THE OBAMA CABAL SNOOPING TIME LINE STARTING IN 2009.
Now you know... the FBI and the CI have been exposed. They were spying since the Obama Cabal came into office. That is what a Paranoid Oligarchy does.
H/T Sharyl Attkisson
January 21, 2009:
President Obama takes office; pledges unprecedented transparency. A TAQUIYA LIE
April 2009:
Someone leaks the unmasked name of Congresswoman Jane Harmon to the press. According to news reports, the Bush administration NSA incidentally recorded and saved Harmon’s phone conversations
with pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage.
The story is first broken by Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein.
December 17, 2009:
The Obama administration prosecutes FBI contractor Shamai Leibowitz
for leaking documents to the media in April 2009. Leibowitz says he
leaked because he felt FBI practices were “an abuse of power and a
violation of the law” which he reported to his superiors at the FBI “who
did nothing about them.” (According to the ACLU: “Amazingly, the
sentencing judge said, ‘I don’t know what was divulged other than some
documents, and how it compromised things, I have no idea’.”)
2010:
The IRS secretly begins “targeting” conservative groups that are
seeking nonprofit tax-exempt status, by singling out ones that have “Tea
Party” or “Patriot” in their names.
Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning begins illegally leaks classified information to WikiLeaks revealing, among other matters, that the U.S. is extensively spying on the United Nations.
Obama Attorney General Eric Holder renews a Bush-era subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen in a leak investigation.
Obama administration pursues espionage charges against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. (According to the ACLU:
spy charges were later dropped and Drake pled guilty to a misdemeanor.
The judge called the government’s conduct in the case “unconscionable.”)
May 28, 2010:
The government secretly applies for a warrant to obtain Google email information of Fox News reporter James Rosen in a leak investigation, without telling Rosen.
James Rosen of Fox News
September 21, 2010:
Internal email
entitled “Obama Leak Investigations” at “global intelligence” company
Stratfor claims Obama’s then-Homeland Security adviser John Brennan is
targeting journalists.
“Brennan is behind the witch hunts of
investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway
sources,” writes one Stratfor official to another.
The email continues: “Note — There is specific tasker from the [White
House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama
agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…”
“The Wonder Boys” reportedly refers to the National Security Agency (NSA). Brennan later becomes President Obama’s CIA Director.
John Brennan, former CIA Director and Homeland Security Adviser
Early February 2011:
After receiving an anonymous tip, CBS News investigative
correspondent Sharyl Attkisson begins researching the Department of
Justice “gunwalking” operation nicknamed “Fast and Furious” that
secretly let thousands of weapons be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels.
One of the “walked” guns had been used by illegal aliens who murdered
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.
U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry
February 22, 2011:
CBS’ Attkisson breaks news about “Fast and Furious” on The CBS Evening News.
After the story airs, the government issues an internal memo that seeks to “push positive stories” to contradict the news.
Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening
News last week…ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week,
in an effort to preempt some negative reporting, or at minimum, lessen the coverage of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about ATF.
March 4, 2011:
CBS News’ Attkisson exclusively
interviews sitting ATF special agent John Dodson. He gives a firsthand
account contradicting government denials re: Fast and Furious.
ATF Special Agent John Dodson
May 2011:
White House recruits democratic operative Eric Schultz to spin on
Fast and Furious and to counter the House Oversight Committee’s
investigative work on the case. (Schultz previously served as intern to
Sen. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton.)
Former Obama operative Eric Schultz
Spring 2011:
Obama intel officials capture and record incidental private communications between Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, and a Libyan official. The recordings are later leaked to the press.
2011:
Fox News reporter Mike Levine is subpoenaed by the Department of
Justice regarding a story he reported about a federal grand jury’s
indictments of terrorism suspects. The subpoena is later dropped.
June 2, 2011:
Republican Mitt Romney announces he’ll challenge President Obama in campaign 2012. SNOOPING STARTS ON ROMNEY AND HIS CAMPAIGN
June 28, 2011:
Obama U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke secretly leaks sensitive government information
to Fox News, allegedly to retaliate against ATF whistleblower John
Dodson in the Fast and Furious case. (Burke is former chief of staff
to former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.)
August 2011:
U.S. Attorney Burke resigns while under investigation for the improper leak of sensitive information about Dodson. The Inspector General later confirms the leak and Burke apologizes.
September 2011:
White House operative Schultz invites Attkisson and several other
national journalists to off the record backgrounder about Fast and
Furious documents subpoenaed by Congress. Later, on the phone, Shultz
screams and cusses at Attkisson as she asks questions raised by the Fast
and Furious documents.
October 3, 2011:
Obama administration secretly changes longstanding policy. The change creates a “loophole” that Sen. Ron Wyden would later say allows the NSA to conduct “backdoor searches” of “incidental collection” of U.S. citizens’ domestic communications.
