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5 Times The Anti-Trump FBI’s ‘Trust Us’ Promise Fell Apart


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | SEPTEMBER 02, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/02/5-times-the-anti-trump-fbis-trust-us-promise-fell-apart/

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The Biden administration and the corporate media continue to assure Americans that the FBI’s raid on former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was both legally justified and of the utmost necessity. But the deep-state cabal and the leftist media cartel provided similar assurances about Crossfire Hurricane and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s targeting of Trump, with the assurances later proving worthless. 

Here are five times SpyGate taught Americans to distrust and disprove accusations leveled at Donald Trump.

1. Devin Nunes’ Memo Exposing FISA Abuse

On February 2, 2018, the House Intelligence Committee, then-chaired by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, released a four-page memo detailing abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the FBI. 

Before the memo’s release, the FBI publicly opposed the move, claiming in a public statement that the bureau had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” Justice Department officials likewise opposed releasing the memo, warning that “doing so would be ‘extraordinarily reckless.’”

The then-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, also sought to scuttle the release of the memo — or at least preempt the detailed revelations of FISA abuse — by calling the memo a “conspiracy theory” in an op-ed for The Washington Post. In it, Schiff condemned the release, saying the memo was “designed to suggest that ‘a cabal of senior officials within the FBI and the Justice Department were so tainted by bias against President Trump that they irredeemably poisoned the investigation.’”

Nancy Pelosi, who is now speaker of the House, likewise attacked Nunes, demanding in a letter to then-House Speaker Paul Ryan that Nunes be removed as Intelligence Committee chairman. Nunes “disgraced” the committee with his “dishonest” handling of the committee’s review of the Russia collusion problem, Pelosi wrote. Nunes’ committee, Pelosi claimed, had become a “charade” and a “coverup campaign … to hide the truth about the Trump-Russia scandal.” 

In response to the Nunes memo, former FBI Director James Comey told the country the memo was “dishonest and misleading.” Comey further claimed it “wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen.”

Former CIA Director John Brennan also attacked Nunes, calling his exposure of the FISA abuse “appalling” and an abuse of his chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee.

Of course, years later, Nunes was proven correct, as the inspector general’s report confirmed, establishing that the Republican House Intelligence chair had, if anything, understated the FISA abuse. 

For all the assurances the DOJ, FBI, their former leaders, and top politicians provided the American public, they were either lying or wrong — or both because there was “a cabal of senior officials within the FBI and the Justice Department … so tainted by bias against President Trump that they irredeemably poisoned the investigation.”

2. Surveillance Warrants Are Hard to Get

In addition to wrongly condemning Nunes’ memo, government officials attempted to calm concerns over the FISA surveillance by assuring the public that the process of obtaining a surveillance warrant was “rigorous” and that to obtain surveillance of American citizens, a court must find “probable cause” that warrants the wiretap.

Adm. Michael Rogers, then a commander of United States Cyber Command, testified about the FISA process during a March 2017 congressional hearing. In response to a question posed to eliminate “confusion in the public” about the collection of personal data, Rogers confirmed that the National Security Agency “would need a court order based on probable cause to conduct electronic surveillance on a U.S. person inside the United States.” 

During the same hearing, the then-recently fired former FBI Director Comey expanded on the surveillance process. “There is a statutory framework in the United States under which courts grant permission for electronic surveillance either in a criminal case or the national security case based on the showing of probable cause,” Comey testified before Congress. “It is a rigorous, rigorous process, involving all three branches of government,” the former FBI director stressed, noting it must go through an application process and then to a judge who must approve the order.

The IG report on FISA abuse proved the promised rigor didn’t exist. And the later conviction of Kevin Clinesmith for “falsifying a document that was the basis for a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign official Carter Page,” punctuated that reality. The facts revealed in the IG report further established that Americans’ faith in the FISA Court to serve as a check on the government was misplaced, with the judges serving as but a rubberstamp of the DOJ’s surveillance applications. So much for those assurances.

3. Don’t Worry, ’Merica, No Spying on Trump Took Place

A third assurance Americans received from the powers-that-be was that no spying on the Trump campaign occurred. The inspector general’s report on FISA abuse disproved those reassurances as well, revealing that the “Obama Administration Spied on the Trump Campaign Big Time.”

This reality pushed Russia-collusion hoaxers into esoteric discussions on the true meaning of “spying.” Even the United States Senate played the “it depends what the meaning of spying is” game, with New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen quizzing FBI Director Christopher Wray on whether he would agree with then-Attorney General William Barr’s use of the word “spying.”

“I was very concerned by his use of the word spying, which I think is a loaded word,” Shaheen bemoaned. “When FBI agents conduct investigations against alleged mobsters, suspected terrorists, other criminals, do you believe they’re engaging in spying when they’re following FBI investigative policies and procedures?” the senator asked Wray.

“That’s not the term I would use,” Wray replied, before noting that different people use different colloquialisms. 

The discussion did not end there, however, with Shaheen pushing Wray on whether he had seen “any evidence that any illegal surveillance into the campaigns or the individuals associated with the campaigns by the FBI occurred.”

“I don’t think I personally have any evidence of that sort,” Wray replied.

But even sidestepping the silly debate over what “spying” means, the guarantee Shaheen provided the American public — that no illegal surveillance into the Trump campaign or individuals associated with the Trump campaign had occurred — proved worthless. 

The Department of Justice has since admitted that it illegally surveilled former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and that such surveillance reached Trump campaign documents. So, yes, our federal government illegally surveilled the campaign of a presidential candidate.

4. Redactions Are Necessary to Protect Sources and Methods

A fourth key commitment conveyed to Americans throughout the multi-year unraveling of the Russia collusion hoax concerned the need to redact details in the publicly released documents. Such redactions were necessary to protect sources and methods, our overlords assured us.

For instance, in a December 9, 2019 press release Wray issued in conjunction with the DOJ’s inspector general’s report on FISA abuse, Wray “emphasized that the FBI’s participation in this process was undertaken with my express direction to be as transparent as possible, while honoring our duty to protect sources and methods that, if disclosed, might make Americans less safe.” Wray further promised that the FISA abuse report presented all material facts, “with redactions carefully limited and narrowly tailored to specific national security and operational concerns.” 

Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley challenged that portrayal of the redactions, suggesting in a letter to then-Attorney General William Barr that several footnotes “were classified in the IG report only because they contradict certain claims made in the public version of the inspector general’s report on FISA warrants documenting misconduct in the FBI’s spying operation of the Trump campaign.”

“We are concerned that certain sections of the public version of the report are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and probative classified information redacted in four footnotes,” Grassley and Johnson wrote. “This classified information is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report, but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation.”

The Republican senators then asked for the four footnotes to be declassified, stressing that “the American people have a right to know what is contained within these four footnotes and, without that knowledge, they will not have a full picture as to what happened during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

In April of 2020, Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified the footnotes. And, as Grassley and Johnson had represented, the redactions weren’t necessary to protect “sources and methods.” Rather, the blacked-out lines were essential to distorting portions of the FISA report and to keeping the public in the dark about the full scope of the Spygate scandal.

Another document declassified by Grenell exposed that Mueller’s team falsely represented to a federal judge (and the American public) the substance of Michael Flynn’s December 2016 telephone conversation with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 

As I reported following Grenell’s declassification of the transcript of the call between Flynn, Trump’s then-incoming national security adviser, and Kislyak, Mueller’s office deceived the country and a federal court when prosecutors claimed Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions with his Russian counterpart. The transcripts established that, contrary to court filings, Flynn never raised the issue of sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

The release of the Flynn transcript did reveal, however, the FBI’s secret “sources and methods” — but the sources and methods were those of deep-state actors seeking to rid themselves of the president’s chosen national security adviser by launching a perjury trap and then lying about what Flynn said.

5. Crossfire Hurricane Was Properly Predicated 

To this day, both DOJ’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Wray maintain that the FBI’s launch of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was properly predicated. Publicly released FBI documents say otherwise. 

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok explained the supposed predicate for launching Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, in the opening “Electronic Communication” that he both prepared and approved. According to Strzok, the FBI opened the umbrella investigation into the Trump campaign after the government had “received information” “related to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s website/server.” 

But Strzok’s summary of the information received made no mention of any intel obtained by the FBI related to the DNC hacking. Rather, the supposed intel “consisted of information received from an unnamed representative, now publicly known to be Alexander Downer, a then-Australian diplomat” stationed in London. The opening memorandum explained that Downer had relayed “statements Mr. [George] Papadopoulos made about suggestions from the Russians that they (the Russians) could assist the Trump campaign with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton.”

The opening document then asserted that Papadopoulos “also suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs. Clinton (and President Obama.).” The electronic communication added a caveat, though, noting that it was unclear whether Papadopoulos “or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly of [sic] through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump’s team reacted to the offer.”

Thus, while Strzok framed the information received by the FBI as evidence “related to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s website/server,” the remainder of the Electronic Communication contradicted that claim and in fact acknowledged that the material might refer to “publicly acquired” information.

What the FBI did — or rather didn’t do — after the launch of Crossfire Hurricane further confirms the sham predicate set forth by Strzok in the Electronic Communication. 

While Papadopoulos’s statements to Downer supposedly prompted the FBI to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, agents failed to question Papadopoulos for six months. The FBI also put little (or no) effort into determining who purportedly told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Hillary. The supposed source of that statement, Joseph Mifsud, could have been easily located soon after the launch of Crossfire Hurricane if the FBI genuinely believed Russia had conspired with the Trump campaign to hack and release the DNC emails.

Agents pursuing a legitimate investigation “would have immediately scoured Papadopoulos’s London-based connections and discovered he was associated with the London Centre of International Law Practice around the time he met with Downer. From there, the FBI could have easily fingered Mifsud as a possible source for the information, since he was listed as a board advisor and public source searches would show Mifsud had connections to Russia. (The intelligence community would have also hit on Mifsud’s many connections to Western intelligence agencies.)”

