[The Last Refuge] •On July 31st, 2016 the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign. They did not inform congress until March 2017. •At the beginning of August (1st-3rd) 2016 FBI Agent Peter Strzok traveled to London, England for interviews with UK intelligence officials. •On August 15th, 2016 Peter Strzok sends a text message to DOJ Lawyer Lisa Page describing the "insurance policy", needed in case Hillary Clinton were to lose the election. Stefan Halper photo at right, Wiki bio at this link.
Recently there has been a great deal of interest in the origination OF the 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation, and how the FISA court was later used to gain Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page; part of that operation.
The current line of inquiry surrounds the originating "EC" or "electronic communication" that was generated by CIA Director John Brennan and passed on to FBI Director James Comey. The EC initiated the FBI Counterintelligence Operation.
Specifically, House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes has asked about a redacted name within the "EC", which has led to the DOJ and FBI claiming to release the name would compromise the individual.
All of these inquires, and refusals, center around the origination authority for the FBI Counterintelligence operation. The origination led to the FISA warrant. Remember that.
Chairman Nunes sent Main Justice a classified letter asking questions. DOJ responded saying they would not comply with providing information (letter) The Washington Post claimed Nunes was looking for information on an FBI/DOJ ’source’: "a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI." Additionally, this "source" was later also described by WaPo as a witness for Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation.
This link provided from another thread by our own Angeter Peacock4147
#10
Halper served in the White House (1971-1977) during the Nixon and Ford Administrations.
1971-1973 White House Domestic Council;
1973-74 White House Office of Management and Budge. Assist. Director, Management and Evaluation Division
1974- January 20, 1977 White House Office of the Chief of Staff. Assistant to the Chief of Staff . (responsibilities included summary and analysis of foreign developments and security issues)
1977-79 Legislative Assistant to Senator William Roth (R-Del.) and Special Counsel to the Joint Economic Committee.
1979-80 National Director, Policy Development. George H.W. Bush. Presidential campaign
1980 National Director, Policy Coordination, Reagan-Bush 1980 (presidential campaign)
1981-1984 Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs.
(Portfolio included China-US relations, Taiwan, non-proliferation, technology transfer, unconventional warfare.)
1984-1990 Chairman and majority shareholder:
The Palmer National Bank, Washington, D.C.
The National Bank of Northern Virginia, Leesburg, Va.
The George Washington National Bank, Alexandria, Va. Amazing how easy it is to be a success in the banking industry when your premier client has a secret, unlimited budget ?
[Sara Carter] A government watchdog group revealed Thursday that former FBI Director James Comey was advised by senior FBI officials to seek Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s advice prior to testifying before "any congressional committee" about President Donald Trump’s campaign and its alleged collusion with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to new emails obtained by Judicial Watch.
Comey was also advised to seek Mueller’s counsel on the circumstances surrounding his firing by Trump before providing testimony to Congress, the Department of Justice emails obtained by Judicial Watch reveal. It is the first time evidence reveals there was coordination between the Special Counsel and Comey in the long drawn out controversial Mueller investigation.
"These documents show that James Comey, who was fired by the president, nevertheless had easy, friendly access to the FBI as he prepped his infamous anti-Trump testimony to the Senate," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, in a press release. "This collusion led to Comey’s attacking President Trump and misusing FBI records as part of a vendetta against the president."
Posted by: Besoeker ||
05/11/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators
#1
YAWN! Let me know when he gets frog-marched to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
[WSJ] The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it allowed House Intelligence Committee members to view classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.
Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was "wholly appropriate," "completely within the scope" of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and "something that probably should have been answered a while ago." Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.
House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down‐accusing the House of "extortion" and delivering a speech in which he claimed that "declining to open the FBI’s files to review" is a constitutional "duty." Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments‐that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in "loss of human lives."
Continued on Page 49
#3
Well it has the hallmarks of a classic clandestine intelligence operation.
'Single source' intelligence is generally not heavily relied upon. "All source' or multi-source reporting is the preferred method. As such, Signals Intelligence (intercepts) coupled with Human Intelligence (HUMINT), or recruited agent reporting along with possibly photo imagery would have been the ideal methodology.
Document Exploitation or 'DOCEX' would have been another potential element of 'All Source' used. In this case possibly, the Christopher Steele dossier (foreign or Open Source reporting).
Only a guess, but my mind continues to return to Trump Campaign worker and former USN Intelligence Officer Mr. Carter Page as a potential (either witting or unwitting) recruited agent.
