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Sunday, June 21, 2020

Barr To Bartiromo: Durham Slowed By Covid Pandemic

AG Barr provided a bit of an update on the Durham investigation in an interview this morning with Maria Bartiromo. Highlights:

"There has been delay because of the pandemic." Barr cites problems caused by a reluctance to travel as well as physical difficulties in setting up interviews.

There has not been "an inability [to interview people], but a distinct slowing down in that process."

When Maria asks whether the pandemic has made it impossible to assemble grand juries, because of the necessary physical proximity, Barr hedges:

"I don't wanna suggest there has been or is a Grand Jury but it is a fact that there have not been grand juries in virtually all districts."

I take that to mean that there had been grand juries, but that their work has been curtailed or at a minimum slowed down because of the pandemic. Barr phrases it awkwardly, but it's clear that grand jury investigations in general have been curtailed, so we are to suppose that at best the process has been slowed down for Durham.

Barr hopes to see "developments"--indictments?--"before the end of the summer," but appears to envision at least some aspects of the investigation continuing past the election.

Maria was finally able to raise a smile from Barr when she asked whether Comey and McCabe knew by January, 2017, that the "dossier". Barr grinned and replied, "I don't wanna discuss that aspect." That followed Barr stating that the attempts by "four FBI case agents" to verify the "dossier" had "pretty much collapsed" by January and March of 2017 but "[the FBI] continued to use it as a basis for pursuing this counterintelligence investigation."

33 comments:

  1. here's the intriguing quote:

    >> Bartiromo: "Has Joseph Mifsud worked with western intelligence before?"

    Barr: "I can't get into that." <<

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    1. Not really--it's been known for a long time that that's been basically his entire career.

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    2. And Durham's multiple trips to Italy show that he's on to that.

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    3. Don't forget the TWO Blackberries that Mifsud's lawyer turned over to Barr/Durham when they first started their series of overseas trips. If those devices belonged to a non-US intel agency, I doubt they would have been shared with US AG and his designated prosecutor.

      The fact that there were TWO is what most intrigues me -- it suggests multiple handlers, which in turn suggests two seemingly independent operations, or at least one that was not aware of the other.

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    4. There are other explanations.

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    5. Sounds legit. And they use Gmail. LOL.

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  2. I'd hardly be surprised, if the DS put Fauci etc. up for this hysteria, hoping for it to have this impact on Durham.
    "before the end of the summer... continuing past the election."
    Dream-come-true for the Dems/ DS?

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  3. Understanding on the delay, but frustrating.

    We will see if Nadler impeaches Barr.

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    1. Quite frustrating, esp. since it's hard to believe that social distancing would make such a big diff.
      As if a GJ room can't be (found or made) big enough.
      It's not as if an army of reporters are allowed, as per a famous trial.

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  4. Off subject, but this helps explain what is happening in the deep background. https://youtu.be/yuQNoiCxVDQ

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    1. Looks interesting. I'll have to try to find time.

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    2. Saul is interviewing the whistle blower from Net Assessment... the entity that hired Halper.

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    3. GO to 49:00 and start listening .... he talks about the leak they tried to falsely pin on him. Says the significance of that leak, and the deception, will be "front page news."

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    4. Now got to 1:31.00 and start listening as he describes what's coming ... he describes a "rolling" strategy of exposing the wrong-doing, then watching to see who the supporters are who suddenly appear to defend the wrongdoers... says they will eventually impale themselves on their own horns.

      Hope this is for real and not bluster.

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    5. I'm only skimming, and thus I'm sure I'm missing much more than I'm getting from the interview.

      It is probably worth the nearly 2 hour deep dive to listen to the whole thing.

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  5. "Maria was finally able to raise a smile from Barr when she asked whether Comey and McCabe knew by January, 2017, that the 'dossier'." ... ?

    That the "dossier" ... what? Of course we know that the only thing confirmed in that raft of trash is that Moscow is in Russia — and frankly I'm almost surprised the FBI was able to verify that. But if I ask "expert" Asha Rangappa, who spent a whopping two whole years at FBI, she'll tell me the entire load of crap was verified beyond question and none of it has been debunked. Same with Fusion Natasha Bertand.

    If we had a legitimate press, those two and the rest of the grifters would never be heard from again, relegated to vicariously embarrassing footnotes in history. But instead, maybe they'll get statues where until recently Washington and Jefferson stood.

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    1. But that's kinda the point of the whole thing.

      Trump doesn't run for president if the country is healthy.

