Fraud Upon the FISA Court Confirmed

[Raginfridus]

wrong topic

[enhanced_deficit]

Are POTUS' Patriotic stances being used against him?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkZkgR0cEa0

[timosman]

Just how many were there?

Officially there are 17, so 25?

[Swordsmyth]

Officially there are 17, so 25?

I'm talking about agents infiltrated into Trump's campaign.

[timosman]

I'm talking about agents infiltrated into Trump's campaign.

You think it's less than 25?

[Swordsmyth]

You think it's less than 25?

I have no idea, where are you getting your numbers?

[timosman]

I have no idea, where are you getting your numbers?

Just a guess.

[Swordsmyth]

Officially there are 17, so 25?

Just a guess.

I meant your "official" number, or is that your "official" guess?

[timosman]

I meant your "official" number, or is that your "official" guess?

My official guess is 25. 17 is the number of intelligence agencies in US.

[timosman]

[goldenequity]

Hamburger Halper.

Halper Goes 'Missing'

[milgram]

Details are murky under scrutiny

https://www.dailywire.com/news/30960...-ryan-saavedra

[Swordsmyth]

The FBI has sent or plans to send letters to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page "asking them to preserve agency records on their personal accounts and personal devices and requesting confirmation that they are doing so," according to the conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch.
The FBI informed Judicial Watch they would be making the request as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in which the watchdog was seeking thousands of pages of documents on the personal devices of the pair which could include emails, chats, text messages, and travel documents.

More at: http://freebeacon.com/issues/fbi-ask...sonal-devices/

[Swordsmyth]

Disobedient Media recently reported on discoveries made by the Forensicator in their report, Media Mishaps: Early Guccifer 2 Coverage. In our previous coverage of the Forensicator's work, we discussed the essential role played by the media in ensuring that the Guccifer 2.0 persona received wide recognition by successfully linking Guccifer 2.0’s documents with the DNC’s claims that Russian state-sponsored hackers had breached their servers.
This report will focus on an unreported story: After the fact, the DNC quietly changed an important theme in their Russian hacking narrative. Initially, the DNC passively supported the notion that Guccifer 2.0 stole a copy of a Trump opposition report by penetrating the DNC at the behest of the Russian state. Then over a year later, an un-named ex-DNC official tells us that this document in fact came from Podesta’s emails, not the DNC. This single statement by a DNC official invalidated the circumstantial evidence that had been used to support the DNC’s Russian hacking claims, and represents a groundbreaking contradiction that has gone unobserved by establishment press outlets.
This report will also discuss numerous mistakes made by various legacy press outlets in their obsessive focus on the Russian hacking narrative and their rush to judgment in the matter.
A Late (and Quiet) Change in the DNC Russian Hacking Narrative
In November 2017, the DNC changed their Russian hacking narrative via their proxies in the legacy media. The Associated Press published, Inside story: How Russians hacked the Democrats’ emails; they cite an anonymous former DNC official who asserts that Guccifer 2.0’s first document (the Trump opposition report) did not originate in the DNC as initially reported. The importance of this contradiction, combined with earlier allegations of hacking the DNC made by Guccifer 2.0, cannot be overstated.
The Associated Press wrote in November 2017:
“…There were signs of dishonesty from the start. The first document Guccifer 2.0 published on June 15 came not from the DNC as advertised but from Podesta’s inbox, according to a former DNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.”
By classifying Guccifer 2.0’s claim to have obtained the Trump Opposition Report through a breach of the DNC as a sign of dishonesty, the Associated Press uses the Guccifer 2.0 persona’s widely held claim as an example of contradiction with their new version of the 'official' Russian hacking narrative. In so doing, the AP makes the hacking allegations entirely nebulous: a fantasy narrative that can be neither proven nor disproven but easily edited and rearranged when convenient. Incredibly, the AP’s article also contradicts the claims made by the DNC themselves, and so-called papers of record, including the Washington Post.
By returning to the genesis of the Russian hacking narrative, we find that the AP's November report runs contrary to the DNC's initial claims, as reported by The Washington Post, in an article titled, Russian Government Hackers Penetrated DNC, Stole Opposition Research On Trump. When reviewing this early history of the matter, it becomes clear that it is logically impossible to separate the Guccifer 2.0 persona from the allegations of a Kremlin-backed hack of the DNC. Critical statements in that initial report by the Washington Post are highlighted below for emphasis:
“Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach…

…[Fancy Bear] broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files,[Shawn] Henry said.”
By taking this later (2017) stance, the Associated Press contradicts the "official" Russian hacking narrative involving Guccifer 2.0 (as implied by the DNC’s own security firm) and which had, until that point, been characterized by the corporate press as Russian-hacking-gospel-truth. By seamlessly excising Guccifer 2.0 from culpability within a new timeline of events, the Associated Press makes the entire hacking story a fantasy narrative that can be neither proven nor disproven but must not be questioned.
The Forensicator explained to Disobedient Media:
"Investigators would have been able to rapidly determine if there were textual differences between Guccifer 2.0’s document and the DNC’s. If there were no textual differences, an initial determination might have been difficult, because Guccifer 2.0 went to some trouble to obscure internal metadata, known as Revision Save ID’s (RSID’s), which can be used to uniquely identify sections of text that have been changed and added into a Word document. However, when the Podesta emails were published in October 2016, investigators should have been able to source Guccifer 2.0’s document to the Podesta emails quickly. They would have been able to do this before the 2016 election, a full year ahead of the AP report." [Emphasis Added]
The Forensicator then referred this author to a table in his report, depicting the metadata for Podesta’s version of the Trump opposition report:

As we can see, the document was saved by Tony Carrk, who worked as Research Director for Hillary for America at the time. This document was attached to this Podesta email.

The Forensicator continued, saying: "We can see that Mr. Carrk made some change that took less than one minute to complete. If investigators compared Carrk’s version of the document to the original DNC document, they should have been able to quickly determine that Guccifer 2’s document is sourced from Podesta’s emails and not directly from the DNC. For this, an RSID correlation would have probably been telling."

Why did the DNC, their security consultant firm Crowdstrike, and government investigators wait so long to tell us that Guccifer 2.0 did not obtain their copy of the Trump opposition report directly from the DNC? Why did Crowdstrike tell the Washington Post that the opposition report files had been stolen specifically from the DNC network if that were not the case?

The legacy press chorus had initially linked Guccifer 2.0’s first document, and the “Russian fingerprints” therein to the Trump opposition report that the DNC claimed to have been stolen by Russian state-sponsored hackers. What prompted them to change their story, contradicting not only Guccifer 2.0 but the DNC themselves? Should we now assess the DNC’s claim that the document had been taken by Russian hackers to be untrue?

Ultimately, it is the DNC’s claim that they were breached by Russian hackers, who stole the Trump opposition report, which directly belies their allegation - because the document did not come from the DNC, but from John Podesta’s emails.
Is it possible that Mueller’s investigation may have taken a closer look into the origin of Guccifer 2.0’s initial document, realizing that it was sourced from Podesta’s email? The DNC and government investigators may have then decided that the best way to obscure the resulting contradictory evidence was by letting it quietly leak via a “former DNC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity,” in the November 2017 article published by the Associated Press.
Given the repeated contradictions from the DNC and corporate media in their description of Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential race, how can the public be expected to believe that their other claims have any legitimacy whatsoever?

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...it-hacking-dnc

[milgram]

Andrew Napolitano has been strangely pro-DOJ throughout all of this. After Comey testified, Nap was gasping with Shepard Smith at the idea that Trump obstructed somethingorother. Here's a video from today where he gushes about Mueller, says Congress should not be requesting documents, etc.

[Swordsmyth]

Andrew Napolitano has been strangely pro-DOJ throughout all of this. After Comey testified, Nap was gasping with Shepard Smith at the idea that Trump obstructed somethingorother. Here's a video from today where he gushes about Mueller, says Congress should not be requesting documents, etc.

Judge Swamp outed himself as controlled opposition over Russiagate, it is just that important to them that they are burning up all their assets.
They never thought she would lose.
These people are stupid, Maxine stupid.

[milgram]

Judge Swamp outed himself as controlled opposition over Russiagate

Ha ha, what did he say about Russiagate?

[Swordsmyth]

Ha ha, what did he say about Russiagate?

Fox New’s Judge Andrew Napolitano warned Monday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions's firing on Friday of former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe could be seen as “obstruction of justice.”
Napolitano said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" Monday that he viewed McCabe’s firing as “vindictive” and “reckless.”
“Andrew McCabe is more likely than not to be a witness against the Attorney General’s boss, the president of the United States,” Napolitano said. “I think that firing him in that environment could very well be determined to diminish his effectiveness as a witness. What’s that called, obstruction of justice.”



“I don’t know if Bob Mueller wants to go there, but that’s the argument,” he added.

More at: http://thehill.com/homenews/media/37...ion-of-justice

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/12/1...-against-trump

Some Republican lawmakers have seized on a trove of damning text messages as evidence that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation is biased against President Trump.

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano doesn't think so.

The text messages were exchanged between two FBI officials who worked on Mueller’s Russia probe, and they reveal the agents expressing a steady stream of anti-Trump, pro-Hillary Clinton sentiments.

"The issue is not: do FBI agents have political opinions and can they express them? The answer to that is yes and yes," Napolitano said on "Outnumbered Overtime." "The issue is: do those political opinions in any way influence the outcome of their investigation?"

He pointed out that the FBI has procedures in place to prevent that from happening.

"FBI agents operate in pairs, whatever the two discover has to be reviewed by five others, whatever the five have reviewed and decided is credible has to be reviewed by Justice Department lawyers," Napolitano explained.

He noted that the only final decisions that have been made in Mueller's investigation are to indict former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates and to accept two guilty pleas from former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.

Napolitano said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein painted a "very credible" picture in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee when he said it's too early to determine if any individual's political opinion affected the outcome of the investigation, because the outcome hasn't been reached yet.

In the meantime, Napolitano said he's not worried about the text messages.

"FBI agents are not choirboys or choirgirls. They are strong-willed people with strong opinions like the rest of us," he said. "None of this surprises me."



http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/12/0...ustice-charges

Judge Nap: Feinstein Is 'Correct' on Potential Obstruction of Justice Case Against Trump

On "Fox & Friends" this morning, Alan Dershowitz disputed claims from some Democrats that Special Counsel Robert Mueller could build an obstruction of justice case against President Donald Trump.

Dershowitz said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was incorrect when she argued that Trump obstructed the FBI investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia by asking former FBI Director James Comey to end the investigation into Michael Flynn and also by later firing Comey.

Dershowitz said a president cannot be charged with obstruction for merely exercising his constitutional authority.

On "America's Newsroom," Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano came down on the side of Feinstein.

"I respect Professor Dershowitz greatly. I do not know Sen. Feinstein, but she, in my view, is correct here," he told Bill Hemmer.

He said that if Trump asked Comey to end the investigation into Flynn for a non-corrupt purpose - such as if he felt sympathy for his former national security adviser or he wanted the bureau to use its resources on more important matters - it's not obstruction.

However, if Trump did it for a corrupt purpose - such as trying to protect himself or his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, from what Flynn might say - then it is obstruction and there is no presidential immunity, Napolitano said.

"Obstruction of justice is a crime no matter who commits it, if done for a corrupt purpose. It's also an impeachable offense," he said, adding that the charge is "intentionally not easy to prove" for a prosecutor.

Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on "Meet the Press" that she believes an obstruction of justice case is forming.

"The Judiciary Committee has an investigation going as well and it involves obstruction of justice and I think what we're beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice,” she said.

"I see it in the hyper-frenetic attitude of the White House, the comments every day, the continual tweets. And I see it most importantly in what happened with the firing of Director Comey, and it is my belief that that is directly because he did not agree to ‘lift the cloud’ of the Russia investigation. That’s obstruction of justice."




Napolitano: Mueller did not wrongly obtain Trump team emails

https://www.yahoo.com/news/napolitan...143230179.html




Fox News’ Judge Napolitano Says Trump Jr-Russia Meeting Merits Criminal Investigation (Video)

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/fox-news-ju...202307669.html

http://theweek.com/speedreads/704572...been-dishonest

Fox News' Judge Napolitano argues Comey's testimony illustrates a 'credible and compelling argument' that Trump has been dishonest

[milgram]

Crazy, I hadn't seen all those. I don't know why he's taking these positions. I was looking back at his written columns which are equally nonsensical whenever he addresses this topic. He thought Mueller's indictment of the Russian Facebook trolls was a monumental accomplishment.

http://www.unz.com/anapolitano/mueller-in-hot-pursuit/

Mueller in Hot Pursuit

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s efforts to uncover the Russian interference are not a “hoax” or a “witch hunt” as President Trump has argued. They are serious and professional efforts that have now borne fruit. But Mueller was not appointed until after the election — after the Russians ran unchecked through our computer systems and the American marketplaces of ideas.

That leaves a question: Why would Mueller seek indictments of folks he knows he cannot prosecute? He did so for a few reasons. One was to reveal the scope of the unlawful activity that he has found. The American people are entitled to know what went on under our noses and who knew about this and looked the other way. As well, this indictment gives credibility to Mueller’s work.

The other reason for the indictment is to smoke out any American collaborators. He has identified American collaborators, but not by proper name, and the Department of Justice has said — not in the indictment, in which case it would be bound by what it says, but in a press statement, which binds no one — that the American collaborators were unwitting dupes of the Russians. My guess is that Mueller’s American targets are under electronic and visual surveillance and that he is listening to their (premature) sighs of relief.

This is not the end of these indictments related to the 2016 election. It is the beginning.

[Swordsmyth]

FBI informant Stefan Halper, who infiltrated the Trump campaign for the FBI during the 2016 election for the purposes of espionage, said that Russians had infiltrated the University of Cambridge where he works - allegations which those involved say are "false" and "absurd."
Halper made the "false allegations" in December 2016 about a Russian co-worker based on her interactions with former national security adviser Michael Flynn at a February 2014 Cambridge Intelligence Seminar (CIS) - while Flynn was President Obama's Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

A historian and Russian intelligence researcher at Cambridge, Svetlana Lokhova, told TheDCNF that Halper is behind allegations made about her and Flynn during the retired general’s visit to Cambridge in 2014, when he served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. -Daily Caller

“Stef Halper, who is currently under [Department of Justice] investigation for his activities, has been revealed by [The New York Times] as the source of the false allegations about me and General Flynn,” said Lokhova, a British citizen who was born in Russia.
Halper told the Financial Times that he was quitting the CIS due to "unacceptable Russian influence on the group," which as the Daily Caller notes, "The evidence of Russian penetration was scant, with news reports citing a nearly $2,700 contribution to CIS from a Russia-based company called Veruscript."
Peter Martland, Stefan Halper and Christopher Andrew

Here's what we know about Stefan Halper's past claims about Russian infiltration. "He sees a Red under every bed," is what one source told me. https://t.co/w5yvSCgSzq @dailycaller
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) May 24, 2018

Prof Andrew, whose books on the KGB are among the most exhaustive on the history of Russian information warfare as well as the infamous Cambridge spy ring of the 1930s, said the suggestion of a Russian covert operation to compromise the seminar was “absurd”.
The seminar is “entirely unclassified” Prof Andrew pointed out, adding that the new Journal of Intelligence and Terrorism was not formally affiliated to the gathering.
The seminar, established by Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI5 and former chairman of the history faculty at the university, is one of the most respected networks in its field. -FT

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...idge-involving

[FvS]

Remember when Napolitano got suspended March 2017? My theory is that the only way he could keep his job was to become what we are seeing now. I don't think he likes Trump anyway because I'm pretty sure Napolitano is an open border extremist. There's been enough evidence to cast doubt on the notion that Russia hacked the DNC's emails. But let's say it's true. Let's say Trump offered Russia political favors in exchange for the hack. Does anyone here wish Trump had been indicted before the election and Hillary had won? I don't know if the Republic could have survived a Hillary presidency, and if Trump gets taken down, we'll probably see a Democrat president in 2020. The deep state does not play by the rules. So, to Napolitano, I say, "Choose your battles better."

[Swordsmyth]

A recent article by George Neumayr in The American Spectator provides an excellent forensic dig into the earliest stages of the US Intelligence Community's surveillance of people in Trump's orbit - and makes clear something that many pointing to a politicized "witch hunt" have long suspected; the Obama DOJ/FBI began looking into "Trumpworld" and the Russians long before the official timeline would suggest.
Moreover, the operation was conducted in close coordination with foreign counterparts, primarily the United Kingdom and Australia, but primarily the former.

All of this raises plenty of questions, but one conclusion about this epic fiasco requires no spying: the fingerprints of the British are all over it. -American Spectator

Here is George Neumayer explaining, how the "roots of Obamagate become clearer" originally published in The American Spectator.
* * *
Even before the first Republican primary, a London-to-Langley spy ring had begun to form against Donald Trump. British spies sent to CIA director John Brennan in late 2015 alleged intelligence on contacts between Trumpworld and the Russians, according to the Guardian.
Here’s the crucial paragraph in the story:

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.

Notice it doesn’t say the “Trump campaign” but “figures connected to Trump.” One of those figures was Michael Flynn, who didn’t join the campaign until February 2016. But Brennan and British intelligence had already started spying on him, drawing upon sham intelligence from Stefan Halper, a long-in-the-tooth CIA asset teaching at Cambridge University whom Brennan and Jim Comey would later send to infiltrate the Trump campaign’s ranks.
It appears that Halper had won Brennan’s confidence with a false report about Flynn in 2014 — a reported sighting of Flynn at Cambridge University talking too cozily with a Russian historian. Halper had passed this absurdly simpleminded tattle to a British spy who in turn gave it to Brennan, as one can deduce from this euphemistic account in the New York Times about Halper as the “informant”:

The informant also had contacts with Mr. Flynn, the retired Army general who was Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser. The two met in February 2014, when Mr. Flynn was running the Defense Intelligence Agency and attended the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, an academic forum for former spies and researchers that meets a few times a year.
According to people familiar with Mr. Flynn’s visit to the intelligence seminar, the source was alarmed by the general’s apparent closeness with a Russian woman who was also in attendance. The concern was strong enough that it prompted another person to pass on a warning to the American authorities that Mr. Flynn could be compromised by Russian intelligence, according to two people familiar with the matter [italics added].

Again, that’s early 2014 and a file on Flynn is already sitting on Brennan’s desk. In 2015, as word of Flynn’s interest in the Trump campaign spreads, the London-to-Langley spy ring fattens the file with more alarmist dreck — that Flynn had gone to a Russian Television gala and so forth. By February 2016, when it is reported that he has joined the Trump campaign as an adviser, the spy ring moves into more concerted action.
It had also extended its radar to Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Paul Manafort. Peter Strzok, the FBI’s liaison to Brennan, could have already clued Brennan in to Page and Manafort (both were already known to the FBI from previous cases), but Brennan needed British intelligence for Papadopoulos and it delivered. Either through human or electronic intelligence (or both), it reported back to Brennan the young campaign volunteer’s meetings in Italy and London with Professor Joseph Mifsud, whose simultaneous ties to British intelligence and Russia are well known.
The stench of entrapment that hangs over this part of the story is unmistakable, and the spy ring’s treatment of Papadopoulos looks flat out cruel. Every figure who plays a key role in tripping him up — Mifsud, the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, and Stefan Halper — has ties to British intelligence.
David Ignatius, who is the Washington Post’s stenographer for John Brennan, dropped a wonderful crumb in his passive-aggressive column about Stefan Halper this week — “Stefan Halper is just another middleman.” A middleman between whom? The answer is British intelligence and Brennan/Comey. As if to punctuate this point, Ignatius — after belittling Halper as a gossipy academic who is no “James Bond,” a sign that his handlers will burn him and profess ignorance of his entrapping methods (when this happens, remember Comey’s “tightly regulated” tweet) — turns to a “former British intelligence officer” to vouch for Halper’s credibility. This unnamed former British intelligence officer adopts a very knowing, almost proprietary, tone, as if to acknowledge that the spying on the Trump campaign was a British-American venture from the start. Ignatius writes, “A former British intelligence officer who knows Halper well describes him as ‘an intensely loyal and trusted U.S. citizen [who was] asked by the Bureau to look into some disconcerting contacts’ between Russians and Americans.”
“Intensely loyal and trusted,” “asked by the Bureau” — how would he know? These are the insiderish phrases of a handler or fellow member of the ring.
The size of the London-Langley spy ring isn’t known but its existence is no longer in doubt. In light of it, Obama State Department official Evelyn Farkas’s bragging bears reexamination. It is obvious that gossip about the transatlantic ring had spilled out to State Department circles and other Obama orbits, generating chatter even from a relatively minor figure like Farkas (who may have just been repeating what she had heard at a cocktail party after she left the administration):

I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy, and that the Trump folks if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump folks, the Trump staff’s dealings with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew there was more.

Whispers of the ring’s work had picked up by the time Brennan had formed his “inter-agency taskforce” at Langley and Comey’s official probe began. Brennan was presiding over a “turf-crossing operation that could feed the White House information,” as revealingly put by Michael Isikoff and David Corn in Russian Roulette. The operation also crossed an ocean, placing a central scene of the spying in London as the ring oafishly built its file.
What started in late 2015 with promise ended in panic, with British sources for the alleged Trump-Russia collusion going silent or mysteriously disappearing. A few days after Trump’s inauguration, the director of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, abruptly resigned, prompting the Guardian to wonder if the sudden resignation was related to “British concerns over shared intelligence with the US.” All of this raises plenty of questions, but one conclusion about this epic fiasco requires no spying: the fingerprints of the British are all over it.


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...become-clearer

[Swordsmyth]

In his final report in a three-part series, Guccifer 2’s West Coast Fingerprint, the Forensicator discovers evidence that at least one operator behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked from the West Coast of the United States.

The Forensicator’s earlier findings stated that Guccifer 2.0’s NGP-VAN files were accessed locally on the East Coast, and in another analysis they suggested that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 was created in the Central time zone of the United States. Most recently, a former DNC official refuted the DNC’s initial allegations that Trump opposition files had been ex-filtrated from the DNC by Russian state-sponsored operatives.
So, if Guccifer 2.0’s role was negated by the statements of the DNC’s own former “official” in a 2017 report by the Associated Press, why do we now return our attention to the Guccifer 2.0 persona, as we reflect on the last section of new findings from the Forensicator?
The answer: Despite almost two years having passed since the appearance of the Guccifer 2.0 persona, legacy media is still trotting out the shambling corpse of Guccifer 2.0 to revive the legitimacy of the Russian hacking narrative. In other words, it is necessary to hammer the final nail into the coffin of the Guccifer 2.0 persona.
As previously noted, In his final report in a three-part series, the Forensicator discusses concrete evidence that at least one operator behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked from the West Coast of the United States. He writes:

“Finally, we look at one particular Word document that Guccifer 2 uploaded, which had “track changes” enabled. From the tracking metadata we deduce the timezone offset in effect when Guccifer 2 made that change — we reach a surprising conclusion: The document was likely saved by Guccifer 2 on the West Coast, US.”

The Forensicator spends the first part of his report evaluating indications that Guccifer 2.0 may have operated out of Russia. Ultimately, the Forensicator discards those tentative results. He emphatically notes:

“The PDT finding draws into question the premise that Guccifer 2 was operating out of Russia, or any other region that would have had GMT+3 timezone offsets in force. Essentially, the Pacific Timezone finding invalidates the GMT+3 timezone findings previously described.”

The Forensicator’s new West Coast finding is not the first evidence to indicate that operators behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona were based in the US. Nine months ago, Disobedient Media, reported on the Forensicator’s analysis, which showed (among other things) that Guccifer 2.0’s “ngpvan” archive was created on the East Coast. While that report received the vast majority of attention from the public and legacy media, Disobedient Media later reported on another analysis done by the Forensicator, which found that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 (on a different occasion) was probably created in the Central Timezone of the US.
Adding to all of this, UK based analyst and independent journalist Adam Carter presented his own analysis which also showed that the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter persona interacted on a schedule which was best explained by having been based within the United States.

The chart above shows a box which spans regular working hours. It indicates that unless Guccifer 2.0 worked the night shift, they were likely working out of the US. Though this last data point is circumstantial, it is corroborated by the previously discussed pieces of independently verifiable hard evidence described by the Forensicator.
When taking all of these separate pieces into account, one observes a convergence of evidence that multiple US-based operators were behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona and its publications. This is incredibly significant because it is based on multiple pieces of concrete data; it does not rely on “anonymous sources within the government,” nor contractors hired by the DNC. As a result, much of the prior legacy press coverage of Guccifer 2.0 as a Russia-based agent can be readily debunked.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ion-made-usa-0

[Swordsmyth]

Speaking with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday, Solomon also revealed that the FBI began spying on the Trump campaign weeks or even months before they had a formal predicate required to use sources:

And that’s very important. The rules say you can’t use sources until you have a predicated investigation. The predication is July 31st, 2016. My sources and documents that I’ll be able to make public tomorrow will show that there were contacts going on by people identified as informers, informants, people who provided information begin much, much earlier than July 31st.

More at: https://www.infowars.com/report-obam...rump-campaign/

[Swordsmyth]

But on top of all of the problems the FBI and DOJ are facing over this fiasco, there is the salient fact that the FBI’s own Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide makes it clear that Halper should never have been assigned to spy on the campaign for the FBI. As the Washington Times is reporting:
Mr. Halper was a “confidential human source,” an official category of spy that is regulated by the FBI’s domestic investigations directive. The FBI completed an updated document in 2013 and posted online a redacted version in 2016.
Human sources are regulated under a program called “Otherwise Illegal Activity,” or OIA. It is called “otherwise illegal” because spying on Americans would be against the law if, as the policy says, the spying is “engaged in by a person acting without authorization.”
The guidebook is clear that OIA must be authorized before being undertaken and that there are clear criteria which must be met for that authorization to be given. That criteria includes the proviso that OIA can be conducted only “in limited circumstances” to obtain information and “when that information or evidence is not reasonably available without participation in the OIA.”
It is evident that the bar for embedding a spy into the political campaign of Donald Trump was not met; it is also clear that someone in the Obama administration must have authorized Halper to conduct OIA against the campaign. So, with all of the liberal mainstream media’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding, President Trump was spot-on when he accused the Obama administration of spying on him.
And while Clapper (in his appearance on the View) and other Deep State operatives and Democrats have attempted to spin the placement of Halper in the campaign as an attempt to protect the campaign from Russian meddling, the facts are against them. The Washington Times quotes President Trump’s former defense counsel, John Dowd, as saying that the FBI had a duty to notify, not spy on, Team Trump. “If you are concerned that the Russians are trying to penetrate a campaign or meddle with the election campaign process, you include the candidates and their top security professionals in that effort,” he said.
Former (and currently disgraced) FBI Director James Comey as good as verified Halper’s role, as well, while attempting the same old Deep State spin, tweeting, “Facts matter. The FBI’s use of Confidential Human Sources (the actual term) is tightly regulated and essential to protecting the country. Attacks on the FBI and lying about its work will do lasting damage to our country. How will Republicans explain this to their grandchildren?”

More at: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...ses-deep-state

[Swordsmyth]

It is now coming to light that the FBI was setting up Trump ever since he became a likely presidential nominee. In late 2015, Brennan embraced a false tip from Estonia that Putin was seeking to support Trump financially, and brought Comey into an ‘intra-agency” group targeting Trump. On March 21, 2016, candidate Trump met with The Washington Post editorial board, which asked about his foreign policy credentials. To bolster his team’s strength, perhaps inflationarily, he named lowly, clueless hangers-on George Papadopoulos and Carter Page as part of his team with Russian experience — literally true, but nonetheless a strenuous stretch. It was then that the entrapping forces of Comey, Clapper, and Brennan, partisans all, went to work.
Approaches were made by “confidential human source” intermediaries to Papadopoulos, Page, Trump aides Sam Clovis and Michael Caputo, and likely others, to induce interest in Russian-hacked emails. The DOJ Number Four, Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie Ohr was behind the Steele Dossier, himself met with Christopher Steele.
A member of Comey’s team travelled to England around May 2016, well before the now-asserted start of the collusion investigation, presumably to speak with either or both Steele and confidential informants. It is impossible to believe that Comey was not behind all this and, indeed, he now defends “confidential human sources” as being both necessary and in grave danger, as if being run behind the former Iron Curtain and marked for execution.
One question to be asked is why Comey felt the need to question Papadopoulos with an undisclosed spy, using entrapping questions, when an identified FBI agent could have done the same job, at least the parts that constituted legitimate inquiry about Russian activity. The answer is, of course, that an identified FBI agent would serve, appropriately so, as a warning, not as a trap. Indeed, Comey and the team twice decided not to provide the usual “defensive briefing” given to innocent compromattargets. Apparently these partisans were more interested in entrapment than in patriotic assistance.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...d-nixon-failed

[Swordsmyth]

FBI Counterintelligence chief, Bill Priestap, will sit down for a closed-door session with lawmakers on Tuesday, according to John Solomon of The Hill.

Priestap will be answering questions about the Hillary Clinton email case as well as the counterintelligence operation on the Trump campaign - both of which he oversaw. Priestap was the direct supervisor of Peter Strzok - the FBI agent whose anti-Trump / pro-Clinton bias was revealed after 50,000 text messages to his FBI-attorney mistress, Lisa Page, were discovered by the DOJ's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz.
All accounts say that Priestap is a cooperating witness. In other words, if there's one person who can confirm that the FBI counterintelligence operation on the Trump campaign was politically motivated - or that malfeasance occurred during the process, it's Bill Priestap.

Note how excited Solomon looks breaking the news of Priestap's testimony...

Solomon: "I think tomorrow is going to be a pivotal day. I think Congress is going to learn a lot of new information tomorrow during these interviews."
Dobbs: He is going to be speaking candidly about his employer, the FBI, and those who were running the agency during that period.
Solomon: He was very high up. Had a bird's-eye view of everything that went on in both of these investigations.

#DrainTheSwamp - @Jsolomonreports: FBI Spy Chief Bill Preistap to testify on Capitol Hill tomorrow about Clinton Email Scandal & Russia “Collusion.” PLUS IG report 400+ pages long – That’s a lot of James Comey. @realDonaldTrump #MAGA #TrumpTrain #Dobbs pic.twitter.com/mfpYEr1q5I
— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) June 5, 2018

While the session will be closed-door, we imagine leaks will be forthcoming as seems to be standard operating procedure these days.
Just who is Bill Priestap really? The Conservative Treehouse presented an in-depth analysis in February. We recommend reading this before deciding on what size popcorn to buy:
***
The game is over. The jig is up. Victory is certain... the trench was ignited... the enemy funneled themselves into the valley... all bait was taken… everything from here on out is simply mopping up the details. All suspicions confirmed.
Why has Devin Nunes been so confident? Why did all GOP HPSCI members happily allow the Democrats to create a 10-page narrative? All questions are answered.
Fughettaboudit.
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member Chris Stewart appeared on Fox News with Judge Jeanine Pirro, and didn’t want to “make news” or spill the beans, but the unstated, between-the-lines, discussion was as subtle as a brick through a window. Judge Jeannie has been on the cusp of this for a few weeks.
Listen carefully around 2:30, Judge Jeanine hits the bulls-eye; and listen to how Chris Stewart talks about not wanting to make news and is unsure what he can say on this...




...Bill Priestap is cooperating.
When you understand how central E.W. “Bill” Priestap was to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, created a curiosity. I wrote a twitter thread about him last year and wrote about him extensively, because it seemed unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines.

E.W. “Bill” Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss. If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know everything about everything.
FBI Asst. Director in charge of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap was the immediate supervisor of FBI Counterintelligence Deputy Peter Strzok.
Bill Priestap is #1. Before getting demoted Peter Strzok was #2.
The investigation into candidate Donald Trump was a counterintelligence operation. That operation began in July 2016. Bill Priestap would have been in charge of that, along with all other, FBI counterintelligence operations.
FBI Deputy Peter Strzok was specifically in charge of the Trump counterintel op. However, Strzok would be reporting to Bill Priestap on every detail and couldn’t (according to structure anyway) make a move without Priestap approval.
On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016.
FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.*
I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important detail. Again, notice how Comey doesn’t use Priestap’s actual name, but refers to his position and title. Again, watch [Prompted]




FBI Director James Comey was caught entirely off guard by that first three minutes of that questioning. He simply didn’t anticipate it.
Oversight protocol requires the FBI Director to tell the congressional intelligence “Gang of Eight” of any counterintelligence operations. The Go8 has oversight into these ops at the highest level of classification. In July 2016 the time the operation began, oversight was the responsibility of this group, the Gang of Eight:

Obviously, based on what we have learned since March 2017, and what has surfaced recently, we can all see why the FBI would want to keep it hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate. After all, as FBI Agent Peter Strzok said it in his text messages, it was an “insurance policy”.
REMINDER – FBI Agent Strzok to FBI Attorney Page:

"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

So there we have FBI Director James Comey telling congress on March 20th, 2017, that the reason he didn’t inform the statutory oversight “Gang of Eight” was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn’t do it.
Apparently, according to Comey, Bill Priestap carries a great deal of influence if he could get his boss to NOT perform a statutory obligation simply by recommending he doesn’t do it.
Then again, Comey’s blame-casting there is really called creating a “fall guy”. FBI Director James Comey was ducking responsibility in March 2017 by blaming FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap for not informing congress of the operation that began in July 2016. (9 months prior).
At that moment, that very specific moment during that March 20th hearing, anyone who watches these hearings closely could see FBI Director James Comey was attempting to create his own exit from being ensnared in the consequences from the wiretapping and surveillance operation of candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and eventually President Donald Trump.
In essence, Bill Priestap was James Comey’s fall guy. We knew it at the time that Bill Priestap would likely see this the same way. The guy would have too much to lose by allowing James Comey to set him up.
Immediately there was motive for Bill Priestap to flip and become the primary source to reveal the hidden machinations. Why should he take the fall for the operation when there were multiple people around the upper-levels of leadership who carried out the operation.
Our suspicions were continually confirmed because there was NO MENTION of Bill Priestap in any future revelations of the scheme team, despite his centrality to all of it.
Bill Priestap would have needed to authorize Peter Strzok to engage with Christopher Steele over the “Russian Dosssier”; Bill Priestap would have needed to approve of the underlying investigative process used for both FISA applications (June 2016, and Oct 21st 2016). Bill Priestap would be the person to approve of arranging, paying, or reimbursing, Christopher Steele for the Russian Dossier used in their counterintelligence operation and subsequent FISA application.
Without Bill Priestap involved, approvals, etc. the entire Russian/Trump Counterintelligence operation just doesn’t happen. Heck, James Comey’s own March 20th testimony in that regard is concrete evidence of Priestap’s importance.
Everyone around Bill Priestap, above and below, were caught inside the investigative net.

Above him: James Comey, Andrew McCabe and James Baker.
Below him: Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Jim Rybicki, Trisha Beth Anderson and Mike Kortan.
Parallel to Priestap in main justice his peer John P Carlin resigned, Sally Yates fired, Mary McCord quit, Bruce Ohr was busted twice, and most recently Dave Laufman resigned. All of them caught in the investigative net…. Only Bill Priestap remained, quietly invisible – still in position.

The reason was obvious.
Likely Bill Priestap made the decision after James Comey’s testimony on March 20th, 2017, when he realized what was coming. Priestap is well-off financially; he has too much to lose. He and his wife, Sabina Menschel, live a comfortable life in a $3.8 million DC home; she comes from a family of money.
While ideologically Bill and Sabina are aligned with Clinton support, and their circle of family and friends likely lean toward more liberal friends; no-one in his position would willingly allow themselves to be the scape-goat for the unlawful action that was happening around them.
Bill Priestap had too much to lose… and for what?
With all of that in mind, there is essentially no-way the participating members inside the small group can escape their accountability with Mr. Bill Priestap cooperating with the investigative authorities.

Now it all makes sense. Devin Nunes interviewed Bill Priestap and Jim Rybicki prior to putting the memo process into place. Rybicki quit, Priestap went back to work.

Bill Priestap remains the Asst. FBI Director in charge of counterintelligence operations.
It’s over.
I don’t want to see this guy, or his family, compromised. This is probably the last I am ever going to write about him unless it’s in the media bloodstream. I can’t fathom the gauntlet of hatred and threats he is likely to face from the media and his former political social network if they recognize what’s going on. BP is Deep-Throat x infinity… nuf said.
The rest of this entire enterprise is just joyfully dragging out the timing of the investigative releases in order to inflict maximum political pain upon the party of those who will attempt to excuse the inexcusable.
Then comes the OIG Horowitz report.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...estify-tuesday

[Swordsmyth]

Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence agent pulled off Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe last year for sending anti-Trump / pro-Clinton text messages to his "lovebird" FBI mistress, played a more central role than previously known in both the Russia and Hillary Clinton investigations, a lawmaker told Fox News on Tuesday.

The assessment of Strzok's involvement comes after six hours of closed-door interviews with FBI espionage chief Bill Priestap, along with an analysis of "recent records."

Colleague Catherine Herridge rpts a mbrs familiar w/Hse closed-door i-view w/FBI espionage chief Bill Priestap has been cooperative. But says FBI Agent Strzok played an more central role than previously known in Clinton email/Russia investigations beyond Strzok/Page text messages
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 5, 2018

Priestap was interviewed Tuesday as part of an ongoing joint investigation by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. Priestap was Strzok's supervisor and oversaw both the Russia and Clinton investigations.
The lawmaker described Strzok as a very cooperative witness, but added that unanswered questions remained about Priestap's overseas travel. One line of questioning Tuesday concerned a trip to London by Priestap in May 2016 and whether it was connected to the Russia case.
The trip was referenced by Strzok in a May 4, 2016 text message to FBI lawyer Lisa Page that said "Bill" would be "back from London next week." -Fox News

Strzok emailed Priestap on January 30, 2016 along with another colleague to express dismay about statements made by former White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claiming that Hillary Clinton was not the target of the FBI probe into her use of a private server while she was Secretary of State.

"Below not helpful," Strzok wrote. "Certainly the WH is going to do whatever it wants, but there is a line they need to hold with regard to the appearance of non-interference."

We also learned in May that Peter Strzok went on a secret trip to London in the summer of 2016 to meet with Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, to describe his meeting with Trump campaign advisor, George Papadopoulos. The FBI kept details of the operation secret from most of the DOJ - with "only about five Justice Department officials" aware of the full scope of the case.

It was an assignment so secretive that Peter Strzok giddily texted his side piece about it on an unsecured line. It's also weird for NYT to characterize the meeting as "not yet reported" seeing as how Strzok's texts about it have been out for months. https://t.co/lbvTZksLJr pic.twitter.com/QSA7TedpTM
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) May 16, 2018

Fearful of leaks, they kept details from political appointees across the street at the Justice Department. Peter Strzok, a senior F.B.I. agent, explained in a text that Justice Department officials would find it too “tasty” to resist sharing. “I’m not worried about our side,” he wrote. -NYT

And in what appears to reveal Strzok's own doubts over the case right after he returned from London, a text message he sent to his mistress, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, reads "I cannot believe we are seriously looking at these allegations and the pervasive connections."
Strzok was reassigned to the FBI's Human Resources department following the discovery of over 50,000 text messages sent between he and Page, many of which showed overt bias towards Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump. While Strzok remains on the FBI's payroll, Lisa Page resigned in May to "pursue other opportunities."
Congressional investigators will interview two other FBI officials later in the month; Michael Steinbach - former head of the agency's national security division, and Steinbach's predecessor, John Giacalone. Furthermore, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz - whose highly anticipated report on FBI misconduct is reportedly going to come any day, is also expected to brief lawmakers.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...clinton-russia

[timosman]

The "lovebirds" narrative is bull$#@!. They are hiding something.

[TheCount]

Confirmed!