Tag Archives: FISA

“Lordy, that would be really bad”

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Truer words, as above, have not recently been written. It’s all about James Comey.

And the testimony of FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on FBI Oversight only serves to underline and prove one thing: Mr Comey needs to be forced to resign, and immediately.

Certainly Hillary Clinton thinks so. It was Comey and the Russians who did her in despite saying she is taking “absolute personal full responsibility” for her loss. Uh, no. She doesn’t take full responsibility. She spoke to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.

“If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president,” she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour at a Women for Women International event in New York.

“I take absolute personal responsibility. I was the candidate, I was the person who was on the ballot. I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had,” Clinton said, before adding that she was “on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off.”

This is the same Hillary Clinton who was enraged that the election wasn’t simply handed over to her as required by us underlings, proles. commoners, serfs and unwashed rabble.

[It’s interesting to note that Hillary Clinton is writing a book about her loss, Huma Abedin is writing a book and Barack Hussein Obama is making $400,000 speeches to Wall Street.]

The very next day following Clinton’s fuzzy softball interview, Director Comey’s testimony in the Senate was jam-gepacked with bursting volumes of self-serving and contradictory statements. (The full testimony can be read here. Full video is here.) Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley originally called the Wednesday oversight hearing of the FBI to examine what the agency knows about a 2015 terrorist attack in Garland, Texas. Things got a bit off-topic, however.

To what am I referring? From Breitbart.com:

Comey: Anthony Weiner Received Classified Clinton Emails

by Kristina Wong

FBI Director James Comey hit back Wednesday against Democratic criticism of his decision to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails 11 days before the 2016 election.

He said although it made him “mildly nauseous” to think he could have had some impact on the election, he believes he did the right thing and to this day, would not change his mind.

In explaining his decision to reopen the investigation, he said investigators found metadata on the seized laptop of Anthony Weiner — top Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s husband — that showed there were “thousands” of Clinton’s emails on the device, including classified information.

Investigators believed the emails could include emails missing from her first three months as secretary of state.

Comey said after repeatedly telling members of Congress that the FBI had concluded its investigation into Clinton, the only right thing to do was to let Congress know the case was reopened.

“I could see two doors and they were both actions. One was labeled ‘speak,’ the other was labeled ‘conceal,’” he said.

But wait. Was classified information really involved in any of those emails?

He said Abedin forwarded “hundreds of thousands” of emails to Weiner, 40,000 of which they reviewed. Three thousand of those were work-related, and 12 of them contained classified information, he said.

But he said Abedin and Weiner were not charged with any wrongdoing since investigators did not find a general sense of criminal intent — a decision that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) scoffed at.

The hearing conducted on Wednesday featured Senator Diane Feinstein asking a question that, in retrospect, she wished she never touched.

She received a lot more information, damning information, than she wanted. She opened the door and FBI Director James Comey walked right through it. I suspect she was hoping Comey would simply reply that the information was classified. Sorry, senator. Feinstein was just pissed, regarding 702 data**, that her Demorat ox got gored.

But what really happened here? Again, just like July of 2016, Comey makes an argument for prosecution — first, against Hillary Clinton now, here, against Huma Abedin — and then does nothing about it. How did Weiner come to be in possession of classified information? Huma Abedin sent it to him. This is a violation of 18 USC 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information, to wit:

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

As I wrote in July of last year regarding Director Comey’s decision to refuse sending the Hillary Clinton case on to DOJ:

To me it is quite clear that FBI Director James Comey, about whose probity I wrote quite a number of times on the blog, has dishonored his law enforcement oath, showing that he has no fidelity, no bravery and no integrity with regard to his decision to not recommend prosecution of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But in today’s hearing with Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz as documented at Politico, James Comey revealed his flawed and craven, cowardly political thinking when one is familiar with law enforcement prosecutorial thresholds as I am.

Director Comey determined a manner in which to weasel his way out of recommending the prosecution of Clinton.  At Thursday’s hearing he went out of his way — again, just like Wednesday — to make his own case and then fall back on a position/decision that isn’t his to make.

But the most insightful part has arrived.  Comey outs himself:

Chaffetz then asked whether it was that he was just not able to prosecute it or that Clinton broke the law.

