House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has cancelled any congressional session through the month of April. Representative Devin Nunes discusses the next steps in fully funding the current CARES act relief package and re-opening the U.S. economy. Representative Nunes also outlines the ongoing issues around manipulation from China and the World Health Organization.
Additionally, Nunes gives his impression of the current status of the DOJ ‘Spygate’ review, and the activity of U.S. Attorney John Durham contrast against recent comments by AG Bill Barr.
“My own view is that, uh, the evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness, there was something far more troubling here; and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted.” ~ AG Bill Barr
There are multiple stories today about the declassification of three footnotes from within the DOJ IG report on the Carter Page FISA application. Many voices are calling the declassification of those three footnotes “bombshells”, and “the beginning of the great reveal“; however, that’s not accurate. [Neither Is This From Congress] Exactly the opposite is true… the release today is purposeful misdirection.
Everyone seems to be overlooking the obvious… Why were these footnotes classified four months ago when the report came out? Who classified them? There are no protected “sources or methods”; and the only reason for the redactions was to protect the corrupt interests of the DOJ.
With that said, I find no reason to celebrate the un-redaction of redacted information that should never have been classified in the first place. Factually, the information revealed by the footnote declassification was already well known. Worse still, the interpretation of the information within the footnotes is propaganda, purposeful ‘misinformation’.
Additionally, if these declassified footnotes are an example of a new DOJ shift to allow sunlight; as in: some newly discovered interest in truthfulness; then why are the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages still redacted? Why is the Susan Rice memo on inauguration day still redacted? And, more importantly, more tellingly, why is the DOJ still hiding the ‘scope memos’ that authorized Mueller’s investigation?
Laura Ingraham broadcasts the second part of her interview with AG Bill Barr (majority transcribed below). In this segment we can get a sense of where the DOJ is going with the ongoing investigations by U.S. Attorney John Durham into spygate and the current status of FISA against the backdrop of the prior administration abuse.
AG Bill Barr notes John Durham will bring criminal charges against those in the previous administration: “he is looking to bring to justice people who were engaged in abuses if he can show that there were criminal violations; and that’s what the focus is on.” WATCH
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[@2:49 of video] INGRAHAM – John Brennan was smashing the President’s firing of Inspector General Michael Atkinson, let’s listen:
BRENNAN – “By removing Mr. Atkinson, and I think also sending a signal to others, Mr. Trump continues to show his insecurity in terms of trying to stop anybody who was going to expose, again the lawlessness, that I think he not only has allowed to continue, but also that he abets.”
BARR – “I think the president did the right thing in removing Atkinson. From the vantage point of the Dept. of Justice, he had interpreted his statute; which is a fairly narrow statute that gave him jurisdiction over wrong-doing by intelligence people; and tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government, and immediately report it to congress without letting the executive branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem. He was told this in a letter from the department of justice, and he is obliged to follow the interpretation of the department of justice, and he ignored it. So I think the President was correct in firing him.”
House minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears for an interview with Lou Dobbs to discuss the recent revelations around the exculpatory Papadopoulos transcript and the inference from AG Bill Barr that no legal consequences are likely for the coup attempt.
It has been so long since the original 2018 congressional request that many people have forgotten what was included in the “Bucket Five” declassification request.
Bucket Five – Intelligence documents that were presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016 that pertain to the FISA application used against U.S. person Carter Page; including all exculpatory intelligence documents that may not have been presented to the FISA Court.
Bucket Five includes transcripts of the FBI wiretap operations using confidential human sources that were run against members of the Trump campaign; including George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.
One of those transcripts, from the operation against Papadopoulos was declassified on April 1st, and released last night and today.
Before getting into the transcript, it is also important to see the bigger context and the bigger landscape as it is visible. Recent moves by the Trump administration highlight much more context and color… some may be interpreted as positive signs, and some are worth a note of caution.
