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Sources Say U.S. Intelligence Agencies Tasked Foreign Partners with Spying on Trump’s 2016 Campaign


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/14/sources-say-u-s-intelligence-agencies-tasked-foreign-partners-with-spying-on-trumps-2016-campaign/

Donald Trump in 2016

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The U.S. Intelligence Community asked fellow members of the “‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies,” sources told a small team of independent reporters who broke the story yesterday. 

In “CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy on Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say,” journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag reported that top-line takeaway, along with several other key details. According to the authors, “multiple credible sources,” said that “the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.” 

The article, published on Shellenberger’s Substack, noted, “Until now, the official story has been that the FBI’s investigation began after Australian intelligence officials told US officials that a Trump aide had boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damning material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.” That probe, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, launched on July 31, 2016, although Special Counsel John Durham would later conclude the Australian tip failed to justify the investigation into the Trump campaign. 

Spying on Trump

However, British intelligence sources began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies possibly as early as 2015, according to Tuesday’s blockbuster article. Several outlets had previously reported that the British Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, had discovered “alleged ties between Trump and the Russian government.”

According to the British-based Guardian, “a source close to UK intelligence” claimed, “GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents.” Yet the Guardian reported:

GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.

Not so, according to Shellenberger, Taibbi, and Gutentag’s sources, who were familiar with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s investigation. “In truth, the US IC asked the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies,” the journalists reported their sources as saying, with the Five Eyes nations being the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Sources also claimed, according to Tuesday’s article, that “President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had identified 26 Trump associates for the Five Eyes to target.” According to the journalists, a source confirmed the IC had “identified [those associates] as people to ‘bump,’ or make contact with or manipulate,” and claimed the individuals were “targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation.”

A source close to the investigation reportedly told the team of journalists that “[t]hey were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” and “sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. The MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up.”

Shellenberger, Taibbi, and Gutentag further reported their sources’ claim that “[u]nknown details about the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and raw intelligence related to the IC’s surveillance of the Trump campaign are in a 10-inch binder that Trump ordered to be declassified at the very end of his term.” The three journalists stressed that this new information “is supported by testimony already in the public record.” In fact, much of the article confirms theories developed from the evidence gleaned over the years.

Years of Evidence

For instance, in “All The Russia Collusion Clues Are Beginning To Point Back To John Brennan,” I highlighted Brennan’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017 that he had “encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about.” Brennan told the committee back then that he didn’t know whether there was collusion with Russia, but that he passed the information on to the FBI. As I wrote at the time:

The evidence suggests, however, that Brennan’s CIA and the intelligence community did much more than merely pass on details about ‘contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign’ to the FBI. The evidence suggests that the CIA and intelligence community — including potentially the intelligence communities of the UK, Italy, and Australia — created the contacts and interactions that they then reported to the FBI as suspicious.

The known entities of this apparent conspiracy included Stefan Halper, an American confidential human source (CHS) informant for the FBI who, as I wrote at The Federalist, “worked at Cambridge University alongside Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of the British intelligence service MI6, and Christopher Andrew, the official historian for the British counterintelligence group MI5.” 

It has long been known that Halper reached out to several members of the Trump campaign as a CHS for the Crossfire Hurricane team. But Halper’s efforts to ingratiate himself began before the official launch on July 31, 2016. In mid-July 2016, Halper approached Carter Page at a conference at Cambridge. American Steven Schrage, who organized that conference, detailed the happenings in the article “The Spies Who Hijacked America.” 

As Schrage told it, “For most of the conference, Halper couldn’t be bothered with Page, about whom he made snarky comments about behind Page’s back.” But that changed after Dearlove arrived at the conference and spoke with Halper. Halper then “seemed desperately interested in isolating, cornering, and ingratiating himself to Page and promoting himself to the Trump campaign,” Schrage wrote.

While Halper’s outreach to Page came only a couple of weeks before the launch of Crossfire Hurricane, the apparent targeting of Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos first occurred in March 2016. Open-source material reveals that “on March 14, 2016, George met London-based college Professor Joseph Mifsud while traveling in Italy.” At the time, “Mifsud, then director of the London Academy of Diplomacy, claimed connections to the Russian Government.”

According to Papadopoulos, he had traveled to Italy, specifically Rome, at the encouragement of “a woman in London, who was the FBI’s legal attaché in the U.K.” That initial meeting of Mifsud led to several more, including the fateful one where Mifsud supposedly told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton — the conversation the FBI claimed justified the launching of Crossfire Hurricane.

As has been detailed at length, most comprehensively by Lee Smith at RealClearInvestigations, Mifsud has numerous connections to Western intelligence services and has taught at the Link Campus University in Rome, a university whose “lecturers and professors include senior Western diplomats and intelligence officials from a number of NATO countries, especially Italy and the United Kingdom.”

Confirming Theories

These details closely match the information that sources revealed to Shellenberger, Taibbi, and Gutentag. And should the raw intelligence reports exist, as those sources claim, there will be concrete confirmation that foreign intelligence services targeted the Trump campaign, which in turn will confirm many of the theories posited about the real start of the Russia-collusion hoax.

It seems unlikely there will be anything in writing to establish John Brennan or another member of the U.S. Intelligence Community solicited assistance from the other members of Five Eyes. Nonetheless, Americans deserve to know what was in that 10-inch binder and which foreign intelligence services interfered in our 2016 election by “bumping” members of the Trump campaign to craft the Russia hoax. 

The now-known significance of that binder also raises the specter that the search of Mar-a-Lago wasn’t to protect classified materials but to protect intelligence agencies — American and foreign. 


Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

A Short History of Joe’s Long Record of Lying About Biden Inc.


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | DECEMBER 05, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/12/05/a-short-history-of-joes-long-record-of-lying-about-biden-inc/

Biden Has Tense Exchange With Voter Over Age, Son Hunter: ‘You’re A Damn Liar’

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During a 2020 campaign event, then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden was asked by an Iowa man if the former’s son Hunter Biden had ever had “access to the Obama administration.” The future president, who had vowed to bring decorum and decency back to the White House, called the man a “damn liar” and “fat” and told him he was “too old” before insulting his IQ. This act of projection from Biden should have been a warning. It was modus operandi for Joe, whose preternatural dishonesty was impressive even for a politician, to question the mental fitness of those who caught him in a lie. Biden had done much the same to a reporter during his 1987 failed presidential run.

Biden would go on to contend on numerous occasions that he never once even spoke to his son Hunter about the family’s influence-peddling business. Joe claimed never to have “discussed with my son anything having to do with what was going on in Ukraine. That’s a fact.”

