3 Names on FISA Memo Released, Grassley releases 7 Pages of Strzok/Page Texts. Is the “Schiff” About to Hit the Fan?

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https://twitter.com/dbongino/status/956666258069622784

According to The Daily Beast

A controversial Republican memo alleging surveillance abuse specifically names FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein along with former FBI Director James Comey.

Capitol Hill sources on both sides of the aisle say the memo’s release is only a matter of time. And when it comes out, these current and former officials — all GOP bêtes noires — are likely to face even more criticism from the right over their involvement in FBI counterintelligence work.

Republicans, including Trump himself, have spent months attacking McCabe and Comey while special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating Team Trump’s connections to the Kremlin. Rosenstein put that probe in place—a move Trump has derided as a witch hunt.

A groundswell is building to release the memo—written by Devin Nunes, the California Republican and key Trump ally who chairs the House intelligence committee—which former FBI agents fear will damage public trust in the bureau. While Democrats say the memo deliberately misrepresents the procedures for obtaining a foreign-intelligence surveillance warrant, The Daily Beast has learned that Hill Republicans are gearing up to use an obscure parliamentary rule to release it.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has expressed serious concerns about the memo’s potential release. In a letter sent to Nunes on Jan. 24, Stephen Boyd, the department’s top congressional liaison, wrote that “it would be extraordinarily reckless for the Committee to disclose such information publicly without giving the Department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum and to advise the HPSCI [the House intelligence committee] of the risk of harm to national security and to ongoing investigations that could come from public release.”

That letter also said the department is “unaware of any wrongdoing” related to the FISA process—indicating the department disagrees with the scores of congressional Republicans who say Nunes’ memo provides proof of wrongdoing.

Rep. Chris Collins, a New York Republican, told The Daily Beast that Nunes has told Republicans his staff spent months putting the memo together.

The news spawned the hashtag #releasethememo, with actors ranging from WikiLeaks to the ACLU to Michael Flynn Jr. calling for the memo to be made public. Democrats have emphasized Russian bots’ efforts to boost the hashtag, but a well-placed source told The Daily Beast yesterday that the bulk of the support for the social media campaign comes from actual Americans on the right.

The memo is enormously controversial. Hill Democrats and former FBI officials say it’s a ploy to damage public confidence in the FBI and undermine Mueller’s investigation. Republicans, meanwhile, say the memo contains massively disturbing evidence of FBI wrongdoing.

The recent Republican attacks on the bureau are taking a toll on current agents and analysts, two former senior FBI officials told The Daily Beast.

Ron Hosko, who formerly headed the FBI’s criminal investigative division, said morale in the bureau is “sagging.” Some officials could barely leave their houses to string up Christmas lights without being accosted by their neighbors about the bureau’s apparent troubles, he said.

He added that members of Congress who argue that the FBI hastily obtained a surveillance order known as a FISA warrant based on British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier of salacious allegations are nothing but conspiracy theorists.

“I think there are people who are intent on damaging the FBI, facts be damned,” he said.

Ali Soufan, a retired FBI counterterrorism special agent, warned that the attacks on the bureau were draining their accusers’ credibility.

“Some of the Republicans attacking the FBI are isolating themselves from otherwise sympathetic FBI agents. It’s no secret that the FBI tends to lean conservative,” Soufan said.

“The few GOP politicians attacking the FBI are, frankly, demagogues. They’re putting party and self-interest above country. They are damaging national security. They unfortunately gave up any moral authority.”

To make the memo public, House Republicans are considering the use of an arcane, little-known process from the House of Representatives’ rules of procedure (PDF).

Rule X, subsection 11(g), lays out a process for releasing classified material even over objections by the president of the United States.

The rule only comes up on extremely rare occasions, according to veterans of contentious declassification disputes between the intelligence agencies and their congressional overseers.

Typically, when Congress requests a declassification, an internal review occurs within the relevant agency or agencies. It’s captained substantially by the attorney general, the director of national intelligence, and the CIA director, depending on the particular agencies with substantial equities in the disclosure at issue. When multiple intelligence agencies are involved, the director of national intelligence runs the process.