The same day, CBS News airs Attkisson’s report on newly-uncovered memos that contradict Attorney General Eric Holders’ denials about Fast and Furious.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder
October 4, 2011:
In an internal email, Attorney General Eric Holder’s top press aide Tracy Schmaler emails White House operative Schultz calling Attkisson “out of control.” Schultz replies, “Her piece was really bad for the AG.”
November 2011:
CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, who’s married, allegedly begins an
affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. (The FBI would later say it
“stumbled” upon evidence of the affair incidentally during an
unspecified, much broader investigation.)
December 2011:
Amid much criticism, Justice Department finally, officially retracts the
false letter it had submitted to Congress in February. The letter had
stated that the Fast and Furious allegations of gunwalking were untrue.
February 13, 2012:
At approximately 10:30pm, remote intruders secretly download new spy software proprietary to a federal agency
onto Attkisson’s CBS work computer. (The software was secretly attached
to a legitimate Hotmail email and downloaded in the background after a
pop-up ad appeared).
April-May 2012:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI publicly announce vast
expansion of cyber related efforts to address alleged “national
security-related cyber issues.”
In violation of longstanding practice, DOJ secretly and without notice seizes personal and phone records of journalists from Associated Press from this two-month period in a leak investigation.
June 2012:
Attorney General Holder secretly initiates investigations into AP and the New York Times regarding government leaks.
June 28, 2012:
The House of Representatives holds Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents related to Fast and Furious.
July 2012:
The Department of Justice designates U.S. Attorneys’ offices to act
as “force multipliers” in further stepped-up cyber efforts in the name
of national security.
Intruders remotely “refresh” ongoing surveillance of Attkisson’s CBS News Toshiba laptop.
Summer 2012:
The FBI incidentally stumbles across emails
revealing CIA Director Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Broadwell.
FBI Director Robert Mueller is notified of the affair on a date the
government will not disclose. The FBI later says it interviewed Petraeus
and Broadwell, and concluded national security hasn’t been
breached. The FBI keeps all of this information secret.
In late summer, on a date the government won’t reveal, the FBI notifies Attorney General Holder of the Petraeus affair.
September 11, 2012:
Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens are
murdered in Benghazi, Libya during attacks by Islamic extremist
terrorists. Despite internal communications that acknowledge the
terrorist nature of the attacks within minutes, the Obama administration
falsely reports to the public that the attacks were instead a protest
gone awry after an anti-Islamic YouTube video.
Some Obama officials become frustrated with CIA Director Petraeus and
his post-Benghazi attack behavior, as he opposes efforts to edit out
mentions of terrorism from the public Benghazi talking points. Petraeus
deputy Mike Morell is given authority over the edits, and aligns with
Hillary Clinton’s State Department against Petraeus’s desires.
October 2012:
CBS begins airing Attkisson’s Benghazi stories which rely on whistleblowers
and numerous government-linked confidential sources. These sources
report that the Executive Branch is clamping down on leaks to reporters
re: Benghazi.
DOJ continues its stepped-up National Security Division cyber
efforts, holding specialized training at DOJ headquarters for the
National Security Cyber Specialists (NSCS) network and the Criminal
Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS).
President Obama issues top secret presidential directive on Oct. 16
ordering intelligence officials to draw up a list of overseas targets
for cyberattacks. According to The Guardian, the directive also
“contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US.”
As CIA Director Petraeus’s interagency relationships become increasingly strained over his stance on Benghazi, unnamed FBI agents reach out to Republicans in Congress to tell about Petraeus’s affair.
They eventually land at the office of Republican majority leader Eric
Cantor. With the presidential elections about a week away, Cantor stays
mum on the Petraeus rumors and instead contacts the FBI about them.
The FBI interviews Petraeus and Broadwell a second time.
November 2, 2012:
The FBI questions President Obama’s vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright in a leak investigation
regarding material in a book written by a New York Times reporter.
Cartwright denies being the source (but later admits he was, and is
convicted in the case).
November 6, 2012:
President Obama defeats Mitt Romney in Campaign 2012.
CIA Director Petraeus is scheduled to testify to Congress next week about the Benghazi attacks.
Officials claim this day is the first time Director of National
Intelligence Clapper is notified about the Petraeus affair by an
unspecified official at the Justice Department. Clapper calls Petraeus
and urges him to resign.
November 7-9, 2012:
Attorney General Holder hosts a national training conference at
DOJ headquarters for the expanded efforts of DOJ’s National Security
Cyber Specialists (NSCS).
The Obama administration says somebody unspecified notifies someone
at the White House about the Petraeus affair on Nov. 7. The President is
reportedly looped in for the first time on Nov. 8 and accepts Petraeus’
resignation on Nov. 9. Petraeus’ planned appearance before Congress to testify on Benghazi is canceled.