As a Chicago ABC affiliate and the AP reported in an October 2019 story — helpfully headlined, “Joe Biden defends himself, son Hunter on Ukraine during Democratic debate following Trump accusations” — the former veep said he “never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having to do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. We’ve always kept everything separate.”

Not a single thing.

When the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, indicating that Joe had lied, virtually the entire left-wing media regurgitated the claims of former intelligence officials — including known liars like James Clapper and John Brennan — that the story smacked of Russian “disinformation.” The story, allegedly discredited, was then censored by Big Tech and big media companies. Even Joe noted that the “vast majority of the intelligent people have come out and said there’s no basis at all.”

Well, we soon found out there was plenty of basis to the story. Hunter had hosted a dinner in a private room at Café Milano in D.C. with his dad and an executive from Burisma, the company that had enriched the Biden business. And in an email dated the next day, the Ukrainian exec thanked Hunter for the meeting with his dad.

In scores of other emails and texts, Hunter talks about his dad helping him secure payments and taking a cut. One of Hunter’s former business partners contends Joe was involved in the family business, as does Hunter’s former close friend, who testified under oath that Joe was on upwards of 20 calls with business associates.

At this point, there was overwhelming direct evidence that Joe was a willing participant, at the very least, in creating the impression that influence trading was happening and plenty of circumstantial evidence that the elder Biden was getting a 10 percent cut for the troubles.

As evidence of the president’s lies about his family’s influence-peddling business mounted, “fact-checkers” and the media began struggling to calibrate their defenses to correspond with the fresh information. While at first there had been “no evidence” that Biden knew anything — to say differently, was to peddle misinformation — suddenly there was “no evidence” that Biden had personally benefited from Hunter’s scheming (as if enriching your entire family wasn’t personal).

And this is when the partisan defenses of Joe began to see a dramatic decline in quality. One of my favorites was The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, who was not alone, arguing: “We know how important family is to the president. So, do you hang up on your son?”

It was probably familial love that induced James Biden to write brother Joe a personal check for $200,000, that — by complete happenstance – was the exact amount James had received from the failed Americore family venture on that very same day. Talk about crazy coincidences.

It was around this time, as well, that White House language began subtly shifting from blanket denials to finely tuned Clintonesque turns of phrase about Joe never being “in business with his son.”  

This week, the House Oversight Committee released financial documents illustrating that Hunter signed off on monthly transfers to Joe through Owasco PC, a Biden shell company that pulled at least $5 million from the Chicom energy concerns in 2017 and 2018. The Daily Mail reports there were at least three payments, from September to November 2018, or a few months before Biden announced he was running for president.

Listen, the Biden family operated through at least 20 shell companies — as one does when running a completely above-board legit business venture. It’s not easy to keep up. Or, as Jon Hamm’s character quipped in “The Town,” you need a Venn diagram for these people.

You might recall that in 2020, Biden had claimed Hunter never “made money in terms of this thing about — what are you talking about — China.” But Hunter had not only tagged along on an Air Force Two trip to China in 2013, he’d introduced his dad to the Chinese banker he was teaming up with for a private equity fund.

So, I eagerly look forward to fact-checkers, media, and the White House clarifying why this is all just fine. It’s been a wild ride so far, so I bet the explanation is going to be amazing.


David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

The Unspoken Warning in the Durham Report: American Self-Government Is Collapsing


BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | MAY 18, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/18/the-unspoken-warning-in-the-durham-report-american-self-government-is-collapsing/

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Yesterday in these pages Margot Cleveland rightly noted that the most damning finding in the 306-page report from Special Counsel John Durham is not necessarily the FBI’s scandalous Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016, but that the egregious abuses of power detailed in the report cannot be remedied “absent a curing of the corrupted hearts and minds of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”

For all the FBI’s blatant partisanship, its disregard of exculpatory evidence, and its outright deception to secure FISA warrants on Trump campaign associates, writes Cleveland, “what should terrify the country is not the catalog of malfeasance the special counsel recited — for mistakes and even gross failures can be corrected — but that Durham warned of corrupted hearts and minds, unfaithful to the people and their Constitution.”

For his part, Durham didn’t recommend any changes to FBI guidelines or policies, because no amount of reform will be sufficient if the people in charge feel free to disregard guidelines and policies whenever they see fit to do so. As such, wrote Durham, “the answer is not the creation of new rules but a renewed fidelity to the old. The promulgation of additional rules and regulations to be learned in yet more training sessions would likely prove to be a fruitless exercise if the FBI’s guiding principles of ‘Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity’ are not engrained in the hearts and minds of those sworn to meet the FBI’s mission of ‘Protect[ing] the American People and uphold[ing] the Constitution of the United States.’”

Durham is right, as is Cleveland. The abuse of power laid out in the report is terrifying, not just because what the FBI undertook in 2016 amounted to an attempted coup, but because it’s unclear how to prevent it from happening again. Indeed, we saw the same kind of abuse of power at play in 2020 when active and former CIA officials saw fit to interfere in the election by soliciting signatures for a letter designed to quash the Hunter Biden laptop story. There is every reason to believe that these kinds of abuses will happen again in 2024, and in every future presidential election. 

As I wrote earlier this week, such abuse in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies represents a mortal threat to the republic, and we should understand the Durham report in that light.

But Durham’s damning indictment of the DOJ and FBI goes beyond those particular agencies, and indeed beyond the federal government. That people like former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, along with the entire cast of villains and liars in the Durham report, rose to positions of such power, and then proceeded to abuse that power by arrogating to themselves the right to decide who should be president — a right that belongs solely to the American people — says something about the state of our republic.

What it says is this: We have produced, and are still producing, a totally corrupt elite bereft of any sense of “Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity,” to say nothing of moral virtue or the common good.

Put bluntly, an elite like that makes self-government in a republic of free citizens impossible. It also means that the elite will work to corrupt ordinary Americans, eroding their respect for the rule of law and fidelity to the Constitution. As the elites go, so eventually the entire country goes.

Seen in this light, the Durham report should be understood as a dire warning about the fate of our country. John Adams issued a similar warning when he penned his famous line, that “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” George Washington did the same in his farewell address when he said, “’Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”

The founders knew what we seem to have forgotten: Without a virtuous people, without citizens and leaders who believe in objective moral truth and understand themselves to be bound by it, we cannot be a free people, and we cannot sustain a republic. Laws alone, to say nothing of guidelines and policies, are not enough to support and sustain self-government. You need citizens who will respect and uphold the law, and leaders who actually believe in the principle of self-government — something our current crop of leaders clearly rejects.

