Stunning Lutsenko Interview – Outlines: Marie Yovanovitch Perjury, George Kent Impeachment Motive, Lindsey Graham Motive to Bury Investigation

In a fantastic display of true investigative journalism, One America News journalist Chanel Rion tracked down Ukrainian witnesses as part of an exclusive OAN investigative series. The evidence being discovered dismantles the baseless Adam Schiff impeachment hoax and highlights many corrupt motives for U.S. politicians.

Ms. Rion spoke with Ukrainian former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who outlines how former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself before Congress.

What is outlined in this interview is a  problem for all DC politicians across both parties.  The obviously corrupt influence efforts by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as outlined by Lutsenko were not done independently.

Senators from both parties participated in the influence process and part of those influence priorities was exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously protecting Joe Biden and his family.  This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch.

Imagine what would happen if all of the background information was to reach the general public?  Thus the motive for Lindsey Graham currently working to bury it.

You might remember George Kent and Bill Taylor testified together.

It was evident months ago that U.S. chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, was one of the current participants in the coup effort against President Trump.  It was Taylor who engaged in carefully planned text messages with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland to set-up a narrative helpful to Adam Schiff’s political coup effort.

Bill Taylor was formerly U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (’06-’09) and later helped the Obama administration to design the laundry operation providing taxpayer financing to Ukraine in exchange for back-channel payments to U.S. politicians and their families.

In November Rudy Giuliani released a letter he sent to Senator Lindsey Graham outlining how Bill Taylor blocked VISA’s for Ukrainian ‘whistle-blowers’ who are willing to testify to the corrupt financial scheme.

Unfortunately, as we are now witnessing, Senator Lindsey Graham, along with dozens of U.S. Senators currently serving, may very well have been recipients for money through the aforementioned laundry process.  The VISA’s are unlikely to get approval for congressional testimony, or Senate impeachment trial witness testimony.

U.S. senators write foreign aid policy, rules and regulations thereby creating the financing mechanisms to transmit U.S. funds.  Those same senators then received a portion of the laundered funds back through their various “institutes” and business connections to the foreign government offices; in this example Ukraine. [ex. Burisma to Biden]

The U.S. State Dept. serves as a distribution network for the authorization of the money laundering by granting conflict waivers, approvals for financing (think Clinton Global Initiative), and permission slips for the payment of foreign money.   The officials within the State Dept. take a cut of the overall payments through a system of “indulgence fees”, junkets, gifts and expense payments to those with political oversight.

If anyone gets too close to revealing the process, writ large, they become a target of the entire apparatus.  President Trump was considered an existential threat to this entire process.  Hence our current political status with the ongoing coup.

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain meeting with corrupt Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko in December 2016.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because, well, in reality all of the U.S. Senators (both parties) are participating in the process for receiving taxpayer money and contributions from foreign governments.

A “Codel” is a congressional delegation that takes trips to work out the payments terms/conditions of any changes in graft financing.  This is why Senators spend $20 million on a campaign to earn a job paying $350k/year.  The “institutes” is where the real foreign money comes in; billions paid by governments like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Ukraine, etc. etc.  There are trillions at stake.

[SIDEBAR: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds the power over these members (and the members of the Senate Intel Committee), because McConnell decides who sits on what committee.  As soon as a Senator starts taking the
bribes  lobbying funds, McConnell then has full control over that Senator.  This is how the system works.]

The McCain Institute is one of the obvious examples of the financing network.  And that is the primary reason why Cindy McCain is such an outspoken critic of President Trump.  In essence President Trump is standing between her and her next diamond necklace; a dangerous place to be.

So when we think about a Senate Impeachment Trial; and we consider which senators will vote to impeach President Trump, it’s not just a matter of Democrats -vs- Republican.  We need to look at the game of leverage, and the stand-off between those bribed Senators who would prefer President Trump did not interfere in their process.

McConnell has been advising President Trump which Senators are most likely to need their sensibilities eased.   As an example President Trump met with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in November.  Senator Murkowski rakes in millions from the multinational Oil and Gas industry; and she ain’t about to allow horrible Trump to lessen her bank account any more than Cindy McCain will give up her frequent shopper discounts at Tiffanys.

Senator Lindsey Graham announcing today that he will not request or facilitate any impeachment testimony that touches on the DC laundry system for personal financial benefit (ie. Ukraine example), is specifically motivated by the need for all DC politicians to keep prying eyes away from the swamps’ financial endeavors.  WATCH:

This open-secret system of “Affluence and Influence” is how the intelligence apparatus gains such power. All of the DC participants are essentially beholden to the various U.S. intelligence services who are well aware of their endeavors.

There’s a ton of exposure here (blackmail/leverage) which allows the unelected officials within the CIA, FBI and DOJ to hold power over the DC politicians. Hold this type of leverage long enough and the Intelligence Community then absorbs that power to enhance their self-belief of being more important than the system.

Perhaps this corrupt sense of grandiosity is what we are seeing play out in how the intelligence apparatus views President Donald J Trump as a risk to their importance.

ATF

Here’s Why The Justice Department Must Investigate Joe Biden’s “Quid Pro Quo”

from Gregg Jarrett

Democrats are determined to pursue their fanciful impeachment of President Trump based on an imaginary “quid pro quo.” Rep. Schiff and others have even suggested that even if there was no  “quid pro quo,” the Ukraine call could still be grounds for impeachment.

There is, of course, no evidence of a “quid pro quo” in President Trump’s telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, 2019.  The transcript of the call shows no pressure, no condition, and no demand for anything. This is corroborated by the statements of Zelensky who confirmed that there was no blackmail involved during the call and no pressure applied.  “Nobody pushed me,” Zelensky said.  We had a great phone call,” he added.  “It was normal.”   

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Ironically, there is evidence of a clear “quid pro quo” in Joe Biden’s threat to the Ukrainian government when he was Vice President and served as the point-person on Ukraine.  At a public forum, Biden is seen bragging on camera that he warned the Kiev government in early 2016 that he would withhold $1 billion in American aide unless a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was fired.  Shokin has said in interviews that he was sacked because his investigators were “on his (Hunter Biden’s) tail” in a case of suspected corruption involving Burisma where the V-P’s son held a board seat for which he was not remotely qualified.

Joe Biden’s boast about his “quid pro quo” is compelling evidence that he may have used his public office to confer a benefit ($1 billion) in exchange for something of value –shutting down an investigation to help his son.       

