Lawmakers Call on Trump to Declassify Carter Page FISA
by Sara A. Carter
Lawmakers are asking for 20 pages of the FISA, along with other classified documents
epublican lawmakers called on President Trump to declassify the highly redacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant that allowed the FBI to spy on a short-term Trump campaign volunteer. They are asking for 20 pages of the FISA, along with other classified documents and footnotes, they say the Department of Justice has withheld from their ongoing investigation into the bureau’s handling of the investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The lawmakers are also asking that Trump declassify the DOJ’s Gang of Eight briefing notebook that was presented only to a select group of lawmakers in the Senate and House this summer, who have access to classified material, according to numerous congressional sources. The third bulk of documents consists of 12 interviews the FBI conducted with DOJ official Bruce Ohr in 2016 regarding his communications with former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the anti-Trump unverified dossier. Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for the now embattled research firm Fusion GPS, that was hired by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to investigate alleged ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, who among others has testified to Congress about his role.
There aren’t but a handful of actual journalists working today. Sara Carter is one of them, along with my highly-principled advocate Susan Katz Keating. I should also care to include John Solomon, Gregg Jarrett, Catherine Herridge, to name but a very select few. Continuing:
President Trump is expected to declassify the documents within the next several weeks, sources tell SaraACarter.com. On Wednesday this news site reported that Trump is listening to lawmakers who complained the Justice Department has been stonewalling and failing to provide Congress with the documents necessary for appropriate oversight.
With this as well:
Over the past month, lawmakers also discovered that Ohr was a backchannel for Steele, who had been removed as a confidential source by the FBI after it was discovered that he was shopping around his dossier in the summer of 2016 to journalists.
The unverified dossier was used by the FBI as evidence to the secret court to obtain a warrant on Carter Page, the short term volunteer for the Trump campaign. The FBI obtained the initial warrant on Page and then three subsequent renewals, of which the final renewal signed was signed in the Spring of 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Lawmakers say Rosenstein’s involvement presents a serious issue since he signed off on the final FISA warrant and would have had access to all the previous warrants that failed to provide the secret court with the necessary information and led the court to grant the warrant.
Representatives Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows have asked President Trump to declassify the FISA/Carter Page documents.
This information seems to be mirrored by former US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Joseph diGenova, as interviewed by Tucker Carlson last week.
Further, apparently Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — the titular head of the US Department of Justice since Jeff Sessions recused himself back in January of 2017 — is finding himself appropriately under the microscope as well.
This from the Sean Hannity Show, as he discusses the situation with Sara Carter, Gregg Jarrett and Joseph diGenova:
But lawmakers, specifically the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, along with the aide of the government watchdog group Judicial Watch discovered among the troves of documents that they have obtained over the past year that the FBI failed to provide significant exculpatory evidence to the FISC judges and other major discrepancies in the application and the way the FBI handled its investigation.
We’re calling on President Trump to declassify the Carter Page FISA applications and other key documents.
Intelligentsia Elite bromance: Comey, Brennan and Clapper. Isn’t it somehow fitting and appropriate that Brennan wears the red tie that day?
Those threatened include John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, Susan Rice, and a host of individuals — some of whom, in retrospect, possibly shouldn’t have been issued a security clearance in the first place: think Communist John Brennan.
That said, the Intelligentsia Elites are up in arms at the impertinence of President Donald Trump! Fie, they say! How can the guy with the dead orange cat on his head determine who keeps a security clearance? The temerity of this interloper! They are the DC Intel cognoscenti, the highbrows, the literati.
First, the predicating August 15th event as covered by the WashingtonTimes.com:
Brennan first to fall as Trump kicks off review of Obama officials’ access
by Dave Boyer
President Trump on Wednesday personally revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John O. Brennan, a bitter and vocal Trump critic, citing his “erratic conduct and behavior” as their clashes escalated over the special counsel’s Russia investigation.
It was the first move in a White House review of access of top Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials, and it is believed to be the first time a president has taken such a direct and public role in shutting off a security clearance.
In a statement, Mr. Trump declared that Mr. Brennan has “a history that calls into question his objectivity and credibility.”
Agreed.
However: time to fight back! they say. Let’s watch one of these Hoovering IEs try to justify their clearance as the lunatic silver threads of liquid spittle are flung all about the CNN studio. Even the Floor Director was disgusted, and the janitor was certainly less than pleased upon cleanup later that night. Those camera lenses are expensive.
Good old Phil Mudd. A liar then and a liar now. We’ll get back to him. Trust me.
THE TRUTH COMES OUT ABOUT HOW PROFITABLE THE SECURITY CLEARANCES ARE
by Simon Daly
It has become more and more apparent that it was a good move to take away the security clearances. Hannity talked about the book “Compromised,” on his radio show. Peter Schweizer, President of The Government Accountability and Institute, gave the forward for the book by Seamus Bruner. In the Forward Schweizer clued us all into how intelligence agents, like Comey and Mueller, were working the system. But this was not meager connections. They made millions.