Without a morally virtuous citizenry, the founders also knew we would eventually become a society not of free men and women, but of slaves to a tyrannical regime. That’s the real warning embedded in the Durham report. The corruption of the FBI, the CIA, and the entire federal intelligence community, which led to the Russia-collusion hoax and almost took down Trump’s campaign, and then his presidency, cannot be fixed with new rules and policies. It’s a moral failing, moral corruption, and it can only be fixed by a spiritual renewal in America, by a return to — let’s be honest — a civic culture shaped and guided by Christian moral virtue.

It’s easy to look at the Durham report and conclude that the problem is just with a handful of bad apples in the federal intelligence agencies. But the rot goes much deeper than that. People like Comey and Brennan and the legions of corrupt agents and bureaucrats under them were produced by an American society that has lost its way, that has become unmoored from the morality that sustains our system of government and inculcates virtue in our citizenry.

New rules and regulations won’t be enough. Nor will it be enough to defund or disband the FBI. Unless we rediscover the moral virtue necessary for self-government, we will descend, bit by bit, into tyranny. And one day we will look back at the Durham report and understand that it wasn’t just an indictment of the FBI but an indictment of us all — and a harbinger of the end of our republic.


John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

6 Freshly Documented Instances Of Systemic Pro-Democrat FBI Corruption


BY: JOY PULLMANN | MAY 17, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/17/6-freshly-documented-instances-of-systemic-pro-democrat-fbi-corruption/

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Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann and others lied to the nation about the special counsel report released Monday that deeply documents years of systemic FBI corruption in favor of the Democratic Party. That report reveals and adds detail to multiple instances in which FBI employees used high-level intelligence and law-enforcement positions to promote misinformation that affected at least two presidential elections, always on behalf of Democrats.

Special Counsel John Durham’s report lists and compares multiple such instances to illustrate “Systemic Problems” that are “difficult to explain.” Many more have been uncovered in the past few years. This information key to Americans’ oversight of their government through free and fair elections has been blacked out on corporate media airwaves and censored online by private grantees and social media companies obeying funding conditions and threats from federal officials.

1. Weaponizing Democrat Party Misinformation Developed With Probable Foreign Spies

It just so happens that the false information the FBI used to immediately open a spy operation on Democrats’ opposition was developed by the Democrat presidential campaign, in conjunction with at least two potential or allegedly former foreign spies.

According to the Durham report, top FBI, DOJ, and CIA officials, as well as President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, were told “within days of its receipt” that the Hillary Clinton campaign had developed a “plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.”

CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama, Biden, FBI Director James Comey, and Attorney General Eric Holder on this intelligence on Aug. 3, 2016, a few days after Clinton’s campaign developed the plan. The CIA reportedly got this info about Clinton’s smear plan from its surveillance of Russian intelligence.

This means that, in the summer of 2016, the FBI and DOJ, and the head of the Democrat Party, knew that the Steele dossier, Alfa Bank allegations, and other claims of Donald Trump being a traitorous Russian stooge “were part of a political effort to smear a political opponent and to use the resources of the federal government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies in support of a political objective.”

This should have gotten the FBI to question its Crossfire Hurricane operation, Durham’s report says. Instead, however, the FBI raced ahead, with FBI headquarters demanding faster pursuit of Trump under what they knew were false pretenses.

The FBI’s actions indicated a clear double standard for Republicans and Democrats, the report shows. “Unlike the FBI’s opening of a full investigation of unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated information, in this separate matter involving a purported Clinton campaign plan, the FBI never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information,” notes the Durham report.

The report says if the Clinton campaign knowingly supplied this false information to the government, that’s a criminal offense. Durham claims his team was unable to establish this criminal intent, but it’s obvious it existed even if it can’t be established with emails and voice recordings.

So, again, months before the press started stampeding false claims of Russian collusion into three impeachment attempts that strangled Trump’s ability to wield the power voters had given him, the heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, the sitting president and head of the Democratic Party, and Democrats’ next president were aware it was a political disinformation operation with no basis in fact. The head of that same FBI that ran a multi-year spy operation against Trump based on this claim knew it was politically motivated disinformation before the lie even got its boots on.

This goes far beyond agency “bias.” It is the complete corruption of half of the nation’s political party system and its federal law enforcement. It is the systematic disenfranchisement of Americans who don’t agree with the national security blob — or wouldn’t, if that blob allowed them to learn true facts about its evil machinations.

It is the systematic weaponization of the U.S. national security apparatus against constitutional self-government. It is the end of government of the people, by the people, and for the people in the United States of America. That’s what Durham’s report shows. Anyone who doesn’t treat this as a five-alarm fire set by saboteurs is helping fan the flames.

2. Protecting Democrats’ POTUS Pick While Slandering Republicans’ POTUS Pick

Several times, the Durham report notes that FBI and Department of Justice officials treated the Clinton and Trump campaigns completely differently. Another notable way was in regard to potential contacts with agents from foreign governments.

When the feds learned of a foreign influence operation seeking to target Hillary Clinton, they gave her campaign what is called a “defensive briefing.” That means they warned the campaign about the potential for undue foreign influence.

When the feds learned that a foreign influence operation might be seeking to target Trump, they warned almost everyone except the Trump campaign. The FBI, DOJ, and CIA not only gave Trump’s campaign no defensive briefings on such potential threats, the report says, these agencies used the threats as an excuse to surveil Trump’s campaign and boost Clinton’s disinformation operation linking Trump to Russia in the press.

“The speed with which surveillance of a U.S. person associated with Trump’s campaign was authorized … are difficult to explain compared to the FBI’s and the [Justice] Department’s actions nearly two years earlier when confronted with corroborated allegations of attempted foreign influence involving Clinton, who at the time was still an undeclared candidate for the presidency,” says the report on pages 73 and 74.

3. Dismissing Foreign Funds Transfers for Clinton, Not for Trump

In contrast to the bureau’s full-scale rush to use its powers to smear Republicans with known falsehoods, the report shows that when the FBI knew the Democrat presidential campaign might be violating federal law, the FBI stood down. When an informant told the FBI the Clinton campaign was likely accepting illegal foreign campaign contributions, the FBI told the informant to drop it and did nothing further.

“Once again, the investigative actions taken by FBI Headquarters in the [Clinton] Foundation matters contrast with those taken in Crossfire Hurricane,” says Durham’s report. “As an initial matter, the NYFO [FBI New York Field Office] and WFO [Washington Field Office] investigations appear to have been opened as preliminary investigations due to the political sensitivity and their reliance on unvetted hearsay information (the Clinton Cash book) and CHS reporting. By contrast, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was immediately opened as a full investigation despite the fact that it was similarly predicated on unvetted hearsay information.”

