Tag: russiagate

The “17 Intelligence Community Agencies” Canard on Russian Interference

CANARD–a false or unfounded report or story; especially :  a fabricated report. That’s how Merriam Dictionary defines the term and it certainly seems to be a dandy word to describe the claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential election and that the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agree.

As John Durham’s investigation of the origins of Russia gate continues to chug along, I thought it would be helpful to revisit the huge canard–i.e., that Russia tried to tip the 2016 election to Trump.

I nominate Hillary Clinton as The Queen of the Canard. We now know, thanks to John Durham’s indictment of Hillary’s lawyer, Michael Sussmann, that Hillary and her campaign adopted and implemented a political smear in the summer of 2016 to portray Donald Trump as a proxy of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. This lie did not stop with the election of Trump in November 2016. In May 2017, during an interview by Walt Mossberg at the CODE conference, Hillary still was eager to feed the lie that Russia ensured Donald Trump’s victory and  cited “17” U.S. intelligence agencies as her evidence:

Hillary: Now, the question is, where and how did the Russians get into this? And I think it’s a very important question. So, I assume that a lot of people here may have — and if you haven’t, I hope you will — read the declassified report by the Intelligence community that came out in early January.

TRENDING: EXCLUSIVE: Coomer Deposition Released! Verifies Antifa Facebook Posts, Extreme Left Bias

Mossberg: This is 17 agencies …

Hillary: Seventeen agencies, all in agreement, which I know from my experience as a Senator and Secretary of State, is hard to get. They concluded with high confidence that the Russians ran an extensive information war campaign against my campaign, to influence voters in the election. They did it through paid advertising we think, they did it through false news sites, they did it through these thousand agents, they did it through machine learning, which you know, kept spewing out this stuff over and over again. The algorithms that they developed. So that was the conclusion. And I think it’s fair to ask, how did that actually influence the campaign? And how did they know what messages to deliver?

Hillary was knowingly liying, but she could feign fconfusion about this supposed fact given by pointing to the joint statement issued 7 October 2016 by the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of Homeland Security:

The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.

But this was a lie. It was not a legitimate judgement of the U.S. intelligence community and did not reflect the views of 17 separate U.S. intelligence agencies. Why?

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NYT Gives Russia-Gate CPR – WSJ Pronounces It Dead

Special Council John Durham’s indictment of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann met differing reactions Friday from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Those who may still think it was Russia that “interfered” with the 2016 election owe it to themselves to read the Sussmann indictment/charging document.

Spoiler: It was the very top officials of the Clinton campaign aided by a lawyer crooked as a hound’s hind leg that interfered in 2016. The tricks tried by Sussmann and associates might make even GOP “strategists” like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove blush.

One must recall that back in 2016 the Clinton campaign folks and their well-heeled coterie of attorneys were sure Mrs. Clinton would win. As the Sussmann charging document shows, there was some expectation of high-level posting in the “incoming” Clinton administration and – alas – absolutely no thought of indictment. This goes a long way to explain the brazenness of it all.

As discredited former FBI Director James Comey put it in his apologia-sans-apology book, A Higher Loyalty, “I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president …” Needless to say, a Clinton presidency would confer automatic immunity on key campaign miscreants and lawyers like Sussmann. Worse still for them, it appears likely that others of their breed may also find themselves criminally referred to the Department of Justice.

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Efforts to Spread Trump Russia Hoax Went Beyond FBI, CIA to Senate

The efforts to promote the Trump-Russia Collusion hoax didn’t just exist in the FBI, CIA and State Department, but the Senate as well.

According to a new memo, under the late Sen. John McCain, the Armed Services Committee  engaged a former FBI official and his nonprofit to produce a report on the matter, per Just the News. 

The Senate committee endured a secret battle in federal court this summer to quash a subpoena that would have forced Thomas Kirk McConnell to hand over documents and testify about his dealings with former FBI analyst Dan Jones and his nonprofit, the Democracy Integrity Project.

Indeed, the progressive mega-donor was one of the financial backers of the Democracy Integrity Project, which raised more than $7 million in donations to pursue allegations of foreign interference in elections.

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‘Our Kids Carpooled Together’: How Old Friends In High Places Assembled The Russia Collusion Hoax

The indictment of Washington attorney Michael Sussman — accused of lying to the FBI in order to smear Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign — reveals the ace up the sleeve of high-powered Democrats. It’s a card they played time and again to advance the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory: friends in high places.

They used friends in law enforcement to launch secret investigations; they used friends in the federal government to broaden those investigations; and they used friends in the media to spread the word about Trump and his organization being under investigation.The Russia fiasco metastasized in large part because those involved in advancing the false allegations had important connections. They used friendships with powerful federal officials to encourage investigations against team Trump. Those targeted by Sussmann and others were unabashed outsiders, and as such lacked the sort of connections the insiders exploited so adroitly.

