“The top [DOJ] official in early 2017 overseeing the FBI‘s Russia probe, Dana J. Boente,] testified he was briefed as many as six times on its status and was told there was no evidence of Trump campaign collusion, a newly released transcript shows. … [Instead,] during this time the FBI took major steps to expand the probe. … Trump in […]
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“The FBI and Justice Department concur with DNI Ratcliffe that the laptop is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign.” “The FBI … possess[es] … [Hunter Biden’s purported] laptop … contain[ing] emails revealing … foreign business dealings, including … in Ukraine and China [according to senior administration officials] …. emails … first obtained by the New York Post … reveal[ing] […]
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“The Obama team’s ties to the Brookings Institution are deep, and so are those of impeachment witness Fiona Hill.” “[Igor Danchenko,]… Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source … was an American resident tied to a liberal think tank close to the Obama administration …. In … [FISA] warrant [applications] targeting Trump adviser Carter Page, the FBI referred to the primary sub-source … […]
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The candidate struggles to field softballs from friendly media. … It’s well past time … Biden was asked … what he knew about … serious malfeasance by [Obama administration] officials [in the Russiagate investigation targeting the Trump campaign]. … We know … Biden was kept abreast of … the investigation […]
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“The New York Times in 2017 falsely reported that the Trump campaign had ‘repeated’ contacts with Russian intelligence officials during the 2016 campaign, and instead of being held accountable for publishing lies, the story’s authors received Pulitzer prizes.” “The FBI official who ran the investigation into whether the … Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election […]
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Remember the Steele dossier? … Now that its been thoroughly discredited, anyone care for a trip down memory lane about how folks in the media hyped it up because it made Trump look bad? […]
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“New revelations … more emphatically underline a question nobody seems willing to ask: Why did the FBI fan a Russia collusion confabulation that it knew was unfounded, false and baseless? The obvious answer is not so much rejected as turned away from: because the FBI, and specifically … Comey, had a powerful interest in changing the subject from … Comey’s […]
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“A newly declassified document reveals FBI officials circulated sensational claims that … Trump ‘worked with’ Russia in 2016 and that his campaign was offered ‘financial compensation’ to drop U.S. sanctions, but didn’t disclose that the claims came from an opposition researcher for the Democrats. … former British spy Christopher Steele … detailed by the FBI in a classified annex to […]
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“Former Trump Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein … came under increasing criticism from Republicans. … [as he stood] by his decision to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any links … [with] the Trump campaign … sa[ying] he didn’t know then of … alleged [FBI] improprieties …. [A DOJ] watchdog … […]
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“… Justice … dropped its case against Michael Flynn … ‘with prejudice[]’ …. [E]vidence … undermines the credibility of James Comey’s FBI, special counsel Robert Mueller, and the entire ‘Russia collusion’ investigation. [R]etired Army general [Flynn] … initially pleaded guilty to making false statements … when two agents interviewed him at the White House shortly after he took over as […]
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“… The AG is logically being briefed on the progress and findings of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation, which he commissioned to examine how the empty Russia collusion case got started in the first place and if it involved any wrongdoing on the part of the government. It is a safe bet that … Durham is collecting evidence beyond the […]
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“Attorney General William Barr believes the Russia investigation that shadowed President Donald Trump for the first two years of his administration was started without any basis and amounted to an effort to ‘sabotage the presidency’ …. Barr, who has appointed a U.S. Attorney to scrutinize the origins of the Russia probe, said the Justice Department has evidence there was ‘something […]
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“The dossier on Donald Trump … by … former MI6 spy Christopher Steele …accus[ing Trump] … of being compromised by Russia, was a … ‘fabrication,’ according to … leading British spy writer[] Nigel West [who] … revealed he was hired by a … Republican law firm to assess the dossier in 2017 and concluded that large parts of it were […]
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“… Numerous press accounts claimed falsely, even with the evidence in hand, that … Trump … asked for a ‘favor’ from Ukraine’s president in the form of ‘dirt’ on Joe Biden. The plain words of the available transcript show the ‘favor’ he sought was cooperation with the Justice Department’s perfectly proper investigation of the 2016 election. Now come reports … […]
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“We might not be here if the mainstream media, which loved the Steele Dossier when it seemed to incriminate … Trump, had later shown an equal interest in investigating its origins as a partisan fabrication. In his now-famous transcript … Trump mainly presses Ukraine’s new president for dirt not on the Bidens but on the known unknowns of 2016. ‘I […]
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“New report reveals that Mueller’s investigation missed key evidence to support its central claim that Russia was 100% responsible for election interference.” “… Mueller’s [Special Counsel] report lacks substantiating evidence supporting the central claims of Kremlin interference in the 2016 election, according to … RealClearInvestigations. … discrepancies over the timeline, details, and conflicts of interest from key players in the […]
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“… Russian intelligence organizations … could manage entirely on their own to hack e-mail accounts, line up cutouts such as WikiLeaks to disseminate damaging material, impersonate Americans on social media, and study elementary research available in open sources about battleground states and swing voters. * * * … The sections of the report that treat what Russia intended and achieved […]
