Sunday Morning With New World Order And Secret Meeting Dead Whistle Blowers

Americans are currently living in some of the most interesting and dangerous times, that they may ever hope to never see again, especially once one views the machinations of the corrupt and criminally-minded high-ranking government officials and intelligence and FBI agents, under the Obama administration, who weaponized the FBI and the Department of Justice. The entire system of FISA-702 surveillance and data collection was weaponized against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and his subsequent presidency, in a manner that can only be described as illegal, unconstitutional and sedition, if not outright treason.

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Title VII, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), “Procedures for Targeting Certain Persons Outside the United States Other Than United States Persons” (50 U.S.C. sec. 1881a)

x This authority allows only the targeting, for foreign intelligence purposes, of communications of foreign persons who are located abroad.

x The government may not target any U.S. person anywhere in the world under this authority, nor may it target a person outside of the U.S. if the purpose is to acquire information from a particular, known person inside the U.S.

x Under this authority, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court annually reviews “certifications” jointly submitted by the U.S. Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence.

x These certifications define the categories of foreign actors that may be appropriately targeted, and by law, must include specific targeting and minimization procedures adopted by the Attorney General in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence and approved by the Court as consistent with the law and 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

x There must be a valid, documented foreign intelligence purpose, such as counterterrorism, for each use of this authority. All targeting decisions must be documented in advance.

x The Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence conduct on-site reviews of targeting, minimization, and dissemination decisions at least every 60 days.

x The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court must approve the targeting and minimization procedures, which helps ensure the protection of privacy and civil liberties.

x These procedures require that the acquisition of information is conducted, to the greatest extent reasonably feasible, to minimize the acquisition of information not relevant to the authorized foreign intelligence purpose.

x Any inadvertently acquired communication of or concerning a U.S. person must be promptly destroyed if it is neither relevant to the authorized purpose nor evidence of a crime.

x If a target who was reasonably believed to be a non-U.S. person outside of the U.S. either enters the U.S. or was in fact a U.S. person at the time of acquisition, targeting must be immediately terminated.

x Any information collected after a foreign target enters the U.S. –or prior to a discovery that any target erroneously believed to be foreign was in fact a U.S. person– must be promptly destroyed unless that information meets specific, limited criteria approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

x The dissemination of any information about U.S. persons is expressly prohibited unless it is necessary to understand foreign intelligence or assess its importance; is evidence of a crime; or indicates a threat of death or serious bodily harm.

x The FISC rules of procedure require immediate reporting of any compliance incident. In addition, the government reports quarterly to the FISC regarding any compliance issues that have arisen during the reporting period, including updates of previously reported incidents.

x The Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence provide a semiannual assessment to the Court and Congress assessing compliance with the targeting and minimization procedures. In addition, the Department of Justice provides semi-annual reports to the Court and Congress concerning implementation of Section 702.

x An annual Inspector General assessment is provided to Congress, reporting on compliance with procedural requirements, the number of disseminations relating to U.S. persons, and the number of targets later found to be located inside the U.S.A.

How FISA-DOJ-CIA-FBI-NSA-DEA. Secret Pedophile's Courts, Justice System, Government Works. -
https://rumble.com/v2ghpce-how-fisc-doj-cia-fbi-secret-pedophiles-courts-justice-system-government-wor.html -

Government Surveillance Security v. Liberty v. Your Privacy Rights v. Body Count! Modern Surveillance Activities by the United States Government have taken place since World War 1 an 2 and continue to this day, especially in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Proponents of such efforts argue that un-lawful surveillance is necessary to protect national security and that the FISA-DOJ-CIA-FBI-NSA-DEA court system is designed to prevent abuses. Opponents argue that such surveillance rarely produces actionable intelligence and can be wielded by unaccountable bureaucrats at the expense of targeted individuals and groups.
How FISA-DOJ-CIA-FBI-NSA-DEA. Secret Pedophile's Motivation and Government Killing and Rape and Body Count for Top Government Misc. Jobs Initiations. Dirty Tricks Cops Use And Why They Use Them - This info. below describes some of the illegal tactics and questionable techniques police officers use to increase the chances of obtaining a conviction or to administer punishment to persons they perceive as having committed a crime. Police officers are outnumbered and restricted by legal mandates in their efforts to counter street-smart gangsters who can often afford highly skilled defense attorneys. Police officers often rationalize that they need an additional "edge" in their fight against crime. Thus, at times they break the rules and use illegal methods to obtain and increase evidence against a suspect they believe to be guilty of a crime. the use of "speed traps," the handling of suspects, search and seizure, the use of civil asset forfeiture and informers, the obtaining of confessions, the use of "alibi guns" when police kill a suspect, methods of obtaining evidence, the manipulation of evidence, entrapment, and proactive law enforcement. Some of the incidents described are the police planting of drugs on a private plane so it can be seized for police department use; the spraying of mace on a suspect's car seat, so that after a few minutes of driving he experiences excruciating pain on his crotch and buttocks; the use of a blank tape at an illegal interrogation, adding the reading of rights to the suspect later; the use of stun guns to torture suspects without leaving marks; vigilante cops conducting an "execution;" police instigation of gang wars to thin out gang members; and the adding of drugs to evidence so as to increase the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony. Other police practices discussed are the use of illegal wiretaps; the use of snitches; getting search warrants without probable cause; and keeping confiscated drugs, guns, and cash to pay for "Dirty FISA-DOJ-CIA-FBI-NSA-DEA Business.

