Wednesday morning I saw a Twitter thread that sent my mind spinning:
The information is well-researched and well-written. I am not going to regurgitate nor rewrite; rather, I would like to include my own thoughts based upon two days of weeding through it. I encourage my readers to follow along and, while time-consuming, do their own digging.
[NOTE: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND readers open Mr. Carlson's article side-by-side with mine as you read.]
First, when I read about Mission Ridge and Integrity Applications Incorporated (IAI), my mind went to the Department of Defense and CIA. More on that as we get further into the information presented. Let me just ask the reader to suspend judgment as to whether or not IAI is a "private contractor".
The next tweet in the thread contains this article:
Incredible work by Jeff Carlson, CFA. For whatever reason, I did not know about "The Market Works" until this week. Many thanks to Nick Weil for educating me.
Now, let us go through some of the astounding facts Mr. Carlson presents. Why is it the same names keep popping up? We barely begin this article before we see Mueller, Yates, Lynch (AG), and Clapper (DNI). Enter Admiral Mike Rogers who, as you will see, was brilliant. Readers will recall the report that James Clapper and Ash Carter (SECDEF) demanded Rogers be fired after his visit to Trump Tower on November 17th. As we shall see, Clapper made this demand one month earlier, at the same time Admiral Rogers reported FISA abuses to the FISC. (I am sure this was mere coincidence.)
The next thing we notice is DOJ's and FBI's flagrant disregard of OIG Horowitz' request for oversight of the National Security Division at Justice, spearheaded by Sally Yates. So in April, 2016, Rogers stops "all outside contractor access to raw FISA data". (Sorry, guys. There are no page numbers here. I hope you are following along.) Remember that Peter Strzok was planning a trip to Mission Ridge in September, 2016? As we go through the timeline presented we see that, after the first FISA request was denied, the second was granted on October 21, 2016. Based upon what? The Fusion GPS so-called "dossier", which was commissioned by Perkins Coie between April and October of 2016. Perkins Coie is counsel of record for the DNC:
Unfortunately, Admiral Rogers did not get to the FISA court until October 26th, five days after the FBI had completed its end run around his order. Obviously, he realizes this so, on November 17th he visits President-Elect Trump. THAT SAME DAY, Trump moves his transition team out of Trump Tower.
My impression at this point in the article is, the intelligence community (IC) was in an all-out war with Admiral Rogers, and I believe the data supports my impression. So far we have DOJ, the FBI, and the DNI all doing whatever-in-hell they want, inspectors general and NSA be damned. (Don't worry; CIA shows up shortly.)
As to John Carlin, I have one word: Chickenshit.
DOJ's withholding of the IG's report of January 7, 2016 is nothing short of contempt of court. It is prosecutorial misconduct, worthy of sanctions. As we go on, let us recall the outrage when the American public discovered the NSA was collecting metadata! Citizens wanted the NSA burned to the ground! Yet, here we have umpteen violations of the Fourth Amendment, and we hear nary a whisper.
"The NSA was unable to ascertain all the various avenues by which raw FISA data was accessed." This is where IAI, Fusion GPS and, I submit, CIA enter the picture. Readers will recall the release of Vault 7 by Wikileaks, showing all of the various tools that Julian Assange alleged were being used against American citizens. Unfortunately, someone has decided to shut off his access to the public so we cannot ask him about it.
"FISA abuses were ongoing from at least November 1, 2015 through May 1, 2016. They almost certainly started earlier." Maybe around the time Donald Trump formally announced his candidacy for President of the United States on June 16, 2015? Peter Strzok: "No, no [Trump] won't. We'll stop it." How is he so cock-sure?
I wish I had paper copies (not computer-generated) of the redactions. The blacked-out portions would be quite easy to read. As a matter of fact, I tried several times with the query violation table at the beginning of Mr. Carlson's article and I could just make out the difference between the overlaid black and the print beneath. Maybe if I were younger and my eyes were better I could do it. Regardless, we can make some educated guesses. "Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to raw FISA data." Again, the assumption that [redacted] is a "private contractor". How do we know that? It is common knowledge that CIA, while prohibited from operating against American citizens on U.S. soil, does PRECISELY THAT through front businesses. Maybe, like IAI and Fusion GPS? I have my suspicions.
Let us skip down close to the end. "The [Russia] report was technically created by a joint effort between the CIA...FBI...and the NSA...and assembled by the DNI...."
This report stated, "CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has only moderate confidence." For those who are unfamiliar with the world of the IC, CIA and FBI seem to have a habit of working together, and I for one find CIA's glaring absence from most of this to be highly suspicious. How could John Brennan determine anything if he was just sitting on his hands? BTW, it is also well-known the CIA and the Pentagon work closely together. I wonder what Ash Carter was doing, besides demanding Admiral Rogers be fired? On what did he base that demand? Again, these are my thoughts; I cannot prove it (although I wish I could).
I leave it to far more well-trained and brilliant minds than mine to go into all of the nuances of this outrageous activity. The reason for my article is that EVERYTHING THAT WAS COLLECTED BASED UPON THE FISA WARRANT AND SUBSEQUENT RENEWALS WAS OBTAINED ILLEGALLY, and therefore any and all investigations and subsequent indictments based upon that warrant are "fruit of the poisonous tree" and are NULL AND VOID. First and foremost, General Flynn's "confession" was extracted in violation of Brady:
Not only was the investigation tainted, but prosecutors failed to disclose exculpatory evidence (not the least of which was the FBI's own admission, via James Comey, that he was NOT found to be untruthful).
General Flynn's continued legal trouble is insane. It is a travesty. It is a war against a man who has done NOTHING but serve this country with distinction and honor. A court-of-martial would be appalled, and a first-year JAG would wipe the floor with this "case"! The plea agreement should be thrown out WITH PREJUDICE (meaning the government can never raise the issue again), and Judge Sullivan should send General Flynn home with his deepest apologies.
Let us pray he does.
