Article written by Thomas Gallatin in "Patriot Post":
On Friday, the St. Louis Police Department executed a search warrant
of Mark and Patricia McCloskey's house and seized Mr. McCloskey's
semiautomatic rifle. The McCloskeys made headlines last month for
standing in front of their home brandishing firearms as a leftist mob of
Black Lives Matter and other Marxist radicals trespassed upon their
property and threatened them.
Much of the mainstream media painted a
highly critical picture of the couple, suggesting that their actions to
defend themselves and their property were the real problem
while ignoring the violent provocation from the BLM mob. Once again, the
MSM sought to defend or excuse the blatantly lawless actions of the
"mostly peaceful protesters." The message here is clear: Don't dare
stand up against the "woke" mob.
This is also clearly the message that St.
Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner is sending. She called the McCloskeys'
actions a "violent assault" for which she intendeds to "use the full
power of Missouri law to hold people accountable."
The "law" Gardner appears to be alluding
to must be that of mob rule, for it certainly isn't Missouri statutes.
As the McCloskeys' attorney, Harmeet Dhillon, cogently observes,
"Missouri is a Castle Doctrine state, permitted among the broadest
latitudes of any state in using even deadly force to protect yourself or
your property. This couple used NO force, despite the imminent threat
from a trespassing mob. The seizure of weapons is government overreach."
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt
agreed with Dhillon, stating, "Under Missouri law, under the Castle
Doctrine, an individual has really expansive authority to protect their
own lives, their home, and their property." He then pointedly surmised:
"I think the story here to watch here is the local prosecutor, Kim
Gardner. Kim Gardner has an abysmal record in prosecuting violent crime,
has recently released and been complicit in the release of dozens and
dozens of inmates who have been charged with violent crimes, and has a
record of making politically motivated decisions not based on the law."
Schmitt's criticism of Gardner is
accurate. His office learned "that every single one of the St. Louis
looters and rioters arrested were released back onto the streets by the
local prosector Kim Gardner." This is what happens when narrative and
ideology trump truth and justice.
In related news, the Left's call to "defund the police,"
a cause opportunistically touted by many leading Democrat politicians,
is reaping the predictable outcome. The Wall Street Journal reports,
"In Milwaukee, homicides are up 37% so far this year, on pace to break
the record of 167 in 1991, which included 16 murders by convicted serial
killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Homicides so far this year in Chicago are ahead
of the pace of 2016, which marked the city's highest tally since 1996.
In New York and Los Angeles, which have seen falling numbers of
homicides for years, killings this year are up 23% and 11.6%,
respectively. Kansas City, Mo., has recorded 99 killings since January,
far outpacing any record for the first six months of the year."
What are Americans supposed to do? Who
are they going to call when the mob comes? As cops are increasingly
being attacked across the nation and in response are pulling back, more
Americans are realizing that they must take seriously their own
self-defense. And yet when Americans dare to defend themselves and their
property, they are slandered by the MSM and punished by leftist
politicians.
In this era of "woke justice," anyone who
dares to defend themselves and their property against the evil
intentions of radical leftist mobs will be smeared, attacked, and
canceled. "Bow or die" is essentially the Left's motto, and politicos
and their propagandists in the media are fully on board propagating it
in support of this anti-American revolution.
I mentioned yesterday that I’m spending the weekend reading a couple new releases that came out last week – Julie Kelly’s Disloyal Opposition: How the #NeverTrump Right Tried – and Failed — to Take Down the President and Kurt Schlichter’s The 21 Biggest Lies About Donald Trump (and you!).
Well, Saturday afternoon I plowed through Disloyal Opposition, which is columnist Julie Kelly’s first (but not last, I’m sure) book.
Kelly’s columns at American Greatness are always a must-read for me. I’ve linked to her writing frequently over the last several years. In fact, her column “The Swamp’s Swingline Stapler” even inspired a couple Dianny ‘Shop images.
Julie is clever writer, smart as a whip and has just the right amount of biting humor to drive a point home. And her book Disloyal Opposition is no exception.
Back in August of 2016, I compared the NeverTrump movement to those Japanese soldiers who were found living on remote Pacific islands twenty/thirty years after World War Two ended. Those guys had no idea the war was over and Japan lost.
The same was true of NeverTrump. Despite Donald Trump’s resounding primary victory, and despite his accepting the nomination in late July, NeverTrump continued on as if the primaries were still raging.
It’s been four years, and it seems these guys are still wandering around on that remote Pacific island.
Disloyal Opposition takes a look at the genesis of the NeverTrump movement and how it transformed from a political movement seeking to influence the 2016 Republican primaries into the current crop of dead-enders who now openly campaign for the Democrats.
These guys no longer want to “save” the Republican Party or “conservative principles.” That cruise ship sailed years ago. Now, they’re nothing but bitter, angry failures who want to burn conservatism to the ground because conservatism rejected their particular brand of losing.
Reading Disloyal Opposition, I realized they aren’t remote island dwellers anymore. Instead, NeverTrumpers have morphed into the bitter ex who, after fighting like crazy to get her guy back, now spends her time ruining every social gathering with her endless bitching when she isn’t holed up in her home sending out a vicious stream of revenge porn.
Despite touting their much-revered “principles” as their reasons for opposing Trump, these guys refused to accept their fears were unwarranted even after it was abundantly clear that President Trump was probably the most conservative President since Reagan. Instead, rather than applaud Trump’s conservative governance, they simply jettisoned those so-called “principles” in order to attack him from the Left.
They wrapped the Resistance😄 movement around themselves like a warm, comfy blankie.
They fell for every faux “scandal” promoted by the anti-Trump media. And they attacked any Republican who worked with President Trump while at the same time lionizing cretins like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi.
When you read the entire history of NeverTrump in one book, it’s impossible not to conclude that “principles” had little or anything to do with this movement.
Disloyal Opposition is exhaustive and well-researched. Frankly, I’m surprised Julie still has a full head of hair after having to read through all the moronic, insipid and insufferable “think pieces,” interviews and tweets she compiled.
The sheer viciousness and spite that fuels these guys is hard to take in when it’s only in dribs and drabs. So seeing it all laid out in such meticulous order is breathtaking.
