It is looking more and more Dem conspirators in the FBI and
DOJ tried to fix the November 2016 election to Crooked Hillary’s favor. AND
barring the failure of a Crooked Hillary election, then the conspiracy appeared
intending to take out President Trump with fake evidence.
Here are two perspectives on Deep State intentions that
essentially overthrows the U.S. Constitution with behind the scenes
criminal-political coup d'état behavior.
George Papadopoulos was the
“improbable match that set off a blaze that has consumed the first year of the
Trump administration.” Like the Trump campaign itself, advisor Papadopoulos
“proved to be a tantalizing target for a Russian influence operation.”
Thus opens a 2500-plus-word
December 30 New York Times piece headlined “How
the Russia Inquiry Began: A Campaign Aide, Drinks and Talk of Political Dirt,”by
Sharon LaFraniere, Mark Mazetti and Matt Apuzzo, with reporting by Adam
Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Matthew Rosenberg. The multiple authorship
betokens serious investigation but this piece shapes up as dezinformatsiya and
the Times gives it away in the early going.
“It was not, as Mr. Trump and
other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy
hired by a rival campaign,” that started the investigation, and there is some
truth to that. The dossier, one of thedirtiest
tricks political tricks in US history, was only part of a plan
revealed by FBI counterintelligence boss Peter Strzok in the office of FBI
deputy director Andrew McCabe. As a Strzok email explained: “I want to believe
the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way
he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an
insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40. . .”
Like FBI boss James Comey,
Strzok was a partisan of Hillary Clinton, the likely reason he got the job of
spearheading the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. It was Strzok who
changed “gross negligence” to “extremely careless,” freeing the Democrat from
the prospect of criminal charges. As David Horowitz said, it was thegreatest
political fix in American history.
TheClintons
are not exactly short on cashand FBI deputy director “Andy”
McCabe got some $500,000 from the Clintons for his wife’s political campaign.
The establishment media are not curious whether Peter Strzok got a piece of the
action, and if so how much. The Clinton’s faithful Odd Job would not be the
first FBI man to grab the gold from under the table.
Strzok works
counterintelligence but on his watch Pakistani-born Imran Awan enjoyed
access to the computers of the House Intelligence Committeeand
the Democrats’ favorite IT man performed his IT work from Pakistan for several
months a year. If Peter Strzok knew about Awan’s illicit data-mining operation
it seems clear he did nothing to stop it. On the other hand, POTUS 44 had
commanded the FBI to look the other way when Muslims were involved, and the
Bureau, which wields
a budget approaching $9 billion, duly followed orders.
In the office of Andy McCabe,
Peter Strzok discussed the “insurance policy” with his consensual flame Lisa
Page, an FBI lawyer and Clinton devotee. When that emerged, new FBI boss
Christopher Wray did not fire Strzok and take his gun and badge. Instead Wray
stashed Strzok in human resources, where he will still command access to FBI
records.
After all this, and a lot
more, the New York Times opts to point the finger at George
Papadopoulos. The establishment media prefer to claim that the FBI’s Clinton
fan club and the bogus dossier had nothing to do with the Russia investigation.
Did the FBI perchance deploy
the dossier to secure a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign?Russophile
Nellie Ohr, wife of demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr, duly hired on
at Fusion GPS. What was Nellie’s role in the dossier? Who paid for the
dossier? Congress has been trying to get answers but the FBI has been stonewalling.
What are they trying to hide?
Devin Nunes, chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee, wants the DOJ and FBI to hand overall
documents related to the dossier on Wednesday, January 3, 2018. The
committee also seeks to interview Ohr, Strzok, FBI attorneys James Baker, Lisa
Page, and Sally Moyer and FBI assistant congressional affairs boss Greg Brower.
If the FBI and DOJ fail to
comply in full, that will certify their partisan corruption, the larger back
story of the Russia investigation. All testimony should be public so the people
can watch on C-SPAN and avoid the deep-state disinformation of the old-line
establishment media.
+++++++
TABLES TURN: NOW FBI
PROBED FOR ELECTION INTERFERENCE
House Intel Committee
investigates plot to stop Trump
WASHINGTON – What began as an
investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election has now become a
probe into how federal law enforcement conspired to stop Donald Trump from becoming
president.