As reported by Sara Carter, investigative journalist and Fox News contributor, a four-page classified House Intelligence Committee memo, spearheaded by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, was made available to all House members on Thursday January 18th. It outlined extensive abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that could lead to several senior officials in the FBI and the DOJ being fired, along with the end of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation of President Trump.

“There are four pages of a memorandum prepared by the intelligence committee that will shock the conscience of the country when it comes to the horrific abuses that occurred during the last administration and that I believe continue to pose a threat to Donald Trump’s presidency,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) stated on Fox News.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said that he was sickened by the memo. He said the information it contained showed behavior by the Obama administration that was “worse than Watergate“.

Due to a ninety-nine page ruling from the FISA Court, declassified in May 2017, America was made aware of numerous unauthorized and improper FISA 702 (17) “About Queries”, that were made by people, such as Susan Rice, within the Obama administration. This information was revealed by National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers on October 26, 2016; after he started his own investigation in March 2016, subsequently initiating a full NSA compliance audit.

Widely reported and proven, America knows that Hillary Clinton and her campaign, facilitated by her lawyer Marc Elias, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other Democrats, hired and paid Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS for negative information on Donald Trump. Their agreement led to Christopher Steele, former MI6 British intelligence agent, receiving the subcontract and the compilation of the largely false and unverified thirty-five page “Steele Dossier“.

Until Admiral Rogers blew the whistle, the FBI had been giving Fusion GPS and Crowd Strike access to the FISA database. They halted access on April 18, 2016; once they learned of Rogers’ investigation, and the very next day, Mary Jacoby, Glenn Simpson’s wife, went to the White House.

One must also note that Bruce Ohr, who was recently removed from his position as associate Deputy General at the Justice Department, met with Christopher Steele during the 2016 campaign. Shortly after the election, Steele also met with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS. And Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie was working for Simpson at the time.

Nellie Ohr is a Stanford University PhD and a subject matter expert on Russia, speaks Russian and is well versed on CIA operations. Her skills include building counterintelligence frameworks to give the appearance of events, that never actually occurred.

Numerous Wall Street Journal and Fox News reports are now credible, in their assertions that the FBI illegally used false information in the Steele Dossier to obtain FISA warrants against President Trump and members of his campaign staff and cabinet, such as Michael Flynn and Carter Page. The FBI claimed Page, a Trump advisor, was a “Russian agent” and no source anywhere else made that claim, except for Christopher Steele.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asked for a criminal investigation of Steele, on January 25th, for making “false statements”. He also called for the release of the memo.

On January 12th, Sean Hannity (FoxNews) stated: “I spoke to three people, two congressional members, one person in the DOJ. They all confirmed at different levels that 100 percent the dossier was used … [ to get] the FISA warrant.”

This is extremely important considering that FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was in regular contact with the CIA and handled counterintelligence operations, was a source for the Steele Dossier, as was CIA Director John Brennan. They, along with many others such as Andrew McCabe — Hillary Clinton apparatchik, Susan Rice and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, fed the false narrative of President Trump’s so-called “collusion” with Russia.

Please recall that Susan Rice illegally unmasked General Michael Flynn, which set in motion events leading to his resignation as President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence. Her information came through the illegally obtained FISA warrant, which makes Rep. Paul Gosar’s statement ever more significant, as he recently exclaimed: “If you don’t think the unmasking has something to do with the weaponization of our Department of Justice and our intelligence services, think again.

In addition, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Session’s Justice Department investigation, of this criminal FISA abuse, uncovered texts between former counterintelligence expert Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, his mistress and FBI attorney, in which they spoke of an “insurance policy” and a seeming plot to undermine President Trump’s administration. Both of them served briefly on Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference; but Strzok also led the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and he was involved in opening the 2016 investigation into election meddling. And the day after the election, one finds a text between Strzok and Page saying, “Perhaps this is the first meeting of the secret society”

Looking at the texts, at one point, Strzok writes Page: “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s [Andrew McCabe?] office that there is 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 forty.”

The FBI’s investigation into Russian government interference in the election began in July 2016, just weeks before Strzok’s text. This looks increasingly like a plan was already in place to sink the Trump presidency, if he won, even though they thought any Trump victory would be unlikely. This was their motivation and the smoking gun that illustrates FBI corruption and bias against President Trump.

More importantly, despite FBI Counterintelligence Director Bill Priestap‘s “suggestion” not to notify Congress, shouldn’t FBI Director James Comey have told Congressional oversight that he was investigating presidential candidate Trump, as protocol dictates? Or, was Comey too hiding the fact that the FBI was running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate, president – elect Donald Trump and then a sitting President of the United States Donald Trump?

The known facts alone speak of such egregious crimes against America and the people’s sacred trust, that they warrant lengthy prison sentences and even executions, depending on one’s degree of complicity. All of these conspirators must be identified and punished accordingly, made to face a day of reckoning, and this does not end well for America until this is done.

Representative Matt Gaetz correctly observed: “I believe there are people who will go to jail. You don’t get to try to undermine our country, undermine our elections, and then simply get fired.”

In 1961, President Kennedy stated: “The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings … Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.”

Dangerous times demand serious answers for America, which is under assault by domestic enemies. Evil men and women, aspiring dictators and apparatchiks of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, without any respect for our U.S. Constitution and America’s founding principles, have actively sought to usurp the will of the American people and a duly elected U.S. president. Their intents and purposes could not have been executed without Obama’s imprimatur and specific orders, as they cast the die and betrayed America, and, down to the last conspirator, they must be ruthlessly exposed, by releasing the memo, if we are to save our Republic.