What struck me in reading Disloyal Opposition is just how consistently wrong the NeverTrump movement has been from the get-go. Whether it’s RussiaGate, UkraineGate, the Covington kids, these guys got it wrong. And despite this track record of failure, they just can’t stop barreling down the wrong path.
But as Kelly put it in the book “What NeverTrump lacks in integrity, class, and political instincts they make up for in hubris.”
Julie Kelly has spent three years writing about these guys – not to mention being a target of them. If there is anyone who has them figured out, it is she.
Her description of Washington Post “conservative” columnist Jennifer Rubin is, in addition to hilarious, absolutely spot-on:
Like an aging call girl willing to perform any contortions to titillate unimaginative clientele, Rubin became a parody of herself with her over-the-top diatribes against Trump and reversal of nearly every view she held prior to 2016.
Yup. That about covers it.
As the old saying goes, “Trump broke them.”
Kelly spends an entire chapter following the money that’s funding the current NeverTrump movement, and let’s just say it isn’t coming from stalwart conservatives.
So maybe it’s more appropriate to say “Trump exposed them.”
For a lot of the NeverTrump folks, promoting conservatism was less about “principles” and more of a meal-ticket. And once it became more profitable to pander to the Resistance😂 on Twitter and on cable news, NeverTrump dropped the “conservative” pretense like a hot rock in order to keep the gravy train going.
As Kelly describes it in Disloyal Opposition:
A movement that began as a reasonable if misguided opposition to an outlier Republican candidate amid fears he wasn’t conservative enough had deteriorated into a race-baiting, name-calling, grudge-airing claque of humorless scolds appeasing the Left and doing whatever is required to extend the coda of their fading chorus.
But as Australian pundit Rita Panahi often says, “Trump is blessed with truly moronic opponents.”
The louder NeverTrump howls and the further they careen to the Left, the more moronic they become.
Since my conversation with Martina Markota was such a hit, I figured I’d close out my review of Disloyal Opposition with a brief Q&A with Julie Kelly. Fact is, the first column of Julie’s I ever read left me thinking, “Oh, my gosh! There’s someone who thinks just like I do!” I’ve enjoyed Julie’s columns ever since.
Your columns during the Trump era have covered a wide array of subjects — RussiaGate, FISAGate, UkraineGate, SpyGate. What made you decide to focus specifically on the dead-enders of NeverTrump?
Oddly, no other book has taken on NeverTrump so it was an uncovered topic whereas Russia/SpyGate continues to earn coverage by authors far more knowledgeable and capable than I! I’ve covered NeverTrump since early 2017 and my articles seem to hit a nerve with people who feel the same way I did at first: disappointed then betrayed then outraged now amused at their incompetence.
Yes, I’m definitely at the “amused” stage. Maybe it’s time to add my trademark LOL to the end of NeverTrump the same way I do for the ResistanceLOL.
When the NeverTrump movement first began, their goal was to persuade Republican voters. You point out in the book that many of those who contributed to the “Against Trump” issue that National Review did in early 2016 have since become Trump supporters. But at some point, the goal of persuasion stopped entirely. Do you think the split between the pre-election NeverTrump and the current crop of dead-enders leading the “movement” is because the dead-enders stopped trying to persuade anyone of anything?
The dead-enders realized that their schtick as “conservatives” against Trump would revitalize struggling careers and earn newfound affection from the media and Democrats who’ve mocked them for decades. Honestly, who else would pay attention to someone like Jennifer Rubin unless she’s on MSNBC spewing her venom against Trump and his base every week to the intense gratification of MSNBC viewers? It’s careerism — which is fine — but it’s cloaked in a phony veneer of principles and values, a veneer I rip off in my book.
Like I said in my title, you definitely pull the curtain back on these guys.
Other than completely abandoning conservatism in order to beg for Resistance😁 praise while campaigning for the Democrats, what exactly is the goal of NeverTrump? Does anyone even have a clue? Do they have a clue?
One chapter is entitled “Useful Idiots.” That’s the role of NeverTrump right now. We see again through efforts like the Lincoln Project how money, likely from the Left not the Right, flows into these patriotic-sounding nonprofits populated by longtime losers like Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt to hoodwink the media into believing a large swath of the GOP is against Trump. The media buys into it — a few stories posted on the New York Times and other outlets over the weekend insisting this latest NeverTrump ruse is REALLY THE END FOR TRUMP NOW!
Yeah, I saw the tweet from the Washington Post last night that read “The once-mocked ‘NeverTrump’ movement becomes a sudden campaign force.” I had to laugh at the absurdity of that statement.
It’s a total head fake. NeverTrump knows it but that’s how they get their name in the New York Times, otherwise they’d be toiling at some unknown outlet making squat.
Immediately after the book’s release, David French launched one of his infamous “I’m going to tag the person I’m about to attack so all my Twitter followers can swarm like bees and attack her on my behalf” Twitter threads. What strikes me as all manner of ironic, having now read Disloyal Opposition, is by doing that, French inadvertently proved a lot of the points you made about him in the book.
David French is the prime example of someone who no one had ever heard of before he perfected his gig as the holier-than-thou NeverTrumper. Pastor French, as some mock him, is the worst of the bunch in my opinion. The way he condemns evangelicals for supporting Trump borders on religious bigotry. He’s an online bully who can’t take a dose of his own medicine. He and his wife weaponize their personal experiences, such as the adoption of their daughter from Africa, to score cheap political points. (I find this particularly outrageous as the adoptive mother of a foreign-born daughter.)
His jealousy of people like Tucker Carlson manifests itself in a vile, ugly way, such as calling Tucker a racist or enabler of white supremacy. How he grovels for attention from the Left is embarrassing and I look forward to the day his latest venture with Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes goes down in flames. NeverTrumpers are, at their core, fundamentally dishonest people.
While you cover a lot of ground in Disloyal Opposition, the one central point that strikes me is just how consistently wrong NeverTrump has been on just about everything — not just about Trump, but about the Americans who support him. You’d think that with this unbroken record of getting it wrong, these guys would have developed a little humility. But they don’t. They just double-down.
