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Friday, August 7, 2020

What's A Bombshell?

Paul Sperry has an article up at Real Clear Investigations in which he claims that John Durham is ready to roll with "bombshell" indictments before Labor Day:

Ex-Colleagues See Durham Dropping Bombshells Before Labor Day

I'm on board with the concept of major developments before Labor Day, based on statements by Bill Barr and reiterated by DoJ spokeswoman Kerry Kupec. And I'm very ready for some bombshell's in the Russia Hoax. But 'bombshell' is a bit of a relative term.

In Sperry's article the only ex-colleague of Durham who is actually cited is Chris Swecker, a former FBI Assistant Director who was also a prosecutor and who knows and has worked with Durham. And, read closely, Swecker has absolutely nothing to tell us beyond personal speculation. He may be right. He may be wrong. But he's really only offering generalities:

Swecker says he’s confident Durham has uncovered crimes. “He's onto something, I’m convinced of it, otherwise he would have folded up his tent by now,” he asserted in a RealClearInvestigations interview.

“I’m impressed with the discipline his team has shown,” Swecker said. "There’s been no leaks. The investigation has been very close-hold.”
This is a huge, huge intelligence scandal."

Yeah, thanks, Chris. Do you have anything more specific?

Swecker named former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith among officials most vulnerable to possible criminal charges in Durham’s investigation of the investigators. ...” 
On the other hand, Swecker does not expect Durham to indict former FBI Director James Comey, nor former CIA Director John Brennan or Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. None of these central figures in the scandal has been interviewed by Durham’s office, according to recent published reports, though Durham reportedly is working out details with Brennan’s lawyer for a pending interview. Durham’s investigators have already reviewed Brennan's emails, call logs and other records. 
“It’s hard to prove criminal intent at their level, and unless there’s a smoking gun, like an email or text, they’ll probably get off with a damning report about their activities,” Swecker said.

For my part I don't call that a bombshell. I call it anti-climactic. I'm open to persuasion that something less than indictments of Comey-level figures is still a bombshell but it'll be a tough sell as far as I'm concerned. A failure to extract accountability for the major coup plotters, representatives of the Washington Establishment and Deep State, will represent difficult to refute evidence that government of the people, by the people, for the people, is about to perish from America--if it hasn't already.

Andrea Widburg has heard the naysayers, among them the highly respected Don Surber, who has not hesitated to sneer at Durham for running a hoax "theater" investigation. However, in It looks as if this Fall's hit show will be called ‘Obamagate’ Widburg expresses optimism that real accountability lies ahead.

Widburg doesn't waste time parsing anything Barr has said. She goes straight to Trump, reminding us that

Donald Trump ran a hugely successful reality show. He understands the importance of a narrative arc for any successful broadcast.

Widburg's point is that in recent days Trump has been "telegraphing something big for this Fall." And I doubt that Widburg is different than I am in that regard: Trump telegraphing a Clinesmith indictment just doesn't qualify as "big". Not in my book.

Widburg cites two examples of this telegraphing. The first is Trump's interview with Lou Dobbs, which I transcribed the other day:

“We caught them spying, now it’s up to our Attorney General. As you know I've wanted them [Barr’s DOJ] to do it. I didn’t want to get overly involved. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t but I do hear it’s breathtaking what they found. That’s all I can say – breathtaking, and hopefully it'll come out soon. But it's beyond what anyone could have thought even possible, how bad it is. How bad it is and how corrupt it is. But, I'm gonna let them [Barr’s DOJ] do that. It's a horrible thing that took place, and it should never be allowed to happen to another president."

Like me, Widburg was struck by the strength of the words Trump used, but she also identified Trump's language as employing "advertising words," words designed to sell a soon to be released new package:

Trump used advertising words and phrases that have strong emotional impact, such as “breathtaking,” “horrible,” “beyond what anybody thought even possible,” and “corrupt”:

As Widburg observes: "I’d watch that television show. Wouldn’t you?"