November 13, 2012:
The F.B.I. initiates a body of cyber security case investigations that would later relate to Attkisson’s computer intrusions.
December 2012:
Two intelligence-connected sources separately suggest to Attkisson that she’s likely under government surveillance
due to her reporting. One source tells her the government has pushed
the envelope like never before and that public would be shocked to
“learn the extent that the government is conducting surveillance of
private citizens.”
As Attkisson arranges a forensic exam of her computer, evidence later
shows the intruders then attempted to cover their tracks and to erase
evidence of their intrusion. However, the erasures leave additional
forensic evidence.
December 27, 2012:
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who have
classified knowledge as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
publicly warn of the “back-door search loophole” or searches of incidental collection of innocent Americans.
As it is written, there is nothing to
prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of
communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been
collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls
or e-mails of specific Americans.—Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado
Sen. Mark Udall
2013:
Obama administration brings court martial against Army intelligence
analyst Bradley Manning, who has changed his name to Chelsea, for a 2010
leak of classified information to WikiLeaks that revealed American
military and diplomatic activities across the world. Manning is sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest punishment ever given in a U.S. leak case.
January 2013:
Two forensics examinations confirm unauthorized remote intrusions and monitoring of Attkisson’s work and personal computers. The information is not publicly reported at this time.
January 23, 2012:
The Obama administration prosecutes CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou for leaks to a reporter
as he blew the whistle on the CIA’s secret torture program. He’s the
first CIA officer convicted of providing classified information to a
reporter.
March 12, 2013:
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies to Congress, falsely stating that intelligence officials are not collecting mass data on tens of millions of Americans.
April 12, 2013:
The government Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Agency (FISA) court secretly approves the latest FBI request
to continue obtaining daily telephone records of millions of U.S.
Verizon customers. The judge orders Verizon to turn over the information
to the National Security Agency (NSA). This directly contradicts
Clapper’s March 12 testimony to Congress.
April 2013:
A secret government memo
later exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden discusses how the
U.S. is collecting information “directly from the servers of …Microsoft,
Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”
May 10, 2013:
After longstanding denials, the IRS admits to and apologizes
for targeting Republican Tea Party groups for mischief, which included
discussing developing pretenses for prosecution, leading up to the 2012
election.
May 13, 2013:
The Associated Press (AP) publicly announces that it has learned of the Justice Department’s secret subpoena
of phone records for 20 AP reporters, in a leak investigation. Attorney
General Holder personally approved the subpoenas, which were issued to
Verizon rather than AP. AP calls it a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations.
May 17, 2013:
Fox News learns that the Justice Department secretly labeled reporter James Rosen a possible “criminal co-conspirator”
and “flight-risk” in obtaining warrants to monitor Rosen’s State
Department movements, phone records and emails in a leak investigation
starting in 2011.
June 2013:
The FBI secretly opens a case on Attkisson’s computer
intrusions under the auspices of a national security issue. The FBI
contacts CBS without Attkisson’s knowledge, but fails to contact
or interview Attkisson. (The FBI later withholds Attkisson’s FBI file in
its entirety without explanation, and other documents, despite multiple
Freedom of Information Act requests.)
News of the FBI case involving Attkisson’s computer intrusions is
circulated internally to the Justice Department’s national cyber
security group, and grouped with a set of cases opened in November 2012.
June 2013:
Former National Security Agency NSA contractor Snowden begins releasing documents showing extensive efforts by the government to surveil and collect information on U.S. citizens.
Snowden is charged with three felonies in his absence from the U.S.
NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden. Photo by Laura Poitras
June 6, 2013:
At a hearing, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, asks Attorney General Eric Holder if the NSA spies on members of Congress. Holder answers that the NSA has no “intent” to spy on Congress, but that the issue is better addressed in private.
August 6, 2013:
Armed Coast Guard agents under the Department of Homeland Security
raid the home of reporter Audrey Hudson at 4:30am with a search warrant
for her husband’s firearms. As they searched the house, they read Hudson
her Miranda rights and confiscated documents that contained
“confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials”
belonging to Hudson including the identities of whistleblowers at the
Department of Homeland Security. (Hudson sues and later receives a settlement from the government.)
July 2, 2013:
Director of National Intelligence Clapper apologizes to Congress for his false testimony in March regarding widespread collection of data on Americans.
August 7, 2013:
CBS News publicly announces confirmation of Attkisson’s computer intrusions.
“Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an
unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in
2012…This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible
indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause
further confusion.—CBS News
September 19, 2013
The Obama Justice Department charges
FBI agent and contractor Donald Sachtleben with leaking to an AP
reporter details of disrupted terrorist bomb plot. He’s sentenced to 43
months in prison.