Yet, Democrats and the media would have you believe that Trump’s non-existent “quid pro quo” is an impeachable offense which demands his removal from office, whereas Biden’s “quid pro quo” is perfectly acceptable.  It is not. Here’s why Congress and the Department of Justice should investigate Biden’s actions.          

JOE BIDEN’S QUID PRO QUO:  

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (15 USC 78dd-1):  Passed in 1977 and later amended, this law criminalizes foreign bribery.  It is illegal for a U.S. person to coerce or influence, through bribery or extortion, a foreign nation into taking action that might financially benefit that person, his family or business.   If it can be shown that Biden, as V-P, used his public office to influence or coerce a foreign official into taking official action that benefited Biden’s son, then this would be a violation. Much depends on Biden’s intent.  In his defense, he would have to demonstrate that his intent had nothing to do with Ukraine’s investigation of Hunter Biden’s company, Burisma. However, the fired prosecutor is on record stating that Biden’s threat to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid was motivated by, or related to, his investigation of Burisma. 

Bribery (18 USC 201(b)):  Whoever corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to a public official to influence an official act his guilty of bribery.  The government must show there was a corrupt intent to obtain a quid pro quo, although it may be implied, not explicit or expressed.

Gratuities (18 USC 201(c)):  Giving, offering or promising anything of value to a public official in exchange for any official act is a violation of the gratuities statute.  It is similar to bribery, although it does not require proof of a quid pro quo or corrupt intent.    

Hobbs Act Extortion (18 USC 1951):  A threat to a foreign official in order to obtain an official benefit affecting interstate or foreign commerce would constitute extortion under the Hobbs Act.

HUNTER BIDEN ROLE: 

Hunter Biden’s lucrative position on a Ukrainian natural gas company’s board, for which he had no experience or qualification, smacks of influence peddling and self-dealing.  However, proving it would be exceedingly difficult. 

Prosecutors would have to show evidence of a scheme or agreement in which Hunter promised to utilize the power of his father’s public office to provide protection for Burisma from corruption investigations and/or prosecutions and that such a scheme was accomplished with his father’s active participation. John Solomon released memos obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show a series of email exchanges detailing how Burisma representative used Hunter Biden’s name as a reason the State Department should help resolve corruption allegations. While this may have been Burisma’s intent by placing Hunter on the board, it would take strong direct evidence to show that Hunter engineered and carried out the scheme for that purpose. 

Unfortunately, it is all too common for foreign corporations to hire relatives of powerful U.S. officials.  In so doing, they hope that this will help them gain access to those officials or otherwise provide some protection from investigations into potential wrongdoing.  Greedy relatives frequently try to leverage their connection to powerful American government officials. That, by itself, is not a crime. It is only criminal where it can be shown that the public official misuses his office to confer a benefit on that foreign business which, in turn, benefits the relative.  Bribery or an exchange of favors would have to be proven. 

In the absence of stronger anti-corruption laws, new financial disclosure laws need to be enacted that would require detailed disclosure of foreign money earned by immediate family members of U.S. public officials.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/educated-mothers-stay-at-home-longer/

They Don’t Wanna Work

December 2019

It’s been more than 15 years since New York Times Magazine writer Lisa Belkin made a splash with her article called “The Opt-Out Revolution,” about educated mothers dropping out of high-powered positions to stay at home and raise their children. Depending on their place on the political spectrum, readers were either comforted or horrified by Belkin’s report:

Wander into any Starbucks in any Starbucks kind of neighborhood in the hours after the commuters are gone. See all those mothers drinking coffee and watching over toddlers at play? If you look past the Lycra gym clothes and the Internet-access cellphones, the scene could be the ’50s, but for the fact that the coffee is more expensive and the mothers have M.B.A.’s.

Belkin’s suggestion that America’s wealthiest and most educated couples are also the ones with the most old-fashioned domestic arrangements has been confirmed in numerous ways. The well-to-do are the most likely to get married, the least likely to divorce, and the most likely to find men earning more than women. The idea that women’s M.B.A.s turned out to be of no more use than the MRS degrees that their mothers and grandmothers received was more than many people could bear.

A recent study found that about 20 percent of college mothers with children under 18 have opted out or are at home full-time. Around 30 or 40 percent of mothers with degrees from elite schools have at some point taken a sustained break from work. Among Harvard Business School alumnae, 30 percent had at some point been at home full-time.

But the time in which we have children at home is actually only a fraction of our working lives. So Pamela Stone and Meg Lovejoy—scholars at the City University of New York and Harvard respectively, whose work formed the basis for the original Belkin article—set out to learn what became of these Lululemon-clad former management consultants after their kids got older.

The first thing they found was that the opt-out revolutionaries stayed home longer than they had originally planned. Before having kids, many women imagine that they will take time off from work when the kids are little. They want to see the first steps, hear the first words. And they want to see their kids before early bedtimes. And, by the way, full-time child care is pretty expensive.

What these moms discovered, though, is that older kids also benefit from having their parents around more. And parents often find their older kids enjoyable. Take Meg Romano, who “reluctantly” quit her job as a financial trader after the birth of her third child and then planned to return to the workforce relatively quickly. She changed her mind. Children, she told Lovejoy and Stone, “don’t come to you and say, ‘Mom, I really need to talk to you about something important that happened at school. They tell it when you’re driving them to piano lessons, and from the back of the car comes this little voice …. In some ways, I think it’s easier for them to talk to the back of your head.”

Thus it is that many upper-middle-class women stay out of the workforce through the time their kids graduate from high school. As the authors point out, they are pouring all their energies into ensuring that their kids maintain the same class status they enjoy. Sometimes these moms may overestimate how important their time with their children is. As one explained: “My sitter can’t sit down with my 9-year-old and do a math assignment. So if I weren’t home in the afternoon to assist, I don’t think it would get done.” Really?

It is undoubtedly true, though, that for these women whose husbands work long hours and have jobs that demand constant and immediate attention, things go more smoothly with one parent managing the home front on a full-time basis. Once this division of labor is established, it becomes harder for the mother to go back to work. The authors note that “these women experienced a surprising drift to what we identify as ‘privileged domesticity.’ Over time, their new lives as at-home mothers created a heightened involvement in mothering, community volunteer work, and traditional household roles.” Stone and Lovejoy note that much of the volunteering these women do outside of their homes is really an extension of their intensive mothering. They volunteer at school a lot—and then, when their kids graduate, they generally stop.