But the FBI did none of this, waiting instead until late January 2017 to quiz Papadopoulos on the source of the supposed inside information coming from Russia. Yet, Wray and the DOJ’s inspector general want Americans to trust them when they say that agents launched Crossfire Hurricane based on Papadopoulos’s London chat with Downer over drinks. 

Special Counsel John Durham, however, says otherwise, having released a statement following the DOJ’s report on FISA abuse that informed the public that, “based on the evidence collected to date,” his team had “advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

The special counsel’s public statements prove significant for two reasons. First, Durham’s comments refute the inspector general’s conclusions regarding the predication of Crossfire Hurricane. But beyond that, the fact that Durham needed to correct the record shows the lack of trust due the DOJ and even the inspector general’s office — something further confirmed during the special counsel’s prosecution of former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann. 

Each of these five falsehoods peddled by the government to the public during the Russia collusion hoax has a clear corollary in the current scandal involving the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. And after the lies, pretext, and political warfare exposed during the unraveling of SpyGate, the DOJ and FBI’s current entreat to an angry public to “trust them” will be ignored — as it should.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—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. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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    Think The FBI Deserves the Benefit of the Doubt? This Laundry List of Corruption Should Make You Think Again


    BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | AUGUST 19, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/19/think-the-fbi-deserves-the-benefit-of-the-doubt-this-laundry-list-of-corruption-should-make-you-think-again/

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    Can the FBI be trusted? A Federalist analysis of agency lies over the last decade is an unequivocal no.

    FISA Warrants

    In the summer of 2016, FBI bureaucrats launched a deep-state operation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, to thwart then-candidate Trump’s presidential ambitions. It began by targeting Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and quickly branched out as bureaucrats expanded their surveillance. The spy agency used the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as a legal pretext to investigate and spy on Papadopoulos, in addition to former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former Trump adviser Carter Page. Several were interviewed by undercover FBI informant Stefan Halper, whose own investigation would prove a bust.

    According to a declassified transcript between Papadopoulos and a Crossfire Hurricane confidential human source (CHS), Papadopoulos repeatedly denied the Trump campaign was working with Russian-backed entities to capture the 2016 election. The FBI, however, wrote off Papadopoulos’s recorded answers as rehearsed and omitted his denials of campaign collusion with overseas actors in FISA court warrant applications and renewals. These were two of the 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” identified in the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general’s blockbuster report on the investigation in December 2019.

    Papadopoulos, who pled guilty to making a false statement to the FBI in a perjury trap, was far from the only individual to face political persecution from the federal government’s dystopian investigation.

    Not one of the four FISA warrants obtained by the FBI was legally justified, according to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report. In fact, at least two of the warrant applications to spy on Page were declared illegal by a federal judge. Following Horowitz’s blistering report outlining FBI misconduct throughout the entire operation, another federal judge declared that agency malfeasance “calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.”

    Subsequent reporting revealed gross abuses of power within the FBI to prosecute political opponents. According to Horowitz, the FBI’s FISA warrants “relied entirely” on DNC-funded opposition research compiled by former British intelligence official Christopher Steele known as the “Steele dossier.” The dossier, which outlined supposed Trump-Russia collusion and has since been thoroughly debunked, included salacious allegations such as supposed “pee tapes” featuring Trump engaging in golden showers with Russian prostitutes at a Moscow hotel.

    The FBI knew the dossier lacked credibility as early as January 2017 and knew Steele’s material itself contained Russian disinformation. Desperate to continue their deep-state operation, however, officials lied to the FISA court about Steele’s credibility and hid incriminating info related to the former British intelligence official who was later fired over leaks to the press. An 18th omission, overlooked by the inspector general’s report but documented by Federalist Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland, was that Steele’s sources did not include the ones he developed as a British official.

    Even after Steele’s termination as a reliable source, DOJ attorney Bruce Ohr continued to feed information from Steele to the FBI over the course of its investigation. Steele met with Ohr 12 times after the former’s tenure ended as a confidential human source for the bureau, according to the inspector general. Ohr also promoted his wife’s opposition research to FBI investigators and did not disclose she was paid by Fusion GPS, the DNC-contracted firm that commissioned the Steele dossier.

    The FBI never told the FISA court that the Trump dossier written by a source who was fired for lying, did not undergo independent verification, and was funded by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.

    Despite the overt abuse of the nation’s surveillance apparatus to spy on political opponents, only one FBI official has faced criminal conviction for his role in the probe. In January last year, former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced to just 12 months probation after pleading guilty to fabricating evidence to obtain a FISA warrant. By December, Clinesmith was re-admitted to the D.C. Bar Association in good standing.

    Steele’s primary sub-source, Igor Danchenko, was indicted in November on five counts of making false statements to the FBI. In May, a D.C. jury acquitted former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann on charges of lying to the FBI when submitting supposed evidence of Trump-Russian collusion to federal investigators.

    Misleading Congress

    Following the collapse of the grand Russia-collusion hoax, lawmakers on Capitol Hill began demanding answers about FBI misconduct. Former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress, claiming the bureau was just investigating four individuals, not the Trump campaign, in a dubious spin.

    “Late July of 2016, the FBI did, in fact, open a counterintelligence investigation into, is it fair to say the Trump campaign or Donald Trump himself?” asked then-Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., in a 2018 hearing.

    “It’s not fair to say either of those things, in my recollection,” Comey said. “We opened investigations on four Americans to see if there was any connection between those four Americans and the Russian interference efforts. And those four Americans did not include the candidate.”

    Horowitz also contradicted the FBI in a December 2019 hearing on the release of his report documenting FISA abuses. In September 2017, the FBI told Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that the bureau gave the Trump campaign a defensive briefing about Russian interference in the 2016 race.

    “In August of 2016 the FBI provided a counterintelligence defensive briefing to then candidate Donald Trump and other senior campaign officials,” wrote FBI Assistant Director of Congressional Affairs Gregory Brower in response to a letter from Grassley. “This defensive briefing was conducted by an experienced FBI counterintelligence agent and focused on the broad range of threats posed by foreign intelligence entities.”

    Horowitz testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that there was no briefing given.

    Misleading DOJ Leaders

    Not only was Congress led astray as FBI officials conducted a rogue operation to defend the incumbent regime, but so was senior leadership in President Trump’s DOJ.

    Handwritten notes revealed in the Sussmann trial exposed how FBI agents sought to cover up malicious misconduct, wherein DOJ leaders tasked with FBI oversight were misled about the investigation’s progress. The notes show FBI agent Peter Strzok wrongly told DOJ supervisors the surveillance warrant on Page had been “fruitful.” Strzok also concealed knowledge that Steele’s sources were not credible and claimed instead that the dossier was “CROWN reporting” from MI6, the CIA’s British counterpart. The FBI said the dossier was being used to examine the RNC and Trump campaign’s effort to soften the GOP platform on NATO and Crimea for Russian energy stocks, but the document made no mention of NATO or Crimea.

    Strzok also said Trump’s 2016 joke about Russia uncovering Clinton’s 30,000 deleted emails triggered Crossfire Hurricane, with an Australian diplomat tipping off the government about Papadopoulos at the American embassy in London. The tip that Papdopoulos was coordinating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, however, came before Trump made the joke.

    Strzok is the same agent whose text messages show he conspired with his mistress and FBI colleague, attorney Lisa Page. Strzok, a lead investigator for Crossfire Hurricane, assured Page of a mysterious “insurance policy” in place if Trump were to be elected, likely in reference to the agency’s inside operations. Page, according to the DOJ inspector general’s 2019 report, told colleagues to go easy on investigating Clinton because “she might be our next president.”

    When Page fretted that Trump might actually win the 2016 contest, Strzok assured his romantic partner, “we’ll stop it.”

    Misleading Trump

    Comey thought the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was important enough to brief outgoing President Barack Obama on the probe but kept Trump in the dark. In fact, Comey later confirmed that he told Trump three times the president was not being investigated and refused to tell him Clinton funded the dossier.

    Michael Flynn

    In June 2020, a federal judge ordered that all charges be dropped against Flynn, whom Trump subsequently pardoned in the waning days of his administration. Prior to his exoneration, Flynn was facing heavy fines and prison time for making false statements to federal officials in another perjury trap orchestrated by Comey, who bragged about the setup in the first week of the Trump White House.

    According to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Flynn lied to a pair of FBI agents about conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak as the incoming national security adviser. Flynn, prosecutors claimed, spoke with Kislyak about financial sanctions against Russian individuals after the 2016 election and then lied about it during an interview with Comey’s agents. Sending a pair of agents to question a senior White House official in the Situation Room, Comey said at a 2018 conference, was “something I probably wouldn’t have done or even gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration.”

    “We placed a call to Flynn and said, ‘Hey, we’re sending a couple guys over, hope you’ll talk to them.’ He said ‘sure,’” Comey explained at the 92nd Street Y conference. “Nobody else was there, they interviewed him in a conference room at the White House situation room, and he lied to them.”

    Flynn initially pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI before firing his attorneys and hiring new representation to withdraw his guilty plea. His reversal followed the release of declassified transcripts, which revealed Flynn never spoke with Kislyak about sanctions. The two only discussed expulsions of Russian individuals under a different process. Handwritten notes from the FBI agents also revealed the sole purpose of their questioning was “to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired.” A bizarre 2017 inauguration day email by Susan Rice to herself also revealed Comey knew there was no legitimate reason to question Flynn.

    Andrew McCabe

    Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired from his top role at the bureau for lying to the agency inspector general four times over multiple abuses during his tenure in senior leadership. Those abuses included efforts to set up former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus for obstruction charges, the sabotage of an investigation into Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop before the 2016 election, and failure to report conflicts of interest. While running for a Virginia state Senate seat in 2015, McCabe’s wife accepted a political donation from a close Clinton ally as her husband was tasked with investigating the former secretary of state.

    A 2018 DOJ inspector general report blasted McCabe as a serial leaker who lied about it. That same year, a letter from Grassley shined a spotlight on McCabe’s purchase of a $70,000 table on taxpayers’ dime that the agency sought to cover up.