“Well, I don’t want to give an overly lawyerly answer,” Comey said. “The question I always look at is there evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody engaged in conduct that violated a criminal statute, and my judgment here is there is not. “

And this is how James Comey attempts to rationalize his decision.  He states he does not believe his case established guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

NEWSFLASH: It is not UP to YOU, Director Comey, to assemble a case that yields a determination of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”  That threshold is up to the DOJ or more pointedly a Grand Jury, not you or your organization.  All you need to compile a case for submission is “probable cause.”  That’s what real cops and real DAs in America do.  Their jobs.  They stay in their lanes and do their jobs.

As noted about Comey’s wrong-headed decision to give a pass to Hillary Clinton regarding the classified information on her server and in her emails, there are crimes of specific intent and general intent. Comey insists he must have specific intent before forwarding a case to DOJ. That’s wrong. There are sections, as above, that demand no such thing. Watch:

“She had no sense that what she was doing was a violation of the law.” Really, Mr Comey? “We couldn’t prove any sort of criminal intent.” You might try reading the law, Mr Comey. Federal law. The law you’re tasked with following and upholding.

Senator Ted Cruz had questions.

The fact patterns in Hillary Clinton’s case and Huma Abedin’s case do violate federal law as indicated by Senator Cruz above and common sense.

Director Comey’s job is not to be the attorney, but to be the compiler, and assembler of cases and, then, submitting a case to the Department of Justice. He essentially has and is usurping the function of prosecutors by withholding cases from the DOJ.

Tucker Carlson, below, interviews Democrat Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio and, more pointedly, former US Attorney Jim Digenova. Listen to Digenova’s clear and cogent case against FBI Director James Comey.

On Wednesday, for good measure, Director Comey decided to throw former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch under the bus — deservedly but quite willingly.

Now there is information from RightScoop.com, announced by Catherine Herridge of Fox News:

REVEALED: FBI found email that Lynch would do everything she could to protect Hillary from CRIMINAL CHARGES

Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge says this is one of the biggest headlines out of the hearing today with the FBI director, pointing out that the FBI had found an email was obtained by Russian hackers that indicated that former DOJ hack Loretta Lynch would do everything she could to protect Hillary from prosecution:

 

This was the story from Wednesday. And who covered it? Anyone but Fox?

Note how Director Comey refuses to answer. The fix was in. Comey is a disreputable political hack and has proven himself time and again to be so.

FBI Director James Comey must go. He is too self-centered, too much the political animal and, frankly, too narcissistic to continue in his current position. He insists he is apolitical but every movement he makes and statement he gives proves otherwise.

It’s all about James Comey.

BZ

NOTE:

** 702 data, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978:

Section 702 permits the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to jointly authorize targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States, but is limited to targeting non-U.S. persons. Once authorized, such acquisitions may last for periods of up to one year.

Under subsection 702(b) of the FISA Amendments Act, such an acquisition is also subject to several limitations. Specifically, an acquisition:

  • May not intentionally target any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States;
  • May not intentionally target a person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States if the purpose of such acquisition is to target a particular, known person reasonably believed to be in the United States;
  • May not intentionally target a U.S. person reasonably believed to be located outside the United States;
  • May not intentionally acquire any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States;
  • Must be conducted in a manner consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[10]

 

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Trump surveilled: update

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Her?

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes created a firestorm when he released information earlier last week which tended to confirm that members of Donald Trump’s team had been surveilled and names unmasked for political purposes. Please see my two posts about the event here and here. Sotto voce, I’d care to point out this is the same Devin Nunes who, in May of 2013, revealed, as I wrote here:

Congressman Devin Nunes: the DOJ tapped phones in the House gallery

Fornicalia Congressman Devin Nunes of the 22nd district spoke on the Hugh Hewitt show Wednesday afternoon, and revealed a bombshell: not only did the DOJ tap the phones of reporters, but Nunes indicated the DOJ tapped the telephones of the House of Representatives in the gallery area — where not only reporters use the phones, but various DC politicians.

That said, here is Chairman Nunes’s initial revelation regarding the surveillance of President Trump, made on March 22nd.

This led to various products by Crane and Summit being pounded out of Demorat and American Media Maggot sphincters nationally, initially bent because Chairman Nunes dared to do his job and notify President Trump of his findings before the rest of the committee. This did not sit well with Adam Schiff, Little Chuckie Schumer, Nancy Pelosi et al.