The irony is that NeverTrump needs Trump to stay in office so they can continue their schtick. Donald Trump is NeverTrump’s host—without him, that parasite dies. What will they do if Biden wins? They’ll never be welcome into that circle, they’ll go back to being war mongers and prolific losers and all the things the Left used to say about people like Bill Kristol before Trump. They will have no influence in a Biden White House or Democrat House/Senate. And they won’t be welcome back into a Trumpified GOP. As I conclude in my book, Disloyal Opposition must act as a Do Not Resuscitate order for NeverTrump — they must never have a place of power in this party ever again.
The unnamed FBI “Supervisory Intelligence Analyst” cited by the Justice Department's watchdog for failing to properly vet the so-called Steele dossier before it was used to justify spying on the Trump campaign teaches a class on the ethics of spying at a small Washington-area college, records show.
Christopher Steele: The most explosive allegations in the dossier compiled by this ex-British spy were never confirmed by the person responsible for vetting them, FBI analyst Brian Auten.
The senior FBI analyst, Brian J. Auten, has taught the course at Patrick Henry College since 2010, including the 11-month period in 2016 and 2017 when he and a counterintelligence team at FBI headquarters electronically monitored an adviser to the Trump campaign based on false rumors from the dossier and forged evidence.
Auten, identified by congressional sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, never confirmed the most explosive allegations in the dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, cutting a number of corners in the verification process, Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz pointed out in his December report on FBI abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
By January 2017, the lead analyst had ample evidence the dossier was bogus. Auten could not get sources who provided information to Steele to support the dossier’s allegations during interviews. And collections from the wiretaps of Trump aide Carter Page failed to reveal any confirmation of the claims. Auten even came across exculpatory evidence indicating Page was not the Russian asset the dossier alleged, but was in fact a CIA asset helping the U.S. spy on Moscow.
Nonetheless, he and the FBI continued to use the Steele material as a basis for renewing their FISA monitoring of Page, who was never charged with a crime.
Auten did not respond to requests for comment, and the FBI declined to comment.
In his report, Horowitz wrote that the analyst told his team of inspectors that he did not have any “pains or heartburn” over the accuracy of the Steele reports. As for Steele’s reliability as an FBI informant, Horowitz said, the analyst merely “speculated" that his prior reporting was sound and did not see a need to “dig into” his handler’s case file, which showed that past tips from Steele had gone uncorroborated and were never used in court.
According to the IG report, Auten also wasn’t concerned about Steele’s anti-Trump bias or that his work was commissioned by Trump’s political opponent, calling the fact he worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign “immaterial.” Perhaps most disturbing, the analyst withheld the fact that Steele’s main source disavowed key dossier allegations from a memo Auten prepared summarizing a meeting he had with that source.
Auten appears to have violated his own stated “golden rule” for spying. A 15-year supervisor at the bureau, Auten has written that he teaches students in his national security class at the Purcellville, Va., college that the FBI applies “the least intrusive standard” when it considers surveilling U.S. citizens under investigation to avoid harm to “a subject’s reputation, dignity and privacy.”
At least three Senate oversight committees are seeking to question Auten about fact-checking lapses, as well as “grossly inaccurate statements” he allegedly made to Horowitz, as part of the committee’s investigation of the FBI’s handling of wiretap warrants the bureau first obtained during the heat of the 2016 presidential race.
FBI veterans worry Auten’s numerous missteps signal a deeper rot within the bureau beyond top brass who appeared to have an animus toward Donald Trump, such as former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as well as subordinates Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. They fear these main players in the scandal enlisted group-thinking career officials like Auten to ensure an investigative result.
“Anyone in his position has tremendous access to information and is well-positioned to manipulate information if he wanted to do so,” said Chris Swecker, a 24-year veteran of the FBI who served as assistant director of its criminal investigative division, where he oversaw public corruption cases.
“Question is, was it deliberate manipulation or just rank incompetence?” he added. “How much was he influenced by McCabe, Page, Strzok and other people we know had a deep inherent bias?”
Auten is a central, if overlooked, figure in the Horowitz report and the overall FISA abuse scandal, though his identity is hidden in the 478-page IG report, which refers to him throughout only as “Supervisory Intelligence Analyst” or “Supervisory Intel Analyst.” In fact, the 51-year-old analyst shows up at every major juncture in the FISA application process.
Auten was assigned to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation from its opening in July 2016 and supervised its analytical efforts throughout 2017. He played a key supportive role for the agents preparing the FISA applications, including reviewing the probable-cause section of the applications and providing the agents with information about Steele’s sub-sources noted in the applications. He also helped prepare and review the renewal drafts.
Auten assisted the case agents in providing information on the reliability of Steele and his sources and reviewing for accuracy their information cited in the body of the applications, as well as all the footnotes. His job was also to fill gaps in the FISA application or bolster weak areas.
In addition, Auten personally met with Steele and his “primary sub-source,” reportedly a Russian émigré living in the West, as well as former MI6 colleagues of Steele. He also met with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and processed the dirt Ohr fed the FBI from Glenn Simpson, the political opposition research contractor who hired Steele to compile the anti-Trump dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign.
Auten was involved in the January 2017 investigation of then-Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to internal emails sent by then-FBI counterintelligence official Strzok.
What’s more, the analyst helped draft a summary of the dossier attached to the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference, which described Steele as “reliable.” Other intelligence analysts argued against incorporating the dossier allegations — including rumors about potentially compromising sexual material — in the body of the report because they viewed them as “internet rumor."
According to the IG report, "The Supervisory Intel Analyst was one of the FBI's leading experts on Russia.” Auten wrote a book on the Russian nuclear threat during the Cold War, and has taught graduate courses about U.S. and Russian nuclear strategy.
Still, he could not corroborate any of the allegations of Russian “collusion" in the dossier, which he nonetheless referred to as “Crown material,” as if it were intelligence from America’s closest ally, Britain.
To the contrary, "According to the Supervisory Intel Analyst, the FBI ultimately determined that some of the allegations contained in Steele's election reporting were inaccurate,” the IG report revealed. Yet the analyst and the case agents he supported continued to rely on his dossier to obtain the warrants to spy on Page -- and by extension, potentially the Trump campaign and presidency -- through incidental collections of emails, text messages and intercepted phone calls.
Steele Got the Benefit of the Doubt
According to the IG report, the supervisory intelligence analyst not only failed to corroborate the Steele dossier, but gave Steele the benefit of the doubt every time sources or developments called into question the reliability of his information or his own credibility. In many cases, he acted more as an advocate than a fact-checker, while turning a blind eye to the dossier’s red flags. Examples:
When a top Justice national security lawyer initially blocked the Crossfire team’s attempts to obtain a FISA warrant, Auten proactively turned to the dossier to try to push the case over the line. In an email to FBI lawyers, he forwarded an unsubstantiated claim from Steele's Report 94 that Page secretly met with a Kremlin-tied official in July 2016, and asked, "Does this put us at least *that* much closer to a full FISA on [Carter Page]?" (Emphasis in original).
Even though internal FBI emails reveal Auten knew Steele was working for the Clinton campaign by early January 2017, he did not share this information with the Justice lawyer or the FISA court before helping agents reapply for warrants. He told the IG he viewed the potential for political influences on the Steele reporting as “immaterial.”
While most of Steele’s past reporting as an informant for the FBI had not been corroborated and had never been used in a criminal proceeding, including his work for an international soccer corruption investigation, Auten wrote that it had in fact been "corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.” His language made it into the FISA renewal applications to help convince the court Steele was still reliable, despite his leaking the FBI’s investigation to media outlet Mother Jones in late October 2016. Auten had merely “speculated” that Steele’s prior reporting was sound without reviewing an internal file documenting his track record.
Auten’s notes from a meeting with Steele in early October 2016 reveal that Steele described one of his main dossier sources — identified in the IG report only as "Person 1,” but believed to be Belarusian-American realtor Sergei Millian — as a "boaster" who "may engage in some embellishment.” Yet the IG report noted the analyst "did not provide this description of Person 1 for inclusion in the Carter Page FISA applications despite relying on Person 1's information to establish probable cause in the applications."
Auten failed to disclose to the FISA court negative feedback from British intelligence service colleagues of Steele. They told Auten during a visit he made to London in December 2016 that Steele exercised "poor judgment” and pursued as sources "people with political risk but no intel value,” the IG report said.
In January 2017, Steele's primary sub-source told Auten that Steele "misstated or exaggerated” information he conveyed to him in multiple sections of the dossier, according to a lengthy summary of the interview by the analyst. For instance, Steele claimed that Kremlin-tied figures offered Page a bribe worth as much as $10 billion in return for lifting U.S. economic sanctions on Russia. "We reviewed the texts [between Steele and the source] and did not find any discussion of a bribe,” the IG report found. Still, Auten let the rumor bleed into the FISA applications.
The primary sub-source also told the analyst he did not recall any discussion or mention of WikiLeaks conspiring with Moscow to publish hacked Democratic National Committee emails, or that the Russian leadership and the Trump campaign had a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation,” as described by Steele in his Report 95. The primary sub-source “did not describe a ‘conspiracy' between Russia and individuals associated with the Trump campaign or state that Carter Page served as an ‘intermediary' between [the campaign] and the Russian government,” the IG found. Yet "all four Carter Page FISA applications relied on Report 95 to support probable cause."
Christopher Burrows: He was present at an FBI interview with his partner Christopher Steele, at which they described Trump as their "main opponent," according to bureau notes.
Orbis Business Intelligence
In addition, Auten's summary of the primary sub-source cast doubt on the dossier’s allegation that the disclosure of DNC emails to WikiLeaks was made in exchange for a GOP convention platform change regarding Ukraine. Yet this unsubstantiated rumor also found its way into the applications. Confronted by Horowitz’s investigators about all the discrepancies, the analyst offered excuses for Steele. He said that while it was possible that Steele exaggerated or misrepresented information he received from the source, it was also possible the source was lying to the FBI.
Even though the primary sub-source’s account contradicted the allegations in Steele’s reporting, the supervisory intel analyst said he did not have any "pains or heartburn" about the accuracy of the Steele reporting.
Auten didn’t try to get to the bottom of discrepancies between Steele and his sources until two months after the third and final renewal application was filed. The analyst’s September 2017 interview with Steele revealed clear bias against Trump. According to the FBI's FD-302 summary of the interview, Steele and his London business partner, Christopher Burrows, who was also present, described Trump as their "main opponent" and said that they were "fearful" about the negative impact of the Trump presidency on the relationship between the United States and Britain.
The analyst also appeared to mislead, or at least misinform, the FBI’s counterintelligence chief, Bill Priestap, by omitting the primary sub-source’s claim that Steele “exaggerated" much of the information in the dossier. In late February 2017, Auten sent a two-page memo to Priestap briefing him about his meeting with the source, “but the memorandum did not describe the inconsistencies,” the IG report noted.
Finally, recently declassified footnotes in the IG report directly contradict statements provided by Auten in the IG report concerning the potential for Russian disinformation infiltrating Steele’s reporting. The analyst told Horowitz’s team that “he had no information as of June 2017 that Steele’s election reporting source network had been penetrated or compromised [by Russian intelligence].” Yet, in January 2017, the FBI received a report that some of Steele’s reporting “was part of a Russian disinformation campaign” and in February 2017, the FBI received a second report that another part of Steele’s reporting was “the product of [Russian Intelligence Services] infiltrat[ing] a source into the network.”
Senators Want to Question Auten
Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley recently questioned the analyst’s candor and integrity in a letter to the FBI. "We are deeply troubled by the grossly inaccurate statements by the supervisory intelligence analyst,” they wrote.
The powerful senators have asked the FBI to provide additional records shedding light on what the analyst and other officials knew about Russian disinformation as they were drafting the FISA applications.
Meanwhile, Auten’s name appears on a list of witnesses Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham recently gained authorization to subpoena to testify before his own panel investigating the FISA abuse scandal. Graham intends to focus on the investigators, including the lead analyst, who interviewed Steele’s primary sub-source in January 2017 and discovered the Steele allegations were nothing more than “bar talk,” as Graham put it in a recent interview, and should never have been used to get a warrant in the first place, to say nothing of renewing the warrant.
In a Dec. 6 letter to Horowitz, FBI Director Christopher Wray informed the inspector general he had put every employee involved in the 2016-2017 FISA application process through “additional training in ethics.” The mandatory training included “an emphasis on privacy and civil liberties.”