But for some women, these volunteer positions turn into full-time work. Many choose to work for educational institutions or local nonprofits that offer flexibility even if the paycheck is significantly lower than what they were making before they opted out.

When they opt back in, they do not want to return to their former employers. A national study found that only 5 percent of women sought to be rehired. Perhaps, as Stone and Lovejoy argue, it is because their former employers were so unyielding as to drive them out of the workplace to begin with. Or perhaps it’s because something about being at home with kids has changed their orientation. Romano tells them, “I felt like Sybil; you know I’m like trying to twist my head around to go from being, ‘I’ll scratch your eyes out over an eighth of a point’ to, you know, nurturing good mommy.”

Many of them instead decide to retool and launch themselves into professions that are entirely new or only tangentially related to what they did before. They go to work for nonprofits, schools, or philanthropies. Some have to go back to school but others are able to spin volunteer work into connections to new fields. Still more decide to consult part time in their previous fields. Generally speaking, they have little trouble relaunching their careers. A booming economy with low rates of unemployment probably helps.

And here’s the kicker. The women actually like these new jobs better. As the authors write: “While objectively, especially with regard to pay, security and benefits, their new jobs compared invidiously to their former ones, women were much more satisfied with work the second time around.” When the authors first interviewed them about their careers, “women most often indicated mixed feelings or moderate satisfaction, and fully two-thirds reported either low or moderate levels of satisfaction. Rating their current jobs, however, women are highly satisfied, two-thirds giving them the thumbs up.”

Which is great news. Right? Stone and Lovejoy have finally found the answer to the age-old question of what women want. Oh, not so fast, the authors claim. These women may have found some kind of individual happiness. But what about the sisterhood?

Stone and Lovejoy write:

Once women are out of the labor force, their class privilege works to further undermine their gender-egalitarian aspirations by 1) keeping them out of the workforce for a longer time, seduced by the patriarchal bargain of privileged domesticity and the status maintenance imperative of their upper-middle-class form of intensive mothering and community involvement; and 2) eroding their incentive to return to elite careers while giving them the freedom to pursue work that is less lucrative but more meaningful to them.

And don’t be fooled, the authors warn, by the fact that these women say they made these decisions freely: “Their affluence, their understanding of the privilege of their position, their professed perfectionism, and their strong sense of personal agency led them to adopt the narrative of choice.” The authors also seem startled that these women continue to call themselves “feminists” even after they have damaged the cause.

These opt-outers may actually be to blame for the dearth of women in corporate leadership positions, working as partners at high-powered law firms, or working at the highest levels of politics. “The very women who are best positioned (and indeed expected) to surmount barriers and close gender gaps instead pursue career-family strategies that work for them individually, but that ultimately exacerbate and increase gender inequality overall,” Stone and Lovejoy write.

Because these highly educated women seem so intent on pursuing their own happiness and the good of their own families over what the authors see as the best avenues for the advancement of their gender, Stone and Lovejoy are forced to offer new solutions. They suggest that corporations do more to limit work hours. Since they won’t do that on their own, they suggest that the government “require … them to pay overtime to professionals and managers.”

They also recommend that we pay the same rates to male- and female- dominated professions: “The artificial, systemic, and discriminatory devaluation [of care-giving professions] obscures the fact that the care work involved in traditionally female-dominated occupations is intrinsically valuable … and meaningful.”

Finally, the authors recommend that men should do more co-parenting. There is little acknowledgement that this is already happening. The authors argue that more mandatory paternity leave will help solve this problem.

But if women are happy with the current arrangement, why will having men stay home for a few more weeks significantly affect their decisions? Ultimately, the authors come clean. The goal, of course, of feminism is not to help individual women lead fulfilling lives. Instead, they write, “we need a significant shift in the social system (and balance of power) in the United States. Our prevailing form of capitalism (also known as ‘neoliberalism’) and patriarchy as we know it have to change.”

Good luck with that.

Missing Saudi servicemen linked to NAS Pensacola shooting sought; gunman made prior reported trip to NYC

 Article by Trevis Fedschun in "FoxNews":

Authorities investigating a deadly attack at a U.S. naval base in Florida are reportedly focused on finding several unaccounted for Saudi nationals linked to the shooting, as additional details have emerged about the shooter's movements in the weeks leading up to the rampage.

The FBI's Jacksonville office identified the shooter in a statement Saturday night as Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, and released a photo of him. Investigators said he was a 2nd Lt. in the Royal Saudi Air Force and was a student naval flight officer of Naval Aviation Schools Command when he opened fire Friday at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida before being shot dead.

 In the days since the attack, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity after being briefed by federal authorities told the Associated Press that a total of 10 Saudi students were being held on the base as of Saturday while several others were unaccounted for.

While officials have not publicly disclosed how many missing servicemen are out there, U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) has called for increased random security checks at all sites as authorities investigating the attack are still working to determine whether the shooting was an act of terrorism.

 "There's no question what it is, it's terrorism." Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) said Sunday on "Fox & Friends." "It's radical Islam."

Lt. Cmdr. Michael Hatfield told Fox News on Saturday that after the shootings last week at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii and in Florida, Northcom has directed all Defense Department installations, facilities and units within the U.S. to immediately assess force protection measures and "implement increased random security measures appropriate for their facilities."

"The advisory also told leaders to remind their workforce to remain alert and if they see something, to say something by immediately reporting to appropriate authorities any suspicious activity they may observe," Hatfield continued.

On Saturday, a U.S. official told the Associated Press that Alshamrani hosted a dinner party earlier in the week where he and three others watched videos of mass shootings.

The official who spoke Saturday said one of the three students who attended the dinner party hosted by the attacker recorded video outside the classroom building while the shooting was taking place on Friday. Two other Saudi students watched from a car, the official said.

Scott said Sunday that while Saudi Arabia has been an ally, "they have to step up here," calling reports of the dinner party and viewing of mass shooting videos "disgusting."

"The fact that the FBI has not been able to, the reports say, the FBI has not been able to talk to every airman. I mean, I can't imagine that." he said on "Fox & Friends." "If the Saudi government is our ally our partner, they will make sure that there is full cooperation, not one airman needs to leave this country until the complete investigation."