Simultaneously, someone began to actually pay attention to a broadcast made on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” roughly a month ago, which included a revelation so large that it had been hiding in plain sight for some time. Please listen to Evelyn Farkas, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Obama Administration, “out” that administration regarding the Trump campaign.

What she said was essentially this: the Obama administration ensured the leakage occurred and then tried to hide both the source of the leak as well as how the information was being shipped to “the hill,” otherwise known as the AMM.

There was only one purpose: political. The obvious intent was to damage the Trump campaign as much as possible and then undermine, minimize and block the president-elect’s ability to conduct the business necessary to assemble his team and move forward.

I can think of no other words than this: a conspiracy.

LifeZette.com writes:

Fmr. FBI Asst. Director: Farkas Exposed ‘Conspiracy Cabal’ on Trump Surveillance

by Brendan Kirby

Law enforcement experts say Obama official must testify on ‘unmasking,’ may have admitted crime

The discussion with MSNBC host Mika Brezinski on March 2 focused on a New York Times story that appeared the day before under the headline, “Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Hacking.”

The story quoted unnamed former government officials who described efforts to “leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.” The information included evidence passed along by U.S. allies of meetings between Russian officials and Trump’s associates, and communications — intercepted by American intelligence agencies  among Russians — among Russians discussing contacts with Trump officials.

The spice must flow and the evidence must be preserved. Why?

“It was more actually aimed at telling the [Capitol] Hill people, ‘Get as much information as you can and get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration,’ because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left,” she said. “So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy.”

Read this once, and then read it again, more slowly and deliberately.

“The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the staff, the Trump staff’s dealings with Russians, that they would try to compromise these sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence,” she said. “So I became very worried because not enough was coming out in the open, and I knew that there was more.”

She added, “That’s why you have the leaking. People are worried.”

She knows there’s a leak, the reason for the leak, the means of the leak and its justification. Which led to this little joust between Sean Spicer and a journalista.

Of course, this is nothing more than fetid navel-gazing on the part of the Republicans, right? The people subject to “unmasking” were no more plain civilians than Jello is a food group, right? This has nothing to do with privacy, right? Wrong.

Joseph diGenova, who served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia under Ronald Reagan, said Farkas and the former administration officials she referred to should be questioned under oath.

“Ms. Farkas made a major blunder and, in fact … probably confessed to a crime or knowledge of people who committed a crime,” he said. “It was a remarkable interview and amazing it went unnoticed at the time.”

We can only hope; but we know that with all of the Benghazi hearings under Trey Gowdy no one was fired or breathes air behind bars today.

But here are questions that, as per normal, no one — and I mean no one — in the American Media Maggot queue is asking.

James Kallstrom, a former assistant director of the FBI, told LifeZette it is troubling that Farkas even knew about the intelligence reports that she urged officials to spread to congressional staffers.

“How does somebody who’s not even in the administration anymore, who’s in civilian life, have access to this information?” he asked. “What kind of conspiracy cabal is this?”

What indeed? Let’s go to Circa.com for this news story.

Obama’s rule changes opened door for NSA intercepts of Americans to reach political hands

by John Solomon and Sara Carter

As his presidency drew to a close, Barack Obama’s top aides routinely reviewed intelligence reports gleaned from the National Security Agency’s incidental intercepts of Americans abroad, taking advantage of rules their boss relaxed starting in 2011 to help the government better fight terrorism, espionage by foreign enemies and hacking threats, Circa has learned. (More on this below.)

Dozens of times in 2016, those intelligence reports identified Americans who were directly intercepted talking to foreign sources or were the subject of conversations between two or more monitored foreign figures. Sometimes the Americans’ names were officially unmasked; other times they were so specifically described in the reports that their identities were readily discernible. Among those cleared to request and consume unmasked NSA-based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens were Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice, his CIA Director John Brennan and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

I hope you read that quite closely. Who could unmask American names? John Brennan. Loretta Lynch. Susan Rice. Remember that.

Today, the power to unmask an American’s name inside an NSA intercept — once considered a rare event in the intelligence and civil liberty communities — now resides with about 20 different officials inside the NSA alone. The FBI also has the ability to unmask Americans’ names to other intelligence professionals and policymakers.