The House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence has expanded its investigation that began with claims
of Russian collusion and a fraudulent memo paid for by Trump opponents to one
that focuses on members of federal law enforcement – both in the U.S. Justice
Department and the FBI – and how they actively worked against the Trump
campaign and the eventual Trump presidency.
In a startling turnabout,
committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is accusing the Justice Department
and the FBI of misleading him in “a pattern of behavior that can no longer be
tolerated.” He charges that Justice claimed it possesses no documents related
to the infamous Trump dossier, then, under pressure, produced “numerous” such
papers.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff,
D-Calif., is already opposing the move, even though he and other Democrats have
conceded recently that finding a Russia-Trump conspiracy has produced no real
evidence.
Nunes has put in place what
amounts to a separate investigation of the FBI and the Justice Department
hierarchy.
According to reports, the
major components are:
§Fusion GPS, the opposition
research company that prepared the bogus Trump-Russia dossier with money from
Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
§How the FBI allowed that
dossier to fuel investigations since July 2016.
§Investigative bias that has
been discovered regarding several key investigators.
A key subpoenaed witness is
David Kramer, an associate of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Kramer is one of the
few people known to have possessed a hard copy of the dossier. McCain asked
Kramer to represent him at a Nov. 28, 2016, meeting with Christopher Steele in
Surrey, England. Steele compiled the 35 pages of memos making up the dossier
based on his paid Kremlin sources.
Kramer then obtained a copy
of the dossier from Fusion GPS and McCain hand-delivered a copy to then-FBI
director James B. Comey in December 2016.
Thank President Trump
for all his accomplishments during his first year in office. Send him a FREE
card of your choice. Go to ThankTrump.us
According to an interview in
Mother Jones magazine, Steele said he supplied his memos accusing Trump of a
Russia conspiracy to the FBI in “early July” 2016. Comey has testified he began
the counterintelligence investigation in “late July.” The memos accused the
Trump team of a conspiracy with the Kremlin to damage Hillary Clinton’s
campaign.
Nunes wants more information
on how the bureau used the document to investigate Trump people. He has been
unsuccessfully trying to gain access to FBI documents.
In a Dec. 28 letter to Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Nunes said the Department of Justice at first
said dossier-related FBI interview summaries, known as 302s, “did not exist.”
Weeks later, under an Aug. 24 subpoena, DOJ suddenly located “numerous FD-302s
pertaining to the Steele dossier, thereby rendering the initial response
disingenuous at best,” the House intel committee chief wrote.
Based on the record of
stonewalling, Nunes said the committee no longer can accept Justice’s position
that it cannot turn over other official investigative forms, called 1032s. They
document meetings between the FBI and confidential human sources.
He gave the Justice
Department until Wednesday to comply with his requests.
“Unfortunately, DOJ/FBI’s
intransigence with respect to the August 24 subpoenas is part of a broader
pattern of behavior that can no longer be tolerated,” Nunes wrote. “At this
point, it seems the DOJ and FBI need to be investigating themselves.”
FRONTPAGE MAG IS A PROUD PROJECT OF THE DAVID HOROWITZ FREEDOM
CENTER
The DHFC is dedicated to the defense of free societies whose moral,
cultural and economic foundations are under attack by enemies both secular and
religious, at home and abroad.
…
FrontPage Magazine, the Center’s
online journal of news and political commentary has 1.5 million visitors and
over 870,000 unique visitors a month (65 million hits) and is linked to over
2000 other websites. The magazine’s coverage of and commentary about
events has been greatly augmented over the last two years by the presence of
four Shillman Fellows in Journalism underwritten by board member Dr.
Robert Shillman. FrontPage has recently added a blog called “The Point,” run by
Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield, which has tripled web traffic.
WND, formerly WorldNetDaily, can best be explained by its mission
statement: “WND is an independent news company dedicated to uncompromising
journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free
press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful to the traditional and
central role of a free press in a free society – as a light exposing
wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power.
“We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great
moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and
self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character.”
Indeed, WND is a fiercely independent news site committed to
hard-hitting investigative reporting of government waste, fraud and abuse.
Founded by Joseph and Elizabeth Farah in May 1997, it is now a
leading Internet news site in both traffic and influence.