In the weeks leading up to the shooting, Alshamrani and the same three other Saudi military trainees made a visit to New York City where they went to several museums and Rockefeller Center, a person briefed on the investigation told the New York Times.

Federal investigators are now focused on whether the trip was an extended tourist trip during the Thanksgiving holiday week or if the group of Saudi trainees had other motives or were meeting with anyone else in New York, according to The Times. Of the 10 Saudi trainees reportedly detained, three of them are the ones from the dinner party who claimed they were only filming the shooting because they happened to be there at the time and wanted to capture the moment, the U.S. official told the New York Times.

'Fox News Sunday' exclusive: Defense Secretary Mark Esper joins Chris Wallace for a wide-ranging interview at the Reagan National Defense Forum.

In an exclusive interview on "Fox News Sunday," Defense Secretary Mark Esper said it's unclear if they were filming it before it began or if it was something where they picked up their phones filmed it when they saw it unfolding.

"You know, today, people pull out their phones and film everything and anything that happens," Esper told Fox News' Chris Wallace.

A U.S. official on Friday told the AP the FBI was examining social media posts and investigating whether he acted alone or was connected to any broader group. The SITE Intelligence Group, a group that monitors jihadist media, said that Alshamrani posted to Twitter echoing sentiments from former Al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden.

A spokesperson for Twitter told Fox News in an email statement Saturday that the account was suspended but they declined to comment further as to when the manifesto was tweeted out. The FBI told Fox News it was aware of the anti-American Twitter post, but would not comment on whether they're looking at it as part of the investigation.

In remarks at a gathering of top U.S. defense and military officials on Saturday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper was asked whether he could say definitively that the shooting was an act of terrorism.

“No, I can’t say it’s terrorism at this time,” he said, adding that the investigation needs to proceed. He declined to discuss details of the investigation so far.

In the wake of the deadly shooting, President Trump said Saturday that he would review policies governing foreign military training in the U.S but declined to say whether the shooting was terrorism-related.

The U.S. has long had a robust training program for Saudis, providing assistance in the U.S. and in the kingdom. Currently, more than 850 Saudis are in the United States for various training activities. They are among more than 5,000 foreign students from 153 countries in the U.S. going through military training.

“This has been done for many decades,” Trump said. “I guess we're going to have to look into the whole procedure. We'll start that immediately."

Scott on Sunday called for suspending the training program pending a thorough review.

"We have got to make sure that American sailors, American soldiers are safe. We have to have a full review of what happened here," he said on "Fox & Friends." "We cannot be taking risks for our sailors."

The Navy on Saturday identified the three victims of the NAS Pensacola shooting as Ensign Joshua Kaleb Watson, 23, of Coffee, Ala.; Airman Mohammed Sameh Haitham, 19, of St. Petersburg, Fla.; and Airman Apprentice Cameron Scott Walters, 21, of Richmond Hill, Ga.

“The Sailors that lost their lives in the line of duty and showed exceptional heroism and bravery in the face of evil," Capt. Tim Kinsella, the commanding officer of Naval Air Station Pensacola, said in a statement. “When confronted, they didn’t run from danger; they ran towards it and saved lives."

Kinsella said Naval Air Station Pensacola, one of the Navy's most historic and storied bases, would remain closed until further notice. The base sprawls along the waterfront southwest of the city's downtown and dominates the economy of the surrounding area.

Part of the base resembles a college campus, with buildings where, in addition to foreign students, 60,000 members of the U.S. Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard train each year in multiple fields of aviation.

The FBI's Jacksonville office has said it's not aware of any credible threat toward the Pensacola community at this time, but anyone with information regarding Alshamrani and his activities before the shooting is encouraged to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.


 https://www.foxnews.com/us/missing-saudi-servicemen-nas-pensacola-shooting-fbi-new-york-city-trip

How to Avoid Civil War:

https://mises.org/wire/how-avoid-civil-war-decentralization-nullification-secession

How to Avoid Civil War: Decentralization, Nullification, Secession

Ryan McMaken

It's becoming more and more apparent that the United States will not be going back to "business as usual" after Donald Trump leaves office, and it is easy to imagine that the anti-Trump parties will use their return to power as an opportunity to settle scores against the hated rubes and "deplorables" who dared attempt to oppose their betters in Washington, DC, California, and New York.

This ongoing conflict may manifest itself in the culture war through further attacks on people who take religious faith seriously, and on those who hold any social views unpopular among degreed people from major urban centers. The First Amendment will be imperiled like never before with both religious freedom and freedom of speech regarded as vehicles of "hate." Certainly, the Second Amendment will hang by a thread.

But even more dangerous will be the deep state's return to a vaunted position of enjoying a near-total absence of opposition from elected officials in the civilian government. The FBI and CIA will go to even greater lengths to ensure the voters are never again "allowed" to elect anyone who doesn't receive the explicit imprimatur of the American intelligence "community." The Fourth Amendment will be banished so that the NSA and its friends can spy on every American with impunity. The FBI and CIA will more freely combine the use of surveillance and media leaks to destroy adversaries.

Anyone who objects to the deep state's wars on either Americans or on foreigners will be denounced as stooges of foreign powers.

These scenarios may seem overly dramatic, but the extremity of the situation is suggested by the fact that Trump — who is only a very mildopponent of the status quo — has received such hysterical opposition. After all, Trump has not dismantled the welfare state. He has not slashed — or even failed to increase — the military budget. His fights with the deep state are largely based on political issues, and not on major policy disagreements. Trump, for example, sides with the surveillance state on matters such as the prosecution of Edward Snowden.

His sins lie merely in his lack of enthusiasm for the center-left's current drive toward ever more vicious identity politics. And, more importantly, he has been insufficiently gung ho about starting more wars, expanding NATO, and generally pushing the Russians toward World War III.

For even these minor deviations, we are told, he must be destroyed.

So, we can venture a guess as to what the agenda will look like once Trump is out of the way. It looks to be neither mild nor measured.

And then what?

In that situation, half the country — much of it from the half that calls itself "Red-State America" may regard itself as conquered, powerless, and unheard.

That's a recipe for civil war.

The Need for Separation

But how can we take steps now to minimize this polarization the damage it is likely to cause?

The answer lies in greater decentralization and local autonomy. But as long as most Americans labor under the authoritarian notion that the United States is "one nation, indivisible" there will be no answer to the problem of one powerful region (or party) wielding unchallenged power over a minority.

