Connect with us

Politics

Sperry: Secret Meeting Opens Document Floodgates on Trump-Russia Hoax

Published

on

By Paul Sperry RealClearInvestigations:

The floodgates holding back long-buried classified documents exposing government efforts to claim Donald Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to manipulate the 2016 U.S. presidential election might finally be opening.

Trump administration officials held an urgent meeting Sunday to discuss “new information on Russiagate,” which they might use to build a criminal conspiracy case against Obama and Biden administration political appointees who allegedly weaponized the government against Trump, two Trump administration officials told RealClearInvestigations.

The documents are said to contain long-classified information, including a secret 200-page congressional audit that reveals details about how an intelligence community assessment on Russia ordered by President Obama after the 2016 election was framed in a way that portrayed Trump as being beholden to the Kremlin.

Sources told RCI that emails and other records tying the CIA’s controversial drafting of the Intelligence Community Assessment [ICA] to the FBI’s discredited “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation targeting Trump could be released as part of an Office of the Director of National Intelligence report as early as Thursday. The White House was briefed on the development Tuesday, the sources said.

Participants in the Sunday meeting involving intelligence officials and their Department of Justice counterparts also discussed declassifying investigative notes and depositions taken by Special Counsel John Durham during his probe of the CIA’s and FBI’s handling of the ICA, which relied in part on an anti-Trump dossier financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Strengthening Case for Conspiracy

The information could strengthen a criminal case against Obama’s top intelligence officers, including former CIA Director John Brennan, who allegedly gave false testimony to Congress about their role in using the dossier in the ICA, according to the officials who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information. Although the five-year statute of limitations on perjury means much of the testimony given about the ICA cannot be prosecuted, officials could still be charged with a conspiracy to commit perjury.

Sources said the meeting, which was arranged by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was held in a secure room known as a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility). The meeting also focused on the release of a highly restricted appendix to Durham’s final report that details intelligence Brennan intercepted exposing a plan by the Clinton campaign in July 2016 to stir up an election scandal involving Trump and Russia to distract from her email investigation. Instead of investigating the Clinton plot, the FBI opened an investigation into Trump and his campaign advisers for allegedly colluding with Russia.

Officials attending the meeting also discussed the need to declassify another classified annex, which was attached to an inspector general’s review of the FBI’s probe of Clinton’s unsecured email server. Sources say it details how then-Secretary of State Clinton’s improper email activity gave “foreign actors” access to classified material. Yet the FBI neglected to investigate the security breach, fitting a pattern of then-FBI Director James Comey letting Clinton off the hook while gunning for Trump.

Sources say the meeting was attended by senior staff of both ODNI and DOJ and also involved the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, but did not include Trump’s intelligence czar, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, or Attorney General Pam Bondi.

ODNI, which declined comment, has the authority to declassify documents across the intelligence community. Gabbard has tasked a group of analysts to comb through the explosive House Intelligence Committee’s 2019 review of the ICA and other still-secret documents to identify sensitive “sources and methods” and make redactions where necessary before declassifying them for possible use in court.

“They have a team working on that,” said an administration official familiar with the operation.

Weaponizing Russian Intelligence

A U.S. intelligence official alleged the outgoing administration weaponized the Russian intelligence to sabotage President-elect Trump in the weeks before he took office in January 2017.

“Obama ordered the ICA to set Trump up and knock him off balance before he could even get started,” said the senior official, who asked to remain anonymous. “This was an influence operation far more consequential than anything [Russian President Vladimir] Putin cooked up. Obama and Hillary [Clinton] schemed the op, and the CIA and FBI ran it.”

At the time they drafted the ICA in December 2016, this official noted, the CIA and FBI knew that Clinton had approved a plan by her then-foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan – who would later become President Biden’s National Security Advisor – to “stir up” a scandal on Trump about Russia. They also knew then that the dossier they referenced in the intelligence assessment was opposition research underwritten by the Clinton campaign.

Several months earlier, Brennan made a referral to the FBI to open a counterespionage case to find out how Russian intelligence intercepted information about Clinton’s plan to tie up Trump in a fake Kremlin scandal.

Brennan appears to have been less concerned about the Clinton campaign’s disinformation campaign than the fact that Moscow knew about it. This so alarmed Brennan that he briefed Obama about it, according to a summary of his handwritten notes, declassified in 2020.

