Posted on 02/15/2022 3:33:24 PM PST by blam
On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion relating to a defense firm’s potential conflict of interest in the Michael Sussmann case. The conflict itself is certainly intriguing, with Sussmann’s lawyers at Latham & Watkins LLP (Latham) having represented potential witnesses in the case, including Perkins Coie, former Perkins Coie (and Clinton Campaign general counsel) Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and Hillary for America.
The issue that made more noise, however, was Durham’s disclosure that Rodney Joffe – a contractor with deep ties to the Clintons, and what appears to be a deep hatred for Trump – had exploited Executive Office of the President of the United States data he obtained from a “sensitive arrangement” with the U.S. Government to damage President Trump. Here is our initial post on the topic.
And here is the talented Lee Smith providing a great explanation on Tucker:
Twitter avatar for @AKA_RealDirtyThe Dirty Truth (Josh) @AKA_RealDirty .@LeeSmithDC says he keeps hearing people comparing the scandal to Watergate when it doesn’t compare to Watergate at all. We are talking about some of the most secure communications in government been Surveiled by political operatives.
February 15th 2022
733 Retweets1,522 Likes
Yet the data from the Executive Office of the President wasn’t all that Joffe had obtained. He also collected domain name system (DNS) internet traffic pertaining to a healthcare provider; Trump Tower; and Trump’s Central Park West apartment building.
Yesterday, February 14, Sussmann’s attorney’s disputed the Durham filing – to an extent. They said Sussmann provided the CIA with Executive Office of the President data from “when Barack Obama was president.”
I have a theory about this.
If Sussmann’s attorney is telling the truth (never a given), then we suspect the Executive Office of the President data included that from the 74 day the Trump transition period (between the November 8, 2016 election and the January 20, 2017 inauguration) – which would still be spying on the incoming Trump Administration.
For background, the Executive Office of the President includes a number of Executive councils (National Security Council, Office of Management and Budget, etc.) that support the President. It is involved generally in the transition from one president to the next.
What about the data involved with the Trump transition? On August 1, 2016, Trump reached an agreement with the General Services Administration (GSA) “for telecommunication and internet technology services for both the pre- and post-election transition period.”1 This is the agreement. Fool Nelson pointed out to me that Joffe’s other company, Packet Forensics, has a 2010 - 2025 contract with GSA. I wonder if Joffe’s company, Neustar, helped the GSA in the execution of that agreement. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure it matters, as Neustar already had an agreement to provide “DNS resolution services” to the Executive Office of the President.
Regardless, the “transition theory”, if we can call it that, matches the timeline in the Sussmann indictment, which states that Joffe and his team continued to target “Trump-related computer networks” in late 2016 and early 2017. And it makes sense in context of Sussmann’s conduct, as Sussmann tried to put this information out there in late December 2016.
Anyway, back to the point of this post.
According to Durham, Joffe and his associates manipulated that data to make it seem like Trump, and those in Trump’s world, had suspicious interactions with internet protocol (IP) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider. They then combined those allegations with the Alfa Bank hoax materials (the subject of Sussmann’s Fall 2016 meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker).
This damaging information, purporting to demonstrate at least circumstantial evidence of Trump/Russia collusion, was presented on February 9, 2017 to what Durham describes as U.S. Government “Agency-2.”
That agency was the CIA. We know for sure that Sussmann met with the CIA General Counsel. We learned in January 2022 that, if Sussmann is to be believed, there were two other CIA employees at that meeting.
In other words, a Clinton supporting contractor (Joffe) obtained sensitive information (perhaps unlawfully) about the Office of the President of the United States (Trump), manipulated the information, passed it to a DNC/Clinton lawyer (Sussmann), who then delivered it to the CIA.
All on American soil.
This is important because the CIA is generally prohibited from conducting domestic operations. The FBI explains:
“The CIA collects information only regarding foreign countries and their citizens. Unlike the FBI, it is prohibited from collecting information regarding ‘U.S. Persons,’ a term that includes U.S. citizens, resident aliens, legal immigrants, and U.S. corporations, regardless of where they are located.”
In the CIA’s own words:
“The FBI is responsible for coordination of clandestine collection of foreign intelligence through human sources or human-enabled means and counterintelligence activities inside the United States.”
