twitter:KerriKupecDOJ twitterde op donderdag 07-05-2020 om 21:19:02 STATEMENT: USA Jeff Jensen who reviewed Flynn case.
“Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case. I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.” reageer retweet
quote:Obama Defense Official Evelyn Farkas Admitted She Lied On MSNBC About Having Evidence Of Collusion
Former Obama administration defense official Evelyn Farkas testified under oath that she lied during an MSNBC interview when she claimed to have evidence of alleged collusion, a newly declassified congressional transcript of her testimony shows. Farkas testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on June 26, 2017, as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Lawmakers keyed in on an appearance Farkas made on MSNBC on March 2, 2017, in which she urged intelligence community bureaucrats to disseminate within the government and potentially even leak to media any incriminating information they had about Trump or his aides.
“I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama administration] people who left…[that] it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy,” Farkas said.
Farkas, who served in the Obama administration as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia from 2012 through 2015, also claimed that administration officials appointed by Trump might even destroy evidence of alleged collusion if they “found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff’s dealing with Russians.”
They might “try to compromise those sources and methods,” Farkas alleged in the MSNBC interview. “And we would no longer have access to that intelligence.”
“Not enough was coming out into the open and I knew there was more,” Farkas claimed.
But Farkas sang a different tone under oath when questioned by lawmakers about what she actually “knew” about collusion.
“Why don’t we go back to that sentence that I just asked you about. It says ‘the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their staff dealing with Russians,” Gowdy said. “Well, how would you know what the U.S. government knew at that point? You didn’t work for it, did you?”
“I didn’t,” said Farkas, a former mid-level Russia analyst who left the federal government in 2015.
“Then how did you know?” Gowdy responded.
“I didn’t know anything,” Farkas said.
“Did you have information connecting the Trump campaign to the hack of the DNC?” Gowdy asked.
“No,” Farkas admitted.
“So when you say, ‘We knew,’ the reality is you knew nothing,” Gowdy asked later during the deposition.
“Correct,” Farkas responded.
Gowdy didn’t stop there.
“So when you say ‘knew,’ what you really meant was felt?” he asked.
“Correct,” Farkas answered.
“You didn’t know anything?” Gowdy continued.
“That’s correct,” Farkas responded.
Farkas, a Democrat, is currently running for Congress in New York’s 17th district.
quote:MOBILE, Ala. – Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions released the following statement early Friday afternoon, in response to recent comments by President Trump:
“I have enormous appreciation for President Trump and all that he has done for our country. I will be voting for him this fall, and working hard to pass his agenda when I return to the Senate next year.
“The specific law for the Department of Justice required that I recuse myself from the Russian collusion investigation. To not recuse myself from that investigation, of which I was a target as a senior campaign official and a witness, would have been breaking the law. I do not and will not break the law. On this matter, I agree with the late Tom Petty’s famous lyric – ‘you can stand me up to the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.’
“I did the right thing for the country and for President Trump. If I, as a target of the investigation, had broken the law by not recusing myself, it would have been a catastrophe for the rule of law and for the President. The Democrats in Congress and the politically motivated bureaucrats all over Washington would have had a field day, alleging a Nixonian cover-up, and the President would not have been fully exonerated.
“Let’s not forget, the notion that we on the Trump campaign colluded with Russia has been proven to be a complete hoax, and the President has been exonerated.
“Finally, I never begged for the job of Attorney General, not 4 times, not 1 time, not ever. The President offered me the job, I took it, I stood up for the truth and performed at the highest levels. Doing the right thing is not weakness, it is strength. My foundation is built on rock, not sand.”
Ik begin te twijfelen over Adam Schiff, eerlijk gezegd. In elk geval is dit schandaal geen Democrat versus Republican. The Washington Free Beacon en Paul Singer hebben initieel Fusion GPS ingehuurd. Die huurde voor deze opdracht Nellie Ohr in. The Billy Bush tape is het werk van never-Trumpers. En er zijn voldoende Democrats die hun partij terug willen hebben en voldoende Republicans die verantwoordelijkheid delen in dit schandaal.quote:
quote:Barack Obama on Michael Flynn
The lawyer President misstates the crime and the real threat to justice.
Barack Obama is a lawyer, so it was stunning to read that he ventured into the Michael Flynn case in a way that misstated the supposed crime and ignored the history of his own Administration in targeting Mr. Flynn. Since the former President chose to offer his legal views when he didn’t need to, we wonder what he’s really worried about.
“There is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free,” Mr. Obama said in the Friday call to about 3,000 members of the Obama Alumni Association. The comments were leaked to Yahoo News and confirmed by Mr. Obama’s spokeswoman to the Washington Post and other outlets. Mr. Obama added: “That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic—not just institutional norms—but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”
ven discounting for Mr. Obama’s partisan audience, this gets the case willfully wrong. Mr. Flynn was never charged with perjury, which is lying under oath in a legal proceeding. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI in a meeting at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 that he was led to believe was a friendly chat among colleagues.
As for “scot-free,” that better applies to former President Bill Clinton who lied under oath in a civil case and was impeached for perjury but was acquitted by the Senate. We understand why Mr. Obama wouldn’t bring that up.