Richard “Ric” Grenell was moved into the position as Acting Director of National Intelligence. Together with a new staff within the ODNI Grenell is now in position to assist in any declassification effort. Thus we also see the apoplexy by HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff, as Grenell is positioned to bring a lot of sunlight on the overall FISA-gate and Spygate operations. The corrupt intelligence community operators are not happy with Grenell holding such power. Keep this in mind.
Everything anyone needed to know about the motives and intents of fired Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson is evidenced by his releasing a political statement tonight protesting his termination.
Atkinson doesn’t write a “letter”, his diatribe is not addressed to anyone, it is just a political “statement” designed to be exploited by the same people, for the same intents, as his prior ICIG work product. This transparently political effort is ridiculous.
Acting DNI Richard Grenell announces the replacement for ICIG Michael Atkinson.
Thomas Monheim is a retired Colonel from the US Air Force Reserves and is currently the General Counsel of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Previously, Col Monheim served as Associate Counsel to the President and Deputy General Counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
…The recent IG report outlining Atkinson’s gross incompetence in the FISA scandal, vis-a-vis the 42 DOJ-NSD Accuracy Reviews, is the atomic shield against the political narrative….
President Trump has sent a letter to congress giving them 30-days advance notice and informing them of the removal of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson:
The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community. It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson’s office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large.
Additionally, former congressman Mark Meadows is now President Trump’s Chief-of-Staff; and Meadows has been a critic of those within the intelligence apparatus who attempted a soft-coup twice: Once by special counsel (Russia investigation) Robert Mueller; and once by impeachment (Ukraine investigation) using CIA operative Eric Ciaramella and NSC operative Alexander Vindman.
Also, in the recent FISA review by the OIG the DOJ inspector general specifically identified issues with the “accuracy reviews” conducted by DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel. Who was that former DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel? That would be current ICIG Michael Atkinson…
Things are getting interesting, potential ramifications are growing, as the FISA Court responds to the latest information from the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG).
After a review of 29 FISA applications, from eight FBI field offices, the OIG informed the FBI and DOJ that none of the surveillance applications were compliant with the Woods procedures. Meaning zero applications had FBI evidence to support the validity of the claims within the FISA warrants. That’s a very big problem if those FISA warrants were used to gather evidence used to prosecute the 29 targets of the applications.
In a FISC order released today [pdf here] presiding Judge James Boasberg is ordering the FBI to identify who those targets were; and asking the DOJ to explain what they did with the evidence gathered as a result of the fraudulently obtained FISA warrants. Big.
If evidence obtained by execution of a fraudulently obtained warrant was used in the prosecution of any of those targets; there’s a possibility those cases will be reopened.
Considering the twenty nine applications from the OIG go back to 2015, there’s a lot of potential for some downstream consequences not only for those 29 applications, but also for all FBI FISA applications with a similar level of neglect.
After the DOJ Offfice of Inspector General (OIG), Michael Horowitz, presented his December 2019 findings of the FISA application used against U.S person Carter Page, the gross deficiencies and intentional fraud were so extensive the IG said he was going to review a sample of FISA applications to identify if the fraud and abuse was widespread.
The OIG began reviewing FISA applications from eight field offices (the proverbial “rank and file”). The OIG selected 29 FISA applications from those field offices over the period of October 2014 to September 2019. Additionally, every field office and the DOJ-NSD generate internal “Accuracy Reviews”, or self-checks on FISA applications; so the OIG inspected 42 of the accuracy review FISA files to determine if they were compliant.
The results were so bad the IG produced an interim memorandum to the DOJ and FBI [pdf link here]. Within the 17-page-memo the IG notifies Attorney General Bill Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray that all of the claimed FISA processes, in every field office, are grossly deficient, and in most cases there is zero compliance with FISA standards. The IG memorandum is presented before the IG even looks at the specifics of the non-compliance.
Below is the report/memorandum. Additionally I am summarizing the stunning top-lines identified by the IG memo:
