Fraud Upon the FISA Court Confirmed

[Swordsmyth]

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) sent interview requests to former FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates,Politico reported on Tuesday.
Requests were also issued to Glenn Simpson, whose research firm Fusion GPS was behind the Trump-Russia dossier, and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who was recently sentenced to two weeks behind bars for lying to the FBI.

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/house-rep...094422031.html

[TER]

Thanks for the work put into this thread Swordsmyth. It has been one hell of a ride so far. Enjoying the show!

[Swordsmyth]

Thanks for the work put into this thread Swordsmyth. It has been one hell of a ride so far. Enjoying the show!

My pleasure.

[Swordsmyth]

The House Intelligence Committee on Friday voted to release 53 transcripts related to the panel's Trump-Russia investigation, reports The Hill, "teeing up a massive document dump ahead of the November midterm elections."

The transcripts will include testimony from several current and former key members of Trump's orbit, including Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump Jr., Roger Stone and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
Also included will be interviews with former Obama administration officials such as former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper as well as former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

The transcripts — 53 in total — will not immediately be released but will now go to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a classification review, which could take days or weeks to complete.
The documents are poised to revive discussion about the House panel’s Russia investigation, which dramatically broke down into partisan infighting and culminated in Republicans moving to end the probe in a party-line vote last March. Democrats have accused the GOP leaders of ending the probe prematurely. -The Hill

House GOP released a report on their findings in April which found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ia-transcripts

[Swordsmyth]

Roughly nine months after Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein testified before the House Judiciary Committee that he would not fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller without "good reason", House Republicans are again moving to haul him in for questioning following a steady drumbeat of pressure that has intensified over the past week. This comes after they said they would subpoena the memos themselves late Thursday.

According to the Washington Post, Rosenstein will be called back to Capitol Hill to testify, and if he refuses, the House will subpoena him, said Rep. Mark Meadows, who tweeted Friday that GOP leadership had agreed on a plan.

Leadership has agreed to call Rod Rosenstein before Congress, for a closed door hearing with our panel investigating, so he can explain his alleged comments on "wiring" POTUS--as well as other inconsistent statements.

If Mr. Rosenstein fails to show up, we will subpoena him.
— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) September 28, 2018

The calls for Rosenstein's testimony have intensified since the New York Times published a bombshell story last Friday alleging that Rosenstein tried to organize an attempt to oust President Trump via the 25th amendment, and that he had suggested surreptitiously recording the president. However, the story, which was drawn from memos allegedly taken by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, has been disputed by some people who attended a meeting with McCabe and Rosie the day before Mueller's appointment was announced. Since then, reports about Rosenstein's imminent firing/resignation have proven false, as Trump has said he wants to hear Rosenstein's side of the story. The two, who met briefly Thursday, will meet again next week.
A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan said Friday that the Judiciary Committee "is calling the shots" and that "we support the Judiciary Chairman."

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...t-mccabe-memos

[Swordsmyth]

Despite the staggering revelations regarding his pre-Mueller probe conduct that came to light a week ago, Rod Rosenstein looks set to keep his job - for now, at least. But while President Trump has insisted that he doesn't believe the report - which alleges that Rosenstein tried to recruit cabinet members for a palace coup and even suggested surreptitiously taping Trump in the Oval Office - the truth of the matter may soon be exposed thanks to House Oversight Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, who on Thursday formally subpoenaed the DOJ to obtain copies of the incriminating memos, and other related materials, purportedly penned by former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. The NYT and other news outlets cited the memos as the original source for their story, though none of them actually obtained physical copies of the document - instead, they relied on "descriptions" of the memos' content conveyed by third parties who had reportedly seen them.
According to Fox News, Goodlatte sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Thursday notifying him of the subpoena, which was issued as part of a joint investigation with House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy. Goodlatte is giving the DOJ - which has been notoriously reluctant to comply with Congressional subpoenas during the Trump era - a deadline of Oct. 4 to comply. The initial Times report claimed that McCabe had left copies of his memos at the FBI after he was fired earlier this year.

"Given the Department’s ongoing delays and/or refusal to produce these documents, I am left with no choice but to issue the enclosed subpoena to compel their production," Goodlatte wrote to Sessions.

In addition to requesting all documents and communications pertaining to the memos, Goodlatte also subpoenaed the file on the first FISA Court application requesting a wiretapping warrant on Trump Campaign advisor Carter Page, a warrant that was at the heart of the Obama Administration's suspected conspiracy to wiretap and investigate the presidential nominee of its rival party, according to the Washington Examiner.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...eins-attempted

[Swordsmyth]

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has agreed to speak privately with lawmakers following reports that he had discussed secretly recording President Donald Trump.A person familiar with the situation said Rosenstein agreed to the meeting during a call Thursday evening with the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte. The Virginia Republican said Friday he was working out details with the Justice Department for a closed-door session.
"There are many questions we have for Mr. Rosenstein, including questions about allegations made against him in a recent news article," Goodlatte said in a statement. We need to get to the bottom of these very serious claims."