But wait. Isn’t it Phil Mudd who insisted, at the highest decibel levels possible, that he receives no remuneration from the government? And wasn’t it Paris Dennard who continued to insist that wasn’t necessarily the case? With, ahem, private contracts?
Yes to both. Private contracts.
“James Comey’s net worth has skyrocketed 4000 percent. By the time he left [the Department of Justice] in 2005 and came back in 2013, Comey made 6.1 million dollars after [Robert] Mueller granted his employer, Lockheed Martin — the largest contractor in history — a billion-dollar boondoggle. Under Mueller’s direction, the FBI granted multiple spy contracts to Lockheed Martin while Comey was advising them on the legality of their operations. Comey also received another six million dollars working for one of the world’s largest hedge funds and an additional $500,000 for unused vacation time.”
“Mueller cashed in, as well. In 2013, when Comey took over the FBI while Mueller left to start consulting at a consulting firm, he made more than $3.5 million dollars in about a year, giving speeches and representing clients who had previously enriched his FBI director; clients like the world’s most profitable spy corporation.”
But wait. Let’s visit Hypocrisy Central for a moment.
“Two of Mueller’s former clients are cooperating with the special counsel, Facebook [and] Apple. Mueller’s former client, the paragon of privacy Apple Inc. provided the special counsel with access to Paul Manafort’s iCloud despite making a public spectacle protecting the San Bernardino terrorist’s privacy.
Doesn’t one hand wash another’s back once government service is concluded? Of course. It’s the Gravy Train. “The spice must flow.”
“Jim Comey and Robert Mueller are very close friends,” said Schweizer. “They met each other in the 1990s at the Justice Department and have really been sort of this tag team from the beginning. When one of them is in the private sector and one is in government, they steer contracts in the direction of people they’re affiliated with and vice-versa. It’s a very troubling story that shows the revolving door applies every bit as much to these gentlemen, and crony capitalism applies every bit as much as it does to other people in Washington.”
Security clearances are under the gun like never before. Thank God. Were you aware that roughly 5 million people have various federal security clearances in the US? And mustn’t you ask: just how many of those are totally unwarranted?
Trump, intelligence officials clash over ‘golden ticket’ security clearances
by Ben Wolfgang and Guy Taylor
They’re prestigious, fiercely held and often highly valuable — and they’re under the microscope like never before.
Led by President Trump, critics have zeroed in on the proliferation of security clearances and cast them as “golden tickets” to high-paying jobs and positions of power and influence, holding them up as shining examples of the Washington carousel that allows the most exclusive establishment insiders to benefit from their status long after they have left public service.
Mr. Trump’s defenders say past administrations have gone far beyond the pale in their broadsides against his policies and have leveraged their security clearances to make partisan critiques seem more authoritative.
The offended IEs fire back.
Former officials say that any effort to systematically revoke the clearances of such political opponents could undermine the continuity of defense and national security contacts by upending an institutional memory pipeline.
But some concede that those who hang on to their clearances can gain “vast sums of money,” and there is a growing push in the White House and on Capitol Hill to overhaul the system.
“I think there’s no doubt that security clearances are a golden ticket in D.C.,” said Rick Manning, president of the conservative nonprofit group Americans for Limited Government, who argued in favor of revoking Mr. Brennan’s security clearance.
“But it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “People who get security clearances have earned them. The challenge we have right now, however, is that there are some former Obama administration officials, including Brennan, who seem to be using information they have access to for partisan political purposes and to carry out score-settling.”
D’ya think? And I would ask, what happened to ol’ BZ the microsecond he left the embracing arms of the FBI or the US Marshal? That’s right. His security clearances were de-rezzed right out of the system along with every password or access point he once possessed. AND RIGHTLY SO. It’s a need toknowvs a need to share. My needs had ceased. Properly. Rightfully. Logically.
White House National Security Adviser John R. Bolton suggested recently that he offers a personal example of how a clearance can benefit an individual and a company.
“In my case, my clearance was active at the time when I was a member of a board of directors of a company that did classified work for the government and it was felt important that some of the directors be able to access that information,” he told ABC News on Sunday. “There were other times when I was a civilian that my classification was dormant, my security clearance was dormant, and I think that’s appropriate, too.”
Mr. Bolton suggested a review of the entire system of deciding who has access to sensitive information. High-level officials also have said the approval and review processes take entirely too long.
There’s another serious problem.