We doubt Mr. Obama has even read Thursday’s Justice Department motion to drop the Flynn prosecution. If he does ever read it, he’ll find disconcerting facts that certainly do raise doubts about whether “our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk,” though not for the reasons he claims.
Start with prosecutorial violation of the Brady rule, which Mr. Obama knows is a legal obligation that the prosecution must turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. Yet prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller didn’t disclose that the interviewing FBI agents at the time didn’t think that Mr. Flynn had lied about a phone call with the Russian ambassador.
Worst of all, as a legal matter, is that they never told Mr. Flynn that there was no investigative evidentiary basis to justify the interview. The FBI had already concluded there was no evidence that Mr. Flynn had colluded with Russia in the 2016 election and had moved to close the case. James Comey’s FBI cronies used the news of Mr. Flynn’s phone call with the Russian ambassador as an excuse to interview the then national security adviser and perhaps trap him into a lie.
All of this was moved along politically by leaks to the media about Mr. Flynn’s phone call with the Russian. The U.S. eavesdrops on foreign officials as a routine, but names of innocent Americans on those calls are supposed to be shielded from review to protect their privacy. Yet senior Obama officials have had to acknowledge that they “unmasked” Mr. Flynn’s name and others in their last months in power. Then, what a surprise, news of Mr. Flynn’s call and its contents pop up in the Washington Post. Did someone say “institutional norms”?
All of this raises questions about the role the Obama Justice Department and White House played in targeting Mr. Flynn. We already know the FBI had opened up a counterintelligence probe into Mr. Flynn and other Trump campaign officials, yet it had come up with no evidence of collusion.
Donald Trump’s victory increased the chances that this unprecedented spying on a political opponent would be uncovered, which would have been politically embarrassing at the very least. Targeting Mr. Flynn—and flogging the discredited Steele dossier—kept the Russia collusion pot boiling and evolved into the two-year Mueller investigation that turned up no evidence of collusion.
This among other things is what U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating at the request of Attorney General William Barr. Maybe that’s why Mr. Obama is so eager to distort the truth of the Flynn prosecution.
Geen idee waarover je het hebt en met alle respect vermoed ik dat het onderwerp dat je nu aansnijdt beter en eerder in deze topic thuishoort.quote:Op maandag 11 mei 2020 13:01 schreef ManianMan het volgende:
Hebben jullie ook The family tak bekeken. Deze zouden ervoor gezorgd hebben dat vluchtelingen gingen vluchten naar andere landen. Zeer interessant om ook door te spitten zij zouden diverse wereldleiders aansporen om hun plan uit te voeren. Soort bilderberggroep.
Nee, ik ken dit document niet. Ik heb het vermoeden dat het nep is, omdat naar Christopher Steele wordt verwezen als MI-5, terwijl hij een MI-6 verleden heeft. Het gevaar met zulke aanwijzingen en "juweeltjes" is dat ze vaak gedeeltelijke een kern van waarheid bevatten, maar in zijn geheel fake zijn waardoor hoon en spot belangrijke aanwijzingen begraven. Ik hoop dat ik het een beetje duidelijk laat overkomen wat ik probeer te zeggen.quote:Op dinsdag 12 mei 2020 11:01 schreef EdvandeBerg het volgende:
Is het echt?
Project Fulsome zou 'surveiilance' door de Britse geheime diensten van Trump Tower in opdracht van de regerng Obama zijn? Deze operatie zou gestart zijn september 2016, dus nog voor de verkiezingen en is in ieder geval verlengd op 17 november 2016, toen Trump dus al de verkiezingen had gewonnen.
Ik had er ook mijn bedenkingen bij, omdat er duidelijk aan 'The President', Loretta Lynch en Michael Steele wordt gerefereerd en de brief ook nog eens gestuurd is aan Boris Johnson, toen hij nog MP was.quote:Op dinsdag 12 mei 2020 14:47 schreef dellipder het volgende:
[..]
Nee, ik ken dit document niet. Ik heb het vermoeden dat het nep is, omdat naar Christopher Steele wordt verwezen als MI-5, terwijl hij een MI-6 verleden heeft. Het gevaar met zulke aanwijzingen en "juweeltjes" is dat ze vaak gedeeltelijke een kern van waarheid bevatten, maar in zijn geheel fake zijn waardoor hoon en spot belangrijke aanwijzingen begraven. Ik hoop dat ik het een beetje duidelijk laat overkomen wat ik probeer te zeggen.
quote:Grenell releases list of officials who sought to 'unmask' Flynn: Biden, Comey, Obama intel chiefs among them
Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has released a list of names of Obama administration officials who purportedly requested to "unmask" the identity of Michael Flynn during the presidential transition period.
The list features top figures including then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-FBI Director James Comey and intelligence chiefs John Brennan and James Clapper. It also included Obama's then-chief of staff.
"I declassified the enclosed document, which I am providing to you for your situational awareness," Grenell wrote to GOP senators in sending along the list.
twitter:BrookeSingman twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 20:51:03 NEW: the list reveals that: @SamanthaJPower
made #unmasking requests for Flynn 7 times between Nov. 30, 2016 and Jan. 11, 2017.