Sussmann was a partner at the Washington law firm Perkins Coie in 2016, which represented the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. But, according to the indictment handed down by Special Counsel John Durham last week, when he met with the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, to allege that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians, Sussmann claimed he was representing another client. The indictment alleges this was false.

Securing a meeting with the FBI’s top lawyer can’t have been easy. But for Sussmann it was.

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Judge in case of anti-Trump mudslinger is married to attorney for ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page

Last week, the special counsel appointed to oversee the probe into the FBI’s investigation of former president Donald Trump indicted Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Republicans and Trump allies are optimistic about the latest development in John Durham’s investigation but are still concerned that Attorney General Merrick Garland might halt the investigation to protect allies and even the president himself. 

FBI notes appear to suggest that as vice president, Joe Biden played a role in the Democratic Party project to smear Trump as a Russian asset by raising the obscure, disused, 18th century statute the Logan Act as a possible vehicle for prosecuting Michael Flynn for speaking with the Russian ambassador to Washington — even after FBI case agents had cleared Trump’s incoming national security adviser of wrongdoing. 

And now Republicans are raising concerns that the judge appointed to the Sussmann case has too many conflicts of interest to preside over it fairly. 

Current and former officials say that federal District Court Judge Christopher Cooper’s professional and personal relationships with top Democrats and figures behind the FBI’s Trump investigation should force his recusal. Cooper’s wife, for instance, represents disgraced FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who oversaw the FBI’s Trump probe.

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Durham Indictment Shows Clinton Likely Worked With Top Google Exec To Fabricate Russia Hoax, Says Google Whistleblower

In the bombshell felony indictment made public this week, Special Prosecutor John Durham alleged that agents of the 2016 Clinton campaign knowingly concocted false allegations that President Donald Trump was receiving secret hi-tech communications from the Kremlin-linked Alfa Bank. The Durham indictment further alleged that Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann intentionally spread that hoax to the FBI, Democrat-friendly media and another undisclosed federal agency under false pretenses.

Moreover, the Durham indictment identifies the mastermind of the operation to create spread and spread the Alfa Bank Hoax as a Big Tech executive, who allegedly “exploited” privately-held data of several large tech companies to create a false “narrative” about Trump-Russia collusion. This person may be Eric Schmidt, the former Executive Chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

The conspiracy theory that Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign was secretly communicating with Russia-based Alfa Bank through a secret server has been an obsession of Anti-Trump circles for years, despite being debunked by both the FBI and the Mueller Investigation. Proponents still insist that, despite being repeatedly bound baseless, federal authorities have simply failed to muster the technical expertise to expose the dastardly Russian plot.

However, according to the Durham indictment, the team which initially drafted the white paper outlining the conspiracy theory knew full well that it was nonsense – but disseminated it anyway to craft a “narrative” to trigger a federal investigation and publicly undermine President Trump.

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The Indictment of Hillary Clinton’s Lawyer is an Indictment of the Russiagate Wing of U.S. Media

A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign was indicted on Wednesday with one felony count of lying to the FBI about a fraudulent Russiagate story he helped propagate. Michael Sussman was charged with the crime by Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by former President Trump to investigate possible crimes committed as part of the Russiagate investigation and whose work is now overseen and approved by Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Sussman’s indictment, approved by Garland, is the second allegation of criminal impropriety regarding Russiagate’s origins. In January, Durham secured a guilty plea from an FBI agent, Kevin Clinesmith, for lying to the FISA court and submitting an altered email in order to spy on former Trump campaign official Carter Page.

The law firm where Sussman is a partner, Perkins Coie, is a major player in Democratic Party politics. One of its partners at the time of the alleged crime, Marc Elias, has become a liberal social media star after having served as General Counsel to the Clinton 2016 campaign. Elias abruptly announced that he was leaving the firm three weeks ago, and thus far no charges have been filed against him.

The lie that Sussman allegedly told the FBI occurred in the context of his mid-2016 attempt to spread a completely fictitious story: that there was a “secret server” discovered by unnamed internet experts that allowed the Trump organization to communicate with Russia-based Alfa Bank. In the context of the 2016 election, in which the Clinton campaign had elevated Trump’s alleged ties to the Kremlin to center stage, this secret communication channel was peddled by Sussman — both to the FBI and to Clinton-friendly journalists — as smoking-gun proof of nefarious activities between Trump and the Russians. Less than two months prior to the 2016 election, Sussman secured a meeting at the FBI’s headquarters with the Bureau’s top lawyer, James Baker, and provided him data which he claimed proved this communication channel.