Mr. Page's placement and access albeit brief, ended about the time Admiral Rogers made his unannounced trip to Trunp Towers to inform Donald of potential electronic monitoring. Nothing much heard from Mr. Page lately is there ?
#10
I'm beginning to think Page was expendable, a distraction and a scapegoat all rolled up into one neat little package.
Posted by: gorb
Any of these people are expendable. I suspect we'll be seeing fatal car crashes any day now. But remember, Donald Trump is insane and the intelligence community is your friend.
#13
I have a suggestion. Let's give the Texas Rangers authority to investigate all of this. They're not washington swamp creatures, so they'll be far more objective. And they are allowed to pursue any lead no matter where it goes.
#14
You have missed the point. A sitting president has the FBI infiltrate and spy on an opposition presidential campaign.
This is Nixon/Watergate level paranoia, and using the Government to work against a political opponent.
Obama and the Dems need to have this hung around their neck until it bows them to the ground in the Public's eye. Obama did what Nixon did: used US law enforcement and spy agencies to surveil an opposing politician.
If they get away with this, we are doomed to a civil war - with bloodshed.
[Rush] Michael Avenatti ‐ is that his name? ‐ the so-called lawyer for Stormy Daniels? His whole thing is imploding now. The Mueller investigation is, I think, on the verge of it. And, by the way, I’m gonna give you a little heads-up here. Based on a Kimberley Strassel column last week, a Wall Street Journal editorial today and a Washington Post piece earlier this week, I actually believe the FBI planted an informant in the Trump campaign ‐ before Mueller was appointed, obviously.
This was in the summer of 2016, ’cause I think they believe this Russia stuff. I literally think... I’ve gone back and forth on this. I really think they believe... And I think this is why.. You know, there’s a FISA application for the warrant to spy, FISA, and it uses the dossier. But there have to be other things in that application. Trump could declassify any of this any time he wants to and I have told you that I don’t think he’s declassifying it because I think he likes playing the victim.
I think he... I don’t mean to put it that way. He likes being able to tweet about the witch-hunt. I think he thinks it solidifies the bond between himself and his supporters. But clearly, if I’m a little bit overboard in suggesting they planted an informant in the campaign, they clearly have, and it’s been... Devin Nunes is trying to get this. This is the result of his latest request and it’s based on a Washington Post story.
I’m gonna try to make sense of all this as the program unfolds today, but I just wanted to tell you. I would not be surprised if, in fact, the FBI planted an informant in the Trump campaign in order to try to prove this Russia collusion business. I think these swamp people are so in the vapors with all of this ‐ I think they’re so shocked and stunned over everything that’s happened ‐ that they have long since abandoned any rationality whatsoever.
h/t Instapundit
[TheDeclination] Foolishly, liberals have long sought to purchase not merely cooperation, but approval also. There is a subtle difference. Satraps of lesser powers, as Francis describes them, may be made to avoid troubling us through judicious application of leverage. Stop waving around your nukes, or we’ll kill you all. However, this does not purchase likability. The enemy will resent you and hate you (not that I particularly care ‐ he’s the enemy, after all).
Leftists often lament that America is not well-liked by various powers and peoples around the Earth. We are supposed to care about how much the French approve of us, or the Pakistanis, or even some random country in the middle of nowhere. The approval of the Muslim world is of endless importance to Leftists. And so, when dealing with tyrannical regimes, the Left requires a solution that theoretically will both work, and make the other side like us more. Bribery of the sort Francis and Kurt describe is the oft-used tactic. After all, who doesn’t like being given heaps of free shit?
Naturally, the tactic fails to achieve a long term balance of power. Foreign aid money must continue to flow to purchase cooperation and approval. Disapproval becomes leverage the other country may use against us. "Sorry, America, our people just don’t like you much anymore. Perhaps if you gave us more, they might approve of you once more." The market price for political approval grows, the incentive to crap on America likewise grows. Few get heaping piles of money and free reactors by being our friend, after all.
Incentives are such that it is more profitable to disapprove of America. Indeed, America-hating is so profitable now that Americans themselves are agitating for a slice of that action. Yell from the rooftops that America is the worst nation since Nazi Germany, and you’re likely to get a cushy gig as a political adviser, a journalist, or as a tenured professor. On the other hand, wave an American flag, and you’re the worst bigot since Leonardo Dicaprio’s character in Django Unchained.
The obsession with approval runs deep in Leftist circles.