#JamesClapper made 3 requests from Dec. 2, 2016 through Jan. 7, 2017; @JohnBrennan
made 2 requests, one on Dec. 14 and one on Dec. 15, 2016. reageer retweet
twitter:BrookeSingman twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 20:52:00 the list also reveals that @Comey #Comey made a request on Dec. 15, 2016.
On Jan. 5, 2017, then-President Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough made one request.
On Jan. 12, 2017, then-Vice President @JoeBiden made one request.
#Unmasking #MichaelFlynn reageer retweet
twitter:CBS_Herridge twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 20:16:31 SCOOP @CBSNews obtains @RichardGrenell notification to congress declassified "unmasking list" Flynn between late 2016 and January 2017 https://t.co/axc8MHvYYd reageer retweet
Net voldoende informatie vrijgegeven voor een spervuur. Aka wie gaat wie onder de bus gooien?quote:Johnson, Grassley Release Information About Unmasking of Americans
May 13, 2020
“Today we received a list of individuals who requested the unmasking of Lt. General Michael Flynn and others who received access to that information. The officials listed should confirm whether they reviewed this information, why they asked for it and what they did with it, and answer many other questions that have been raised by recent revelations. We are making this public because the American people have a right to know what happened. We commend Acting DNI Grenell and Attorney General Barr for their transparency and responsiveness. Our investigation of these matters has been ongoing for years, and as information finally comes to light, our focus on these issues is even more important now. The records are one step forward in an important effort to get to the bottom of what the Obama administration did during the Russia investigation and to Lt. General Flynn. We will continue to review this information and push for additional relevant disclosures until we are satisfied that the American people know the full truth.”
The information identifies Dennis McDonough, Samantha Power, James Comey, John Brennan, and Joseph R. Biden, among others, as individuals who were potentially involved in the unmasking of Michael Flynn.
twitter:RandPaul twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 20:52:17 Yesterday I wrote to DNI @RichardGrenell requesting the names of those who were involved in Gen Flynn’s unmasking. Today I received the shocking reply that @JoeBiden and many others knew! What did President Obama know? I am inviting DNI Grenell to testify next week in the Senate https://t.co/IHpGjeVWwM reageer retweet
twitter:AKA_RealDirty twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 21:17:58 .@RandPaul calls for an investigation. He says almost everyone in the Obama administration asked to listen to the phone call between @GenFlynn and Kislyak. @SidneyPowell1 https://t.co/XY6T4YQjYq reageer retweet
twitter:AKA_RealDirty twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 21:27:11 .@RandPaul says every reporter and America needs to come out of hibernation and ask @JoeBiden what kind of person ease drop on their political opponent. https://t.co/q468fzA8QH reageer retweet
twitter:AKA_RealDirty twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 22:15:20 .@RandPaul We need to find out if it was nefarious and they use the Russian ambassador to get to @GenFlynn or if they just heard The conversation and thought wow that's juicy news. https://t.co/S2VTdpTTR5 reageer retweet
twitter:AKA_RealDirty twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 22:19:30 .@RandPaul says The document show @JoeBiden did access and unmask @GenFlynn. https://t.co/Lpj7xd9a8x reageer retweet
twitter:AKA_RealDirty twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 22:27:05 .@RandPaul We need to find out what is it @JoeBiden leading the effort or was it @BarackObama. https://t.co/BwMdNiW4kx reageer retweet
"Vice President Biden is guilty of using government to go after a political opponent."twitter:AKA_RealDirty twitterde op woensdag 13-05-2020 om 22:32:05 .@RandPaul is giving @RichardGrenell an open invitation to come before the committee to testify. https://t.co/hSfCKES3SW reageer retweet
quote:Op zondag 22 december 2019 19:35 schreef dellipder het volgende:
De Intercept bericht dat admiraal Micheal Rogers, oud-directeur van de National Security Agency
(NSA), zijn medewerking verleent aan het onderzoek van het ministerie van Justitie naar de oorsprong van het contra-inlichtingenonderzoek van vermeende banden van de Trump-campagne met Rusland.
Rogers is geen onbekende in de controverse rond de verkiezingen van 2016 en zijn kennis over de oorsprong van bijna alles dat gerelateerd is aan de FBI data-surveillance in 2015 en 2016 is raakt hart van Spygate. In deel I van deze reeks heb ik het onderwerp admiraal Micheal Rogers aangeraakt.
Rogers is vooral bekend door zijn solo-actie elf dagen nadat Trump het presidentschap won. Rogers reisde naar Trump Tower in New York, waar hij de toenmalige president-elect een briefing gaf zonder daarvan zijn toenmalige directe baas, de Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, hierover in te lichten. FBI-, CIA kopstukken en andere officials uit de inlichtingengemeenschap waren hierover uiterst verbolgen.
Over de briefing tussen Rogers en de president-elect is alleen naar verluidt gemeld dat de NSA-directeur waarschuwde dat Trump Tower mogelijk onderwerp was van elektronische surveillance en dat Rogers bij Donald Trump smeekte om zijn baan te houden.