Another double standard was revealed in this contrasting FBI treatment of different political parties: “Furthermore, while the Department appears to have had legitimate concerns about the Foundation investigation occurring so close to a presidential election, it does not appear that similar concerns were expressed by the [Justice] Department or FBI regarding the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

4. Putting Powerful Democrats Above the Law

We already knew from the years The Federalist has spent unraveling Spygate that former FBI Counterintelligence Division Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and his mistress, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s staff lawyer Lisa Page, weaponized their government positions to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. These are the two who infamously texted that they’d “stop” Trump from becoming president.

Durham’s report shows multiple instances of McCabe, Strzok, Page, and their superiors wielding federal law enforcement positions as weapons against Republicans. The Durham report contains more evidence that high-level federal intelligence officials see it as routine to put powerful Democrats above the law.

Besides the disparate treatment outlined above and many other such instances, Durham’s report includes a telling text exchange between Strzok and Page. It shows them deciding not to apply the law to Hillary Clinton because of her powerful position. It seems that the powerful are indeed above the law in the United States — provided they’re affiliated with the Democratic Party.

5. Refusing Interviews with the Special Counsel

Key FBI figures refused interviews with Durham’s team, including Comey, Strzok, the Clinton campaign’s Marc Elias, McCabe, Page, and Glenn Simpson of the opposition research firm that cooked up the Steele dossier for Clinton’s campaign.

Add that to the many instances of “former” FBI and CIA figures being employed in social media companies to assist with government censorship demands, and going on TV to fuel the Russiagate hoax and other lies to Americans about crucial public issues. It adds up to yet another indication of an intelligence state using its vast — and unconstitutional — powers on behalf of the Democrat Party.

6. Refusing to Obey Congressional Subpoenas About Records on Biden Corruption

Durham’s report indicates that the FBI repeatedly sat on evidence the Clinton campaign was accepting bribes — payments in exchange for policy preferences. The FBI is still doing that with Joe Biden. According to several high-level members of Congress, the FBI has been refusing to release to them subpoenaed, non-classified information about how it handled documentation alleging that Biden also traded political favors for campaign donations.

“We know the FBI relied on unverified claims to relentlessly target a Republican president. What did the FBI do to investigate claims involving a Democrat President?” asked Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Numerous private and congressional watchdogs have documented that the Biden family has received millions of dollars from foreign individuals and companies connected to hostile governments including communist China.

“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley said in a press release earlier this month. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further.”

Congressional subpoenas have the force of law. Federal agencies operate at the discretion and funding of Congress, according to the Constitution. The FBI’s leadership doesn’t seem to believe, however, that constitutional checks and balances apply to them. So long as Congress doesn’t enforce its own prerogatives, the FBI’s corrupt leaders are right.

It’s been publicly known for decades that the FBI uses its surveillance, investigatory, and other law enforcement powers to manipulate American politics. Recall its surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. and infamous FBI head J. Edgar Hoover’s spying on the Supreme Court, Congress, and presidents.

The Durham report is, in that respect, nothing new. What would be new would be punishing the FBI’s use of blackmail, smear operations, threats, censorship, illegal spying, and election rigging. If that doesn’t happen, the United States is quite simply not a free country anymore.


Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

Tulsi Gabbard labels Adam Schiff, John Brennan as ‘domestic enemies’ of the US


Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard issued a dire warning to the American people on Tuesday, expressing concern that “domestic enemies” of the United States, in the national security community and Big Tech industry, are plotting to create a “police state” in America.

Gabbard, who served as the U.S. representative for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District from 2013 to 2021, posted a video to social media in which she spoke out against efforts to expand the federal government’s national security powers after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. In the video, she called out former CIA Director John Brennan and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), two leading proponents of expanding national security powers, labeling them “domestic enemies” of the country.

“The mob who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to stop Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities were behaving like domestic enemies of our country,” Gabbard said. “But let’s be clear, the John Brennans, Adam Schiffs and the oligarchs in Big Tech who are trying to undermine our constitutionally protected rights and turn our country into a police state with KGB-style surveillance are also domestic enemies — and much more powerful, and therefore dangerous, than the mob that stormed the Capitol.”

The video cuts to a clip from MSNBC of Brennan saying that members of the Biden administration “are now moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we see overseas.” Brennan was speaking of individuals and groups like those that formed the mob that laid siege to the Capitol.

The events of Jan. 6 have been compared in the media to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a comparison some have used to call for a Domestic War on Terror,” demanding that the U.S. employ strategies here at home akin to those used against ISIS and al-Qaeda abroad. Rep. Schiff in 2019 introduced legislation that would create a federal domestic terrorism criminal statute. A similar bill sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) would establish new offices in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the FBI to investigate domestic terrorism in the U.S.

Civil liberties advocates like Gabbard have spoken out against a war on terror here at home. A group of progressive representatives, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), last week called on congressional leaders to reject efforts to pass Durbin’s Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act and oppose new legislation that would expand the national security state.

Gabbard is calling on President Joe Biden and the Congress to defend American civil liberties.

“President Biden, I call upon you & all of Congress from both parties to denounce efforts by Brennan & others to take away our civil liberties endowed to us by our Creator & guaranteed in our Constitution. If you don’t stand up to them now, then our country will be in great peril,” she said.

Trump: I’m Authorizing Total Declassification Of All Docs Related To Hillary’s Alleged Plan To Smear Me


By  Hank Berrien |   | DailyWire.com

U.S. President Donald Trump walks in a corridor of the White House to greet visitors, while a portrait of Hillary Clinton hangs on the wall, March 7, 2017 in Washington, DC . / Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images

On Tuesday night, following the news that Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe had declassified documents showing former CIA Director John Brennan had briefed former President Barack Obama about the plan that Hillary Clinton allegedly approved to smear Donald Trump about his supposed connections to Moscow, President Trump tweeted that he would authorize the release of the full, unredacted documents related to the case.

As The Daily Wire reported on Tuesday:

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified documents on Tuesday showing that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama about the plan that Hillary Clinton allegedly approved to smear then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as a way of distracting from her email scandal.

“Ratcliffe declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes – which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence the CIA received – and a CIA memo, which revealed that officials referred the matter to the FBI for potential investigative action,” Fox News reported. “That referral was sent to then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.”

A source that was familiar with the documents told Fox News that, despite claims from the media and Democrats, the information was not “Russian disinformation,” and the fact that Brennan reportedly briefed Obama on it is a sign that it was serious.

