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Friday, December 20, 2019

Bad News For The Deep State

We've all heard of Adm. Mike Rogers, former head of the NSA, who played a key role in alerting the FISC of FBI abuses of the 702 databases. Rogers' action possibly forced the FBI to seek out a FISA based on fraudulent sourcing as an alternative to mining NSA databases for political purposes. In news that is surely an indication of the depth of the Barr/Durham investigation, The Intercept is reporting that Rogers is voluntarily cooperating with USA John Durham. That has to be very bad news for the Deep State generally. Rogers would be far and away the highest placed Deep State cooperator. He also would have information that could lead back into Obama administration weaponizing of the Intel Community as far back as 2012.

Notably, Rogers is one of two IC officials who have contradicted John Brennan's denial that the Clinton/Steele "dossier" factored into the ICA that established the narrative of "Russian meddling". As reported by Paul Sperry:

Recently retired National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers stated in a classified letter to Congress that the Clinton campaign-funded memos did factor into the ICA. And James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, conceded in a recent CNN interview that the assessment was based on “some of the substantive content of the dossier.” Without elaborating, he maintained that “we were able to corroborate” certain allegations.
These accounts are at odds with Brennan’s May 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee that the Steele dossier  was "not in any way used as the basis for the intelligence community's assessment" that Russia interfered in the election to help elect Donald Trump. Brennan has repeated this claim numerous times, including in February on “Meet the Press.”

I offer hear the portions of the article that pertain to Rogers--note that he's not a reflexive Trump supporter. The rest can be found here--FORMER NSA DIRECTOR IS COOPERATING WITH PROBE OF TRUMP-RUSSIA INVESTIGATION:



RETIRED ADM. MICHAEL ROGERS, former director of the National Security Agency, has been cooperating with the Justice Department’s probe into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump presidential campaign’s alleged ties to Russia, according to four people familiar with Rogers’s participation. 
Rogers has met the prosecutor leading the probe, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, on multiple occasions, according to two people familiar with Rogers’s cooperation. While the substance of those meetings is not clear, Rogers has cooperated voluntarily, several people with knowledge of the matter said.
... 
“He’s been very cooperative,” one former intelligence officer who has knowledge of Rogers’s meetings with the Justice Department said. 
... 
Rogers is no stranger to the controversy surrounding the 2016 election. Shortly after Trump won the presidency, Rogers traveled to Trump Tower in New York, where he provided an unsolicited briefing to the then president-elect. Rogers informed Trump that the NSA knew that the Russians interfered in the election, according to three people familiar with the briefing. Despite delivering what Rogers told a confidant was “bad news,” Trump would keep Rogers on as NSA director while dismissing Brennan and Clapper. 

Many also believe that Rogers informed Trump of Obama administration spying into Trump's campaign and transition, leading Trump to abruptly move his HQ from Trump Tower the day after the briefing.

In January 2017 just before Trump took office, the intelligence community released an unclassified assessment concluding that Russia interfered in the election. The assessment was based on a combination of intelligence collected and reviewed by the NSA, CIA, and FBI. 
Russia’s initial purpose, the assessment found, was to undermine confidence in American democracy, but the effort ultimately focused on damaging Hillary Clinton’s campaign in an effort to help elect Trump. While all three intelligence agencies agreed on that aspect of the assessment, the CIA and FBI expressed “high confidence” that the Russian government sought to help Trump win “by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him,” while Rogers’s NSA had only “moderate confidence” in that finding. 
... 
A year into the Trump administration, in February 2018, Rogers testified at a Senate hearing that the White House had given the NSA no orders or instructions for countering further Russian election meddling. 
“President Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that there’s little price to pay and that therefore ‘I can continue this activity,’” Rogers said. “Clearly, what we have done is not enough.” 
Four months later in Helsinki, Trump said that he confronted the Russian president about meddling in the election. But Vladimir Putin denied that his government was involved, and Trump said he believed him, directly contradicting Rogers and the other U.S. intelligence directors. 
Rogers was concerned that his testimony before Congress drew the president’s ire, according to a former Trump White House official who spoke with Rogers earlier this year. 
“He asked if the president was mad at him,” the former official said. “I told him, ‘No way, the president has always liked you.’”

19 comments:

  1. I would like to hear from Rogers what proof he has that the russians meddled ? I think there's a lot more evidence Seth Rich stole the emails and was murdered for it.

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    1. I agree. I included that to show where he's coming from. He's an establishment guy, but has a conscience. I guess nobody spotted that before they put him in charge of NSA.

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    2. There is a reason why he gave tepid "confidence".

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    3. If there were proof the Russians "meddled" or that they stole the DNC emails, the NSA would have the internet traffic metadata they capture at all US gateways.

      There wouldn't be any disclosure of sources and methods as anyone paying attention knows the NSA captures this metadata.