Hoe dan ook is het in elk geval een feit dat op 18 november 2016 Donald Trump zijn transitieteam naar Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey verhuist.
Eerder, in het begin van het jaar 2016 ontdekte Rogers voortdurende en opzettelijke schendingen van de Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Section 702(17) . Specifiek #17 dat de zogenaamde upstream collection (dat is het onderscheppen van telefoon- en internetverkeer van de internet back-bone -d.w.z. grote nationale en internationale internetkabels en -schakelaars- door de NSA) van Amerikanen omvat door het gebruik van de zoekterm “About” vragen, dat gebaseerd is op elk willekeurig onderwerp dat als zoekopdracht kan worden ingevoerd.
Tussen november 2015 en april 2016 gebruiken de national security divisions (NSD) van de FBI en DoJ particuliere aannemers voor toegang tot de NSA-database en FISA-informatie door het gebruik van “To” and “From” FISA-702(16) & “About” FISA-702(17) vragen.
Als gevolg van de ontdekking van Rogers en daaruit zijn vermoeden dat surveillance-activiteiten op e-mails en telefoongesprekken om onwettige redenen worden gebruikt gelast hij in april 2016 een volledige audit. Op de 18e, dezelfde maand, sluit hij de toegang tot het zoeksysteem van de NSA-database volledig voor particuliere aannemers.
In onderstaande clip van het verhoor voor de Senate Intelligence Committee inzake de Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Section 702 surveillance program en het FBI-onderzoek over Russische inmenging in de 2016 presidentsverkiezingen van 7 juni 2017 legt Rogers uit waarom de 702 aanvragen zijn stopgezet en hij een volledige beoordeling heeft verzocht om de beveiligingsmaatregelen te herstellen (vanaf minuut 0:40).
In plaats van afzonderlijke gerechtelijke bevelschriften, vereist sectie 702 dat de procureur-generaal en de DNI de FISC voorziet van jaarlijkse certificeringen dat verschillende categorien buitenlandse inlichtingen in kaart brengt dat de overheid mag verzamelen op grond van deze sectie 702.
Zij moeten daarnaast certificeren dat de inlichtingengemeenschap richt- en minimalisatieprocedures zullen volgen die door de FISC zijn goedgekeurd.
Op 26 september 2016 dient hoofd van de National Security Division van de DoJ John Carlin de door de regering voorgestelde 2016 sectie 702 certificeringen in, maar hij laat achterwege de schendingen die eerder door Rogers waren ontdekt.
De certificeringen voor het jaar 2016 zijn gepland voor goedkeuring door de FISC op 26 oktober.
Op 27 september 2016 kondigt Carlin zijn vertrek bij de DoJ aan dat effectief wordt op 15 oktober.
Medio oktober doet DNI James Clapper de aanbeveling bij het Witte Huis om directeur Rogers uit de NSA te verwijderen. De poging van Clapper faalt echter.
Op 20 oktober 2016 wordt Rogers ingelicht over de bevindingen van de volledige audit.
Op 21 oktober 2016 sluit de toegang van de “About” vragen in de 702 sectie permanent, rapporteert de bevindingen aan de DoJ en bereidt zich voor om de FISC over de audit-bevindingen in te lichten.
Op 21 oktober 2016 proberen de DoJ en FBI een Title I FISA probable cause bevelschrift voor elektronische surveillance te verkrijgen van de FISC tegen Carter Page. De FISC is op dit moment niet op de hoogte van de sectie 702-misbruik.
Op 24 oktober 2016 informeert Rogers in persoon de FISC over de bevindingen van de volledige audit en twee dagen later op 26 oktober doet hij dit formeel op schrift.
Op 26 oktober 2016 weigert de FISC de 2016 Section 702-certificeringen te formaliseren. Een volledige revisie van sectie 702-processen volgt.
De bovenstaande extract betekent dat de metadata voor specifieke personen of entiteiten werden gehaald uit de NSA-database, herhaaldelijk, op verschillende tijdstippen en gedurende het tijdsbestek van de NSA-audit (15 november tot 1 mei 16).
En over deze toegang zegt de FISC het volgende:
bron
Belangrijk in dit bestek van de tijdlijn is dat de plaatsvervangend advocaat van de DoJ en in de hirarchie van de DoJ de vierde man Bruce Ohr een demotie kreeg in de zomer van 2017 nadat de inspecteur-generaal Micheal Horowitz niet-gemelde contacten ontdekte tussen Ohr en de auteur van het Rusland-dossier Christopher Steele, evenals contacten met Fusion GPS-oprichter Glenn Simpson. Deze contacten vonden plaats in oktober 2016.
Wat betreft de 702 schendingen is het belangrijk uit de herinnering te halen dat in 2015 Sally Yates alle toezicht op de National Security Division van de DoJ voor de inspecteur-generaal blokkeerde. bron
De DoJ OIG kon op alle onderdelen van het ministerie van Justitie onderwerp maken van toezicht, behalve de NSD.
Uit de ingebrachte informatie kan geconcludeerd worden dat de DoJ NSD de FISA 702(17) “About” queries gebruikte om e-mails en telefoongesprekken te onderscheppen van Amerikaanse personen (aka de Trump-campagne).