Stop. That power exists within, to my estimation, roughly all 17 alphabet agencies in the American intelligence community. Because I have not yet done so, I enumerate those agencies now and here:

  1. Office of the Director of National Intelligence 
  2. Central Intelligence Agency 
  3. National Security Agency
  4. Defense Intelligence Agency
  5. Federal Bureau of Investigation
  6. Department of State – Bureau of Intelligence and Research
  7. Department of Homeland Security – Office of Intelligence and Analysis
  8. Drug Enforcement Administration – Office of National Security Intelligence
  9. Department of the Treasury – Office of Intelligence and Analysis
  10. Department of Energy – Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
  11. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
  12. National Reconnaissance Office
  13. Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
  14. Army Military Intelligence
  15. Office of Naval Intelligence
  16. Marine Corps Intelligence
  17. Coast Guard Intelligence

All that’s missing is your local dental board’s intelligence unit. “You sir, slowly put down the amalgam.” Shh. Keep that one under your hat.

The ACLU, an ally of Obama on many issues, issued a statement a few months ago warning that the president’s loosened procedures governing who could request or see unmasked American intercepts by the NSA were “grossly inadequate” and lacked “appropriate safeguards.”

Put on your thinking caps. Ask: why would Obama do this? And why only two weeks from the end of his second term?

Nunes, as well as Trump supporters, will be trying to determine if that access was warranted or a backdoor form of political espionage by an outgoing administration trying to monitor its successor on the world stage.

Any proof Obama aides were using NSA-enriched intelligence reports to monitor his transition on the world stage could embolden the new president. But perhaps the most consequential outcome of the new revelations is that it may impact the NSA’s primary authority to intercept foreigners: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is up for renewal at the end of the year.

Ah, wait. A touchy subject for the intelligence community. Because who holds the purse-strings? Congress. Circa then nails it with this revelatory paragraph.

For years, the NSA has been required to follow strict rules to protect the accidental intercepts of Americans from being consumed or misused by other government agencies. The rules required a process known as minimization, where the identity and information about an American who was intercepted is redacted or masked with generic references like “American No. 1.”

The number of senior government officials who could approve unmasking had been limited to just a few, like the NSA director himself.

Wait. This conflicts with what we know now.

And in his final days in office, Obama created the largest ever expansion of access to non-minimized NSA intercepts, creating a path for all U.S. intelligence to gain access to unmasked reports by changes encoded in a Reagan-era Executive Order 12333.

The government officials who could request or approve an exception to unmask a U.S. citizen’s identity has grown substantially. The NSA now has 20 executives who can approve the unmasking of American information inside intercepts, and the FBI has similar numbers.

And executives in 16 agencies — not just the FBI, CIA and NSA — have the right to request unmasked information.

Thank you ever so kindly, Barack Hussein Obama. Stellar decision. Smashing. Brilliant.

“This raises serious concerns that agencies that have responsibilities such as prosecuting domestic crimes, regulating our financial policy, and enforcing our immigration laws will now have access to a wealth of personal information that could be misused. Congress needs to take action to regulate and provide oversight over these activities,” ACLU legislative counsel Neema Singh Giuliani warned in January.

Even when an American’s name isn’t included in a report, the NSA’s intercept information could be so specific that it identifies them.

I think you see both the problems and the reasons. CNN insists, however, that Farkas revealed nothing and the GOP has nothing.

Better yet (sorry for the poor audio), Farkas takes back her words and than attributes their repetition to — you guessed it — fake news.

I frequently have to remind myself that I inhabit the planet Earth, and not Zephron.

It’s interesting to note that Fred Fleitz, a former CIA officer, said:

He also questioned why so many in Washington regard as “established fact” the conclusion of U.S. security agencies that Russia meddled in the election in order to help Trump and hurt Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. He said he does not think Russia believed Trump could win.

Fleitz pointed to reports that Russian agents tried to hack into the computer systems of both major parties but succeeded only with the Democrats.

“Maybe all they did was exploit the fact that the Democrats left the barn door open,” he said.

Fleitz said the Obama administration did little to counter cyber threats, not just from Russia but from China, as well.

Then, finally, there is this pivotal information.

FOX: Trump Surveilled Before Nomination, Agencies with Info Blocked Nunes for Weeks

by Michelle Moons

A Friday breaking Fox News report on surveillance of President Trump’s team that began before he became the Republican presidential nominee claimed a very senior intelligence official was responsible—as well as for the unmasking of the names of private U.S. citizens.

