The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Cliff Varnell]

21 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

So it appears that not only did Mueller violate Brady,

Which is readily violated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_disclosure

[Cliff Varnell]

26 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

This gets worse.

There’s nothing worse than Trump’s drive to make every member of the Justice Dept personally loyal to him.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Mr. Wheeler, thanks for that link about Saudi Arabia, even though its off topic.

There is long article at Huffpost about this new revelation.  Really interesting.

[Cliff Varnell]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to co-chair Biden campaign climate task force

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/politics/ocasio-cortez-biden-campaign-task-force-climate-change/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_allpolitics+(RSS%3A+CNN+-+Politics)

[James DiEugenio]

Here is what I mean about this meeting at the White House.

On January 4th, the FBI drafted a memo to close the Flynn probe. But then McCabe finds the transcripts of the Kislyak call and he briefs Clapper on it. Comey admits later the FBI unmasked Flynn on the call.

Strzok texts, don't close Flynn case yet.  Higher authority is now involved. Clapper then tells Obama about it.

Next day, big meeting at oval office: Obama, Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Yates, Rice and Biden. At this meeting Yates is shocked that Obama knows about the call, because Comey had not debriefed the DOJ on it yet and she is the acting AG in charge of investigations. Yet Comey had told Obama.

The next morning, Comey is dispatched to debrief Trump on the worst aspects of the Steele Dossier.  That sets up the cue for Buzzfeed and then CNN to run with it.

When Strzok sees this in the news, he now understands he has a free rein to start interviewing people on a case that he himself later admitted that he knew there was no there there.

When one puts all of these elements together, it all seems to me to be a political engine.  

The Democrats learned the wrong lesson from the GOP.

 

[Ron Ecker]

9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mr. Wheeler, thanks for that link about Saudi Arabia, even though its off topic.

There is long article at Huffpost about this new revelation.  Really interesting.

But the 9/11 Commission Report tells us that the question of who helped finance the 9/11 attacks "is of little practical significance." IOW there's nothing to see here. (That's why they don't want us to see it.)

Edit: The Huffpost article is the same article that was linked to. Just to save others the trouble of looking.

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by Ron Ecker

[W. Niederhut]

12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Here is what I mean about this meeting at the White House.

On January 4th, the FBI drafted a memo to close the Flynn probe. But then McCabe finds the transcripts of the Kislyak call and he briefs Clapper on it. Comey admits later the FBI unmasked Flynn on the call.

Strzok texts, don't close Flynn case yet.  Higher authority is now involved. Clapper then tells Obama about it.

Next day, big meeting at oval office: Obama, Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Yates, Rice and Biden. At this meeting Yates is shocked that Obama knows about the call, because Comey had not debriefed the DOJ on it yet and she is the acting AG in charge of investigations. Yet Comey had told Obama.

The next morning, Comey is dispatched to debrief Trump on the worst aspects of the Steele Dossier.  That sets up the cue for Buzzfeed and then CNN to run with it.

When Strzok sees this in the news, he now understands he has a free rein to start interviewing people on a case that he himself later admitted that he knew there was no there there.

When one puts all of these elements together, it all seems to me to be a political engine.  

The Democrats learned the wrong lesson from the GOP.

 

         And, yet, all of this emerging information in early January of 2017 certainly justified the Obama administration's concerns about the necessity of a counter-intelligence investigation of Russian contacts by the unregistered foreign agent, Michael Flynn, and Trump's 2016 campaign and transition teams-- as former Assistant AG Mary McCord has pointed out in her recent NYT op-ed.

1)  Russia had systematically interfered in our 2016 elections to put Trump in the White House (recently corroborated by the Senate Intelligence Committee-- after a three year delay.)

2)  Flynn called Kisylak on December 29, 2016 to reassure the Kremlin about the new Obama administration sanctions, which were imposed in direct response to intel about Russian election interference.

3)  Flynn lied about the phone call-- knowing that it was a potential violation of the Logan Act.  (He later acknowledged, in court, that it was not a case of "not recalling" the phone call.)