January 23, 2014:
Sen. Bernie Sanders asks the NSA if it spies on members of Congress. The NSA does not provide a direct answer and states that Congress is afforded “the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons.”
March 2014:
Congress accuses the CIA of improperly accessing Senate Intelligence committee computers. CIA Director Brennan denies it.
Director of National Intelligence Clapper bans intelligence community officials from unauthorized contact with reporters.
April 2, 2014:
Former state department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim is sentenced to prison for disclosing classified information to Fox News reporter James Rosen.
July 31, 2014:
CIA Inspector General reveals that five CIA officials improperly accessed Senate Intelligence Committee computers
and searched certain staff emails. The findings contradict denials made
in March by CIA director Brennan. Brennan apologizes to Senate staff.
October 2014:
The government pays a settlement to reporter Audrey Hudson after the 2013 Coast Guard raid of her home during which her work notes were improperly seized.
December 2014:
Attorney General Holder seeks to subpoena a 60 Minutes producer in connection with a terrorism trial, but pulls back the request after public criticism.
Spring 2015:
The Obama administration finishes secretive negotiations of an Iran
nuclear deal that will return billions of dollars in frozen funds to the
world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism in return for
assurances from that country. It’s later reported that Obama intel
officials have been incidentally capturing communications
of U.S. members of Congress and organizations in the U.S.
while secretly recording Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
discussions about the Iran deal, which he opposes.
As of now, the New York Times reports
“since 2009, six current or former government employees and two
government contractors have been indicted or prosecuted under the
Espionage Act for leaking information to the public. There were only
three such prosecutions under all previous U.S. presidents combined
since 1917.”
May 2015:
Former CIA employee Jeffrey Alexander Sterling is convicted on espionage charges for leaks to New York Times reporter James Risen. He’s sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.
December 2015:
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) passes.
It requires private Internet companies to “transmit cyber-threat
indicators” to the Department of Homeland Security and granting the
companies immunity from prosecution for sharing customers’ personal
data in those cases.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration incidentally collected private communications by members of Congress while it spied on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The NSA sweeping up “private conversations
with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups… raised fears [of]—an
‘Oh-s— moment,’ one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch
would be accused of spying on Congress.”–Wall Street Journal, December
29, 2015
July 2016:
Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for president.
According to later news reports, after Trump’s nomination, internal
White House logs show Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice begins
to show increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA)
intelligence material that included “unmasked” Americans’ identities.
Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice
Summer 2016:
The FBI reportedly obtains a secret FISA court order to monitor communications of Trump adviser Carter Page,
convincing a judge there’s probable cause to believe Page is acting as a
Russian agent. Surveillance of Page theoretically allows government
officials to “incidentally” collect communications of Trump associates
(or Trump himself) if they communicate with Page. Read: When “Incidental” Intel Collection Isn’t Incidental
Former Trump adviser Carter Page
Fall 2016:
Trump opponents “shop” to reporters a political opposition research
“dossier” alleging Trump is guilty of various inappropriate acts
regarding Russia. The information is unverified (and some of it is
false) and the press doesn’t publish it, but a copy is provided to the
FBI.
September 26, 2016:
It’s not publicly known at the time, but the government makes a proposal
to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) court
to allow the National Counter Terrorism Center to access “unmasked”
intel on Americans acquired by the FBI and NSA. (The Court later
approves as “appropriate”.)
October 7, 2016:
Former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright
pleads guilty in a leak investigation to lying to the FBI about his
discussions with reporters regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
October 26, 2016:
At closed-door hearing before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Obama administration disclosed that it had been violating surveillance safeguards, according to Circa. It disclosed that more than 5 percent of its searches of the NSA’s database violated safeguards promised in 2011.
November 8, 2016:
Donald Trump is elected President.
November 2016-January 2017:
News reports claim Rice’s interest in the NSA materials accelerates
after President Trump’s election through his January inauguration.
Surveillance reportedly included Trump transition figures and/or foreign
officials discussing a Trump administration.
December 2016:
FBI secretly monitors and records communications between Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who later became President Trump’s national security adviser.
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak
After Trump’s election, Obama officials take steps to ensure certain intelligence gathered regarding Trump associates is “spread across the government.”
One Obama official would later say it’s because they were afraid once
Trump officials “found out how we knew what we knew,” the intelligence
would be destroyed. However, Obama critics later theorize Obama
officials were working to mount opposition to Trump’s presidency.
January 10, 2017:
The media reports on the leaked anti-Trump “dossier” compiled by a
political opposition research group containing unverified and at least
partly untrue allegations of misconduct involving Trump and Russia.