WND has broken some of the biggest, most significant and most
notable investigative and enterprising stories in recent years. …READ THE REST
I believe medical insurance reform is essential. I also
believe the Obama/Dem effort at reform was a debacle of lies to Americans.
Obamacare/ACA must be completely scraped to rebuild an actual affordable
medical insurance plan. Justin Smith has the critique.
Americans need insurance plans that translate into real
affordable health care and solutions for the mess created by Obamacare, which
cannot be found in more Republican nonsense and Obamacare Lite bills, like Graham-Cassidy.
More spending and continued regulation only moves America one-step closer to a
nationalized single-payer health care system, and if Republicans truly believe
Obamacare has harmed America, as often asserted, they have a duty to revitalize
the free market segment of health care insurance, through a full repeal of the
Affordable Care Act.
No matter how many welfare dollars Congress pours into these
fabricated markets or any amount of price fixing they set, the exchanges are
unsustainable, and Graham-Cassidy offered a permanent drain on this already
strained system and the U.S. treasury. It also added a $700 billion dollar deficit
next year to America's $20 trillion dollar debt, without repealing a single
Obamacare insurance regulation.
The only real solutions exist in a clean slate and a full
repeal of Obamacare, ripping it up by the roots. At least a full repeal would
save over a trillion dollars in spending over the next decade, instead of
trying to save pennies on the dollar and leaving a poor health care system
largely intact, through a bad bill like Graham-Cassidy.
Fortunately, Graham-Cassidy failed to be presented for a
vote in the Senate, during the last week in September. It failed, after Susan
Collins (R-ME), John McCain (R-AZ) and Rand Paul (R-KY) made it clear they
would vote "no", keeping it from the 51-vote threshold in a
reconciliation vote.
Only Senator Rand Paul held the moral high
ground in his decision. On September 20th, Senator Paul told Real
Clear Politics: "That [Graham-Cassidy] is not what I promised voters.
I promised repeal [of Obamacare]. ... Block granting Obamacare doesn't make it
go away."
Described as "a lousy process", the New York
Times (September 26th, 2017) quoted Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska stating: "The U.S. Senate
cannot get the text of a bill on Sunday night, then proceed to a vote just days
later, with only one hearing -- and especially not on an issue that is
intensely personal to all of us."
Senator John McCain complained
Republicans should have worked with Democrats, to restructure America's $3
trillion per year health care system, which is simply asinine, in light of the
fact, Obamacare is an entirely Democrat partisan piece of legislation, and it
widely restructured a vital part of the national economy. These same Democrats
destroyed dozens of governing norms through their lies, and they manipulated
the Congressional Budget Score, in order to coerce every American's
participation.
Perhaps, once the problems associated with Obamacare
compound themselves or Obamacare actually collapses, the Democrats will make an
honest effort to compromise on substantive changes, rather than seek more
spending and regulatory controls on consumer choice. However, to date, these
Commie Travelers have had millions of ideas on how to expand the welfare state
and not a single one to save Americans from it.
Americans want freedom of choice on their health insurance
plans and plans with less comprehensive coverage than Obamacare allows, which
would reduce the cost of premiums. They want the expansion of health savings
accounts and an end to mandate taxes and penalties. And if possible, most of us
would truly appreciate Medicaid reform.
President Trump has the full authority to place a
sunset deadline on the Obama administration's unconstitutional
subsidy payments, which it created to keep Obamacare from imploding, and he
should do so immediately. Let the Democrats howl "sabotage". There is
not any political, policy or moral reason for the GOP to continue the payoffs.
The recent request for a twenty-three percent rate hike by Blue
Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina[Blog Editor: BCBS asked for
an updated a reduction to 14.1% 8/2/17]
further illuminates the corruption within the current system. The company
acknowledges that it would have asked for only an 8.8 percent increase, if
President Trump had agreed to fund the federal subsidies through 2018, and so,
the U.S. taxpayer gets raked over the coals and robbed blind by Obamacare once
more.
Premium prices have doubled and quadrupled, and doctors are
harder to find. Barack Obama promised Obamacare
would boost the economy, but across America, small and large businesses report
Obamacare impedes their ability to expand and hire.
