10:00 AM 5/19/2019 - #TheJusticeDept @TheJusticeDept #FBI, @FBI: #PurgeFBI #PurgeFBIAlways #Purge, #PurgeMore, and #PurgeAgain! #InvestigateTheInvestigators #InvestigateFBI! #ReformFBI! #ProsecuteFBICriminals! #ImprisonFBICriminals! - by mikenov
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"Strzok joins the ranks of more than 25 FBI and DOJ officials who have been forced out, largely in disgrace. Here is a list":
theepochtimes.com/strzok-joins-l…
theepochtimes.com/strzok-joins-l…
#Justice #FBI pic.twitter.com/DCmQX3PVAN
Posted by 
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 10:13am
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 10:13am
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theepochtimes.com/strzok-joins-l…
#Purge! #PurgeFBI! #PurgeDOJ! #PurgeMore! #PurgeAgain!
Let the brainless incompetent treacherous nincompoops beg on streets!!!
@TheJusticeDept @FBI #TheJusticeDept #FBI #IntelligenceCommunity #AGBarr
@Comey #InvestigateTheInvestigators #SaveAmerica! #Trump pic.twitter.com/CXnyxHCR88
#Purge! #PurgeFBI! #PurgeDOJ! #PurgeMore! #PurgeAgain!
Let the brainless incompetent treacherous nincompoops beg on streets!!!
@TheJusticeDept @FBI #TheJusticeDept #FBI #IntelligenceCommunity #AGBarr
@Comey #InvestigateTheInvestigators #SaveAmerica! #Trump pic.twitter.com/CXnyxHCR88
Posted by mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 10:05am
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 10:05am
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firings and demotions at the tops of the FBI and DOJ - Google Search google.com/search?newwind…
#Purge, #PurgeMore, and #PurgeAgain!
#Purge, #PurgeMore, and #PurgeAgain!
Posted by mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:52am
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:52am
Trump News Review – Saved Stories
Saved Stories – None  |
|---|
| Donald Trump just got backed into a no-win corner https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/no-win-corner-trump-backed-don/18077 … |
Donald Trump just got backed into a no-win corner https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/no-win-corner-trump-backed-don/18077 …
|
| The real reason William Barr will end up behind bars https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-real-reason-william-barr-will-end-up-behind-bars/18060 … |
The real reason William Barr will end up behind bars https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-real-reason-william-barr-will-end-up-behind-bars/18060 …
|
| #Barr Reviewing #Intelligence Gathering Before #FBI‘s #Probe into #Trump bit.ly/2LQzmuI via @BreitbartNews #TrumpInvestigations |
#Barr Reviewing #Intelligence Gathering Before #FBI‘s #Probe into #Trump bit.ly/2LQzmuI via @BreitbartNews
#TrumpInvestigations
Posted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 8:55am |
| RT @FBI: The FBI joins the nation in honoring local, state, and federal law enforcement officers—including our own agents—who have made the… |
The FBI joins the nation in honoring local, state, and federal law enforcement officers—including our own agents—who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. #PoliceWeek2019 #LEOKA @NLEOMF fbi.gov/news/stories/n… pic.twitter.com/XjcaD47yEc
   
Posted by
 FBI on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 9:40pm
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:26am
518 likes, 171 retweets
|
| RT @FBIOmaha: During #PoliceWeek2019 and throughout the year, we honor #FBI Special Agents and professional staff who lost their lives in t… |
During #PoliceWeek2019 and throughout the year, we honor #FBI Special Agents and professional staff who lost their lives in the line of duty. Their dedication and service will not be forgotten. pic.twitter.com/btcRrxYgwO
Posted by
 FBIOmaha on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 6:43pm
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:26am
284 likes, 59 retweets
|
| RT @TheJusticeDept: GozNym Cyber-Criminal Network Operating out of Europe Targeting American Entities Dismantled in International Operation… |
GozNym Cyber-Criminal Network Operating out of Europe Targeting American Entities Dismantled in International Operation justice.gov/opa/pr/goznym-… pic.twitter.com/WBcJvtCRHP
Posted by
 TheJusticeDept on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 1:37pm
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:27am
344
343 likes, 199 retweets
|
| RT @Europol: Europol worked with EU Member States and international partners to dismantle the criminal network which was using GozNym malwa… |
Europol worked with EU Member States and international partners to dismantle the criminal network which was using GozNym malware to steal money from over 41 000 victims worldwide. Read our press release here: europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/…
Posted by
 Europol on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 12:05pm
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:27am
292 likes, 214 retweets
|
| RT @FBI: Help #FBI & #lawenforcement partners locate 5 Russians, who are #wanted for their alleged roles in a sophisticated computer hackin… |
Help #FBI & #lawenforcement partners locate 5 Russians, who are #wanted for their alleged roles in a sophisticated computer hacking campaign that used GozNym malware to steal millions from victims in the US, primarily businesses & financial institutions. ow.ly/37ya50ueF2Fpic.twitter.com/8cfUSg9uT4
Posted by
FBI on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 12:38pm
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:27am
581
580 likes, 597 retweets
|
| RT @FBI: #HappeningNow #FBI joins law enforcement partners to announce a major law enforcement action against a transnational organized #cy… |
#HappeningNow #FBI joins law enforcement partners to announce a major law enforcement action against a transnational organized #cyber crime network. twitter.com/Europol/status…
Posted by
FBI on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 12:27pm
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 9:28am
720 likes, 321 retweets
|
| The Mueller report dissolves into a three ring circus https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/three-ring-mueller-report/18066 … |
The Mueller report dissolves into a three ring circus https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/three-ring-mueller-report/18066 …
|
| theepochtimes.com/strzok-joins-l… #Purge! #PurgeFBI! #PurgeDOJ! #PurgeMore! #PurgeAgain! Let the brainless incompetent treacherous nincompoops beg on streets!!! @TheJusticeDept @FBI #TheJusticeDept #FBI #IntelligenceCommunity #AGBarr @Comey #InvestigateTheInvestigators #SaveAmerica! #Trump pic.twitter.com/CXnyxHCR88 |
theepochtimes.com/strzok-joins-l…
#Purge! #PurgeFBI! #PurgeDOJ! #PurgeMore! #PurgeAgain! Let the brainless incompetent treacherous nincompoops beg on streets!!! @TheJusticeDept @FBI #TheJusticeDept #FBI #IntelligenceCommunity #AGBarr @Comey #InvestigateTheInvestigators #SaveAmerica! #Trump pic.twitter.com/CXnyxHCR88
Posted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 10:05am |
| “Strzok joins the ranks of more than 25 FBI and DOJ officials who have been forced out, largely in disgrace. Here is a list”: theepochtimes.com/strzok-joins-l… THE NEWS AND TIMES newsandtimes.org fbireform.com trumpandtrumpism.com fbinewsreview.org #Justice #FBI pic.twitter.com/DCmQX3PVAN |
“Strzok joins the ranks of more than 25 FBI and DOJ officials who have been forced out, largely in disgrace. Here is a list”:
theepochtimes.com/strzok-joins-l…
#Justice #FBI pic.twitter.com/DCmQX3PVAN
Posted by
mikenovon Sunday, May 19th, 2019 10:13am |
| RT @LAS_Trucking: @JillWineBanks If the Dems do vote to Impeach Trump for all his bullshit, Trump would just brag about it too his base . W… |
@JillWineBanks If the Dems do vote to Impeach Trump for all his bullshit, Trump would just brag about it too his base .
Without the Senate GOPs help their is no removeing Trump from Office, Impeachment would be nothing more than a gesture by the Dems, #WE #MUST #VOTE #TRUMP #OUT #OF #OFFICE pic.twitter.com/0YERdlPomA 
Posted by
 LAS_Trucking on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 11:44am
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 12:00pm
1 like, 1 retweet
|
RT @ThaREALNarcid: @JAMsMa @VeldaMcConnell2 #LockThemUp #LockHerUp #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder #LiberalTears  #MAGA #TrumpTrain2020 #Trum… |
@JAMsMa @VeldaMcConnell2 #LockThemUp #LockHerUp #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder #LiberalTears
#MAGA #TrumpTrain2020 #TrumpTrain  Hit that  if you liked & #FolloForFolloBack #United #AmericaFirst behind #Trump #4life #ProLife pic.twitter.com/San6gXVfiU
Posted by
 ThaREALNarcid on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 11:43am
Retweeted by
mikenov on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 12:00pm
1 like, 2 retweets
|
| RT @republic_states: @DJSway1 @DevinCow @seanhannity #NoCollusion The #Delusion is over! No #ObstructionOfJustice unless you are #HRC and… |
@DJSway1 @DevinCow @seanhannity #NoCollusion The #Delusion is over!
No #ObstructionOfJustice unless you are #HRC and destroying devices with a #Hammer and wiping clean the #servers “like with a cloth” what a condescending bitch she is #HangHillaryNow #Trump is #winning and you ppl still think #Bernie is a god pic.twitter.com/zKW9w5uBE6 |
authorities will explain how the cybercrime network was dismantled. Press conference starts in one hour, follow it here:
Read the whole story
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M.N.: Throw out the Incompetent Nincompoops!
Post - M.N.: Throw out the Incompetent Nincompoops!!!
Incompetent, Brainless, Know-Nothing and Do-Nothing,
Treacherous Obamanites!!!
Incompetent, Brainless, Know-Nothing and Do-Nothing,
Treacherous Obamanites!!!
Note: A new post – A Listing of Participants – provides a far more comprehensive listing of various players.
This post remains useful in its description of certain individuals – specifically John Carlin & Mary McCord.
There have been numerous resignations and demotions at the FBI and DOJ.
Department of Justice (Non-FBI):
- John Carlin – Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division – announcedresignation on September 27, 2016 after filing the Government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on September 26, 2016. The filing does not disclose known FISA Abuses. Carlin is aware NSA Rogers is conducting a compliance review which will uncover the FISA Abuse. The 2016 certifications are scheduled for Court approval on October 26, 2016. Trump surveillance originated under Carlin’s tenure.
- Sally Yates – Deputy Attorney General & Acting Attorney General (replacing Loretta Lynch – 10 days) – fired January 30, 2017. Complicit in Flynn Surveillance and surveillance of Trump Campaign.
- Mary McCord – Acting Assistant Attorney General – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division (replacing John Carlin) – announced resignation on April 17, 2017 – Left on May 11, 2017. Complicit in Flynn Surveillance and surveillance of Trump Campaign.
- Bruce Ohr – Associate Deputy Attorney General – demoted twice. Stripped of Associate Deputy Attorney General title on December 6, 2017. Removed as head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force January 8, 2018. Unofficial liaison between Fusion GPS and FBI/DOJ. Wife worked at Fusion. Long-standing ties to both Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS.
- David Laufman – DOJ National Security Division, Deputy Asst. Attorney General in charge of counterintelligence – resigned on February 7, 2018. Laufman “played a leading role in the Clinton email server and Russian hacking investigations.”
- Rachel Brand – Associate Attorney General – number three official behind Deputy AG Rosenstein – resigned February 9, 2018. Takes top legal position at Walmart. Brand “played a critical role in Congress’ re-authorization” of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
FBI:
- James Comey – FBI Director – fired May 9, 2017. Oversaw all FBI operations – including exoneration of Clinton and Trump-Russia Investigation. Reported to AG Lynch.