4)  Trump repeatedly tried to obstruct the nascent investigations of Flynn and the Trump campaign's multiple 2016 contacts with Kremlin officials and cut outs-- serial felonies.

5)  As Cliff points out, (above) multiple members of Trump's 2016 campaign and transition teams systematically lied about their secret, undisclosed contacts with Russians.

6)  Trump adamantly refused to answer Mueller's questions about his 2016 contacts with Russia-- finally submitting written responses that consisted chiefly of, "I don't recall," statements.

7)  Trump has repeatedly lied about the fact that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections-- even on an international stage in Helsinki.

Edited May 13, 2020 by W. Niederhut

[David Andrews]

4 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

But the 9/11 Commission Report tells us that the question of who helped finance the 9/11 attacks "is of little practical significance." IOW there's nothing to see here. (That's why they don't want us to see it.)

 

Off-topic redux: Some thoughts in this podcast on the meaning of the determination that no one linked by investigation to the 9/11 attacks could be linked to insider trading.

http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/723_-_A_US_Deep_State_Event_(The_Deep_Implications_of_the_9-11_Money_Trail)

Edited May 13, 2020 by David Andrews

[W. Niederhut]

8 minutes ago, David Andrews said:

Off-topic redux: Some thoughts in this podcast on the meaning of the determination that no one linked by investigation to the 9/11 attacks could be linked to insider trading.

http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/723_-_A_US_Deep_State_Event_(The_Deep_Implications_of_the_9-11_Money_Trail)

The 9/11 insider trading facts are fairly straightforward, IMO.

Some of it has been traced to; 1) then- CIA comptroller Buzz Krongard's banking associates, and 2) Wirt Walker.

Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission Report dodged the damning evidence by claiming that "no apparent insider trading was linked to the 9/11suspects."

It's kind of like arguing that no bullets were fired from the Grassy Knoll, because they came from the Book Depository.

Edited May 13, 2020 by W. Niederhut

[David Andrews]

4 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

The 9/11 insider trading facts are fairly straightforward, IMO.

 

So straightforward, they bypassed the handcuffs and went straight forward to the pardon phase.

[Ron Ecker]

It's also interesting what the 9/11 Commission Report says about the collapse of WTC 7. No, wait, it doesn't mention it, I'm thinking of the NIST Report. No, wait, the NIST Report doesn't mention it either. Well anyway, it collapsed.

 

 

[Robert Montenegro]

 

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

The 9/11 insider trading facts are fairly straightforward, IMO.

Some of it has been traced to; 1) then- CIA comptroller Buzz Krongard's banking associates, and 2) Wirt Walker.

Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission Report dodged the damning evidence by claiming that "no apparent insider trading was linked to the 9/11suspects."

It's kind of like arguing that no bullets were fired from the Grassy Knoll, because they came from the Book Depository.

 

It's also interesting that the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and later Director of the Central Intelligence Agency during those radiating years before and after the events of 11 September 2001 was JM/WAVE (Zenith Technical Enterprises) employee and state-sponsored terrorist, Porter Johnston Goss.

JM/WAVE, a CIA base that produced some of the biggest narcoterroists in the Western Hemisphere, like Luis “El Bambi” Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles "AMCLEVE-15", Mitchell Livingston WerBell III "AMBOAR", Michael Vernon Townley, Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal, Jose Miguel Battle “El Padrino” Vargas Sr. and Félix Ismael “El Gato” Rodríguez Mendigutia "AMJOKE-1".

And of course the man who gave flight training to the several of the alleged hijackers, Rudi Dekkers, was himself as government protected narcotics trafficker.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Ron Ecker]

12 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

This 48 Story Residential Tower in Dubai went up in flames on May 5. (The Abbco Tower)

Amazingly it did not collapse.

Source: Twitter

Well, explosives would have probably helped.

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

William:

I think you are missing the points that McCathy has made in those two fine articles, which I don't think you read.  Or if you did, you did not understand their importance or perhaps you just want to ignore them.