The referral, known as a counterintelligence operational lead (CIOL), was sent to Comey, who in turn forwarded it to then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok to investigate.

Strzok – who was fired by the FBI after his anti-Trump views became public – opened an investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, not of Clinton but the Trump campaign. Brian Greer, a former Brennan aide, confirmed that the purpose of the counterintelligence operation was not to investigate the Clinton campaign’s dirty tricks, but to determine if the Russians had learned of the deceit by penetrating the Clinton camp. The concern, he said, was that Clinton “may have been spied on by a hostile intelligence service.”

Investigating Trump, Protecting Clinton

So instead of investigating the Clinton campaign for providing knowingly false and/or misleading information to the FBI in the form of the transparently spurious Steele dossier, the bureau used the Clinton-funded dossier as evidence to obtain a wiretap to spy on the Trump campaign as part of a year-long counterintelligence investigation. The disparate treatment by investigators is something Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are focusing on in their conspiracy probe, sources say.

To that end, they are also seeking the declassification of all investigative records generated from the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe as well as its investigation of Clinton’s emails, codenamed “Midyear Exam.”

A Feb. 24, 2016, email between Strzok and then-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s special assistant Lisa Page suggests the FBI investigators planned to treat Clinton with kid gloves during her interview.

Page: “One more thing: [Clinton] may be our next president. The last thing you need [is] going in there loaded for bear.”

Strzok: “Agreed.”

Durham noted that the still-classified appendix to his final report contains “specific indications and additional facts that heightened the potential relevance of this [Clinton Plan] intelligence” to further investigations.

Some former FBI officials say federal prosecutors have sufficient grounds to charge Obama’s FBI and CIA officials with criminal conspiracy.

“You look back at what was going on in the FBI starting in 2016 [with] these cases [and] the way they approached Gen. [Michael] Flynn; Crossfire Hurricane; the Russian ‘collusion’ case [prosecuted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller]; then moving to the raid on Mar-a-Lago [and] the [DOJ] lawfare that came after President Trump, this is outrageous. And then you had the arrogance of these two individuals – Comey and Brennan – it was unbelievable,” former FBI special-agent-in-charge Jody P. Weis, a 22-year veteran of the bureau, said in a recent interview. “So I’m extremely happy that someone is looking into this.”

This RealClearInvestigations article was republished by The Gateway Pundit with permission.

Paul Sperry is the former D.C. bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily, Hoover Institution media fellow, author of several books, including bestseller INFILTRATION

The post Sperry: Secret Meeting Opens Document Floodgates on Trump-Russia Hoax appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Politics

President Trump Taps Dr. Ben Carson for New Role — A HUGE Win for America First Agenda

Published

on

By

Dr. Ben Carson is the newest member of the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, was sworn in as the national adviser for nutrition, health, and housing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shared that Carson’s role will be to oversee Trump’s new Big Beautiful Bill law, which aims to ensure Americans’ quality of life, from nutrition to stable housing.

After being sworn in, Carson shared, “Today, too many Americans are suffering from the effects of poor nutrition. Through common-sense policymaking, we have an opportunity to give our most vulnerable families the tools they need to flourish.”

Table of Contents

WATCH:

Per USDA:

Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced that Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., was sworn in as the National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“There is no one more qualified than Dr. Carson to advise on policies that improve Americans’ everyday quality of life, from nutrition to healthcare quality to ensuring families have access to safe and stable housing,” said Secretary Rollins.

“With six in ten Americans living with at least one chronic disease, and rural communities facing unique challenges with respect to adequate housing, Dr. Carson’s insight and experience is critical. Dr. Carson will be crucial to implementing the rural health investment provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill and advise on America First polices related to nutrition, health, and housing.

“As the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump Administration, Dr. Carson worked to expand opportunity and strengthen communities, and we are honored to welcome him to the second Trump Administration to help lead our efforts here at USDA to Make America Healthy Again and ensure rural America continues to prosper.”

“Today, too many Americans are suffering from the effects of poor nutrition. Through common-sense policymaking, we have an opportunity to give our most vulnerable families the tools they need to flourish,” said Dr. Ben Carson. “I am honored to work with Secretary Rollins on these important initiatives to help fulfill President Trump’s vision for a healthier, stronger America.”