January 12, 2017:
The Obama administration finalizes new rules
allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to spread certain
intelligence to 16 other U.S. intel agencies without the normal privacy
protections.
President Obama commutes all but the last four months of Manning’s sentence for leaking intelligence information to WikiLeaks.
February 2, 2017:
The news reports that
five information technology (IT) computer professionals employed by
Democrats in the House of Representatives are under criminal
investigation for allegedly “accessing House IT systems without
lawmakers’ knowledge.” The suspects include three brothers identified as
Abid, Imran and Jamal Awan “who managed office information technology
for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and
other lawmakers.” The brothers were said
to have been employed by three Democrats on the Intelligence Committee
and “five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs which deal
with with many of the nation’s most sensitive issues and documents,
including those related to the war on terrorism.”
February 9, 2017: News
of the FBI recordings of Lt. Gen. Flynn speaking with Russia’s
ambassador is leaked to the press. The New York Times and the Washington
Post report that Flynn was captured on wiretaps discussing current U.S. sanctions, despite Flynn’s earlier denials.
The Washington Post also reports the FBI reviewed Flynn’s calls with Russian ambassador and “found nothing illicit.”
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
Feb. 13, 2017:
Trump National Security Adviser Flynn resigns, acknowledging he had misled Vice President Pence about his Russia conversations.
March 2017:
The House Intelligence Committee requests a list of unmasking
requests made during a certain time period by Obama officials. The
intelligence committee does not provide the information, prompting a
June 1 subpoena.
March 1, 2017:
The Washington Post learns and reports that Trump Attorney General
Jeff Sessions has met with the Russian ambassador twice in the recent
past. Sessions had told Congress he didn’t communicate with the Russians
during the campaign. (The Russian ambassador had sought out and met
with numerous high-ranking Democrat and Republican officials.)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
March 2, 2017:
In an interview on MSNBC, Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Evelyn Farkas says that once President Trump was elected, she urged her former colleagues to “get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can [about Trump and his associates] before President Obama leaves the administration” and get it to “people on Capitol Hill.”
Former Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Evelyn Farkas
Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuses
himself from any Trump campaign-related investigations after
backtracking on earlier statements that he had not met with Russian
officials prior to the election.
March 4, 2017:
President Trump tweets: “Is it legal for a sitting President to be
‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by
court earlier. A NEW LOW!” and “How low has President Obama gone to
tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is
Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
March 10, 2017:
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, steps forward to support Trump’s wiretapping claim, revealing that the Obama administration recorded his (Kucinich’s) communications with a Libyan official in Spring 2011.
March 20, 2017:
At a hearing, lead House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff
places Trump adviser Carter Page at the center of a theoretical alleged
collusion with Russia. (It’s not yet publicly known that the FBI has
been surveilling Page.) Some critics see Schiff’s storyline as an
attempt to establish public justification for the Obama administration
intel community’s controversial surveillance of the Trump adviser during
the 2016 political campaign.
Rep. Adam Schiff
March 22, 2017:
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes publicly
announces that he has reviewed evidence of U.S. citizens associated with
Trump being “incidentally” surveilled by Obama intelligence officials,
and that the names and information of the Trump associates were
illegally leaked and/or used, mostly in November, December and January.
Nunes attends a meeting at the White House to discuss. He’s criticized
for viewing the evidence and speaking of it publicly.
In an interview on PBS, former Obama
National Security Adviser Rice says “I know nothing about this…I really
don’t know to what Chairman Nunes was referring.”
Rep. Devin Nunes
March 24, 2017:
The political firm that compiled the Trump “dossier” that was leaked
to the press, Fusion GPS, declines to answer questions or document
requests from Sen. Charles Grassley.
March 31, 2017:
Democrat Schiff is invited to the White House to review intel material Republican Nunes saw earlier.
April 3, 2017:
Multiple news reports state that prior to the election, Rice had requested and reviewed “unmasked” intelligence on Trump associates whose information was “incidentally” collected by intelligence agencies.
April 4, 2017:
In an interview on MSNBC, Rice seems to reverse
herself (having earlier said she knew “nothing” about unmasking of
surveilled Trump associates) and admits having asked for names of U.S.
citizens previously masked in intelligence reports. Rice says her
motivations were not political or to spy. When asked if she leaked names
of U.S. citizens,
Rice replies, “I leaked nothing to nobody.”
April 6, 2017:
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes recuses himself from the Russia part of his committee’s investigation.
April 11, 2017:
Someone leaks to the Washington Post, and the Post reports, that the FBI secretly obtained a FISA court order
last summer to monitor Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Trump
critics say the existence of the order proves there was possible
criminal activity by Trump associates. However, Trump supporters say the
leak is an attempt to frame damning revelations as they are coming to
light: that the Obama administration was, indeed, surveilling the
political campaign of at least one opponent.