    Clinton Emails

    The FBI repeatedly told journalists there was no evidence that a foreign power had reviewed Clinton’s emails that she improperly handled on a private server. According to an inspector general report in 2018, however, texts show they almost certainly did, “at least one of them classified,” as Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi wrote.

    “It is more accurate to say,” read a text from Strzok, “that we know foreign actors obtained access to some of her emails (including at least one Secret one) via compromises of the private email accounts of some of her staffers.”

    Weiner Laptop

    In 2018, Comey told lawmakers over the course of the investigation into Clinton’s emails that agency officials thoroughly reviewed the laptop belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her now-ex husband Anthony Weiner. The FBI was able to accomplish such a feat within a short timeframe “thanks to the wizardry of our technology” enabling agents who worked “night after night after night” to comb through the remaining material before the 2016 election.

    “But virtually none of his account was true,” explained RealClearInvestigations’ Paul Sperry.

    In fact, a technical glitch prevented FBI technicians from accurately comparing the new emails with the old emails. Only 3,077 of the 694,000 emails were directly reviewed for classified or incriminating information. Three FBI officials completed that work in a single 12-hour spurt the day before Comey again cleared Clinton of criminal charges.

    Roger Stone

    In 2019, former Trump associate Roger Stone was raided by the FBI after being indicted by Mueller. A CNN camera crew happened to be the only network present at Stone’s Fort Lauderdale home before the sunrise raid, suggesting the friendly press had been tipped off in advance. The FBI, however, refused to comply with a Federalist open records request for any and all emails to or from CNN on the day of the raid.

    Jan. 6 Capitol Riot

    The Jan. 6 saga has become the sequel in Democrats’ efforts to indict Trump, before FBI agents hatched a plot to go after the former president over supposed espionage.

    In October, the bureau refused to offer House Republicans conducting their own independent investigation of the Capitol riot the same material given to congressional Democrats. The FBI’s refusal, the agency claimed, was because officials were already working with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Select Committee on Jan. 6. Pelosi’s committee, however, was established in violation of House rules. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., the minority appointment as ranking member, is entitled to the documents presented to Democrats.

    Senior FBI officials have also refused lawmakers’ questions about how many informants were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stonewalled inquiries surrounding Ray Epps, the mysterious figure who disappeared from the most-wanted list after he encouraged rioters to swarm the Capitol.

    At an Aug. 4 Senate hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray sought to downplay agency negligence, claiming “we did not have any credible intelligence that pointed to thousands of people breaching the Capitol.” But according to Newsweek, the agency deployed commandos with “shoot to kill authority,” and even Capitol Hill parking attendants knew there were going to be mass protests. The FBI has also been less than forthcoming about a pair of pipe bombs planted at the RNC and DNC headquarters.

    At the same time, the FBI has embarked on a nationwide manhunt, to incarcerating demonstrators who have been declared such a threat to the republic over trespassing that they’ve been denied a fair and speedy trial and held in detention for more than 18 months.

    Julian Khater, one of two accused of assaulting a Capitol Police officer with pepper spray and whose case has been documented by Julie Kelly at American Greatness, appears to have been outright coerced into making an unconstitutional confession. Khater was detained in March 2021 and has remained in federal custody ever since after intense interrogation without an attorney present.

    Kamala Harris on Jan. 6

    The presence of Vice President Mike Pence and then-Sen. Kamala Harris at the U.S. Capitol has been the basis for nearly 800 people being charged with at least one count of violating 18 U.S. Code, section 1752, according to Kelly, which indicates that any building or complex hosting the vice president is a restricted area and therefore closed to the public.

    “But the Justice Department recently was forced to admit that Harris was not in the building for most of the day on January 6,” Kelly reported, highlighting that Harris, at the time, remained a U.S. senator, not vice president. In the late morning, Harris was moved to the DNC headquarters where a pipe bomb had supposedly been planted.

    “Prosecutors have begun amending language in court filings to reflect the fact Harris was not inside the Capitol despite making the assertion in thousands of charging documents,” Kelly wrote.

    March 4, 2021

    The FBI released a joint memo with the Department of Homeland Security warning that “domestic extremists” were preparing to launch an insurrection by overwhelming the Capitol and removing Democratic lawmakers “on or about the 4th of March.”

    Nothing happened.

    Hunter Biden Suppression

    In July, Grassley’s office published a blockbuster whistleblower report wherein senior agency officials alleged that the bureau is actively trying to sabotage Trump and provide cover for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

    “Multiple FBI whistleblowers, including those in senior positions,” Grassley’s office wrote in a press release, “are raising the alarm about tampering by senior FBI and Justice Department officials in politically sensitive investigations ranging from election and campaign finance probes across multiple election cycles.”

    Washington Field Office Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault and Director of Election Crimes Branch Richard Pilger, the whistleblowers alleged, coordinated to amplify defamatory information against Trump while giving cover to Hunter Biden, dismissing Biden intelligence as disinformation.

    The agency reportedly knew of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop full of incriminating information on the first family as early as 2019, and Grassley’s whistleblower report highlights how officials may have undermined DOJ investigations into Hunter Biden’s finances in Delaware and Pittsburgh. In March, FBI Assistant Director of the Cyber Division Bryan Vorndran told lawmakers he did not know the whereabouts of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

    Gretchen Whitmer Plot

    In October 2020, the FBI revealed that a plot to kidnap Michigan Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had been heroically foiled by federal law enforcement. A group of far-right militiamen, the story goes, conspired to kidnap the governor and try her as a “tyrant” in Wisconsin. In July last year, however, BuzzFeed revealed that at least 12 people involved were FBI informants orchestrating another entrapment.

    “The problem with the case is that it appears the FBI, through informants and undercover agents, hatched the kidnapping plot, served in the key leadership positions of the militia group, trained the militia members in military tactics, actively recruited participants, and funded much of the militia’s activities,” reported former CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer Max Morton. “Then, when various members of the Watchman militia became uncomfortable with the kidnapping plot, with several quitting, the FBI’s primary informant pushed the plot along, eventually becoming the militia group’s leader.”

    In April, a jury refused to convict four of the 14 defendants charged. Two were found not guilty, another two concluded the trial with no verdict, and another two took plea deals.

    Ralph Northam Plot

    Dan Chappel, the primary informant in the Whitmer kidnapping conspiracy, targeted a senior disabled veteran named Frank Butler using the same formula to go after then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, another Democrat.

    “Just as in the Whitmer plot, Chappel lured Frank Butler into attempting to build an explosive device,” Kelly explained in American Greatness. “Chappel also invited Butler to a field training exercise in Wisconsin during the last weekend in October, an excursion attended by some defendants in the Whitmer caper.”

    Unlike the FBI’s victims in the Whitmer plot, however, Butler did not participate and has not been charged with any crime.

    Sen. Ted Stevens’ Conviction

    Former Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, became the victim of FBI corruption in 2008 when forced to defend himself on charges of false statements to federal officials. Stevens lost his seat as the scandal played out, only to be later exonerated when a judge conducting an independent investigation concluded that prosecutors inappropriately hid evidence.

    Prosecutors indicted Stevens on charges that he had concealed that he did not pay full value for renovations on an Alaskan cabin less than 100 days out from the 2008 election.

    “In fact, Ted Stevens and his wife had paid more than $160,000 for renovations that independent appraisers valued at less than $125,000 at the time,” Roll Call reported.

    Prosecutors, however, secured a conviction by hiding evidence that incriminated their own witnesses, one of whom came up with testimony right before trial, with inconsistent statements concealed from the defense, according to the D.C. paper.

    Likewise, the government concealed evidence that its star witness had suborned perjury from an underage prostitute with whom the star witness had an illegal sexual relationship. And the government concealed evidence that another witness — whom the government flew back to Alaska away from the Washington, D.C., trial after their mock cross-examination of him went poorly — had told the senator that the bills he received and promptly paid included all of the work that was done. Government prosecutors mocked Stevens when he explained that on the stand — all the while knowing that they had a witness who would have supported him, but whom they had removed from the trial.

    Rep. Jeff Fortenberry’s Conviction

    Former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., was sentenced to two years of probation with a $25,000 fine and 320 hours of community service in March after a Los Angeles jury convicted him of lying to the federal government after he was entrapped by the FBI.

    The saga began in 2019 when a pair of FBI agents showed up at Fortenberry’s Nebraska home ostensibly over a national security issue, not a criminal investigation. Prosecutors ultimately convicted Fortenberry for scheming to conceal material facts to federal officials and two false statements to the FBI.

    One false statement was attributed to Forteberry not recognizing a person whose 10-year-old picture was presented to him by agents on their trip to his Nebraska residence. In July 2019, the FBI lied to Fortenberry and his attorney, Gowdy, claiming Fortenberry was not under federal investigation when he was. Fortenberry resigned from the House during his ninth term following conviction.

    Pulse Nightclub Shooting

    In June 2016, a 29-year-old gunman named Omar Mateen stormed the gay Orlando nightclub Pulse, killing 49 and injuring 53 more in the name of Islamic terrorists killed in Iraq and Syria. Mateen’s father, Seddique, was an FBI informant, whom documents published by The Intercept suggest convinced the bureau to stop investigating his son.

    The bureau turned instead to charging Mateen’s widow, Noor Salman, with material support and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors sought to conceal the father’s status as an FBI informant, according to the Intercept, in pursuit of Salman’s conviction.

    “Seddique Mateen has not faced criminal charges despite a tip to the FBI that he raised money for terrorism in Pakistan, and an ongoing investigation into money transfers he allegedly made to Turkey and Afghanistan,” the Intercept reported. “Omar Mateen was researching flights to Turkey at the same time that his father was sending payments there, according to defense lawyers’ summary of FBI evidence.” Salmon was apparently unaware of their possible plans to travel to either country.

    Meanwhile, the New York Times reported on Salmon’s 2018 trial:

    Testimony from an F.B.I. agent revealed that prosecutors knew early on, but did not reveal, that one of their crucial initial pieces of evidence — that Ms. Salman had admitted driving by the nightclub with her husband in the days before the attack — most likely did not happen.