On Sunday, Dr. Carson was one of the many speakers at the memorial service of the late TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk.

During the memorial service, Carson highlighted that Kirk was shot at 12:24 p.m. and then continued to share the Bible verse John 12:24, which reads, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

WATCH:

The post President Trump Taps Dr. Ben Carson for New Role — A HUGE Win for America First Agenda appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Politics

LEAKED MEMO: Deep State Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia Claim There Isn’t Enough Evidence to Convict Comey Amid Reports of Imminent Indictment

Published

on

By

On Wednesday evening, disgruntled officials in the Eastern District of Virginia leaked contents of a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey.

As reported earlier, former FBI Director James Comey is expected to be indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in the next few days.

Comey will reportedly be charged for lying to Congress in a 2020 testimony about whether he authorized leaks to the media.

Officials in the Eastern District of Virginia are still fighting to stop Comey from being charged after Trump fired US Attorney Erik Siebert.

President Trump last week fired Erik Siebert as the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia because he refused to bring charges against Letitia James, Comey, Schiff and others.

On Saturday evening, President Trump announced that he had appointed Lindsey Halligan – his personal attorney who defended him against the Mar-a-Lago raid – as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Now, with just days to go before the statute of limitations runs out to charge Comey for lying during a September 30, 2020 testimony, Lindsey Halligan is reportedly gearing up to indict Comey.

Prosecutors reportedly gave newly sworn-in Halligan a memo defending James Comey and explaining why charges should not brought against the fired FBI Director.

Per MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian:

Two sources familiar with the matter tell me prosecutors in the EDVA US attorney‘s office presented newly sworn US attorney Lindsey Halligan with a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey, because there isn’t enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him.

Justice Department guidelines say a case should not be brought unless prosecutors believe it’s more likely than not that they can win a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

The post LEAKED MEMO: Deep State Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia Claim There Isn’t Enough Evidence to Convict Comey Amid Reports of Imminent Indictment appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Politics

Nearly 8 in 10 Voters Say the United States is in Political Crisis After the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

Published

on

By

Nearly eight in ten voters believe that the United States is in a political crisis in the wake of the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk.

According to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released on Wednesday, a massive 93 percent of Democrats, 84 percent of independents, and 60 percent of Republicans said the nation is in a political crisis.

“The Kirk assassination lays bare raw, bipartisan concerns about where the country is headed,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said of the poll results.

Quinnipiac reports:

Seventy-one percent of voters think politically motivated violence in the United States today is a very serious problem, 22 percent think it is a somewhat serious problem, 3 percent think it is a not so serious problem, and 1 percent think it is not a problem at all.

This is a jump from Quinnipiac University’s June 26 poll when 54 percent thought politically motivated violence in the United States today was a very serious problem, 37 percent thought it was a somewhat serious problem, 6 percent thought it was a not so serious problem, and 2 percent thought it was not a problem at all.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters (58 percent) think it will not be possible to lower the temperature on political rhetoric and speech in the United States, while 34 percent think it will be possible.

Over half, 54 percent, of voters believe the US will see increased political violence over the next few years. Another 27 percent said they think it will stay “about the same,” while just 14 percent believe it will ease.

A 53 percent majority also said they are “pessimistic about freedom of speech being protected in the United States.”

Surprisingly, a 53 percent majority also believes the current system of democracy is not working.

“From a perceived assault on freedom of speech to the fragility of the democracy, a shudder of concern and pessimism rattles a broad swath of the electorate. Nearly 80 percent of registered voters feel they are witnessing a political crisis, seven in ten say political violence is a very serious problem, and a majority say this discord won’t go away anytime soon,” Malloy added.

The vast majority, 82 percent, said the way that people discuss politics is contributing to the violence.

“When asked if political discourse is contributing to violence, a rare meeting of the minds…Republicans, Democrats, and independents in equal numbers say yes, it is,” Malloy said.

The survey was conducted from September 18 to 21 among 1,276 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.

The post Nearly 8 in 10 Voters Say the United States is in Political Crisis After the Assassination of Charlie Kirk appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Continue Reading

Trending