Look, I'm sorry for teasing this, but I don't want to write when so much is speculation. To get the gist of it, go to GP: Rumors Swirling that Fired Italian Spies Were Connected in Plot to Eliminate Trump. Here's the summary of how the plot was supposed to work:
Members of Italian intelligence were approached by Hillary Clinton, the Obama Administration, and the Deep State in order to frame Trump by PLANTING EVIDENCE on American servers to force Trump to step down from office.
In other words, members of Italian intelligence found a target in Occhionero, a Republican-sympathizer who had two servers for his company, Westland Securities, located in America. One was in Washington State, and the other in West Virginia.
The plan was for Italian Intelligence to hack into these servers, plant classified emails from Hillary’s servers inside these servers on American soil, and then alert the FBI.
The FBI would then raid these locations, “discover” these e-mails, investigate, link these servers to Trump…
And then force Trump to resign.
This is about Italy and Italians, so it's totally convoluted and speculative, but mixed with teasing factual details. What we do know is this, via CTH:
Apparently, Italian media are reporting that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conté has requested the resignations of several top Italian intelligence officials. The move is being interpreted as the Conte’ government responding to the previous governments’ coordinated activity with U.S. intelligence officials during the 2016 U.S. election surrounding “Spygate”.
The site touting all this is NeonRevolt. One of the things they make a big deal about is Bill Priestap's testimony to the House. Recall, Bill Priestap, married to a Goldman Sachs heiress, was the head of CI for the FBI--Peter Strzok, nominally, worked for Priestap. Priestap was one of those few people who was allowed to gracefully retire, and was long rumored to be a key squealer--disclosing details of the Russia Hoax to investigators to save his skin.
Thinking back to Priestap's testimony, one aspect that stood out and was widely remarked upon was the mysterious nature of his foreign travels. It was clear enough that he had traveled to London at a key time, but he was allowed to decline to reveal all his travels and even whether they related to Trump-Russia--clearly he was being debriefed. NeonRevolt claims that Priestap had traveled to Italy. You can read his testimony regarding his travels here, on pages 77-88.
There's much, much more, so this post is in the nature of a heads up.
Something to keep an eye on, but my suspicion is that this is a false lead.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree.
DeleteYancey, as I said, I tend to agree with your assessment. The one thing that gave me pause was what seemed to be the extreme caginess with regard to Priestap's travel, which the GOP Reps seemed to be prepared for. It was no secret that he had traveled to London but there seemed to be some other trip that was being kept under wraps for some reason. His testimony was less than a year ago, not early on--6/5/18. Of course, that doesn't automatically mean, Italy! Still, it gave me pause. That's all.
DeleteMr. Wauck,
ReplyDeleteSomething has been on my mind that I've wanted to say for a long time but have been reluctant to voice for fear of being thought of as a nutjob. After reading this, I don't want to contain this thought to myself any longer.
If all of the allegations are proven in a court of law, would the death penalty be warranted? I want to stress that even though I think it might be warranted, I am not necessarily in favor of applying the penalty. The reason I might not be in favor is because this is such a polarized time in our society.
But I think that what has been allegedly done is, in a perfect world, punishable by the ultimate means at our disposal to send the message: never again.
The simple answer is that I don't believe there's any available charge that entails the possibility of the death penalty.
DeleteEven though this is not treason by the definition of the Constitution, these are very serious crimes.
ReplyDeleteYou get no argument from me on that score.
DeleteI would not object to pardons being given to coup plotters IF we get a complete airing of their dirty laundry and an expression of regret. The pardon power is designed to correct injustice but also to heal divisions in the country, e.g. after rebellions, wars, etc. I'm afraid this is one of those times. No evidence will ever convince deep-staters of Trump's innocence short of confessions from those involved.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think there will definitely be some plotters who will be getting plea deals--but, as you say, only in return for "a complete airing of their dirty laundry and an expression of regret." That's a given.
DeleteI had understood from several weeks ago when the Italian PM requested/called for the resignations of heads of the Italian intelligence services (don't laugh!) that it was connected to aiding the then/now-missing Joseph Mifsud. He was apparently staying in an apartment owned by the putative Link University in Rome, yet the Italians said he was nowhere to be found. Apparently, he was hiding in plain sight.
ReplyDeleteLink University appears to be a forum for Western intelligence assets, i.e. holding meetings, symposia, etc.
I don't have any citations for the above as I'm relying on my memory--I don't recall precisely as I read it in the initial news reports about the firings. It could've been supposition at the time. FWIW.
Right. That's how I recall the initial reports, too. Papadopoulos tweeted about it.
DeleteI found the Neon Revolt article to be quite compelling. It includes a Malta angle.
ReplyDelete[quote, emphasis added]
The Italian Postal Police obtained assistance from the FBI in seizing and monitoring the U.S. portion of the server infrastructure. Giulio Occhionero has a master’s degree in nuclear engineering, is a founder of the MALTA-BASED quantitative financial analysis firm Westlands Securities ...
[end quote]
So, both Giulio Occhionero and Joseph Mifsud are based on Malta.
The Neon Revolt article indicates some super-secret organization that is called "The Silent Ones" -- an organization mentioned by QAnon (Eric Trump) on November 5, 2017.
That QAnon post suggests that "The Silent Ones" were others monitoring (friends and enemies) and also were part of the reason why Michael Flynn was taken down.
The QAnon mention of "The Silent Ones" occurs in a post that begins with, it seems, references to the mass shooting from the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017. The shooting was done by Stephen Paddock, whose motives and associations are mysterious.
ReplyDeleteLater in that post, QAnon (Eric Trump) mentions Flynn (no first name) and then asks a series of questions:
[quote]
What is Flynn's background?
What was his rank?
Was he involved in intel ops?
What access or special priv?
[end quote]
Are those questions about Michael Flynn? Why ask whether he was involved in intel ops and what Intelligence access or special privileges he had?
Or are those QAnon questions about Stephen Paddock?
The parts of this narrative--which for now is all I'm willing to call it--that I find of most interest are:
ReplyDelete1. The house-cleaning of the Italian Intel services--and their obvious collusion in concealing Mifsud, a key figure in the Russia Hoax.
2. The Mifsud/Link/USIC connection.
3. The mystery surrounding Priestap's travels.