April 28, 2017:
The NSA announces it “will no longer collect certain internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target.” This after it secretly disclosed mass violations to the FISA court last October.
The NSA also begins deleting prior collected data. It says it’s doing this to avoid further violations.
May 2, 2017:
Members of Senate Intelligence Committee go to CIA headquarters to
get briefed on Russia-Trump connections. The following day, CNN asks
Senate Intelligence Committee member Dianne Feinstein if there is
evidence of “collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the
campaign.” “Not at this time,” replies Feinstein.
May 3, 2017:
Obama’s former National Security Adviser Susan Rice declines
Republican Congressional request to testify at a hearing about the
unmasking and surveillance.
May 4, 2017:
It’s revealed
that in the election year of 2016, the Obama administration vastly
expanded its searches of NSA database for Americans and the content of
their emails and phone calls: From 9500 searches involving 198 Americans
in 2013 to 30,355 searches of 5,288 Americans in 2016.
May 5, 2017:
Senator and former Presidential candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) formally asks the White House and intelligence community whether he was surveilled under the Obama administration.
May 14, 2017:
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and ex-Deputy
Attorney General Sally Yates, Obama administration officials, admit
to reviewing “classified documents in which Mr. Trump, his associates
or members of Congress had been unmasked.” They won’t provide further
details in public.
May 31, 2017:
Document is disclosed
to Justice Department in a lawsuit claiming the NSA engaged in “blanket
surveillance” of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah,
collecting and storing “virtually all electronic communications going
into or out of the Salt Lake City area, including the contents of emails
and text messages” to “experiment with and fine tune a new scale of
mass surveillance.” Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden has
denied such a program existed.
June 1, 2017:
House Intelligence Committee issues 7 subpoenas including
for information related to unmaskings requested by ex-Obama officials
national security adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan
and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power. Chairman Devin
Nunes says the intelligence community has been stonewalling the
committee’s March request for a list of all the unmaskings that occurred
during a certain time period.
Behind the Obama administration’s shady plan to spy on the Trump campaign
There is no doubt that the Obama administration spied on the Trump
campaign. As Barr made clear, the real question is: What predicated the
spying? Was there a valid reason for it, strong enough to overcome our
norm against political spying? Or was it done rashly? Was a politically
motivated decision made to use highly intrusive investigative tactics
when a more measured response would have sufficed, such as a “defensive
briefing” that would have warned the Trump campaign of possible Russian
infiltration?
Last year, when the “spy” games got underway, James Clapper, Obama’s
director of national intelligence, conceded that, yes, the FBI did run
an informant — “spy” is such an icky word — at Trump campaign officials;
but, we were told, this was merely to investigate Russia. Cross
Clapper’s heart, it had nothing to do with the Trump campaign. No, no,
no. Indeed, the Obama administration only used an informant because —
bet you didn’t know this — doing so is the most benign, least intrusive
mode of conducting an investigation.
Me? I’m thinking the tens of thousands of convicts serving lengthy
sentences due to the penetration of their schemes by informants would
beg to differ. (Gee, Mr. Gambino, I assure you, this was just for you
own good . . .) And imagine the Democrats’ response if, say, the Bush
administration had run a covert intelligence operative against Obama
2008 campaign officials, including the campaign’s co-chairman. Surely
David Axelrod, Chuck Schumer, The New York Times and Rachel Maddow would
chirp that “all is forgiven” once they heard Republicans punctiliously
parse the nuances between “spying” and “surveillance”; between “spies”
and “informants”; and between investigating campaign officials versus
investigating the campaign proper — and the candidate.
The “spying” question arose last spring, when we learned that Stefan
Halper, a longtime source for the CIA and British intelligence, had been
tasked during the FBI’s Russia investigation to chat up three Trump campaign advisers:
Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Sam Clovis. This was in addition
to earlier revelations that the Obama Justice Department and FBI had
obtained warrants to eavesdrop on Page’s communications, beginning about three weeks before the 2016 election.
The fact that spying had occurred was too clear for credible denial.
The retort, then, was misdirection: There had been no spying on Donald
Trump or his campaign; just on a few potential bad actors in the
campaign’s orbit.
It was nonsense then, and it is nonsense now.
The pols making these claims about what the FBI was doing might have
been well served by listening to what the FBI said it was doing.
There was, for example, then-Director Comey’s breathtaking public
testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20, 2017.
Comey did not just confirm the existence of a counterintelligence probe of Russian espionage
to influence the 2016 election — notwithstanding that the government
customarily refuses to confirm the existence of any investigation, let
alone a classified counterintelligence investigation. The director
further identified the Trump campaign as a subject of the probe, even
though, to avoid smearing people, the Justice Department never
identifies uncharged persons or organizations that are under
investigation. As Comey put it:
“I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that
the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating
the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential
election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between
individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian
government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign
and Russia’s efforts . . .”