The report cited sources which also indicated that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) knew of the existence of the information in January, but one or more intelligence agencies blocked him, and there were only two locations where he could view the information that he called “very troubling.”

On Thursday, the New York Times began reporting what they claimed were the identities of two White House officials who were the sources of the information disclosed to Nunes.

Nunes met with sources on White House grounds on the day before he announced to reporters striking news that he had seen new and disturbing information indicating intelligence officials under the Obama administration “unmasked” the names of Trump team members who were incidentally surveilled.

Who might this “very senior intelligence official” be? Mike Cernovich writes:

Susan Rice Requested Unmasking of Incoming Trump Administration Officials

Susan Rice, who served as the National Security Adviser under President Obama, has been identified as the official who requested unmasking of incoming Trump officials, Cernovich Media can exclusively report.

The White House Counsel’s office identified Rice as the person responsible for the unmasking after examining Rice’s document log requests. The reports Rice requested to see are kept under tightly-controlled conditions. Each person must log her name before being granted access to them.

Upon learning of Rice’s actions, H. R. McMaster dispatched his close aide Derek Harvey to Capitol Hill to brief Chairman Nunes.

This reporter has been informed that Maggie Haberman has had this story about Susan Rice for at least 48 hours, and has chosen to sit on it in an effort to protect the reputation of former President Barack Obama.

Who is Maggie Haberman? She is a political correspondent for the New York Times. To whom is Susan Rice married? That would be ABC Executive Producer Ian Cameron, since 1992. He left ABC in 2010. He, of course, kept his links to news and newsrooms. She was Obama’s US Ambassador to the UN and finally his National Security Advisor. She also carried Obama’s heavy water when she went of most every Sunday show possible following the Benghazi attack to claim it occurred because of a video made in the United States when, in fact, Hillary Clinton and others — as well as her daughter, Chelsea Clinton — knew and had information that was not the case at all. She knew that very night.

Here, Susan Rice speaks at length to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell and both hedges and commits to nothing.

Perfect. But perhaps I should just defer to my fallback experts: Trey Gowdy and Tucker Carlson. Think ”wiretapped” vs “surveilled.”

Please note that at no point did Trey Gowdy — or has anyone trustworthy — denied that the NSA is not Hoovering every bit of digital take available in the US and abroad. If for no other reason than to make it available to certified authorities when requested.

You can’t request it if it isn’t there.

Judge Napolitano — now back on Fox News — weighs in as well.

Don’t forget, the spying of Donald Trump actually began back in 2011. Why would that be? Because Donald Trump was seriously considering running for president in 2012. Trump was causing headaches for Obama because of the birth certificate issue and became involved in opposing Obama’s policies. Trump spoke at CPAC in 2011; that’s called a clue.

The issue was so important to Barack Hussein Obama that he decided to attend the May 1st, 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner where Donald Trump would be in attendance, in lieu of monitoring the assault and capture of Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan the same night by SEAL Team 6 — of course, a singularly-important event. Obama spent most of his speech at that dinner attacking Donald Trump. Jack Posobiec indicates that Obama had, at that time, Donald Trump under surveillance as a private citizen for political purposes only; no security issues were involved.

2011 was a significant year for the Obama administration overall because he was simultaneously spying on Angela Merkel and other world leaders. This is also, 2011, when Obama changed the rules of intercept material by the US government. You see how this all ties together.

But here’s the bottom line, in my opinion. What started out in the Grand Scheme of Life under the Imperial Obama as an intent to link Trump and his assistants to Mother Russia in order to delegitimize his entire presidency and keep him from conducting the business necessary to enable his goals, Obama and his sniveling jackanapes may have inadvertently laid a path of digital and oral wreckage right back to themselves which could yield depositions, subpoenas, grand juries, indictments and perhaps even criminal prosecutions.

In other words, his little arrangement of mines and minefields may have supremely backfired.

BZ

P.S.

Michael Flynn requesting immunity? Let us not forget that he was chucked under the proverbial political bus just a few minutes ago. He’d be a DC moron not to lawyer up. Let us also not forget how many persons in the Obama Administration requested either immunity or invoked the Fifth Amendment.

First, 5 million illegals were granted immunity under Obama.

Second, how many Obama officials pleaded the Fifth in major cases? Seven?