Communist middle managers

An apparatchik is a full time employee in any position of bureaucratic or political responsibility who served either in Communist Party structures or in the government.

Apparat in Russian simply means a device. But in the Soviet Union the word also referred to the abundant structures within either the Communist Party or the government, which oversaw the enforcement of decisions made by higher authorities. And apparatchiks - the people who worked there - were the “supervisors of Communist workflow.”

The way to become an apparatchik was long and hard. Each candidate was carefully checked by different Communist Party committees and the KGB. A successful candidate had to be an active Communist Party or Komsomol (Young Communist League) member; his reputation had to be flawless, and his chances were even higher if he was fit physically.

After one was made an apparatchik he faced two ways of developing his further career. One was to become a very close associate of his boss, which would increase his chances for an eventual promotion to the top of the hierarchy. The other option was an inferior one – if you failed to please your boss, you’d forever remain an adviser, and never get promoted.

All USSR leaders, except Lenin and Stalin, were apparatchiks at some stage. Apparatchiks were the conductors of the Communist Party line in various spheres of life: they were often seen giving instructions at plants, factories, schools, museums, theaters… depending on the department the apparatchik worked in.

No qualification required:
Top officials liked to reshuffle their apparatchiks by transferring them from one sector of the government to another: from production to agriculture, from culture to science. The lack of training or experience in the new area of responsibility did not matter as it was done as a means to increase the apparatchiks’ loyalty to their bosses. In many cases the work of such apparatchiks did more harm than good. Here are a few examples: A newly appointed head of the Department of Culture in one city invited journalists to see his newly renovated office. He proudly took a look around the room and announced: “I’ll place very nice rugs in these rooms.” Journalists were horrified when they imagined this guy censoring the plays of Anton Chekhov at the local theater. Their fears did materialize when this “boss” came up with a review of performances - he found some actors to be “lacking Communist spirit.”

At the end of 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev, who at the time was the General Secretary of the Communist Party, announced he was going to visit one of the Russia’s regions to see the development of its agriculture. Local authorities immediately gave an order to clean the farms, no matter the cost. The newly appointed head of the agricultural section, a former army colonel, ordered for all pigs to be scrubbed with shampoo to improve their looks.

When the workers objected, he threatened to expel them from the Communist Party. However, the toxic substance in the shampoo turned out fatal – two days later all pigs died. To save the situation the apparatchik genius came up with an idea to bring young pigs from another farm 100 miles away for Gorbachev’s visit. Needless to say, the General Secretary never learned about this, and was highly impressed with the clean pigs he saw at the farm.

In 1985, right after Mikhail Gorbachev made his famous speech about Perestroika – a mass restructuring of the country - many regional Party bosses hurried to implement the new program. They immediately dispatched apparatchiks to the regions under their jurisdiction to oversee the restructuring process.

However, by that time the whole enforcement structure had rotted to the core – as long as things looked right on paper, the results were rarely checked. It took but a little time before the apparatchiks returned with reports that Perestroika had already been completed in the regions they visited.

Cases like these were not an exception. Apparatchiks all over the USSR learned to adapt to their bosses orders and desires. After all, if their boss got a promotion, it meant they too would move higher up.

The importance of being an apparatchik

However, there were also some educated apparatchiks. They were university professors whose job was lecturing factory and collective farm workers on the advantages of Socialism. Most of them preferred to tell people about interesting things that the workers missed in their life. One of these apparatchiks said: “I’m pleased with my job because I’m giving people something they don’t have. And I see smiles on their faces.”

Though the Soviet era is over, many apparatchiks have survived. They quietly transferred themselves to well-paid jobs and posts and prosper to this day. Nevertheless, their memory lives on, and apparatchik is still used to describe a person, who causes unnecessary trouble with a bureaucratic approach to work.

It looks like Obama did spy on Trump, just as he apparently did to me Many in the media are diving deeply into minutiae in order to discredit any notion that President Trump might have been onto something in March when he fired off a series of tweets claiming President Obama had “tapped” “wires” in Trump Tower just before the election.

According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed “wiretap” the former head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected. If Trump officials — or Trump himself — communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.

But we’re missing the bigger story.
{mosads}If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.

Besides Manafort, the officials include former Trump advisers Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Last week, we discovered multiple Trump “transition officials” were “incidentally” captured during government surveillance of a foreign official. We know this because former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly admitted “unmasking,” or asking to know the identities of, the officials. Spying on U.S. citizens is considered so sensitive, their names are supposed to be hidden or “masked,” even inside the government, to protect their privacy.

In May, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates acknowledged they, too, reviewed communications of political figures, secretly collected under President Obama.

Weaponization of intel agencies?

Nobody wants our intel agencies to be used like the Stasi in East Germany; the secret police spying on its own citizens for political purposes. The prospect of our own NSA, CIA and FBI becoming politically weaponized has been shrouded by untruths, accusations and justifications.

You’ll recall DNI Clapper falsely assured Congress in 2013 that the NSA was not collecting “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Intel agencies secretly monitored conversations of members of Congress while the Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal.

In 2014, the CIA got caught spying on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, though CIA Director John Brennan had explicitly denied that.