Many conservatives naïvely claim that the Constitution and the "rule of law" will protect minorities in this situation. But their theories only hold water if the people making and interpreting the laws subscribe to an ideology which respects local autonomy and freedom for worldviews in conflict with the ruling class. That is increasingly not the ideology of the majority, let alone the majority of powerful judges and politicians.

Thus, for those who can manage to leave behind the flag-waving propaganda of their youths, it is increasingly evident that something other than repeating bromides about teaching high-school civics, reading the Constitution, or electing "strong leaders" will have to be done.

As I've noted in the past, the notion of increasing local autonomy through nullification and secession has long been gaining steam in Europe, where referendums on decentralization are growing more frequent.

And conservatives are increasingly seeing the writing on the wall. Among the more insightful of these has been Angelo Codevilla. In 2017, Codevilla, writing in the Claremont Review of Books, laid out a blueprint for local opposition to federal power and noted:

Texas passed a law that, in effect, closes down most of its abortion clinics. The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down. What if Texas closed them nonetheless? Send the Army to point guns at Texas rangers to open them? What would the federal government do if North Dakota declared itself a “Sanctuary for the Unborn” and simply banned abortion? For that matter, what is the federal government doing about the fact that, for practical purposes, its laws concerning marijuana are being ignored in Colorado and California? Utah objects to the boundaries of national monuments created by decree within its borders. What if the state ignored those boundaries? Prayer in schools? What could bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., do if any number of states decided that what the federal courts have to say about such things is bad?

Now that identity politics have replaced the politics of persuasion and blended into the art of war, statesmen should try to preserve what peace remains through mutual forbearance toward jurisdictions that ignore or act contrary to federal laws, regulations, or court orders. Blue states and red states deal differently with some matters of health, education, welfare, and police. It does no good to insist that all do all things uniformly.

And by 2019, the need for separation was becoming more urgent. Last week Codevilla continued in this line of thinking:

[A]fter the 2020 elections ordinary Americans will have to deal with the same dreadful question we faced in 2016: How do we secure and perhaps restore our fast-diminishing freedom to live as Americans? And while we may wish for help from Trump, we have to look to ourselves and to other leaders for how we may counter the ruling class’s manifold assaults now, and especially in the long term...

The logical recourse is to conserve what can be conserved, and for it to be done by, of, and for those who wish to conserve it. However much force of what kind may be required to accomplish that, the objective has to be conservation of the people and ways that wish to be conserved.

That means some kind of separation.

... [T]he natural, least stressful course of events is for all sides to tolerate the others going their own ways. The ruling class has not been shy about using the powers of the state and local governments it controls to do things at variance with national policy, effectively nullifying national laws. And they get away with it.

For example, the Trump Administration has not sent federal troops to enforce national marijuana laws in Colorado and California, nor has it punished persons and governments who have defied national laws on immigration. There is no reason why the conservative states, counties, and localities should not enforce their own view of the good.

Not even President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would order troops to shoot to re-open abortion clinics were Missouri or North Dakota, or any city, to shut them down. As Francis Buckley argues in American Secession: The Looming Breakup of the United States, some kind of separation is inevitable, and the options regarding it are many.

It is notable that Codevilla's strategy is not marked by grandiose gestures of independence or a yearning to re-create the alleged glorious military victories of the days of yore. Such were the mistakes of the Confederates in the mid-nineteenth century.

Interestingly, Codevilla's more sensible approach shares quite a bit in common with the strategies recommended by Hans-Hermann Hoppe in his essay "What Must Be Done." The idea is to assert local control and refuse cooperation with federal policymakers. But with restraint. Hoppe writes:

It would appear to be prudent ... to avoid a direct confrontation with the central government and not openly denounce its authority or even abjure the realm. Rather, it seems advisable to engage in a policy of passive resistance and non-cooperation. One simply stops to help in the enforcement in each and every federal law. One assumes the following attitude: “Such are your rules, and you enforce them. I cannot hinder you, but I will not help you either, as my only obligation is to my local constituents.”

Consistently applied, no cooperation, no assistance whatsoever on any level, the central government’s power would be severely diminished or even evaporate. And in light of the general public opinion, it would appear highly unlikely that the federal government would dare to occupy a territory whose inhabitants did nothing else than trying to mind their own business. Waco, a teeny group of freaks, is one thing. But to occupy, or to wipe out a significantly large group of normal, accomplished, upstanding citizens is quite another, and quite a more difficult thing.

Some will be unable to break out of the mindset that the United States must forever be governed by a singular national policy. They will insist any attempt at decentralization of this sort must necessarily result in violence.

Writing at The American Conservative, Michael Vlahos, for example, appears unconvinced that violence can be avoided. But even he concedes the violence is unlikely to take the form of mass bloodshed as seen in the 1860s:

Our antique civil wars were not bound to formal rules, yet somehow they held to well-etched bounds of expectation. American society today has very different norms and expectations for civil conflict, which certainly will constrain how we fight the next battle.

Today’s America no longer embraces a national landscape of an industrial-lockstep battlefield (think Gettysburg, D-Day). Our next civil war — as social media so eloquently reminds us — will enact its violence on a battle campus of equal pain, if less blood.

Many devotees of perpetual federal supremacy, of course, won't admit even this. Any attempt at decentralization, nullification, or secession is said to be invalid because "that was decided by the Civil War." There is no doubt, of course, that the Civil War settled the matter for a generation or two. But to claim any war "settled things" forever, is clearly nonsense.

It is true, however, that if the idea of a legally, culturally, and politically unified United States wins the day, Americans may be looking toward a future of ever greater political repression marked by increasingly common episodes of bloodshed. This is simply the logical outcome of any system where it is assumed the ruling party has a right and a duty to force the ways of the one group upon another. That is the endgame of a unified America.

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for Mises Wire and The Austrian, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

An Examination of the Irregularities in the FBI’s FISA Application on Carter Page

Jeff Carlson reporting for The Epoch Times

The FBI’s FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page—a key part of the agency’s investigation of the Trump campaign—has been fraught with irregularities.

Ahead of the release of the report by Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz looking into potential FISA abuse, we provide an overview of what exactly the known irregularities are.

The initiation of the investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) was originally announced on March 28, 2018. However, the IG’s report has been repeatedly pushed back and delayed.