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[first portion of CNN post:] “Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that it is possible the Russians have leverage over President Donald Trump. CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Comey at a town hall in Washington, ‘Do you think the Russians have leverage over President Trump?’ ‘I don’t know the answer to that,’ Comey responded. ‘Think it’s possible?’ Cooper asked. ‘Yes,’ […]
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“… Mueller’s Russia probe is over, and … Trump on Friday again described the probe as a ‘Witch Hunt,’ [yet] the FBI is almost certain to continue its counterintelligence investigation into Russian espionage efforts related to the 2016 election. …”
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Subject: TYING UP THE LOOSE ENDS OF RUSSIAGATE Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2019 From: Kirk Bennett <kirkbennett7@yahoo.com> TYING UP THE LOOSE ENDS OF RUSSIAGATE The unfinished business of Russiagate consists of clearing the names of innocent people; holding senior bureaucrats to account for errors of judgment and abuses of power; and restoring the tarnished image of democratic governance. By Kirk […]
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“… the exact words of Attorney General William Barr: ‘The Special Counsel and his staff thoroughly investigated allegations that members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump … conspired with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.’ How is it possible to investigate these ‘allegations’ without holding the Steele dossier, the only […]
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“… Once the Mueller report appears, and it becomes incontrovertible that whatever his faults, Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians, the many people who have persistently claimed on the basis of no evidence that he did collude with the Russians, ought to be punished. …”
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“… Though he was an integral part of the sketchy deal that delivered a considerable amount of uranium to Russia, and as I’m forever the silver-lining kind of girl, it would be charming if Democrats came full circle and investigated Mueller for his own involvement with Russia. …”
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“… highly damaging text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and his paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page … [revealed] petty, vitriolic political diatribes while making decisions on the most sensitive investigations of the 2016 political season. Their hatred toward then-candidate … Trump … [and] contempt for his supporters gave reasonable observers every reason to question whether the Hillary Clinton email […]
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“…The GOP’s evidence does reveal some puzzling interconnections among major players in the Russia probe. The FBI and the Justice Department were sometimes conducting negotiations with the same people they were also investigating for possible wrongdoing. The contacts between private investigators and government officials were occasionally incestuous. The most intriguing example of overlapping relationships involves three key players who were […]
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“‘I did not, and of course I looked for it, looked for it hard.’ That was Bob Woodward … replying to … Hugh Hewitt’s question, ‘Did you, Bob Woodward, hear anything in your research, in your interviews, that sounded like espionage or collusion?’…. [And] none of Mueller’s indictments and guilty pleas point toward confirmation …. [I]t appears that, beyond a […]
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“… Last week, Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI about the timing of his contacts with a Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud. According to Papadopoulos, Mifsud claimed to have connections to Russia and information that the Kremlin had obtained Hillary Clinton’s stolen e-mails. In May 2016, Papadopoulos relayed vague details about his conversation with […]
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“… Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr … [on] Tuesday confirm[ed] for Congress its worst suspicions about … [FBI] abuse of its surveillance and sourcing rules. … Over the past year, congressional investigators found out that … Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition-research firm that gave its infamous dossier, funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI. […]
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“Michael Cohen’s accusations have replaced Russian collusion as Washington’s reason-du-jour to impeach Donald Trump …. Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, confirmed last week that Cohen has never been to Prague in the Czech Republic. … the Steele dossier … commissioned by oppo-research firm Fusion GPS, paid for by the Clinton campaign and used by the FBI in its Trump investigation. … […]
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“Although the FBI’s case officially began July 31, 2016, there had been investigative activity before that …. John Brennan’s CIA might have directed activity in Britain … [problematic considering] longstanding agreements that the U.S. will not conduct intelligence operations there. It would explain why the FBI continues to stonewall Congress … Further, what we know about the case’s origin does […]
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“… The timing of the indictment is of course quite strategic — released right before Trump’s summit with Putin, there will be no time for critiques of the indictments to appear and be digested prior to the meeting; hence, the chances of a successful outcome auguring for peace will be lowered. And how convenient that Assange has been rendered incommunicado just when […]
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(Jack Matlock – Jackmatlock.com – June 29, 2018) About: Jack Matlock is a career diplomat who served on the front lines of American diplomacy during the Cold War and was U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union when the Cold War ended. Since retiring from the Foreign Service, he has focused on understanding how the Cold War ended and how the […]
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“Now that the world has digested the Horowitz report, notice how much of the story it doesn’t tell. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is treated as a closed loop when, in fact, much of its decision making was based on intelligence and advice supplied by other agencies. …”
