We are nearing the end of the beginning of the end, as Senator Lindsey Graham announces a request for a senate hearing to consider scheduling another senate hearing to consider the possible subpoenas for witnesses to appear at a later senate hearing over potential testimony at a possible senate hearing or deposition thereafter.
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today announced that the Committee would debate and vote on a subpoena authorization related to the FISA abuse investigation and oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Graham’s subpoena authorization covers a number of documents, communications and testimony from witnesses, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan, Sally Yates, and others.
More than a week after CBS first constructed their editorial narrative they finally released the full interview between Catherine Herridge and AG Bill Barr. Many people read the transcript; however, thankfully Michael Sheridan excerpts a portion of the video that doesn’t come across in the transcript.
When the attorney general is questioned about “still having confidence” in FBI Director Christopher Wray, a newly articulated hesitancy is visible that doesn’t come across in the transcript. WATCH:
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Since February 2019 Bill Barr has been a staunch and very public defender of Chris Wray. However, with new revelations about recent FBI efforts to block the release of information as it relates to Michael Flynn, it now appears the AG has less confidence.
This shift is important because as the public have a renewed focused on the question of who illegally leaked Flynn’s communication with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, there has always been a rather curious contrast issue with the known classified intelligence leaking of James Wolfe. If finding Flynn’s leaker is important then why didn’t the DOJ/FBI take action when they found a classified intelligence leaker in 2018?
Matt Taibbi writes a lengthy column calling out his colleagues for abandoning all pretense of civil liberties in an effort to ‘resist’ President Trump.
Within the column Taibbi walks-through the ridiculous Russia collusion story and notes the necessary use of the media pretending not to know what took place within the Obama administration; including what continues today in the prosecution of Flynn.
MATT TAIBBI – […] ” After Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about mass data collection, a series of internal investigations began showing officials were breaking rules against spying on specific Americans via this NSA program. Searches were conducted too often and without proper justification, and the results were shared with too many people, including private contractors. By October, 2016, the FISA court was declaring that systematic overuse of so-called “702” searches were a “very serious fourth Amendment issue.”
In later court documents it came out that the FBI conducted 3.1 million such searches in 2017 alone. As the Brennan Center put it, “almost certainly… the total number of U.S. person queries run by the FBI each year is well into the millions.”
Stunning and outrageous doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of this move by DC Judge Emett Sullivan in the Flynn case.
Judge Sullivan is requesting retired judge John Gleeson to file an amicus brief outlining why: (a) the charge against Flynn should not be dropped; and (b) frame the argument about how to prosecute Flynn for perjury.
Former Judge John Gleeson (U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of New York) recently penned an op-ed in the Washington post arguing that Flynn should continue to be prosecuted.
It appears we are about to find out if one of my long-standing theories about surveillance of Michael Flynn is correct. Flynn was not “unmasked”, because he was the direct target.
For three years the official media account of how the intelligence community gained the transcript of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn talking to Ambassador Sergey Kisliyak on December 29th, 2016, surrounded “incidental collection” as a result of contact with an agent of a foreign power.
Meaning the Flynn call was picked up as the U.S. intelligence apparatus was conducting surveillance on Russian Ambassador Kisliyak.
If this version of events were accurate (it’s not), it would fall under FISA-702 collection: the monitoring of a foreign agent (Kislyak) who has contact with a U.S. person (Flynn).
In order to review the identity of the U.S. person, a process called ‘unmasking’, a 702 submission must be made. As NSA Director Rogers said: that submission, the unmasking, leaves a paper/electronic trail. However, I do not think that is what happened, here’s why:
Back in 2017 Senator Lindsey Graham questioned former DAG Sally Yates and former DNI James Clapper. Within the questioning, Sally Yates tipped her hand. There was never an unmasking of Flynn because Flynn was a target; it was not incidental collection. WATCH:
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Sally Yates doesn’t directly say Flynn was a target, but by now we all know he was a target of the FBI investigation. As a result of Flynn being the actual target he would be directly identified within the intelligence documents because the investigation would be about him, and not incidental. But there’s more…
Representatives Jim Jordan and Andy Biggs tear the bark off the Obamagate scandal; including culpable republicans who participated in the DC coup effort.