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/rosenstei...-politics.html

[osan]

Isn't the FISA court a fraud upon the American people?

[Swordsmyth]

https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-conte...8_Subpoena.pdf

[Swordsmyth]

Q
!!mG7VJxZNCI
No.325

Oct 3 2018 16:57:26 (EST) NEW

Q
!!mG7VJxZNCI
No.324

Oct 3 2018 16:32:38 (EST) NEW
>>267

Did James Baker just testify behind closed doors [RR] & [JC] coordinated to appoint Mueller?
What a wonderful day.

Q

>>324

James Baker closed door testimony today + previous to IG / GJ statements > sealed > timed re: Sessions subpoena tomorrow?
If Sessions is recused from Russia probe [prevented rec of related docs / info / etc] how can Sessions learn [RR] conflicts re: Russia probe?
Per subpoena to Sessions - Schedule 1 - 'McCabe Memos'.
https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-conte...8_Subpoena.pdf
'McCabe Memos' = SOURCE DOCS for NYT article re: [RR] "wear a wire" - 25th amendment?
Enjoy the show!

Q

[Swordsmyth]

Q
!!mG7VJxZNCI
No.325

Oct 3 2018 16:57:26 (EST) NEW

Q
!!mG7VJxZNCI
No.324

Oct 3 2018 16:32:38 (EST) NEW
>>267

Did James Baker just testify behind closed doors [RR] & [JC] coordinated to appoint Mueller?
What a wonderful day.

Q

>>324

James Baker closed door testimony today + previous to IG / GJ statements > sealed > timed re: Sessions subpoena tomorrow?
If Sessions is recused from Russia probe [prevented rec of related docs / info / etc] how can Sessions learn [RR] conflicts re: Russia probe?
Per subpoena to Sessions - Schedule 1 - 'McCabe Memos'.
https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-conte...8_Subpoena.pdf
'McCabe Memos' = SOURCE DOCS for NYT article re: [RR] "wear a wire" - 25th amendment?
Enjoy the show!

Q

James Baker, a former top FBI lawyer, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that the Russia probe was handled in an "abnormal fashion" and was rife with "political bias" according to Fox News, citing two Republican lawmakers present for the closed-door deposition.

"Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News. "This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That's extremely troubling."

Meadows claimed the "abnormal" handling of the probe into alleged coordination between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign was "a reflection of inherent bias that seems to be evident in certain circles." The FBI agent who opened the Russia case, Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and others sent politically charged texts, and have since left the bureau. -Fox News

Baker, who worked closely with former FBI Director James Comey, left the bureau earlier this year.
Lawmakers did not provide any specifics about the interview, citing a confidentiality agreement signed with Baker and his attorneys, however they said that he was cooperative and forthcoming about the beginnings of the Russia probe in 2016, as well as the FISA surveillance warrant application to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

"During the time that the FBI was putting -- that DOJ and FBI were putting together the FISA (surveillance warrant) during the time prior to the election -- there was another source giving information directly to the FBI, which we found the source to be pretty explosive," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Meadows and Jordan would not elaborate on the source, or answer questions about whether the source was a reporter. They did stress that the source who provided information to the FBI’s Russia case was not previously known to congressional investigators. -Fox News

According to Fox, Baker "is at the heart of surveillance abuse allegations, and his deposition lays the groundwork for next week's planned closed-door interview with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein."
As the FBI's top lawyer, baker helped secure the FISA warrant on Page, along with three subsequent renewals.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...rife-political

[Swordsmyth]

James Baker, a former top FBI lawyer, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that the Russia probe was handled in an "abnormal fashion" and was rife with "political bias" according to Fox News, citing two Republican lawmakers present for the closed-door deposition.

"Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature," Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News. "This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That's extremely troubling."

Meadows claimed the "abnormal" handling of the probe into alleged coordination between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign was "a reflection of inherent bias that seems to be evident in certain circles." The FBI agent who opened the Russia case, Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and others sent politically charged texts, and have since left the bureau. -Fox News

Baker, who worked closely with former FBI Director James Comey, left the bureau earlier this year.
Lawmakers did not provide any specifics about the interview, citing a confidentiality agreement signed with Baker and his attorneys, however they said that he was cooperative and forthcoming about the beginnings of the Russia probe in 2016, as well as the FISA surveillance warrant application to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

"During the time that the FBI was putting -- that DOJ and FBI were putting together the FISA (surveillance warrant) during the time prior to the election -- there was another source giving information directly to the FBI, which we found the source to be pretty explosive," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
Meadows and Jordan would not elaborate on the source, or answer questions about whether the source was a reporter. They did stress that the source who provided information to the FBI’s Russia case was not previously known to congressional investigators. -Fox News

According to Fox, Baker "is at the heart of surveillance abuse allegations, and his deposition lays the groundwork for next week's planned closed-door interview with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein."
As the FBI's top lawyer, baker helped secure the FISA warrant on Page, along with three subsequent renewals.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...rife-political

Q
!!mG7VJxZNCI
No.327

Oct 3 2018 21:29:00 (EST) NEW
>>324

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top...aign-lawmakers
Read carefully.
Sessions tomorrow [doc related]
Justice K confirmation [weekend]
[RR] next week [probe-not update]
Follow the pattern.
>>>RED OCTOBER<<<

Q

[Swordsmyth]

Stefan Halper, the college professor turned FBI spy on the Trump campaign, was paid $244,000 by the Pentagon to write a Russia-China study in 2015 and 2016.
Mr. Halper boasted a heady list of foreign policy specialists. On Pages 7 and 8 of the 300-plus-page analysis are the names of 43 “advisors and consultants” such as former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and David Shambaugh, a China scholar at George Washington University.
But a spot check by The Washington Times revealed that neither man contributed to nor had heard of the study, titled “The Russia-China Relationship: The Impact on the United States’ Security Interests.”
“No memory of project or person,” Mr. Hayden told The Times.
Mr. Shambaugh: “No, I was not an adviser to his study.”
Listing such esteemed individuals would convey a well-connected Pentagon contractor able to network with Washington’s establishment.
Mr. Halper submitted the study to James Baker, director of the Pentagon’s secretive office of net assessment, in September 2016. That same month, he won another study contract at nearly double the money, bringing his total awards under Mr. Baker to $656,000.
This was around the time Mr. Halper served as a paid “confidential human source.” He worked for the FBI to penetrate the Trump campaign by striking up contact with at least two national security volunteers: George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. Mr. Halper’s mission was to find out whether they played a role in Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.
Mr. Halper resides in Great Falls, Virginia, and in England. He taught at the University of Cambridge and is in a consultancy partnership with Richard Dearlove, former head of the British spy service MI6. He has staged intelligence seminars at Cambridge and invited Mr. Page, who visited Moscow in July 2016 to deliver a public speech at a university.
Mr. Halper’s Russia-China report, Page 7, is headed, “Consultants and Advisors. The following consultants and advisors contributed to the analysis within this study.”
The list comprises two pages in alphabetical order. It is an impressive collection of college professors and former ambassadors, White House national security staffers and people inside the intelligence community.
As a representative sample, The Times contacted 15 of the 43 listed consultants and advisers. Ten replied via email:
⦁ Mr. Hayden, retired Air Force general, CIA director and National Security Agency chief: “No memory of project or person. Quick search of calendar and email shows nothing. I was at Cambridge in Nov 2009 as a guest of Richard Dearlove. For three or four days. I guess I could have met Harper then. I could’ve met with him there or elsewhere but do not have any memory of it. Clearly not an intense interaction in any case.”
⦁ Jonathan Haslam, Princeton professor and noted scholar on the history of the Soviet Union: “I was never asked to participate in this study and I would not have agreed to do so anyway. I find it troubling that I am listed in a study that I never participated in. And that some kind of payment may have been allocated to my name that I never received. I was asked to participate in a study of Russia and Afghanistan, probably back in 2013/14, but Stef failed to agree to the remuneration I wished for, so I dropped out. The pay was far too low for my expertise. I knew from working in DC in the mid-eighties how much specialist academic researchers for Andrew Marshall at the OSD usually got.’
⦁ Robert Goldberg, an analyst at The Scowcroft Group: “I do not recall being a source for Halper on his China-Russia study.”
⦁ David Shambaugh, political science professor and director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University: “No, I was not an advisor to his study. Have never communicated with him in my life.”
⦁ Lee Edwards, a political biographer and historian based at The Heritage Foundation: “I have no recollection of the study which is outside my area at Heritage.”
⦁ Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University in Beijing: “‘Consult’ is a very strong word for my contribution. Halper is generous to include me at the same level as the rest of the group. I submitted a chapter to a book related to a DoD project he was running called ‘China 2030’ … and he may have used that chapter to help him understand China’s economic prospects. Aside from that, I can’t say I otherwise contributed to ‘The Russia-China relationship’ project, and in fact, until this email, was not even aware of it.”
⦁ Hans van de Ven, a professor at Cambridge University, where Mr. Halper has taught: “I know Stefan and I have had lunch with him several times here in Cambridge. But I don’t recall this report. Of course, advisor is a very broad category.”
⦁ Gilbert Rozman, professor emeritus at Princeton and editor of an Indo-Pacific journal: “I met with the author and shared my views.”
⦁ Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations: A spokesman said, “He remembers meeting with Mr. Halper in 2016 and having a conversation with him, but does not recall and has no record of officially advising him on the Russia-China relationship.”
⦁ Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations: A spokesman said he doesn’t recall whether he contributed or not.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is also on Mr. Halper’s roll.


More at: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...study-lists-c/

[Swordsmyth]

Congressional investigators have confirmed that a top FBI official met with Democratic Party lawyers to talk about allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion weeks before the 2016 election, and before the bureau secured a search warrant targeting Trump’s campaign.
Former FBI general counsel James Baker met during the 2016 season with at least one attorney from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm.
That’s the firm used by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to secretly pay research firm Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence operative, to compile a dossier of uncorroborated raw intelligence alleging Trump and Moscow were colluding to hijack the presidential election.
The dossier, though mostly unverified, was then used by the FBI as the main evidence seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign in the final days of the campaign.
The revelation was confirmed both in contemporaneous evidence and testimony secured by a joint investigation by Republicans on the House Judiciary and Government Oversight committees, my source tells me.
It means the FBI had good reason to suspect the dossier was connected to the DNC’s main law firm and was the product of a Democratic opposition-research effort to defeat Trump — yet failed to disclose that information to the FISA court in October 2016, when the bureau applied for a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
“This is a bombshell that unequivocally shows the real collusion was between the FBI and Donald Trump’s opposition — the DNC, Hillary and a Trump-hating British intel officer — to hijack the election, rather than some conspiracy between Putin and Trump,” a knowledgeable source told me.

More at: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/40...dossier-before

[Valli6]

Odd - The headline is "Collusion bombshell: DNC lawyers met with FBI on Russia allegations before surveillance warrant, it's even posted in red, yet theirs no mention of it on their front page! Also there's no comments section for this story.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/40...dossier-before

[Swordsmyth]

George Soros funded Fusion GPS by making a grant to a Fusion GPS contractor while the Glenn Simpson-founded opposition research firm was engaged in the tactics responsible for the discredited Christopher Steele dossier against President Donald Trump.
The Washington Post reported:
Deripaska wrote in a March 2018 op-ed in the Daily Caller about “unholy alliances” between Fusion GPS and the Justice Department. Deripaska added that an associate of Fusion GPS had told Waldman in March 2017 that the organization was partly funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, another bogeyman for Trump supporters and Russia. Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson declined to comment for this article. Soros’s spokesman, Michael Vachon, told me that Soros hadn’t funded Fusion GPS directly but had made a grant to the Democracy Integrity Project, which used Fusion GPS as a contractor.

More at: https://bigleaguepolitics.com/george...ed-fusion-gps/

[Swordsmyth]

The deadly helicopter crash that downed Natalia Veselnitskaya’s associate underscores the high-stakes tension surrounding the Fusion GPS scandal as President Trump looks to consolidate his federal government power. Progressive billionaire George Soros’ spokesman confirmed to the Washington Post that Soros funded the Democratic Integrity Project, a contractor for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm responsible for the discredited Christopher Steele dossier. Now the Obama administration is implicated alongside Soros.
The Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who set up Don Trump Jr. for a meeting in Trump Tower as part of a Fusion GPS plot was operating out of the Washington offices of Cozen O’Connor, a law firm run by anti-Trump former Obama administration official Howard Schweitzer, whose super PAC donated to Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential election.
Veselnitskaya’s work from the Cozen O’Connor office provides more evidence of a Democrat and establishment Republican effort to set up the Trump campaign for a future Russian collusion case. Veselnitskaya was allowed into the United States by the Obama Department of Justice while the former Obama official who runs Cozen O’Connor publicly warned then-candidate Trump that if he became president he would be investigated by the DOJ for contacts with foreign leaders. Veselnitskaya reportedly had dinner meetings with Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson the day before she met in Trump Tower and also the day after she went inside Trump Tower.


Big League Politics has confirmed that a Cozen O’Connor partner who lives in the same apartment building as James Comey’s friend Daniel Richman — who leaked classified information to the press on Comey’s behalf — spoke with Richman during the period that Comey and the Fusion GPS team were trying to obtain FISA warrants on Trump Tower.

“Yes, he is my neighbor,” Amy Wenzel, a partner at Cozen O’Connor, confirmed in a phone conversation with Big League Politics, confirming that they spoke. They live near each other in a Brooklyn high-rise.



Russian and U.S. citizen Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet military veteran, was present at Veselnitskaya’s meeting with Don Jr. in Trump Tower after leading a lobbying push supposedly to repeal the Magnitsky Act. Akhmestshin is believed by insiders to be linked to Russian government intelligence, a fact that the Washington Post seized on when reporting that he met with Don Jr. and Jared Kushner in Trump Tower. A nonprofit group focused on promoting Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya’s cause to lawmakers actually hired Cozen O’Connor, which the law firm confirms.
The Washington Post reported (emphasis added):


“In the spring of 2016, as the presidential race was heating up, Akhmetshin and lobbyists he hired sought meetings on Capitol Hill to make their case against the sanctions law. Akhmetshin hired former Democratic congressman Ron Dellums, along with a team of lobbyists from the law firm of Cozen O’Connor.
Steve Pruitt, a business colleague speaking on Dellums’s behalf, said his involvement was brief and ended when he determined that Congress was unlikely to change the law.
In June, after visiting Trump Tower in New York, Veselnitskaya came to Washington to lend a hand in the lobbying effort.
She attended a meeting of the team at the downtown offices of Cozen O’Connor, where she spoke at length in Russian about the issues but confused many in the room, who had not been told previously about her involvement, according to several participants.”
Washington Post passage ends
Cozen O’Connor managing partner Howard Schweitzer is listed here on a DOJ form from an investigation into the breaking of lobbying laws by Russians trying to repeal the Magnitsky Act — which was just a front to get Russians in the room with Don Jr. We know now that Natalia Veselnitskaya was actually operating out of the Cozen O’Connor offices.

Schweitzer worked as general counsel for the Export-Import Bank under George W. Bush and was chief operating officer of the TARP bailout program under both Bush and Obama from 2008-2009.
“In October 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson appointed Howard as the first COO of TARP. In this position, Howard led program execution and built the TARP infrastructure. He served as a key point person regarding the financial crisis through the presidential transition and continued to serve as TARP COO under Secretary Timothy Geithner until August 2009,” reads Schweitzer’s Cozen O’Connor bio.
“He served as chief operating officer of the TARP in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations,” reads Schweitzer’s bio for a Politico piece he wrote in August 2016 headlined “7 Reasons Why Trump Would Hate Being President.”
Schweitzer’s virulently anti-Trump piece for Politico tries to make the case that Trump was “sabotaging his own bid for the White House.” Schweitzer said that if Trump became president then “He’ll be investigated to death” by Congress and the Justice Department for his business dealings and “relationships with foreign leaders.”
The narrative was being set.
The Philadelphia-based Cozen O’Connor law firm also has a political action committee that donated to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, in addition to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Martin O’Malley. In the 2018 election cycle, the Cozen O’Connor PAC donated more money to Hillary Clinton’s dormant campaign.
Here is Veselnitskaya seated behind Obama ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul at a June 2016 congressional hearing focused on Russia.
Cozen O’Connor’s connections to the anti-Trump “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” plot are wide-ranging, and show up in unexpected places.
James Comey’s friend, Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, leaked classified information that Comey gave him. During this leaking period, Richman was apartment-building neighbors with a partner at the Cozen O’Connor law firm that strategized with Fusion GPS operative Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian plant who set up Don Jr. in Trump Tower.
Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS, led by Glenn Simpson, were part of John Brennan and Peter Strzok’s CIA-led “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” plot aimed at President Donald Trump and the Trump campaign.
The Washington Post’s release of Trump Tower documents shows the crowd surrounding non-sexual honeypot Natalia Veselnitskaya. The crowd of conspirators knew they were damaging Trump by setting up the meeting.
The Post confirms British-citizen music promoter Rob Goldstone’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he described the conspirators’ push to get the meeting despite the fact that they knew it would create trouble for the Trump campaign.
The Post reports:
“Rob Goldstone told the committee that his client, the Russian pop star and developer Emin Agalarov, had insisted he help set up the meeting between President Trump’s son and the lawyer during the campaign to pass along material on Clinton, overriding Goldstone’s own warnings that the meeting would be a bad idea.
“He said, ‘it doesn’t matter. You just have to get the meeting,’ ” Goldstone, a British citizen, testified.
The intensity with which Agalarov and his father, the billionaire Aras Agalarov, sought the Trump Tower meeting, which has become a key point of scrutiny for congressional inquiries and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, was revealed in more than 2,500 pages of congressional testimony and exhibits released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.”
Washington Post passage ends
Natalia Veselnitskaya is also inextricably linked to the case against Paul Manafort.
The Russian attorney partner of Paul Manafort who was named as a defendant in new Robert Mueller charges is also linked to the Russian spy Natalia Vesenilskaya, who attended a meeting with Don Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner in Trump Tower.
According to Mueller’s new charges, Manafort’s Russian partner Konstantin Kilimnik tried to intimidate or coerce witnesses in Manafort’s upcoming money laundering trial. That puts Konstantin Kilimnik at the center of the Mueller effort to find obstruction of justice in Trump-World (Mueller is giving himself until September 1 to try to find obstruction of justice, after finding no Russian collusion involving Trump).
So who is Konstantine Kilimnik? It turns out that Kilimnik is linked to Veselnitskaya, the Fusion GPS agent, according to Senate documents.

More at: https://bigleaguepolitics.com/obama-...ington-office/

[timosman]

[Swordsmyth]

Don’t tell former FBI general counsel James Baker that those now-infamous discussions about secretly recording President Trump and using the tapes to remove him from office were a joke.
He apparently doesn’t believe it. And he held quite the vantage point — he was on the inside of the bureau’s leadership in May 2017, when the discussions occurred.
Baker told Congress last week that his boss — then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe — was dead serious about the idea of surreptitiously recording the 45th president and using the evidence to make the case that Trump should be removed from office, according to my sources.
Baker told lawmakers he wasn’t in the meeting McCabe had with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in which the subject came up. But he did have firsthand conversations with McCabe and the FBI lawyer assigned to McCabe, Lisa Page, about the issue.
“As far as Baker was concerned, this was a real plan being discussed,” said a source directly familiar with the congressional investigation. “It was no laughing matter for the FBI.”
Word of Baker’s testimony surfaced just days before Rosenstein was set to be interviewed in private on Thursday by House Judiciary Committee lawmakers.

More at: https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-amer...ump-not-a-joke

[Swordsmyth]

A Democratic senator outsourced parts of the investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion to a former Senate staffer with links to George Soros and Fusion GPS, according to a New Yorker report.
The New Yorker reports the unidentified senator contacted Daniel Jones, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer, around March 2017 to review data regarding a possible link between the computer servers of the Trump Organization and a Russian bank called Alfa Bank.
Jones, who worked under California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein when she chaired the intelligence panel, had just formed a non-profit group called the Democracy Integrity Project. The organization worked closely with Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, the tag-team duo that produced the Democrat-funded dossier accusing the Trump campaign of colluding with the Kremlin.
Jones’s operation was also funded by a small group of billionaires, including left-wing philanthropist George Soros. Jones told the FBI in March 2017 that between 7 and 10 billionaires had put up $50 million to continue an investigation into Russian meddling in elections. (RELATED: Cabal Of Wealthy Donors Secretly Financing $50 Million Trump-Russia Investigation)
Jones also told the FBI that he had secured the services of Steele and Fusion GPS “to continue exposing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.”
The goal was to provide the information to lawmakers, the press and the FBI, he said.
Allegations about Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization first surfaced in an Oct. 31, 2016, article published by Slate’s Franklin Foer. The article alleged that servers for the two companies were secretly communicating with each other, possibly as part of a back-channel communications system related to the election.
The article received heavy criticism from cybersecurity experts and tech reporters who said the server communications appeared to have an innocent explanation, such as spam or mass marketing email traffic.
According to The New Yorker, a handful of Democrats pursued the Alfa Bank theory. One was Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence panel. A second Democratic senator was also exploring the angle, and approached Jones.
According to The New Yorker, Jones, who also runs a consulting firm called the Penn Quarter Group, hired two teams of computer scientists to analyze web traffic from the Alfa Bank and Trump Organization servers. The experts, who have held top cybersecurity jobs in the White House, Pentagon and intelligence services, were unable to definitively say that the server communications were part of a back-channel communications system with the Trump campaign. But according to The New Yorker, they believe the server communications could still have been part of a nefarious operation, as initially described in the Slate article.
But The New Yorker article also raises questions about why Democrats would seek out Jones to conduct an investigation into the servers’ activities.
Details of Jones’s operation were first revealed by Adam Waldman, a U.S.-based lawyer for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Deripaska had also previously hired Steele for work on a legal case. Steele had been in communication with Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr regarding Deripaska’s visa to the U.S. The New York Times has reported that Steele and Ohr were part of a U.S. government operation aimed at flipping Deripaska.
Waldman told both The Daily Caller News Foundation as well as the Senate Intelligence Committee that he met with Jones on March 17, 2017.
During the meeting, Jones told Waldman that Soros was one of the financiers of the Democracy Integrity Project’s investigation. He also said that Fusion GPS was involved. A spokesman for Soros recently confirmed Soros’s involvement, telling Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that Soros indirectly funded Fusion GPS through the Democracy Integrity Project.
Jones also suggested to Waldman that his team of investigators was behind several anti-Trump news articles.
“Our team helped with this,” Jones said in one message to Waldman seen by TheDCNF. The link was to a March 17, 2017, Reuters article about Russians investing over $100 million in Trump properties in Florida.
Jones also sent Waldman a link to a March 20, 2017, article at McClatchy, which reported that federal investigators were looking into whether right-wing news sites like Breitbart and InfoWars played a part in Russia’s election-oriented cyber operations.
For his part, Foer, the Slate reporter, appears to have received the Alfa Bank information from a lawyer from the firm that hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
According to a report released in April by the House Intelligence Committee, Michael Sussmann, a partner at the firm Perkins Coie, told then-FBI general counsel James Baker about the Alfa Bank server activities. (RELATED: Top FBI Official Met With DNC Lawyer On Russia Prior To 2016 Election)
The House report also says “around the same time as his meeting with FBI, [redacted] shared the information with journalists, including [redacted] of Slate, who published an article at the end of October.”

https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/08/t...os-fusion-gps/

[AZJoe]

[Swordsmyth]

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will not appear in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday to discuss reports that he wanted to secretly record President Trump and then use the recordings to remove him from office under the 25th Amendment, reports the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross, citing an anonymous House Judiciary Committee aide, and later confirmed by CNN.

Rosenstein said he was joking when he made the comments to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page, however that claim has been refuted by the FBI's former top attorney.
"We have many questions for Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and expect answers to those questions. There is not at this time a confirmed date for a potential meeting," the aide told the Caller.
"Don’t think he is coming," added one Republican lawmaker on Wednesday.

The same lawmaker told TheDCNF on Tuesday that Rosenstein was likely to testify before the House Judiciary and House Oversight & Government Reform Committees to answer questions about claims he discussed wearing a wire during his interactions with Trump.
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus had called on Rosenstein to testify about his remarks, which were first reported by The New York Times on Sept. 21.
The conservative lawmakers, including North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, have been staunch critics of Rosenstein because of his failure to respond to requests for documents related to the FBI’s handling of the Trump-Russia probe. -Daily Caller

On Tuesday we reported that the FBI's former top attorney, James Baker, told Congressional investigators last week that Rosenstein wasn't joking about taping Trump.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...stimony-report

[Swordsmyth]

First Rosenstein was a no-show for a Thursday interview with GOP lawmakers, now Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson is refusing to testify to the House Judiciary Committee.

GOP lawmakers were seeking more testimony from Glenn Simpson to iron things out after Bruce Ohr gave a conflicted testimony to Congress in August.



Nellie Ohr also refused to testify and it is being reported GOP lawmakers are gearing up to issue her a subpoena to compel a testimony.
On Thursday night Catherine Herridge on FOX News reported that Simpson likely lied under oath. Simpson told Congress he did not have contact with Bruce Ohr before the election. Bruce Ohr’s communications tell a different story.
Maybe that’s why Simpson won’t show up?

Freedom Caucus members Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) slammed Glenn Simpson Thursday evening.
MEADOWS: Rod Rosenstein doesn’t show today. Now Fusion’s Glenn Simpson reportedly takes the Fifth. At some point, we have to realize: the problem has never been President Trump. The problem is the coordinated effort to undermine him… and those who will stop at nothing to cover it up.

Rod Rosenstein doesn’t show today. Now Fusion's Glenn Simpson reportedly takes the Fifth.
At some point, we have to realize: the problem has never been President Trump. The problem is the coordinated effort to undermine him… and those who will stop at nothing to cover it up. https://t.co/KtE3b00Ki8
— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) October 11, 2018

JORDAN: You know we’re getting close when first Rosenstein is a no-show, and now Glenn Simpson is taking the 5th.

You know we’re getting close when first Rosenstein is a no-show, and now Glenn Simpson is taking the 5th.
https://t.co/TB0Obje9jq
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) October 11, 2018

More at: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...na-to-testify/

Hat Tip: Thoughtomator

[AZJoe]

[Swordsmyth]

Shortly after Robert Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to head up the Trump-Russia investigation, he was "drawn into a tense standoff" between Rosenstein and then-acting FBI director Andrew McCabe over exactly who would handle the probe, according to the Washington Post.

McCabe effectively tried to strong-arm the case away from Rosenstein and failed miserably.
When the confrontation occured in mid-may of last year, relations between the FBI and DOJ were strained. Former FBI director James Comey had just been fired by Trump, which was met with McCabe hastily opening a criminal obstruction case that he would ostensibly control.

The previously unreported episode involving Mueller, Rosenstein and McCabe — which occurred within days of Mueller’s becoming special counsel — underscores the deep suspicion between senior law enforcement officials who were about to embark on a historic, criminal investigation of the president. -WaPo

McCabe wanted Rosenstein to recuse himself from this new probe, reasoning that if Trump obstructed justice, Rosenstein would have played a role in that. Rosenstein also authored the memo recommending Comey's firing, and signed off on spy warrants to surveil the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election.
The DOJ, meanwhile, expressed concern that McCabe may have acted recklessly by launching a new investigation so soon after Comey's firing - which might be interpreted as an act of anger or revenge. Rosenstein wanted McCabe to recuse himself, reasoning that photos of McCabe supporting his wife's state Senate campaign - after Hillary Clinton pal Terry McAuliffe reportedly funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to McCabe's run for office. This, according to Rosenstein meant that McCabe "could not be considered objective in a political probe," according to WaPo.

The most interesting detail I identified was why RR wanted McCabe recused. In the gap between Comey & Mueller, McCabe opened a criminal obstruction of justice case against @RealDonaldTrump! This also may explain a redaction in the Strzok/Page texts.
— DawsonSField (@DawsonSField) October 11, 2018

Those texts show an effort to take advantage of the fact the McCabe is Acting Director to lock in REDACTED in a formal chargeable way. I've always suspected it was @GenFlynn or @jaredkushner. But this story shows an effort to lock in an obstruction of justice charge against Trump
— DawsonSField (@DawsonSField) October 11, 2018

Ultimately, neither recused - while Mueller was appointed by Rosenstein to handle th Trump probe, and given wide latitude over the investigation. The Trump-Russia investigation was essentially yanked from McCabe and handed to Mueller.

In the end, neither Rosenstein nor McCabe recused from the Russia investigation, and it was clear in that meeting and after that Mueller would have a great degree of independence and control over his investigation, including management of Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents detailed to him. Mueller previously served as FBI director from 2001 to 2013. -WaPo

I think it is clear that the entire purpose of appointing Mueller was to take the case from McCabe. He clearly suspected that too & attacked RR to try & force his recusal. He failed. But McCabe clearly wanted RR off this case so he could run it.
— DawsonSField (@DawsonSField) October 11, 2018

It's clear who won the battle; Rosenstein is still the Deputy AG, while McCabe was fired for authorizing self-serving leaks to the media regarding his handling of the Clinton email "matter."

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-front-mueller

[Swordsmyth]

One of the men at the center of the bogus Russian “collusion” narrative claimed that the person who originally engaged him regarding Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails was a British intelligence officer, not Russian as reported.
“To be clear: Australian media is reporting on air that ‘the professor’, Joseph Mifsud, the man who told me about ‘Clinton’s emails’, was not a Russian agent, but a British agent. If this is confirmed, this is the biggest scandal in modern political history,” George Papadopoulous said on Twitter.


If true, Papadopoulous is right. U.S. intelligence partnering with British intelligence in an attempt to entrap a staffer for a political opponent, making it appear as if the campaign was allied with a hostile foreign power, is indeed damning.

Mifsud has disappeared since he made international news as a supposedly-Russian agent who tipped off Papadopoulous, saying that he had “dirt” on the Clinton campaign. Papadopoulous held a meeting with Mifsud after the tipoff, which according to declassified memos, triggered the counterintelligence investigation into Trump and alleged collusion with Russia. That investigation eventually became special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe after Trump was elected.
Papadopoulous further clarified in another Tweet.
“If Australia’s highly respectable media is indeed correct in their reporting on the “professor”, I don’t think the US-UK security partnership will ever be the same. Very big problem for MI6 to be running operations against Americans and opposition presidential campaigns,” he said.

More at: https://bigleaguepolitics.com/papado...t-not-russian/

[Swordsmyth]

Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page told Fox News's Sean Hannity on Monday that he is suing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Perkins Coie - the law firm used by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to funnel money to Fusion GPS.



More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...r-sham-dossier

[Swordsmyth]

The FBI investigated former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in March 2017 for an alleged unauthorized leak to the media regarding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and President Donald Trump, according to documents released Monday.
The alleged leak, which has not previously been reported, occurred in early February 2017, shortly before Flynn was fired as national security advisor for lying about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador.
According to the FBI documents, the FBI’s office of public affairs received a complaint “regarding a media leak involving a statement overheard in early February 2017.”
“Specifically, the alleged comments were made by DD A. G. McCabe and pertained to General Michael T. Flynn and the POTUS,” reads the FBI document, which the bureau released as part of a trove of documents related to an internal investigation of McCabe.
The investigation, which was into the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information, appears to have been opened on March 20, 2017.
The FBI became aware of the complaint on Feb. 21, 2017, reads the document, which was prepared by the FBI’s internal investigations section.

More at: https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/15/a...l-flynn-trump/

[Valli6]

OOPS! wrong thread! (mod, please delete.) Cant remove attachments?

[Swordsmyth]

In the latest indication of the Trump administration's efforts to root out alleged leakers, a senior Treasury Department official working in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, has been charged with leaking confidential financial reports to the media concerning former Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, according to The Hill.

Prosecutors say that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a senior adviser to FinCEN, photographed what are called suspicious activity reports, or SARs, and other sensitive government files and sent them to an unnamed reporter, in violation of U.S. law. -The Hill

Suspicious Activity Reports are filed by banks in order to confidentially notify law enforcement of potentially illegal financial transactions. The documents leaked by the Treasury official, which began last October, are reported to have been used as the basis for 12 news articles published by an unnamed organization.
While the news organization was not named in the complaint, it lists the headlines and other details of six BuzzFeed articles published between October 2017 to as recently as Monday which they allege were based on the leaks.
BuzzFeed reporters Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier are commonly listed on several of the articles referenced in the government's complaint. (examples here, here and here).
Edwards has been charged with one count of unauthorized disclosures of SAR reports and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclousres of SARs. She will be tried in the Southern District of New York, and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on both charges.
When she was arrested, Edwards was in possession of a flash drive which was allegedly used to save the unlawfully disclosed SARs, as well as a cell phone "containing numerous communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted SARs and other sensitive government information to Reporter-1."
"We hope today’s charges remind those in positions of trust within government agencies that the unlawful sharing of sensitive documents will not be tolerated and will be met with swift justice by this Office," said US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in a statement.

According to the criminal complaint, agents in the Treasury inspector general’s office detected “a pattern” of unauthorized media disclosures of the sensitive financial files beginning in October 2017 and continuing for a year. The disclosures were related to matters being investigated either by special counsel Robert Mueller, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York or the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
They included leaks about suspicious transactions made by Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, and Gates, Manafort’s longtime business partner who also served on the Trump campaign and the transition team. Both individuals were charged in connection with Mueller’s Russia investigation last October with crimes stemming from their foreign lobbying activity. Both have since decided to plead guilty and cooperate with Mueller’s probe. -The Hill

Could Manafort now make the case that unauthorized media leaks saturating national headlines baised the jury against him?
Edwards is also accused of leaking sensitive financial information regarding Russian national, Maria Butina, who was charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Russian government.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...isers-buzzfeed