“It doesn’t typically need to be invoked,” said Robert Litt, who never saw the House use it during his seven-plus years as the senior lawyer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under ex-directors James Clapper and Dennis Blair. “It’s only if Congress wants to declassify something the executive branch doesn’t want declassified.”

Under the rule, if a clash occurs between the House intelligence committee and the executive branch over keeping something secret, the president gets five days to deliver objections that cite a danger to national security posed by disclosure. Should the dispute persist, the committee can vote to take the matter to the full House of Representatives to consider. The full House’s debate is to occur in secret, with a public vote determining the outcome.

The president, however, can simply decide on his own to declassify anything. And in Trump’s case, his spokesperson is on the record supporting declassification.

“We certainly support full transparency. We believe that’s at the House intel committee to make that decision at this point,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday. “It sounds like there are some members in the House that have some real concern about what’s in that memo and feel very strongly that the American public should be privy to see it.”

Sanders is procedurally correct. The entire Rule X subsection 11(g) process depends on the House intelligence committee initially voting for declassification. While the committee voted last Thursday to permit House members outside the committee to view the still-classified memo in a secured room, a declassification vote has yet to occur, the top Democrat on the panel indicated Wednesday.

“It now appears that the GOP intends to seek further dissemination of this classified information, this time to the public,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said in a statement, adding that Democrats had drafted a counter-memo “setting out the relevant facts and exposing the misleading character of the Republicans’ document so that members of the House are not left with an erroneous impression of the dedicated professionals at the FBI and DOJ.”

Asked if an internal executive branch declassification process has begun, a spokesman for the office of the director of national intelligence replied: “We don’t have anything on this matter.”

FBI officials asked to see Nunes’ memo, but a spokesperson told The Daily Beast on Sunday that their request was denied.

At this point, congressional sources on both sides of the aisle say they think the memo’s release is inevitable. Nunes holds the reins. Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy are deferring to Nunes as to how to handle the memo, according to leadership aides.

“It is the mood of our conference, clearly, to release it,” said Rep. Collins. “And I would think it’s safe to say, based on Devin outlining the ins and outs and crossing of the t’s and dotting of the i’s to do this right, that would be his intention as well.”

Inside the bureau, former special agent Soufan said there was “disappointment and frustration” over the right’s attacks, but not surprise.

“It’s not the first time we’ve been attacked [by politicians] and it won’t be the last. A lot of [FBI] people are very disappointed, but they’re tuning it out and they’re going to support the mission,” Soufan said.

In a related story from yesterday, Senate Judicial Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley released 7 pages of text messages between FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

New texts released by Grassley on Thursday also indicated that FBI officials believed FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should be recused from the Clinton investigation because of his family’s ties to Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is close with the Clintons.

In an October 28, 2016 text exchange, Page told Strzok that then- FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki thought McCabe should not have participated in the probe.

“Rybicki just called to check in,” she wrote. “He very clearly 100% believes that Andy should be recused because of the ‘perception.’”

“God,” Strzok replied.

Asked by Page why McCabe should be recused now, if not before, Strzok said: “I assume McAuliffe picked up.”

McCabe eventually recused himself from the Clinton probe one week before the election.

Okay, so you have FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein along with former FBI Director James Comey about to get nailed by this 4-page memo.

Do y’all understand what we are talking about here?

Please allow me to review…

A Former Presidential Administration weaponized the FBI and DOJ for the purposes of not only spying on , but also sabotaging the Candidacy and Presidency of Donald J. Trump.

These Deep State Operatives, loyal to the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party, protected both President Barack Hussein Obama and Former Candidate Hillary Clinton, while using both the Bureaucratic and Electronic Tools at their disposal to somehow attempt to keep Trump from Becoming President.

Having failed at that, they invented the fictitious Russian Collusion Narrative as both a distraction and an impediment, in order to prevent President Trump from fulfilling his Campaign Promise to “Make America Great Again”.

This “Secret Society” within the FBI, ensconced in their Swamp of Bureaucracy, considered themselves, as most of the Liberal Elite do, to be smarter than everybody else, “untouchable”, and, evidently, above the laws of the nation which they had sworn to uphold and its citizens whom they had sworn to serve.