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“Special counsel … Mueller’s investigation may face a serious legal obstacle …. antecedent political bias. … the Justice Department’s inspector general[] unearthed a pattern of anti-Trump bias by high-ranking [FBI] officials …. their communications … were ‘… indicative of a biased state of mind … imply a willingness to take action to impact a presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.’ Although … […]
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“New texts released … by the Justice Department’s inspector general show that the F.B.I. agent overseeing the investigation into … Trump’s campaign pledged to stop … Trump from becoming president. ‘[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right?’ asked a top F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page, in one text. ‘Right?!’ Peter Strzok, the agent overseeing the F.B.I.’s investigation into links between […]
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“… None of the works on Trump and Russia is comprehensive; the appeal of one or another depends on the angles you obsess over and the blind spots you ignore. …” * * * THE FUTURE IS HISTORY How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia By Masha Gessen. Riverhead. 515 pp. $28 COLLUSION Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump […]
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“The top U.S. counterintelligence official is advising Americans traveling to Russia for football’s World Cup beginning this week that they should not take electronic devices because they are likely to be hacked by criminals or the Russian government. … William Evanina, an FBI agent and the director of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center, warned World Cup travelers ….” […]
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“… DOJ intentionally failed to inform the [FISA] court that the [DNC] … paid for the Christopher Steele dossier. That unverified and mainly false dossier formed a significant part of the government’s application for a wiretap …. I … spent nearly 25 years reviewing challenges to warrants based on claims of withheld (or false) evidence. … unlike the typical criminal […]
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“Hoping to thwart a sophisticated malware system linked to Russia that has infected hundreds of thousands of internet routers, the F.B.I. has made an urgent request to anybody with one of the devices: Turn it off, and then turn it back on. The malware is capable of blocking web traffic, collecting information that passes through home and office routers, and […]
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“Jason Beale (a pseudonym) is a retired U.S. Army interrogator and strategic debriefer with 30 years experience in military and intelligence interrogation and human intelligence collection operations. …”
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[note from JRL web editor: warning, contains mild profanity] “… Sir Andrew Wood, a retired British diplomat … told me he knew a former MI6 officer … Christopher Steele …. * * * I agreed to receive a copy of … ‘the dossier.’ …. The allegations were disturbing … I had no idea which if any were true. I could not […]
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“By the top of the second page of the first memo former FBI director James B. Comey wrote to memorialize his conversations with President Trump, prostitutes are mentioned. Sex workers are a running theme in the seven memos released on Thursday evening, a function of their prominent role in the dossier of unproven allegations involving the president’s 2016 campaign and […]
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“Bit by bit, congressional investigators have wrested [information] from a recalcitrant [FBI regarding] its suspect 2016 election dealings. … one secret … jealously guard[ed]: how central that Steele dossier was from the start. … House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes … has demand[ed compliance] … with an August 2017 subpoena … [requiring] among other things … electronic communication [] ‘EC’ … […]
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“The United States has been the victim of repeated cyberattacks by foreign powers, and it seems to have little power to stop them. During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Russian hackers broke into the Democratic National Committee’s e-mail servers and made more general efforts to influence the election’s outcome, as detailed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians […]
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“… Finding a way back from the brink won’t be easy, but less hysteria and more reason would be a useful first step. … Those who care about our democracy should be particularly wary of stoking a new Cold War. Worsening relations only feed the worst forces on both sides – militaries expand, the space for dissent closes, nationalist fervor […]
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“… the memo confirms … the FBI used an opposition-research document paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee as part of its application to surveil Carter Page … associated with the Donald Trump campaign. … the Democrats do not dispute that the Steele dossier was the FBI’s only source in its initial FISA application for its […]
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“Few questions have greater import for the health and integrity of any republic than the question of whether important parts of its government’s national-security apparatus are abusing their power for political purposes. … particularly … in the United States, where … the Intelligence Community (IC) ha[s] grown so large and capable, where faith in the integrity of our democratic institutions […]
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“Republicans on Capitol Hill are probing a collection of unverified and salacious allegations against … Trump … compiled in late 2016 by … freelance journalist and researcher … Cody Shearer, who … passed his work along to an associate of Hillary Clinton. … eight pages of raw and unverified notes … purportedly drawn from interviews with two prominent journalists and […]
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“… Trump … refused to declassify the Democratic memo on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA)[sic; the court abbreviates itself as FISC, and deals with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)]… , sending it back for negotiation with the Justice Department over intelligence sources and methods. … Trump claimed … that Democrats laid a […]
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