      At a minimum, the NSA Director would've testified at a closed door session of the Intel Committee, with a summary of the substance of the testimony leaked. As that hasn't happened, it's a safe bet that the evidence points to what the VIPS group has concluded--the emails were downloaded on a flash drive, i.e. an inside job.

      The only evidence (apparently) of "meddling" is $150,000 in Google & FB issue ads purchased by some front orgs. that both companies testified to Congress.

      But it's much more sinister-sounding to keep the story alive by repeating the Big Lie of "meddling."

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    4. The real story is that the media has knowingly participated in perpetuating the Big Lie.

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    5. I'm not the first one to say this, but, I am way more concerned about US meddling in the election than any other country.

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    6. And I was going to say the same thing about VIPS but Forbes beat me to it.

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  2. My simple-minded reaction is: I'd be shocked if ADM Rogers wasn't cooperating and cooperative.

    In fact, anyone not cooperating is merely telegraphing they weren't scrupulous in obeying the authorities and responsibilities of their position, including the governing laws, rules and regulations.

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  3. Rodgers voluntarily cooperated with Durham; apparently several interviews. He's telling them what he knows or suspects.

    Now we see Durham wants to talk to Brennan and Clapper, and is seeking Brennan's communication records while he was at CIA.

    Brennan and Clapper don't know what Rodgers has told Durham, and they don't know what he has from other sources, such as foreign Intel agencies, or insiders who are "spilling the beans." This leak about Rodger's cooperation puts Brennan and Clapper in bind, because they don't know what Durham knows, but the fear of what Rodgers may have told him will make them think twice about lying to Durham.

    I'll make a prediction: Brennan and Clapper, who up to now have been pretending they were willing to speak with Durham, are suddenly going to get "cold-feet," and refuse to cooperate, in light of this revelation about Rodgers' cooperation with Durham. They have to fear committing perjury if they answer Durham's questions while they do not know what they can safely lie about, and what they can't. Hence, they can't risk talking to Durham.

    Watch for attacks on Durham (and Barr) as "partisan, out-of-control investigators pursuing GOP conspiracy-theory nonsense" to ramp up very, very soon, to give Brennan and Clapper cover to back out of giving testimony to Durham.

    Last thought: targets are usually the last ones interviewed, and if Rodgers has been helping Durham, then Durham is ready to give Brennan and Clapper an anal probing the likes of which they are not likely to enjoy, and will avoid like the plague if they have any brains.

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    1. Here's another thing about Rogers. He may have information about DoJ National Security lawyers, too--like John Carlin. He would have dealt with an awful lot of DS people.

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    2. Prisoners' Dilemma...

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    3. Re the cold feet you think might develop, this Brennan quote fron yesterday's NYT article seems germaine:

      begin/

      “I feel good about what it is we did as an intelligence community, and I feel very confident and comfortable with what I did, so I have no qualms whatsoever about talking with investigators who are going to be looking at this in a fair and appropriate manner,” Mr. Brennan said.

      /end

      "...in a fair and appropriate manner."

      That's a hole big enough to throw a thousand 5th Amendment claims through, maybe more.

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  4. "Many also believe that Rogers informed Trump of Obama administration spying into Trump's campaign and transition, leading Trump to abruptly move his HQ from Trump Tower the day after the briefing."

    I was surprised on Wednesday while watching the Senate HS session with Horowitz. A senator asked him whether Trump Tower was bugged and Horowitz said no.

    I had thought that was common knowledge. Does he not know, in which case he should have said "I don't know, or there was no evidence for that".

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    1. Depends on what you mean by "bugged," same as "wiretapped."

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    2. If I had been in Trump's campaign and heard FBI had gleefully identified an IP address in Trump Tower "communicating with a Russian server" I would assume that was a pretext for FBI to capture all IP traffic in/out of Trump Tower. And I would immediately move my computers out of Trump Tower.

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  5. While words do mean thing, most people will say things like, "My house was robbed," when in reality the house was burglarized.

    When Trump stated he was wiretapped, it appears to be in the general vernacular even though Adm Rogers may have stated something to that effect.

    What we know now is that the NSA was being illegally used by contractors to gain political information for advantage. Matter of fact, that was his job to ferret out and he did it too well.

    I assert he is a national hero just for his apparent warning of Trump in which Brennan, Clapper, et al demanded Obama to fire him afterwards.

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  6. President Trump is old enough to know that wiretapping involved telephones, but is using it still as a general term to denote interception of communication by any means. Same thing with “bugging” - that is what the PRC did to the Brit consulate officer’s apartment in Beijing so they could overhear or record what went on there. Which is why the music was also playing the night in 1986 while we listened to a bootleg BBC broadcast that Reagan was bombing Libya.

    Bugging and wiretapping may not necessarily be precise in today’s world, but good enough for understanding, which is what language is all about. We know what they mean.

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  7. https://twitter.com/JarradKushner/status/1208235891564507136

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