1. There were no notes made.  Or if there were they do not exist today.  Today, the FBI admits that Flynn was equivocal on the matter.  So is this why the notes do not exist?

2. They did not advise him of rule 1001.

3. They discouraged him from calling his lawyer and tried to assure him that  it was really informal and he was not a target.  These two points are important from a legal point of view.

4. The 302s were then passed through several peoples' hands going up the ladder, in other words by people who were not at the interview.  Why?

6. The 302 took over three weeks to write, over four times as long as usual. And we do not have the early drafts. Again, why? Violation of Brady.

7, The FBI threatened Flynn's son.

8. The FBI went in trying to get the guy fired. That is in their own words.  Which they tried to conceal.

9. HIs own lawyers hid from him the fact that his son was part of the plea bargain, and in turn this was hidden from the court also. Violation of GIglio.

There was never any evidence of any plotting produced by anyone.  I mean if you cannot do it during a criminal inquiry in two years, and Schiff could not do it in 57 depositions, then I think that says something. I think the McGovern and Lawrence articles show the opposite is the case.  I hope you are not talking about George P or Carter Page are you?  That turned out to be BS.  From what I can see,  the Flynn call is tantamount to what Bobby Kennedy did after his brother was killed in his message to the Kremlin.  Would you have prosecuted RFK and Jackie for that?

Its weird to me how supposedly liberal people will condone an ends justifies the means methodology by the FBI in this case as long as it hurts Trump, something that they would not condone otherwise.

Edited May 13, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

Why the Flynn Interview Was Predicated
https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-flynn-interview-was-predicated

The Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is flawed in many ways, but one of its weakest arguments is that the investigation of Flynn was not properly “predicated.” This argument not only lacks merit—it also opens the door to the same frivolous argument from future defendants in other criminal cases. And it creates a dangerous incentive that could dissuade the FBI from fulfilling its duty to fully investigate criminal and national security threats.

Predication is a requirement under the Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations, the FBI’s internal guidelines for conducting investigations. To begin an investigation, the bureau must have a predicate—essentially, a factual basis to believe that a crime or national security threat exists. The level of predication required varies with the category of investigation, which ranges from assessments (the least involved level of probe) to preliminary investigations to full investigations. Predication is required to prevent the targeting of subjects for political or other improper reasons, an important reform after abuses of investigative powers in the 1960s and 1970s, but the bar is low. Even the highest level of cases, full investigations, requires as predication only “an articulable factual basis for the investigation that reasonably indicates” a threat to the national security.

Depending on the category under which a case is opened, the guidelines permit investigative techniques with varying degrees of invasiveness. For example, electronic surveillance may be used in a full investigation but not in an assessment or preliminary investigation. Importantly, all three categories permit FBI agents to interview a subject.

Attached as an exhibit to the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss is the FBI’s opening documentation for the investigation into Flynn—a subfile of the umbrella investigation into Russian election interference, known as Crossfire Hurricane. When large investigations are opened, subfiles are often opened on individual targets for purposes of administrative efficiency and division of labor. Dated August 2016, the FBI documentation stated that there was an articulable factual basis that Flynn “may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security.” The file noted further that “Flynn was an advisor to the Trump campaign, had various ties to state-affiliated entities of Russia, and traveled to Russia in December 2015.”

According to the Justice Department inspector general, the Flynn investigation was properly predicated as a full investigation. In his report on the FBI’s conduct in the Russia investigation, the inspector general stated, “[T]he quantum of information articulated by the FBI to open these individual investigations [that is, the investigations into Flynn as well as Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort] was sufficient to satisfy the low threshold established by Department and FBI predication policy, particularly in the context of the FBI’s separate and ongoing investigative efforts to address Russian interference in 2016 U.S. elections.”

Key to the Justice Department’s argument in its motion to dismiss is the fact that, after four months of investigation without finding any derogatory information, the FBI was prepared to close its case on Flynn. A draft internal FBI document dated Jan. 4, 2017, shows that the bureau had sketched out a memo closing the probe, though the document includes the usual caveat that if new information were identified, the FBI would consider reopening the investigation.