Appearing with Lou Dobbs on Fox Business, Jim Jordan rips through the timeline early in the interview to expose how it was impossible for all of the activity to be happening without former President Obama being a participant. WATCH:
A very interesting dynamic all things considered. During a recent interview Vice President Mike Pence says he would welcome former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn back into the administration:
“Gen. Michael Flynn is an American patriot,” Pence told Axios in an interview. “And for my part, I’d be happy to see Michael Flynn again.”
And with that in mind, it’s worth taking all the current information and reviewing the fully cited (soup-to-nuts) background of how the Pence -vs- Flynn ‘lying’ narrative was created.
♦In mid-December 2016 the Obama administration was deploying a full-court-press using their media allies to promote the Russia conspiracy. However, despite their extreme public proclamations DNI Clapper & CIA Brennan were refusing to give any specifics to congress.
The hard narrative was that Russia interfered. That was the specific push from within the Obama intelligence apparatus writ large. All IC officials, sans Mike Rogers (NSA), had a self-interest in pushing this narrative; after all, it was the defensive mechanism to justify their illegal spying operation and block Trump. This was their insurance policy.
The media was doing their part; and using the information leaked to them by those who were part of the 2016 operation(s) began battering the Trump transition team every hour of every day with questions about the Russia hacking narrative; thereby fertilizing the seeds of a collusion conspiracy. The Trump-Russia narrative was relentless.
Why is former President Obama calling forth all his defensive resources now? Why did former national security advisor Susan Rice write her cya letter? Why have republicans in congress not been willing to investigate the true origins of political surveillance? What is the reason for so much anger, desperation and opposition from a variety of interests?
With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report, the Carter Page FISA and Flynn documents showing FBI activity, there is a common misconception about why the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign in the first place. Why was Donald Trump considered a threat?
In this outline we hope to provide some fully cited deep source material that will explain the origin; and specifically why those inside the Intelligence Community began targeting Trump and using Confidential Human Sources against campaign officials.
During the time-frame of December 2015 through April 2016 the NSA database was being exploited by contractors within the intelligence community doing unauthorized searches.
On March 9, 2016, oversight personnel doing a review of FBI system access were alerted to thousands of unauthorized search queries of specific U.S. persons within the NSA database.
NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was made aware.
Subsequently NSA Director Rogers initiated a full compliance review of the system to identify who was doing the searches; & what searches were being conducted.
On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 “about”(17) and “to/from”(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.
Earlier this morning President Trump called-in to Fox and Friends morning broadcast for a lengthy interview. You can tell there are aspects to the interview adverse to the political interests of Fox News by the fact they did not present the interview for distribution.
However, that said, here’s a copy of the broadcast where President Trump discusses the efforts of the previous administration to target him and eliminate his presidency. If you want to understand President Trump’s perspective on FBI Director Chris Wray skip to @13:00 point of video; and comments on Jeff Sessions @15:20.
In the summer of 2019 CTH noted: “The problem for Attorney General Bill Barr is not investigating what we don’t know, but rather navigating through what ‘We The People’ are already aware of.”
Six months later, specifically citing the problem for Bill Barr that Michael Flynn’s prosecution represented, we again cautioned against projecting an altruistic motive toward the AG, because there was more evidence the DOJ priority was institutional preservation than any arbitrary quest for justice. The problem is BIG:
[…] At the heart of the matter, in the real activity that took place, there was a multi-branch seditious effort to remove President Donald J Trump. From the perspective of those charged with the actual administration of justice – there is no way to put this in front of the American public and have the institutions survive. What we are witnessing is a dance between increasingly narrowing rails and the DOJ trying to find an exit. (more)
With Michael Flynn trapped on the burning roof of a corrupt institution the problem for Barr was how to rescue Flynn without admitting Main Justice and the FBI is on fire. Fortuitously in January 2020 the FISA Court provided cover, an escape route, for Bill Barr to deal with the problem:
….[LINK] The only way I can see out of this mess; the one crack in the current lock box; is the FISA court order for the DOJ to present the identified downstream consequences from fraud upon the court. The FISC might actually be the ladder truck here. With the DOJ and FBI currently assembling the investigative consequences, ie. the sequestration material, Flynn’s current legal status might be identified as an outcropping of fraud…