Then, just days after that "first promo", Trump doubled down with a second "promo":

Then, on Wednesday, Trump himself released the second “promo” for a new reality show. We could call it William Barr and John Durham star in “Obamagate – the Indictments.” 
The campaign video, in simple terms, tells the American television audience the broad outlines of a corrupt scheme to overthrow a presidency. Put it together with President Trump’s “DRAIN THE SWAMP!” statement, and you’re looking at the hit show of September, the one that everyone’s been waiting for:




Again, that's one helluva "promo" for a John Durham indicts Kevin Clinesmith production.

I continue to believe that Bill Barr is a serious man on the most serious mission of his life. I can't believe he'll be satisfied with anything less than serious results. I get it that you have to work with what you've got. As Swecker said: “It’s hard to prove criminal intent at their level," i.e., the level of a Comey.

My response is not that proving intent is easy, but that it does depend on the underlying crime you're trying to prove. I can agree that proving intent to defraud the FISC and pinning that on Comey could prove difficult. But I believe that Barr and Durham are more serious than simply making a few nickle dime false statement cases--even against major figures like Comey. I doubt very much that Barr will be satisfied without demonstrating in a convincing manner the big picture conspiracy. Proving intent in a big picture conspiracy to defraud the government of honest service may yet prove a more doable thing, simply because acts in furtherance of the conspiracy--acts that would go to proving intent--do not need to be themselves criminal acts. That's a very different ballgame than a simple false statement case.

We should find out soon.

81 comments:

  1. This will be a big nothingburger. Barr decided not to charge McCabe for blatant lying to investigators. Why should we think he & Durham will go after Comey, et al?

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    1. And how do you *know* that McCabe isn't going to be among the crowd charged with conspiracy ... and the lies he wasn't charged with are instead proof of at least a portion of his participation in the conspiracy?

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    2. "Barr decided not to charge McCabe..." YET.

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  2. We like to focus on Comey and others, like Strzok and Page, who are easy to dislike. But the man with the real power after Comey and Sessions were deep-sixed was Rosenstein. Still, he remains under the radar. He was the reason for the Mueller - Weissman charade. He continued the charade with the FISA court. He is the pivot man for all the misdeeds until Barr took over and started cleaning out the rat nest.

    What fate will the history books have for this Judas?

    DJL

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    1. Our gracious host has patiently indulged my RR rants too many times, so I’ll keep this short. I strongly agree not only about the role he played but that, unless he has basically given prosecutors the keys to the kingdom, testimony-wise (and maybe he has - I don’t know), it would send a horrible signal to posterity to say through inaction that you can play a vital role as the top DOJ dog in corruption and crimes all around you as long as you’re in good with DOJ brass and you can say you were deaf, dumb and blind during the relevant period so you never even knew what was happening and never read all those orders you signed and it was the fault of everyone around you but not you. Then you can go free as a bird, retire fat and happy on the taxpayer dime and probably get a million-dollar book deal to boot.

      { Was that short? It seemed short to me :) }

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    2. Again I say. “Grossly negligent or extremely careless?”

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    3. @Anonymous

      "What fate will the history books have for this Judas?"

      I would like to think the answer to this question depends in large measure on the degree of cooperation Rosenstein is offering.

      And, FWIW, I think Rosenstein is likely cooperating. I can't help but note the generous sendoff Barr hosted for RR when he left the DOJ.

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    4. Good point. If RR had been defiant about what he'd done, I doubt Barr woulda been as generous as he was.

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    5. RR had better deliver the goods then. His actions deserve some time behind bars and disbarment in my view. Some of us are not so ready to let bygones be bygones after what he put the nation through. In another era his neck would likely have been stretched.

      DJL

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  3. "proving intent to defraud the FISC and pinning that on Comey could prove difficult."
    Did the text of the FISA law define "defraud" in such a way that proving it would be hard, or is just plain hard to prove "defraud", in cases vs. top wheels?
    If the latter, is that just because top wheels can afford ace lawyers, or are there other "informal" factors that aid the wheels?

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    1. It's because the higher level officials who sign off on these things can always say, Hey, I relied on what I was told and thought my subordinates were honest. You can't reasonably expect me to conduct a whole new investigation to verify everythng all over again.

      Which is why you need evidence to show that they knew of the fraudulent nature of it. That's where guys like James Baker and McCabe are important.