Dit is ook wat uit het rapport van FISC-rechter James Boasberg naar voren komt.
Wanneer de toenmalige voorzitter van de House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes in maart 2017 zijn zorgen uitte over wat hij had gezien in een review van de in 2016 verzamelde inlichtingen, het rapporteren van inlichtingen en daaropvolgend unmasking was het niet helemaal duidelijk wat de implicaties waren van wat hij had ontdekt.
Nu, ruim twee jaar later, en met veel meer informatie voorhanden kan er met een ander perspectief naar zijn zorgen worden gekeken.
”On numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.”
“Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration; details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”
“Third, I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition members were unmasked.”
“Fourth and finally, I want to be clear; none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities.
“The House Intelligence Committee will thoroughly investigate surveillance and its subsequent dissemination, to determine a few things here that I want to read off:”
• “Who was aware of it?”
• “Why it was not disclosed to congress?”
• “Who requested and authorized the additional unmasking?”
• “Whether anyone directed the intelligence community to focus on Trump associates?”
• “And whether any laws, regulations or procedures were violated?”
“I have asked the Directors of the FBI, NSA and CIA to expeditiously comply with my March 15th (2017) letter -that you all received a couple of weeks ago- and to provide a full account of these surveillance activities.”
In samenvatting Spygate; het grootste politiek schandaal in de geschiednis van de Staten.
En dan ook nog eens in deze beschouwing niet meegerekend de activiteiten van onder andere State Department, GCHQ en ander FVEY-bondgenoten.
Heel interessant dat er tussen deze hele reeks bobo's ook nog enkele namen redacted zijn. Als Biden, Clapper, Brennan en Comey er zelfs gewoon op staan, wie zouden er dan nog beschermd worden door hun naam te redacten? Obama? Clinton? McCain?quote:Op woensdag 13 mei 2020 21:31 schreef Sjemmert het volgende:
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https://www.foxnews.com/p(...)unmask-michael-flynn
https://www.nbcnews.com/n(...)lection-hack-n696146quote:U.S. intelligence officials now believe with "a high level of confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.
Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said.
quote:I am reliably informed that the NSA or its partners intercepted at least some of the communications between Mr. Rich and Wikileaks. Before elaborating on that, however, I should first note the extent to which the “deep state” has already tried to cover up information about Mr. Rich. In an October 9, 2018 affidavit submitted in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, FBI section chief David M. Hardy testified that (1) the FBI did not investigate any matters pertaining to Mr. Rich, and (2) the FBI was unable to locate any records about Mr. Rich. Both claims were unequivocally false.
https://www.washingtonexa(...)ing-for-mueller-teamquote:Devin Nunes: Criminal referrals coming for Mueller team
The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said criminal referrals are coming for members of former special counsel Robert Mueller's team who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“We're looking at doing criminal referrals on the Mueller team, the Mueller dossier team, the Mueller witch hunt, whatever you want to call it. That's where we are now in our investigation,” Rep. Devin Nunes told Fox Nation’s Witch Hunt.
"We're doing a large criminal referral on the Mueller dossier team that put together a fraudulent report — that knew there was no collusion the day that Mueller walked in the door," the California Republican added. "They set an obstruction of justice trap. There's no doubt in my mind that we will make a conspiracy referral there."
Mueller released his 448-page report last April. The investigation found “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign" but "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Mueller did not draw a conclusion about whether President Trump obstructed justice, but did lay out 10 instances of possible obstruction in his report.
Nunes has long maintained that Mueller knew from the day he became special counsel in May 2017 that there was no coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. He says the House Intelligence Committee, which conducted its own Russian interference investigation when he was chairman, determined there was no collusion by early 2018. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee argued that the investigation was wrapped up prematurely, and the current chairman of the panel, Rep. Adam Schiff, has repeatedly insisted there was collusion.
Last year, Nunes made eight criminal referrals alleging several “potential violations” of the law throughout the investigation into Russian interference and said this year there would be follow-ups based on revelations about British ex-spy Christopher Steele's anti-Trump dossier.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz determined late last year the FBI properly opened its counterintelligence investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, into potential ties between the Kremlin and Trump campaign in the summer of 2016. After FBI Director James Comey was fired by Trump in May 2017, Mueller was appointed to be the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation.
The watchdog also determined that the bureau made "at least 17 significant errors or omissions" in the applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants spanning from October 2016 to the summer of 2017 that targeted former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI used Steele's dossier to obtain those warrants.
The Justice Department filed on Thursday to dismiss charges against Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who cooperated with Mueller investigators after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian diplomat.
In moving to drop the charges last week, the Justice Department said that after reviewing newly disclosed materials, it agreed with Flynn’s attorneys that his interview with the FBI should never have taken place because his conversations with the Russian ambassador were “entirely appropriate.”
Nunes called for the lead Justice Department lawyer in the Flynn case to be investigated.
"That attorney had to know those documents existed, had to know they were working with a falsified 302 — that's a very simple criminal referral," he said, in reference to alleged suppression of exculpatory evidence.