...Approval is everything to them, because approval is the high; the aphrodisiac of politics. One is made to feel popular, loved, and worshiped by such. Because, deep down inside, they know they are garbage?
Feelings like those reinforce a notion of superiority, the idea that one is better than everyone else. In reality, it merely makes the narcissistic wimp vulnerable to sucker tactics. Power flows the other way. The person expressing disapproval controls the entire situation, and once the great big pile of free shit is accepted, the disapproval begins anew. Bake the cake, they will say. Next it might be "gays should get an oppression discount on the cake."
It is no different from the Oppression Olympics in our domestic politics. The offended person possesses all the power. Thus we get more offended people, not less. Similarly in international politics, we get more posturing assholes demanding free shit from America, not less.
Trump, at the very least, has restored some level of balance to this. He is willing to brandish the Stick, long covered in cobwebs and dust. And what’s more, his enemies know well his willingness to use it. They will grumble, they will not approve of us. But what does that matter? Toleration is all that is required. That Kim II ding-dong whatever doesn’t love us certainly doesn’t bother me. That China is probably irritated with Trump’s trade negotiation tactics is irrelevant. I don’t even care if NATO members like us. I’m not losing any sleep over any of this.
Remember your Machiavelli:
It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
Excerpt:
[themarketswork] Halper had previously invited Carter Page to attend a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election. The speaker list was notable:
Madeleine Albright (former U.S. Secretary of State)
Vin Weber (Republican Party strategist and former Congressman). Ambassador Peter Ammon (German Ambassador to the UK). Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6). Bridget Kendall (BBC diplomatic correspondent and the next Master of Peterhouse College). Sir Malcolm Rifkind (former Defence and Foreign Secretary). Rifkind from the MOD, Kendall at BBC, and Sir Richard.... all working for the same employer.
Page attended the symposium just four days after his July 2016 Moscow trip. Page met with Halper during the London visit. Page’s Moscow trip would figure prominently in the Steele Dossier...
Halper also requested ‐ and attained ‐ a meeting with another, unknown, Trump Campaign member on September 11, 2016 ‐ two days before the Papadopoulos meeting.
Halper "offered to help the campaign" but did not mention the Papadopoulos meeting to the second staffer ‐ nor the staffer meeting to Papadopoulos.
Curiously, despite the offers of campaign help, on November 3, 2016, Halper publicly stated that Clinton would be the best option for US-UK relations. Not so "curious" if you've already been recruited as a plant.
One other particularly interesting note.
Halper has connections to the UK Intelligence firm Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. You can find a June 2004 video of the pair discussing their first book here.
Jonathan Clarke is the U.S. Representative ‐ Director U.S. Operations for Hakluyt. Clarke is a fairly public figure ‐ but it was quite difficult to locate references to his association with Hakluyt.
Given the lengthy association between Halper and Clarke, I expect we will find additional ties between Halper, other members of Hakluyt and members of British Intelligence. ....making the electronic monitoring piece somewhat easier.
Halper’s association with former MI6 Head Richard Dearlove ‐ via their previous positions at Cambridge Intelligence Seminar ‐ is already known. Emphasis added.
#2
...Orbis was a small firm with no more than 7 employees. Steele’s business partner and co-shareholder, Christopher Burrows, is another former MI6 spy. They had been hoping for MI6 support of their private business, but it failed to materialize, says an London intelligence source. “Chris Burrows is another from the same background. They all hope to be Hakluyt [a leading commercial intelligence operation in London] but didn’t get the nod on departure.”
[Hot Air] Mark Penn is a longtime Clinton insider. He helped defend Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky story broke and later went to work for Hillary Clinton as a chief strategist for her 2008 campaign for president. Today, Penn has written a piece for the Hill asking a simple question: Who is paying the bills for Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti?
From the beginning, this has been fishy. Daniels’s previous lawyer advised her to stick to her agreements. In contrast, Avenatti okayed her violating with impunity her non-disclosure agreement on "60 Minutes" despite a binding arbitration judgment against her. She acknowledged on Twitter that she is not paying for her lawyer. So who is? And did he indemnify her against all multimillion-dollar penalties?...
Avenatti has been given a free, unfettered media perch on TV to spread his stuff without the networks forcing him to meet any disclosure requirements, saying that he is Daniels’s attorney when someone else entirely is paying for this operation is not true disclosure that allows the viewer to evaluate the source and potential conflicts. He is now being given deference as though he is a journalist interested in protecting unverified sources while he makes headline-grabbing pronouncements. Lawyers need to disclose the source of their evidence...