One must wonder how much of the Republican Party's
reluctance to fully repeal Obamacare lies with lobbyist efforts and donations
to Republicans. Records show that between 2011
and 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell received a total of $424,650
from Kindred Healthcare, Humana and Blackstone. Sen. Orrin Hatch received
$133,500 from Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cancer Treatment Centers of America,
while Sen. Lamar Alexander took $61,100 from Blue Cross Blue Shield and
Community Health Systems in Franklin, Tennessee. And the list goes on.
After seven years of promises, where are the voices in the
Senate offering passionate arguments for repeal? Where is the unified effort
from the Republicans to speak for millions of Americans, who currently suffer
under Obamacare's spiking premiums and decreasing choices? It has all seemingly
vanished, since repeal became a possible reality.
America's well-being is more important than any political
party's legacy and any insurance company's bottom line, and so, Republicans
must not allow this abominable and failed Obamacare "law" to be
prolonged and continue to hurt the American people in despicable fashion. The
next Democratic administration will surely expand its reach and push towards a
single-payer system, if it is not soon repealed, as suggested by Senator Bernie
Sanders (D-VT).
The Republicans and America really do not have any reason to
save a failed Obamacare, and they certainly cannot afford to let it become more
entrenched, while it cuts a liberty destroying path through our society. Until
Republicans gather the backbone to counter the ACA or fully repeal it, the
Republicans have broken faith with the American people.
By Justin O. Smith
__________________
Edited by John R. Houk
All text enclosed by brackets and All source links are by the
Editor.
I saw on Fox News that Senator John McCain is
publicly telling President Trump to put-up or apologize to the treasonous
President Obama pertaining to the accusation of wiretapping during the
2016-election cycle. I don’t have the Fox News clip but here’s the CNN
clip that Fox was referring to:
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that
President Trump should provide evidence for his unsubstantiated claim that
former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower or retract the accusation.
My God! McCain might as well stop being a RINO and out right
join the Deep State Democratic Party and become an overt Obama minion. No
wonder McCain lost to the Marxist oriented Obama in 2008.
McCain is making all kinds of noise that more news will come
out connecting President Trump yet keeping silent (copying MSM) on mounting
evidence of Russian links to Crooked Hillary and family marking political
favors for God only knows what nefarious purposes.
While the liberals are trying their
hardest to set up the Republicans in questionable ties with Russia, it seems as
though it is being used as a distraction to hide the Democrats’ own connection
with Russia.
Hillary Clinton’s election
campaign manager, John Podesta, was on the board of a small energy company,
Joule Unlimited, when it was given $35 million from a Russian government fund
which has ties to Putin. (via Breitbart)
This information was discovered in
a 56-page report titled, “From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian
Reset, and Cronyism.” Podesta did not disclose this, although he is required to
do so by law.
This was written by a non-partisan
government watchdog group, the Government Accountability Institute (GAI).
Stephen Bannon, the Executive Chairman of Breitbart and the
Chief Strategist in the Trump Administration, is also the Executive Chairman of
GAI.
During the “Russian reset,” then
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the flag bearer of U.S. involvement in
Russia’s technology initiative, called Skolkovo, which is intended to be
the Slavic version of Silicon Valley.
This “innovation city” was to be
located outside of Moscow and employ 30,000 people. Their technologically
advanced facilities would be under the strict control of the Russian
government. In 2013, the building was described, by Slate, as
reminiscent of the Soviet “utopia” building projects.
The GAI report revealed that the
Department of State, under Hillary Clinton, recruited companies like Intel,
Cisco, and Google to participate in Russia’s project. Of the 28 companies that
participated in Skolkovo, 17 were donors to the Clinton Foundation or
had paid Bill Clinton to speak.
As Clinton’s involvement increased
in the project, so did the chance that this technological investment was
actually a way to spy on American military technology. In 2014, the FBI gave
out an “extraordinary warning” to the companies participating in Skolkovo.
Podesta failed to mention that he
had memberships to the board of this company, even while knowing that Russian
investment in it may have been an attempt to steal our military technology. It
all seems a bit suspicious. Why was Clinton, the U.S. State Department, and
John Podesta tied up in this affair?
I can understand the Leftist MSM not picking up connections
between Crooked Hillary and the Russians, but what Senator McCain goes after
Trump for proof NOW when even the MSM has suggested improper violations of
Obama Administration of wiretapping is just nuts. McCain would
serve American Patriotism and the GOP better if he called out Obama to prove
President Trump is incorrect.