Wray also assured Horowitz that he was conducting a review of all FBI personnel who had responsibility for the preparation of the FISA warrant applications and would take any appropriate action to deal with them.
It’s not immediately known if Auten has undergone such a review or has completed the required ethics training. The FBI declined comment.
“That analyst needs to be investigated internally,” Swecker said.
Auten appears to have violated the ethics training he provides his students at Patrick Henry College.
“When I teach the topic of national security investigations to undergraduates, we cover micro-proportionality, discrimination, and the 'least intrusive standard' via a tweaked version of the Golden Rule — namely, if you were being investigated for a national security issue but you knew yourself to be completely innocent, how would you want someone to investigate you?” Auten wrote in a September 2016 article in Providence magazine, headlined “Just Intelligence, Just Surveillance & the Least Intrusive Standard.”
He wrote the six-page paper to answer the question: "Is an intelligence operation, national security investigation or act of surveillance being initiated under the proper authorities for the right purposes? Will an intelligence operation, national security investigation or act of surveillance achieve the good it is meant to? And, in the end, will the expected good be overwhelmed by the resulting harm or damage arising out of the planned operation, investigation or surveillance act?"
“National security investigations are not ethics-free,” he asserted, advising that a federal investigator should never forget that “the intrusiveness or invasiveness of his tactics places a subject’s reputation, dignity and privacy at risk and has the ability to cause harm.”
At the same time, Auten said more intrusive methods such as electronic eavesdropping may be justified -- “If it is judged that the threat is severe or the targeted foreign intelligence is of key importance to U.S. interest or survival.” National security “may necessitate collection based on little more than suspicion.” In these cases, he reasoned, the harm to the individual is outweighed by the benefit to society.
“Surveillance is not life-threatening to the surveilled,” he said.
However, Page, a U.S. citizen, told RealClearInvestigations that he received "numerous death threats" from people who believed he was a “traitor,” based on leaks to the media that the FBI suspected he was a Russian agent who conspired with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election.
Auten also rationalized the risk of “incidental” surveillance of non-targeted individuals, writing: "If the particular act of surveillance is legitimately authorized, and the non-liable subject has not been intentionally targeted, any incidental surveillance of the non-liable subject would be morally licit.”
A member of the International Intelligence Ethics Association, Auten has lectured since 2010 on “intelligence and statecraft” at Patrick Henry College, where he is an adjunct professor. He also sits on the college’s Strategic Intelligence Advisory Board.
FBI veterans say the analyst’s lack of rigor raises alarms.
“I worked with intel analysts all the time working counterintelligence investigations,” said former FBI Special Agent Michael Biasello, a 25-year veteran of the FBI who spent 10 years in counterintelligence. “This analyst’s work product was shoddy, and inasmuch as these FISA affidavits concerned a presidential campaign, the information he provided [to agents] should have been pristine.”
He suspects Auten was “hand-picked” by Comey or McCabe to work on the sensitive Trump case, which was tightly controlled within FBI headquarters.
“The Supervisory Intel Analyst must be held accountable now, particularly where his actions were intentional, along with anyone who touched those fraudulent [FISA] affidavits,” Biasello said.
Security personnel stand on the balcony of Mark and Patricia McCloskey's home
Article by Lisette Voytko in "Forbes":
TOPLINE
A Missouri gun store has made one
of at least 50 offers to Mark and Patricia McCloskey—the couple who
went viral for pointing guns at anti-racism protesters passing by their
St. Louis home—for a free AR-15 rifle after authorities seized the one
they brandished during the incident, a lawyer representing the couple
told Forbes Sunday.
KEY FACTS
The McCloskeys’ rifle was seized by local authorities Saturday
through a search warrant, reported the Associated Press, while their
handgun (which the couple claimed is non-operational) was transferred to
officials later that same day.
Joel Schwartz, the McCloskeys’ criminal defense lawyer, told Forbes
that the gun store, “along with 50 people have contacted them and
offered to replace the AR-15,” but they are “kindly refuting” the
gestures.
The seizure of the McCloskeys’ firearms indicates the investigation
is progressing, Schwartz said, “and charges are more likely than they
were two days ago.”
St. Charles-based Alien Armory Tactical wrote
on its Facebook page Saturday: “To the couple that had this warrant
served, please come on by our shop and we will gladly rearm you with a
brand new ar15 for ( FREE )” adding, “we will gladly assist you with a
replacement for you to protect your private property for FREE!”
The gun shop also wrote that they would provide free training to
the McCloskeys so “if anything were to happen you will be better
prepared,” in apparent reference to criticism of how the couple handled
their rifle and handgun during the incident.
Alien Armory Tactical owner Frank Bahr did not respond to a request for comment by Forbes.
Crucial quote
“We were hopeful and hoping that the investigation had been concluding,” Schwartz told Forbes, adding that he believes any forthcoming charges against the McCloskeys are unwarranted.
Key background
Mark and Patricia McCloskey exploded onto national headlines after they were captured
on video June 28 pointing guns at protesters walking by their palatial
St. Louis home. Mark wore a pink polo shirt while clutching his AR-15,
while Patricia was barefoot, with one finger on the trigger of her
handgun. The protesters were passing through their tony neighborhood en
route to the mayor’s house to demand her resignation for an unrelated
incident. The couple hasclaimed in interviews that they were protecting themselves from a “mob” and “horde” that would kill them and seize their home.
A profile of the couple published Friday by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
revealed that both are personal injury lawyers with a long history of
litigiousness, including a 1988 lawsuit used to obtain their historical
home.
What to watch for
Possible charges announced against the McCloskeys. While Schwartz didn’t think the couple’s actions violated the law, he told Forbes
one likely charge could be for exhibiting, brandishing or pointing
firearms in a threatening manner, before saying he had no further
comments.
Surprising fact
Mark McCloskey previously pointed his rifle at a neighbor passing
through a contested patch of land in their neighborhood, which the
McCloskeys say is theirs, according to the AP.
Do you now understand how the Mueller team, the 17 hired members of the legal resistance operation, were running the DOJ from May 2017 through April 2019? If no, go back through the archives and catch up. If so, invest yourself and read on…
There was an ongoing cover-up operation with its origin going back to June, July and August of 2018 led by the Mueller team, Deputy AG Rosenstein, AAG John C Demers and FBI chief legal counsel Dana Boente. That cover-up continues through today; though there are indications of accountability. Not strong enough in my opinion; but they do exist.