The congressman also said he will ask the Justice Department to investigate possible obstruction of justice of the congressional inquiry into the Russia investigation.
"I want to see all of them held accountable for this,” he added.
quote:Impeachment Boomerang: Contacts exposed between US embassy, Hunter Biden-connected Ukraine firm
Ambassador’s impeachment testimony omitted mention of Burisma meetings, letters.
During President Trump’s impeachment, former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testified to Congress that she knew little beyond an initial briefing and “press reports” about Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian natural gas firm that had hired Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and was dogged by a corruption investigation.
“It just wasn’t a big deal,” she declared under oath on Oct. 11, 2019.
But newly unearthed State Department memos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Yovanovitch’s embassy in Kiev, including the ambassador herself, was engaged in several discussions and meetings about Burisma as the gas firm scrambled during the 2016 election and transition to settle a long-running corruption investigation and polish its image before President Trump took office.
Yovanovitch, for instance, was specifically warned in an email by her top deputy in September 2016 — three years before her testimony — that Burisma had hired an American firm with deep Democratic connections called Blue Star Strategies to “rehabilitate the reputation” of the Ukrainian gas firm and that it had placed “Hunter Biden on its board,” the memos show.
She also met directly with a representative for Burisma in her embassy office, less than 45 days before Trump took office, a contact she did not mention during her impeachment deposition.
The discussions about Burisma inside Yovanovitch’s embassy were so extensive, in fact, that they filled more than 160 pages of emails, memos and correspondence in fall 2016 alone, according to the State Department records obtained under FOIA by the conservative group Citizens United.
The contacts included a detailed private letter hand-delivered to Yovanovitch by one of Burisma’s lawyers in September 2016, a briefing later that month from her staff on Burisma’s issues, and a meeting scheduled between the ambassador and a Burisma representative shortly before Christmas 2016 as the Obama administration was preparing to leave office.
Yovanovitch, who recently retired from State, did not respond Tuesday to a message sent to her private email seeking comment. Her lawyer during the impeachment proceedings, Lawrence S. Robbins, also did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
State officials declined comment.
David Bossie, a former congressional investigator and current outside adviser to Trump who runs Citizen United, said the documents his group obtained raise questions about Yovanovitch’s testimony last fall and what else Congress may not know about the embassy’s involvement with the Hunter Biden-connected Burisma firm.
"These new records clearly don't support Ambassador Yovanovitch's testimony under oath during [Rep. Adam] Schiff's sham impeachment. Her sworn testimony must be investigated and scrutinized just like in the case of General [Michael] Flynn,” he said. “You can't have two sets of rules."
The impeachment hearings last fall, which focused on efforts by Trump and his lawyer Rudy Guiliani to find evidence inside Ukraine on the Bidens and Burisma and to remove Yovanovitch from her job as U.S. ambassador, included testimony from Yovanovitch herself.
During that deposition in October 2019 she made no mention of direct contact with Burisma representatives and instead suggested her knowledge about the company and its legal travails was limited mostly to a briefing she received in preparation for Senate confirmation as ambassador in summer 2016 and subsequent news media reports.
Hunter Biden’s work for one of Ukraine’s largest energy companies, which generated more than $3 million in payments to his American firm over two years, stirred controversy in both Ukraine and the United States because his father oversaw U.S. policy for Ukraine while Burisma was long a focus of a criminal corruption probe in Ukraine. State Department officials have said they believed the relationship created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
“What do you know about the investigation of Burisma?” Yovanovitch was asked at one point during her October testimony.
“Not very much. And, again, that happened before I arrived,” she testified. “… Burisma wasn’t a big issue in the fall of 2018 — 2016 when I arrived.”
“Were you aware at that time of Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma?” she was asked at another point.
“Yes. As I mentioned, I became aware during the Q&A in the prep for my testimony,” she answered.
Yovanovitch said she believed she learned from press reports that Burisma’s criminal case had been dormant by the time she arrived in Kiev in late summer 2016.
“I’m trying to understand your testimony, because earlier in the day you said that, based on press reports, your understanding was that it was dormant. You may have had additional information it was dormant, or you don’t know?” Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., inquired at one point.
“Yes. And all I can tell you is it was a long time ago and it just wasn’t a big issue,” she said.
“So I just want to understand your position. Obviously, you knew that Burisma was dormant, based on press reports. That was what you stated earlier,” Zeldin pressed.
“Uh-huh,” she answered.
“But you’re saying that you may have had other information, but you don’t recall that now?” the lawmaker followed.
“I may have had other information, but I don’t recall how I had that impression …” she answered.
During a nationally televised impeachment hearing a month later in the House, Yovanovitch doubled down on her testimony that Burisma and Hunter Biden weren't on her radar when she took over as ambassador. "It was not a focus of what I was doing in that six-month period," she testified anew.
But the memos show Yovanovitch was informed that the criminal cases were actively being settled in fall 2016 and that Burisma and its founder Mykola Zlochevsky were trying to repair the company’s reputation with the U.S. Embassy.