    Salmon was ultimately acquitted after a 12-hour jury deliberation.

    Texas Synagogue Attack

    On Jan. 15, 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram took hostages in a Texas synagogue near Dallas and demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national also known as “Lady Al Qaeda” serving an 86-year sentence for assault and attempted murder of federal agents and military personnel.

    Matthew J. DeSarno, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the Dallas field office, said the attack on a synagogue had nothing to do with targeting Jews.

    “We do believe from our engagement with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community,” DeSarno said at a press conference.

    But as Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation reported, Akram “was heard to say via the live stream that operated from the synagogue for much of the incident that he chose it because he thought it was the closest assemblage of Jews to the federal facility holding Siddiqui.”

    “There are about 1,000 churches in the Fort Worth area within a half-hour drive of Siddiqui’s place of incarceration, compared to seven Jewish centers of worship,” DeVore wrote. “But sure, Special Agent DeSarno, the terrorism was ‘not specifically threatening to the Jewish community.’”

    Congressional Baseball Shooter

    The FBI designated the death of a shooter who attempted to gun down Republican lawmakers at a 2017 congressional baseball practice as motivated by a desire to commit “suicide by cop.” Last year, the bureau doubled down on the designation.

    “It’s fair to say the shooter was motivated by a desire to commit an attack on members of Congress and then knowing by doing so he would likely be killed in the process,” Jill Sanborn, the executive assistant director of the FBI, told the House Appropriations subcommittee.

    “The FBI still doesn’t know exactly what the shooter was up to,” McCabe, now a CNN contributor, said last summer. “They never really uncovered the sort of detailed evidence that laid out a specific plot or an objective.”

    On the contrary, the 66-year-old shooter who almost killed House GOP Whip Steve Scalise left behind a long record of extremist social media posts dripping with contempt for Republicans, even branding them as the “Taliban of the USA” on Facebook. The FBI also found a list of six congressmen in a rented Virginia storage locker but refused to call it a “hit list.”

    Inflating Extremism Cases

    Whistleblowers claim the FBI is inflating the number of “domestic violent extremism” cases to fit President Biden’s overarching narrative that home-grown extremism is the nation’s worst national security threat.

    “From recent protected disclosures, we have learned that FBI officials are pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’ even if the cases do not meet the criteria for such a classification,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in July, detailing whistleblower allegations in a letter to Wray. “Given the narrative pushed by the Biden Administration that domestic violent extremism is the ‘greatest threat’ facing our country, the revelation that the FBI may be artificially padding domestic terrorism data is scandalous.”

    Ignoring Larry Nassar Abuse

    The FBI turned a blind eye as former USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar abused dozens of young female athletes. According to the DOJ inspector general last year, “senior officials in the FBI Indianapolis Field Office failed to respond to allegations of sexual abuse of athletes by former USA Gymnastics physician Lawrence Gerard Nassar with the urgency that the allegations required.”

    “We also found that the FBI Indianapolis Field Office made fundamental errors when it did respond to the allegations, failed to notify the appropriate FBI field office (the Lansing Resident Agency) or state or local authorities of the allegations, and failed to take other steps to mitigate the ongoing threat posed by Nassar,” the inspector general added.

    Kyle Rittenhouse

    Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of politicized charges brought against him last summer when he shot three men in self-defense. Two died, and contrary to the media’s racialized coverage of the trial, all three were white.

    During the proceedings, wherein an 18-year-old Rittenhouse (now 19) faced life in prison, prosecutors used aerial footage from FBI surveillance in their effort to convict Rittenhouse. When the defense tried to access “the rest” of the FBI footage from the night in question, however, the bureau claimed it no longer existed.

    Demonizing James Rosen

    In 2010, the Obama administration began aggressive surveillance of journalist James Rosen who was working for Fox News at the time. The Justice Department tracked Rosen by falsely claiming the reporter was a potential terrorist collaborator and accused him of violating the Espionage Act.

    The Obama administration tracked Rosen’s movements and, according to Fox News, even seized the phone records of his parents.

    Deadly Wrongful Conviction

    A 2007 ruling against the government cost the FBI $102 million after agency misconduct resulted in the deaths of two men. In order to protect a mob informant, the FBI was caught deliberately withholding evidence in a case that led to the wrongful convictions of four men, three of which were sentenced to death, two of whom died before true justice was served.

    Martha Stewart

    Most Americans today believe Martha Stewart was convicted 20 years ago on charges of “insider trading.” Her actual conviction that sent her to federal prison was conspiracy to lie about the crime for which she was never charged over a trade that had already taken place.

    Stewart’s quarter-million-dollar sale of ImClone stock served as the pretext for which federal prosecutors, led by none other than Comey, went after the media mogul. Comey’s case, however, was so weak that prosecutors pursued a novel legal theory to secure a conviction.

    According to the theory they pursued, Stewart engaged in “securities fraud” when she declared that she was innocent, which prosecutors said was designed to prop up the value of her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. In other words, Stewart’s proclamation of innocence was declared a crime by federal law enforcement, and she spent six months incarcerated.

    Mar-a-Lago Raid

    The Department of Justice appears to be following the same playbook agency officials have used for years in the Democrats’ series of manufactured scandals to bring down Trump.

    Last week, the FBI executed an unprecedented raid of the former president’s Florida residence ostensibly conducted to enforce the Presidential Records Act. Federal officials confiscated more than a dozen boxes from the 128-room mansion pursuant to the rarely prosecuted law, claiming Trump harbored classified information related to the nation’s nuclear secrets. Leaked claims to the Washington Post that Trump possessed sensitive nuclear records, which came hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland professed the agency’s professionalism, however, showcase the sensationalism crafted by officials desperate to justify the raid, which included more than 30 agents.

    At a press conference last week, Garland admitted to personally signing off on the raid he called “narrowly scope[d].” An examination of the warrant, however, reveals that it authorized FBI agents to seize any and every document Trump came into contact with as president. Furthermore, none of the three criminal statutes the DOJ cited in the warrant required the material to be classified, according to Cleveland.

    The FBI also attempted to dispel claims that federal officials stripped the president of his passports, telling CBS News that the agency was not in possession of the documents after Trump blasted that they had been confiscated. An email made public by Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, however, exposed the FBI’s lie. The email from Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section in the DOJ’s National Security Division, confirms that “the filter agents seized three passports belonging to President Trump, two expired and one being his active diplomatic passport.”

    Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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    Judge In Stefan Halper Case Drops SpyGate Bombshell: Halper Likely Lied To The FBI On Purpose


    BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 20, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/20/judge-in-stefan-halper-case-drops-spygate-bombshell-in-denying-his-motion-to-dismiss-halper-likely-lied-to-the-fbi-on-purpose/

    Stefan Halper

    ‘There are now a fair number of documentations’ showing that Stefan Halper ‘may have made clear misstatements to the FBI,’ the court said.

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    Documents suggest that Stefan Halper “may have made clear misstatements to the FBI” and may be responsible for “some falsehoods” about Michael Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova, according to the federal judge presiding over the lawsuit Lokhova filed against the former FBI confidential human source, or “CHS,” embroiled in the SpyGate scandal. 

    On Friday, a federal court in Virginia denied Halper’s Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit Lokhova had filed against him in December of 2020. That lawsuit represented Lokhova’s second civil case against Halper, with her alleging in her most recent complaint that when Halper learned she was penning a book about Halper, “he directed his counsel, Terry Reed, to contact Post Hill Press and Simon & Schuster solely for the purposes of ‘quash[ing] publication and cancel[ing] the Book Contract.’” Reed then allegedly “contacted [Simon & Schuster] and [Post Hill Press] and falsely accused [them] of defaming Halper in the marketing materials.” 

    The complaint further alleged that, through the letters, Halper “defamed and disparaged” Lokhova to the publishers and falsely accused her of “knowingly publishing” statements that were “false.” Lokhova claimed that Halper then “escalated the threats and intimidation to [Simon & Schuster’s] parent company, CBS Corporation.” The complaint alleged his accusations were untrue and that “[t]he sole purpose of Halper’s actions was to interfere with [Lokhova’s] Book Contract and induce [Post Hill Press] to terminate the Contract,” which it ultimately did after facing irresistible pressure from Simon & Schuster.

    The “book contract” Halper allegedly succeeded in canceling was for Lokhova’s forthcoming nonfiction work entitled, “The Spider: Stefan A. Halper and the Dark Web of a Coup.” The marketing material for the book described Halper as a “spy, an evil spider at work within and around the Trump campaign,” and that in that capacity, he “initially targeted the important Trump advisor, Lt. General Michael Flynn.”

    In promoting the book, the publisher, Post Hill Press, in conjunction with Simon & Schuster, which Post Hill Press had contracted to market and distribute “The Spider,” also asserted Lokhova’s book revealed that Halper had “fabricated and sustained the fantastical narrative of the Russian hoax,” and that he did so by “collaborat[ing] with the intelligence establishment to take the ‘kill shot on Flynn,’ leaking classified information to his associates in the press.”

    Lokhova explained her motivation for writing the book in the amended complaint she filed in the Virginia federal court. “In February 2017, a month after the birth of her first child,” the document read, Lokhova “was inundated by the media and others over false allegations that had suddenly surfaced that she had supposedly conducted a clandestine romantic affair with General Michael Flynn, an American military and intelligence official whom she had met once at an academic dinner over two years earlier and had never seen or spoken to again.” Lokhova explained how she then spent the next two-plus years, “piecing together what had happened to her, partly through her own research, partly through the gradual release of information by the United States government, and partly through reporting by U.S. media outlets.”

    According to Lokhova’s amended complaint, by late 2019 she “had gathered sufficient information and evidence to demonstrate how the false allegations about her and General Flynn had arisen, and who had conveyed them to the FBI and to the media.” Lokhova explained that after obtaining a book contract and American publishers, she set to work to write the book, with a planned 2020 release date. But according to Lokhova, her publisher canceled her contract after Halper threatened her publisher, the distributor, and even CBS Corporation. Lokhova then self-published the book, renaming it “Spygate Exposed: The Conspiracy to Topple President Trump.”