What is John Durham’s hold up?
Well, first we need to focus on the players…
Start by reminding yourself of a series of documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17, 2020. [SEE HERE] Within the release there is a rather alarming letter from the DOJ to the FISA Court dated July 2018. [Link to Letter]
BACKGROUND – After the FISA Court reviewed the December 9, 2019, inspector general report, the FISC ordered the DOJ-NSD to declassify and release documents related to the Carter Page FISA application. In January the FISA court ordered the DOJ and FBI to release certain materials making them public for the first time.
That FISA court order is what led to the Bill Barr DOJ submitting documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. That court order is what led to the judiciary committee (Senator Lindsey Graham) releasing those documents. The 2020 FISA court was forcing sunlight on the DOJ and FBI. AG Bill Barr is not adverse to this sunlight; but everyone else, including the players from 2017-2019 who were running Main Justice, are.
In the cover letter for this specific release to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees, the Bill Barr DOJ cites the January 7, 2020, FISA court order:
Keep in mind that prior to this release only the FISA court had seen this letter from the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), as transmitted by the Mueller resistance unit.
As we walk through the alarming content of this 2018 letter I think you’ll identify the motive behind the FISC order to release it.
First, the letter in question was sent by the DOJ-NSD to the FISA Court on July 12, 2018. It is critical to keep the date of the letter in mind as we review the content. Remember, the Mueller resistance unit was in control.
Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The DOJ (Mueller resistance unit) is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the Carter Page FISA application. The DOJ (Team Mueller) is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.
However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found. On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA redactions:
As you can see: Christopher Steele is noted as “Source #1”. Glenn Simpson of Fusion-GPS is noted as “identified U.S. person” or “business associate”; and Perkins Coie is the “U.S-based law firm.”
Now things get very interesting.
On page #8 when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the DOJ notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.
This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.
Let’s look at how the IG report frames the primary sub-source, and specifically notice the FBI contact and questioning took place in January 2017 (we now know that date to be January 12, 2017):
Those interviews with Steele’s primary sub-source took place in January, March and May of 2017; and clearly the sub-source debunked the content of the dossier itself.
Those interviews were 18-months, 16-months and 14-months ahead of the July 2018 Mueller Team letter to the FISC.
The Mueller Team (DOJ-NSD) says the sub-source was “truthful and cooperative” but the DOJ doesn’t tell the court the content of the truthfulness and cooperation. Why?
Keep in mind this letter to the court was written by AAG John Demers in July 2018.
Jeff Sessions was Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein was Deputy AG; Christopher Wray was/is FBI Director, David Bowditch was/is Deputy, and Dana Boente was/is FBI chief-legal-counsel; the Mueller resistance unit controlled the DOJ and everything that touched upon a total any of at least TEN ongoing DOJ investigations.
Why would the Mueller Team (DOJ-NSD) not be forthcoming with the FISA court about the primary sub-source? This level of disingenuous withholding of information speaks to an institutional motive. Mueller team is in control.
By July 2018 the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet Mueller’s resistance unit withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why?
It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.
In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex, the resistance unit is in charge, Bob Mueller was a “dear friend” of current AG Bill Barr. Mueller was a figure-head, a face in name only, selected to give credibility to an internal occupation of the DOJ by a resistance unit adverse to the interests of justice.
This letter justifying the FISA application, and claiming the current information would still be a valid predicate therein, speaks to the 2018 Mueller Team needing to retain the validity of the FISA warrant…. My researched suspicion, now confirmed, was that the DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from their fraudulent FISA authority.
That’s the motive for sending a fraudulent letter to the FISA court.
In July 2018 if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were fatally flawed Robert Mueller would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a result of its exploitation. The Mueller probe would have suffered severe scrutiny. The DOJ in 2018 was protecting Mueller’s poisoned fruit. The DOJ was being run by the resistance.
If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there’s a strong possibility some, perhaps much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated… and cases were pending. The solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.
This is not simply a hunch, because that motive also speaks to why the FISC would order the current DOJ to release the letter.
Remember, in December 2019 the FISC received the IG Horowitz report; and they would have immediately noted the disparity between what IG Horowitz outlined about the FBI investigating Steele’s sub-source, as contrast against what the DOJ (Mueller Team) told them in July 2018. [Not coincidentally this is when Team Mueller released the FISA application to the public under the fraudulent premise of a FOIA release. They released the exact copies of the previously leaked FISA]
The DOJ letter (July 2018) is a transparent misrepresentation when compared to the information in the Horowitz report (Dec 2019). Hence, the court orders the DOJ THIS YEAR to release the July 2018 letter so that everyone, including congressional oversight and the public can see the misrepresentation.
The court was misled; now everyone can see it.
We can see it.
The content of that DOJ-NSD letter, and the subsequent disparity, points to an institutional cover-up; and as a consequence the FISC also ordered the DOJ to begin an immediate sequestration effort to find all the evidence from the fraudulent FISA application. The proverbial fruit from the poisonous tree…. And yes, that is ongoing.
Moving on… Two more big misstatements within the July letter appear on page #9. The first is the DOJ (Team Mueller) claiming that only after the application was filed did they become aware of Christopher Steele working for Fusion-GPS and knowing his intent was to create opposition research for the Hillary Clinton campaign. See the top of the page.
According to the DOJ-NSD claim the number four ranking official in the DOJ, Bruce Ohr, never told them he was acting as a conduit for Christopher Steele to the FBI. While that claim is hard to believe, in essence what the DOJ-NSD is saying in that paragraph is that the FBI hoodwinked the DOJ-NSD by not telling them where the information for the FISA application was coming from. The DOJ, via John Demers (writing for the resistance), is blaming the FBI.
The second statement, equally as incredulous, is at the bottom of page nine where the DOJ (Team Mueller) claims they had no idea Bruce Ohr was talking to the FBI throughout the entire time any of the FISA applications were being submitted. October 2016 through June 2017.
In essence the claim there is that Bruce Ohr was working with the FBI and never told anyone in the DOJ throughout 2016 and all the way past June 29th of 2017. That denial seems rather unlikely; however, once again the DOJ-NSD is putting the FBI in the crosshairs and claiming they knew nothing about the information pipeline.