Here are some news tidbits that implicate Obama wiretapping
much more than President Trump angrily tweeting villainous Obama wiretapped the
Trump campaign in a moment of emotional display.
A quick look at Obama’s
history reveals he has always had the inclination, motivation, and opportunity
to snoop on and disseminate information about his political opponents. It’s how
he made his political career: getting his opponents'private
divorce records unsealed and leaked with the help of the
Chicago Tribune.
He and his administration
continued this pattern and practice of skirting laws throughout his eight years
in office, As Matthew Vadum reminds readers:
“Obama
used the IRS to target conservative and Tea Party nonprofits, along with
Catholic, Jewish, and pro-Israel organizations. He brazenly lied about it, too.
His Justice Department surreptitiously obtained telephone records for more than
100 reporters."
Wikileaks revealed that under
Obama, the NSA intercepted conversations of numerous foreign officials,
including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Angela Merkel, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Silvio Berlusconi, and Nicolas Sarkozy.
So it is rather astonishing
that so many disregard Trump’s claim that Obama and his aides spied upon
him and his staff. There were several means at his disposal for him to do so,
and it is increasingly likely that they did so. He apparently sought
-- twice -- to get the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court
to approve tapping Trump communications, and was turned down once, in June of
last year -- a rare occurrence as in 10,000 applications in a six-year period
only two were rejected. Reportedly the Obama administration tried again, using
a slightly modified request and received permission. Heat Street reported this on
November 7.
"What
we don't know is who was connected to that FISA," Carter said on Sean
Hannity's show Wednesday night. "What was that FISA looking at? That is
very highly classified. Nobody wants to talk about that particular FISA, right
now. They said it did have to do with the Russian hacking on a very broad
level, but it didn't hone in directly on Trump is what I was told," she
said.
In
addition to the FISA warrant in October, the FBI obtained a separate warrant
that same month to look into a computer server tied to then-candidate Donald
Trump's businesses in Trump Towers (but not located in Trump Towers). According
to the report, the feds used traditional investigative techniques
to examine allegations of computer activity tied to two Russian banks
and there had been no intercepts of Trump’s phone or emails.
The
FBI quickly concluded, "the computer activity in question involved no
nefarious contacts, bank transactions or encrypted communications with the
Russians."
The
months-long FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to
influence the 2016 presidential campaign briefly investigated a computer server
tied to Donald Trump's businesses near the end of the election but has not
gathered evidence of election tampering to date that would warrant criminal
charges against any of the president’s associates, Circa has learned.
But a FISA warrant is not the
only way to surveil communications. Under Chapter 36 of Title 50 of the US
Code, and pursuant to Executive Order 12333, the president can authorize electronic
surveillance without a court order, and we don’t know if Obama utilized one of
these means as well. Nor can we ascertain who’s leaking, as on his way out of
office –-17 days before his term was up -- Obama allowed the National Security
Agency to circulate such intercepted messages among 16 other intelligence
agencies without following longstanding protocols designed to insure privacy of
those involved in the communications, in effect inviting selective leaking by
partisans in those agencies.
This week former NSA official
Bill Binney confirmed
the veracityof Trump’s claim that his conversations had been
tapped and monitored and claimed it was done outside the courts.
Binney
told Fox the laws that fall under the FISA court's jurisdiction are
"simply out there for show" and "trying to show that the
government is following the law, and being looked at and overseen by the Senate
and House intelligence committees and the courts."
"That's
not the main collection program for NSA," Binney said.
In any event, both the former
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the head of the FBI James
Comey have stated without equivocation that there was no evidence found of
coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
On the other hand, there is
increasing evidence of Russian ties to Hillary Clinton and those closely
connected to her.
Jerome Corsi connects a Russian billionaire to
Putin with close ties. He provides documentary “evidence of the
circuitous path the Russian government has been using since Hillary Clinton was
secretary of state to make large financial payments to John Podesta and to the
Clinton Foundation.”
These transfers were made at
the same time Hillary Clinton was transferring “U.S. advanced technology to
Russia.”
John Podesta is not the only
family member enriched by the Russians. His brother Tony also rode the Russian gravy train.