IG Horowitz declared his area of original focus within his initiation announcement:

“As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.“

The “alleged FBI confidential source” being referenced in the IG announcement is former MI6 spy Christopher Steele. His “dossier”—an ongoing collection of individual documents—was used by the FBI as a large component of their FISA warrant application on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in October 2016.

But there are some obvious problems with the FBI’s reliance on the Steele dossier. For one thing, former FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress to the FBI’s lack of verification of the Steele dossier:

“What I understand by verified is we then try to replicate the source information, so that it becomes FBI investigation and our conclusions rather than a reliable source’s. That’s what I understand it, the difference to be.

“And that work wasn’t completed by the time I left in May of 2017, to my knowledge.”

In other words, Comey told congressional investigators the Steele dossier wasn’t verified as of May 2017. Yet somehow, the dossier was used as the primary piece of evidence by the FBI to obtain the Carter Page FISA warrant on Oct. 21, 2016.

As the dossier was making its way into the FBI, the agency began its preparations to obtain a FISA warrant on Page, who was surveilled under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

According to testimony to Congress by former FBI General Counsel James Baker in October, 2018, it appears that the FBI set its sights on Carter Page in the summer of 2016. When asked how he had first gained knowledge of the FBI’s intention to pursue a FISA warrant on Carter Page, Baker testified that it came through his familiarity with the FBI’s investigation:

Baker: “I learned of — so I was aware when the FBI first started to focus on Carter Page, I was aware of that because it was part of the broader investigation that we were conducting. So I was aware that we were investigating him. And then at some point in time –”

Rep. Meadows: “But that was many years ago. That was in 2014. Or are you talking about 2016?”

Baker: “I am talking about 2016 in the summer.”

Rep. Meadows: “Okay.”

Baker: “Yeah. And so I was aware of the investigation, and then at some point in time, as part of the regular briefings on the case, the briefers mentioned that they were going to pursue a FISA.”

Carter Page Targeted

Notably, it appears that some individuals within the FBI, and possibly the CIA, had begun to focus on Page earlier than Baker was aware. Page had been invited to a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election.

Page attended the event just four days after a July 2016 Moscow trip, and it was during this time in the UK that he first encountered Stefan Halper. Page’s Moscow trip would later figure prominently in the Steele dossier.

Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant in media reports, stayed in contact with Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired.

In a November 2019 IG Report, Horowitz sharply criticized the FBI’s handling of confidential human sources, and in a video accompanying the release stated that “The FBI’s vetting processes for confidential sources, known as validation, did not comply with the attorney general guidelines, particularly with regard to long-term sources.”

The IG also found that the FBI’s “review committee had not vetted long-term sources in a timely manner” and once again, “did not comply with Attorney General guidelines.” Additionally, the IG noted that “FBI employees were sometimes discouraged from documenting conclusions and recommendations about sources.”

Although Steele’s name is not mentioned in the November IG Report, some of the issues described by Horowitz may pertain directly to the FBI’s handling of Steele.

In a May 29, 2019 article by The Hill, author John Solomon claimed that Britain’s top national security official warned U.S. officials in a memo “that the British government lacked confidence in the credibility of former MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s Russia collusion evidence.”

The existence of this memo has reportedly been corroborated by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and the memo is also mentioned in a filing by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s lawyers, which notes the letter was “delivered by the British Embassy to the incoming National Security team after Donald Trump’s election, and to outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice.”

The filing noted that “the letter apparently disavows former British Secret Service Agent Christopher Steele, calls his credibility into question, and declares him untrustworthy.”

The FISA process is generally viewed as one that takes months of preparation before an application is actually presented to the FISA court. But according to Baker, the process could move very quickly and could even be done orally, if needed:

Shen [Counsel for House Democrats]: “How long will it take to assemble a complete application?”

Baker: “It depends. The cases are prioritized. And so the ones that are the most urgent — so in a counterterrorism case where there is an imminent threat, the process can move extremely quickly, and it can be done all orally.”

When asked what type of evidence might be present in a FISA application, Baker noted that it could come from a wide variety of lawful sources to establish probable cause and could include witness interviews and physical surveillance. Baker listed some additional sources:

“[Y]ou might have, confidential source information. You might have information from a foreign partner. You could have intercepts from some other intelligence agency that may have been provided to the FBI.”

A primary component of the Page application was the Steele dossier, without which, according to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, no FISA warrant on Page would have been sought.

FBI lawyer Sally Moyer testified before Congress that without the Steele dossier, the Carter Page application would have had a “50/50” chance of achieving the probable cause standard before the FISA court.

Moyer also testified that the FBI’s Woods file, which provides facts supporting the allegations made in a FISA application, was not reviewed as robustly as had been thought:

Somers [Council for House Republicans]: “So you don’t — do you review the Woods’ file?”

Moyer: “No.”

Somers: “Did you review the Woods’ file in the Carter Page application?”

Moyer: “No.”

Moyer told investigators that “the person that’s signing the application is relying on the individuals who have signed the Woods form that they have the Woods file.” These individuals would be the case agent and the supervisory special agent in the field.

Somers: “Okay. So beyond the case agent, who looks at a Woods’ file?”

Moyer: “The supervisory special agent in the field.”

Somers: “In the field. But no one else out of the field of that chain looks at a Woods’ file in general?”

Moyer: “That is correct, except both of those individuals sign the Woods’ form indicating that the facts are true and accurate and that they have documents to support those facts.”

Moyer acknowledged that in some cases, the supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters who is signing off on a FISA application might choose to review the Woods file, but that it wasn’t done for the Page FISA.

Somers: “Do you know if that happened in the case of Carter Page?”

Moyer: “I don’t think it did in this case.”

Unusual Review Process

Additionally, there appears to have been an unusual review process that took place within the FBI with regard to the FISA warrant on Page.

Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the FBI and head of the bureau’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch, approved the application for a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page before it went to FBI Director James Comey.

According to Congressional testimony by Anderson, preapprovals for the Carter Page FISA warrant were provided by both the deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, before the FISA application was ever presented to Anderson for review.

Anderson testified that “my boss [James Baker] and my boss’ boss [Andrew McCabe] had already reviewed and approved this application. And, in fact, the Deputy Attorney General [Sally Yates], who had the authority to sign the application, to be the substantive approver on the FISA application itself, had approved the application. And that typically would not have been the case before I did that.”