There were also wiretaps on then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in 2011 under Obama. The same happened under President George W. Bush to former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

Journalists have been targeted, too. This internal email, exposed by WikiLeaks, should give everyone chills. It did me.

Dated Sept. 21, 2010, the “global intelligence” firm Stratfor wrote:

[John] Brennan [then an Obama Homeland Security adviser] is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.

Note — There is specific tasker from the WH 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 government subsequently got caught monitoring journalists at Fox News, The Associated Press, and, as I allege in a federal lawsuit, my computers while I worked as an investigative correspondent at CBS News. On Aug. 7, 2013, CBS News publicly announced:
correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was hacked by ‘an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,’ confirming Attkisson’s previous revelation of the hacking.

Then, as now, instead of getting the bigger story, some in the news media and quasi-news media published false and misleading narratives pushed by government interests. They implied the computer intrusions were the stuff of vivid imagination, conveniently dismissed forensic evidence from three independent examinations that they didn’t review. All seemed happy enough to let news of the government’s alleged unlawful behavior fade away, rather than get to the bottom of it.

I have spent more than two years litigating against the Department of Justice for the computer intrusions. Forensics have revealed dates, times and methods of some of the illegal activities. The software used was proprietary to a federal intel agency. The intruders deployed a keystroke monitoring program, accessed the CBS News corporate computer system, listened in on my conversations by activating the computer’s microphone and used Skype to exfiltrate files.

We survived the government’s latest attempt to dismiss my lawsuit. There’s another hearing Friday. To date, the Trump Department of Justice — like the Obama Department of Justice — is fighting me in court and working to keep hidden the identities of those who accessed a government internet protocol address found in my computers.

Evidence continues to build. I recently filed new information unearthed through forensic exams. As one expert told the court, it was “not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.”

Patterns
It’s difficult not to see patterns in the government’s behavior, unless you’re wearing blinders.

The intelligence community secretly expanded its authority in 2011 so it can monitor innocent U.S. citizens like you and me for doing nothing more than mentioning a target’s name a single time.
In January 2016, a top secret inspector general report found the NSA violated the very laws designed to prevent abuse.
In 2016, Obama officials searched through intelligence on U.S. citizens a record 30,000 times, up from 9,500 in 2013.
Two weeks before the election, at a secret hearing before the FISA court overseeing government surveillance, NSA officials confessed they’d violated privacy safeguards “with much greater frequency” than they’d admitted. The judge accused them of “institutional lack of candor” and said, “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.”
Officials involved in the surveillance and unmasking of U.S. citizens have said their actions were legal and not politically motivated. And there are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry to be made by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But look at the patterns. It seems that government monitoring of journalists, members of Congress and political enemies — under multiple administrations — has become more common than anyone would have imagined two decades ago. So has the unmasking of sensitive and highly protected names by political officials. Those deflecting with minutiae are missing the point. To me, they sound like the ones who aren’t thinking.

Operation Condor – How NSA Director Mike Rogers Saved The U.S. From a Massive Constitutional Crisis… This outline is the story of how the FBI Counterintelligence Division and DOJ National Security Division were weaponized. This outline is the full story of what House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes is currently working to expose. This outline exposes the biggest political scandal in U.S. history. This outline is also the story of how one man’s action likely saved our constitutional republic.
His name is Admiral Mike Rogers.
I’m calling the back-story to the 2016 FISA 702(16)(17) political corruption by the Obama administration “Operation Condor”. Those of you familiar with the film “Three Days of The Condor” will note how the real life storyline almost mirrors the Hollywood film. For the real life version, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers plays the role of “Condor”.

“SCIF” – a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. To understand the larger FISA 702(16)(17) issues in 2016 it is important to focus on the word “compartmented”.
Intelligence information is housed by compartments within the larger intelligence community network. Each intelligence unit holds intelligence unique to that compartment and task. The FBI Counterintelligence unit would hold the intelligence information specific to their task or assignment; the DOJ National Security Division would hold their own compartmented intelligence; again, specific to their task and objectives. So too would the DOJ, DoD (Pentagon), State Dept., or CIA.
This compartmented structure is what led to the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI. The 911 commission recommended the office to serve as a hub able to ensure intelligence sharing; that is – to ensure intelligence was not intentionally withheld from other compartments when needed.
In 2016 the ODNI for President Obama was James Clapper.
It is doubtful the 911 commission ever gave thought to what might happen when intelligence is weaponized as a political tool. The DNI is a political appointment, a cabinet member, of the President. If the executive branch, the President, wanted to weaponize intelligence as a political tool, he/she would have control over such weaponization as an outcome of their political appointees within the: FBI (Comey, McCabe), DOJ (Lynch/Yates), CIA (Brennan), DNI (Clapper), or DoD (Ash Carter), etc.

The civilian (representative) oversight into the compartmented intelligence falls to a very select group known as the Intelligence Gang of Eight.
Four Democrats and Four Republicans (four minority party and four majority party political leaders) for a total of eight. Four from the House and Four from the Senate. –Understand the Gang of Eight Here– The Gang-of-Eight can, if they choose, interact with the intelligence product with the same level of security clearance as the compartment being reviewed.
Only these eight members can interact with the intelligence product in this way. This ensures their ability to conduct oversight.
It is critical to understand the difference between the House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Gang of Eight. Only two members from the House Intelligence Committee (chair and minority), and two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee (chair and vice-chair) are participants. The other four are Speaker of the House, minority leader of House, Leader of Senate and Minority leader of Senate. The latter four are not part of any other intel committee.