    After Lokhova released “Spygate Exposed,” an FBI “Electronic Communication,” dated August 15, 2016, was declassified in early 2021. That document memorialized information provided to the FBI by an unnamed CHS on August 11, 2016. While the electronic communication did not identify Halper as the CHS, it documented several claimed interactions the CHS had with Trump campaign advisers. Those advisers would all later identify Halper as the individual with whom they had spoken, making clear that Halper was the unidentified CHS.

    Significantly, in his August 11, 2016, conversation with the FBI, Halper “relayed an incident s/he witnessed when CROSSFIRE RAZOR (CR) spoke at” an event that was redacted in the document. CROSSFIRE RAZOR was the codename for Flynn.

    According to Halper, while he was unsure of the date of the event at which Flynn spoke, he remembered that at the time, Flynn still held his position in the U.S. Intelligence Community. Halper told the FBI that after Flynn spoke and socialized with various individuals (whose names were redacted) at dinner and over drinks, Flynn got into a cab to go to the train station to catch a train to London. “The CHS stated that a woman, SVETLANA LOKHOVA, surprised everyone and got into [Flynn’s] cab and joined [Flynn] on the train ride to London.” Halper further “recalled that LOKHOVA ‘latched’ onto Flynn when he was at the [dinner.].” 

    The electronic communication further documented Halper saying he was “somewhat suspicious of LOKHOVA,” and that he “believes that LOKHOVA’S father may be a Russian Oligarch living in London.” That portion of the report ended by noting that Halper “could not provide further information on [Flynn] and LOKHOVA’S trip.”

    An electronic communication memorializing the FBI’s interview with Halper the following day, on August 12, 2016, recorded Halper providing more texture to the supposed Flynn-Lokhova rendezvous. Specifically, Halper clarified to the team where Lokhova supposedly got into the cab with Flynn before joining him on the train to London. 

    False Claims

    Contrary to Halper’s claims to the FBI, however, he did not attend the February 2014 Cambridge dinner at which Flynn, then-President Obama’s director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, spoke and at which Lokhova, then a graduate student at Cambridge, attended. Nor did Lokhova leave the dinner with Flynn; she also did not jump into a cab with him and did not accompany him to London on the train. 

    Nonetheless, according to Lokhova’s amended complaint, Halper repeated his false allegations about her and “General Flynn to various members of the media who, upon information and belief, include, among others, journalists working for the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.” In turn, Lokhova alleged, “[M]any commentators, from national television hosts to ordinary citizens on social media, credited the false allegations that Plaintiff was a Russian spy who had ensnared General Flynn in a sexual or romantic imbroglio at the behest of the Kremlin.”

    Halper’s claims to the FBI, Lokhova added, were also “a key reason why the FBI opened a subpart of [the Crossfire Hurricane] investigation that specifically focused on General Flynn,” with the FBI opening the separate investigation into Flynn just “one working day after Halper’s meeting at the FBI.”

    In her lawsuit against Halper, Lokhova seeks recovery for the alleged false statements of fact he made to Post Hill Press and Simon & Schuster, namely that Halper falsely told the publisher and distributor of her proposed book that she had defamed him. Lokhova also seeks damages from Halper for tortiously interfering with her book contract. With Judge Leonie Brinkema denying Halper’s motion to dismiss Lokhova’s lawsuit on Friday, the historian and author now has an opportunity to obtain justice from Halper for his alleged defamatory statements.

    Even Bigger Problems

    But beyond vindicating her own interests, Lokhova’s lawsuit against Halper also provides a reminder of the problems the Crossfire Hurricane and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team had with the confidential human sources who supposedly aided their investigation into Trump’s purported collusion with Russia.

    From the FBI’s electronic communication summary, it appears that Halper, who reportedly served as a confidential human source for the FBI from 2008 until his presumptive termination following his involvement in the targeting of Trump and the Trump campaign, lied to the FBI about Lokhova and Flynn and then repeated those lies to various members of the media. According to Lokhova, Halper did not even attend the event at which he claimed he “witnessed” her “latch” onto Flynn. And since she did not leave the event with Flynn and did not jump into a cab with him — much less journey to London with him — Halper’s claims to the FBI were not merely false, but knowingly so. 

    The federal judge hearing Halper’s Motion to Dismiss on Friday concluded that the documents could reasonably support that conclusion. “There are now a fair number of documentations that do, in fact, link your client to being this source, and more specific information that the description about the meeting in England with Mr. Flynn that this witness that Mr. Halper was, in fact, not present and therefore may have made clear misstatements to the FBI,” the court noted. At the early stage of the court proceedings, there “would seem to be enough to suggest that there may, in fact, be some falsehoods going on here on your client’s behalf,” Judge Brinkema said to Halper’s attorney.

    Halper’s apparent lies about Flynn and Lokhova render his other CHS reporting suspect as well. And that other “reporting” was widespread, with Halper also serving as a CHS in questioning former Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. Halper also wore a wire when he questioned Trump’s then co-campaign chair, Sam Clovis, on behalf of the FBI. 

    In fact, it appears Halper also misrepresented his interactions with Page during his August 11, 2016, interview with the FBI. The electronic communication summary of that debriefing stated that Halper “explained to the team that s/he had a private meeting with [Carter Page] on or about 7/18/2018.” Halper told the team, the document continued, “that the purpose of the meeting was to ask the CHS if s/he would want to join the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser.” 

    However, in an exclusive interview with The Federalist in 2020 — which followed the Inspector General’s release of its report on FISA abuse but preceded the declassification of the electronic communication summary of Halper’s conversations with the FBI — Page stated unequivocally that he never asked Halper “to be a foreign policy advisor for the Trump campaign.” And though “it is possible, Page acknowledged, that they explored some ways Halper might get involved indirectly at some point down the road,” it is “an extraordinary mischaracterization,” to say that he had asked Halper “to be a foreign policy advisor for the Trump campaign.”

    Not only did Halper apparently mischaracterize his conversation with Page to the FBI, but it was also Halper and not the FBI who raised Page as a potential tasking for the former CHS. According to the case agent, “[T]he plan going into the meeting was to talk generally with [Halper] about Russian ‘interference in the election, what [Halper] may know, and … to bring up Papadopoulos.’” The FBI made no mention of Page and intended to task Halper solely with “‘reaching out to Papadopoulos which would allow the Crossfire Hurricane team to collect assessment information on Papadopoulos and potentially conduct an operation,’ when Halper inquired about whether the FBI also had an interest in Page.”

    The Inspector General’s report on FISA abuse related to Page would later note that Halper’s handling agent found it “serendipitous” that Halper “had contacts with three of their four subjects, including Carter Page.” They “couldn’t believe [their] luck,” the handling agent noted, upon learning that Halper knew Flynn and Paul Manafort, and had crossed paths with Page just weeks before.

    These facts, the seeming lies Halper told the FBI about Lokhova, and his apparent “extraordinary mischaracterization” of his discussions with Page leave one to wonder who was handling whom — and whether Special Counsel John Durham will ever answer that question.

    Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—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. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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    Stefan Halper Was Just Another Hack Who Helped Peddle the Russia-Collusion Hoax


    REPORTED BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 21, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/21/stefan-halper-was-just-another-hack-who-helped-peddle-the-russia-collusion-hoax/

    Stefan Halper on the Bill Walton show

    Nearly six years have passed since Hillary Clinton and her cronies launched their plot to frame Donald Trump as a co-conspirator of Russia to distract Americans from Clinton’s scandals. Since then, by bits and pieces, the public has learned of Clinton’s role in peddling the Russia collusion hoax to both the press and intelligence agencies. While there is still much to uncover, a recent exposé of the man the FBI tapped as the key Confidential Human Source (CHS) in investigating the Trump campaign confirmed Spygate’s method of operation: creating mythical men on whose deceitful shoulders the media and the FBI then stood.

    While Stefan Halper’s name and the monikers used to identify him in government reports—“Source 2,” or merely “CHS”—appeared regularly in reporting unraveling the Russia collusion hoax, only lately did Halper’s history undergo a thorough vetting. In a recent article, Real Clear Investigations’ Mark Hemingway traced Halper’s history through archived documents and interviews with associates. He uncovered two themes girding Halper’s parallel careers of government informant and Cambridge academic.

    Stefan Halper’s Recipe for Success

    From his earliest days in government until his retreat from Cambridge University following his outing as a player in the Russian collusion hoax, Halper advanced his professional persona, decade upon decade, by taking creative license with his credentials and exploiting his connections. Puffery appeared in both Halper’s public biography and resumes reviewed by Real Clear Investigations, leaving unanswered the question of whether Halper ever obtained the Ph.D. he claimed later allowed him to reinvent himself as an academic at Cambridge. Before then, Halper appeared to muddle through a variety of low-level jobs in the federal government, until the mid-1970s. That’s when Halper’s career received a boost when he married Sibyl Cline, the daughter of the well-respected Ray S. Cline.

    The senior Cline, who held top intelligence positions with the federal government since the second world war, reportedly arranged for the Ronald Reagan State Department to hire Halper. During the Reagan administration, Halper became close to, among others, Oliver North, but after the Iran-Contra scandal and some time in banking and D.C. think tanks, Halper transitioned to academia. He became a professor at Cambridge University in 2001, where three years later he would claim a second Ph.D.

    In addition to the political and other connections Halper accumulated during his 30 years in the D.C. bubble, once at Cambridge, Halper expanded his network across the Atlantic. Halper became cozy with three other characters who later played roles—some prominent—in the Russia collusion hoax. These included Richard Dearlove, the former chief of the British intelligence service MI6; Christopher Andrew, the official historian for the domestic intelligence agency, MI5; and Christopher Steele, who worked under Dearlove at MI6.