- Peter Strzok – Deputy Assistant Director of FBI’s Counterintelligence – forced off Mueller’s team – demoted August 16, 2017 to FBI’s Human Resources. IG Horowitz discovered texts July 27, 2017. Strzok involved in all facets of Clinton exoneration. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group.
- Lisa Page – FBI/DOJ Lawyer – forced off Mueller’s team – demoted August 16, 2017 to parts unknown. IG Horowitz discovered texts July 27, 2017. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group.
- James Baker – FBI General Counsel – demoted and reassigned on December 20, 2017. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group. Senior-most legal counsel at FBI.
- James Rybicki – Chief of Staff to FBI Director James Comey & successor Chris Wray – resigned/forcedout January 23, 2018. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group.
- Andrew McCabe – Deputy FBI Director – on December 23, 2017 announced retirement effective March 22, 2018. Forced to resign on January 29, 2018. Involved in all aspects. Reported to Comey.
- Josh Campbell – Special Assistant to James Comey – resigned on February 2, 2018. Writes op-ed in New York Times on why he is leaving but does not disclose in op-ed that he was Special Assistant to Comey – or that he had been offered lucrative CNN job. Takes job with CNN on February 5, 2018.
- Michael Kortan – FBI Asst. Director Public Affairs – resigned on February 8, 2018 – effective February 15, 2018. Kortan served as assistant director for public affairs, an influential job that controlled media access.
- Bill Priestap – Assistant Director – Head of FBI Counterintelligence – Holds same position. Strzok’s boss – reported directly to McCabe.
My listing is not meant to be exhaustive. I’m sure I’ve missed some meaningful former participants. Feel free to post me on any you think noteworthy.
I have not included former Obama officials who are complicit but left their positions on President Trump’s Inauguration (i.e. Loretta Lynch). Nor have I included participants outside the DOJ/FBI.
Watch List:
- David Bowditch (FBI) – expected to replace Andrew McCabe as Deputy FBI Director. Bowditch’s name is featured in emails and Strzok texts.
- Trisha Anderson (DOJ) – adviser in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, was previously an attorney at Attorney General Eric Holder’s former firm, Covington & Burling. Attended two April 25, 2016 White House meetings with FBI Counsel James Baker and several DOJ FISA lawyers – Tashina Guahar, Christopher Hardee, Brad Wiegmann. Anderson’s name appears in Strzok/Page texts.
- Greg Brower (FBI) – Assistant Director for the Office of Congressional Affairs. FBI’s liaison with Congress. Listed by Devin Nunes as one of the individuals he wants to interview.
- Sally Moyer (FBI) – Attorney. Listed by Devin Nunes as one of the individuals he wants to interview.
- Dana Boente (DOJ/FBI) – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division until January 23, 2018 and the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Replaced Mary McCord. Was briefly Acting Deputy Attorney General until Rosenstein appointed. On January 23, 2018, Boente was named as FBI General Counsel – replacing James Baker who was demoted and reassigned.
- Edward O’Callaghan (DOJ) – became Acting Assistant Attorney General and Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division on January 27, 2018, replacing Dana Boente.
Some may choose to include FBI Director Wray and/or Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein on the Watch List. I have not.
Notice anything odd in the listing of names (excluding Watch List)?
Look at the listing again – and take note of who is still there.
- James Baker – FBI
- Peter Strzok – FBI
- Lisa Page – FBI/DOJ
- Bruce Ohr – DOJ
- Bill Priestap – FBI
Why are these individuals still employed – why haven’t they resigned.
With the exception of Priestap who still holds his original position, they’ve all been demoted into oblivion. Their careers are over – and have been.
There is one likely answer.
I’ve already discussed Priestap extensively:
Where is Bill Priestap – FBI’s Counterintelligence Head. – December 28, 2017
FBI Counterintelligence Head Bill Priestap – A Cooperating Witness – February 11, 2018
In both articles I make the case that Priestap is cooperating with the many investigations.
Baker, Strzok, Page and Ohr are likely cooperating as well. They were caught dead to rights – firmly ensnared in the Inspector General’s Investigation.
They are likely being kept in effective isolation – shielded from the media – and compromised, leaking Congressmen like Adam Schiff.
The Conservative Treehouse has an excellent article on this theory.
Many of the names like Comey, McCabe and Strzok have been extensively covered. I’ll briefly touch on a couple of the lesser known names – John Carlin and Mary McCord.
John Carlin – Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division:
- November 2015-April 2016 – The FBI and DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) use private contractors to access raw FISA information using “To” and “From” FISA-702(16) & “About” FISA-702(17) queries.
- March 2016 – NSA Director Rogers becomes aware of improper access to raw FISA data.
- April 2016 – Rogers orders the NSA compliance officer to run a full audit on 702 NSA compliance.
- April 18 2016 – Rogers shuts down FBI/NSD contractor access to the FISA Search System. The compliance audit continues.
- September 26 2016 – DOJ’s NSD Head John Carlin files the Government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications. The filing does not disclose the FISA Abuses. Carlin is aware of Rogers’ compliance review. The 2016 certifications are scheduled for Court approval on October 26, 2016.
- September 27 2016 – Carlin announces he is resigning. Mary McCord will later assume his position.
- October 15, 2016 – Carlin formally leaves the NSD.
- Mid-October 2016 – DNI Clapper submits a recommendation to the White House that Director Rogers be removed from the NSA.
- October 20 2016 – Rogers is briefed by the NSA compliance officer on the Section 702 NSA compliance audit and “About” query violations.
- October 21 2016 – Rogers shuts down all “About Query” activity. Rogers reports the activity to DOJ and prepares to go before the FISA Court.
- October 21 2016 – DOJ & FBI seek and receive a Title I FISA probable cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. At this point, the FISA Court is unaware of the Section 702 violations.
- October 24 2016 – Rogers verbally informs the FISA Court of Section 702(17) violations.
- October 26 2016 – Rogers formally informs the FISA Court of 702(17) violations in writing.
- October 26, 2016 – The FISA Court refuses to formalize the 2016 Section 702 certifications. A complete overhaul of Section 702 processes ensues.
The FBI and DOJ’s NSD were quite literally racing against Rogers’ Investigation in order to obtain a FISA Warrant on Carter Page.
Carlin specifically didn’t disclose his knowledge of FISA Abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications so as not to raise suspicions at the FISA Court pre-FISA Warrant.
Carlin filed the 2016 Section 702 Certification on September 26, 2016. Carlin announced his resignation on September 27 2016 and left on October 15, 2016.
The FISA Warrant on Carter Page was obtained on October 21, 2016.
Although Rogers initiated the investigation in April 2016, the NSA compliance officer did not fully brief Rogers until October 20, 2016. Rogers verbally notified the FISA on October 24, 2016 to prevent approval of the Section 702 Certification by the FISA Court on October 26, 2016.
For the complete story see: The Uncovering – Mike Rogers’ Investigation, Section 702 FISA Abuse & the FBI.
I encourage you to read the FISA Court’s emorandum Opinion and Order.
One more thing. From an earlier post:
In 2015, Inspector General Michael Horowitz requested oversight of the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD). Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded with a 58 page Memorandum, that effectively told the Inspector General to go pound sand.
No NSD oversight would be allowed.
The same division where the Section 702 violations occurred under NSD Head John Carlin.
Mary McCord – Acting Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division:
McCord took over for Carlin after he resigned on September 27, 2016.
McCord accompanied Acting AG Sally Yates to see White House Counsel Bill McGahn regarding Michael Flynn.
McCord was the individual directly overseeing the surveillance of Flynn.
- December 29 2016 – General Michael Flynn speaks to the Russian Ambassador.
- January 12 2017 – Mike Flynn’s Dec 29 2016 call is leaked to Washington Post. The article portrays Flynn as undermining Obama’s Russian sanctions.
- January 19 2017 – The NYT reports that several agencies — the FBI, CIA, NSA and Treasury are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties.
- January 19 2017 – Obama’s top intelligence and law-enforcement deputies meet to talk about Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak.
- January 23 2017 – The FBI reports nothing unlawful in content of Flynn call.
- January 24 2017 – Mike Flynn is interviewed without notice by the FBI. Peter Strzok is the interviewing agent.
- January 25 2017 – The Department of Justice receives a detailed briefing on Flynn from the FBI.
- January 26 2017 – Sally Yates travels to the White House along with Mary McCord of the DOJ’s National Security Division to discuss Mike Flynn.
- January 27 2016 – Sally Yates returns to the White House for a second discussion.
- February 9 2017 – The NYT and the Post publish articles claiming that General Michael Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador Kislyak.
- February 13 2017 – Mike Flynn resigns/fired as National Security Advisor.
After an extensive investigation, Flynn was charged with one count of lying to the FBI.
Comey told lawmakers in March 2017 that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional.
Mueller’s case against Flynn originates with surveillance provided by the Carter Page FISA Warrant. The FBI obtained the FISA Warrant through the Steele Dossier. The Dossier has been exposed and discredited through the Nunes and Grassley Memos.
Meanwhile, the details of the Flynn case have become ever more curious – covered here.
I will be shocked if Flynn’s case is not dropped at the end of all this.
I’ve touched on just two of the many individuals involved, but it’s easy to see that actual details run deeper than acknowledged by press reports.
The Media generally portray these departures as a small matter – or the simple result of President Trump’s “antagonism” towards the FBI/DOJ. In most – if not all – cases, these departures signify something deeper.
As an example, Hugh Hewitt relays the opinion of a long-time source on the departure of David Laufman – one of the lower profile names.
“That’s what happens when you are told that you are the subject of an OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) or OIG (Office of the Inspector General) investigation…”
“He was in his post since 2014 – under Carlin, Yates and Lynch in the chain of command.”
One other note on Laufman:
Obama stacked the Department of Justice with left-leaning lawyers. Ideology is specifically prohibited by federal law as a condition of hiring but this was steadfastly ignored.
From an earlier post, The Injustices of Obama’s Justice Department:
Mr. Adams highlights the highly politicized DOJ hiring practices put in place by Obama and Eric Holder in an extensive series of investigative articles. His conclusion in his final article – located at bottom of the article listing:
The Justice Department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation. Yet the resumes revealed the following ideological breakdown among the new hires:
Leftist lawyers: 113
Moderate, non-ideological, or conservative lawyers: 0
The matter-of-fact evidence should lead any reasonable observer to believe the DOJ has employed an illegal political litmus test during the interview process.
He ends with the following:
Loretta King, while serving as the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights at the outset of the Obama administration, ordered the resumes of highly qualified applicants to be rejected only because they didn’t have political or left-wing civil rights experience. Multiple DOJ sources with direct knowledge of hiring committee practices have confirmed this to me.
And when Mr. Adams says Leftist he really means Extreme Leftist. Take a look at the resumes for yourself. It’s disheartening.
As I was searching DOJ lawyers present at the April 25, 2016 FISA meeting I came across a twitter account from one of the attendees, Alan Rozenshtein, now in the private sector:
A normal WH would have the credibility to call a mulligan on the whole mess and start over, but Trump is too busy cryptically threatening Adam Schiff and calling Nunes an American hero. The Trump presidency has officially hit peak process absurdity, and I’m going to bed. /FIN— Alan Z. Rozenshtein (@arozenshtein) February 10, 2018
They are all ideologically the same.
For those who don’t have enough names to keep a watch over, on January 26, 2018, Grassley “sent six letters seeking information and documents regarding Christopher Steele’s work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America.”