Back when all of the “Resistance”, i.e., the whining Libs, the demonstrations, the marches, the pink hats shaped like a woman’s you-know-what, were all happening, I wrote several articles in which I said that it all stemmed from Modern Liberal’s wish to turn our Sovereign Nation into a Socialist Paradise, a wish left unfulfilled thanks to Americans staying strong during the nightmarish 8 years of Barack Hussein Obama’s failed Presidency.

Little did I know at the time just how brainwashed and programmed the Liberals within the Halls of Power in Washington, DC were.

Three things now need to happen:

  1. The 4-page memo needs to be released to the American Public. Whether Congress does it or President Trump declassifies it, does not matter. We need to see it.
  2. A Second Special Counsel needs to be appointed and the people responsible for these acts of treason against our nation need to be held responsible for their actions.
  3. Special Counsel James Mueller and his Dog and Pony Show need to fold their tents and go home. As Don Meredith used to sing on Monday Night Football, “Turn out the lights. The party’s over”.

You no doubt noticed that I used the word “treason” in my second point.

That is because there is no other word to describe a clandestine operation put into motion by a previous Presidential Administration for the sole purpose of circumventing the will of the American People through interference in our Electoral Process and a smooth Transition of Power.

It is time to speak the truth and shame the Devil.

…And the Democrats.

Until He Comes,

KJ

“Shocking” FISA Document Reviewed By House Intel Committee. Why It MUST Be Made Public.

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“Our sources are telling us that the abuse of power is far bigger than Watergate. Remember, Watergate was a third-rate break-in. What we’re talking about tonight is the systematic abuse of power, the weaponizing of those powerful tools of intelligence and the shredding of our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.” – Sean Hannity, Fox News Channel, 1/18/18

FoxNews.com reported last night that

A four-page memo circulating in Congress that reveals alleged United States government surveillance abuses is being described by lawmakers as “shocking,” “troubling” and “alarming,” with one congressman likening the details to KGB activity in Russia.

Speaking with Fox News, the lawmakers said they could not yet discuss the contents of the memo they reviewed on Thursday after it was released to members by the House Intelligence Committee. But they say the memo should be immediately made public.

“It is so alarming the American people have to see this,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said.

“It’s troubling. It is shocking,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows said. “Part of me wishes that I didn’t read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.”

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said he believed people could lose their jobs after the memo is released.

“I believe the consequence of its release will be major changes in people currently working at the FBI and the Department of Justice,” he said, referencing DOJ officials Rod Rosenstein and Bruce Ohr.

“You think about, ‘is this happening in America or is this the KGB?’ That’s how alarming it is,” Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry said.

The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday approved a motion by New York Rep. Pete King to release the memo on abuses of FISA, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to all House members.

A source close to the matter said the memo details the Intelligence Committee’s oversight work for the FBI and Justice, including the controversy over unmasking and FISA surveillance.  

The vote Thursday morning on releasing the memo to lawmakers was along party lines, with Democrats voting against making it available for all members.

The process for releasing it to the public involves a committee vote, a source said. If approved, it could be released as long as there are no objections from the White House within five days. 

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told Fox News in December that his investigators have already uncovered evidence of abuse in the U.S. government’s surveillance practices.

“I believe there’s evidence that abuses have occurred,” Nunes said at the time.

Nunes pointed to the leaked conversation of former national security adviser, Gen. Mike Flynn with the Russian ambassador.

On Thursday, the Senate voted 65-34 to reauthorize a FISA provision that allows U.S. spy agencies to conduct surveillance on foreign targets abroad for six years. The bill, which already has been passed by the House, now heads to the White House,where President Donald Trump has said he will sign it into law.

Will this actually be the smoking Howitzer need to “Perp Walk” Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama?

Let’s review some things that we already know about the Obama Administration’s Deep State Operation against Donald J. Trump.

Per discoverthenetworks.org

On March 3, 2017, journalist Joel Pollack of Breitbart.com summarized radio host Mark Levin’s explanation of what he called the “police state” tactics that President Obama’s outgoing administration had employed during its final months to undermine Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and, later, his administration.