“When John Brennan makes unsubstantiated allegations like Vladimir Putin could blackmail the president of the United States, and he says those things while he’s still holding a top-secret clearance, foreign spies upon whom the U.S. intelligence community relies to steal secrets on our behalf … might assume Brennan knows something the rest of us do not,” said Daniel Hoffman, a retired CIA senior clandestine services officer. “In my view, Brennan has been wildly irresponsible, but it would be [up to] the security experts to determine whether he, in fact, mishandled classified [information] or should no longer be trusted with classified information.”
Senator Richard Burr asked Brennan to put up or shut up.
Sen. Richard Burr, who leads the Senate Selective Committee on Intelligence, issued a sharp rebuke of former CIA Director John Brennan, saying that if he has evidence of Russian collusion he should have presented it to his panel.
The North Carolina Republican’s statement was remarkable in that he has adhered to a strict nonpartisan approach as the committee pursues a more than yearlong investigation into Russia’s hacking Democratic Party computers and other interference.
After President Trump revoked Mr. Brennan’s security clearance Thursday, the ex-top spy claimed there is no doubt candidate Trump colluded with the Kremlin. On Twitter, Mr. Brennan has accused the president of committing felonies, such as treason. He has asserted Mr. Trump is being blackmailed by Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Burr suggested Mr. Brennan has become a partisan ex-director whose statements are “purely political and based on conjecture.”
Even James Clapper wasn’t a lockstep friend of Brennan. From TheHill.com:
Clapper: Brennan’s rhetoric is becoming an issue
by Megan Keller
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Sunday that he thinks former CIA Director John Brennan‘s rhetoric is becoming an issue “in and of itself.”
“John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself,” Clapper said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “John is subtle like a freight train and he’s gonna say what’s on his mind.”
Clapper’s comments came in response to an op-ed penned by Brennan in The New York Times this week, in which he wrote that President Trumpcolluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
Clapper said he empathized with Brennan, but voiced concerns for Brennan’s fiery rhetoric toward Trump and his administration.
“I think that the common denominator among all of us [in the intelligence community] that have been speaking up … is genuine concern about the jeopardy and threats to our institutions,” Clapper said.
But isn’t it odd how the “17 intelligence agencies” that came out against Trump tried to brand themselves as “apolitical” and “unbiased” when, in fact, they were the most politically biased? To the point where even Clapper is having misgivings?
Then we have the issue of James Clapper himself leaking material to CNN, his “new” host network upon retirement. From the WashingtonTimes.com:
Obama DNI Clapper leaked dossier story on Trump: House intel report
by Rowan Scarborough, 4-28-18
James Clapper, while the nation’s highest ranking intelligence officer, leaked to CNN sleazy anti-Trump information contained in the Christoper Steele dossier that was privately briefed to the president-elect, according to a new House intelligence report.
Now a paid CNN analyst, Mr. Clapper had denied he was the leaker. He is an ardent Trump critic and has predicted his downfall.
President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, Mr. Clapper admitted to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in private testimony that he briefed CNN’s Jake Tapper in early January 2017.
He had pressed FBI Director James Comey to present to Mr. Trump at Trump Tower on Jan. 6, 2017 the dossier’s salacious parts, according to Mr. Comey’s own memos.
CNN then ran a story on Jan. 10, 2017 about the briefing which said the Russians own compromising material on the new president concerning prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.
The report gave the dossier instant legitimacy. Its unverified charges have dogged the Trump White House ever since.
A newly declassified report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections reveals that former intelligence chief James Clapper lied to Congress about information he shared with CNN on the infamous Steele dossier.
Buried within a newly declassified congressional report on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections is a shocking revelation: former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper not only leaked information about the infamous Steele dossier and high-level government briefings about it to CNN, he also may have lied to Congress about the matter.
In one of the findings within the 253-page report, the House intelligence committee wrote that Clapper leaked details of a dossier briefing given to then-President-elect Donald Trump to CNN’s Jake Tapper, lied to Congress about the leak, and was rewarded with a CNN contract a few months later.
Back to John Brennan. Remember the Brennan v Feinstein wars? Where Brennan insisted his CIA didn’t spy on Congress? Except that, uh, it did?
Inquiry by C.I.A. Affirms It Spied on Senate Panel
by Mark Mazzetti & Carl Hulse
WASHINGTON — An internal investigation by the C.I.A. has found that its officers penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee in preparing its damning report on the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program.
The report by the agency’s inspector general also found that C.I.A. officers read the emails of the Senate investigators and sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department based on false information, according to a summary of findings made public on Thursday. One official with knowledge of the report’s conclusions said the investigation also discovered that the officers created a false online identity to gain access on more than one occasion to computers used by the committee staff.
The inspector general’s account of how the C.I.A. secretly monitored a congressional committee charged with supervising its activities touched off angry criticism from members of the Senate and amounted to vindication for Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s Democratic chairwoman, who excoriated the C.I.A. in March when the agency’s monitoring of committee investigators became public.