    Highly Useful Connections

    While at Cambridge, the reinvented Halper leveraged his professorship, profiting to the tune of nearly $1 million by writing research papers of questionable worth for the U.S. Department of Defense. Halper added to his wallet by serving as a CHS for the FBI from 2008 until January 2011, when the FBI dropped him for aggressiveness toward a handling agent over a fee dispute. Two months later, the FBI reopened Halper as a CHS, giving him a stern warning that this was his last opportunity with the bureau.

    Beyond these money-making ventures that kept Halper connected with players at the DOD and FBI, the academic apparently stayed close to elite members of the American media, including David Ignatius, the foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post. According to Steven Schrage, who completed his Cambridge Ph.D. under Halper’s supervision, “Halper knew Ignatius for decades” and “bragged’ that “Ignatius was his press contact.”

    Another Cambridge student, the Russian-born U.K. historian Svetlana Lokhova who was later sold as a Russian “honey pot,” likewise connected Halper to Ignatius. Lokhova told The Federalist that in May 2018, shortly after Halper was outed as a CIA and FBI informant, she spoke with Ignatius, and when she “registered surprise about Halper’s role” as a CHS, that prompted Ignatius to say he “always found Halper reliable as a source.”

    These connections all later proved key to advancing the Russia collusion hoax, but it was Halper’s role as a Cambridge academic that cemented his insertion into the scandal. As a faculty member at the British university, Halper participated in seminars and conferences, including the mid-July 2016 Cambridge University conference at which Halper first met then-Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.

    Enter: 2016 Campaign

    While initially Halper seemed uninterested in the young Trump advisor, that suddenly changed after Dearlove arrived at the conference and spoke privately with Halper. According to the conference organizer, Halper suddenly “seemed desperately interested in isolating, cornering, and ingratiating himself to Page and promoting him­­­self to the Trump campaign.”

    Hillary Clinton surrogate Madeline Albright also attended the conference, serving as a keynote speaker. While there, Albright attended a small, private dinner with Halper. Then, just days after the Cambridge conference ended, Albright proclaimed that “Vladimir Putin wants Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton.” The Clinton booster added that “Russia was likely behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails.”

    That Albright began peddling the Russia collusion hoax in late July 2016, not long after leaving Halper’s side, seems suspect given that earlier that month Halper had forecast a similar approach to defeating Trump during a Cambridge lecture series on “the phenomenon which is ‘Trump’s maverick candidacy.’” At the time, Halper told his audience that “the deficits in Clinton’s campaign” left the election “almost too close to call.” “If the media focuses on Clinton, she will lose, whereas if they continue to focus on Trump, he will lose,” Halper predicted.

    Worming Into Trump Campaign Connections

    Two weeks later, the FBI launched the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign. Soon after that, Halper’s long-time handler, Stephen Somma, visited Halper at his home to request his assistance. According to Somma, he proposed meeting with Halper because Halper “had been affiliated with national political campaigns since the early 1970s,” while Somma “lacked a basic understanding of simple issues, for example what the role of a ‘foreign policy advisor’ entails.”

    During Somma’s August 11, 2016, visit with Halper, the FBI handler asked Halper whether he knew George Papadopoulos, who then was serving as a Trump campaign advisor. Halper didn’t, but agreed to speak with Papadopoulos.

    Halper then volunteered that he knew a second foreign policy advisor, Page, and asked whether Somma and his team had any interest in Page. Halper also told Somma he “had known Trump’s then campaign manager, [Paul] Manafort, for a number of years and that he had been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn.”

    Halper’s claim to know Flynn proved another unsupported boast. He nonetheless told Somma and the other members of the Crossfire Hurricane team of an “incident” he supposedly witnessed at Cambridge involving Flynn. According to Halper, after Flynn spoke to a small group over dinner and drinks at Cambridge, another attendee, the Russian-born Svetlana Lokhova, “surprised everyone” and jumped in Flynn’s cab, then left with Flynn to London. Halper added that he was “suspicious of Lokhova” because of her Russian connections. However, contrary to Halper’s tale, Flynn had never met Halper and Halper had not attended the Cambridge gathering at which both Flynn and Lokhova were guests. Halper’s claim that Lokhova left with Flynn also proved false. Nonetheless, press reports later repeated the story and suggested Flynn had been compromised by the unnamed Russian student. Lokhova would later sue Halper for defamation, pinning him as the source of the false reports.

    Somma and others, however, seemed unaware of Halper’s fabrication. They couldn’t believe their “luck” that Halper supposedly knew three of the four subjects of Crossfire Hurricane. So, over the ensuing weeks, Halper would wear a wire and question Papadopoulos, Page, and even the co-chair of the Trump campaign, Sam Clovis.

    Fabricating an Excuse to Spy on Trump’s Campaign

    That Halper could arrange a meeting with one of Trump’s top campaign officials mere months before the November election is a testament to Halper’s 50 years of political schmoozing and ladder climbing—further confirmed when Clovis proceeded to have an unguarded hour-long chat with Halper discussing details about Trump’s strategy to defeat Hillary.

    Halper came away from these meetings with nothing of import to the investigation into Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia. Nonetheless, the FBI referenced Halper and portions of his wired conversations with Page in the four FISA applications that resulted in the FBI illegally surveilling Page. Omitted from the FISA applications, however, were comments Page made to Halper that conflicted with portions of the Steele dossier.

    While the FBI used only minor details acquired by Halper in the FISA applications, Halper’s cross-continental connections with the intelligence communities, political players, and the press, likely advanced the Russia collusion hoax in ways still fully unknown. This likelihood seems strong when one considers how, when the Spygate scandal began to unravel, the same media that had peddled the Russia collusion hoax began a public relations campaign for the players behind the plot, including Halper.

    Running Cover for Spies

    At first, the press presented the unidentified Halper as “an American academic” and as “an informant” or “source” whose anonymity had to be preserved to safeguard him. To bolster his credentials, the reporting stressed Halper’s position as a professor, highlighted his longtime work for both the FBI and CIA, and cast him as an informant who “aided the Russia investigation both before and after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III‘s appointment.” Then, in a transparent attempt to paint the still-unnamed Halper as a selflessness patriot, the media focused on the “great risks” informants take “when working for intelligence services.”

    After he was outed, the Russia-hoax team continued to highlight Halper’s position as a “Cambridge professor” and long-time CHS to preserve the myth of a respected academic and dedicated and reliable informant. The Washington Post ran a puff piece on Halper soon after his name became public, telling its audience “Halper’s connections to the intelligence world have been present throughout his career and at Cambridge, where he ran an intelligence seminar that brought together past and present intelligence officials.”

    The Post continued its gushing profile by highlighting Halper’s collaboration with Dearlove, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, and their sponsorship of a “seminar that drew Michael Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,” to attend. Also stressed was Halper’s academic work, with the Post noting that Halper had taught “international affairs and American studies at Cambridge from 2001 until 2015, when he stepped down with the honorary title of emeritus senior fellow of the Centre of International Studies, . . .”

    The remainder of the article then unquestioningly parroted much of Halper’s resume, before quoting an unnamed U.S. government official saying of Halper: “He thinks well. He writes critically. And he knows a lot of people whose insights he can tap for us as well.”

    However, as Real Clear Investigations revealed in its exposé on Halper, he held neither the academic cachet nor the gravitas a seasoned informant might. But what Halper lacked in pedigree, he compensated for with his arsenal of connections that allowed him to whisper into the right ears just what the listener wanted to hear.

    In this respect, Halper proves no different than Steele or Rodney Joffe: They are all mythical men, molded by the Clinton campaign, the media, and those complicit in the government to sell the tale of Trump colluding with Russia. In reality, though, they aren’t the James Bond, Jack Ryan, and Jason Bourne that we were sold—they are the Three Stooges with better agents.

    Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—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. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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    Exclusive from Gen. Flynn: Forces of Evil Want To Steal Our Freedom in the Dark of Night, But God Stands with Us


    Reported By Michael Flynn | Published June 11, 2020 at 10:51am

    There are seminal moments in American history that test every fiber of our nation’s soul. We are facing one now.

    Revolutionary forces are causing every American citizen to question which direction the country is heading. To determine the outcome, we must examine our nation’s history to project ourselves forward into the future.

    Once again, tyranny and treachery are in our midst, and although we feel we’ve descended into a hellish state of existence, we must never forget, hell is conquerable.

    Prayer is the greatest weapon and a consciousness of God is the ultimate “thought of the day.”

    The idea or notion of a heaven on Earth is the very real sense of being free. Freedom is oxygen. Like the air we breathe that keeps our lungs full and our hearts beating, the celestial feeling of freedom brings a sense of peace to our souls.

    Freedom must never be taken for granted. Securing our freedom demands a high price — and that price requires hard work and sacrifice. Both will bind us all by the value they produce, but only if we are willing to seek new opportunities and new ideas.

    Those who have sacrificed the most, those who have given the last true measure of devotion that derives from the love of faith, family and the cause of freedom — for all of us to be free, and for the betterment of our republic and the free world — cannot be allowed to have died in vain.

    Theirs is the ultimate sacrifice and heaven is their reward.

    Our future, the future of our children and grandchildren and the future of our country are at stake. God will not give way to the care of the devil or allow us to be left to the evil vices of those who would steal our freedom in the dark of night. He will not. Instead, God will stand with us, as he always does.

    Hard work and personal sacrifice still very much matter. Being a good person and showing kindness to others still matter.

    If our nation is to survive this crucible moment, we need to fall back on the God-given values and ideals that are the very foundation of our constitutional republic. Let us not fear the uncertainty that comes with the unknown, instead accept it and fight through that sense of fear. And we must remember: The power of hell, while strong, is limited. God is the ultimate judge and decision maker. His anointed providence is our country, the United States of America.

    As long as we accept God in the lifeblood of our nation, we will be OK. If we don’t, we will face a hellish existence.

    I vote we accept God.

    The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
    Michael Flynn
    Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn served as national security advisor to President Donald Trump.