…Below is the heart of Pollack’s piece, titled “Mark Levin to Congress: Investigate Obama’s ‘Silent Coup’ vs. Trump”:

1. June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers. The request, uncharacteristically, is denied.

2. July: Russia joke. Wikileaks releases emails from the Democratic National Committee that show an effort to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from winning the presidential nomination. In a press conference, Donald Trump refers to Hillary Clinton’s own missing emails, joking: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” That remark becomes the basis for accusations by Clinton and the media that Trump invited further hacking.

3. October: Podesta emails. In October, Wikileaks releases the emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out batches every day until the election, creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton campaign blames Trump and the Russians.

4. October: FISA request. The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found — but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National Review later notes. The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.

5. January 2017: Buzzfeed/CNN dossier. Buzzfeed releases, and CNN reports, a supposed intelligence “dossier” compiled by a foreign former spy. It purports to show continuous contact between Russia and the Trump campaign, and says that the Russians have compromising information about Trump. None of the allegations can be verified and some are proven false. Several media outlets claim that they had been aware of the dossier for months and that it had been circulating in Washington.

6. January: Obama expands NSA sharing. As Michael Walsh later notes, and as the New York Times reports, the outgoing Obama administration “expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.” The new powers, and reduced protections, could make it easier for intelligence on private citizens to be circulated improperly or leaked.

7. January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties. Other news outlets also report the existence of “a multiagency working group to coordinate investigations across the government,” though it is unclear how they found out, since the investigations would have been secret and involved classified information.

8. February: Mike Flynn scandal. Reports emerge that the FBI intercepted a conversation in 2016 between future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — then a private citizen — and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The intercept supposedly was  part of routine spying on the ambassador, not monitoring of the Trump campaign. The FBI transcripts reportedly show the two discussing Obama’s newly-imposed sanctions on Russia, though Flynn earlier denied discussing them. Sally Yates, whom Trump would later fire as acting Attorney General for insubordination, is involved in the investigation. In the end, Flynn resigns over having misled Vice President Mike Pence (perhaps inadvertently) about the content of the conversation.

9. February: Times claims extensive Russian contacts. The New York Times cites “four current and former American officials” in reporting that the Trump campaign had “repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials. The Trump campaign denies the claims — and the Times admits that there is “no evidence” of coordination between the campaign and the Russians. The White House and some congressional Republicans begin to raise questions about illegal intelligence leaks.

10. March: the Washington Post targets Jeff Sessions. The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had contact twice with the Russian ambassador during the campaign — once at a Heritage Foundation event and once at a meeting in Sessions’s Senate office. The Post suggests that the two meetings contradict Sessions’s testimony at his confirmation hearings that he had no contacts with the Russians, though in context (not presented by the Post) it was clear he meant in his capacity as a campaign surrogate, and that he was responding to claims in the “dossier” of ongoing contacts. The New York Times, in covering the story, adds that the Obama White House “rushed to preserve” intelligence related to alleged Russian links with the Trump campaign. By “preserve” it really means “disseminate”: officials spread evidence throughout other government agencies “to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators” and perhaps the media as well. [NOTE: Sessions’ first meeting with the Russian ambassador was set up by the Obama Administration. Moreover, that same ambassador visited the Obama White House 22 times, including 4 times in 2016.]

In summary: the Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.

Levin called the effort a “silent coup” by the Obama administration and demanded that it be investigated. In addition, Levin castigated Republicans in Congress for focusing their attention on Trump and Attorney General Sessions rather than Obama.

I have written in past articles that the Deep State Operation against Private Citizen Donald J. Trump reads like something out of a Tom Clancy Novel.

It is actually much worse than that.

It is positively Orwellian.

A unscrupelous President of the United States of America and a an equally unscrupulous Secretary of State, motivated by their failing political ideology, used the full power of our Federal Government to not only investigate Donald J. Trump and everyone associated with him, but, also, to do everything in their power, including financing and using a phony dossier, to prevent him from being elected President of the United States of America.

Once their plan is thwarted by average Americans, who voted the “Citizen Statesman” into office, the Deep State Operation began under the Obama Administration continued through the advancement of a fictitious narrative, charging Trump and his Campaign Staff with “colluding” with Russia.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed, who just happened to serve under President Barack Hussein Obama in the FBI. Mueller chooses his Investigative Staff, which wound being mainly composed of Democratic Donors, with deep ties to the Bureaucratic Departments of the DOJ and FBI.