The FBI was spying, and it was doing so in an investigation of the
Trump campaign. That is why, for over two years, Washington has been
entranced by the specter of “Trump collusion with Russia”
— not Page or Papadopoulos collusion with Russia. Comey went to
extraordinary lengths to tell the world that the FBI was not merely
zeroing in on individuals of varying ranks in the campaign; the main
question was whether the Trump campaign itself — the entity — had
“coordinated” in Russia’s espionage operation.
In the months prior to the election, as its Trump-Russia investigation ensued, some of the overtly political, rabidly anti-Trump FBI agents
running the probe discussed among themselves the prospect of stopping
Trump, or of using the investigation as an “insurance policy” in the
highly unlikely event that Trump won the election. After Trump’s
stunning victory, the Obama administration had a dilemma: How could the
investigation be maintained if Trump were told about it? After all, as
president, he would have the power to shut it down.
On Jan. 6, 2017, Comey, Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and
National Security Agency chief Michael Rogers visited President-elect
Trump in New York to brief him on the Russia investigation.
Just one day earlier, at the White House, Comey and then–Acting
Attorney General Sally Yates had met with the political leadership of
the Obama administration — President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and
national security adviser Susan Rice — to discuss withholding
information about the Russia investigation from the incoming Trump
administration.
Rice put this sleight-of-hand a bit more delicately in the memo about
the Oval Office meeting (written two weeks after the fact, as Rice was
leaving her office minutes after Trump’s inauguration):
“President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the
incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that
we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia. [Emphasis
added.]”
It is easy to understand why Obama officials needed to discuss
withholding information from Trump. They knew that the Trump campaign —
not just some individuals tangentially connected to the campaign — was
the subject of an ongoing FBI counterintelligence probe. An informant
had been run at campaign officials. The FISA surveillance of Page was
underway — in fact, right before Trump’s inauguration, the Obama
administration obtained a new court warrant for 90 more days of spying.
In each Page surveillance warrant application, after describing
Russia’s espionage operations, the Justice Department told the court,
“The FBI believes that the Russian Government’s efforts are being
coordinated with Candidate #1’s campaign[.]” Candidate #1 was Donald
Trump — now, the president-elect.
The fact that the Trump campaign was under investigation for
collaborating with Russia was not just withheld from the incoming
president; it had been withheld from the congressional “Gang of Eight.”
In his March 2017 House testimony, answering questions by Rep. Elise
Stefanik (R-NY), then-director Comey acknowledged that congressional
leadership was not told about the Trump-Russia probe during quarterly
briefings from July 2016 through early March 2017, because “it was a
matter of such sensitivity.” Let’s put aside that the need to alert
Congress to sensitive matters is exactly why there is a Gang of Eight
(comprised of bipartisan leaders of both chambers and their intelligence
committees).
Manifestly, the matter was deemed too “sensitive” for disclosure
because that would have involved telling Republican congressional
leadership that the incumbent Democratic administration was using
foreign counterintelligence powers to investigate the Republican
presidential campaign, and the party’s nominee, as suspected clandestine
agents of the Kremlin.
How to keep the investigation going when Trump took office? The plan
called for Comey to put the new president at ease by telling him he was
not a suspect. This would not have been a credible assurance if Comey
had informed Trump that (a) his campaign had been under investigation
for months, and (b) the FBI had told a federal court it suspected Trump
campaign officials were complicit in Russia’s cyber-espionage operation.
So, consistent with President Obama’s instructions at the Jan. 5,
2017, Oval Office meeting, information about the investigation would be
withheld from the president-elect. The next day, the intelligence chiefs
would tell Trump only about Russia’s espionage, not about the Trump
campaign’s suspected “coordination” with the Kremlin. Then, Comey would
apprise Trump about only a sliver of the Steele dossier — just the lurid
story about peeing prostitutes, not the dossier’s principal allegations of a traitorous Trump-Russia conspiracy.
This strategy did not sit well with everyone at the FBI. Shortly
before meeting with Trump on Jan. 6, Comey consulted his top advisers
about the plan to tell Trump he was not a suspect. In later Senate
testimony, Comey admitted that there was an objection from one FBI
official:
“One of the members of the leadership team had a view that, although
it was technically true [that] we did not have a counterintelligence
file case open on then-President-elect Trump[,] . . . because we’re
looking at the potential . . . coordination between the campaign and
Russia, because it was . . . President-elect Trump’s campaign, this
person’s view was, inevitably, [Trump’s] behavior, [Trump’s] conduct
will fall within the scope of that work.”