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    AG Barr Responds to Judge Emmet Sullivan’s Actions in General Flynn Case with Massive Fire Power


    Reported By Joe Hoft | Published June 2, 2020 at 8:03am

    TOPEKA, KANSAS – OCTOBER 02: Attorney General William P. Barr speaks to Kansas law enforcement officials at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation Forensic Science Center on October 02, 2019 in Topeka, Kansas. Barr was invited to the round table discussion by Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) where they discussed the state of Kansas law enforcement and ways to curb crime in the state. (Photo by

    Not only did the Department of Justice respond to corrupt Judge Emmet Sullivan’s actions in the General Flynn case yesterday, but they did so with massive fire power.

    The Barr Justice Department dropped its case against General Mike Flynn last month after bombshell documents were released that proved Flynn was framed by Comey’s FBI.  But the Clinton-appointed Judge Emmet Sullivan made a shocking, political, move to delay justice for General Mike Flynn. Judge Sullivan extended the case by soliciting amicus briefs to allow for public comment on Flynn’s criminal case. Judge Sullivan also appointed retired Clinton appointee judge John Gleeson to argue against the government’s motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn!

    This is unheard of!

    This came after the US Supreme Court just one week earlier ruled that rogue judges CANNOT do what Judge Sullivan is wanting to do.  The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to prevent judges like Emmet Sullivan from becoming tyrants on the bench. On Monday Judge Emmet Sullivan claimed he was not required to “rubber stamp” the Justice Department’s bid to dismiss the case.

    This is a ridiculous statement by the corrupt judge turned prosecutor.

    On Monday afternoon the Department of Justice responded to the rogue judge reminding Sullivan, “We’re the prosecutors here, not you!” But what has gone unreported is that the brief filed by the Justice Department has massive fire power.  The response from the Department of Justice came directly from the office of the United States Solicitor General, Noel Francisco.

    Sean Davis at the Federalist reported:

    In a sign of how important DOJ views the underlying constitutional issues in the case, the formal brief to the appellate court wasn’t just signed by the line attorney managing the government’s case. Instead, it was signed by Noel J. Francisco, the Solicitor General of the United States who is tasked with representing the U.S. government in the most important appellate cases across the country; Brian A. Benczkowski, the Assistant Attorney General and head of DOJ’s entire criminal division; Deputy Solicitors General Jeffrey B. Wall and Eric J. Feigin; assistants to the Solicitor General Frederick Liu and Vivek Suri; Michael R. Sherwin, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Kenneth C. Kohl, the acting Principal Assistant United States Attorney for D.C.; and Jocelyn S. Ballantine, the line prosecutor handling the Flynn case at trial.

    “The Constitution vests in the Executive Branch the power to decide when—and when not—to prosecute potential crimes,” DOJ argued in its brief. Rules of federal criminal procedure, cited by Sullivan in support of his gambit to appoint himself both judge and prosecutor in the inquisition against Flynn, “do[] not authorize a court to stand in the way of a dismissal the defendant does not oppose, and any other reading of [those rules] would violate both Article II and Article III” of the constitution, DOJ wrote.

    “Nor, under the circumstances of this case, may the district court assume the role of prosecutor and initiate criminal charges of its own,” the brief continued. “Instead of inviting further proceedings the court should have granted the government’s motion to dismiss.”

    The case is now in the hands of the DC Circuit Court.  Obama’s plans to indict General Flynn are over.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

    Joe Hoft
    Joe Hoft is the twin brother of TGP’s founder, Jim Hoft. His posts have been retweeted by President Trump and have made the headlines at the Drudge Report. Joe worked as a corporate executive in Hong Kong and traveled the world for his work, which gives him a unique perspective of US and global current events. He has ten degrees or designations and is the author of three books. His new book: ‘In God We Trust: Not in Lying Liberal Lunatics’ comes out soon.

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    Report: Acting DNI Grenell Declassifies List of Obama Officials Involved in Flynn ‘Unmasking’


    Reported by JOSHUA CAPLAN | 

    URL of the originating web site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/12/report-acting-dni-grenell-declassifies-list-of-obama-officials-involved-in-flynn-unmasking/

    President Barack Obama confers with Samantha Power, left, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs, and Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, before they attended a wreath laying ceremony at the memorial for United Nations staff killed in Iraq at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, N.Y., on … / White House Photo / Pete Souza

    Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has declassified a list of former Obama administration officials allegedly involved in the “unmasking” of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak during President Donald Trump’s transition period, according to ABC News.

    Grenell brought the list of officials to the Department of Justice last week, an unnamed official told the news outlet. No further details of the intelligence official’s visit to the Justice Department are known.

    In 2017, former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice reportedly told the House Intelligence Committee she “unmasked” several Trump associates to find out why United Arab Emirates’ crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, visited New York without notifying the Obama administration.

    Samantha Power, Obama-era U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), is also believed to have made up to 260 requests to “unmask” U.S. citizens tied into surveillance of non-U.S. citizens, according to Fox News. She reportedly requested information seen in the days leading up to Trump’s inauguration. Then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) later revealed Power testified that a portion of the “unmasking” requests made in her name were made by others.

    ABC News’ report comes after the Justice Department dropped its criminal case against Flynn, who plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding his contacts with Kislyak. The decision to drop its case comes after handwritten notes compiled by FBI officials questioned whether the “goal” was “to get [the Trump official] to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”

    Ahead of the filing’s release, prosecutor Brandon Van Grack moved to withdraw from the case.

    In an interview with CBS News, Attorney General William Barr defended the decision, saying he was “doing the law’s bidding.”

    “A crime cannot be established here. They did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage,” Barr said in reference to the FBI.

    “People sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes,” he added.

    Newly released documents reveal Obama was aware of the details of Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 telephone calls with Kislyak, which purportedly surprised top DOJ officials such as then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

    Breitbart News reported:

    The documents from the government’s motion to dismiss their case against Flynn show, however, that at a January 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, Obama had asked Comey and Yates to “stay behind.”

    Obama told them he had “learned of the information about Flynn” and his conversation with Kislyak, where they discussed sanctions his administration had levied against Russia. (A memo penned by then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice also showed that Biden stayed behind as well.)

    Obama “specified he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.”

    In a leaked Friday call, Obama said the DOJ’s decision to drop its case against Flynn puts the “rule of law is at risk.”

    “The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said during a virtual discussion with members of the Obama Alumni Association, according to an audio call obtained by Yahoo News.

    “The fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

    On Sunday, President Trump posted several messages stating Obama had been “caught” surveilling him and signaled the matter could be investigated.

    “He got caught, OBAMAGATE!” the president tweeted.

    Donald J. Trump

    ✔@realDonaldTrump

    He got caught, OBAMAGATE! https://twitter.com/mikandynothem/status/1259556010408075264 …

    Michael Nöthem@mikandynothem

    Barack Hussain Obama is the first Ex-President to ever speak against his successor, which was long tradition of decorum and decency.
    Should anyone really be surprised?#TrumpsJealousOfObama? I SERIOUSLY doubt it…#ObamaGate #MAGA#KAG #FoxNews

    View image on Twitter

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    “The biggest political crime in American history, by far!” he wrote in another message.

    Donald J. Trump

    ✔@realDonaldTrump

    The biggest political crime in American history, by far! https://twitter.com/bucksexton/status/1259241405274341383 …

    Buck Sexton

    ✔@BuckSexton

    If you read a news story about some European country where, after a fair election, the outgoing president used his last weeks in office to target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration, you’d be appalled

    It happened here, and half the country thinks it was fine

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    A Real Whistleblower Complaint Could Help Gen. Flynn And Blow The Doors Off Deep State Corruption


    Written by Staff Writer | October 27, 2019

    URL of the original posting site: https://redrightdaily.com/a-real-whistleblower-complaint-could-help-gen-flynn-and-blow-the-doors-off-deep-state-corruption/

    A Real Whistleblower Complaint Could Help Gen. Flynn And Blow The Doors Off Deep State Corruption

    House Democrats would love to keep your attention on an impeachment inquiry-based of information from a fake whistleblower that didn’t even have firsthand knowledge. However, an overlooked whistleblower complaint from 2018 could help General Flynn and have a huge impact on Attorney General Barr’s investigation into the Russia collusion hoax.

    In 2017 Adam Lovinger who was then an analyst for the Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon (ONA) had his security clearance revoked. The reason for his clearance being revoked was because he questioned his boss Director of ONA Col. James Baker why politically connected contractors like FBI-informant Stefan Halper who spied on President Trump during his campaign were receiving lucrative contracts doing “inherently governmental functions.” Col. Baker who regularly met with the Washington Post is being blamed by Flynn attorneys that he was the one that leaked the classified phone calls to the press. According to reports Baker met with Washinton Post reporter David Ignatius often and in 2017 Ignatius published a report about the Flynn phone calls. 

    One specific contractor was the Long-Term Strategy Group (LTSG) which is owned by Chelsea Clinton’s “best friend” Jackie Newmyer-Deal. The Daily Caller reports:

    Lovinger warned his superiors at ONA about the legal issues specifically pertaining to LTSG’s Newmyer-Deal being designated as a “U.S. Representative” in bilateral foreign relations activities with the Japanese.

    In an incident with another ONA contractor (not LTSG), Lovinger disclosed to Baker that the contractor copied a World Bank report onto the contractor’s own letterhead and passed it off as original work.

    In August of 2016, Bill Gertz of The Washington Free Beacon wrote a series of pieces related to the ONA’s over-reliance on government contractors and the problems surfacing as a result.

    The stories covered how much contractors were paid, the questionable value of their product, critical threats that went ignored, and favorable treatment of Clinton’s contractor friend Newmyer-Deal.

    According to the whistleblower complaint, Baker targeted Lovinger by making him the target of an investigation claiming he leaked classified documents. 

    Judicial Watch discovered the whistleblower complaint on August 20, 2018 and filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Defense to learn more and come to Lovinger’s aid.

    On August 14, 2019 Lovinger was cleared of all charges.

    With the information provided by Lovinger in his actual “whistleblower” complaint, it appears that not only could Flynn’s case get overturned that Attorney General Barr may also have more information to proceed with criminal charges against those that started the Russian collusion hoax. 