Yet when it came to Trump, here was the CIA doing what it is prohibited: “collecting information regarding U.S. persons” inside the United States.2 (See also the CIA’s bulk surveillance program.)
A top CIA official answered the call of a DNC lawyer who alleged that these suspicious internet “lookups” proved “that Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.” Accusations that were baseless, according to Durham.
In other words, the secret police was more than willing to accept politically damaging information against the President. I’m curious what they did with it. It seems naive to think the information stayed at the CIA. I bet it was passed onto the FBI or DOJ, who may have used it to further the Trump/Russia investigation.
The scandal we are seeing come to light just isn’t about Hillary and Joffe and Sussmann. It’s not limited to Fusion GPS, FISA abuse, or Igor Danchenko.
It’s also about the willingness of U.S. intelligence to target the President. And on that topic, the CIA has some serious questions to answer.
The Special Activities/Paramilitary guys. I thought you knew all about that kind of stuff. Hmmmmm……go figure
And there’s no way of knowing who was brought into this.
Could it have been a small cell of senior folks, loyal to Soetero, that no on questioned. If someone did, they were dismissed. If someone of higher rank questioned, they were dismissed by someone even higher.
Pompeo became the Director with lots of folks underneath him. No way of him knowing what everyone was doing.
And with all that scrutiny, not having found a thing…..all of a sudden Letitia James finds one or two things in a tax return that has been investigated over and over. Yup, that crack team of folks in her office found something that no one else did. Amazing I tell ya.
Does anyone think that his returns have t been poured over by the IRS, in service to the Left, and nothing.
Pompeo became the Director with lots of folks underneath him. No way of him knowing what everyone was doing.
Correct!
That’s why they got rid of him. He knew the how the game was played. Took him some time. And with four years to go. Nothing holding him back he could have went absolutely scorched earth on all of them.
Declassified everything.
Some say…..he should have done it anyway. I partly agree. But the man was juggling chainsaws while being attacked by wolves.
One thing he could have and should have done, that would have upset that apple cart forever, get and release the names of Congress that paid off their sexual harassment victims. Talk about a house cleaning.
He wins in ‘24, I foresee mass resignations and retirements.
“What’s not said often enough is that even WITH all of the spying on Trump they couldn’t find anything wrong, and so had to make something up. I doubt anyone else in DC could withstand such scrutiny.”
And that’s the amazing part.... Trump’s practically a Boy Scout and clean as a whistle compared to the current crop of leaderless scumbags in DC as well as those scattered about the various states. So what were their options other than to make shiite up.
He’s a no nonsense results oriented fighter for the people and I miss his calling a spade a spade, quirky humor, “mean tweets”, and overall positive outlook for US.
There are very very few among US that can withstand that level of scrutiny and still come out standing tall and unbroken.
Wonder what would happen if our so-called leaders were subjected to that level of scrutiny? Goose/gander come to mind.
Where are our White Hats?
Time to clean these bureaus out one by one.>>> I think you have to do it all at once. If you delay any the others will kill you. de layer about 10 layers from the top. Se if anyone wants a higher up job then just let them swing on their own. FBI CIA NSA and Most of the DOJ. Just transfer to Nome AK with a nice warm office, land line phone and a cot.
Because their role in the system is to stand as a wall between the Deep State and the People.
See my tagline.
Snowden and Assange sacrificed their lives to reveal the tentacles of the current deep state we have.
At least McCain is dead.
.
When Trump wins in 2024 he’s gonna be looking to dismantle the CIA. Just like Kennedy tried to do. I hope Trump has better security.
He wasn’t at this time.
Oh you’ve never heard of sarcasm I see. I still don’t get what you were referring to. You said they were doing hard work and are different than other CIA types.
The mentality is the same.
March on Colonel Flagg.
Freedom fighters in the CIA. You have a wonderful sense of humor. No such thing.
If fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? Lol CIA hang lifted a finger to protect freedom.
Even if the Pubics win in November, they will not do a thing, because
Because their role in the system is to stand as a wall between the Deep State and the People.
See my tagline.
.................................................
Prescient post if ever there was one. Also a really great tagline. Wish I had thought of it!
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