It was in the course of trying to lure the FBI into investigating this scam conspiracy theory when Sussman allegedly lied to Baker, by concealing the fact — outright denying — that he was peddling the story in his role as lawyer for the Hillary Clinton campaign as well as a lawyer for a “tech executive” hoping to be appointed as the top cybersecurity official in the soon-to-be-inaugurated Clinton administration. Sussman’s claims that he was just acting as a concerned private citizen were negated by numerous documents obtained by Durham’s investigation, including billing records where he charged the Clinton campaign for his work in trying to disseminate this story, including his meeting with Baker at FBI’s headquarters.

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House Republicans Say Schiff Is ‘Blocking’ The Release Of Dozens Of Secret Russia Transcripts

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee called on Rep. Adam Schiff Tuesday to release 53 transcripts of interviews from the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe, saying that the California Democrat has blocked the release of the documents.

The Intelligence Committee voted to release the transcripts in September 2018. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reviewed the transcripts to redact all classified information and completed that process in May 2019. A spokesperson for the office told The Daily Caller News Foundation on May 31, 2019, that the review would be completed “very soon.”

But Schiff, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, has withheld the release of the documents for reasons he has yet to explain.

The transcripts include interviews with Obama administration officials, FBI officials who worked on the Trump-Russia probe, current and former Trump administration officials, and individuals who have insight into the infamous Steele dossier.

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Same FBI That Chased Russia Collusion Hoax for Years Covered Up Sexual Abuse of USA Gymnasts

This story is awful on so many levels that it should probably come with a trigger warning.

The public has known about the many and horrific crimes of former USA Gymnastics team physician Larry Nassar for a few years now. What the public has largely been unaware of is the role that the Federal Bureau of Investigation played in attempting to prevent us from knowing about any of it.

The Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON—In a litany of reports and documents, the four women who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday have for years been referred to by initials or numbers: “Athlete B,” “Gymnast 1”,  “Athlete A,” “Gymnast 3.”

On Wednesday, the women—elite gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman—gave U.S. senators an emotional and unsparing account of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee failed to investigate or act when they emerged as potential victims of sexual assault by former national team doctor Larry Nassar.

“I can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you, sharing these comments,” said Biles, one of the most decorated gymnasts in her sport’s history. She then paused in tears, before adding: “To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar but I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.”

Let us refresh our memories on the exact nature of the FBI’s mission. This is from the official FBI website:

The mission of the FBI is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

That’s it. A mission statement that is completely free of any ambiguity.

Also, one that the agency seems to have almost abandoned in recent years.

In her opening statement (which I will provide in full at the end of the post), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) had zero you-know-whats to give when offering her brutal assessment of the Bureau’s (as well as the coaches’ and Team USA officials’) behavior in the case, saying: “Every single person in authority who turned a blind eye to these young athletes’ allegations is complicit in Nassar’s crime, and each one of them should be considered a predator.”

To say that the FBI has lost its way would involve taking a trip to someplace far on the other side of understatement. The Bureau now functions more like a highly politicized domestic attack dog than a security agency. The FBI had already been involved with concocting and “investigating” the bogus Trump/Russia collusion leftist fantasy for a year when it finally got around to documenting the very real allegations of sexual assault against Nassar.

We never seem to stop finding out reasons why James Comey — who was head of the FBI when all of this was happening — should be in jail. As of this writing, he is still a much-revered darling of the same people who tell us to “believe all women” in cases of sexual abuse.

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Ben Rhodes’ Book Proves Obama Officials’ Lies, and His Own, About Edward Snowden and Russia

Ever since Edward Snowden received asylum from Russia in 2013, Obama officials have repeatedly maligned his motives and patriotism by citing his “choice” to take up residence there. It has long been clear that this narrative was a lie: Snowden, after meeting with journalists in Hong Kong, intended only to transit through Moscow and then Havana on his way to seek asylum in Latin America. He was purposely prevented from leaving Russia — trapped in the Moscow airport — by the very Obama officials who then cynically weaponized his presence there to imply he was a civil-liberties hypocrite for “choosing” to live in such a repressive country or, even worse, a Kremlin agent or Russian spy.

But now we have absolute, definitive proof that Snowden never intended to stay in Russia but was deliberately prevented from leaving by the same Obama officials who exploited the predicament which they created. The proof was supplied unintentionally in the memoir of one of Obama’s senior national security advisers, Ben Rhodes, entitled The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. It is hard to overstate how dispositively Rhodes’ own book proves that Obama officials generally, and Rhodes specifically, lied blatantly and cavalierly to the public about what happened: a level of sustained and conscious lying that can be explained only by sociopathy.

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