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    Dam’s Breaking: FBI Agent With Inside Knowledge Flips on Comey, Wants to Testify


    disclaimerReported By Benjamin Arie | May 24, 2018 at 3:11pm

    URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/fbi-agent-flips-on-comey/

    The scandal that has been dubbed “Spygate” is currently making headlines, and former FBI Director James Comey is right in the middle of it.

    As Spygate — the allegation that the FBI placed “moles” in the Trump campaign to undermine him — unravels, one incident involving Comey has largely faded from memory. That investigation focused on retired Gen. Mike Flynn, and it’s coming back to haunt anti-Trump elitists.

    Flynn was an early target of Robert Mueller’s special investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Trump team members. In early 2017, he resigned as national security adviser after facing criticism for improperly communicating with a Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period.

    Remember, Flynn’s role as national security adviser made talking with Russian diplomats part of his position, and his resignation and subsequent charge had less to do with job-related phone calls and more to do with alleged dishonesty about what was discussed.

    As part of a plea deal with Mueller, the previously respected military leader and intelligence expert pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI.

    That was seen as proof positive that the probe into the Trump camp was on the right track, but the investigation soon fizzled after few serious indictments were brought forward. Now, more than a year after Mueller’s probe began, it looks more like an unfocused witch hunt than a serious investigation. 

    Fast forward to this month. From an unredacted portion of the House intelligence committee report of James Comey’s testimony, eagle-eyed reporters noticed something odd: It appears that despite having almost no evidence against Flynn during the presidential transition, the Obama-era FBI ran an intelligence operation against him anyway, and used an unofficial and likely illegal media “leak” of Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador to justify digging deeper. This is a bit like the police pulling over a vehicle but finding no reasonable suspicion to carry out a search, only to ransack the car anyway because a passerby repeated a rumor about the driver. 

    In other words, it has the hallmarks of a setup or a witch hunt.

    It doesn’t look much like the proper and lawful investigation of a suspected crime.

    flynn01

    To add to the growing scandal, Jack Posobiec of One America News reported Wednesday that one of the FBI agents who was in the room when Flynn was interrogated by the bureau believes the disgraced national security adviser was unfairly railroaded — and Comey was behind it.

    “FBI Agent Joe Pientka who interviewed General Flynn plans to testify against Comey and McCabe, adds ‘It was all Comey,‘” Posobiec posted on Twitter.

    flynn02

    Posobiec also hinted that the FBI special agent who is ready to flip on Comey was an eyewitness to the actual interview of Flynn, which may have varied drastically from what went into the bureau’s official reports.

    There is also evidence that agents, including Pientka, believed Flynn was being entirely honest with them during the investigation, and that he did not try to deceive them at all.

    “Pientka knows what was said in the room, before the 302 reports were written by Strzok,” the journalist explained. The “302 reports” refer to summaries of suspect interviews conducted by agents, while Strzok is the agent who held obvious anti-Trump bias, as revealed in countless text messages.

    If correct, the fact that an FBI agent who has firsthand knowledge of Flynn’s interview is disgusted by the bureau’s actions and ready to testify against Comey speaks volumes.

    That is the same modus operandi now being used by Mueller against Trump and his team: Dig into the lives of political opponents, pushing the boundaries of what is legal and disregarding just cause, in order to overturn every rock and search every closet for skeletons.like i said

    This isn’t the way an investigation is supposed to happen, yet elitists within the DOJ don’t seem to care. The American people, however, do — and Mueller, Comey, and their cronies may be in for a surprise as this scandal continues to be exposed.

    please likeand share and leave a comment

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    Bill O’Reilly Drops 1 Fact From Comey Testimony That Media Is Ignoring


    Reported By V Saxena | June 9, 2017 at 9:34am

    URL of the original posting site: http://conservativetribune.com/bill-o-reilly-fact-on-comey/

    Advertisement – story continues below

    Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly claimed Wednesday evening that, despite all the hoopla by the media over former FBI Director James Comey’s then-upcoming testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding his conversations with President Donald Trump, the president has done nothing wrong.

    “A sitting President has absolute authority to ask about any investigation as long as the Prez does not interfere in fact gathering process,” he wrote in a tweet.

    In Comey’s testimony the next morning, the former director admitted that in February the president allegedly asked him to drop the bureau’s investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who ostensibly resigned earlier that month after prior conversations between him and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak became public.

    The problem is that Comey viewed that simple question as an “order” and now believes he was fired from his own position three months later partially because he failed to follow it. For the record, this belief is patently false.

    Moreover, even if Trump had actually ordered Comey to stop the investigation, that order would itself not have been wrong either, according to law scholar Alan Dershowitz.

    “(O)ur history shows that many presidents — from Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama — have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations,” he wrote Thursday in an op-ed for Fox News. “The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear.”

    But did Trump really “order” Comey to halt the investigation?

    The answer to this question remains murky, though what former Director Comey himself wrote in his farewell letter is not: “I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI Director for any reason, or for no reason at all.”

    OK, then why is Comey still complaining? And why are the “hysterical” media, as O’Reilly referred to them, acting as the former director’s testimony was somehow earth-shattering? Is it because they’re idiots or they’re just full of it? Knowing them, it’s probably both.

    H/T TheBlaze

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    ALERT: Former CIA Director SHATTERS Liberal Comey Conspiracy Theories With ONE Simple Statement


    disclaimerPosted by GirlsJustWannaHaveGuns.com on May 23, 2017

    URL of the original posting site: http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/alert-former-cia-director-shatters-liberal-comey-conspiracy-theories-one-simple-statement/

    Liberals have been trying to push this conspiracy theory that President Trump pressured the CIA to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, his former National Security Advisor.

    Well, that was all blown to bits when former CIA Director John Brennan gave his testimony to Adam Schiff.

    Schiff asked: In respect to a number of allegations made recently that the president or his aides may have sought to enlist the help of members the IC [intelligence community] or Director Comey himself to drop the Flynn investigation.

    Have any members of the IC shared with you their concerns that the president was attempting to enlist the help of people within the intelligence community to drop the Flynn investigation?

    To which Brennan replied, “No, sir.”

    You can imagine Schiff’s jaw dropping right about now.

    Schiff didn’t let it go that easy though. He pressed: “Are you aware of any efforts the president has made to enlist the help of the intelligence community to push back on a narrative involving the collusion issue?”

    Brennan stated, “I am unaware of it.”

    LMAO! You can probably feel the personal freak-out Schiff had after that second statement.

    Brennan just completely blew up the liberal’s conspiracy theory in one sentence.

    The New York Times had alleged President Trump pressured former FBI Director James Comey to drop the case before he was fired. Comey testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, acknowledging the Department of Justice had not tried to impede the FBI’s investigation of Flynn.

    Although Brennan slammed the door on whether Trump had pressured the CIA to drop the investigation, he would not close the door on the question of whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia leading up to the election.

    He was asked “Was there intelligence that said that the Trump campaign was colluding with Moscow during their campaign?”russophobia

    Brennan answered: There was intelligence that the Russian intelligence services were actively involved in this effort, and having been involved in many counter-intelligence cases in the past, I know what the Russians try to do; they try to suborn individuals and they try to get individuals, including U.S. persons, to act on their behalf, either wittingly or unwittingly.

    And I was worried by a number of the contacts Russians had with U.S. persons, and so therefore, by the time I left office on January 20, I had unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the Russians had been successful  in getting U.S. persons involved in the campaign or not, to work on their behalf, again, either in a witting or an unwitting fashion.

    And so, therefore I felt as though the FBI investigation was certainly well-founded and need to look into these issues.

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    Bombshell: May 3rd Calendar Entry Will Clear Trump… Media in Panic Mode


    Reported By John Falkenberg | May 18, 2017 at 4:38pm

    URL of the original posting site: http://conservativetribune.com/bombshell-may-3rd-calendar/

    The Washington Post may very well have led the American public seriously astray via its recent attacks on President Donald Trump. The Post claimed that FBI Director James Comey wrote a memo in which he said that Trump had asked him to drop the investigation on former administration member Michael Flynn, despite a clear claim to the contrary by Comey’s successor, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

    What’s more frustrating than that is the fact that The Post claimed anonymous sources backed up its statements, but provided no real substance.

    Just look for a second at this verbiage. This is an actual, serious line from The Washington Post that they just expect the good people of America to believe:

    “‘I hope you can let this go,’ Trump said, according to the Comey notes, which were described by the associates. Comey’s written account of the meeting is two pages long and highly detailed, the associates said.”

    And although Comey has not come out and said specifically that Trump never asked him to stop investing Flynn, he certainly seemed to imply it in May 3 testimony he gave the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    When asked whether senior DOJ officials could ask the FBI to drop an investigation, Comey said flat-out, “It’s not happened in my experience,” according to a transcript, provided by, once again, The Washington Post.

    Although that’s not a denial of Trump himself having asked Comey to drop the investigation, there does seem to be that implication at the very least. You’d think if Trump had said something, Comey would also have said something.

    In fact, The Post’s statement doesn’t mean much at all when you consider the actual on-the-record-in-front-of-witnesses claims made by acting FBI director Andrew McCabe that fly right in the face of these unsubstantiated accusations.

    When Sen. Marco Rubio asked McCabe before the Senate Intelligence Committee whether or not the firing of former FBI Director James Comey “in any way impeded, interrupted, stopped or negatively impacted any of the work, any investigation, or any ongoing projects at the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” McCabe’s response was even more definitive than the question given to him dictated.

    “As you know, senator,” McCabe said, “the work of the men and women of the FBI continues despite any changes in circumstance, any decisions, so there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date.”

    Huh. No effort at all to impede our investigation to date. Interesting.

    The Washington Post’s editors tried to cover themselves by saying, “It’s unclear from the questioning if McCabe was talking solely about the consequences of Comey’s abrupt firing, or referring to a specific investigation on Trump’s associates for possible connections to Russian officials.”

    Yeah, right. That’s not the only thing unclear here.

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