1. Jeff Neely, the former Pacific Rim regional commissioner for the General Services Administration, pled the fifth on April 16, 2012 when Congress asked him to testify about overly-lavish spending on GSA conferences. He was eventually sentenced to prison for fraud anyway.

2. John Beale, a former official at the EPA, pled the fifth on October 1, 2013 when Congress probed into Beale’s theft of nearly $900,000 worth of salaries and bonuses from his own agency.

3. John Sepulveda, a former VA official, pled the fifth on October 30, 2013 after Congress subpoenaed him to testify as to why the department spent $6 million on conferences in Florida.

4. Diana Rubens and Kimberly Graves, two senior officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs, each pled the fifth before Congress on November 2, 2015 when asked to testify about $400,000 they had allegedly milked out of a VA relocation expense program. They were eventually given back their jobs.

5. Greg Roseman, a deputy director of the IRS, pled the fifth on June 26, 2013, after Congress asked him to testify about why the largest contract in IRS history was awarded to a close friend of his.

6. Patrick Cunningham, chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, pled the fifth when Congress asked him to testify about Operation Fast and Furious, which trafficked more than 2,000 guns along the U.S.-Mexico border.

7. Lois Lerner, an IRS director in charge of tax-exemptions, pled the fifth numerous times during Congress’ investigation into the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

We’re supposed to assume nothing from that.

Right?

 

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Schumer: Devin Nunes must go

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From TheHill.com:

Schumer: Ryan should replace Nunes on Intel chair

by Jordain Carney

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday stepped up his criticism of House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace him. 
 
“Without further ado, Speaker Ryan should replace Chairman Nunes,” the Senate minority leader said from the floor. “If Speaker Ryan wants the House to have a credible investigation, he needs to replace Chairman Nunes.”
 
Nunes caused an uproar last week when he told the press that he had seen intelligence showing that members of President Trump’s transition team had been caught up in surveillance operations — without first discussing the information with fellow committee members. He later briefed Trump on the information. 

Please see my post here on the developments from last week as documented by Chairman Devin Nunes, who dropped this bomb-shell on Wednesday, March 22nd:

Of course, the fecal material struck propellant and the American Media Maggots threw camshafts nationally. Why? Because after berating President Trump over his March 4th Tweet (“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”), the information provided by Chairman Nunes tended to prove that — ahem — President Trump was correct. Think Trump and the Sweden comment, the Brussels terror attack and the election. Proven correct. Hmm.

New York Representative Peter King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee said this to Bill O’Reilly on March 22nd.

You are up to date on the back story. Of course, Demorats and the AMM could not let that stand. However, as I am wont to say, “but wait; there’s more.” From the NYTimes.com:

House Democrats Ask Devin Nunes to Recuse Himself From Russia Inquiry

by Matthew Rosenberg and Emmarie Huetteman

WASHINGTON — Top House Democrats on Monday called on the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to recuse himself from the panel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, thrusting the entire inquiry into jeopardy amid what they described as mounting evidence he was too close to President Trump to be impartial.

The demands followed revelations that the committee’s chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, had met on White House grounds with a source who showed him secret American intelligence reports. The reports, Mr. Nunes said last week, showed that Mr. Trump or his closest associates may have been “incidentally” swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.

The new revelation that the information actually came from a meeting held on the grounds of the White House intensified questions about what prompted Mr. Nunes to make the claim about the intelligence gathering, and who gave him the information.

Two extremely important questions, then:

  1. Is this Chairman Nunes conducting illegal, biased or shady activities for Trump, perhaps at the behest of the Russians, or
  2. Is this Chairman Nunes doing his job?

The highest ranking Demorat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, along with (naturally) Nancy Pelosi believe that Nunes is in the pocket of the White House.

“The public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman,” Mr. Schiff said on Monday night.

If the Demorats truly believe this, wouldn’t they want to do what they did at Trump’s inauguration, and boycott the committee?

Still, Mr. Schiff stopped short of pulling the panel’s Democrats out of the investigation. Doing so could jeopardize Democrats’ influence over the inquiry and, importantly, their access to intelligence on possible ties between Trump associates and Moscow.

The revelation that Mr. Nunes had viewed intelligence materials on White House grounds the day before bolstering the administration’s case fueled damaging speculation that he was acting at the instruction of the president. That could prove fatal to the bipartisan investigation, which has hinged on the ability of Mr. Nunes to conduct a neutral inquiry while maintaining the trust and cooperation of Mr. Schiff.