But before the case was actually closed, the FBI learned that Flynn had spoken to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in late December 2016. According to the Justice Department’s motion, the FBI had transcripts of the relevant calls, likely obtained through surveillance of Kislyak authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. By this time, Flynn had been named as Trump’s national security adviser.

In those calls, Flynn had asked Russia not to retaliate for sanctions imposed by the Obama administration as punishment for election interference. Flynn had also asked Russia to vote against a United Nations resolution regarding Israeli settlements. On their face, these calls potentially undermined the foreign policy of the United States. What’s more, on Jan. 15, 2017, Mike Pence, then the vice president-elect, made public statements that contradicted the transcripts of Flynn’s calls— a fact that, as documented in the Mueller report, “alarmed senior DOJ [Department of Justice] officials.” And so, the FBI decided to keep the investigation open. FBI agents interviewed Flynn on Jan. 24, four days after Trump took office. During that interview, Flynn falsely denied his statements regarding sanctions and the U.N. vote. He later pleaded guilty to one count of false statements for telling these lies.

The Justice Department now insists that the Kislyak call did not establish adequate predication for the FBI to conduct this interview. But there was no need for new predication for the interview—because predication had already been established. The case was still open after having been properly predicated, as found by the inspector general. Conducting an interview would have been a perfectly appropriate investigative step even if the FBI had not come across any new information. Interviews are frequently conducted at the end of a case to fill in gaps in evidence, explain events, assess a potential threat or satisfy agents that they have not missed any important facts. In the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, for example, Clinton’s FBI interview was the last step in the investigation before it was closed—and then reopened months later.

But even if new predication were somehow required, the content of Flynn’s calls, along with his apparent lies to Pence, provided a sufficient factual basis for further inquiry. The Justice Department motion argues that predication was lacking because the only potential crime at issue was the Logan Act, forbidding private citizens to negotiate with foreign governments—which has rarely been invoked, and which the Justice Department acknowledged at the time of the Flynn investigation would be difficult to prosecute. But this focus on the Logan Act completely ignores the counterintelligence purpose of the investigation, which was to determine whether Flynn posed a national security threat. By lying to Pence about facts known to Russia, Flynn had compromised himself as national security adviser. Flynn, who had access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets, was now susceptible to blackmail by a hostile foreign adversary. Surely this constitutes “an articulable factual basis for the investigation that reasonably indicates” a threat to the national security.

Even if one were to accept the Justice Department’s absurd arguments that fresh predication was needed and that this new information was insufficient for a full investigation, the Kislyak call certainly would have been enough for a preliminary investigation—which may be predicated on the basis of the lower standard of “information or an allegation indicating the existence” of a threat to the national security.

Or, at the very least, this new information justified an assessment, which requires no predication at all. An assessment requires only an “authorized purpose” to “obtain information about, or prevent or protect against” threats to the national security. According to the Attorney General’s Guidelines, assessments are appropriate when techniques such as interviews “can avoid the need to proceed to more formal levels of investigative activity, if the results of an assessment indicate that further investigation is not warranted.” Under any of these standards, an interview was appropriate.

In the short term, the Justice Department has harmed not only its own reputation for integrity through filing the motion to dismiss but also public confidence that the law applies equally to everyone, including the president’s friends. It is telling that prosecutor Brandon Van Grack, who worked on the case for more than two years, withdrew on the day the motion was filed and that no career prosecutor signed the filing.

But what about the long-term consequences? When I worked at the Department of Justice as a national security prosecutor, there was a phrase we often used to describe the dangers of inaction: “He who does nothing does nothing wrong.” The phrase suggests shirking one’s duty for fear of making a mistake, exactly the wrong instinct when national security is on the line. Justice Department and FBI employees who have watched the drama of the Flynn case unfold may feel a chilling effect from watching the department not only unwind a case but also attack the reputations of public servants who made difficult decisions under unprecedented circumstances. As national security threats arrive in the future, there is a risk that the incentive is no longer to take swift action but, instead, to do nothing wrong.