Tag Archives: Russiagate

Lisa Page Hired By NBC and MSNBC As Legal Analyst, by Jonathan Turley

Posted on June 7, 2020 | 1 comment

You can probably count on one hand the number of SLL readers who regularly watch NBC or MSNBC, and this article demonstrates why. From Jonathan Turley at jonathanturley.com:

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Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer who resigned in the midst of the Russian investigation scandal, has been hired a NBC and MSNBC as a legal analyst.  The move continues a trend started by CNN in hiring Trump critics, including officials terminated for misconduct, to offer legal analysis on the Trump Administration. We have previously discussed the use by CNN of figures like Andrew McCabe to give legal analysis despite his being referred for possible criminal charges by the Inspector General for repeatedly lying to federal investigators.  The media appears intent on fulfilling the narrative of President Trump that it is overly biased and hostile in its analysis. Indeed, it now appears a marketing plan that has subsumed the journalistic mission.

Page appeared with Rachel Maddow and began her work as the new legal analyst by discussing her own controversial work at the FBI. Page is still part of investigation by various committees and the investigation being conducted by U.S Attorney John Durham.

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‘Somebody cooked up the plot’: The hunt for the origins of the Russia collusion narrative, by John Solomon

Posted on June 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Somebody indeed cooked up a plot to depose Trump with a phony Russian collusion narrative, but to date, nobody’s gone to jail for it. From John Solomon at justthenews.com:

Key GOP senators are firing off subpoenas in a concerted effort to identify those who helped sustain a Russia collusion probe without the supporting evidence.

Hollywood once gave us the Cold War thriller called “The Hunt for Red October.” And now the U.S. Senate and its Republican committee chairmen in Washington have launched a different sort of hunt made for the movies.

Armed with subpoenas, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., want to interrogate a slew of Obama-era intelligence and law enforcement officials hoping to identify who invented and sustained the bogus Russia collusion narrative that hampered Donald Trump’s early presidency.

And while Graham and Johnson aren’t exactly Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin, they and their GOP cohorts have a theory worthy of a Tom Clancy novel-turned-movie: The Russia collusion investigation was really a plot by an outgoing administration to thwart the new president.

“What we had was a very quiet insurrection that took place,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican, told Just the News on Thursday as she described the theory of Senate investigators. “And there were probably dozens of people at DOJ and FBI that knew what was going on.

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The FBI documents that put Barack Obama in the ‘Obamagate’ narrative, by John Solomon

Posted on May 28, 2020 | 1 comment

Will a Democratic ex-president ever be indicted? Obama should be, but don’t hold your breath. From John Solomon at justthenews.com:

Agents fretted sharing Flynn intel with departing Obama White House would become fodder for ‘partisan axes to grind.’

Just 17 days before President Trump took office in January 2017, then-FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok texted bureau lawyer Lisa Page, his mistress, to express concern about sharing sensitive Russia probe evidence with the departing Obama White House.

Strzok had just engaged in a conversation with his boss, then-FBI Assistant Director William Priestap, about evidence from the investigation of incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, codenamed Crossfire Razor, or “CR” for short.

The evidence in question were so-called “tech cuts” from intercepted conversations between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to the texts and interviews with officials familiar with the conversations.

Strzok related Priestap’s concerns about the potential the evidence would be politically weaponized if outgoing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper shared the intercept cuts with the White House and President Obama, a well-known Flynn critic.

“He, like us, is concerned with over sharing,” Strzok texted Page on Jan. 3, 2017, relating his conversation with Priestap. “Doesn’t want Clapper giving CR cuts to WH. All political, just shows our hand and potentially makes enemies.”

Page seemed less concerned, knowing that the FBI was set in three days to release its initial assessment of Russian interference in the U.S. election.

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Trump’s ‘Keyboard Warriors’ Get the Story While the Legacy Media Ignores #Obamagate, by Thomas J. Farnan

Posted on May 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

The alternate media started poking holes in Russiagate early and got it right. The mainstream media peddled nonstop lies and got it embarrassingly wrong. They keep ignoring evidence and refuse to ask the hard questions about their own culpability. From Thomas J. Farnan at thenationalpulse.com:

CrowdStrike – the forensic investigation firm hired by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to inspect its computer servers in 2016 – admitted to Congressional investigators as early as 2017 that it had no direct evidence of Russian hacking, recently declassified documents show.