On March 20th 2017 congressional testimony, James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016.

FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so. *Very important detail.*
I cannot emphasize this enough. *VERY* important detail. Again, notice how Comey doesn’t use FBI Counterintelligence Director WH “Bill” Priestap’s actual name, but refers to his position and title. Again, watch the first three minutes:

FBI Director James Comey was caught entirely off guard by that first three minutes of that questioning. He simply didn’t anticipate it.

Oversight protocol requires the FBI Director to tell the congressional intelligence “Gang of Eight” of any counterintelligence operations. The Go8 has oversight into these ops at the highest level of classification. In July 2016 the time the operation began, oversight was the responsibility of this group, the Gang of Eight: Obviously, based on what we have learned since March 2017, and what has surfaced recently, we can all see why the FBI would want to keep it hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate. After all, as FBI Agent Peter Strzok said it in his text messages, it was an “insurance policy”.

REMINDER – FBI Agent Strzok to FBI Attorney Page: “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.”
FBI Director James Comey told congress on March 20th, 2017, the reason he didn’t inform the statutory oversight “Gang of Eight” was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn’t do it.

The originating intelligence agency agency, in these examples the DOJ National Security Division and/or FBI Counterintelligence Division, holds the proprietary intelligence they create in their SCIF. They may also receive intelligence products created for them, which they will also host in their unique SCIF. Thus, intelligence is compartmentalized.
In 2015 Sally Yates blocked any inspector general oversight of the DOJ National Security Division (SEE Pdf HERE). The Office of Inspector General. Michael Horowitz, requested oversight over the DOJ National Security Division and it was Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58-page legal explanation saying, essentially, ‘nope – not allowed.’ (PDF HERE) All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the NSD.
The White House -the executive branch- is also a host of intelligence information and consequently the White House has their own SCIF which holds intelligence products they would create (very little), or intelligence products created for them (the vast majority).
An example of a product created for the executive branch would be the President’s Daily Briefing (PDB).
The PDB as a whole product would only exist in the White House SCIF. Parts of the PDB would be hosted by the originating participant, ex. NSA, FBI, DOJ, DoD, CIA State Dept. etc., but only the White House would have the fully assembled product. After all, it’s assembled for the President.
Putting the “Oversight” structure together with the “Compartmented” intelligence security you will note that only a few people ‘could’ traditionally access the full PDB. However, under President Obama the President’s Daily Brief went to almost everyone at top levels in his administration. Regarding the Obama PDB:

But while through most of its history the document has been marked “For the President’s Eyes Only,” the PDB has never gone to the president alone. The most restricted dissemination was in the early 1970s, when the book went only to President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who was dual-hatted as national security adviser and secretary of state.
In other administrations, the circle of readers has also included the vice president, the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with additional White House staffers.
By 2013, Obama’s PDB was making its way to more than 30 recipients, including the president’s top strategic communications aide and speechwriter, and deputy secretaries of national security departments. (link)

Pay attention to that last part. According to the Washington Post outline Obama’s PDB’s were going to more than 30 recipients including: “Deputy Secretaries of national security departments”.
During an MSNBC interview about her unmasking U.S. citizens within intelligence reports, in April 2017, President Obama’s National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, defined the Obama national security departments to include: “State” – “Defense” (Pentagon includes NSA) and “CIA”….

So under President Obama’s watch Deputy Asst. Secretaries of Defense had daily access to the PDB. An example of an Obama Deputy Asst. Secretary of Defense, Evelyn Farkas.
With dozens of people having access to President Obama’s PDB, Rice’s unmasking of names within the intelligence product gave dozens of people direct access to unmasked intelligence – including Obama officials who could, likely did, use the PDB for specific and intentional political purposes. This political outcome was essentially confirmed by Evelyn Farkas who was one of the downstream recipients of the unmasked intelligence.
If the House Intelligence Committee, or Senate Intelligence Committee, as a whole – wanted to see the President’s Daily Briefing, they would have to request the individual components from the individual intelligence agencies because the PDB product was not created for them; it was created for the Office of The President.
Only the Chairman and Minority leader from each Intel committee could go to the White House to see the PDB end product. [Remember, they alone are four of the Gang-of-Eight.]
This is why Devin Nunes, who is a Go8 member, has to request the intelligence from each department (NSA, DOJ, FBI etc.) in order to share it with the oversight committee. Nunes can review the ‘executive SCIF product’ but cannot export or import intelligence product he did not create.
The Congressional SCIF would then hold the compartmented information after delivery for the committee members to review under very tight controls. The intelligence is removed/deleted after review. No systems are connected.
Our research indicates that in February and March 2017 Chairman Devin Nunes, a gang of eight member, reviewed intelligence reports (most likely PDB’s) that were assembled exclusively for the office of the former President (Obama). That is why he went to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) Information Facility to review.
The intelligence product would be delivered to that SCIF system for his review, most likely by the ODNI (Dan Coats) or NSA (Mike Rogers). It would be removed from that SCIF system after Nunes review, (no systems are connected). It is important to note here that President Trump nominated Senator Dan Coats as ODNI on January 5th, 2017 – however, Democrats held up that nomination until March 16th, 2017.
It is not coincidental that immediately following DNI Dan Coat’s ability to provide that information Chairman Devin Nunes first reported his concerns. After Devin Nunes review the information March 22nd 2017, Nunes stated the intelligence product he reviewed was “not related to Russia, or the FBI Russian counter-intelligence investigation”.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Devin Nunes, then held a brief press conference and stated he has been provided intelligence reports brought to him by unnamed sources that include ‘significant information’ about President-Elect Trump and his transition team.