Ms. Pelosi echoed Mr. Schiff’s call for Mr. Nunes to recuse himself, saying his behavior had “tarnished” his post and urging Speaker Paul D. Ryan to speak out.

“Speaker Ryan must insist that Chairman Nunes at least recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation immediately,” she said in a statement. “That leadership is long overdue.”

Trey Gowdy, no stranger to conflict, partisan politics in his hearings or to DC investigations, said this about the actions of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes.

What Trey Gowdy said was, “just let Devin Nunes do his job.”

Chairman Nunes appeared on the Bill O’Reilly show with more direct information, which also includes the fact that the FBI “can’t make” a second appearance in committee.

For some reason the Church Lady seems to be speaking into my ear at this point.

So you have to ask yourself, as I’ve said and written since last year, “where is the evidence that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians and/or had anything to do with the throwing of the election in order to favor Mr Trump?” After all, even former DNI James Clapper (2010-2017, under Obama) said this during the March 5th edition of “Meet the Press.”

If this is true — and was likely known in 2016 — then what was the need for the surveillance of Trump and his associates under the Obama administration? We know the phones had to be tapped because of the Michael Flynn situation and because of the release of transcripts from conversations between Trump and both Turnbull and Nieto.

Trey Gowdy sums it up adroitly on Face the Nation last Sunday.

Remember, the NSA is cooperating, and the FBI is not. That makes me want to ask: did, possibly, the leak — or several of them — occur within the FBI itself?

Did the Obama administration use the cover of “legitimate surveillance” on foreign persons in order to unearth whatever it could on Donald Trump and his campaign? And isn’t this a clever and timely distraction from the real issue? The actual content of what Chairman Nunes is saying?

Remember, as per the Demorats, Leftists and American Media Maggots, this is all incidental. No one did it on purpose.

Right?

BZ

 

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BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon, “The Aftermath,” Thursday, March 23rd, 2017

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My thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to broadcast in their studio and over their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show™ each Wednesday evening. My thanks are even more heartfelt due to the nature of the show I presented Thursday night which included examining, in-depth, the destructive, uncontrollable, unrepentant, irresponsible and authoritative nature of our federal government.

Thursday night we discussed:

  • Canada’s House of Commons passes anti-Islamophobia motion; will this religious motion apply equally to protestants and Jews?
  • Muslim Somali males in Minneapolis threaten to kidnap and rape women;
  • Tommy Robinson states the obvious to a Muslim advocate in London;
  • Rockville, MD superintendent in control of the school system where a 14-year-old girl was raped by an illegal alien believes parents are racist and xenophobic;
  • What is The Hammer?
  • House Intelligence Committee hearings with Comey, Gowdy, Nunes, FISA;
  • Rep Elise Stefanik reveals Director James Comey’s true nature;
  • Jason Chaffetz proves: the FBI doesn’t obey the law;
  • American privacy, LPR technology;
  • Government crisis of legitimacy; who watches the watchers?

Listen to “BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon, “The Aftermath,” Thursday, March 23rd, 2017″ on Spreaker.

Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin (on Twitter @BZep and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.

As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening via podcast. Thanks also to Mary Brockman’s Biker Mafia in chat.

Want to listen to the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here.

BZ

 

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House Intelligence chair Devin Nunes: President Trump may be correct about surveillance

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First, from Politico.com:

Nunes claims some Trump transition messages were intercepted

by Austin Wright

The move gave cover to the White House but was rebuked by top Democrats.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes declared Wednesday that members of Donald Trump’s transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under inadvertent surveillance following November’s presidential election.

The White House and Trump’s allies immediately seized on the statement as vindication of the president’s much-maligned claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower phones — even though Nunes himself said that’s not what his new information shows.

Democrats, meanwhile, cried foul.

Why did the Demorats “cry foul”? Not necessarily because they vehemently disbelieve the information but because Demorat Adam Schiff, the top Dem on the House Intelligence Committee, became butt-hurt due to the order in which persons were notified. In other words, Schiff determined he wasn’t advised soon enough and others, such as President Trump, acquired the information before he did.