      The press doesn't run interference for democrats if the country is healthy.

      And Comey and McCabe don't attempt a coup, expecting to either get away with it or be celebrated for it, if the country is healthy.

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    2. Exactly. The fact that virtually anybody on the face of the earth is not fully aware that the Steele dossier was a total fabrication funded by the opposition candidate's campaign and political party is a symptom of a very unhealthy media full of very unhealthy people. We're witnessing the consequences of that.

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    3. I don't want to pick nits here, but the media is as much symptom as it is the disease.

      We have to look farther and deeper, and at the end of it all were left with John Adams' indictment:

      Our constitution is fit for a religious people, and no other.

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    4. "Our constitution is fit for a religious people, and no other."

      I was tempted to make a joke about freedom *from* religion, but then we'd end up talking about the education system.

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    5. That's very true, and that's a major part of what Americans are revolting against in our constitutional order. Americans by and large are comfortable with the idea of a man made order that imposes few if any constraints.

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  6. "very unhealthy media full of very unhealthy people".
    This should've been utterly expected, once Bezos was allowed to buy WaPo.

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  7. O/T, but likely of interest to many here, from
    https://www.RealClearInvestigations.com/articles/2020/06/23/no_evidence_needed_for_collusion_probe_just_an_obscure_pretext_spearheaded_by_this_man_124020.html :

    "Mark Wauck, a former FBI attorney who worked counterintelligence cases for the bureau, told RealClearInvestigations that FARA served as a "smokescreen” to justify spying on the Trump campaign and its aides, under the “baseless theory" that they might be clandestine agents of Russia."

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    1. The “man” referred to in the RCI headline is David Laufman. We saw him representing Christine Blasey-Ford’s “beach friend” McLean at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing. Here is a sample of Laufman’s “work”. Dirty doesn’t begin to describe him, IMO:

      https://www.mediaite.com/tv/former-doj-counterintel-chief-trump-is-a-clear-and-present-danger-to-the-national-security-of-the-united-states/

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    2. "Dirty doesn’t begin to describe him, IMO"

      Still, ya gotta start somewhere, right?

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    3. "FARA served as a 'smokescreen' to justify spying on the Trump campaign and its aides, under the 'baseless theory' that they might be clandestine agents of Russia."

      "There was no attempt by Strzok to articulate any factors that address the elements of FARA. He couldn’t, because there are none."

      "The true mission was not to expose Russian interference, but to disrupt the Trump campaign and ensure the election of Hillary Clinton."

      That's it. All of it. Right there.

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  8. Having said "I don't wanna suggest there has been or is a Grand Jury but it is a fact that there have not been grand juries in virtually all districts," AG Barr might know a quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Before a news conference that was sure to have questions he didn't want to answer, Eisenhower told one of his aides:

    "If I can't dazzle them with brilliance, I'll baffle them with bullfeathers."

    "Bullfeathers" of course means something else, but back then it was a more innocent time.

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  9. Seen this?

    >> https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1275148661870206978 <<

    The line of questioning about ONA's James Baker --suspected leaker of the Fnynn/Kislyak call transcript seems to hit a nerve with some people in DoD.

    They even to manage the cute deception of claiming Baker did not have access to the NSA product or transcript of that call, when, as we now know, it was NOT NSA that did the intercept; it was FBI all along.


    Someone is going to a lot of trouble to deflect this line of inquiry; that suggests someone is more nervous that a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

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    1. I can't speak from knowledge on this. My suspicion or belief is that Baker at ONA would have had access to this information. From my standpoint I would expect FBI to be very pleased to have some other org do the leaking, rather than the FBI which was the originating agency. That would give them plausible deniability.

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    2. That's what I was thinking... which is why they used the deflection of saying he DID NOT have access to NSA intercepts of the call, a literal "straw man" argument. It's like the child who declares "I'm not tall enough to reach the cookie jar" when he knows full well the question is who stole the candy.

      Whether ONA Baker had direct access, or it was leaked to him from someone at FBI (or someone the FBI gave the transcript to,) there are multiple ways he could be the leaker.

      I should add, he was also intimately involved in the take-down of Lovinger, after Lovinger exposed the dubious Halper contracts with ONA, which I suspect are cover for CIA to pay him to do part time nefarious stuff.

      I have a feeling we are going to learn, as the Russia Collusion Hoax unravels, that ONA had a much larger role in it's orchestration, and perhaps many other nefarious activities we do not yet know about.

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