The letters seek information and documents relating to those political organizations’ knowledge of and involvement in Mr. Steele’s work and his reported interactions with the FBI while he was working on behalf of these political organizations.
The letters were sent to:
- The Democratic National Committee (DNC)
- Hillary for America (HFA)
- Former DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
- Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile
- HFA Chair John Podesta
- HFA Chief Strategist Joel Benenson
Grassley asked slight variants of the same twelve questions – including this last one:
12. For the period from March 2016 through January 2017, please provide all communications to, from, copying, or relating to:
Fusion GPS; Bean LLC; Glenn Simpson; Mary Jacoby; Peter Fritsch; Tom Catan; Jason Felch; Neil King; David Michaels; Taylor Sears; Patrick Corcoran; Laura Sego; Jay Bagwell; Erica Castro; Nellie Ohr; Rinat Akhmetshin; Ed Lieberman; Edward Baumgartner; Orbis Business Intelligence Limited; Orbis Business International Limited; Walsingham Training Limited; Walsingham Partners Limited; Christopher Steele; Christopher Burrows; Sir Andrew Wood, Paul Hauser; Oleg Deripaska; Cody Shearer; Sidney Blumenthal; Jon Winer; Kathleen Kavalec; Victoria Nuland; Daniel Jones; Bruce Ohr; Peter Strzok; Andrew McCabe; James Baker; Sally Yates; Loretta Lynch; John Brennan.
You can read more about Grassley’s letter here.
There are some obvious names – and there are some interesting names – on Grassley’s list. Names like Rinat Akhmetshin, Ed Lieberman, Oleg Deripaska, Cody Shearer, Sidney Blumenthal, Daniel Jones, Loretta Lynch and… John Brennan.
They really thought it impossible that Trump could win.
And so, they acted accordingly – and with false impunity.
newer post The Absurdities of Mueller’s Indictment
Read the whole story
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
FBI agent Peter Strzok was finally fired Aug. 10 after more than a year of intrigue surrounding his bias against President Donald Trump.
He joins more than two dozen other top FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials who have been fired, demoted, or resigned in the wake of investigations of the 2016 presidential election—in yet another confirmation that the DOJ/FBI swamp is being drained.
The once-respected Federal Bureau of Investigation was compromised by politically motivated insiders, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Strzok, and many others. As more evidence of corruption comes to light, their schemes have rapidly begun to unravel. Such schemes included the exoneration of Hillary Clinton for her illegal email practices, the stonewalling of the separate investigation of the Clinton Foundation relating to Uranium One, and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) investigation of Trump associates that’s known as “Spygate.”
Much ink has been spilled in detailing the machinations of Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, as well as other former DOJ officials such as Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, and Bruce Ohr. Shockingly, Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for the Clinton-financed Fusion GPS—the firm behind the infamous anti-Trump dossier.
There appears to be an obvious conflict of interest demonstrated by Nellie Ohr’s work for Fusion GPS, which paid for the dossier, while her husband worked for the DOJ and was involved in the dossier investigation. Bruce Ohr then passed this research to the FBI, where Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and others used its “salacious and unverified” findings to obtain a controversial FISA warrant to spy on Trump associates.
The House judiciary committee wants to learn how the dossier was laundered through official channels to be used as the primary basis for the FBI’s FISA warrant. The committee has threatened to subpoena the Ohrs if they refuse to testify in front of Congress regarding their connections to Fusion GPS. Strzok’s text messages refer cryptically to a “secret society” and an “insurance policy” against Trump. Many believe the dossier was part of the FBI and DOJ’s plan to “stop” Trump.
Text messages between Strzok and his paramour, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, were first revealed last year and exposed Strzok’s and Page’s political biases, repeatedly vilifying candidate Trump and his supporters. In one message, Strzok called Trump an “idiot.” Other messages referred to Trump as a “menace” and a “douche.” Strzok famously denigrated average American voters when he claimed he could smell the Trump support after a visit to Walmart.
The firing was long overdue. Despite frequent characterizations of him as a lowly “FBI agent,” Strzok was a big fish. In June, the Inspector General of the DOJ released a blistering, 568-page reportdocumenting the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Clinton and her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. While the report offered no “documentary evidence” of Strzok’s political bias, it did say his conduct “cast a cloud” over the entire investigation; He was escorted from the FBI building and stripped of his security clearance shortly after its release. He remained on the payroll, however, until this past week.
Strzok now joins the ranks of more than 25 FBI and DOJ officials who have been forced out—largely in disgrace. Here is a list of the notable Trump-era firings, demotions, and departures:
FBI Departures:
- James Comey, director (fired)
- Andrew McCabe, deputy director (fired)
- Peter Strzok, counterintelligence expert (fired)
- Lisa Page, attorney (demoted; resigned)
- James Rybicki, chief of staff (resigned)
- James Baker, general counsel (resigned)
- Mike Kortan, assistant director for public affairs (resigned)
- Josh Campbell, special assistant to James Comey (resigned)
- James Turgal, executive assistant director (resigned)
- Greg Bower, assistant director for office of congressional affairs (resigned)
- Michael Steinbach, executive assistant director (resigned)
- John Giacalone, executive assistant director (resigned)
DOJ Departures:
- Sally Yates, deputy attorney general (fired)
- Bruce Ohr, associate deputy attorney general (twice demoted)
- David Laufman, counterintelligence chief (resigned)
- Rachel Brand, deputy attorney general (resigned)
- Trisha Beth Anderson, office of legal counsel for FBI (demoted or reassigned*)
- John P. Carlin, assistant attorney general (resigned)
- Peter Kadzik, assistant attorney general, congressional liaison (resigned)
- Mary McCord, acting assistant attorney general (resigned)
- Matthew Axelrod, principal assistant to deputy attorney general (resigned)
- Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney, SDNY (fired along with 45 other U.S. Attorneys)
- Sharon McGowan, civil rights division (resigned)
- Diana Flynn, litigation director for LGBTQ civil rights (resigned)
- Vanita Gupta, civil rights division (resigned)
- Joel McElvain, assistant branch director of the civil division (resigned)
*Status Unclear
Why so many departures? As I argue in my new book, the top layers of the FBI have long been troubled by financial self-dealing, political machinations, and coverups for ineptitude. As these deep problems increasingly come to light, the leadership is fleeing like rats from a ship. Expect to see more, as well as possible indictments, as congressional investigations continue.
Seamus Bruner is the associate director of research at the Government Accountability Institute and author of the new book “Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption.”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Read the whole story
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
“Government power was used to spy on American citizens,” Barr said in the interview published on Friday. “I can’t imagine any world where we wouldn’t take a look and make sure that was done properly.”
“Just like we need to ensure that foreign actors don’t influence the outcome of our elections, we need to ensure that the government doesn’t use its powers to put a thumb on the scale,” he added.
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Barr is working closely with CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, according to the WSJ. His review is not a criminal investigation “at this point,” the newspaper reported. There is no timetable for its completion.
The attorney general discussed why he chose John Durham, Connecticut’s U.S. attorney, to lead the review.
“I was looking for someone who is tenacious, who is used to looking at sensitive material involving government activities, who has a reputation for being fair and evenhanded,” he said.
Barr did not discuss what he has discovered so far, but he told the paper that he was surprised that officials have not been able to answer many of his questions.
“I have more questions now than when I came in,” he said.
Former FBI officials have testified that they opened the counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, after they received information from the Australian government that a foreign policy campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, told an Australian diplomat that he was told the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
As Papadopoulos has detailed to Breitbart News and other outlets, the person who told him the Russians had dirt was a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud.
Papadopoulos has discussed in interviews the odd circumstances around the introduction. He said he met Mifsud through a woman in London who used to work for the FBI, who told him that Mifsud would introduce him to a lot of important people who would help him on the campaign.
It has later emerged that an FBI informant named Stefan Halper separately met Carter Page at a conference in London in mid-July. Halper would later reach out to Papadopoulos, bringing along a young woman who introduced herself as a research assistant named “Azra Turk.”
The New York Times recently reported that the woman was a “government investigator” who oversaw the operation with Halper to gain more information from Papadopoulos.
The FBI in October 2016 obtained a warrant to surveil Page, using opposition research gathered by ex-British spy Christopher Steele for the firm Fusion GPS, which was commissioned by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Read the whole story
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Note: A new post – A Listing of Participants – provides a far more comprehensive listing of various players.
This post remains useful in its description of certain individuals – specifically John Carlin & Mary McCord.
There have been numerous resignations and demotions at the FBI and DOJ.
Department of Justice (Non-FBI):
- John Carlin – Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division – announcedresignation on September 27, 2016 after filing the Government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on September 26, 2016. The filing does not disclose known FISA Abuses. Carlin is aware NSA Rogers is conducting a compliance review which will uncover the FISA Abuse. The 2016 certifications are scheduled for Court approval on October 26, 2016. Trump surveillance originated under Carlin’s tenure.
- Sally Yates – Deputy Attorney General & Acting Attorney General (replacing Loretta Lynch – 10 days) – fired January 30, 2017. Complicit in Flynn Surveillance and surveillance of Trump Campaign.
- Mary McCord – Acting Assistant Attorney General – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division (replacing John Carlin) – announced resignation on April 17, 2017 – Left on May 11, 2017. Complicit in Flynn Surveillance and surveillance of Trump Campaign.
- Bruce Ohr – Associate Deputy Attorney General – demoted twice. Stripped of Associate Deputy Attorney General title on December 6, 2017. Removed as head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force January 8, 2018. Unofficial liaison between Fusion GPS and FBI/DOJ. Wife worked at Fusion. Long-standing ties to both Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS.
- David Laufman – DOJ National Security Division, Deputy Asst. Attorney General in charge of counterintelligence – resigned on February 7, 2018. Laufman “played a leading role in the Clinton email server and Russian hacking investigations.”
- Rachel Brand – Associate Attorney General – number three official behind Deputy AG Rosenstein – resigned February 9, 2018. Takes top legal position at Walmart. Brand “played a critical role in Congress’ re-authorization” of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
FBI:
- James Comey – FBI Director – fired May 9, 2017. Oversaw all FBI operations – including exoneration of Clinton and Trump-Russia Investigation. Reported to AG Lynch.
- Peter Strzok – Deputy Assistant Director of FBI’s Counterintelligence – forced off Mueller’s team – demoted August 16, 2017 to FBI’s Human Resources. IG Horowitz discovered texts July 27, 2017. Strzok involved in all facets of Clinton exoneration. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group.
- Lisa Page – FBI/DOJ Lawyer – forced off Mueller’s team – demoted August 16, 2017 to parts unknown. IG Horowitz discovered texts July 27, 2017. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group.
- James Baker – FBI General Counsel – demoted and reassigned on December 20, 2017. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group. Senior-most legal counsel at FBI.
- James Rybicki – Chief of Staff to FBI Director James Comey & successor Chris Wray – resigned/forcedout January 23, 2018. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group.
- Andrew McCabe – Deputy FBI Director – on December 23, 2017 announced retirement effective March 22, 2018. Forced to resign on January 29, 2018. Involved in all aspects. Reported to Comey.
- Josh Campbell – Special Assistant to James Comey – resigned on February 2, 2018. Writes op-ed in New York Times on why he is leaving but does not disclose in op-ed that he was Special Assistant to Comey – or that he had been offered lucrative CNN job. Takes job with CNN on February 5, 2018.
- Michael Kortan – FBI Asst. Director Public Affairs – resigned on February 8, 2018 – effective February 15, 2018. Kortan served as assistant director for public affairs, an influential job that controlled media access.
