There were four stories that broke in the past week; “broke“as in: were revealed, but not necessarily by media. Yet it doesn’t seem like anyone is putting them into their connected context.  I am outlining below (w/ citations) and hopefully everyone can see the connection:

♦(1)  The 2020 FISA review and opinion by presiding Judge James Boasberg was declassified.  The review is for year 2019 (written October 2020, declassified April 2021).  Notice the FISC review is for FBI conduct in 2019.

Within the outline Boasberg notes ongoing abuses by FBI officers of the NSA database.  Boasberg specifically called attention to the FBI use of that database for warrantless searches of public and private officials. {LINK}

♦(2) Judge Boasberg hires former DOJ National Security Head Mary McCord as an Amicus Curiae for the court.  McCord is a known corrupt actor within the DOJ with political motives and intentions.  Including her work and efforts with the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG Atkinson) during the first impeachment effort against President Trump.  Notice, Boasberg hired McCord for the role at the same time the 2020 opinion is declassified. {LINK}

♦(3) The FBI raids the home of Rudy Giuliani with a search warrant for his electronic devices.  Notice the reports of the search warrant highlight the FBI must have something of substance -or at least the appearance of something of substance- in order to get a judge to sign-off on a search warrant. {LINK}

♦(4) Rudy Giuliani reveals during an interview that the search warrant included a reference to supportive evidence obtained by the FBI in 2019.  Giuliani then explains that when his lawyer questioned the FBI they said they searched his iCloud account in 2019 WITHOUT a warrant. {LINK}

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With the jaw-dropping revelation of former DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord being enlisted by the FISA Court as an Amici Curiae (advisor to the court) it is worthwhile revisiting this previous video explanation of the FISA Court.

John Spiropoulos does a great job outlining the history of the FISC looking the other way when the fourth amendment protections against searching American citizens electronic communication are violated by the FBI.  “Mistakes were made”… and made, and made, and made, and made….

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Prior to the December 9, 2019, inspector general report on FISA abuse, FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA bulk database collection program being exploited for unauthorized reasons.  Neither of them took any action against the FBI for warrantless searches of American citizen information.

So it should come as no surprise the 2020 report written again by James Boasberg, shows exactly the same issues still exist and the same unlawful abuses of the NSA database are still taking place.  Taking events at their face value it would appear the court is in alignment with the FBI and thus the abuses have continued.  Under that context Boasberg enlisting Mary McCord appears to be an institutional motive of covering-up the wrongdoing.

In order for corruption to continue advancing without consequence, those with institutional power have to pretend not to know things: “mistakes were made.”

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The FISA Court is Compromised

I hate to write this, but there is just no good way to look at this. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, specifically Presiding Judge James Boasberg, has hired former DOJ National Security Division head, Mary McCord, as amici curiae advisor to the court. [LINK] The placement was first noted by an announcement from Georgetown Law ICAP.

Presiding Judge James Boasberg, is the decision-maker in the appointment of Amici Curiae to the FISA court. There is no way, NO WAY, Judge Boasberg does not know Mary McCord was at the epicenter of the fraudulent FISA application used against Carter Page. Remember, in addition to being the FISC Presiding Judge, Boasberg was also the trial judge in the case against Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer who lied about Page working for the CIA on the FISA application. {Go Deep}

Boasberg knows Mary McCord took over from former DOJ-NSD head John Carlin (October 2016); and it was McCord who guided the Carter Page FISA application through the court and across the finish-line (October 2016 and January 2017). That FISA application was built upon fraud and Mary McCord was at the center of it.

Mary McCord was also the DOJ-NSD official who went with Sally Yates to confront the White House Counsel, Don McGhan, about the Michael Flynn interview with the FBI. {Go Deep} It was also Mary McCord who had Michael Atkinson as the chief-legal-counsel for the DOJ-NSD -that’s her office attorney- when the FISA application was submitted in October 2016, and renewed in January 2017.

Michael Atkinson went from DOJ-NSD counsel to become the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG). {Go Deep} In that new role Atkinson changed the rules to allow an anonymous CIA whistleblower (Ciaramella on behalf of Vindman) to file the complaint that led to the Ukraine impeachment effort. {Go Deep} Who was the lead lawyer in the Jerry Nadler led House Judiciary Committee? Why Mary McCord of course. Judge Boasberg knows all of this… AND MORE.

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Once again the FBI is outlined by the FISA court using the NSA database for warrantless searches of American citizen information.  This is the fourth consecutive year the FISA court has outlined abuse of the NSA database by FBI workers, contractors and officials.

The latest 67 page FISA compliance review for the year 2020 was written by FISA Court Presiding Judge James Boasberg (same judge from Clinesmith trial).  The opinion was written in November 2020 and declassified (with lots of redactions) today. [pdf version HERE] – [SCRIBD pdf HERE and Below]

I’m still going through the report; however, understanding the issues in current politics, TechnoFog has a well written succinct encapsulation of the top-line issues [READ HERE] which includes:

[…] April 2019 – July 2019: An FBI technical information specialist was involved in “Compliance incidents” by conducting 124 queries of Section 702-acquired information on (1) Volunteers who had requested to participate in the FBI’s “Citizens Academy”; (2) Persons who needed to enter the field office to perform repairs; and (3) Persons who reported they were victims of a crime.

[…] In other words, the FBI is using FISA acquired information to investigate domestic crimes – not matters of foreign intelligence. These included investigations of “health-care fraud, transnational organized crime, violent gangs, domestic terrorism involving racially motivated violent extremists, as well as investigations relating to public corruption and bribery.”