1.) …”On numerous occasions the [Obama] intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.”

2.) “Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration; details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”

3.) “Third, I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition members were unmasked.”

4.) “Fourth and finally, I want to be clear; none of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities.

“The House Intelligence Committee will thoroughly investigate surveillance and its subsequent dissemination, to determine a few things here that I want to read off:”

•“Who was aware of it?”
•“Why it was not disclosed to congress?”
•“Who requested and authorized the additional unmasking?”
•“Whether anyone directed the intelligence community to focus on Trump associates?”
•“And whether any laws, regulations or procedures were violated?”

“I have asked the Directors of the FBI, NSA and CIA to expeditiously comply with my March 15th (2017) letter -that you all received a couple of weeks ago- and to provide a full account of these surveillance activities.”

Again, this is why the intelligence reports seem likely to have been political opposition research -that was part of Obama’s PDB– unless it was a separate intelligence product, apart from the PDB, which was created for the Office of the President. [I view the latter as highly doubtful because it would be too risky for the President to be asking for specific ‘stand alone’ intelligence against political adversaries, ie candidate Donald Trump.]

…Here’s where all the dots connect: Fast forward to 2018 – Aside from the larger Russian conspiracy narrative, up to now the controversial media story has been around the origin of the 2016 FISA warrant(s).
As previously stated by all reporting there was a June 2016 FISA application that was denied, and an October 2016 application that was approved. The current line of congressional inquiry surrounds the underlying content of the requested FISA warrant, and whether it was built upon fraud and manipulated content (the ‘Steele Dossier’) presented to the FISA Court (FISC).
Recently the media have been working frantically, against an entire year of prior support for the Steele Dossier, to distance the origin of the FBI counterintelligence operation from the dossier. The reason why reveals the bigger underlying story.
When Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes explained his concern in March 2017 about what he saw from a review of 2016 intelligence gathering, reporting and subsequent unmasking, the issue behind his concern was clouded in mystery. Indeed the larger headlines at the time were about demanding a special prosecutor and driving the Russia conspiracy narrative.
In hindsight, and with information from our assembled timelines of 2016 though today, we can now revisit that concern expressed by Chairman Nunes with a great deal more perspective and information. Understanding the latest information will help us all understand the totality of Nunes original frame of reference.

As many of you are aware, immediately following the 2016 presidential election NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers traveled to Trump Tower to meet with president-elect Donald Trump. The day AFTER the Rogers visit, President-elect Trump moved his transition team out of Trump Tower to Bedminister New Jersey.
We always suspected NSA Director Rogers gave President-elect Trump a head’s up of sorts.
Later, during the December 2016 and Jan, Feb, March, April 2017 Russian Conspiracy frenzy, when the entire intelligence community seemed to be collectively leaking against Trump’s interests, those suspicions gained even greater likelihood. However, what we learned in 2017 about the activity in 2016 almost guarantees that was exactly what happened. That back-story also ties into both the FISA issue and the Devin Nunes concern.
Admiral Mike Rogers became NSA director in April 2014.
Sometime in early 2016 Admiral Rogers became aware of “ongoing” and “intentional” violations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Section 702 surveillance. Specifically item #17 which includes the unauthorized upstream data collection of U.S. individuals within NSA surveillance.
Section 702 – Item #17 “About Queries” is specifically the collection of emails, and phone call surveillance of U.S. persons.
The public doesn’t discover this issue, and NSA Director Rogers action, until May 2017 when we learn that Rogers told the FISA court he became aware of unlawful surveillance and collection of U.S. persons. Put into context, with the full back-story, it appears that 2016 surveillance was the political surveillance now in the headlines; the stuff Chairman Nunes is currently questioning.
The dates here are important as they tell a story.
As a result of Rogers suspecting [FISA 702 (#17 – email and phone calls)] surveillance activity was being used for reasons he deemed unlawful, in mid 2016 Rogers ordered the NSA compliance officer to run a full audit on 702 NSA compliance.
Again, 702 is basically spying on Americans; the actual “spying” part is 702. Item 17 is “About Queries“, which allows queries or searches of content of email and phone conversations based on any subject matter put into the search field.
The NSA compliance officer identified several strange 702 “About Queries” that were being conducted. These were violations of the fourth amendment (search and seizure), ie. unlawful surveillance and gathering. Admiral Rogers was briefed by the compliance officer on October 20th, 2016.
Admiral Mike Rogers ordered the “About Query” activity to stop, reported the activity to the DOJ, and then went to the FISA court.
On October 26th, 2016, full FISC assembly, NSA Director Rogers personally informed the court of the 702(17) violations. Additionally, Rogers also stopped “About Query” permanently.
[Things to note: ♦Note the sequencing; ♦note that Rogers a career military person, followed the chain of command; ♦note the dates as they align with the Trump FISA application from the FBI and DOJ-NSD, (ie. early October 2016); ♦and note amid this sequence/time-line the head of DOJ-National Security Divsion, John P Carlin resigns.]