The unusual preliminary reviews and approvals from both McCabe and Yates appear to have had a substantial impact on the normal review process, leading other individuals like Anderson to believe that the warrant application was more vetted than it really was.

Anderson testified that she had not read the Carter Page FISA application prior to signing off on it and passing it along to Comey for the final FBI signature. Anderson also testified that each day, the director might receive 15 to 20 FISAs to sign, with each containing large amounts of documentation:

Baker [Council for House Republicans]: “And you said just a minute ago — I thought you said that the Director has 20 minutes set aside to review all the FISAs?”

Anderson: “Approximately, yes.”

Steele’s Contact With the Media

To make matters worse, circular reporting, provided by Steele himself, was used as corroboration of the dossier. The Page FISA extensively cited a Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focused on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This information, which was used by the FBI to “corroborate” the dossier, was provided to Isikoff by the author of the dossier, Steele.

Additionally, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whose conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was used to open the FBI’s July 31, 2016, counterintelligence investigation, is referenced in the FISA, yet there “is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos,” according to a House Intelligence Committee memo.

Steele also had ongoing contact with former and current officials along with many members of the media in the fall of 2016. Perkins Coie, the DNC law firm that hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC, was aware of these media contacts as noted in the House Report on Russia Active Measures:

“Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.”

Steele also met with members of the U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so “at Fusion’s instruction.” According to UK Court documents, Steele testified that he “briefed” The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were “conducted verbally in person.”

Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016, for communicating with the media.

Steele’s Contact With the State Department

During a September 2016 trip to Washington, Steele met with Jonathan Winer, then-deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy for Libya, whom Steele had known since at least 2010.

Winer had received a separate dossier, very similar to Steele’s, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This “second dossier” had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer gave Steele a copy of the “second dossier.” Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele’s own dossier.

Steele later met with Kathleen Kavalec, then-deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, on Oct. 11, 2016, just 10 days prior to the FBI obtaining a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.

Kavalec’s notes from the meeting indicate that she was aware that Steele had been talking to the media as her notes mention “Wash Po/NYT” under a section listed as “Managing.” And we also know that her typed notes werepassed on to “other government officials” on Oct. 19, 2016—two days prior to the issuance of the Page FISA warrant.

Notably, Kavalec’s boss was Victoria Nuland, the former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland has previously admitted to receiving an early version of Steele’s dossier in July 2016. According to recent congressional testimony from Fiona Hill, Nuland directed Kavalec to meet with Steele.

Rep. Zeldin: “Are you aware of her [Victoria Nuland] directing anyone at State to talk to Christopher Steele during her tenure as Assistant Secretary?”

Hill: “I was aware from the exchanges that she asked Kathy Kavalec to talk to him after we had this discussion already, when I suppose Christopher SteeIe had asked to talk to her, and she asked Kathy Kavalec to talk to him instead.”

Rep. Zeldin: “In your opinion, would that be proper?”

Hill: “I wouldn’t have talked to him in that position, but whether it’s proper or not, I think, is a judgment for Assistant Secretary Nuland and others.”

Rep. Zeldin: “This was in the midst of the 2016 election, correct?”

Hill: “I believe that’s the case. I mean, I read about this later, and Kathy Kavalec told me that she’d been instructed to go and talk to him.”

According to Hill’s testimony, Steele was “my counterpart when I was the director, the national intelligence officer,” and she had a “working relationship” with Steele “for the whole period that I was national intelligence officer, so that would be from 2005 to the end of 2009.”

As noted in a May 10 letter sent by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Inspector General Michael Horowitz, “Ms. Kavalec’s contacts with Steel may have been the most significant and memorialized communications with him by a U.S. government official prior to the issuance of the Carter Page FISA warrant.”

Steele’s Bias Against Trump Was Known to DOJ’s Bruce Ohr

Steele had a longstanding relationship with DOJ official Bruce Ohr, who at the time was the highest ranking career official at the department, and maintained ongoing contact beginning in July 2016. Following Steele’s official termination by the FBI, Ohr and Steele communicated regularly for another full year, until November 2017.

Steele’s personal biases against then-candidate Trump have been reported in the media. During his Aug. 28, 2018, testimony, Ohr testified that he informed the FBI of Steele’s bias, along with details of Ohr’s wife’s employment with Fusion GPS—and Fusion’s political mandate—prior to the Oct. 21, 2016, FISA application made on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page:

Rep. Ratcliffe: “So the record is clear, what the Department of Justice and the FBI was aware of prior to the first FISA application was your relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, your wife’s relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, Mr. Steele’s bias against Donald Trump, Mr. Simpson’s bias against Donald Trump, your wife’s compensation for work for Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, correct?”

Ohr: “Right. So just, again, to reiterate, when I spoke with the FBI, I told them my wife was working for Fusion GPS. I told them Fusion GPS was doing research on Donald Trump. You know, I don’t know if I used the term opposition research, but certainly that was my—what I tried to convey to them. I told them this is the information I had gotten from Chris Steele. At some point, and I don’t remember exactly when, I don’t think it was the first conversation, I told them that Chris Steele was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected.”

Ohr also personally told Deputy FBI Director McCabe of his concerns about possible bias during an August 2016 meeting:

Rep. Meadows: “So in August of 2016, you tell Andy McCabe that you’re concerned because your wife works for Fusion GPS and that’s where you’re getting the information?”

Ohr: “I wanted Mr. McCabe to know that there was a possible, you know—that the—”

Rep. Meadows: “Conflict of interest—”

Ohr: “—of interest or appearance thereof, yeah.”

Rep. Meadows: “So there’s a possible conflict of interest in August of 2016 before a FISA warrant is actually initiated?”

Ohr: “I think I did not mean to say conflict of interest. What I would say is that in evaluating any information that I transmitted to the FBI, I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias—”

Rep. Meadows: “So you believe there was the possibility of bias?”

Ohr: “Yes.”

Although the public does not know what will be contained in the IG Report—or what conclusions, recommendations, and referrals may be made—Rep. John Ratcliffe had this to say on Fox News:

“The IG Report is going to be an indictment of the Steele Dossier and everyone that relied upon it. I know that because it has to be—I’ve seen all of the underlying documents. Same thing with regard to Papadopoulos. There was exculpatory information and I know that it wasn’t timely provided to the FISA Court. What conclusions Horowitz makes from that, I don’t know, I haven’t seen the report. But again, I’m very confident that when Jim Comey said FISA abuse was a bunch of nonsense last December, that it wasn’t. And the Inspector General’s report is going to say that.”