Russia's
largest bank, Sberbank, has confirmed that it hired the consultancy of Tony
Podesta, the elder brother of John Podesta who chaired Hillary Clinton's
presidential campaign, for lobbying its interests in the United States and
proactively seeking the removal of various Obama-era sanctions, the press
service of the Russian institution told TASS on Thursday.
[snip]
Previously,
The Daily Caller reported that Tony Podesta was proactively lobbying for
cancellation of a range of anti-Russian sanctions against the banking sector.
In particular, he represented interests of Sberbank and was paid $170,000 for
his efforts over a six-month period last year to seek to end one of the Obama
administration’s economic sanctions against that country. Podesta, founder
and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of
Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more
than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments,
according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Former
President Barack Obama imposed the Russian sanctions following the break out in
violence in east Ukraine in 2014.
Podesta’s
efforts were a key part of under-the-radar lobbying during the 2016 U.S.
presidential campaign led mainly by veteran Democratic strategists to remove
sanctions against Sberbank and VTB Capital, Russia’s second largest bank.
[snip]
The
lobbying campaign targeted Congress and the executive branch, with Podesta and
other lobbyists arranging at least two meetings between Sberbank officers and
Department of State officials, according to Elena Teplitskaya, Sberbank’s board
chairman, who spoke to House aides in August.
[snip]
The
Podesta Group represented Sberbank and its subsidiaries, Troika Dialog Group in
the Cayman Islands, SBGB Cyprus Ltd in Nicosia, Cyprus, and SB International in
Luxembourg. Troika Dialog also was related to Klein, Ltd., a Cayman Island
organization that once funneled tens of millions of dollars to environmental
groups to oppose low-cost fracking in the U.S., which was hurting the Russian
oil industry.
[snip]
Sberbank
was the lead financial institution in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One,
owned by one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends, Frank Giustra. Giustra and Bill
Clinton lead the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an integral part of
the Clinton Foundation. Giustra has additionally donated $25 million to the
Clinton Foundation.
Giustra
sought to sell his stake in uranium reserves that included ore deposits in the
Western United States, and Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state, approved
the sale. And in one felled swoop, 20 percent of America’s uranium ore was sold
to the Russian state atomic agency.
During
the pending sale, the Podesta Group represented Giustra’s company and tried to
advance the transaction.
So there probably was
surveillance on Trump and his associates, although no connection with
Russia was established with them. Instead, all the connections to Russia were
with Clinton and her closest associates.
What we also know was that,
like Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Democrats repeatedly demonstrate a
shocking disregard for national security. The Daily Caller has
documented what the mainstream media is largely ignoring: the fact that dozens
of Democratic congressmen, including the former head of the DNC, engaged three
brothers from Pakistan and two of their wives at salaries multiple times over
those similarly situated (over $4 million), gave them passwords, and allowed
them access to sensitive computer files, even though it is impossible to fathom
how people with their record of financial troubles got security clearances.
These brothers are presently under criminal investigation accused of stealing
House computer equipment and transferring information from Congressional files
to a personal server. They owe $100,000 to an Iraqi businessman believed to
have with ties to Hezb’allah who is a fugitive from U.S. authorities.
This week, to cap it off, the brothers are under investigation for kidnapping
and holding prisoner their
stepmotherto prevent her from seeing her dying husband in
Pakistan.
Politicoreports that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former
head of the DNC, refuses to fire one of the brothers even though he is banned
from the House network. She’s keeping him on as an “adviser.”
Really, it’s impossible to
parody Democrats these days. It would be too unbelievable.
+++
SUPERSTAR REPORTER GOES
PUBLIC WITH OBAMA'S CREEPY SPYING ON HER
Shares bizarre details
about hacked computer as she investigated scandals
“It
was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about
when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.” –
George Orwell, “1984”
WASHINGTON – The woman who is
perhaps the nation’s top investigative journalist is fighting back against Big
Brother.
Sharyl Attkisson shared with
WND a detailed and harrowing description of what it was like to experience a
reality straight out of Orwell: The reporter claims she was spied on by the
Obama administration while investigating its scandals.
What tipped her off?
Imagine what it must be like
to watch your computer turn itself on and off.
“That’s one visible sign I
noticed over many months,” Attkisson told WND in an email interview.
“At the time, I suspected it
was some sort of phishing program seeking my passwords and contacts, and was
confident my computer had sufficient protections. I never suspected it was
connected to an intrusion of my systems until sources and forensics told me
that it was.”