The DOJ National Security Division set Admiral Mike Rogers up to take the fall for their unlawful conduct. They preempted Rogers by filing a notification with the FISA Court on 26th September 2016 (look at the pdf). DOJ-NSD head John P Carlin was setting up Rogers as the scapegoat while knowing the NSA FISA compliance officer was still reviewing their conduct. Carlin wouldn’t notify the court unless he was trying to cover something. Carlin then announced his resignation. The NSA compliance officer did not brief Admiral Rogers until 20th Oct 2016. Admiral Rogers notified the FISC on 26th Oct 2016.
October 2016 is a very important month:
♦DOJ Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr was “demoted” in the summer of 2017 after the Inspector General discovered unreported 2016 contacts between Ohr and Russian Dossier author Christopher Steele, as well as contact with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, in October 2016.

♦Also in October 2016 the DOJ lawyers formatted the FBI information (Steele Dossier etc.) for the Trump FISA application; the head of the NSD, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin, left his job. It would have specifically been John Carlin’s responsibility to ensure a valid legal basis for the FISA application submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

♦In October 2016 the NSA compliance officer completes a review and briefs Rogers of FISA(17) violations, email collection and phone surveillance. Rogers informs FISC – [FISA Court Ruling Link]

Now Look At This – October 2016: On Friday November 18th, 2016, The Washington Post reported on a recommendation in “October” that Mike Rogers be removed from his NSA position:

The heads of the Pentagon and the nation’s intelligence community have recommended to President Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed.
The recommendation, delivered to the White House last month, was made by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., according to several U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
[…] In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower. That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters.

Important reminder. Remember, in 2015 Sally Yates blocked any inspector general oversight of the DOJ National Security Division (SEE Pdf HERE). The OIG, Michael Horowitz, requested oversight and it was Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58-page legal explanation saying, essentially, ‘nope – not allowed.’ (PDF HERE) All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the NSD.
There’s a pretty clear picture here.
Obama’s political operatives within the DOJ-NSD were using FISA 702(17) surveillance “about inquiries” that would deliver email and phone communication for U.S. people (Trump campaign). The NSD unit was working in coordination with the FBI Counterintelligence Unit (Peter Strzok etc.). In an effort to stop the activity NSA Director Mike Rogers initiated a full 702 compliance review. However, before the review was complete the DOJ-NSD had enough information for their unlawful FISA warrant which worked retroactively to make the prior FBI surveillance (began in July ’16 per James Comey) lawful. Rogers stopped the process on October 26th 2016. As a result of his not going along, Rogers became a risk; Clapper demanded he be fired.
Ten days after the election, November 17th 2016, Admiral Rogers travels to Trump Tower without telling ODNI James Clapper. Rogers likely informs President-elect Trump of the prior activity by the FBI and DOJ, including the probability that all of Trump Tower’s email and phone communication was being collected.

♦ On November 17th, 2016, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers went to see President-Elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower, New York. –SEE HERE– Director Rogers never told his boss DNI, James Clapper.

♦ On November 18th, 2016, the Trump Transition Team announced they were moving all transition activity to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. –SEE HERE– Where they interviewed and discussed the most sensitive positions to fill. Defense, State, CIA, ODNI.

The transition team was set up in Trump Tower. The very next day, November 18th 2016, Trump moves the entire transition team to Bedminister New Jersey?
Does this make more sense now?

It would appear Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, is up to his eyeballs in this; though he denies participating. The FBI counterintelligence unit was monitoring Trump through FISA 702(17) upstream surveillance collected by a DOJ National Security Division that had no oversight.
The information the FBI collected, and the stuff Fusion GPS was creating via Christopher Steele, was used to create the Russian Narrative and also to manipulate the FISC into giving them a FISA warrant. ie. “The Insurance Policy”.
Ultimately, the people within all of these intercepts is what Devin Nunes discovered when he looked at the “unmasking requests” which were a result of those FISA 702(17) collections on Team Trump. That’s why Devin Nunes was so stunned at what he saw in February and March 2017.
This is why Chairman Devin Nunes is currently gathering evidence.

FISA and the Trump Team The idea that FISA could be used against political enemies always seemed far-fetched. Now it might not be. Remember the great debate over “the Wall” following the 9/11 attacks? “The Wall” was a set of internal guidelines that had been issued by the Clinton Justice Department in the mid 1990s. In a nutshell, the Wall made it legally difficult and practically impossible for agents in the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence Division (essentially, our domestic-security service, now known as the National Security Division) to share intelligence with the criminal-investigation side of the FBI’s house. Those of us who were critics of the Wall — and I was a strenuous one, beginning in my days as a terrorism prosecutor who personally experienced its suicidal applications — made several arguments against it.

My favorite argument, which I have repeated countless times, centered on how preposterous were the underlying assumptions of the Wall. This was far easier for prosecutors than journalists, academics, and the public to grasp, because we dealt with the Justice Department’s different chains of command for criminal and national-security investigations.

Alas, after 20 years, I may have to revise my thinking.
The theory of the Clinton DOJ brass in imposing the Wall was the potential that a rogue criminal investigator, lacking sufficient evidence to obtain a traditional wiretap, would manufacture a national-security angle in order to get a wiretap under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). A traditional wiretap requires evidence amounting to probable cause of commission of a crime. A FISA wiretap requires no showing of a crime, just evidence amounting to probable cause that the target of the wiretap is an agent of a foreign power. (A foreign power can be another country or a foreign terrorist organization.)

