The confidential human source (CHS) behind the detailed allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions was reportedly “highly credible” and used by the FBI in multiple criminal investigations dating back to the Obama administration. Friday’s exclusive by Fox News provides further insight into Sen. Chuck Grassley’s focus on the FBI — as opposed to the Biden family — as the primary scandal in play.
“We aren’t interested in whether or not the accusations against [then]-Vice President Biden are accurate,” Grassley said during an interview last week discussing FBI Director Christopher Wray’s refusal to comply with the congressional subpoena issued for the FD-1023 form. That form, dated June 30, 2020, included detailed information from a CHS to the FBI regarding an agreement by now-President Biden to deliver preferred foreign policy positions for a $5 million payment.
After Grassley revealed he had already seen the FD-1023, Fox News’ Bill Hemmer queried: “How damning is this document to the sitting U.S. president?”
“I don’t know,” responded Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He stressed that while “there’s accusations” in the FBI report, the congressional oversight committees’ concern is whether “the FBI does its job.” “That’s what we want to know,” he continued.
Friday’s revelation that the CHS was “highly credible” and had served as a source in multiple prior criminal investigations — including ones run under the Obama-Biden administration — proves Grassley is properly focused on the FBI.
Yes, the CHS’s allegations offer more evidence of a Biden family pay-to-play scandal, and unraveling any criminal conduct by the Biden family remains important. But more significant to the future of our country is uncovering government actors responsible for violating the rule of law: America can survive select injustices, but it cannot withstand a corrupt bureaucracy that obstructs justice and interferes in elections.
Yet that is precisely what occurred, according to the whistleblower. He claimed that “in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters’ team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” The whistleblower further alleged that the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access.
Now knowing the CHS behind the FD-1023 was not just “trusted,” as Grassley had previously indicated, but “highly credible,” and relied upon in multiple criminal cases dating back to the last time Biden worked for the executive branch, makes the whistleblower’s accusations even more damning because those additional facts mean the agents had reason to believe the buried accusations were true.
Not only does this evidence suggest FBI headquarters obstructed justice, but the date of the CHS’s report indicates those responsible for misbranding the intel as disinformation sought to interfere in the 2020 election.
As Grassley’s colleague in the House, James Comer, revealed, the CHS report was dated June 30, 2020, and while the allegations against candidate Biden came from a “highly credible” CHS, the FBI closed them. According to the whistleblower, FBI headquarters closed out the source even though some of the allegations had already been verified and other details could have been verified.
In contrast, when the bureau received a vague tip from an Australian diplomat of unknown veracity that a low-level Trump volunteer had claimed the Russians possessed dirt on Hillary Clinton, within days FBI headquarters opened an investigation into the Trump campaign.
John Durham’s special counsel report recently lay bare the impropriety of the FBI’s targeting of the Trump campaign based on unverified gossip from an unvetted source. Grassley is now highlighting the converse: the FBI’s improper branding of evidence from a “highly credible” CHS as disinformation to protect the Democrat candidate for president.
This evidence of continuing political bias at the FBI is Grassley’s primary concern, prompting him to call for a “change in the culture.” That change will be a long time coming, however, given that Wray resisted the subpoena and appears poised to fight Grassley and congressional oversight committees every step of the way.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time.
I’m going to go into the deep weeds on this story, because many people are missing a key facet. The names behind the Trump targeting operation are included, along with citations for independent checks by House congressional investigators.
Inside the recently released report by John Durham [CITATION], the special counsel outlines how former FBI Director James Comey was intimately involved in the creation of the Carter Page FISA application. Durham notes that Comey kept asking the DOJ National Security Division and FBI counterintelligence investigators, “Where’s the FISA, we need the FISA.” However, John Durham never interviewed James Comey or Andrew McCabe. The former FBI Director and Deputy refused to cooperate or give testimony to John Durham. So, how did John Durham have details about the demands of Comey?
The answer is found in the footnotes. Durham reviewed transcripts of interviews given by Andrew McCabe to the Office of the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, who previously investigated FBI conduct in the origin of the Carter Page FISA. Durham pulled quotes from that transcript. [Footnote #1207, page 199 – Durham Report]
♦ QUESTION: If Andrew McCabe gave testimony to the OIG about the motives and impetus of FBI Director James Comey in pushing for the Carter Page FISA application, why did the OIG report never outline those transcribed interviews? Why was the interview transcript never included in the 2019 OIG report?
[ NOTE to Congress. Now that you know a transcribed interview of Andrew McCabe exists in the OIG office, request the transcription and release it to the public.]
Let me answer those questions without the customary pretending from the DC professional political class. The short version is that OIG Michael Horowitz was trying to protect the DOJ and FBI. The longer version is a coverup that includes Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr and yes, John Durham. I will share that story below
“Where’s the FISA? We need the FISA?” ~ James Comey
The DOJ-NSD and FBI CoIntel needed to find a safe and legal way to spy on the Trump campaign. The 2016 FISA Title 1 surveillance of former FBI employee Carter Page became the fraudulent justification for that intent.
Because “FISA Title I” surveillance authority against a U.S. citizen is so serious (the U.S. government is essentially calling the target a spy), only a few people are authorized to even apply for such surveillance warrants. One of the four people authorized to make such a Search Warrant request is the Asst. Attorney General as head of the National Security Division of the DOJ.
In September and October of 2016, at the same time the DOJ was putting the finishing touches on the FISA Court application to be used against Carter Page, Asst. Attorney General John P Carlin resigned as head of the DOJ-NSD. [CITATION] Did Carlin resign in protest or fear?