Nunes set off the firestorm with a news conference earlier in the day in which he described the surveillance of Trump aides through what’s called “incidental collection,” something he noted was routine and legal. Such collection can occur when a person inside the United State communicates with a foreign target of U.S. surveillance. In such cases, the identities of U.S. citizens are supposed to be shielded — but can be “unmasked” by intelligence officials under certain circumstances.

Nunes, himself a Trump transition member, said a “source” had shown him evidence that members of the Trump transition team had been unmasked — and that their identities had been revealed in U.S. intelligence reports. Nunes had previously raised questions about the unmasking of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whose communications with Russia’s ambassador were intercepted by the U.S. government and whose identity was leaked to the news media.

Is there a price to be paid for this “unmasking” of American citizens? Oh quite so. From the WashingtonExaminer.com:

Bob Woodward: Obama officials possibly facing criminal charges for unmasking scheme

by Daniel Chaitin

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward warned on Wednesday that there are people from the Obama administration who could be facing criminal charges for unmasking the names of Trump transition team members from surveillance of foreign officials.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said earlier that he had briefed Trump on new information, unrelated to an investigation into Russian activities, that suggested that several members of Trump’s transition team and perhaps Trump himself had their identities “unmasked” after their communications were intercepted by U.S. intelligence officials.

He said it isn’t Trump’s assertion, without proof, that his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower that is of concern, but rather that intelligence officials named the Americans being discussed in intercepted communications.

The next logical question should be: who in the American government or intelligence community has the authority or ability to “unmask” a US citizen?

He noted that there are about 20 people in the intelligence community who, for intelligence reasons, can order this “minimization” be removed.

Who specifically may have ordered this? The House Intelligence Committee wants to know.

Nunes and Schiff asked the intelligence community leaders to disclose any “unmasked” identities that were disseminated throughout the intelligence community, law enforcement, or among senior Obama administration officials from June 2016 until January 2017 that relate to Trump or Hillary Clinton and their associates.

An informed source told CNN that if Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was being surveilled, Flynn’s name should not necessarily have been included on the intelligence report. Rather, “American Citizen 1” or a similar anonymous term should have been used.

“However, as recent news stories, seem to illustrate, individuals talking to the media would appear to have wantonly disregarded these procedures,” Nunes and Schiff wrote. The congressmen also asked the names of individuals or agencies who “requested and/or authorized the unmasking and dissemination” of these identities.

The letter was addressed to Admiral Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency; FBI Director James Comey; and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. The acting Director of National Intelligence Michael Dempsey was also included.

FBI Director James Comey said on Monday in a House hearing that:

Several top officials would have access to the information or could request it. That includes top Obama appointees at the Justice Department, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and others. Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, testified that 20 people in his agency have the authority to “unmask” a U.S. citizen whose identity normally would be disguised.

Speaking of the FBI, Chairman Devin Nunes says that agency is not cooperating with the House’s investigation. From Grabien.com:

NUNES: FBI IS NOT COOPERATING WITH OUR INVESTIGATION INTO TRUMP CAMP SURVEILLANCE

“We don’t actually know yet officially what happened to General Flynn,” Nunes said of how communications from Gen. Flynn’s calls were leaked to the press. “We just know that his name leaked out but we don’t know how it was picked up yet. That was one of the things that we asked for in the March 15th letter, was for the NSA, CIA, and FBI to get us all the unmasking that was done.”

“And I’ll tell you, NSA is being cooperative,” Nunes continued, “but so far the FBI has not told us whether or not they’re going to respond to our March 15th letter, which is now a couple of weeks old.”

Nunes also reported that as of now, he “cannot rule out” President Obama ordering the surveillance. 

Continuing from Politico.com:

During his press briefing, Nunes said he did not know yet whether the Trump transition officials who were “unmasked” were communicating from Trump Tower.

Nunes said he briefed House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on the information on Wednesday morning before heading to the White House to brief the president.

His committee is set to hold a public hearing next Tuesday with members of the Obama administration, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired by Trump in January after refusing to defend his first travel ban executive order in court.

They are almost certain to face questions on the matter.

FBI Director James Comey appeared before the panel on Monday and confirmed that the FBI launched a counterintelligence investigation in July into Russia’s election meddling, including possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

One primary question: will be ever actually find those responsible for unmasking American citizens?

First you have to ask: do certain government agencies and deep-staters even want to?

BZ

 

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