In fact, as I reported, Mueller and several of his Investigators worked for a huge law firm which happened to donate heavily to the Democratic Party.

Are you beginning to see a pattern, gentle readers?

What has been playing out, since being set in motion by the previous Presidential Administration, is nothing less than, as Radio Host Mark Levin has referred to it, a “silent coup”…a way to usurp our Constitution and the System of Checks and Balances which our Founding Fathers put in place to maintain and prosper our Constitutional Republic.

This entire disgusting scenario reminds me of an episode of the television series “Billy The Exterminator”, which used to be on A & E.

In the episode that I’m referring to, Billy is called in to help a poor elderly lady get control of her house back from a horde of invading cockroaches, who have completely taken over her home with boldness and impunity.

Billy does his job, ridding the lady’s house of the invaders, giving her the ability to once again live without the stifling filth and disease which the cockroaches had forced upon her.

If, as a Sovereign Nation, we are to rid ourselves of the Machiavellian plans and schemes of a political ideology which seeks to overrule the will of the people through the use of Machiavellian schemes and plans acted on by Deep State Operatives within our own government, ALL PERTINENT INFORMATION MUST BE MADE PUBLIC.

FOR LIBERTY’S SAKE…

RELEASE THE MEMO!

Until He Comes,

KJ

Operation PRISM: We Are All Now “Enemies of the State”

obamabigbroMy Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

President Barack Hussein Obama, “Transparency and Open Government”, 1/21/2009, whitehouse.gov

He lied.

Yesterday, Americans found out that their Federal Government, under the leadership of Barack Hussein Obama, utilizing the resources of the NSA, under the excuse of “National Security”, has been spying on literally all Americans, recording our cell phone conversations, along with keeping a record of our internet browsing, e-mails, and posts.

Regarding the monitoring of our phone calls, The New York Times reports…

The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The order does not apply to the content of the communications.

Verizon Business Network Services is one of the nation’s largest telecommunications and Internet providers for corporations. It is not clear whether similar orders have gone to other parts of Verizon, like its residential or cellphone services, or to other telecommunications carriers. The order prohibits its recipient from discussing its existence, and representatives of both Verizon and AT&T declined to comment Wednesday evening.

The Guardian,  a newspaper/website in the UK, reported on the phone call monitoring Wednesday night.

Yesterday, they reported that the NSA has been monitoring 15 of the biggest Internet Servers, including Apple, Google, and Facebook.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims “collection directly from the servers” of major US service providers.

One of Obama’s biggest sycophants in the Main Stream Media, The New York Times, now says that Obama’s record of accountability and transparency leaves a lot to be desired:

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The shear magnitude of what we learned yesterday is overwhelming. The Government of the United States of America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, has turned into a  New Politboro, so adept at spying on the New Proletariat, which its lousy economic policies has created, that it puts the old Soviet Union to shame.

Just think about it. Every phone call between you and your spouse, your kids, your parents, and the rest of your family, friends, business associates, and SPAM callers, are digitally recorded and kept in U.S. Government Archives, where they can be listened to by Government Agents.

Then, there’s the matter of the Monitoring of Internet Usage. Every time you get on Facebook or Twitter, or, even go to The Drudge Report to see what’s going on in the world, the Feds are making a record of your cyber-travels.

And, Lord help all of us Bloggers.

Thinking about the sheer number of recorded communications is mind-blowing.

Positively Orwellian, isn’t it?

Where will this blatant dismantling of the 4th Amendment lead us?

Will we all be led to “FEMA Camps” where we will have to watch a copy of the DVD of “Obama’s Speeches” over and over again, like the one he gave to the Queen of England when she visited the White House?

Will the “Men in Black” show up on our door step to take us away for writing blogs critical of Obama and his fellow Marxist/Alinskyites?

Speaking of them, I thought that those guys with the black suits and sunglasses on, outside my home, were just Mormons on a mission.

Obama has “radically changed” America, alright. He’s systematically taking our freedoms away.

Until He Comes,

KJ