Bruce Ohr, whose wife was working for Fusion-GPS and assisting Christopher Steele with information, was interviewed by the FBI over a dozen times as he communicated with Steele and fed his information to the FBI. Yet the DOJ (Team Mueller) claims they knew nothing about it.
Again, just keep in mind this claim by the DOJ-NSD is being made in July 2018, six months after Bruce Ohr was demoted twice (December 2017 and January 2018). If what the DOJ is saying is true, well, the FBI was completely off-the-rails and rogue.
Neither option speaks well about the integrity of either institution; and quite frankly I never bought the DOJ-NSD spin. Why? The reason is simple, the DOJ is claiming in the letter the predication was still valid… if the DOJ-NSD genuinely didn’t know about the FBI manipulation, they would be informing the court in 2018 the DOJ no longer supported the FISA application due to new information. They did not do that. Instead, in July 2018, the Mueller-led resistance unit specifically told the court the predicate was valid, yet the DOJ-NSD knew it was not.
The last point about the July 2018 letter is perhaps the most jarring. Again, keep in mind when it was written Chris Wray is FBI Director, David Bowditch is Deputy and Dana Boente is FBI chief legal counsel.
Their own FBI reports, by three different INSD and IG investigations; had turned up seriously alarming evidence going back to the early 2017 time-frame; the results of which ultimately led to the DC FBI office losing all of their top officials; and knowing the letter itself was full of misleading and false information about FBI knowledge in/around Christopher Steele; this particular sentence is alarming:
“The FBI has reviewed this letter and confirmed its factual accuracy?”
Really?
As we have just shared, the July 2018 letter itself is filled with factual inaccuracies, misstatements and intentional omissions. So who exactly did the 2018 “reviewing”?
This declassification release raised more questions than any other in recent memory. It seems likely now this release inspired AG Bill Barr to start asking some rather hard questions to FBI Director Christopher Wray. That’s where Dana Boente’s participation with the group in 2017, 2018 and 2019 comes in to play.
WASHINGTON DC – After a 38-year career with the Justice Department, the FBI’s top lawyer Dana Boente was asked to resign on Friday. Two sources familiar with the decision to dismiss Boente said it came from high levels of the Justice Department rather than directly from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Here’s the Full Letter. I strongly suggest everyone read the 14-pages slowly. If you know the background, this letter is infuriating…
It is not accidental the fraudulent letter to the FISA court was written on July 12, 2018.
This is the exact same timeframe when the Mueller Team and FBI were involved in two other operations. These are two distinct cover-up operations carried out by the resistance unit to protect their prior activity.
The position of Bill Barr today is a direct result of decisions made by the DOJ (Team Mueller) in the summer of 2018. The events surrounding the March 17, 2017, leaking of the FISA warrant used against U.S. person Carter Page, and the 2018 DOJ decision not to prosecute SSCI Security Director James Wolfe for those leaks, was the fork in the road moment for the DOJ. The Mueller team coordinated the process.
This was the point of no return…
This is when every downstream action had to be taken to cover-up these decisions…
Everything since has been designed to protect three specific cover-up operations…
In the summer of 2018 Attorney General Jeff Session was recused, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was in charge and the Mueller investigation was ongoing. That was when the DOJ made a decision not to prosecute SSCI Security Director James Wolfe for leaking classified information (The Page FISA Warrant).
As a result of people at the highest level of power and authority making a decision to protect themselves and the gross abuses of power by current and former DC officials and politicians…. DC-based U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu signed-off on a plea deal where Wolfe plead guilty to only a single count of lying to the FBI.
If the DOJ had pursued the case against Wolfe for leaking the FISA application, everything would have been different. The American electorate would have seen evidence of what was taking place in the background effort to remove President Trump. We would be in an entirely different place today if that prosecution or trial had taken place.
Three events revealed the Wolfe issue and highlight the cover-up:
EVENT ONE – On February 9th, 2018, the media reported on text messages from 2017 between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, a lobbyist named Adam Waldman.
EVENT TWO – Four months after the Mark Warner texts were made public, on June 8th, 2018, another headline story surfaced. An indictment for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Security Director James Wolfe was unsealed on June 7th, 2018.
EVENT THREE – Slightly less than two months after release of the Wolfe indictment, another headline story. On July 21st, 2018, the DOJ/FBI declassified and publicly released the FISA application(s) used against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
♦ Later on December 14th 2018 a fourth albeit buried public release confirmed everything. The FBI filed a sentencing recommendation proving it was the Carter Page FISA that was leaked by Wolfe:
So on July 12, 2018, the DOJ and FBI were lying to the FISA court; and telling the court there was reasonable justification for the Carter Page FISA warrant, when they knew that was false. At the same time the DOJ resistance unit and FBI were initiating processes to cover SSCI Security Director James Wolfe leaking the FISA application to the media.
But wait it gets worse….
Simultaneous to the decision to mislead the court; and simultaneous to the decision-making regarding Wolfe; there was yet another (a third) Robert Mueller resistance unit cover-up effort that was also necessary to retain the origin of the Russia-collusion fraud.
To further understand the decision-making of the resistance, and purposeful utility of Rosenstein & Liu as to why they hid the James Wolfe leak, it is important to note the DOJ in the Eastern District of Virginia was creating the cover-story to block sunlight on the origin of how Wikileaks gained the leaked DNC emails.
On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:
On Tuesday April 15th 2019 more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….
The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.
How does this all connect?
What does it mean?
James Wolfe was confronted about his leaking by the FBI in December of 2017. At the same time the FBI were investigating Wolfe and the SSCI, the FBI was also investigating Wikileaks and Julian Assange. This matters because it shows what the mindset was within the resistance unit of the DOJ in late 2017 and early 2018.
In both examples, Wolfe and Assange, the actions by the Mueller team reflect a predisposition to hide the much larger background story:
• An honest and ordinary prosecution of Wolfe would have exposed a complicit conspiracy between corrupt U.S. intelligence actors, the United States senate intelligence committee, and the resistance unit now running the DOJ. Two branches of government essentially working on one objective; the removal of a sitting president. The Mueller team was protecting multiple U.S. agencies, allied in the resistance cause, and their comrades in congress.