CrowdStrike’s president Shawn Henry testified, “There’s not evidence that [documents and emails] were actually exfiltrated [from the DNC servers]. There’s circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated.”

This was a crucial revelation because the thousand ships of Russiagate launched upon the positive assertion that CrowdStrike had definitely proven a Russian hack

This sworn admission has been hidden from the public for over two years, and subsequent commentary has focused on that singular outrage.

The next deductive step, though, leads to an equally crucial point: Circumstantial evidence of Russian hacking is itself flimsy and collapses when not propped up by a claim of conclusive forensic testing.

THE COVER UP.

On March 19, 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, surrendered his emails to an unknown entity in a “spear phishing” scam. This has been called a “hack,” but it was not.  Instead, it is was the sort of flim-flam hustle that happens to gullible dupes on the internet.

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Turn Out the Lights, Russiagate is Over, by Ray McGovern

Posted on May 19, 2020 | Leave a comment

It’s long past time to put Russiagate to bed. There never should have been a Russiagate. From Ray McGovern at consortiumnews.com:

The possibility that Trump will not chicken out this time, and rather will challenge the Security State looms large since he felt personally under attack.

Seldom mentioned among the motives behind the persistent drumming on alleged Russian interference was an over-arching need to help the Security State hide their tracks.

The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton’s snatching defeat out of the jaws victory also played a role; as did the need for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an “aggressive” Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now disproven, “Russian hacking” of the DNC emails an “act of war.”)

But that was then. This is now.

Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past few weeks finally collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery.

All that’s left is to discover how this all happened.

Attorney General William Barr, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr commissioned to investigate this whole sordid mess seem intent on getting to the bottom of it. The possibility that Trump will not chicken out this time, and rather will challenge the Security State looms large since he felt personally under attack.

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Ghost of J. Edgar Haunts Flynn Investigation, by Coleen Rowley

Posted on May 19, 2020 | 1 comment

What the FBI did to Michael Flynn demands dismissal of the case. From Coleen Rowley at consortiumnews.com:

In this time of unprecedented political polarization, it’s disappointing but not surprising to see the Justice Department’s recent request to dismiss its prosecution of retired General Michael Flynn causing yet another media firestorm to swirl around Attorney General William Barr.

Obama Administration former officials, like the hyperventilating authors of this New York Times’ op-ed, “The Appalling Damage of Dropping the Michael Flynn Case,” go so far as to claim that dropping the case “embeds into official U.S. policy a shockingly extremist view of law enforcement as the enemy of the American people.”

In stark contrast, other former FBI agents, myself included, are appalled at Bureau and other “national security” officials’ numerous suspicious departures from standard FBI/Department of Justice policies that have finally been brought to light, marking this most bizarre investigation aimed at “get(ting) Flynn to lie.”

Flynn. (US Defense Dept.)

Flynn was asked to “a friendly chat” with the FBI on Jan. 24, 2017, for which he was told he would not need a lawyer present. The interview was part of the FBI’s Russiagate investigation, a purported scandal that has now all but totally collapsed.

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New Documents From the Sham Prosecution of Gen. Michael Flynn Also Reveal Broad Corruption in the Russiagate Investigations, by Glen Greenwald

Posted on May 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

There’s never just one cockroach, and the cockroaches are scurrying now. From Glen Greenwald at theintercept.com:

GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN, President Obama’s former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty on December 1, 2017, to a single count of lying to the FBI about two conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while Flynn served as a Trump transition team official (Flynn was never charged for any matters relating to his relationship with the Turkish government). As part of the plea deal, special counsel Robert Mueller recommended no jail time for Flynn, and the plea agreement also seemingly put an end to threats from the Mueller team to prosecute Flynn’s son.

Last Thursday, the Justice Department filed a motion seeking to dismiss the prosecution of Flynn based, in part, on newly discovered documents revealing that the conduct of the FBI, under the leadership of Director James Comey and his now-disgraced Deputy Andrew McCabe (who himself was forced to leave the Bureau after being caught lying to agents), was improper and motivated by corrupt objectives. That motion prompted histrionic howls of outrage from the same political officials and their media allies who have spent the last three years pushing maximalist Russiagate conspiracy theories.

