National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien appears on Fox News Sunday to discuss the recent conflicts with Iran, and the government of Iran blaming the U.S. for their shooting down of Ukraine Airline flight 752.
With increased scrutiny toward the actions, and lack thereof, from current FBI Director Christopher Wray, another sketchy aspect deserves some scrutiny.
Hat Tip Techno-Fog for noting some remarkable FBI activity.
Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Pientka III was first identified by Senator Chuck Grassley in May of 2018 as the second FBI agent involved in the 2017 interview of Lt. General Michael Flynn.
Frustrated by the FBI stonewalling his Senate inquiry, Chairman Grassley dropped the revelation publicly on May 11th, 2018, in a letter to the FBI.
[…] the Committee’s oversight interest in the underlying documents requested more than a year ago now outweighs any legitimate executive branch interest in withholding it. So too does the Committee’s interest in learning the FBI agents’ actual assessments of their interview of Lt. Gen. Flynn, particularly given the apparent contradiction between what then Directory Comey told us in March 2017 and what he now claims.
[…] In addition, please make Special Agent Joe Pientka available for a transcribed interview with Committee staff no later than one week following the production of the requested documents… (link)
The FBI never produced Supervisory Special Agent (SSA-1) Joe Pientka for Chairman Grassley’s committee, and the conflict between the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FBI was never reconciled. (The DOJ/FBI made it to the safety of the mid-term election.)
Additionally, every single document containing information about the investigative activity of FBI agent Pientka has kept his name redacted. Not a single DOJ/FBI document has ever included his name.
However, around two months after Grassley outed his identity; we discover from the Inspector General that the DOJ-NSD (National Security Division) admitted to the FISA court that Agent Pientka was significantly less than forthcoming with “factual omissions” in the Title-1 surveillance application he assembled against Carter Page.
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President Trump asks: “Are these “dirty cops” going to pay a big price for the fraud they committed?”
However, the only person who can honestly answer that question is the person in the mirror when President Trump brushes his teeth. Perhaps forgotten…
In the spring of 2018 a group of congressional reps led by Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, Lee Zeldin and Bob Goodlatte, asked President Trump to declassify a series of documents so the public could see how former officials in the DOJ & FBI abused their offices and conducted political surveillance.
In September of 2018, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asked President Trump not to declassify those same documents until after the Mueller probe was complete. Rosenstein informed the President (confirmed in later POTUS interviews) that declassifying the material could be interpreted as impeding the Mueller investigation.
Two months later, in November 2018, the mid-term election took place. Republicans lost the House and their committee chairs. Many people suspected (I concur) the mid-term election was the real motive for the Sept. 2018 request from Rosenstein. Four months after the mid-term, March 2019, the Mueller investigation of President Trump ended.
Two months after the Mueller probe ended U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, a profoundly supportive voice for DAG Rosenstein, asked President Trump to grant him unilateral declassification authority to assist the purposes and intents of his DOJ effort. President Trump granted U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr with the authority to declassify on May 23rd, 2019; granting access to the same documents requested by congress a year earlier.
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Protests against the regime of Ayatollah Khamenei erupted today in Tehran following the government admission of shooting down Ukraine Airline Flight 752. In scenes that look familiar to the 2010 ‘green movement’, thousands of Iranian protestors, many young women, have gathered to express their opposition to the dictatorial government.
Stunningly, it has been reported that the U.K. Ambassador in Tehran was arrested for filming the protests.
(Via Daily Mail) Iranians have gathered in the streets of Tehran to demand the resignation of Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei after the regime admitted it had mistakenly shot down a civilian passenger plane.
Angry crowds gathered on Saturday night in at least four locations in Tehran, chanting ‘death to liars’ and calling for the country’s supreme leader to step down over the tragic military blunder, video from the scene shows.
President Trump sits down for an extensive interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. There are a few parts where the interviewers’ self-importance, non-listening and Hannity-esque interrupting surfaces, but overall a good discussion.
The interview is in a few segments.
Here’s Part I: Iran and Soleimani
While the admission of fault is rather unusual for Iran, they really didn’t have much choice. Despite their earnest effort to cover-up the cause and deny their involvement, the evidence was overwhelming that Iranian military shot-down Ukraine Airline flight 752 killing 176 passengers and crew.
IRAN – The general staff of Iran armed forces says a Ukrainian plane that crashed on Wednesday was brought down due to human error. Iran targeted the passenger plane unintentionally, Iran’s Press TV reports. (link)
In a tweet by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the diplomat attempts to blame the U.S. and apologize to the victims families.
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In June 2018, in response to an IG investigation, while denying the FBI had any political bias, FBI Director Christopher Wray promised anti-bias training for all agents. In response to the “challenges” identified by the report, the FBI “appreciates the opportunity” to provide more “support” to our employees. [June 14th, 2018]
In December 2019, in response to another IG investigation, while denying FBI agents would intentionally act illegally, FBI Director Christopher Wray notified the FISA court a Senior FBI investigative lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith intentionally falsified evidence on a FISA application.
In response to the FBI notification, late December 2019 the FISA court demanded to know what corrective actions the FBI was going to take; and what other applications FBI Lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was involved in.
In response today (full pdf below) FBI Director Christopher Wray promises more training.
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A very interesting development in the ongoing effort of former CBS investigative journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, to resolve the issue of who spied on her, planted spyware and infiltrated her computer systems for illegal surveillance. [Attkisson website here]
According to a recent court filing [Source Here] a person who was engaged in the “wrongful activity” has come forward to provide Ms. Attkisson with details about the operation. As a result of those whistle-blower revelations Attkisson is able to name specific individuals who were running the operation:
Former DOJ Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is named as the person who was in charge of the operation; and the former head of the FBI DC field office, Shawn Henry is also outlined.
Mr. Henry is the head of Crowdstrike, a contractor for the government and a politically connected data security and forensic company. Those who have followed the aspects related to the FBI use of the NSA database to illegally monitor U.S. persons; and those who followed the DNC cover story of Russia “hacking”; will be familiar with Crowdstrike.
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Marianne Williamson, the self-help author and spiritual guru for Oprah Winfrey who was going to initiate the U.S. Department of Peace, has announced today she is ending her bid for the office of the president.
“I ran for president to help forge another direction for our country. I wanted to discuss things I felt needed to be discussed that otherwise were not. I feel that we have done that. I stayed in the race to take advantage of every possible effort to share our message.”
According to Politico: “Williamson struggled to push back on the perception that she’s a “crystal woo woo lady” and expressed frustration after her debate performances that she was not being taken more seriously in the campaign. “A politics of conscience is still yet possible,” she concluded. “And yes….love will prevail.”
With Ms. Williamson’s exit the Democrat front-runners remain: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and possibly Qasem Soleimani.
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The BLS released the December jobs report earlier today showing a stable 145,000 new job gains last month, and the unemployment rate remaining a very low 3.5%.
During an interview discussing the health of the U.S. economy in 2020 with National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, the DOW Jones industrial average crossed 29,000 for the first time in history.