“This is not Russian disinformation. Even Brennan knew, or he wouldn’t be briefing the president of the United States on it,” the source said. “There is a high threshold to orally brief the president of the United States and he clearly felt this met that threshold.”

In late July, former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett suggested that the public stop focusing on whether the Obama administration used the FBI to spy on Donald Trump in 2016.

Appearing on Fox Business with host Maria Bartiromo, Jarrett stated, “Well, Maria, look, I have a high degree of confidence that our intelligence community, our investigators comported themselves responsibly. Look, Lindsey Graham is the one that encouraged Senator McCain to turn over the dossier in the first place to the FBI.”

The Daily Wire had reported that the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found 17 “inaccuracies and omissions” in FISA warrant applications to spy on Carter Page. But the FBI ignored information from a U.S. government agency that said it had a prior relationship with Page involving contacts with Russian intelligence officers. The Daily Wire noted, “The FBI hid this information from the FISA court in order to obtain another warrant to continue investigating Page, even though it knew there was nothing to investigate. By spying on Page, the FBI gained access to other Trump associates to spy on in order to find some evidence that could be used against Trump.:

Jarrett added, “So, I can’t tell you all of the reasons why Comey went forward with his investigation. Maybe this was one piece of a bigger puzzle. But I do know that it’s nearly four years ago and I don’t understand why our focus isn’t on what’s happening right now and today. That’s the investigation I would like to see going on.”

In Midst of Flynn Unmasking Scandal, Trump Reveals What He Thinks Obama Was Really Doing


Reported By Jack Davis | Published May 18, 2020 at 8:29am

URL of the originating web site: https://www.westernjournal.com/midst-flynn-unmasking-scandal-trump-reveals-thinks-obama-really/

The Justice Department is currently seeking to drop charges against Flynn and have his case dismissed. Flynn was among those “unmasked” by Obama-era officials. Unmasking is the intelligence term used for those instances when American citizens speaking to foreign nationals under surveillance have their identities revealed. It takes an official request to do so.

In recent days, the Trump administration released a list of Obama administration officials who made unmasking requests and who could have learned of Flynn’s identity through them. Due to the presence on that list of former Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and comments from the attorney currently representing Flynn, Obama’s name has now become linked to the effort to target Flynn.

Other names on the list include former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey and former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.

Trump pulled no punches in the interview.

“It was the greatest political crime in the history of our country,” he said.

“If I were a Democrat instead of a Republican, I think everybody would have been in jail a long time ago. And I’m talking with 50-year sentences,” the president said. “It is a disgrace, what’s happened. This is the greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country, and people should be going to jail for this stuff. And, hopefully, a lot of people are going to have to pay.”

He said that “Flynn and others are heroes, heroes, because what’s happened to them — they weren’t after General Flynn. They wanted him to lie about me, make up a story. And with few exceptions, nobody did that,” he said.

“This was all Obama. This was all Biden. These people were corrupt. The whole thing was corrupt. And we caught them. We caught them,” Trump said.

The president fired a shot at Biden.

“I watched Biden yesterday. He could barely speak,” Trump said. “He was on ‘Good Morning America,’ right? And he said he didn’t know anything about it. And now it just gets released. Right after he said that, it gets released that he was one of the unmaskers, meaning he knew everything about it.”

The president said the Obama-era intelligence community “went after these people viciously, all because they wanted to hurt the president of the United States. They figure they’ll either hurt him or they’ll take him out. That would be the ideal.

“Comey is a corrupt person, but let me tell you, Brennan bad. They’re all bad, everyone. Clapper is a not-smart guy, in charge of intelligence. But here’s the thing. It was impossible for it to happen without the man that sits right in that chair in the Oval Office. He knew everything.”

Bartiromo asked Trump whether Obama directed the effort against him.

“Yes, he probably directed them. But if he didn’t direct them, he knew everything. And you will see that,” he said.

Trump noted that communications from FBI agents involved in the hunt for evidence to show his campaign colluded with Russia mentioned that the then-president wanted to see everything.

“They’re not talking about me. I wasn’t president. They’re talking about ‘POTUS wants to see everything.’” Trump said.

He said Brennan was “totally involved.”

“John Brennan was one of the architects, in my opinion. You look at Brennan, you look at Clapper, you look at them all,” the president said.

Trump said the intelligence community did not go rogue.

“But, ultimately, the president knew everything. The president knew everything. President Obama and Vice President Biden, they knew everything,” he said.

The president said the truth has finally emerged.

“If this happened to Obama instead of to a Republican president that’s popular, 96 percent in the Republican Party, but it’s a whole different thing. If this happened to Obama instead of to me, you know what? Everybody would be in jail for years already, for years. It’s a disgraceful thing,” Trump said.

“We caught them in the act, Maria. It’s a beautiful thing,” he said. “And every day, we’re seeing more and more information come out. We caught them. And their guys are gone. They were guarding the fort. Comey and all these guys, they were guarding the fort. And once they left, it got easier and easier.

“And now it’s like an avalanche of really bad — call it treason, call it whatever you want, but they tried to take down a duly elected president of the United States.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Alleged ‘Whistleblower’ Eric Ciaramella Worked Closely with Anti-Trump Dossier Hoaxer


Reported by Aaron Klein | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/06/alleged-whistleblower-eric-ciaramella-worked-closely-with-anti-trump-dossier-hoaxers/

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 20: Former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland testifies during a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee June 20, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on “Policy Response to Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. … Alex Wong/Getty Images

Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower, was part of an Obama administration email chain celebrating the eventual signing of a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to Ukraine.

That and other emails show Ciaramella interfaced about Ukraine with individuals who played key roles in facilitating the infamous anti-Trump dossier produced by Fusion GPS and reportedly financed by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. One of those individuals, then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland (pictured), received updates on Ukraine issues from dossier author Christopher Steele in addition to Nuland’s direct role in the dossier controversy.

Also part of the email chains was Christopher J. Anderson, who was a special adviser to former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker. Anderson testified to the Democrat-led House committees running the impeachment inquiry.

Ciaramella’s name comes up in six Obama-era government emails that were released by the State Department as part of two previous Freedom of Information Act requests.  At the time of the exchanges, Ciaramella served as the Director for Baltic and Eastern European Affairs for the Obama-era National Security Council, where he worked on Ukraine policy.  He is now an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.

One email, titled, “Loan Guarantee,” involved Nuland, who was reportedly a key champion of the Ukraine loan guarantee policy.