She also watched a different
computer that she used delete files by itself.
After Attkisson released a
video showing that as it was happening, Vox’s Max Fisher claimed it was more
likely that she had a stuck backspace key.
WND asked, as an Emmy-award
winning investigative journalist and now the anchor of her own Sunday morning
national TV news program, “Full Measure,” did she find
Fisher’s claim that she was confused by a keyboard plausible?
“It was just a silly attempt
by a noted propagandist blog that had no firsthand information to deflect from
the surveillance,” she replied dismissively.
“The ‘expert’ didn’t even
know enough to understand there is no ‘backspace’ key on the computer shown,
and — in any event — that holding down such a key cannot duplicate the super
fast deletions demonstrated at the beginning of that particular video clip.”
The five-time Emmy Award
winner and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting
announced in January she is suing the Justice Department and seeking $35
million in damages for illegally hacking her computers and monitoring her work
between 2011 and 2013.
Three separate computer
forensic exams of her computers revealed what appears to be stunning evidence
pointing straight to the Obama administration.
“The most important and
irrefutable finding is: forensic evidence of a government-owned I.P. (internet
protocol) address accessing my computer,” Attkisson told WND.
She said she was told that
was “better evidence than the U.S. had when it accused China of various acts of
hacking into our government, which the government accepts as proven.”
Her computers were examined
by three independent forensics examiners including: a confidential source, an
examiner hired by CBS News, and an examiner hired by her attorney.
What they found is just
stunning.
Attkisson provided an
itemized overview of some of their findings, and described what
a confidential source and examiner hired by her attorney found:
§“A government-owned I.P. address
was used to access my computer.”
§“We are able to see
instances of exact date and time that the intruders entered my computers, and
the methods they used to do so.”
§“They used commercial,
non-attributable software proprietary to the CIA, FBI, NSA or DIA.”
§“The malware was constantly
running on my computers. It included a feature that logged my keystrokes,
accessed all my emails and collected my passwords.”
§“Skype was surreptitiously
used to listen in on audio.”
§“My smartphone was also
infected.”
§“Three classified documents
had been put on my computer.”
§“Once sources notified me
that I was likely being surveilled, and I discussed this in emails, the
intruders took steps to erase evidence of their presence. However, the
deletions themselves create a record of evidence.”
§“Attkisson’s computer was
accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in
late 2012.”
§“Evidence suggests this
party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts.”
§“An intruder had executed
commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.”
§“This party also used
sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized
activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.”
§“[Attkisson’s] systems were
indeed subject to non-standard interactions between June 2012 and January
2013.”
§“Definitive evidence that
shows commands were run from Sharyl’s user account that she did not personally
authorize.”
§“This history has been
deliberately removed from Sharyl’s hard drive.”
§The intruders conducted an
inordinate number of internal computer clock “time stamp” changes, likely to
try to confuse any forensics that might be conducted.
Why her?
WND asked the former CBS Washington bureau investigative
correspondent, did she think the administration considered her a foe? And acted
to stop her out of purely political concerns?
“I have no idea, the perpetrators would have to answer that
question and they certainly aren’t stepping forward,” she replied.
“But,” she continued, “my computer intrusions occurred in
context of the Obama administration’s crackdown on whistleblowers and a lot of
my work deals with whistleblowers.”
“Additionally, we know the administration was aggressively
trying to control the narrative on a number of stories it saw as damaging,
especially as the re-election year of 2012 shaped up.”
Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, records previously
obtained by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch indicate
Attkisson was targeted by the Obama administration because of critical
reporting.
In 2014, Judicial Watch said it “obtained an October 4,
2011, email to White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz, Attorney
General Eric Holder’s top press aide, (in which) Tracy Schmaler, described
Attkisson as ‘out of control.’
“Schmaler added ominously, ‘I’m also calling Sharryl’s [sic]
editor and reaching out to Scheiffer’ (an apparent reference to CBS’ Chief
Washington Correspondent and Face the Nation moderator Bob Scheiffer). Schultz
responded, ‘Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG’ (attorney general.)”
Given that Obama’s Justice Department had labeled her as
“out of control” and tried to get the reporter’s employer to rein her in, WND
asked Attkisson: What did she make of an administration that seeks to
control reporters?