The reason the Wall theory was absurd was that a rogue agent would surely manufacture evidence of a crime before he’d manufacture a national-security angle. The process of getting a traditional wiretap is straightforward: FBI crim-div agents and a district assistant U.S. attorney (AUSA) write the supporting affidavit; it gets approved by the AUSA’s supervisors; then it is submitted to the Justice Department’s electronic-surveillance unit; after that unit’s approval, the attorney general’s designee signs off; then the AUSA and the FBI present the application to a district judge. FISA wiretaps, by contrast, go through a completely different, more difficult and remote chain of command. In it, the district AUSA and FBI crim-div agents who started the investigation get cut out of the process, which is taken over by Main Justice’s National Security Division and the FBI’s national-security agents. In other words, if we assume an agent is inclined to be a rogue, it would be far easier (and less likely of detection) to trump up evidence of a crime in order to satisfy the probable-cause standard for a traditional wiretap than to manufacture a national-security threat in order to get a FISA wiretap. No rational rogue would do it.

But now, let’s consider the press reports — excerpted in David French’s Corner post — that claim that the Obama Justice Department and the FBI sought FISA warrants against Trump insiders, and potentially against Donald Trump himself, during the last months and weeks of the presidential campaign. It’s an interesting revelation, particularly in light of last fall’s media consternation over “banana republic” tactics against political adversaries, triggered by Trump’s vow to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate serious allegations of criminal misconduct against Hillary Clinton — consternation echoed by Senate Democrats during Tuesday’s confirmation hearing for attorney-general nominee Jeff Sessions.

From the three reports, from the Guardian, Heat Street, and the New York Times, it appears the FBI had concerns about a private server in Trump Tower that was connected to one or two Russian banks. Heat Street describes these concerns as centering on “possible financial and banking offenses.” I italicize the word “offenses” because it denotes crimes. Ordinarily, when crimes are suspected, there is a criminal investigation, not a national-security investigation.

According to the New York Times (based on FBI sources), the FBI initially determined that the Trump Tower server did not have “any nefarious purpose.” But then, Heat Street says, “the FBI’s counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-drew an earlier FISA court request around possible financial and banking offenses related to the server.”

Again, agents do not ordinarily draw FISA requests around possible crimes. Possible crimes prompt applications for regular criminal wiretaps because the objective is to prosecute any such crimes in court. (It is rare and controversial to use FISA wiretaps in criminal prosecutions.) FISA applications, to the contrary, are drawn around people suspected of being operatives of a (usually hostile) foreign power.

The Heat Street report continues:

The first [FISA] request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; [sic] SVB Bank and Russia’s Alfa Bank. While the Times story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.

(A “US person” is a citizen or lawful permanent resident alien. Such people normally may not be subjected to searches or electronic eavesdropping absent probable cause of a crime; an exception is FISA, which — to repeat — allows such investigative tactics if there is probable cause that they are agents of a foreign power.)

Agents do not ordinarily draw FISA requests around possible crimes. Possible crimes prompt applications for regular criminal wiretaps, because the objective is to prosecute any such crimes in court.

Obviously, we haven’t seen the FBI affidavits (assuming they actually exist), and we do not know lots of other relevant facts. What we have, however, suggests that someone at the FBI initially had concerns that banking laws were being violated, but when the Bureau looked into it, investigators found no crimes were being committed. Rather than drop the matter for lack of evidence of criminal offenses, the Justice Department and FBI pursued it as a national-security investigation.

In June, an initial FISA affidavit (obviously prepared by the FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division) was submitted to the FISA court. It is said to have “named Trump” — but we don’t know whether that means (a) his name merely came up somewhere in the text of the affidavit or (b) he was an actual target whom the government wanted to investigate under FISA (meaning eavesdrop, read e-mail, and the like).

Even though the FISA standard is generally thought to be less demanding than the traditional wiretap standard (it is easier to show that someone may be colluding in some way with a foreign government than that he has committed a crime), the FISA court rejected the application that “named Trump.”

Five months later, the Justice Department and FBI submitted a second, more “narrowly” drawn affidavit to the FISA court. The way the Heat Street report is written intimates that Trump is not named in this October application for FISA surveillance. The tie to Trump also appears weak: Heat Street says the FISA court was presented with evidence of a server “possibly related” to the Trump campaign and its “alleged links” to two Russian banks.

To summarize, it appears there were no grounds for a criminal investigation of banking violations against Trump. Presumably based on the fact that the bank or banks at issue were Russian, the Justice Department and the FBI decided to continue investigating on national-security grounds. A FISA application in which Trump was “named” was rejected by the FISA court as overbroad, notwithstanding that the FISA court usually looks kindly on government surveillance requests. A second, more narrow application, apparently not naming Trump, may have been granted five months later; the best the media can say about it, however, is that the server on which the application centers is “possibly” related to the Trump campaign’s “alleged” links to two Russian banks — under circumstances in which the FBI has previously found no “nefarious purpose” in some (undescribed) connection between Trump Tower and at least one Russian bank (whose connection to Putin’s regime is not described).

#related#That is tissue-thin indeed. It’s a good example of why investigations properly proceed in secret and are not publicly announced unless and until the government is ready to put its money where its mouth is by charging someone. It’s a good example of why FISA surveillance is done in secret and its results are virtually never publicized — the problem is not just the possibility of tipping off the hostile foreign power; there is also the potential of tainting U.S. persons who may have done nothing wrong. While it’s too early to say for sure, it may also be an example of what I thought would never actually happen: the government pretextually using its national-security authority to continue a criminal investigation after determining it lacked evidence of crimes.

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