy Blunt (U-Mo) to elicit his rebuke of President Trump having custody of evidence showing how the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government conspired to him from impacting their corrupt DC interests.

Senator Blunt dutifully played the role of ‘lukewarm defender,’ aka controlled opposition.  WATCH:

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