“Hurray,” a celebratory Nuland wrote in response to a translated Ukrainian government announcement about the signing of the $1 billion loan guarantee.  The announcement singles out Joe Biden as being present for the conclusion of an agreement leading to the loan guarantee.

Ciaramella was one of several people CC’d in the email, which was sent from the U.S. ambassador at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, who was another key champion of the loan guarantee to Ukraine along with Nuland.

The email is one of several that shows Ciaramella in the loop with top officials such as Nuland working on Ukraine policy under the Obama administration.

The loan guarantee was pushed through after Ukraine agreed to several reforms, especially the firing of the nation’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. This at a time that Shokin was reportedly investigating Burisma, the Ukranian natural gas company paying Hunter Biden.  Joe Biden infamously boasted on video about personally threatening to withhold loan guarantees from Ukraine unless Shokin was removed.

Another released email shows Ciaramella himself sending a message to Nuland and others. Most of the contents are blocked out, including the email’s subject line. One non-classified section of that email shows a reply stating, “Embassy Kyiv — coordinated with our USAID mission folks — will have detailed input tomorrow.”

One email involving Nuland was sent two days before the loan guarantee was signed on June 3, 2016. “Can you confirm who will be doing the actual signing for each side?” the exchange asked.

Nuland has come under repeated fire for her various roles in the anti-Trump dossier controversy.

FBI notes also cite career Justice Department official Bruce Ohr as saying that Nuland was in touch with Fusion GPS co-founder and dossier producer Glenn Simpson.

Sen. John McCain, who infamously delivered the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey, reportedly first dispatched an aide, David J. Kramer, to inquire with Nuland about the dossier claims.

In their book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, authors and reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier’s claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.

Meanwhile, looped into email chains with Ciaramella was then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer.

An extensive New Yorker profile of Steele named Finer as obtaining the contents of a two-page summary of the dossier and eventually deciding to share the questionable document with Kerry.

Finer reportedly received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with Nuland.

After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.

Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an “old friend.” Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.

In testimony last year, Nuland made statements about a meeting at the State Department in October 2016 between State officials and Steele, but said that she didn’t participate.

At a June 2018 hearing, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) revealed contents of the State Department’s visitor logs while he was grilling Nuland.

At the hearing, Burr asked: “I know you talked extensively with our staff relative to Mr. Steele. Based upon our review of the visitor logs of the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department briefing officials on the dossier in October of 2016. Did you have any role in that briefing?”

“I did not,” Nuland replied. “I actively chose not to be part of that briefing.”

“But were you aware of that briefing?” Burr asked.

“I was not aware of it until afterwards,” Nuland retorted.

Nuland did not explain how she can actively chose not to be part of Steele’s briefing, as she claimed, yet say she was unaware of the briefing until after it occurred. Nuland was not asked about the discrepancy during the public section of the testimony, which was reviewed in full by Breitbart News.

Nuland previously served as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott under Bill Clinton’s administration, and then served as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs.

Nuland faced confirmation questions prior to her most recent appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her reported changes sought to protect Hillary Clinton’s State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi.

Likely ‘whistleblower’

A RealClearInvestigations report by investigative journalist and author Paul Sperry named Ciaramella as best fitting the description of the so-called whistleblower. Officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings say Ciaramella’s name has been raised in private in impeachment depositions and during at least one House open hearing that was not part of the formal impeachment proceedings.

Federal documents show Ciaramella also worked closely with Joe Biden and worked under Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. He also worked with former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump advocate who has faced controversy for his role in fueling the questionable Russia collusion investigation.  Rice participated in Russia collusion probe meetings and reportedly unmasked senior members of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Sperry cites former White House officials saying Ciaramella worked for Biden on Ukrainian policy issues in 2015 and 2016, encompassing the time period for which Biden has been facing possible conflict questions for leading Ukraine policy in light of Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma.

Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj, the activist attorneys representing the so-called whistleblower, refused to confirm on deny that their secretive client is indeed Ciaramella.

“We neither confirm nor deny the identity of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower,” the lawyers told the Washington Examiner in response to an inquiry about Ciaramella.

Zaid and Bakaj added, “Our client is legally entitled to anonymity. Disclosure of the name of any person who may be suspected to be the whistleblower places that individual and their family in great physical danger. Any physical harm the individual and/or their family suffers as a result of disclosure means that the individuals and publications reporting such names will be personally liable for that harm. Such behavior is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless.”

On Sunday, Trump responded to press reports naming Ciaramella, calling him a “radical” known for his close ties to Brennan and Rice.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. There have been stories written about a certain individual, a male, and they say he’s the whistleblower,” Trump told reporters. “If he’s the whistleblower, he has no credibility because he’s a Brennan guy, he’s a Susan Rice guy, he’s an Obama guy.”

Trump added, “And he hates Trump. And he’s a radical. Now, maybe it’s not him. But if it’s him, you guys ought to release the information.”

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.

Rush Limbaugh: John Brennan Traveled to Ukraine With Fake Passport — To Research Trump


Posted by 

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastandloyal.com/politics/rush-limbaugh-john-brennan-traveled-to-ukraine-with-fake-passport-to-research-trump/

Rush Limbaugh revealed on Monday that John Brennan traveled to Ukraine using a fake passport so no one would know he went there looking for dirt on Donald Trump.

John Brennan is a dirty cop and is believed by some to be the architect of the soft coup against President Trump. Why would he need to use a fake passport? I can think of no reason other than to prevent from leaving a paper trail. This was a cover-up.

We already know the previous Ukraine government worked with Hillary, Obama and the DNC to put out derogatory information on Trump and his campaign workers.

Via The Rush Limbaugh website:

RUSH: I got an email, “What do you mean, Brennan traveled to Ukraine with a fake passport? I didn’t hear that.” Well, folks, I’m sorry. Let me give you the details. John Brennan, Obama’s director-CIA, went to Ukraine under a fake passport so that nobody would know it was him. Fake name. Can you do that? Can you get a fake passport? No. John Brennan can, CIA director. I’m surprised he even needed a passport. But he went under a fake passport to get opposition research on Trump!
The Obama administration originally lied about Brennan’s visit, but they were forced later to admit the report was true after evidence of Brennan’s visit emerged. This is that guy, John Brennan, who over the weekend encouraged every deep-stater to come forward and blow the whistle on Trump. (summarized) “There is no limit on the number of individuals who can use the whistleblower statute. If you think you were involved in unlawful activity as a result of Trump, now is the time to report it!”
Is Brennan gonna pay all of you whistleblowers? Is he gonna pay for your protection? This is a former director of the CIA asking the deep state to rise en mass and start blowing the whistle on Trump with a bunch of made-up lies! This guy’s fingers are as dirty as anybody’s on the dossier, including McCain’s people. He traveled to Ukraine under a fake passport. The Obama regime denied it until the news was undeniable. Then they had to admit it.