“I expect it,” was the sober response. “But it’s our job to
resist it and we aren’t doing a very good job of that as an industry.”
“Yes. I was informed about my case prior to us knowing about
any of the other cases, just before the Snowden revelations, and prior to
former DNI (Director of National Intelligence James) Clapper falsely telling
Congress that the government was not collecting data of millions of Americans…but all of these events
occurred in the same general time frame.”
So, was it the administration that was “out of control?”
“You decide!” she replied, echoing a famous news slogan.
Investigating the truth about her own story, the
award-winning reporter has faced what she called a Catch-22 dilemma.
“To find out who accessed my computer, we need the
government’s cooperation, but the government isn’t cooperating.”
“In my lawsuit, we seek to learn who had access to the I.P.
address that was used to infiltrate my computer,” she continued. “To date, the
Department of Justice has taken multiple steps to block us from finding this answer.”
However, her persistence has revealed some compelling
results.
“Finally, at my request, the DOJ (Department of Justice)
Inspector General’s office sent investigators to look at a separate computer,
my personal home computer.”
Attkisson said that although the Justice Department’s
inspector general’s office will not release their notes and records, “and have
improperly failed to respond to my Freedom of Information Act request for the
information,” their forensics investigators reported to her that they found the
following on her personal computer:
§“Evidence of suspicious
deletions of files that could not have been done by me.
§“Use of my computer in
‘advanced mode’ (which was not done by me).”
§“‘Someone’ installed
software onto my desktop and executed it and overwrote some important logs
effectively covering their tracks and erasing much evidence of their actions.”
§“As with my CBS computer,
they found a lot of unusual time and date setting changes on my personal
computer as well (15 times in four days).”
§“They executed data
recovery, recovering previously deleted logs.”
Attkisson said the forensics examiners working for the
Justice Department’s inspector general “told me they believed the intruder(s)
were actually working in my house at the computer conducting these acts, rather
than conducting them remotely, but, in fact, the acts were conducted remotely,
as with the work computers referenced above.”
“Furthermore,” she continued, “the examiners indicated that
prior to their supervisors signing off on their findings, ‘somebody’ narrowed
their mission to only reporting on any ‘remote’ intrusions (i.e. not addressing
the suspicious forensics they found by someone they believed was actually in my
house working at the computer.)”
And that’s when the investigation hit a wall.
“At this point, as their report was sent to higher-ups for
approval, they dialed back their communications with me and would not deliver
the promised final report or the notes that went with it.”
Attkisson said she filed a FOIA to obtain them but it was
ignored. Many months went by.
“When Congress pressed the issue, the DOJ IG issued only a
summary and emphasized there was no evidence of ‘remote’ intrusion in that
computer and left out the suspicious forensics they discovered,” explained the
investigative super-sleuth. “To this day, the DOJ IG has failed to properly
respond to my FOIA requests seeking the full information and report.”
As a result, “Many in the media misreported that this DOJ IG
report was somehow conclusive evidence that my computers had not been
infiltrated.”
“In fact,” she clarified, “the DOJ IG didn’t even examine
the primary computers in question — referenced in the other exams above—
because CBS would not allow them to look at the computers.”
Did she think the problem was specific to the previous
administration, or was it due the growth of the surveillance community, its
powers and lack of oversight?
“I think this is an outgrowth of technology that makes such
surveillance possible, politicians and corporate interests who are willing to
use it for improper purposes, and a weak and conflicted news media that has
done little to stop it.”
Finally, WND said it would be remiss if it did not ask the
ace reporter if her experience had given her any insight into President Trump’s
accusations that his campaign had been spied on by the Obama administration.
However, Attkisson said she has not looked at, or reported,
on those allegations.
American Thinker is a daily
internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of
importance to Americans. Contributors are accomplished in fields beyond
journalism and animated to write for the general public out of concern for the
complex and morally significant questions on the national agenda.
There is no limit to the
topics appearing on American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions
-- strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military -- is emphasized. The right to
exist and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us.
Business, science, technology, medicine, management, and economics in their
practical and ethical dimensions are also emphasized, as is the state of …READ THE REST
___________
SUPERSTAR REPORTER GOES
PUBLIC WITH OBAMA'S CREEPY SPYING ON HER