- Bill Priestap – Assistant Director – Head of FBI Counterintelligence – Holds same position. Strzok’s boss – reported directly to McCabe.
My listing is not meant to be exhaustive. I’m sure I’ve missed some meaningful former participants. Feel free to post me on any you think noteworthy.
I have not included former Obama officials who are complicit but left their positions on President Trump’s Inauguration (i.e. Loretta Lynch). Nor have I included participants outside the DOJ/FBI.
Watch List:
- David Bowditch (FBI) – expected to replace Andrew McCabe as Deputy FBI Director. Bowditch’s name is featured in emails and Strzok texts.
- Trisha Anderson (DOJ) – adviser in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, was previously an attorney at Attorney General Eric Holder’s former firm, Covington & Burling. Attended two April 25, 2016 White House meetings with FBI Counsel James Baker and several DOJ FISA lawyers – Tashina Guahar, Christopher Hardee, Brad Wiegmann. Anderson’s name appears in Strzok/Page texts.
- Greg Brower (FBI) – Assistant Director for the Office of Congressional Affairs. FBI’s liaison with Congress. Listed by Devin Nunes as one of the individuals he wants to interview.
- Sally Moyer (FBI) – Attorney. Listed by Devin Nunes as one of the individuals he wants to interview.
- Dana Boente (DOJ/FBI) – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division until January 23, 2018 and the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Replaced Mary McCord. Was briefly Acting Deputy Attorney General until Rosenstein appointed. On January 23, 2018, Boente was named as FBI General Counsel – replacing James Baker who was demoted and reassigned.
- Edward O’Callaghan (DOJ) – became Acting Assistant Attorney General and Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division on January 27, 2018, replacing Dana Boente.
Some may choose to include FBI Director Wray and/or Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein on the Watch List. I have not.
Notice anything odd in the listing of names (excluding Watch List)?
Look at the listing again – and take note of who is still there.
- James Baker – FBI
- Peter Strzok – FBI
- Lisa Page – FBI/DOJ
- Bruce Ohr – DOJ
- Bill Priestap – FBI
Why are these individuals still employed – why haven’t they resigned.
With the exception of Priestap who still holds his original position, they’ve all been demoted into oblivion. Their careers are over – and have been.
There is one likely answer.
I’ve already discussed Priestap extensively:
Where is Bill Priestap – FBI’s Counterintelligence Head. – December 28, 2017
FBI Counterintelligence Head Bill Priestap – A Cooperating Witness – February 11, 2018
In both articles I make the case that Priestap is cooperating with the many investigations.
Baker, Strzok, Page and Ohr are likely cooperating as well. They were caught dead to rights – firmly ensnared in the Inspector General’s Investigation.
They are likely being kept in effective isolation – shielded from the media – and compromised, leaking Congressmen like Adam Schiff.
The Conservative Treehouse has an excellent article on this theory.
Many of the names like Comey, McCabe and Strzok have been extensively covered. I’ll briefly touch on a couple of the lesser known names – John Carlin and Mary McCord.
John Carlin – Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division:
- November 2015-April 2016 – The FBI and DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) use private contractors to access raw FISA information using “To” and “From” FISA-702(16) & “About” FISA-702(17) queries.
- March 2016 – NSA Director Rogers becomes aware of improper access to raw FISA data.
- April 2016 – Rogers orders the NSA compliance officer to run a full audit on 702 NSA compliance.
- April 18 2016 – Rogers shuts down FBI/NSD contractor access to the FISA Search System. The compliance audit continues.
- September 26 2016 – DOJ’s NSD Head John Carlin files the Government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications. The filing does not disclose the FISA Abuses. Carlin is aware of Rogers’ compliance review. The 2016 certifications are scheduled for Court approval on October 26, 2016.
- September 27 2016 – Carlin announces he is resigning. Mary McCord will later assume his position.
- October 15, 2016 – Carlin formally leaves the NSD.
- Mid-October 2016 – DNI Clapper submits a recommendation to the White House that Director Rogers be removed from the NSA.
- October 20 2016 – Rogers is briefed by the NSA compliance officer on the Section 702 NSA compliance audit and “About” query violations.
- October 21 2016 – Rogers shuts down all “About Query” activity. Rogers reports the activity to DOJ and prepares to go before the FISA Court.
- October 21 2016 – DOJ & FBI seek and receive a Title I FISA probable cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. At this point, the FISA Court is unaware of the Section 702 violations.
- October 24 2016 – Rogers verbally informs the FISA Court of Section 702(17) violations.
- October 26 2016 – Rogers formally informs the FISA Court of 702(17) violations in writing.
- October 26, 2016 – The FISA Court refuses to formalize the 2016 Section 702 certifications. A complete overhaul of Section 702 processes ensues.
The FBI and DOJ’s NSD were quite literally racing against Rogers’ Investigation in order to obtain a FISA Warrant on Carter Page.
Carlin specifically didn’t disclose his knowledge of FISA Abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications so as not to raise suspicions at the FISA Court pre-FISA Warrant.
Carlin filed the 2016 Section 702 Certification on September 26, 2016. Carlin announced his resignation on September 27 2016 and left on October 15, 2016.
The FISA Warrant on Carter Page was obtained on October 21, 2016.
Although Rogers initiated the investigation in April 2016, the NSA compliance officer did not fully brief Rogers until October 20, 2016. Rogers verbally notified the FISA on October 24, 2016 to prevent approval of the Section 702 Certification by the FISA Court on October 26, 2016.
For the complete story see: The Uncovering – Mike Rogers’ Investigation, Section 702 FISA Abuse & the FBI.
I encourage you to read the FISA Court’s emorandum Opinion and Order.
One more thing. From an earlier post:
In 2015, Inspector General Michael Horowitz requested oversight of the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD). Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded with a 58 page Memorandum, that effectively told the Inspector General to go pound sand.
No NSD oversight would be allowed.
The same division where the Section 702 violations occurred under NSD Head John Carlin.
Mary McCord – Acting Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division:
McCord took over for Carlin after he resigned on September 27, 2016.
McCord accompanied Acting AG Sally Yates to see White House Counsel Bill McGahn regarding Michael Flynn.
McCord was the individual directly overseeing the surveillance of Flynn.
- December 29 2016 – General Michael Flynn speaks to the Russian Ambassador.
- January 12 2017 – Mike Flynn’s Dec 29 2016 call is leaked to Washington Post. The article portrays Flynn as undermining Obama’s Russian sanctions.
- January 19 2017 – The NYT reports that several agencies — the FBI, CIA, NSA and Treasury are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties.
- January 19 2017 – Obama’s top intelligence and law-enforcement deputies meet to talk about Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak.
- January 23 2017 – The FBI reports nothing unlawful in content of Flynn call.
- January 24 2017 – Mike Flynn is interviewed without notice by the FBI. Peter Strzok is the interviewing agent.
- January 25 2017 – The Department of Justice receives a detailed briefing on Flynn from the FBI.
- January 26 2017 – Sally Yates travels to the White House along with Mary McCord of the DOJ’s National Security Division to discuss Mike Flynn.
- January 27 2016 – Sally Yates returns to the White House for a second discussion.
- February 9 2017 – The NYT and the Post publish articles claiming that General Michael Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador Kislyak.
- February 13 2017 – Mike Flynn resigns/fired as National Security Advisor.
After an extensive investigation, Flynn was charged with one count of lying to the FBI.
Comey told lawmakers in March 2017 that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that Flynn had lied to them, or that any inaccuracies in his answers were intentional.
Mueller’s case against Flynn originates with surveillance provided by the Carter Page FISA Warrant. The FBI obtained the FISA Warrant through the Steele Dossier. The Dossier has been exposed and discredited through the Nunes and Grassley Memos.
Meanwhile, the details of the Flynn case have become ever more curious – covered here.
I will be shocked if Flynn’s case is not dropped at the end of all this.
I’ve touched on just two of the many individuals involved, but it’s easy to see that actual details run deeper than acknowledged by press reports.
The Media generally portray these departures as a small matter – or the simple result of President Trump’s “antagonism” towards the FBI/DOJ. In most – if not all – cases, these departures signify something deeper.
As an example, Hugh Hewitt relays the opinion of a long-time source on the departure of David Laufman – one of the lower profile names.
“That’s what happens when you are told that you are the subject of an OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) or OIG (Office of the Inspector General) investigation…”
“He was in his post since 2014 – under Carlin, Yates and Lynch in the chain of command.”
One other note on Laufman:
Obama stacked the Department of Justice with left-leaning lawyers. Ideology is specifically prohibited by federal law as a condition of hiring but this was steadfastly ignored.
From an earlier post, The Injustices of Obama’s Justice Department:
Mr. Adams highlights the highly politicized DOJ hiring practices put in place by Obama and Eric Holder in an extensive series of investigative articles. His conclusion in his final article – located at bottom of the article listing:
The Justice Department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation. Yet the resumes revealed the following ideological breakdown among the new hires:
Leftist lawyers: 113
Moderate, non-ideological, or conservative lawyers: 0
The matter-of-fact evidence should lead any reasonable observer to believe the DOJ has employed an illegal political litmus test during the interview process.
He ends with the following:
Loretta King, while serving as the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights at the outset of the Obama administration, ordered the resumes of highly qualified applicants to be rejected only because they didn’t have political or left-wing civil rights experience. Multiple DOJ sources with direct knowledge of hiring committee practices have confirmed this to me.
And when Mr. Adams says Leftist he really means Extreme Leftist. Take a look at the resumes for yourself. It’s disheartening.
As I was searching DOJ lawyers present at the April 25, 2016 FISA meeting I came across a twitter account from one of the attendees, Alan Rozenshtein, now in the private sector:
A normal WH would have the credibility to call a mulligan on the whole mess and start over, but Trump is too busy cryptically threatening Adam Schiff and calling Nunes an American hero. The Trump presidency has officially hit peak process absurdity, and I’m going to bed. /FIN— Alan Z. Rozenshtein (@arozenshtein) February 10, 2018
They are all ideologically the same.
For those who don’t have enough names to keep a watch over, on January 26, 2018, Grassley “sent six letters seeking information and documents regarding Christopher Steele’s work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America.”
The letters seek information and documents relating to those political organizations’ knowledge of and involvement in Mr. Steele’s work and his reported interactions with the FBI while he was working on behalf of these political organizations.
The letters were sent to:
- The Democratic National Committee (DNC)
- Hillary for America (HFA)
- Former DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
- Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile
- HFA Chair John Podesta
- HFA Chief Strategist Joel Benenson
Grassley asked slight variants of the same twelve questions – including this last one:
12. For the period from March 2016 through January 2017, please provide all communications to, from, copying, or relating to:
Fusion GPS; Bean LLC; Glenn Simpson; Mary Jacoby; Peter Fritsch; Tom Catan; Jason Felch; Neil King; David Michaels; Taylor Sears; Patrick Corcoran; Laura Sego; Jay Bagwell; Erica Castro; Nellie Ohr; Rinat Akhmetshin; Ed Lieberman; Edward Baumgartner; Orbis Business Intelligence Limited; Orbis Business International Limited; Walsingham Training Limited; Walsingham Partners Limited; Christopher Steele; Christopher Burrows; Sir Andrew Wood, Paul Hauser; Oleg Deripaska; Cody Shearer; Sidney Blumenthal; Jon Winer; Kathleen Kavalec; Victoria Nuland; Daniel Jones; Bruce Ohr; Peter Strzok; Andrew McCabe; James Baker; Sally Yates; Loretta Lynch; John Brennan.
You can read more about Grassley’s letter here.
There are some obvious names – and there are some interesting names – on Grassley’s list. Names like Rinat Akhmetshin, Ed Lieberman, Oleg Deripaska, Cody Shearer, Sidney Blumenthal, Daniel Jones, Loretta Lynch and… John Brennan.
They really thought it impossible that Trump could win.
And so, they acted accordingly – and with false impunity.
newer post The Absurdities of Mueller’s Indictment
Read the whole story
· · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
FBI agent Peter Strzok was finally fired Aug. 10 after more than a year of intrigue surrounding his bias against President Donald Trump.
He joins more than two dozen other top FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials who have been fired, demoted, or resigned in the wake of investigations of the 2016 presidential election—in yet another confirmation that the DOJ/FBI swamp is being drained.
The once-respected Federal Bureau of Investigation was compromised by politically motivated insiders, including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Strzok, and many others. As more evidence of corruption comes to light, their schemes have rapidly begun to unravel. Such schemes included the exoneration of Hillary Clinton for her illegal email practices, the stonewalling of the separate investigation of the Clinton Foundation relating to Uranium One, and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) investigation of Trump associates that’s known as “Spygate.”
Much ink has been spilled in detailing the machinations of Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, as well as other former DOJ officials such as Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, and Bruce Ohr. Shockingly, Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for the Clinton-financed Fusion GPS—the firm behind the infamous anti-Trump dossier.
There appears to be an obvious conflict of interest demonstrated by Nellie Ohr’s work for Fusion GPS, which paid for the dossier, while her husband worked for the DOJ and was involved in the dossier investigation. Bruce Ohr then passed this research to the FBI, where Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and others used its “salacious and unverified” findings to obtain a controversial FISA warrant to spy on Trump associates.
The House judiciary committee wants to learn how the dossier was laundered through official channels to be used as the primary basis for the FBI’s FISA warrant. The committee has threatened to subpoena the Ohrs if they refuse to testify in front of Congress regarding their connections to Fusion GPS. Strzok’s text messages refer cryptically to a “secret society” and an “insurance policy” against Trump. Many believe the dossier was part of the FBI and DOJ’s plan to “stop” Trump.
Text messages between Strzok and his paramour, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, were first revealed last year and exposed Strzok’s and Page’s political biases, repeatedly vilifying candidate Trump and his supporters. In one message, Strzok called Trump an “idiot.” Other messages referred to Trump as a “menace” and a “douche.” Strzok famously denigrated average American voters when he claimed he could smell the Trump support after a visit to Walmart.
The firing was long overdue. Despite frequent characterizations of him as a lowly “FBI agent,” Strzok was a big fish. In June, the Inspector General of the DOJ released a blistering, 568-page reportdocumenting the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Clinton and her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. While the report offered no “documentary evidence” of Strzok’s political bias, it did say his conduct “cast a cloud” over the entire investigation; He was escorted from the FBI building and stripped of his security clearance shortly after its release. He remained on the payroll, however, until this past week.
Strzok now joins the ranks of more than 25 FBI and DOJ officials who have been forced out—largely in disgrace. Here is a list of the notable Trump-era firings, demotions, and departures:
FBI Departures:
- James Comey, director (fired)
- Andrew McCabe, deputy director (fired)
- Peter Strzok, counterintelligence expert (fired)
- Lisa Page, attorney (demoted; resigned)
- James Rybicki, chief of staff (resigned)
- James Baker, general counsel (resigned)
- Mike Kortan, assistant director for public affairs (resigned)
- Josh Campbell, special assistant to James Comey (resigned)
- James Turgal, executive assistant director (resigned)
- Greg Bower, assistant director for office of congressional affairs (resigned)
- Michael Steinbach, executive assistant director (resigned)
- John Giacalone, executive assistant director (resigned)
DOJ Departures:
- Sally Yates, deputy attorney general (fired)
- Bruce Ohr, associate deputy attorney general (twice demoted)
- David Laufman, counterintelligence chief (resigned)
- Rachel Brand, deputy attorney general (resigned)
- Trisha Beth Anderson, office of legal counsel for FBI (demoted or reassigned*)
- John P. Carlin, assistant attorney general (resigned)
- Peter Kadzik, assistant attorney general, congressional liaison (resigned)
- Mary McCord, acting assistant attorney general (resigned)
- Matthew Axelrod, principal assistant to deputy attorney general (resigned)
- Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney, SDNY (fired along with 45 other U.S. Attorneys)
- Sharon McGowan, civil rights division (resigned)
- Diana Flynn, litigation director for LGBTQ civil rights (resigned)
- Vanita Gupta, civil rights division (resigned)
- Joel McElvain, assistant branch director of the civil division (resigned)
*Status Unclear
Why so many departures? As I argue in my new book, the top layers of the FBI have long been troubled by financial self-dealing, political machinations, and coverups for ineptitude. As these deep problems increasingly come to light, the leadership is fleeing like rats from a ship. Expect to see more, as well as possible indictments, as congressional investigations continue.
Seamus Bruner is the associate director of research at the Government Accountability Institute and author of the new book “Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption.”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Read the whole story
· · · ·
“Government power was used to spy on American citizens,” Barr said in the interview published on Friday. “I can’t imagine any world where we wouldn’t take a look and make sure that was done properly.”
“Just like we need to ensure that foreign actors don’t influence the outcome of our elections, we need to ensure that the government doesn’t use its powers to put a thumb on the scale,” he added.
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Barr is working closely with CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, according to the WSJ. His review is not a criminal investigation “at this point,” the newspaper reported. There is no timetable for its completion.
The attorney general discussed why he chose John Durham, Connecticut’s U.S. attorney, to lead the review.
“I was looking for someone who is tenacious, who is used to looking at sensitive material involving government activities, who has a reputation for being fair and evenhanded,” he said.
Barr did not discuss what he has discovered so far, but he told the paper that he was surprised that officials have not been able to answer many of his questions.
“I have more questions now than when I came in,” he said.
Former FBI officials have testified that they opened the counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, after they received information from the Australian government that a foreign policy campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, told an Australian diplomat that he was told the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
As Papadopoulos has detailed to Breitbart News and other outlets, the person who told him the Russians had dirt was a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud.
Papadopoulos has discussed in interviews the odd circumstances around the introduction. He said he met Mifsud through a woman in London who used to work for the FBI, who told him that Mifsud would introduce him to a lot of important people who would help him on the campaign.
It has later emerged that an FBI informant named Stefan Halper separately met Carter Page at a conference in London in mid-July. Halper would later reach out to Papadopoulos, bringing along a young woman who introduced herself as a research assistant named “Azra Turk.”
The New York Times recently reported that the woman was a “government investigator” who oversaw the operation with Halper to gain more information from Papadopoulos.
The FBI in October 2016 obtained a warrant to surveil Page, using opposition research gathered by ex-British spy Christopher Steele for the firm Fusion GPS, which was commissioned by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Read the whole story
· ·
Glen Yeadon is a lifelong activist and a leading authority on fascism in America. He was raised on a family farm in Minnesota and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. Glen has multiple degrees in chemistry and computer science. He has authored numerous articles on the Internet probing the roots of American fascism. His article Ties that Bind connecting George W Bush and the Neocons to the Nazis has received exceptional praise from readers. His website promotes liberal ideals and solutions to today's problems.
Trump, Putin, Austrian Neo-Nazis, and the Anti-Austrian Sentiment described earlier in the so called Hapsburg Group Affair - 1:18 PM 5/18/2019
M.N.: This is one more indication of the Anti-Austrian Sentiment described earlier as the pathognomonic (highly suggestive, indicative, and specific) diagnostic sign of the US Elections 2016 as the New Abwehr Operation in the so called Hapsburg Group Affair, as the object of Manafort's manipulations.
It is highly suggestive of this origin in the political personas and personalities of the players, first of all, Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), in the nature of this affair, and in the way it was planned, executed, and revealed in the press.
Two lines of the narrative transpired so far:
The Scandal of the videotaped conversation, and
The Nexus between Trump, Putin, And the Austrian Neo-Nazis.
The third underlying but hidden, the emotional line and the subtext of the narrative is the expression of the condescending Anti-Austrian Sentiment as Anti-Viennese, Anti-Austrian Nazi, Anti-Austrian Social Democracy, and Anti-Hitler.
In my humble opinion, this piece of information lends further support to the New Abwehr Hypothesis of The Operation Trump and to the New Abwehr Hypothesis of the major and minor geopolitical crises after the WW2.
It also appears to support the thesis that the New Abwehr serves specifically the German, and not any other (not even the Austrian) Social Democratic Parties, as their tool these days.
Thanks to Seth Hettena @seth_hettena for sharing the link to article on videotaping.
Michael Novakhov
5.18.19
_____________________________________
Washington Monthly | The Disturbing Connections Between Trump, Putin, and Austrian Neo-Nazis
Franz Johann Morgenbesser/Flickr
M.N.: This is one more indication of the Anti-Austrian Sentiment described earlier as the pathognomonic (highly suggestive, indicative, and specific) diagnostic sign of the US Elections 2016 as the New Abwehr Operation in the so called Hapsburg Group Affair, as the object of Manafort's manipulations.
It is highly suggestive of this origin in the political personas and personalities of the players, first of all, Heinz-Christian Strache, the leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), in the nature of this affair, and in the way it was planned, executed, and revealed in the press.
Two lines of the narrative transpired so far:
The Scandal of the videotaped conversation, and
The Nexus between Trump, Putin, And the Austrian Neo-Nazis.
The third underlying but hidden, the emotional line and the subtext of the narrative is the expression of the condescending Anti-Austrian Sentiment as Anti-Viennese, Anti-Austrian Nazi, Anti-Austrian Social Democracy, and Anti-Hitler.
In my humble opinion, this piece of information lends further support to the New Abwehr Hypothesis of The Operation Trump and to the New Abwehr Hypothesis of the major and minor geopolitical crises after the WW2.
It also appears to support the thesis that the New Abwehr serves specifically the German, and not any other (not even the Austrian) Social Democratic Parties, as their tool these days.
Thanks to Seth Hettena @seth_hettena for sharing the link to article on videotaping.
Michael Novakhov
5.18.19
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Washington Monthly | The Disturbing Connections Between Trump, Putin, and Austrian Neo-Nazis
Franz Johann Morgenbesser/Flickr
Donald Trump hadn’t even been inaugurated on December 20, 2016 when I wrote “Trump, Austrian Neo-Nazis, and Putin,” but I had already detected a troubling nexus between the three. Here is how I began that piece:
In the process of pointing out that their flirtations with John Birchers and other general “rightwing nutballish” behaviors are quickly turning the Trump administration “into the grease trap of American political history,” Charles Pierce stops to notice that incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is still in league with the Russkies. To wit, the lunatic far-right Austrian Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache traveled to New York in November to meet with Flynn. The Freedom Party presidential nominee, Norbert Hofer, just came within a whisper of winning an revanchist Anschlussian political victory in the early December election. He had hoped to do better, saying just prior to the vote that he was drawing “encouragement from Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the United States.”