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Journalist Lee Smith hits the sweet spot in his discussion of the U.S. Postal Service conducting surveillance on Americans.  As Smith notes the targeting is not to identify the political ideology of “all Americans”, rather the objective is surveillance of people who likely did not vote for Joe Biden.

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Again it is important to repeat, this type of activity is one long continuum.  The IRS was previously used; federal contractors for the FBI have previously been used; allied Big Tech companies have been used; and now the United States Postal Service is running a covert surveillance program against Americans that sounds suspiciously like the prior DHS announcement.

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The Washington Post has a lengthy hit-piece against Kash Patel where they infer unsourced claims the DOJ is investigating the former Nunes aide and Trump administration official for releasing classified information.

Keep in mind that President Trump granted full declassification authority to AG Bill Barr on May 23, 2019.   I would draw your attention to these two paragraphs buried deep in the reporting (emphasis mine):

(WaPo) […] The battle against the deep state continued, meanwhile. Patel kept pushing, along with DNI Ratcliffe, for declassification of memos challenging the origins of the Russia investigation. Nakasone [NSA Director] strongly dissented, and Esper [Sec of Defense] backed him up in an October letter to Ratcliffe “urging that the information not be released due to the harm it would do to national security, including specific harm to the military,” a senior defense official said. Haspel [CIA Director], too, strongly opposed release of the information. Their argument for protecting sensitive information was finally supported by Attorney General William P. Barr, and Trump backed away, a source close to the events said.

“I think there were people within the IC [Intelligence Community], at the heads of certain intelligence agencies, who did not want their tradecraft called out, even though it was during a former administration, because it doesn’t look good on the agency itself,” Patel said in the RealClearInvestigations interview. (read more)

It is tradition the NSA and CIA run to the Washington Post when they need a media PR firm to push their position. So this article makes sense considering the NSA and CIA both had something to hide within the criminal activity behind Spygate. [Maybe the timing has to do with recent information about the Durham probe.]

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The content of the story is less important than the network within it.

The New York Times writes a story about John Durham issuing subpoenas to the Brookings Institute for records of Igor Danchenko’s work there.   Danchenko was Chris Steele’s primary sub-source for the infamous Steele Dossier.

The material provided by Danchenko to Steele was described as unsubstantiated “gossip”, “rumor”, “hearsay” and innuendo by Danchenko himself after he was questioned by the FBI.

New York Times – […] Mr. Durham has keyed in on the F.B.I.’s handling of a notorious dossier of political opposition research both before and after the bureau started using it to obtain court permission to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016 and 2017 and questioned witnesses who may have insight into the matter.

In particular, Mr. Durham has obtained documents from the Brookings Institution related to Igor Danchenko, a Russia researcher who worked there a decade ago and later helped gather rumors about Mr. Trump and Russia for that research, known as the Steele dossier, according to people familiar with the request.

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OK, before I blow a blood pressure cuff on this issue, please keep in mind the warnings provided on these pages about DHS now starting to assemble lists of dissident citizens under the guise of domestic extremists. {Go Deep}  Also remind yourself the same DHS and FBI are now using private contractors embedded in Big Tech to scour public information on social media and provide feedback to help DHS assemble those lists. {Go Deep}

Now, we take that foundation and build it one step further…. This well-written report about the recent Senate Armed Services Committee discussion with the National Security Agency (NSA) needs to be absorbed with the prior information as context.  These paragraphs are alarming in the extreme (emphasis mine):

[…] “Several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday voiced their support for expanded authorities for the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command to conduct more intelligence gathering domestically, something that the Biden administration already is exploring, according to Gen. Paul Nakasone, who leads both agencies.”

“Former NSA general counsel Glenn Gertstell has argued that an expansion of NSA authorities to collect domestic intelligence is overdue. “It can’t possibly be the case that the Fourth Amendment ties our hands in such a way that we just have to sit there and watch the Chinese romp through our infrastructure,” he told the Wall Street Journal in March. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and [NSA Director] Nakasone cited it as a key obstacle to potential expansion of the NSA’s powers domestically.” (read more)

The Fourth Amendment is an “obstacle“?….  WTF kind of outlook is that.

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As one of the few people who have engaged in conversation with the lead investigative unit around John Durham I have held a rather unique outlook on this question since August of 2020.

See if you can find him below:

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The DOJ and FBI appear to be maintaining an aggressive posture against their political opposition on behalf of the ongoing ‘domestic extremist’ narrative.  In a remarkable statement prosecutor Michael Sherwin claims that charges of sedition are possible for those who attended the January 6th protest in DC against the outcome of the 2020 election.

Conducting political surveillance, abusing the NSA database by extracting personal information in violation of the fourth amendment, lying to a FISA court to get a title-1 surveillance warrant against Donald Trump’s campaign, fabricating a false Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, pushing knowingly false information to the media to support a fraudulent investigation, initiating a special counsel to hide the trail of wrongdoing; and the FBI conducting political operations against the Trump administration, was apparently no big deal. However, attend a protest against the corrupt interests of the deep state in DC and you are guilty of “sedition.”

The weaponized institutions of government are openly displaying their intent now.

WASHINGTON DC – Michael Sherwin, the federal prosecutor tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, told “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday night evidence collected thus far likely meets the threshold to charge some suspects with sedition.

Any person charged with sedition is effectively accused of attempting to overthrow the U.S. government and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

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