• Additionally, a non-prosecution of Julian Assange would have exposed a complicit conspiracy between corrupt U.S. intelligence actors and a host of political interests who created a fraudulent Russia-collusion conspiracy with the central component of Russia “hacking” the DNC. If Assange were allowed to show he received the DNC emails from a leaker, and not from a hack, the central component of the Russia interference narrative would collapse. The Mueller team decision protected multiple U.S. agencies and the fraudulent auspices of the Robert Mueller appointment.
As soon as the team were set to release their Russia report, the EDVA activated their prior cover-up operation; and shut down Assange with the DOJ indictment; in a similar way the DOJ shut down Wolfe with a weak plea agreement.
Again, the key takeaway here is the timing. Both DOJ operations were taking place at the same time (Fall 2017 through spring/summer 2018). Both hold a similar purpose.
What we can see from both DOJ operations is an intentional effort by Main Justice, now being run by Team Mueller, not to expose the epicenter of a multi-branch effort against the White House.
Some people within the FBI were obviously participating along with people within the DOJ. However, not all Washington DC FBI agents/officials were involved. We know there were genuine investigators, at least in the Wolfe case, because their investigative evidence shows Wolfe was leaking classified information. If they did not present the investigative evidence that proves Wolfe leaked, quite simply we wouldn’t have it to show you.
This buried attachment (from the supervisory FBI special agent who conducted the investigation) was attached to the DOJ sentencing memorandum for James Wolfe. This statement under oath was sworn by the FBI agent on December 14, 2018:
The FBI swears under penalty of perjury:
…”because the known disclosure of classified information –the FISA application– involved an FBI equity”…
This is after the same FBI special agent outlined how the leak took place in the Wolfe indictment; which was subsequently shaped by the Mueller team to hide it. He refused to accept the corruption that allowed Wolfe to escape. Ten months after the FBI presented their investigative files to the DOJ to begin grand jury proceedings; the FBI special agent wasn’t going to let them plead out Wolfe without again affirming the truth.
In hindsight we can see the corrupt influences of the resistance operation within the DOJ because the direct and concrete FBI evidence against Wolfe was buried.
The high-level resistance group inside the DOJ in Washington DC, in the Summer of 2018, was making decisions on what NOT to do; and who not to prosecute. .
These two events highlight corruption and how much control was held by the Mueller team within the DOJ despite the presence of AG Jeff Sessions (firewalled and recused) and apparently with the willfully blind participation of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.
The decisions in the Wolfe case are critical. That’s the fork in the road. If the Wolfe prosecution for leaking the FISA application had continued it would have undoubtedly surfaced that key government officials and politicians were working together (executive and legislative); to frame a sitting president and remove him from office.
The Wolfe leak had that purposeful design.
The ramifications of the Wolfe case are stunning. Had the prosecution continued it’s very likely a seditious conspiracy would have surfaced.
♦ I often field a question: If you know this; if all of this information is in the public sphere; then why didn’t any member of the media cover it?
Here’s the answer: They couldn’t….
…..At least they couldn’t cover it and still retain all of the claims they had been making since March 2017 when journalist Ali Watkins gained a fully non-redacted copy of the Carter Page FISA application and first renewal.
Politico, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and The Washington Post are all implicated in the James Wolfe leak to Ali Watkins. They had the FISA information since March 2017, yet those media outlets were disingenuously falsifying their reporting on the actual content of the FISA application despite their actual knowledge.
Remember all of the media denials about what Devin Nunes wrote in the “Nunes memo”? Remember the media proclaiming the Steele Dossier was not part of the FISA application?
How was the media fifteen months later (July 2018) going to report on the Wolfe leak to Watkins without admitting they had been manufacturing stories about its content for the past year-and-a-half?
It was in the media’s interest NOT to cover, or dig into, the Wolfe story. The media were allied with the resistance unit which was leaking them information to retain the fraud.
Additionally, from both the DOJ and Media perspective, coverage of the Wolfe leak would prove the senate intel committee (SSCI) was, at a minimum, a participating entity in the coup effort. That same SSCI is responsible for oversight over the CIA, FBI, DOJ-NSD, ODNI, DNI, and all intelligence agencies.
Worse yet, all officers within those agencies require confirmation from the SSCI (including Chair and Vice-Chair); and any discussion of the Wolfe leak would highlight the motive for ongoing corruption within the SSCI in blocking those nominations (see John Ratcliffe).
WASHINGTON—Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been notified they may be asked for testimony as part of the criminal trial of a veteran Senate staffer accused of lying to the FBI while working for the panel.
Attorneys for James A. Wolfe sent letters to all 15 senators on the committee, notifying them that their testimony may be sought as part of Mr. Wolfe’s defense, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Wolfe, who for nearly 30 years served as the director of security for the intelligence committee, was arrested last month and charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with reporters while the bureau was conducting an investigation into leaks of classified information to journalists. Mr. Wolfe wasn’t charged with leaking any information. (July 27, 2018)
Stunning ramifications.
There was a clear fork in the road, and the resistance unit running the DOJ constructed the cover-up; which, considering what the special counsel resistance unit was simultaneously doing with the EDVA regarding Assange, is not entirely surprising.
Were the special counsel (resistance) decisions done with forethought to coverup a transparent trail showing gross abuses of government? Yes.
Where the DOJ is today, under AG Barr, is directly connected to the decisions the resistance operations made in 2017 and 2018 to protect themselves and internally corrupt actors from discovery.
It is often said: “the coverup is always worse than the crime.” This is never more true than with these examples, because where we are today… now miles down the path of consequence from those corrupt decisions… is seemingly disconnected from the ability of any institutional recovery. That’s now become the issue for Bill Barr and John Durham.
So what happened recently? Well…
WASHINGTON DC – After a 38-year career with the Justice Department, the FBI’s top lawyer Dana Boente was asked to resign on Friday. Two sources familiar with the decision to dismiss Boente said it came from high levels of the Justice Department rather than directly from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Considering the decision about Dana Boente came from John Durham and Bill Barr, this removal makes sense.
But what about the FBI investigator, the Supervisory Special Agent, who invested over a year tracking down classified intelligence leaks, only to have the Mueller team bury the case?