The November meeting in Trump Tower between Michael Flynn and Austrian neo-Nazis wasn’t the reason I wrote the post, though. I was responding to an article in Foreign Policy that reported:
Heinz-Christian Strache, Freedom Party leader, and Norbert Hofer, the candidate who narrowly lost Austria’s presidential election earlier this month, signed a “working agreement” on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party, according to a statement from the Freedom Party.
Charles Pierce responded: “At the risk of being called a neo-McCarthyite, may I point out that this smacks an awful lot of the incoming administration’s involvement in a worldwide right-wing movement at the center of which is our good friend Vladimir Putin.”
Here was my reaction to Pierce:
Of course, this is impossible because liberals who lived through the Cold War keep telling me that all this Russia-bashing is just so much Dulles Brothers flimflam designed to distract the plebes from their rightful destiny at the head of the dictatorship of the proletariat. To bash Russia is to bash the left here at home in order to crush the left everywhere from Ho Chi Minh City to Buenos Aires.It therefore cannot be that our president is in the thrall, if not the control, of a “worldwide right-wing movement” to restore the purity of essence to the European bloodstream and bring Christianity back to its former central and crusading glory.Or, in other words, you need to check that “grease trap of American political history” carefully, because a few of the roles have been reversed.
I revisit this all today because Heinz-Christian Strache has just found himself in a pickle. He apparently took the “working agreement” with Vladimir Putin a few steps too far, and he did it on six-hour video tape recorded in July 2017. In truth, he was set up—by whom it is still not clear. People posing as highly-connected Russians discussed various corrupt schemes that involved trading favorable contracts for assistance in helping Strache’s political party in the upcoming elections. There was also this:
The supposed investor already had a plan: She proposed acquiring a 50-percent stake in the Kronen Zeitung, a highly influential Austrian tabloid, and to use the newspaper as a mouthpiece backing Strache and his FPÖ party in the election campaign. Strache, dressed casually in a slightly ratty T-shirt and jeans, seemed enthusiastic – mostly about the proposal, but also about the woman herself. “Are you kidding? She’s hot,” he said, with a Viennese lilt.
Strache, who is currently Austria’s vice chancellor and the head of the Freedom Party, took the bait and failed to notify the authorities that Russians were attempting to bribe him.
I don’t know who set this trap or why they waited almost two years to expose Strache, but the episode provides one more example of how neo-Nazis believe that the Russians are their allies and seek to work with them to further their political ambitions. As I pointed out in my November 2017 “A #TrumpRussia Confession in Plain Sight” piece, there’s plenty of evidence that something similar happened between the Trump campaign and Russia. That is why we need to see Robert Mueller’s counterintelligence report.
We already know that Trump used the National Enquirer to help him cover up his affairs and promote his candidacy. We know that Michael Flynn is currently awaiting sentencing after exposing attempts to bribe him into silence. Now we know that Heinz-Christian Strache is not only a nexus between Trump and Putin, but corrupt to the core. We’ve seen the white nationalist strains of Trumpism and the president’s strange affinity for Putin.
And yet somehow the president says he’s been exonerated.
John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William Barr to investigate how Trump-Russia allegations emerged and spread within federal law enforcement, has already been looking into whether the FBI’s former top lawyer, James Baker, illegally leaked to reporters.
In fact, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut appears to have begun that work more than seven months ago, to judge from an underreported transcript of an October congressional interview with Baker. The Baker interview, at which Durham was not present, suggests that the prosecutor nevertheless has some people very worried.
Baker testified about the Trump-Russia affair on Oct. 3 before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
In that session, the former FBI general counsel admitted that versions and variations of Christopher Steele’s dossier were being turned in to the bureau from the strangest of places. Baker said he had even heard about it from David Corn, Washington bureau chief of left-leaning Mother Jones, who wrote one of the first pieces on the dossier, in October 2016. But in one of those company-town connections that happen frequently in Washington, Baker said he was not just a contact or source for Corn; they were also old pals.
“Tell me about your relationship with David Corn,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.
“David is a friend of mine,” Baker said.
“Tell me about that. A close friend? Long-time friend?”
“Long-time friend.”
Jordan asked, “When did you first meet Mr. Corn?”
“I don't specifically remember,” Baker testified. “A long time ago, though.”
“Years ago? “
“Years and years and years ago, yeah,” Baker allowed. “Our kids carpooled together. We carpooled with them when our kids were little.”
So one of the most divisive scandals in Washington history was facilitated by an unexpected friendship, an odd couple brought together by a shared interest in getting their kids dropped off at school.
The congressman from Ohio wanted to know more about the Baker-Corn relationship: “Prior to the election of – Presidential election of 2016,” Jordan asked, “how many times did you talk with David Corn in the weeks and months prior to election day?”
“I don't remember,” Baker said, providing an answer that suggests it was more than a few.
“Is it fair to say you did” talk with Corn, Jordan asked?
“Yes, I did, but I just don't remember how many [times].”
“So did you talk to Mr. Corn about anything that the FBI was working on,” Jordan asked, “specifically the now infamous Steele dossier?”
Suddenly, Baker’s lawyer, Dan Levin, jumped in: “One second,” he said before he and his client had a conversation off the record.
When the microphones were back on, Levin declared he would “not let [Baker] answer these questions right now. You may or may not know, he's been the subject of a leak investigation which is still – a criminal leak investigation that's still active at the Justice Department.” And so Levin concluded, “I’m sorry. I'm cutting off any discussion about conversations with reporters.”
North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows wanted to make clear what Baker’s lawyer was claiming: “You're saying he's under criminal investigation? That's why you're not letting him answer?”
“Yes.”
Levin and the lawmakers sparred a bit over whether Baker was invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, and the congressmen finally got around to asking who was leading this criminal probe:
“There is an ongoing investigation by whom?” Jordan said.
“The Justice Department,” Levin responded.
“I mean, is the inspector general looking at this or is this—”
“No,” said Levin, “it's Mr. John Durham, a prosecutor.”
The specter of Durham haunts the rest of the interview. Baker can’t talk about what he told his old friend David Corn in their conversations about the dossier because it would put Baker in legal jeopardy.
Time and again, when Baker was asked questions about reporters – even hypothetical questions about FBI policy regarding contacts with the press, Levin said, “I'm not going to allow him to answer that question” or “I am not going let him answer any questions about leaks.”
“I don't want him talking about conversations he's had with reporters because I don't know what the questions are and I don't know what the answers are right now,” Levin said. “Given that there is an ongoing investigation of him for leaks which the Department has not closed, I'm not comfortable letting him answer questions.” Durham’s inquiry was serious enough to limit significantly what Baker was willing to talk about with lawmakers.
That Baker’s lawyer advised him not to talk about leaks is, of course, not proof that Baker leaked. "Baker's lawyer was obviously being prudent and saying his client could not talk about anything related to any leaks of any kind," David Corn tells RealClearInvestigations. Corn emphasizes that the "Durham inquiry did not involve Russia or the Steele memos; it had nothing to do with me or my limited interaction with Baker."
And one former federal official who said he has been interviewed by Durham in connection with the Baker probe, Robert Litt, has written that the inquiry has nothing to do with the Steele dossier.
Contacted by RealClearInvestigations, Levin said, “Mr. Baker did not make an unauthorized disclosure of classified information and we are confident the investigation will conclude that.”
This article originally appeared at RealClearInvestigations.
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Page 5
It's an incredible video. It was created at the end of July 2017, three months before Austria's general election that October. Following the election, Heinz-Christian Strache would rise to become the country's vice-chancellor.
The video shows Strache, leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), and fellow party member Johann Gudenus, deputy mayor of Vienna at the time, meeting with a woman in a luxurious holiday villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza. The elegant, svelte woman with long hair and dressed in a black designer dress and high heels was introduced to them as Alyona Makarova, the purported niece of Igor Makarov, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin. Extremely rich, of course, and able to conduct business practically anywhere she wanted because she was also in possession of an EU passport from Latvia.
Editor's note: The decoy herself cannot be seen in any of the videos shown here. Recognizable in the video are Heinz-Christian Strache (with glasses), Johann Gudenus (in a blue T-shirt) as well as his wife Tajana.
Heinz-Christian Strache enjoyed a meal of sea bass carpaccio, tuna tartare and sushi, accompanied by top shelf vodka and can-after-can of Red Bull, which Strache is known to like – after which the purported Russian then made him an extremely dubious offer. She said she wanted to invest a few hundred million euros in Austria – and she wanted to know whether they could work together on the matter. Whether she, the purported niece of a Russian oligarch, and the FPÖ could both benefit from the collaboration.
The supposed investor already had a plan: She proposed acquiring a 50-percent stake in the Kronen Zeitung, a highly influential Austrian tabloid, and to use the newspaper as a mouthpiece backing Strache and his FPÖ party in the election campaign. Strache, dressed casually in a slightly ratty T-shirt and jeans, seemed enthusiastic – mostly about the proposal, but also about the woman herself. "Are you kidding? She's hot," he said, with a Viennese lilt.
Strache spoke for more than six hours with the woman, alternately whispering and roaring, lecturing and gesticulating. He smoked one cigarette after the other and chewed his nails nervously. Perhaps because he could hardly believe his luck? Or perhaps because he had a suspicion that his luck couldn't be trusted?
Ultimately, a deal took shape in that room in the Ibiza villa on that July day in 2017: Russian money of uncertain provenance would help boost the FPÖ's election results. And it goes without saying that the woman purporting to be Alyona Makarova would also get something out of it.
That night, switching between Russian and English, she repeatedly asked what she would get in return after the election if, as planned, Strache were to become part of the government. The woman had a confidant at her side in the villa, a middle-aged man in white trousers and a blue shirt, who did most of the talking when it came to the sensitive negotiations. He demanded, in German, that they be granted the kind of blatant financial advantages that only a government can provide. There is a term that is normally used to describe deals of the kind that were discussed in the room that night: Corruption.
But Heinz-Christian Strache, who is fond of presenting himself as the man cleaning up Austrian politics, didn't stand up and leave as one might have expected him to do in such a situation. Instead, while he repeatedly emphasized during the conversation that he was only available for legal deals, he would quickly turn around and agree to proposals that, if implemented, would clearly be illegal. The matters discussed included the question of whether the FPÖ, if it became part of a coalition government, would be in a position to award artificially inflated government contracts to the purported Russian. They also talked about the possibility of the Russian woman making a donation to the FPÖ party that could be concealed by way of an association.
The Russian woman's apparent confidant said her money wasn't "actually entirely legal" and described the deal as "legally tricky." And yet that still didn't prompt Strache and Gudenus to leave. The confidant said the Russian woman's dealings were in "an illegal space." Strache and Gudenus remained seated.
The FPÖ boss and the deputy mayor of Vienna remained at the meeting for more than six hours, a rendezvous that most politicians would likely never even have considered. The full length of the meeting is documented in the video, sober viewing that raises deep moral questions, both political and otherwise. More than six hours that covered not only backroom deals, but also the overarching goal of creating a tamed Austrian media landscape similar to the Hungarian model. It also covered such gossip as which high-ranking politician is homosexual and which one does cocaine and where he gets it. The video provides a glimpse into the small world of Viennese politics.
Strache and Gudenus didn't leave until well past midnight, when they moved on to a large nightclub called "Hï Ibiza," located a few kilometers away in the resort town of Playa d'en Bossa.
Did Strache or Gudenus report to the authorities the next day that someone had attempted to bribe them? Or that illicit money was to be smuggled into Austria?