For instance, a briefing memo prepared for Yovanovitch’s 30-minute meeting Dec. 8, 2016 inside the U.S. Embassy with Burisma representative Karen Tramontano noted that Tramantano worked for the lobbying and strategy firm Blue Star Strategies.
“An Atlantic Council member and Washington veteran, Tramontano informally represents Mykola Zlochevsky, the Burisma CEO, who has long been the target of law enforcement proceedings in Ukraine,” the memo stated.
The memo added that “his [Zlochevsky’s] official US representatives sent a letter in September (attached) asking that the embassy reconsider its position on him.”
Read the memos by clicking on the "Dig In" button above.
The new memos aren't the first to raise questions about Yovanovitch's testimony. Last November, Fox News challenged another portion of her testimony denying she had contact with a Democratic House staffer after the network said it obtained emails showing Yovanovitch did in fact have the contact on her private email, and not her official State email.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has been trying to subpoena documents about Blue Star Strategies and its work for Burisma for weeks but has been blocked by opposition from Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, whose friend serves on the Burisma board. Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, are now seeking to interview witnesses who previously served at the embassy.
The memos show that both Blue Star Strategies and the Atlantic Council, a nonprofit policy organization, played a role in fall 2016 pressing the U.S. embassy in Kiev to change its position on Burisma and Zlochevsky, whom the embassy viewed as corrupt. Zlochevsky has long denied any wrongdoing.
For instance, after the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department foreign funding arm, was told by the embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission George Kent not to accept a $7,500 donation for Burisma for a clean energy event in Ukraine in late summer 2016, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine named John Herbst working for the Atlantic Council reached out.
Herbst asked to meet with Yovanovitch in September 2016 and secured a private dinner date instead with Kent in Ukraine, the memos show. “I will factor into our conversation the Zlochevsky Affair,” Herbst wrote to Kent as he prepared for their dinner.
Kent, long a critic of Burisma, is one of the witnesses Johnson and Grassley are seeking to interview. He went out of his way to mention the Burisma-Hunter Biden connection during one of his pre-dinner email exchanges with Herbst in which he decried alleged “payoffs” to Ukrainian officials “to do nothing” about the Burisma investigation.
“I have no doubt such arrangements were made, apart from Mr. Zlochevsky (who also put Hunter Biden on the board of his Burisma Energy company),” Kent wrote.
One of the maneuvers Blue Star planned was to take the new Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko, who held the fate of Burisma in his hands, to the United States for an event with the Atlantic Council, a move that would have created positive press for Lutsenko in both countries, the memos state.
Kent discouraged doing so and eventually sent a memo to Yovanovitch alerting her that “Lutsenko now likely not to go to DC with Blue Star.”
She followed up with a request to be briefed. “Thanks George. At some point appreciate discussing in more detail some of the folks referenced,” the ambassador wrote in a Sept. 4, 2016 email.
Within a few days, Yovanovitch received a direct letter from one of Burisma’s American lawyers, John Buretta of the Cravath, Swaine and Moore law firm in New York, alerting her that Lutsenko’s office was dropping a long-running corruption investigation of Burisma without filing charges based on a Ukrainian court ruling favorable to Zlochevsky.
Buretta’s letter to Yovanovitch said the allegations against Zlochevsky were “baseless,” and the lawyer asked the U.S. embassy to drop its long-running narrative that Burisma was somehow corrupt.
“We respectfully request that Your Excellency take into consideration these objective facts when considering the narrative promoted by some, and no doubt to be repeated again, in disregard of the facts and the law and the decisions by courts,” Buretta wrote the ambassador.
Yovanovitch immediately forwarded the letter to Kent. “What is this about?” she emailed.
Kent, the memos show, then arranged a special briefing for Yovanovitch later in September to get up to speed. The planned subject of the briefing, the memos show, was “Zlochevsky, Burisma, Cravath and image rehab campaigns.”
One of the topics for the briefing, Kent wrote colleagues on Sept. 16, 2016, was “Zlochevsky/Burisma – asset recovery and past crimes of the Yanu regime as they intersect U.S. corporate/individual interest,” an apparent reference to Hunter Biden’s role with the company.
In a separate email to Yovanovitch, Kent was more explicit about the Biden connection. “This is further to the Blue Star effort to rehabilitate the reputation of their non-client in the US, former ministry of ecologies Zlochevsky, who clearly has retained the services of a blue chip law firm (Cravath) and his energy company Burisma, which in turn has Hunter Biden on its board,” Kent emailed the ambassador.
By November 2016, with Trump now the president-elect, Burisma’s American emissaries were in full motion to get a second corruption case against Burisma — this one involving tax evasion — settled in Ukraine. They succeeded by early January, just days before Trump took office.
The American legal team for Burisma also wanted to improve relations between the gas firm, where Hunter Biden worked, and the U.S. embassy and USAID, the foreign aid arm, the memos show.
The Dec. 8, 2016 briefing memo prepared for Yovanovitch detailed the lobbying efforts by Blue Star.
“USAID spoke to Blue Star Strategies representative Sally Painter by phone and indicated that we would be open to discussing other forms of cooperation between USAID and Burisma, and agreed to meet with Burisma Government and Public Affairs representative Vadim Pozharskyi,” the memo to Yovanovitch explained. “In the November meeting, Pozharskyi briefed USAID on Burisma and the gas sector more broadly but did not propose specific ideas for cooperation.”