Ex-US Attorney: Obama CIA Chief Led Operation To Frame Trump


disclaimerReported By Ben Marquis | May 16, 2018 at 2:16pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/obama-cia-chief-led-frame-trump/

 

The Trump campaign/Russian collusion narrative — which led to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — has been steadily unraveling in recent weeks. Despite a year long investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, no credible evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign has been found, and the “evidence” and intelligence that has been offered up appears to be false and manufactured.

Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova spoke about that and other recent developments during an appearance on Fox News with Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night, and cast the blame on the operation, which he viewed as a set up to frame President Donald Trump, on former Obama administration CIA Director John Brennan. 

“It was abundantly clear that there was no legitimate basis even for a counter intelligence investigation, let alone a criminal investigation,” DiGenova said.

“It is quite obvious that John Brennan was at the head of the group of people who were going to create a counter intelligence investigation against Trump by creating false information that was going to be fed through Carter Page, and fed through George Papadopoulos so that it would be picked up, reported back to Washington and provide the basis for a counter, a fake, counter intelligence investigation,” he continued.

“And it was all Brennan’s doing,” DiGenova stated emphatically. 

“And that is why the Justice Department is viciously fighting revealing everything they can about the source in London, who everybody knows the identity of.”

Ingraham asked the former U.S. attorney to further explain recent reports about an unnamed “source in London who allegedly provided information that was used as a basis for the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.

“The source in London was another person who was feeding false information to George Papadopoulos and others about collusion which did not exist,” DiGenova replied.

Another guest on the program, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, spoke about another aspect of the creation of the Trump/Russia collusion narrative and the anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele on behalf of Democrat-funded political opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

She noted how the FBI had granted access to a handful of private contractors, likely to include Fusion GPS, to sift through raw intelligence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This was then passed on to Steele and others and recycled back to the U.S. intelligence community with a false air of legitimacy to help form the narrative used as the basis for the investigation into Trump. 

DiGenova picked up on what Powell had mentioned and pointed out that there had been two opinions issued by the FISA court in opposition to that illegal practice of allowing private contractors access to the sensitive raw intelligence data.

“All of that was designed for the unmasking and the leaking of the names, and that was all done by private contractors,” DiGenova said. “The FISA court objected to it and it never stopped.”

The supposition that Brennan was the ringleader of an attempt to “frame” Trump is little more than DiGenova’s opinion, informed however well it might be by experience and information obtained through public and private sources.

That said, it increasingly appears as though the entire Trump/Russia collusion narrative was indeed created wholly out of false, manufactured or misconstrued information in order to provide justification for the investigation that was likely intended to prevent Trump from winning the election, or at least hamstring his agenda and lead to his impeachment once he took office. 

On top of that, Brennan has made it blatantly obvious that he loathes Trump, so it isn’t too much of a stretch to think he may have used the powerful intelligence tools at his disposal in order to “frame” an innocent man and destroy him politically. Hopefully we will find out the truth soon when the DOJ inspector general’s report is released.

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Former US Attorney: Susan Rice Ordered Spy Agencies To Produce ‘Detailed Spreadsheets’ Involving Trump


Reported by Photo of Richard Pollock Richard Pollock | Reporter | 10:08 PM 04/03/2017

Update: In response to a question Tuesday from NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell,  former Obama White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice denied that she “prepared” spreadsheets of surveilled telephone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group, however, reported that Rice “ordered” the spreadsheets to be produced.

In addition, former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, one of TheDCNF’s sources, said Tuesday in response to Rice that her denial “would come as quite a surprise to the government officials who have reviewed dozens of those spreadsheets.” 

Former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president, according to former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova.

“What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals,” diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group Monday.

“The overheard conversations involved no illegal activity by anybody of the Trump associates, or anyone they were speaking with,” diGenova said. “In short, the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls.”

Other official sources with direct knowledge and who requested anonymity confirmed to TheDCNF diGenova’s description of surveillance reports Rice ordered one year before the 2016 presidential election.

Also on Monday, Fox News and Bloomberg News, citing multiple sources reported that Rice had requested the intelligence information that was produced in a highly organized operation. Fox said the unmasked names of Trump aides were given to officials at the National Security Council (NSC), the Department of Defense, James Clapper, President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, and John Brennan, Obama’s CIA Director. Joining Rice in the alleged White House operations was her deputy Ben Rhodes, according to Fox.

Critics of the atmosphere prevailing throughout the Obama administration’s last year in office point to former Obama Deputy Defense Secretary Evelyn Farkas who admitted in a March 2 television interview on MSNBC that she “was urging my former colleagues,” to “get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration.”

Farkas sought to walk back her comments in the weeks following: “I didn’t give anybody anything except advice.”

Col. (Ret.) James Waurishuk, an NSC veteran and former deputy director for intelligence at the U.S. Central Command, told TheDCNF that many hands had to be involved throughout the Obama administration to launch such a political spying program.

“The surveillance initially is the responsibility of the National Security Agency,” Waurishuk said. “They have to abide by this guidance when one of the other agencies says, ‘we’re looking at this particular person which we would like to unmask.’”

“The lawyers and counsel at the NSA surely would be talking to the lawyers and members of counsel at CIA, or at the National Security Council or at the Director of National Intelligence or at the FBI,” he said. “It’s unbelievable of the level and degree of the administration to look for information on Donald Trump and his associates, his campaign team and his transition team. This is really, really serious stuff.”

Michael Doran, former NSC senior director, told TheDCNF Monday that “somebody blew a hole in the wall between national security secrets and partisan politics.” This “was a stream of information that was supposed to be hermetically sealed from politics and the Obama administration found a way to blow a hole in that wall,” he said.

Doran charged that potential serious crimes were undertaken because “this is a leaking of signal intelligence.”

“That’s a felony,” he told TheDCNF. “And you can get 10 years for that. It is a tremendous abuse of the system. We’re not supposed to be monitoring American citizens. Bigger than the crime, is the breach of public trust.”

Waurishuk said he was most dismayed that “this is now using national intelligence assets and capabilities to spy on the elected, yet-to-be-seated president.”

“We’re looking at a potential constitutional crisis from the standpoint that we used an extremely strong capability that’s supposed to be used to safeguard and protect the country,” he said. “And we used it for political purposes by a sitting president. That takes on a new precedent.”