Requests for responses to those questions sent by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the newsweekly Der Spiegel were left unanswered. In a message to Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel, Strache and Gudenus did not deny having been in that villa, but stress that it was a "strictly private meeting".
Ibiza, an oligarch's niece, millions and millions of euros and a major newspaper? Even by the standards of Austrian politics – which has a penchant for absurdist drama – it is a rather audacious scenario. Too audacious to be real, in fact. Strache and Gudenus, it turns out, had been lured into a trap. Apparently, someone wanted to test how they would react to such a tempting offer.
The purported Russian wasn't the niece of oligarch Makarov, who actually is a real person. Nor is it likely that she had hundreds of millions of euros at her disposal. She was simply acting as a decoy.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel both obtained parts of the video and audio recordings and analyzed them together. The Süddeutsche Zeitung paid no money for the material, and neither did Der Spiegel, according to the magazine.
Neither Der Spiegel nor the Süddeutsche Zeitung have any reliable information about the motives of the people who set Strache this trap in 2017 or who they may have been working for.
But one thing is clear following the evaluation of the material and verification of its authenticity by two experts: It is in the public interest to know how Strache and Gudenus, high-ranking representatives of the Austrian government and of their party, responded to dubious advances from a purported oligarch. Strache, 49, is currently Austria's vice chancellor and head of the FPÖ. Gudenus, 42, is one of two FPÖ parliamentary group leaders in the National Council, Austria's parliament. Both are extremely important figures in Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's coalition government – an alliance that pairs the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) with the right-wing populist FPÖ and has been deeply shaken recently by the reluctance of FPÖ politicians to distance themselves from the radical, far-right fringe of their party. Kurz has been under scrutiny both at home and abroad since forming a government with the right-wing populists. The video from Ibiza is likely to create additional pressure for Kurz's government.
Strache and his political protégé Gudenus regularly spend their holidays on Ibiza, Mallorca's sister island which has been attracting the rich and the beautiful for decades. Locals and hippies once had the gorgeous bays to themselves, but today it's the luxury yachts of American film stars and Russian industrial magnates that anchor there. The villa in which Strache and Gudenus negotiated election help with the purported oligarch is situated a few kilometers outside Ibiza Town on a range of hills and epitomizes every cliché about the island.
The luxurious property, with its whitewashed walls, is full of designer furniture inside and includes a pool and guesthouse outside. It's bookable through an online rental agency at a cost of around 3,000 euros for three nights. The Süddeutsche Zeitung has obtained photos of an invoice showing the villa was booked from July 22-25, 2017. An expert hired by the Süddeutsche Zeitung confirmed that the photos advertising the villa on the booking website show the same rooms that can be seen in the hours of video footage.
Strache, Gudenus and his wife had already been in Ibiza for a few days when they drove to the villa on the evening of Monday, July 24. Reporting by the Süddeutsche Zeitung found that they arrived at around 8 p.m. Dinner had been delivered one hour earlier – at a cost of 374 euros, according to the invoice. High-end luxury cars were also parked on the property, including a Mercedes Maibach and a BMW M4 sports car among others. Bodyguards were also likely present. The trap had been set.
"As long as I'm not dead," Strache said, "I'll be in charge for the next 20 years."
The hosts and guests introduced themselves to each other and they started off by having an aperitif on the terrace. Hidden cameras and microphones began recording their conversations there. Some small talk, champagne, toasts – a little something to break the ice. Strache told them who he had just met (an important diamond dealer), who had been engaging in "dirty campaigning" (a controversial political adviser to the Social Democratic Party, the SPÖ) and who was calling the shots within the FPÖ (Strache, of course). And who his replacement would be if something were to happen to him (Austrian Transport Minister Norbert Hofer and Gudenus). Of course, that wasn't the plan. "As long as I'm not dead," Strache said, "I'll be in charge for the next 20 years."
Strache and the FPÖ are one-and-the-same – which is precisely why the purported niece of the oligarch wanted to speak directly with the politician. There had already been meetings with Gudenus, a confidant with whom Strache has been friends ever since they were in Austria's Vandalia fraternity together, where Strache had been his pledge father. The trap had apparently been set via Gudenus, who studied in Moscow, speaks Russian and, on that night at the villa, served primarily as the translator. Gudenus' family owns properties in Lower Austria, and Gudenus had been told that a rich Russian woman was interested in acquiring land in the country.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung's reporting, the first meetings with the Russian woman had already taken place months before in hotels in Vienna, and they had gotten along swimmingly. Gudenus' enthusiasm may also have stemmed from the fact that the Russian woman had promised him fantastical prices. In a clip from the video recorded on Ibiza, Gudenus whispers to Strache that she wanted to buy a piece of land from him "at five times the price."
In the ensuing months, though, a completely different plan emerged – that of acquiring the Kronen Zeitung newspaper. In the video, Gudenus claimed the idea had originated with him. The tabloid reaches around 2 million readers each day, a phenomenal number given Austria's total population of only 8.7 million. Having the Kronen Zeitung on your side has always been an important key to political power in Austria. You could even say the Kronen Zeitung has crowned chancellors and deposed them. If the Russian woman were actually to buy a stake in the newspaper and influence its coverage to favor the FPÖ, it would do more than just provide a tremendous boost for the party – it would be like adding rocket fuel to the election campaign.
At the time of the meeting on Ibiza, the Austrian general election was less than three months away – the election that would finally see Heinz-Christian Strache, nicknamed HC, become a member of a government cabinet. He has led the FPÖ since 2005, transforming the right-wing populist group into something of a big-tent party in the country. In summer 2017, the FPÖ hovered between second and third place in the polls, consistently behind the conservative ÖVP, but occasionally ahead of the Social Democrats. But all three were bunched closely together. Just a few percentage points would separate them and with a little luck, the FPÖ might even have become the country's strongest party. That summer, it even seemed as though Strache himself had a shot at becoming chancellor.
In other words, the Russian woman's apparent intention to acquire the Kronen Zeitung could be the FPÖ's path to power in the country.
Whether blinded by that hope or by the prospect of a lucrative property deal, Gudenus apparently didn't properly vet Alyona Makarova before setting up a business meeting with party head Strache. In its reporting, the Süddeutsche Zeitung found that Gudenus didn't even see her ID card or that of her confidant – not even once.
Strache, for his part, at least asked at the very beginning of the Ibiza meeting who knew who and how, and where they were from. He asked the woman if she was from Moscow and she affirmed that she was. "We like Russia," Strache said with a laugh, before dropping the rather superficial inquiry. He preferred entertaining the group with stories and anecdotes that tended to focus on how successful, smart or well-liked HC Strache is. Gudenus was only too pleased to give him a hand, saying that the FPÖ hadn't made a single wrong decision since 2005.
The keyword "Kronen Zeitung" didn't come up until almost two hours into the conversation – and the mood quickly turned serious. They had arrived at the "main topic," as Gudenus described it. They decided to take their conversation inside the villa, apparently to ensure that no one could eavesdrop, and they moved everything to the living room table: the drinks, the cigarettes and the ashtrays. Then Strache wanted to know: "What progress has already been made?" "What has solidified?"
Gudenus said negotiations had already begun and that the plan seemed to be real. He said Alyona Makarova was in talks with the family that owns the newspaper and had progress to report. The Russian woman's confidant added that they were in direct contact with two of the four heirs of deceased Kronen Zeitung founder Hans Dichand, who had each inherited 12.5 percent of the 50-percent stake in the company he had owned. The truth, though, is that apparently none of this was true. The negotiations with the Dichand family were a fabrication, a fact that Kronen Zeitung publisher Christoph Dichand confirmed to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Strache, though, didn't know that and he took the bait anyway, raving about the "most powerful newspaper in Europe relative to population," with "a gigantic amount of power" and a "world-class history." In the living room of the villa, he went through scenarios of what a takeover of the paper might look like: A few journalists would be "shown the door," a few new ones would be brought in. Journalists, he said, are "the biggest whores on the planet," so that won't be any problem.
When Gudenus then translated the Russian woman's claim that the purchase of the Kronen Zeitung could be completed within weeks, with plenty of time left before the election, Strache's euphoria reached a fever pitch. If she did actually acquire the newspaper and there were two-to-three weeks to push the FPÖ before the vote, he shouted, "then we won't get 27, we will get 34 percent!"
In Strache's strategic thinking, control of the Kronen Zeitung represented more than just a path to power. It would be a first step toward an even bigger goal – the Orbánization of the Austrian media landscape. The Hungarian leader is one of the strongmen Strache likes to emulate in his leadership style. "If we had the absolute majority, we could do things the way Orbán does," he shouted to his supporters at an FPÖ event in Vösendorf in January 2018.
The tone was similar in the villa on Ibiza. "We want to build a media landscape similar to Orbán's," Strache said. A glance across the border is all you need to realize what he means, where the Hungarian public broadcasting system has already been the government's mouthpiece for several years. Even the privately held media there is largely under the control of people connected with Orbán. In such a situation, one doesn't have to worry much about unwanted criticism, and it's also easier to win elections. Freedom of the press? That's something that Strache also finds to be something of a nuisance. And he promised to deliver a "media concept" for the new Kronen Zeitung to the supposed Russian investor within two or three weeks.
Strache explained to the Russian woman over and over again how she could make money with the Kronen Zeitung – simply because, as the publisher, people would be coming to her and new business opportunities would open up as a result.
The Kronen Zeitung, he told her, is "the dominant force on the newspaper market," and if she were able to gain control of a TV broadcaster as well, "you would exert control over everything." A short time later, he brought up the Austrian public broadcaster ORF which, he said, would be "the only competitor" after the purchase of the Kronen Zeitung newspaper. And he then promised: "If we become part of the government, we could imagine privatizing a broadcaster." And: "We could imagine completely restructuring ORF."
Skip ahead almost two years, and the FPÖ and ÖVP are, in fact, currently working on a new law regulating ORF, though it remains unclear what that law might ultimately look like.
Back on Ibiza, Strache was apparently aware that the purported oligarch-niece would expect compensation for providing the FPÖ with campaign assistance. While he was careful at many points in the discussion to emphasize that everything had to be "in conformance with the law, legal" and "consistent with our platform," he then said something that isn't likely to be forgotten any time soon: "If that's her asset, and she makes that contribution three weeks before the election, then you'd have to be an idiot – there's no need to talk further." There's a moment when several voices can be heard talking over each other before Strache says: "Excuse me, excuse me!" He then elucidated what he could do for her if she were to provide such assistance: "Then tell her she should found a company like STRABAG" – the multinational Austrian construction company. "All public tenders that STRABAG now receives would then be hers."
At that moment, Strache threw caution to the wind and did exactly what the decoy had apparently been hoping for: He blatantly stepped over the bounds of what is permissible. Pledging to grant public contracts to the presumed investor in exchange for her media support in the campaign is neither "in conformance with the law" nor is it "legal." And it probably also isn't consistent with the election platform on which the FPÖ election campaign was based.
It sounds an awful lot like corruption. I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine.
Whether Strache could face legal troubles as a result is a separate question. Experts are skeptical since he made these promises before he was in office.
When contacted for comment, Strache stated via WhatsApp that neither he nor the FPÖ "received or were promised any kind of benefits from these people." In addition, Strache and Gudenus wrote, "a lot of alcohol was consumed as the evening progressed" and there was "a high language barrier" with "no professional interpreter."