The more you peel back the onion, the more Cohen and Avenatti seem alike. Both are fixers who bend every rule they can get away with. Fairly or unfairly, Cohen is being put under the microscope and we can rest assured that every payment in or out will be fully scrutinized by law enforcement. But Avenatti can’t be given a pass on these issues. Americans are entitled to know just who this guy is, who is writing his checks and whether he legally obtained his information.
As Jazz pointed out yesterday, Avenatti’s latest big splash, releasing financial records belonging to Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, raises questions about where he got the information. The Washington Post reports the Treasury Department’s Inspector General is now looking into exactly that question.
#5
Possible Bin Obamer's advisers Ron Klain and Kip Wainscott. David Martosko is saying they are advising the crowdfunding organization for Slutty Storm.
"So is Stormy Daniels just another Democratic/Obama operation?"
[DAWN] THE acquittals last August should have jolted the prosecution and judicial systems into conducting an urgent review of the traumatic episode.
Yet on Monday, a bench of the Lahore High Court ordered the release on bail of the five suspects who were acquitted last year of conspiring to assassinate Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... The five acquitted men were kept in prison through a number of short-term executive and judicial orders.
In February, a review board comprising three justices of the Lahore High Court acceded to the Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... government’s request to keep in state custody the five men for a further 60 days.
Before that, a 90-day detention request had been acceded to by the review board in November 2017.
The review board proceedings were held in camera, and each time, police were able to produce enough evidence to convince the judges on the review board that the continued detention of the five men was in the public interest.
Inevitably, however, courts tire of repeated requests to detain terrorism suspects under public safety laws and bail is usually granted.
The failure is not of the judges who order the release of the individuals detained, but of the prosecution and the overall judicial system.
Governments relying on archaic public safety laws to detain terrorism suspects is itself an abuse of the judicial system.
Yet, the Benazir Bhutto case was no ordinary matter and the iconic leader’s liquidation shook the foundations of the country.
While myriad failures of the executive and the criminal justice system allow many an accused to go scot-free, in the judicial process against individuals accused of involvement in a crime that reshaped the country’s politics, a higher standard of professionalism and commitment is required.
Surely, rather than simply allowing the suspects to walk free on bail and possibly return to bad boy activities, the state ought to have explored more thoroughly the legal options to bring to a satisfactory conclusion the trials of all suspects in the Bhutto liquidation.
Perhaps, then, this is an ideal matter for Chief Justice Saqib Nisar to look into.
The chief justice has vigorously pursued all manner of lawbreakers in recent months and has also expressed a desire to put right some of the structural flaws in the justice system in the country.
There are few cases as important as the several related trials of individuals suspected of involvement in or covering up evidence of the liquidation of Benazir Bhutto, and surely a high-profile intervention could jolt the state and the judicial system into taking necessary and positive action.
Judicial intervention at the highest level could also demonstrate that the superior judiciary is serious about improving the performance of the criminal justice system and is willing to nudge the state in the right direction.
The country deserves to know the facts of the Benazir Bhutto liquidation.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/11/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[National Review] One of the great and enduring mysteries of American foreign policy is the ongoing, bipartisan tolerance for Iranian efforts to kill Americans by the hundreds. Iran has been waging an undeclared war against the United States since the Hostage Crisis of 1979‐1981. Its hostile acts against the United States are almost too numerous to list, but the lowlights include the Beirut Marine barracks bombing, the Khobar Towers bombing, a successful Quds Force plot to kidnap and kill American soldiers in Iraq, and the hundreds of American deaths and injuries due to Iranian-designed and -supplied explosively formed penetrators, the most deadly form of IED in Iraq.
Yet time and again the American response has been muted at best and downright meek at worst, as in the case of the Obama administration’s dreadful Iran deal, when the world’s most powerful nation went hat-in-hand to the jihadist enemy that was killing its soldiers and actually empowered that enemy’s violent expansionism.
Iran has surged its forces throughout the Middle East. Iranian-backed militias threaten American allies in Iraq. Hezbollah, the Iranian Quds Force, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have helped preserve the Assad regime and tip the balance in the Syrian civil war. Yemen is a killing field. And now, capitalizing on battlefield gains in Syria, Iran has worked to threaten Israel directly, building a military infrastructure that allows its forces to strike immediately across the border.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
05/11/2018 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