Early Proponents of the Steele Dossier have Called Its Accuracy Into Question

Isikoff, whose Sept. 23, 2016, article was used in the Page FISA, gave an interview on John Ziegler’s podcast, “Free Speech Broadcasting,” on Dec. 15, 2018, where Isikoff appeared to materially back away from the assertions made in his original article:

Zeigler: “You mention the Steele dossier, which to me has been unfairly derided, especially by Trump fans. Would you agree that a lot of what’s in the Steele dossier has been at least somewhat vindicated? Would you agree with that assessment?”

Isikoff: “No.”

Isikoff admitted that, “When you actually get into the details of the Steele dossier, the specific allegations, we have not seen the evidence to support them, and, in fact, there’s good grounds to think that some of the more sensational allegations will never be proven and are likely false. … But based on the public record at this point, I’d have to say that most of the specific allegations have not been borne out.”

Steele had also claimed in his dossier that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had visited Prague, something that has been consistently and vehemently denied by both Cohen and his lawyer at the time, Lanny Davis.

In a Dec. 16, 2018, appearance on MSNBC, Davis was asked by Kasie Hunt if the Prague trip ever happened. Davis responded “No, no Prague, ever, never.”

Greg Miller, national security correspondent for The Washington Post, appeared in a Nov. 16, 2018, interview televised on C-Span. Miller, when asked for his opinion of the dossier, claimed that the dossier was “accurate in its broadest and most sweeping assertions and conclusions.” However, Miller added a material caveat, noting that the “narrower you get, the more particular you get, the harder it is to figure out whether it’s on the mark.”

Miller also described specific assertions contained in the dossier that The Washington Post had attempted to prove and failed:

“It’s not for lack of trying. There’s other material in the dossier we literally spent weeks and months trying to run down. There’s an assertion in there that Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, went to Prague to settle some payments that were needed at the end of the campaign. We sent reporters through every hotel in Prague, through all over the place, just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty.

“We’ve talked to sources at the FBI and CIA and elsewhere. They don’t believe that ever happened.”

Problems With FBI’s Accessing of Raw FISA Data

Months before the FBI’s FISA application on Page, significant irregularities had been discovered by the NSA in the agency’s accessing of raw FISA data on American citizens. The sequence of events would result in what amounted to a surreptitious race between then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers and DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin.

Following the March 9, 2016, discovery that outside contractors for the FBI had been accessing raw FISA data since at least 2015, Rogers directed the NSA’s Office of Compliance to conduct a “fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702” at some point in early April 2016, according to Senate testimony and a declassified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruling.

On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) became aware of Rogers’s compliance review.

The DOJ’s NSD maintains oversight of the intelligence agencies’ use of Section 702 authority. The NSD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) jointly conduct reviews of the intelligence agencies’ Section 702 activities every 60 days. The NSD—with notice to the ODNI—is required to report any incidents of agency noncompliance or misconduct to the FISA court.

Instead of issuing individual court orders, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence (DNI) are required by Section 702 to provide the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court with annual certifications that specify categories of foreign intelligence information the government is authorized to acquire, pursuant to Section 702.

The attorney general and the DNI also must certify that Intelligence Community agencies will follow targeting procedures and minimization procedures that are approved by the FISC as part of the certification.

Carlin filed the government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the NSA inspector general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers’s ongoing Section 702 compliance review.

On Sept. 27, 2016, the day after he filed the annual certifications, Carlin announced his resignation, which would become effective on Oct. 15, 2016.

On Oct. 4, 2016, a standard follow-up court hearing was held (Page 19), with Carlin present. Again, he made no disclosure of FISA abuse or other related issues. This lack of disclosure would be noted by the court later in the April 2017 ruling:

“The government’s failure to disclose those IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing [was ascribed] to an institutional ‘lack of candor.’”

On Oct. 15, 2016, Carlin formally left the NSD.

On Oct. 20, 2016, Rogers was briefed by the NSA compliance officer on findings from the 702 NSA compliance audit. The audit had uncovered a large number of issues, including numerous “about query” violations (Senate testimony).

Rogers shut down all “about query” activity on Oct. 21, 2016. “About queries” are particularly prone to abuse, since they occur when the target is neither the sender nor the recipient of the collected communication; rather, the target’s “query,” such as an email address, is being passed between two other communicants.

On the same day, the DOJ and FBI sought and received a Title I FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. At this point, the FISA court still was unaware of the Section 702 violations.

On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA court of his findings:

“On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court.”

Rogers appeared formally before the FISA court on Oct. 26, 2016, and presented the written findings of his audit:

“Two days later, on the day the Court otherwise would have had to complete its review of the certifications and procedures, the government made a written submission regarding those compliance problems … and the Court held a hearing to address them.

“The government reported that the NSA IG and OCO were conducting other reviews covering different time periods, with preliminary results suggesting that the problem was widespread during all periods under review.”

The FISA court was unaware of the FISA “query” violations until they were presented to the court by then-NSA Director Rogers.

Carlin didn’t disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications. This might have been in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA court ahead of receiving the Carter Page FISA warrant.

As all of this was transpiring, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendationthat Rogers be removed from his position as NSA chief. The move to fire Rogers, which failed, originated sometime in mid-to-late October 2016—exactly when Rogers was preparing to present his findings to the FISA court.

The timeline of events suggest that the FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers’s investigation in order to obtain the Page FISA warrant.

Rogers presented his findings directly to the FISA court’s presiding judge, Rosemary Collyer. Collyer and Rogers would work together for the next six months, addressing the issues that Rogers had uncovered.

It was Collyer who wrote the April 26, 2017, FISA court ruling on the matter. It also was Collyer who signed the original FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016, prior to being apprised of the many issues by Rogers.

The litany of abuses described in the April 26, 2017, ruling detailed the use of private contractors by the FBI in relation to Section 702 data. Collyer referred to it as “a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.” The FBI was specifically singled out by the court numerous times in the ruling:

“The improper access previously afforded the contractors has been discontinued. The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI’s apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported.”

Rogers informed Collyer of the ongoing FISA abuses by the FBI and NSD just three days after she personally signed the Carter Page FISA warrant.

Virtually every FBI and DOJ National Security Division official with material involvement in the original Carter Page FISA application would later be removed—either through firing or resignation.