It is likely no accident that Strache brought up STRABAG. Businessman Hans Peter Haselsteiner, a powerful political adversary of Strache's, owns a stake in the company. Haselsteiner also once held a seat in Austrian parliament for the Liberal Forum party, and ahead of the Austrian presidential election in 2016, he invested significant amounts of money in a campaign against the FPÖ candidate Norbert Hofer, who ultimately lost by a razor-thin margin to the Green Party candidate Alexander Van der Bellen. The two don't like each other much – and Strache doesn't appear to be too concerned about hiding that fact.
Just a few minutes earlier in the Ibiza meeting, Strache had said: "The first thing" he could promise should his party become part of government was: "Haselsteiner doesn't get any more contracts."
And because Haselsteiner's company STRABAG is awarded many public tenders, Strache added: "It's a huge volume." He went on to say: "If the quality is there and a quality bidder is there, then I'll be the first to say ..." At which point Strache thrust his arms in the air in a theatrical shrug.
And then Strache addressed for a third time the idea of freezing out STRABAG on behalf of the Russian. Turning the discussion to highway construction, he said he was "immediately in favor" of giving "every public tender" to "anyone but Haselsteiner."
Strache also repeatedly brought up the connection to campaign assistance. In one instance, he turned to his companion Gudenus so that he could translate something for the purported Russian: "Tell her that if she takes over the Kronen Zeitung three weeks before the election and boosts us to first place, then everything is up for discussion." In another: "There's not much to say here. If she takes over the Krone Zeitung and is able to give us a punch three weeks before the election, then we can talk about everything. We would always find a way to figure it out." Strache is not particularly well-versed in English and it seems likely that instead of "punch," he actually meant "push," the word he used in a different quote.
But Strache's purported Russian partners still weren't satisfied, even with the STRABAG-related pledge that they would receive public contracts. They responded that they didn't just want public tenders -- they also wanted "public contracts with a surcharge" – overpriced to their advantage. Strache answered with an extended "Jaaaa." The confidant of the purported oligarch-niece then went even further and said that the point was "that the surcharge would be guaranteed."
Strache answered immediately: "Again, you'll get that with the public contracts."
That pledge came from the same man who had just stated that he wouldn't do anything illegal. That legality was sacred to him and that was his greatest strength. The same man who, in a different part of the video, said he was against inflated prices, that the FPÖ always wanted the best for the country, that this desire was part of the party's idealism.
„I’m the Red Bull brother from Austria.“
The video essentially shows a dance, one in which the two decoys continually tried to push Strache right to the edge of what is permissible – and beyond. In doing so, they repeatedly made extremely clear what they were after: corrupt business deals. The woman explains, that in her practice it is like this: "You put something into it, you give it to someone, you buy a vote. Then this vote makes something to your advantage." She adds, "And that's what we're talking about." Strache and Gudenus get spelled out what they're getting into here.
Over and over again, they listed the countries in Eastern Europe that they claimed had agreed to such deals. Most of the time, Strache remained steadfast: In Austria, he said more than once, things are done differently – passages that were so innocuous that they could have been written by a press spokesman. It was clear that he would have preferred it had the Russian woman been satisfied with vague, non-specific pledges. At the same time, though, he was apparently wary of driving her away. And as the cloud of cigarette smoke thickened, the dance continued, with Strache imbibing vodka & Red Bull all the while. "I'm the Red Bull brother from Austria," he said in English at one point.
The confidant of the supposed Russian woman ultimately asked in an exasperated tone: "Just so I understand correctly: Should I tell her that she can expect nothing in return et cetera?" Strache immediately countered: "No, that's wrong, that's wrong." Gudenus was also quick to dissent. Then Strache explained how it should work, gesticulating with an unlit cigarette between his fingers: "She needs to tell us that she is interested in this line of business and that line of business and the other line of business. Like that. And then we'll take a look at what is most beneficial" and "what fits."
Throughout the evening, the FPÖ men and the supposed Russian woman spoke about a number of different ideas, all of which essentially focused on one thing: How could the woman allegedly named Alyona Makarova funnel her money into Austria? Some of the offers made were harmless, such as when Strache suggested she buy up hotels – "awesome, awesome run-down hotels" near good ski resorts "because you can turn them into something."
Things got a bit more tenuous when Strache offered to use the contacts he – and here, the word "allegedly" is perhaps appropriate as well – has almost everywhere in the world. He quickly added that he probably didn't need to make his Russian contacts available since his counterpart likely already had "good contacts in Russia, probably to Putin." But, he said, there were his "Israeli friends" who he claimed were close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who "have a problem with the leftists there." Or the Chinese – "Those dogs have a lot of money," as Strache unflatteringly put it. He said he had been invited to go to China soon, adding that in the country, they like to see political and economic issues in the same hands. He explained that he understood that to mean that the Chinese wanted to know from him who they should be doing business with in Austria. And he could, of course, make suggestions. "That's how the story goes," Strache said, meaning that's how things work.
Strache even offered the Russian woman a business area the FPÖ had always vilified: the water supply system. Officially, the FPÖ boss had always been clear on the issue: Water should be "neither a source of profit for companies nor capital for speculators." But in the villa on Ibiza, he was suddenly calling it "white gold" and spoke of wanting to establish a structure "where we can sell the water, where the state earns revenues and the one that runs it also earns revenues." They would merely have to "iron out the percentages."
Back in April 2013, Johann Gudenus had unleashed a storm of indignation against the SPÖ in Vienna, accusing them of a "red privatization obsession," red being the color generally associated with the center-left party. One of the examples he used was a water source that had been leased by the city of Vienna to a private company in 1998 for commercial use. After the water offer, Strache and Gudenus offered that the Russian woman could get involved in the gambling market, saying they wanted to break up the monopoly in that area, anyway.
At some point, of course, the question came up as to what, exactly, Strache and Gudenus wanted. After all, they had shown themselves to be more than willing to help the Russian woman find a home for her money in Austria. One of their desires was clear: They wanted support for their campaign from the Krone Zeitung. And then Strache and Gudenus threw out another idea: "If she wants," Strache said twice, "if she likes the idea," she could make a donation to the party. If not, then not.
The political donation issue is problematic on two fronts. On the one hand, political parties in Austria are not allowed to accept donations from foreigners in excess of 2,641 euros – and one can assume that Strache might have been expecting a bit more than that from a Russian multimillionaire. On the other hand, Strache and Gudenus didn't intend for her to donate money directly to the FPÖ – as they said repeatedly – but "through the association."
Strache was quite clear about why the Russian woman should donate to the association instead of directly to the party. When you donate to the party, he said, "it gets reported to the Court of Audits" and "nobody wants that." A donation to the association could avoid such unpleasantness. "The association is non-profit, it has nothing to do with the party," the FPÖ head explained. "That means it doesn't have to be reported to the Court of Audits. It is a not-for-profit association, with three lawyers. It has a charter: making Austria more economically competitive." But he never actually named the association. In Russian, Gudenus reaffirms how secret all this is: nobody would know anything about this association.
Earlier that evening, Gudenus had already claimed that other parties take advantage of the donation loophole as well. Perhaps that's why Strache and he were so open – because they believed that everyone does it anyway.
The FPÖ has been fulminating for years against large donors, making a donation from the Russian woman via the association doubly attractive: It wouldn't be made public. And here, the meeting in Ibiza revealed yet more murk: If what Strache described is true, then his party has long since established such a system. "There are a couple of very wealthy people and they pay between 500,000 and 1.5 to 2 million." And a bit later: "I can name a couple of people," he said, who "pay, not to the party but through a non-profit association." And to be more precise, he added "circumventing the Court of Audits."
And then he named a couple of names: the weapons manufacturer Gaston Glock, the German department store heiress and billionaire Heidi Goëss-Horten and the investor René Benko, who, Strache said, donates to both the FPÖ and the ÖVP. According to Strache, another of the donors was the gambling machine company Novomatic.
Heidi Goëss-Horten, René Benko, Gaston Glock and Novomatic all deny such involvement. Heinz-Christian Strache and Johann Gudenus, meanwhile, told the Süddeutsche that the donations were never actually received and that they had been clear about the legal restrictions applying "to all potential donations." Strache did not deny the existence of the association.
The way in which Strache spoke openly to the alleged niece of a Russian oligarch – a woman whom he had never met before – about allegedly covert party donations was one of the strangest parts of the video. The scene was also memorable when Gudenus, as he was translating the list of the alleged donors for the Russians, stood in the middle of the room and shaped his hands in the form of a pistol when speaking of Glock.
The later floor leader of a governing party in Austria. Bang, bang.
For most of the video, it didn't appear that the FPÖ politicians were at all suspicious that the entire meeting could actually be a ruse. There were, though, a couple of moments when Strache suddenly looked around, apparently examining the walls as though looking for a hidden camera. And then there's the moment when all three suddenly became nervous: Gudenus, his wife and Strache, late in the evening.
The two decoys had stepped out of the room for a moment and the three began whispering. The word "trap" was mentioned and "contrived." Strache said that the allegedly mega-rich Russian had dirty toenails. Gudenus then responded assuredly: "It's not a trap." Strache, though, suddenly seemed subdued.
Perhaps he had just realized the situation he had got himself into. Even if one was willing to discount the STRABAG offer as whimsical, the allegedly covert party donations as common procedure and his Orbán-esque power-fantasies as being standard Strache fare – if it were to be revealed just how derogatorily and scornfully Strache and Gudenus spoke about politicians from other parties, coalition talks would have become impossible, as would close cooperation as part of a joint government.
"It is possible, but he won't say so, do you understand?"
The following episode provides a telling example: In a whisper, Strache told Gudenus about his idea for doing away with two political adversaries at once. Each of the two adversaries knew of the existence of sexually compromising material implicating the other – or even had it in their possession. But both were afraid of publicizing it out of fear of retaliation. Strache's idea was: "If we were successful in getting photos from one of them, which we could then publish abroad, the other side would think it was the other one, and the nuclear war would begin."
Even though Strache had briefly grown suspicious that the whole thing might be a trap after all, he didn't immediately leave the villa. Instead, he held a rather dark monologue about the inevitable collapse of the global economy: "The crash is coming, as certain as the amen after a prayer." And he spoke of how he had earned huge amounts of money with gold. And then, at some point, Strache, Gudenus and his wife decided it was time to head out to the club.
And yet he was still preoccupied with the opportunity presented by the possible Kronen Zeitung deal. Strache turned once again to the Russian woman's confidant and said she really should do the "right and smart" thing and buy the newspaper. The confidant responded by warning that she needed a clear pledge and she needed it now. "I don't know how important this whole thing is for you," he said, but if it was important, he intimated, now was the time to act.
Strache turned to Gudenus. "Take care of it Joschi," he said, using the nickname by which Gudenus is known within the FPÖ. He then repeated the request: "Take care of it. Take care of it." So Joahann Gudenus headed into the kitchen. "Alyona," he called to the Russian woman, and then he said something in Russian which has been translated and certified by an accredited interpreter. "It is possible, but he won't say so, do you understand?"
"He" was a reference to Strache. The head of the FPÖ. The man who professes to be so concerned about the law. "He" won't say so. Joschi, though, who had been told to take care of it, Joschi said so. Strache's comrade-in-arms, Strache's protégé, Strache's confidant. And Joschi turned to the woman who supposedly wanted to illegally stash millions in Austria and said: "We are 100 percent prepared to help, no matter what."
And now, they could head out to the club. "High, high, high society," Heinz-Christian Strache sang once they were outside, adding in English: "We make party now." Their FPÖ friends were waiting.
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