Michael Flynn defense counsel Sidney Powell appears for an interview with Elizabeth MacDonald to discuss her reply to the appeals court against Judge Emett Sullivan.
With the release of transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report, the Carter Page FISA and Flynn documents showing FBI activity; and with the recent release from Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham; there is a common misconception about why the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign in the first place. Why was Donald Trump considered a threat?
In this outline we hope to provide some fully cited deep source material that will explain the origin; and specifically why those inside the Intelligence Community & DOJ began targeting Trump and using Confidential Human Sources against campaign officials.
During the time-frame of December 2015 through April 2016 the NSA database was being exploited by contractors within the intelligence community doing unauthorized searches.
On March 9, 2016, oversight personnel doing a review of FBI system access were alerted to thousands of unauthorized search queries of specific U.S. persons within the NSA database.
NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was made aware.
Subsequently NSA Director Rogers initiated a full compliance review of the system to identify who was doing the searches; & what searches were being conducted.
On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 “about”(17) and “to/from”(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.
The resistance effort run from inside Main Justice from May 2017 through April 2019 used the image of Robert Mueller as a Potemkin face. Mueller’s pretense as head of the special counsel was a key component to the strategy.
HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes targets the pretense that Mueller represented. This is an effective strategy to get people slowly comfortable with a reality that everything from the DOJ was controlled by the resistance unit for two years.
Every action taken by the special counsel team was done with a strategy to advance the resistance. Everything released was approved by them; everything withheld was purposefully hidden by them. The 17 resistance lawyers were in full control.
Do you now understand how the Mueller team, the 17 hired members of the legal resistance operation, were running the DOJ from May 2017 through April 2019? If no, go back through the archives and catch up. If so, invest yourself and read on…
There was an ongoing cover-up operation with its origin going back to June, July and August of 2018 led by the Mueller team, Deputy AG Rosenstein, AAG John C Demers and FBI chief legal counsel Dana Boente. That cover-up continues through today; though there are indications of accountability. Not strong enough in my opinion; but they do exist.
What is John Durham’s hold up?
Well, first we need to focus on the players…
Start by reminding yourself of a series of documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17, 2020. [SEE HERE] Within the release there is a rather alarming letter from the DOJ to the FISA Court dated July 2018. [Link to Letter]
BACKGROUND – After the FISA Court reviewed the December 9, 2019, inspector general report, the FISC ordered the DOJ-NSD to declassify and release documents related to the Carter Page FISA application. In January the FISA court ordered the DOJ and FBI to release certain materials making them public for the first time.
That FISA court order is what led to the Bill Barr DOJ submitting documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. That court order is what led to the judiciary committee (Senator Lindsey Graham) releasing those documents. The 2020 FISA court was forcing sunlight on the DOJ and FBI. AG Bill Barr is not adverse to this sunlight; but everyone else, including the players from 2017-2019 who were running Main Justice, are.
In the cover letter for this specific release to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees, the Bill Barr DOJ cites the January 7, 2020, FISA court order:
One of the biggest mistakes many people have made in their evaluation of Rod Rosenstein is separating him from the Special Counsel investigation run by Robert Mueller’s team of resistance lawyers. The reality is Rosenstein was always a willing active participant and co-dependent enabler. [Thread Here]
Support for this foundational understanding comes forward yesterday as the former Deputy Attorney General showcases his support for an op-ed presumably written by Robert Mueller.
[*Authorship is tenuous at best, and more likely written by Weissmann or Zelby (Lawfare) on behalf of Mueller] But for now, focus on Rosenstein.
Notice how Rosenstein positions his current advocacy as part of the Mueller team. This is critical; and unfortunately everyone keeps missing it. Rosenstein did the same thing in his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
When you stand back it becomes clear, Rosenstein viewed his role with the special counsel as participatory. He was Deputy AG not only as DAG, but also there as a functionary – to facilitate the needs of the special counsel investigation.
This outlook, specifically Rosenstein’s internal definition of his role and responsibility, is why the special counsel was able to essentially take over Main Justice during the two year investigation. Rosenstein took NO ACTION that was not approved by his teammates.
This becomes key.
Mitt Romney does his Mitt Romney thing again today as he tweets about President Trump commuting the sentence of Roger Stone:
Rather than allow myself to be drawn into unhealthy toxic anger; allow me to shift the focus for a moment to drive home the point that up to the moment that Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, all national politics was controlled club activity.