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Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter Buckles to Islamic Supremacists Hamas-CAIR


http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/05/kansas-sheriff-jeff-easter-buckles-to-islamic-supremacists-hamas-cair/#TYhE82457eXvAdOs.99

Reported by

There’s an old saying that people will only change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. When applied to cowardice in the face of Muslim Brotherhood front groups in the U.S., far too many institutions choose fear over courage. The latest example comes courtesy of a KAKE news report out of Wichita, KS. If this keeps up, the pain of staying the same will only exceed the pain of changing when there’s blood in the streets.

Sheriffs with badges are required – REQUIRED – to eschew cowardice. Yet, far too few do.

cair As Shoebat.com has reported in the past, Guandolo made an explosive claim that CIA Director John Brennan converted to Islam while stationed in Saudi Arabia in the 1990′s. The news report above identifies this claim – as well as one about Barack Obama’s “allegiances” to Islam as being the reason why Guandolo’s training was canceled.

This begs a simple question: Why would groups like CAIR object to claims that Obama and Brennan have allegiances to Islam? Wouldn’t they be proud of such claims? Wouldn’t they like to promote such things? Wouldn’t it make their religion look good and give it more prominence?

Shame on the Sheriff. It’s obvious he’s not fit for the job he holds. As a protector of his county, courage and toughness is a requirement. Instead, he more closely resembles Barney Fife. Here is a scene from the Andy Griffith show do demonstrate what just happened in Kansas using a metaphor. Here, Fife represents the Sedgwick County Sheriff and Opie represents CAIR. Griffith represents Guandolo, who can do little more than shake his head:

pointers h/t BNI

Here is video from last year of Guandolo claiming that Brennan converted to Islam:

cia director 

Source

Wake up AmericaVOTE 02

DHS Denies Muslim Terrorists Crossing US Mexican Border – Local Reporter Finds Evidence to the Contrary


http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/02/dhs-denies-muslim-terrorists-crossing-us-mexican-border-local-reporter-finds-evidence-contrary/#BrTERJhgI2gJSh8Y.99

A local news station found Border Patrol documents that indicated that thousands of OTMs — “Other Than Mexicans” — have been caught crossing the Mexican border into the U.S., including some known terrorists.

I wrote an article for The Washington Times about this back in 2010. I warned of the influx of OTMs (Other Than Mexicans) over the Mexican border.

With fresh evidence of Hezbollah activity just south of the border, and numerous reports of Muslims from various countries posing as Mexicans and crossing into the United States from Mexico, our porous southern border is a national security nightmare waiting to happen.

Whenever Arizona law enforcement officials contact Homeland Security about a suspected OTM (Other Than Mexican) they have detained, federal authorities swoop down, cart off the illegal entrant, and tell local officials nothing more about the case. OTMs have utilized sophisticated human smuggling networks to enter the United States from as many as 157 countries around the world – including IranPakistanIraqAfghanistanMorocco and Egypt.

All this is happening against the backdrop of President Obama’s refusal to admit that the global jihad even exists. John Brennan, Obama’s CIA Director, even denies that jihad is a motive for jihadists.

Unpoliced borders. Friendships with and outreach to tyrants and autocrats.

What needs to happen people for appropriate action to be taken? Here’s the latest:

“After DHS Denial, Local Reporter Finds Evidence Terrorists Crossed the Border,” Top Right News, February 23, 2014

As we reported last week, a local news station found Border Patrol documents that indicated that thousands  of OTMs — “Other Than Mexicans” — have been caught crossing the Mexican border into the U.S., including some known terrorists.

But since that report, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has DENIED that there is any “credible evidence” that any terrorists have crossed over.

So the reporter took another look — and the evidence he found is even worse than originally revealed.

He found that 300 terrorists from the Somali Al Qaeda group Al-Shabaab — the group behind the terror attack at the Kenyan shopping mall last September – have entered the U.S. and are unaccounted for.

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About Pamela Geller

Pamela Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of Atlas Shrugs.com and President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). She is the author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, (foreword by Ambassador John Bolton), (Simon & Schuster).  Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. She is also a regular columnist for World Net Daily, the American Thinker, and other publications.

More Sybolism Over Substance


John Brennan Sworn In On Constitution Without Bill Of Rights, Not Bible

8539033959_ec46e87578Newly confirmed Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan took his oath in a swearing ceremony that was highly unusual. Brennan was not sworn in on a Bible. He was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on a “first draft” of the Constitution, which does not contain the Bill of Rights.

The first draft included notations from George Washington. While this might sound historic and patriotic. It is anything but that.

So what is a “first draft” of the Constitution? According to Empty Wheel:

That means, when Brennan vowed to protect and defend the Constitution, he was swearing on one that did not include the First, Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments — or any of the other Amendments now included in our Constitution. The Bill of Rights did not become part of our Constitution until 1791, 4 years after the Constitution that Brennan took his oath on.

I really don’t mean to be an a*****e about this. But these vows always carry a great deal of symbolism. And whether he meant to invoke this symbolism or not, the moment at which Brennan took over the CIA happened to exclude (in symbolic form, though presumably not legally) the key limits on governmental power that protect American citizens.

Here’s how the White House pushed the symbolism of this ceremony:

Hours after CIA Director John Brennan took the oath of office – behind closed doors, far away from the press, perhaps befitting his status as America’s top spy – the White House took pains to emphasize the symbolism of the ceremony.

“There’s one piece of this that I wanted to note for you,” spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters gathered for their daily briefing. “Director Brennan was sworn in with his hand on an original draft of the Constitution that had George Washington’s personal handwriting and annotations on it, dating from 1787.”

Earnest said Brennan had asked for a document from the National Archives that would demonstrate the U.S. is a nation of laws.

“Director Brennan told the president that he made the request to the archives because he wanted to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law as he took the oath of office as director of the CIA,” Earnest said.

The Bible has been used historically in the oath that one takes. The oath calls the God of the Bible to witness against the person taking the oath. This nonsense of swearing in on the Constitution, even the one that we hold to now as was done by Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), or the Koran is utterly un-American and has not been done historically. The symbolism is clear: according to Brennan and the Obama administration, they will not swear to uphold American citizen’s rights or State’s rights, for that matter, in so cavalierly performing this mockery of an oath.

If you think this is unimportant, perhaps you weren’t paying attention when Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was filibustering. I suggest you educate yourself a bit on that here.

Brennan has also been outed as a Muslim, which gives many cause for concern, seeing the growing calls for Shariah law, the State Department’s attempts to recruit jihadists, the Muslim Brotherhood’s infiltration of U.S. government, as well as a Muslim sympathizer in the White House.

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