U.S. officials directly familiar with the Dec. 8, 2016 meeting confirmed it took place and that Yovanovich attended, but did not know whether the ambassador read the briefing memo beforehand.
After Yovanovitch met with Blue Star’s Tramantano, word surfaced in Ukraine that Zlochevsky had settled the second case against Burisma with a fine, and the Ukrainian news media was up in arms, critical that the owner and his company with Hunter Biden on its board had escaped more serious penalty.
One headline forwarded by email to the ambassador read, “Activists cry foul as courts, prosecutors clear Zlochevsky.”
“Lots of accusations/innuendo,” a State official wrote Yovanovitch and Kent on Dec. 29, 2016, forwarding another news article that alleged Burisma may have dumped natural gas into the market as a political payoff for getting off in the criminal case.
“Mentions Biden’s son and Kwasniewski are on board of Burisma, which allegedly had a subsidiary dump natural gas recently as a way to pay bribes” to Ukrainian officials, the State official wrote Yovanovitch.
A few hours later on that same day, the embassy’s deputy economic counselor followed up with Yovanovitch about the payoff allegations. “The dumping part is true,” the official wrote.
By early January 2017, as Vice President Joe Biden prepared to make a final visit to Ukraine before leaving office, officials around Yovanovitch worried the Burisma scandal might taint the visit. They forwarded news articles to the ambassador, some which were critical of the Bidens.
A Jan. 7, 2017 email from a State official to Yovanovitch, for instance, provided a summary of recent news reports about the impending Biden visit. “Ukrainian political scientists speculate on the purpose of the visit,” the email told Yovanovitch.
One of the speculations quoted in the memo was that Biden “has a business interest” in Ukraine because his son worked for Burisma. “Perhaps the behind the scenes part of the visit can be attributed to the fact that the Ukranian authorities guaranteed some business positions to the former Vice President and his family,” the memo quoted one Ukrainian figure as saying.
Kent had long feared the Bidens had created the appearance of a conflict of interest with the Burisma relationship and testified during impeachment he tried to warn the vice president about his concerns in 2015 but got rebuffed. As the media speculation about Biden’s last visit got more intense and nasty, Kent lamented to colleagues in a Jan. 17, 2017 email that copied Yovanovitch: “Burisma – gift that keeps on giving.”
For the Atlantic Council and Herbst, Kent’s line was prophetically, and literally, true.
On Jan. 13, 2017, Herbst emailed Kent that the Atlantic Council had just accepted a donation from Burisma.
“I wanted you to know before it becomes public that the Atlantic Council decided to accept support for its program from Burisma,” Herbst wrote. “We looked at the matter closely and weighed it over for a month. Information provided by the Cravath lawyer for Burisma in the London case was an important factor, although some uneasiness remains.”
quote:Russian Ambassador Invited Trump Administration to Syria Peace Talks as US Issued Sanctions
Russia's ambassador to the U.S. invited the Trump administration to Syrian peace talks during a phone call in December -- on the same day the Obama administration announced sanctions against Russia in retaliation for its hacking during the U.S. election -- a Trump representative said Friday.
Incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak extended the invitation to the talks, which are scheduled for later this month, during a phone call with President-elect Donald Trump's incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on Dec. 29, the day the U.S. issued sanctions and expelled 35 Russian diplomats from the country.
The Obama administration was unsuccessful in securing a seat in Syria peace negotiations during talks with Russia and other regional powers and has been excluded from the most recent rounds. The next talks about Syria are scheduled for Jan. 23 in Astana, Kazakhstan, three days after Trump takes office.
Wat werd er in Idlib gevonden?quote:
“Russia was used as a pretext for 3 years to cover what was a massive spying operation against the transition team & the presidency”twitter:realDonaldTrump twitterde op maandag 07-10-2019 om 13:40:33 The United States was supposed to be in Syria for 30 days, that was many years ago. We stayed and got deeper and deeper into battle with no aim in sight. When I arrived in Washington, ISIS was running rampant in the area. We quickly defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate,..... reageer retweet
quote:Op dinsdag 12 mei 2020 14:47 schreef dellipder het volgende:
En Spygate, om het zomaar even te noemen, is slechts een onderdeel van het grotere schandaal waar bijvoorbeeld Oekrane-gate deel van uitmaakt. De keerzijde van de kwestie Oekrane is dat USAID in zakken van corrupte mensen terecht kwam. Niet voor niets dat er een onderzoek naar het verdwijnen van Amerikaanse belastinggelden werd verricht (onder andere door Rudy Giuliani). De impeachment was een reactie (cover-up) van deze kwestie. Er zijn uiteraard nog meer thema's, zoals Fast & Furious (ook weer terug in het nieuws), Operation Cassandra, Benghazi, je kent ze allemaal wel en in feite is Spygate de cover-up daarvoor geweest. Alleen Hillary heeft niet gewonnen, dus daarom zijn we waar we nu zijn.
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