Here’s context:
Carter Page was used as a UCE (FBI undercover employee), responsible for the bust of a high-level Russian agent in 2013 – and remained a UCE – throughout the court case of Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian citizen who U.S. prosecutors say posed as a banker while participating in a Cold War-style spy ring. [CITATION]
Carter Page was an FBI undercover source for the FBI UP TO May of 2016. How was it possible that on October 21st, 2016, Carter Page is put under a FISA Title 1 surveillance warrant as an alleged Russian agent? Conclusion: Carter Page wasn’t a Russian agent. The DOJ National Security Division and the FBI Counterintelligence Division knew he wasn’t.
In order to manufacture the justification for the Carter Page FISA warrant, the DOJ-NSD and the FBI flat-out lied to the FISA Court. Remember, IG Horowitz said there was no ‘Woods File’ in the Carter Page FISA application. Instead of the required section substantiating and citing all the claims in the application, the FBI used the Chris Steele Dossier.
However, as to the motive of John Carlin resigning before the application was completed and submitted, we look back to the March 2016 DOJ Press Release of the guilty pleading in the Evgeny Buryakov case as announced from the New York office:
…”Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and John P. Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, announced”… (link)
DOJ-NSD head John Carlin obviously could not submit a FISA application against Carter Page, accusing him of being an “agent of a foreign government,” when just a few months earlier he used Carter Page as a witness and FBI UCE source in the case against Buryakov.
As James Comey is demanding that Andrew McCabe and his FBI counterintelligence agents get the FISA warrant, likely an ass covering necessity, the person responsible to get the warrant from the court, John Carlin, quits the DOJ. Considering all the facets outlined above, this cannot be accidental.
Here’s where it gets SERIOUSLY sketchy.
The next in line person, who can fulfill the DOJ/FBI goal of getting the fraudulent application through the FISA court, is Mary McCord. Put into the position as Acting Asst. Attorney General for the National Security Division, the job of submitting the FISA application now falls upon Mary McCord.
On October 21, 2016, When the FISA application was finally submitted, signed by DAG Sally Yates and FBI Director James Comey, it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant.
At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson. In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ. Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.
Obviously, with the background and context of the entirely fraudulent Carter Page FISA application, a government surveillance warrant using a Clinton funded political opposition research file known as the Steele Dossier to support the warrant, both Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson would know they were directly involved in an intentional effort to weaponize the mechanisms of the justice department against a political candidate.
While James Comey and Sally Yates’ signatures were on the FISA application falsely vouching for it, the attestations of legal compliance fall upon DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord and her top legal advisor Michael Atkinson. McCord and Atkinson are doing, in October of 2016, what former DOJ-NSD head John Carlin refused to do.
WATCH WHAT COMES NEXT: Mary McCord then resigns from her position in the DOJ, and Michael Atkinson is left, as lawyer for the DOJ-NSD, to become Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
♦ The Impeachment Effort – Do you remember how the impeachment effort against President Donald Trump was created? Do you remember Alexander Vindman, the claims about Ukraine; the statements of hearing from a CIA whistleblower about the content of a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy?
When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission. Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint. It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules.
Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General? Michael Atkinson.
When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to? Mary McCord.
Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment. As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.
Can you see how Atkinson and McCord are working together, both connected to the fraud behind the false FISA application used in the Trump-Russia narrative in 2016 and 2017, now both working together on a 2019 impeachment effort against President Trump holding an identical motive? Can you see the stunning conflicts of interest and the coordination?
The weaponized FISA surveillance of the Trump administration doesn’t exist without Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson creating the surveillance mechanism. The weaponized impeachment origin doesn’t exist without McCord – now in congress working for Nadler/Schiff – and Atkinson changing rules as CIA Inspector General, to create the baseline of a fraudulent whistleblower complaint. Can you see it?
But wait…. It gets worse.
♦ Chief Justice John Roberts – As if things could not possibly be more corrupt, now we have the construct of Atkinson and McCord forming the predicate for the impeachment effort. To wit, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts now becomes the presiding judge over the impeachment trial of President Trump.
Mary McCord is married to a fellow traveler named Sheldon L. Snook.
From 2014 though 2020, not coincidentally the timeline of the Trump targeting and administration in office, Mary McCord’s husband, Sheldon Snook, was the special assistant to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s counselor. [CITATION]
As noted by the Washington Post in discussing both McCord and Snook, “The counselor’s office advises the chief justice not only on the management and budget of the Supreme Court but also on his interactions with the executive and legislative branches, along with numerous other public roles in which Roberts serves.” [CITATION]
From 2014 through 2020, Sheldon Snook was responsible for running the office of the lawyer legally advising and counseling John Roberts.
Let me put this another way. The most important guy in the judicial branch, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, has a lawyer to advise and construct the responsibilities of the SCOTUS chief judge, which includes the construct of the FISA court and appointment of judges therein.
As Chief Justice, John Roberts is in charge of everything to do with the FISA court. The guy running the office of the lawyer doing the counseling of Roberts, is Mary McCord’s husband.
Mary McCord, knowingly and with specific intent, lied to the FISA court to support the FBI targeting of Trump. Mary McCord’s husband runs the office which would intercept any communication from the FISA court to the Chief Justice if the FISC had any concerns about the false FBI application. See the problem?
♦ SUMMARY – Now, we go back to where we came in.
- Why did the Office of the Inspector General never publish the interview transcript about Andrew McCabe talking about how desperate FBI Director James Comey was to get a FISA warrant?
- Why did John Durham never publish those same interview transcripts, but instead simply referenced the existence of the transcript in a footnote?
Follow these questions to their logical conclusion, and you will discover that all of the participants including Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr, James Baker, Dana Boente, Michael Horowitz and John Durham are trying to protect bureaucrats, who did criminal acts, and preserve institutions from collapse that sunlight would create.
Sunlight…
… The best disinfectant.
I ain’t quitting.
Until we deal with this mess, it doesn’t matter who ‘we‘ try to make president.