It was in the aftermath of Mitt Romney taking a dive in 2012 when I first decided to really drill down on the club networks and figure out their strategies. Not esoteric analysis of what the political ideology is; but rather, a deep, very deep, focus into the network of how they actually function and what they physically do to keep hidden. Once you see the strings on the marionettes you can never go back to a time when you did not see them.
George Carlin was right, smart man, it’s a big club and we we’re not in it… until Trump.
The elevation of a semi-coherent and cognitively challenged vessel named Joe Biden should also drive home the point that both political wings of the UniParty bird, are ultimately a Potemkin village to disguise a network of powerful interests.
Earlier today Sidney Powell filed a new supplemental brief (#2) [pdf here] in support of the unopposed motion to dismiss. The supplement covers the defense position on the newly released information from USAO Jeff Jensen which includes: notes taken by Tash Guahar at a January 25, 2017 briefing; the FBI work product that was an outcome of that briefing; and later notes by acting DAG Dana Boente.
The notes and FBI briefing summary are also on pdf here and embedded below. It’s a lot of granular information to consider – so it’s worth beginning with the filing by Sidney Powell to see how the evidence released pertains to the current status of the case.
On January 25, 2017, the day after Flynn was interviewed by FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka (he’s the redacted name per his status under an ongoing protective order) the DOJ and FBI group assembled to discuss the Flynn interview and what steps they would take to frame Michael Flynn as part of their ongoing resistance operation.
Tashina Guahar from the DOJ-National Security Division was taking the notes.
Notes of then Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar, reveal a January 25, 2017, meeting of ten officials including FBI General Counsel James Baker, Bill Priestap, Agent Peter Strzok, and [redacted]; from the National Security Division of DOJ: Mary McCord, George ZT, and STU; from the Office of the Deputy AG: Tash, Scott [Schools], and [redacted].
Additionally, when reviewing the notes and FBI briefing summary it’s worth remembering the release only covers the information pertinent to Michael Flynn; hence the non-Flynn material is redacted (even though some of the non-Flynn material we previously found). [Thanks to Techno Fog for that reminder]
One of the key aspects to the notes taken by Tashina Guahar relates to the group discussion of their own leaking of information to the media, which they worried had now alerted the Trump administration to the nature of their intelligence surveillance.
The resistance group’s media leaks, intended to undermine the Trump administration, “changed the dynamic” by informing the White House that FBI agents were intercepting communication from White House officials.
The DC circuit court has requested a response from Michael Flynn’s counsel (and/or DOJ), by July 20th, regarding the petition filed by Judge Emmet Sullivan for a full panel en banc review of the mandamus order. The prior mandamus order required Sullivan to accept the unopposed motion to dismiss the case. [pdf here]
Notably the court is not permitting a re-response from Sullivan (implying they have enough information) only a brief reply from Sidney Powell, and inviting a brief response from the DOJ as appropriate. In the interim the writ of mandamus (Rao order) is stayed until the court decides whether to grant the en banc review.
In short: •Petition response (from Powell and/or DOJ) requested by July 20th. •No counter petition allowed. •Judge Rao mandamus order stayed. •Court *may* consider (vote on) en banc review pending petition response.
Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard “Ric” Grenell appears on Newsmax TV to discuss his perspectives on the concerted effort of former Obama officials to disrupt the incoming administration of President Donald Trump.
As noted by Grenell the Obama team intentionally coordinated a resistance operation against the incoming administration, while their allies in remaining institutions workd furiously on a false Trump-Russia narrative to undercut President Trump.
On February 9, 2018, the DOJ released a batch of captured text messages between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and the lawyer for Christopher Steele, Adam Waldman.
At the time the texts were released the media narrative surrounded the top-line story that Senator Warner was having back channel discussions to communicate with the author of the now famous Trump dossier, Chris Steele. However, no-one seemed to wonder why these messages were captured, and even more curiously why they were released.
Immediately following the release, SSCI member Marco Rubio, the current acting chairman of the same committee, rushed to defend the covert communication of Vice-Chair Warner. According to Rubio the vice-chair did previously inform the committee of his intent to contact Steele. The media quickly used Rubio’s defense to dismiss the controversy. Nothing to see here… nothing to see here… and that was that.
Except it wasn’t.
Not even close.