Note that Comey did not refer to “potential coordination” between,
say, Carter Page or Paul Manafort and Russia. The director was
unambiguous: The FBI was investigating “potential coordination between
the Trump campaign and Russia.”
Perspicaciously, Comey’s unidentified adviser connected the dots: (a)
because the FBI’s investigation focused on the campaign, and (b) since
the campaign was Trump’s campaign, it was necessarily true that (c)
Trump’s own conduct was under FBI scrutiny.
Then-director Comey’s reliance on the trivial administrative fact
that the FBI had not written Trump’s name on the investigative file did
not change the reality that Trump, manifestly, was the main subject of
the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.
Remember last year’s hullabaloo over special counsel Robert Mueller’s demand to interview the president?
What need would there have been to conduct such an interview if Trump
were not a subject of the investigation? Why would Trump’s political
opponents have spent the last two years demanding that Mueller be
permitted to complete his probe of collusion and obstruction if it were
not understood that the investigation — including the spying, or, if you
prefer, the electronic surveillance, the informant sorties, and the
information gathered by national-security letter demands — was centrally
about Donald Trump?
That brings us to a final point. Congressional investigations have
established that the Obama Justice Department and the FBI used the
Steele dossier to obtain FISA court warrants against Page.
The dossier, a Clinton campaign opposition research project
(again, a fact withheld from the FISA court), was essential to the
required probable-cause showing; the FBI’s former deputy director,
Andrew McCabe, testified that without the dossier there would have been
no warrant.
So . . . what did the dossier say? The lion’s share of it alleged
that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to corrupt the
election, including by hacking and publicizing Democratic Party e-mails.
This allegation was based on unidentified Russian sources whom the FBI
could not corroborate; then-director Comey told Senate leaders that the
FBI used the information because the bureau judged former British spy
Christopher Steele to be credible, even though (a) Steele did not make
any of the observations the court was being asked to rely on, and (b)
Steele had misled the FBI about his contacts with the media — with whom
Steele and his Clinton campaign allies were sharing the same information
he was giving the bureau.
It is a major investigative step to seek surveillance warrants from
the FISA court. Unlike using an informant (a human spy), for which no
court authorization is necessary, applications for FISA surveillance
require approvals at the highest levels of the Justice Department and
the FBI. After going through that elaborate process, the Obama Justice
Department and the FBI presented to the court the dossier’s allegations
that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to undermine the
2016 election.
To be sure, no sensible person argues that the government should
refrain from investigating if, based on compelling evidence, the FBI
suspects individuals — even campaign officials, even a party’s nominee —
of acting as clandestine agents of a hostile foreign power. The
question is: What should trigger such an investigation in a democratic
republic whose norms strongly discourage an incumbent administration’s
use of the government’s spying powers against political opponents?
The Obama administration decided that this norm did not apply to the
Trump campaign. If all the Obama administration had been trying to do
was check out a few bad apples with suspicious Russia ties, the FBI
could easily have alerted any of a number of Trump campaign officials
with solid national-security credentials — Rudy Giuliani, Jeff Sessions,
Chris Christie. The agents could have asked for the campaign’s help.
Instead, Obama officials made the Trump campaign the subject of a
counterintelligence investigation.
Fired Anti-Trump Ukrainian Ambassador Was Monitoring Communications of John Solomon and US Journalists Prying into Ukraine!
Last week House Democrats called in fired US Ambassador Marie Yovanovich to testify in their sham impeachment proceedings.
Ambassador Yovanovich is a noted Trump-hater who blocked Ukrainian
officials from traveling to the United States to hand over evidence of
Obama misconduct during the 2016 election to President Trump.
Yovanovich was US ambassador to Ukraine during the 2016
election when the Ukrainian government was colluding with the DNC and
Hillary Campaign to undermine the US presidential election.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenkoko told journalists in March that Yovanovitch gave him a “do not prosecute” list during their first meeting.
The president ordered her removal from her post in Ukraine in May 2019.
She was openly anti-Trump. Starting in 2018 Yovanovich denied Ukrainian officials visas
to enter the United States to hand over evidence of Obama administration
misconduct to Trump administration officials.
Wednesday night on Hannity John Solomon announced that the former
Ambassador Yovanovich was monitoring the reporters digging into
Ukrainian lawlessness. There is evidence now that Yovanovich was spying on John Solomon.
What a crook. UPDATE– We heard from a trusted source that this is much broader than is being reported and that the ambassador is out of her mind. This is going to be a really big story!
WHY DID THEY DO ALL THIS ??
BECAUSE BEHIND IT ALL IT WAS ALL ABOUT GEORGE SOROS TRANSFORMING AMERICA AND THE THE OBAMA CABAL GETTING RICH WHILE MOVING THE GOAL POST TOWARDS THE SOCIALIST OLIGOPOLY !