Demorats lost confidence in Brennan way back in 2014? What happened since then? Oh yeah: Trump.
But anger among lawmakers grew throughout the day. Leaving a nearly three-hour briefing about the report in a Senate conference room, members of both parties called for the C.I.A. officers to be held accountable, and some said they had lost confidence in Mr. Brennan’s leadership. “This is a serious situation and there are serious violations,” said Mr. Chambliss, generally a staunch ally of the intelligence community. He called for the C.I.A. employees to be “dealt with very harshly.”
How soon we forget. What happened to Brennan? Nothing.
Back to James Clapper. I’m going to be honest and clear, the two things I value most. James Clapper lied baldly, nakedly, abjectly, to the American public and to Congress. Does anyone remember:
By the way, this is classic, textbook body language displayed by Clapper to indicate lying. His right hand is on top of his head. He refuses to look Ron Wyden in the face as he answers, glances down and up, and rubs his head as an affectation. You could — and instructors do — utilize this video in classes on interview and interrogation. As in: here’s the quintessential example of public lying.
Here is another example of James Clapper lying in March of 2017 because, in retrospect, we know this to be false because of Flynn, Stephanopoulos, Manafort and Cohen prosecutions, as in: how’d they get the information otherwise?
Anyone besides me starting to see something of a thread or a pattern or a trend here? Perhaps why I presented the old “contrast and compare” back-and-forth method used by my various professors in college?
Now let’s go back to Phil Mudd. Remember when Paris Dennard said “it’s profitable for them after they leave government because if you have a security clearance your contracts and your consulting pay you more money because of the access you have.”
Mudd then testalies and says he has no contracts with the government that pay him anything. Really? Mudd completely deflects and fails to answer Dennard’s question. I began to think: here we have the meat of the matter. Mudd’s meal tickets are being threatened: his power, connections and cash.
A few facts. Mudd joined the CIA in 1985. He was an analyst, and then worked for the CTC in 1992. In 2005, Mudd was appointed by then-FBI Director Robert Mueller to the FBI’s newly-created National Security Branch as Deputy Director. See the connection?
Mueller and Mudd worked together a little over four years. He was later promoted to the office of Senior Intelligence Adviser at the FBI. He served in that position until he retired from government service in March of 2010. All due his good friend Robert Mueller.
So I did a little digging. Remember when Phil Mudd says he doesn’t get a government dime for anything? Number one, I don’t really believe that for a moment, and number two? I wonder what he does now after retirement?
What if I were to tell you that Phil Mudd created his own security consulting firm called — wait for it — Mudd Management, and that he is its president, would you be shocked? From his Mudd Management bio page at PhilMudd.com:
Mr. Mudd is the President of Mudd Management, a company specializing in security consulting; analytic training; and public speaking about security issues.
Mudd also sells T-shirts. Sort of like the bodega/segunda of retired intelligence officers. You can get your security consulting as well as T-shirts that say:
So did Phil Mudd lie? How can I count the ways? His very checkbook depends desperately on holding onto his security clearance. His security clearance is monetized. He loses cash, power and prestige if its ripped from his cloying little hands.
Privately, Intel Officials Back Shutting Out Brennan, Clapper
President Trump has been criticized for politicizing the intelligence community by threatening to strip the security clearances of former top officials including John Brennan and James Clapper. But numerous past and present senior intelligence officials say that the Obama administration started the politicization — and that revoking the clearances of those who abuse the privilege for partisan purposes may help right the ship.
“As is often the case with the Trump administration, the rollout of the policy is bad, but the idea driving the policy is sound,” said one senior intelligence official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke to RealClearInvestigations only on condition of anonymity. “Under some Obama-era intelligence chiefs, intelligence was used as a political weapon. We need to root that out, not reward it.”
Thank you very much.
But: shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone that most of the intelligence community secretly thinks that Comey, Brennan and Clapper are outright boobs that are tarnishing the profession.
Take away security clearances from those who retired and/or fired or resign? Hell yes. All of them. Make everyone prove that they have a need to know again.
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.
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:
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency
National Security Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Department of State – Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Department of Homeland Security – Office of Intelligence and Analysis
Drug Enforcement Administration – Office of National Security Intelligence
Department of the Treasury – Office of Intelligence and Analysis
Department of Energy – Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
National Reconnaissance Office
Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
Army Military Intelligence
Office of Naval Intelligence
Marine Corps Intelligence
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.
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.
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.
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:
Is this Chairman Nunes conducting illegal, biased or shady activities for Trump, perhaps at the behest of the Russians, or
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.
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.
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.
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?
And it couldn’t come at the worst time for the LDAMM.
So did Phil Mudd lie? How can I count the ways? His very checkbook depends desperately on holding onto his security clearance. His security clearance is monetized. He loses cash, power and prestige if its ripped from his cloying little hands.
First, from