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Hidden Over 2 Years: Dem Cyber-Firm’s Sworn Testimony It Had No Proof of Russian Hack of DNC, by Aaron Maté

Posted on May 16, 2020 | 2 comments

Aaron Maté is one of a select group of alternative media journalistic superstars who kept digging and digging and helped expose the sham that was Russiagate. From Maté at realclearinvestigations.com:

CrowdStrike, the private cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, acknowledged to Congress more than two years ago that it had no concrete evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee’s server.

Crowdstrike President Shawn Henry: “We just don’t have the evidence …”
Crowdstrike.com

CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry’s admission under oath,  in a recently declassified December 2017 interview before the House Intelligence Committee, raises new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public. The allegation that Russia stole Democratic Party emails from Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and others and then passed them to WikiLeaks helped trigger the FBI’s probe into now debunked claims of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the 2016 election. The CrowdStrike admissions were released just two months after the Justice Department retreated from its its other central claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election when it dropped charges against Russian troll farms it said had been trying to get Trump elected.

Henry personally led the remediation and forensics analysis of the DNC server after being warned of a breach in late April 2016; his work was paid for by the DNC, which refused to turn over its server to the FBI. Asked for the date when alleged Russian hackers stole data from the DNC server, Henry testified that CrowdStrike did not in fact know if such a theft occurred at all: “We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated [moved electronically] from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated,” Henry said.

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“Collusion against Trump” timeline, by Sharyl Attkisson

Posted on May 16, 2020 | 1 comment

For all those who’ve followed this story since before Trump took office, here’s a comprehensive timeline of the entire sordid effort to depose Trump. From Sharyl Attkisson at sharylattkisson.com:

It’s easy to find timelines that detail Trump-Russia collusion developments. Here are links to two of them I recommend:

Politifact Russia-Trump timeline

Washington Post Russia-Trump timeline

On the other side, evidence has emerged that makes it clear there were organized efforts to collude against candidate Donald Trump–and then President Trump. For example:

  • Anti-Russian Ukrainians allegedly helped coordinate and execute a campaign against Trump in partnership with the Democratic National Committee and news reporters.
  • A Yemen-born ex-British spy reportedly delivered political opposition research against Trump to reporters, Sen. John McCain, and the FBI; the latter of which used the material–in part–to obtain wiretaps against one or more Trump-related associates.
  • There were orchestrated leaks of anti-Trump information and allegations to the press, including by ex-FBI Director James Comey.
  • The U.S. intel community allegedly engaged in questionable surveillance practices and politially-motivated “unmaskings” of U.S. citizens, including Trump officials.
  • Alleged conflicts of interests have surfaced regarding FBI officials who cleared Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information and who investigated Trump’s alleged Russia ties.

But it’s not so easy to find a timeline pertinent to the investigations into these events.

Related: Obama Era Surveillance Timeline

Here’s a work in progress.

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Welcome to #Obamagate, Everybody! by Scott McKay

Posted on May 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

Obama was up to his eyeballs in the Russiagate plot. From Scott McKay at spectator.org:

Finally, at long last, the myth of a scandal-free Obama presidency has vanished.

The hottest hashtag on Twitter is 12 years in the making, and frankly that’s far too late.

But hey, better late than never, right?

Last week’s cascade of revelations that the entire Trump–Russia narrative and Mike Flynn case, among other shenanigans falling out of Washington, D.C., over the past four years, weren’t just garbage but garbage cooked up and spread by the top levels of the Obama administration, to be summed up in one catchy hashtag, has the potential to change American politics in fundamental ways.

We know that prosecutions are afoot, and we know indictments are coming. We know that some of those indictments will be handed down to people with famous names.

We know already that #Obamagate is the correct name for the mess unfolding before us, thanks to the summary of a meeting held on Jan. 5, 2017, provided by the former president’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice. The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland follows that story:

Then came the January 5, 2017, meeting in the Oval Office where Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper briefed President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and National Security Advisor Susan Rice on Russia-related issues.

Rice later wrote an email to herself on January 20, 2017 — Trump’s inauguration day and her last day in the White House — purporting to summarize that meeting. “On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election,” Rice wrote, “President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.”

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