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    2. "to show that they knew of the fraudulent nature of it."
      OK, that should do, for normal jurors, but not for SJWs.
      Fortunately, I presume that we'll see no verdicts 'til after the election, by which time, news of hung juries won't be PR disasters.
      (Just keep on empaneling new juries!)
      If, before the election, Barr can announce pleas from folks around the level of Baker/ Strzok/ McCabe, that should be enough to hugely boost DJT's campaign.

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    3. I am a civil attorney so i am speaking a bit out of turn, but wouldn't the case against Comey Brennan Clapper Rice yea Biden and Obama all hinge on the same method used against mob bosses, i.e., cut deals with the subordinates and secure their testimony to prove knowledge and direction by bosses? That and the documents can support guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

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    4. As I just wrote below, while neither you nor I have seen the evidence--the records, the interview results, etc.--I'm cautiously optimistic that sufficient evidence does exist to make the conspiracy case.

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    5. As Comeybsuggests: Grossly negligent or extremely careless.

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  4. How is it possible that Durham's team is so disciplined that Paul Sperry--one of the best investigative journalists throughout this entire fraud--has been reduced to finding one of Durham's old colleagues to speculate about what Durham might be up to in order to push out an article? Mirable Dictu?

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  5. Key observation: Durham added prosecutorial staff this Spring.

    If all he planning is to prosecute Clinesmith, there would be no need to add experienced prosecutors to those already on the team.

    The other clue is Barr's appointment earlier this year of various US Attorneys to handle spin-offs from Durham's ongoing investigations. If Durham wasn't finding anything, there would be no need to spin-off parts of Durham's investigation. If anything, the spin-offs suggest the sheer scope of Durham's investigatory paydirt is so "sprawling" he can't follow all of the tentacles of "the Octopus" he's wrestling on his own.

    Jensen and Bash are the most obvious ones. The one in PGH is looking into Ukraine allegations (Giuliani's info.)

    Last point: before Mueller's probe shut down, it started to shed significant numbers of prosecutors -- indicative of the fact that other than the process crimes and old activity not related to the Trump campaign, they had nothing else to prosecute, and thus the prosecutors were no longer needed. Durham is gaining prosecutors, not shedding them, and is farming out parts of the investigation to subsidiary prosecutors around the country, at the precise time leading up to some sort of results (by end of summer.)

    On balance, I agree with your and shipwreckedcrew's assessments -- this is pointing towards conspiracy charges in one or more areas of very wide ranging criminal activity, rather than a few minor process crime prosecutions of low level sacrificial lambs.

    I expect multiple phases of prosecution -- first being the guilty pleas Durham negotiates with targets who wish to cooperate in his investigation (who hopefully, will implicate higher up co-conspirators.)

    Many co-conspirators may not be indicted until well after the election.

    Wild card: did Durham get evidence to prove journos are part of the conspiracy? I hope so. IF a plea-deal target ratted out a journo used to publish leaked false info to further the criminal object with which the journo was in agreement to commit, then publishing leaked info in support of that object makes the journo a co-conspirator, even though publication itself isn't a crime.

    I hope part of the "blockbuster" is plea deals with several journos who worked with the co-conspirators to publish their leaks in futherance of the object of the conspiracy. That's a blockbuster in and of itself, and would destroy MSM credibility once their guilty pleas and their allocutions are made public.

    That's just speculation and wishful thinking, at this point.

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  6. In case no one else recognized the name, Dr. Hatfill is the very same bio-weapons researcher that the FBI tried to blame for the Anthrax attack letters of 2001. He later fully exonerated, albeit after his reputation was destroyed by investigatory leaks to the media.

    >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfillhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill <<

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  7. I had the same impression you had, that Sperry and his contacts had nothing specific, only speculation. We might speculate something serious will come of Durham's investigation, but that's all it is.

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  8. For the last 2 years there has been a daily drop of who knew what and when. It grows ever increasingly complex so that I now have lost all hope that we could find a jury pool that isn't so biased or intelligent enough to convict anyone of anything. Every new podcast or article is the latest bombshell fact that is supposed to persuade some liberal. We have now witnessed that it won't. They could all admit their guilt and liberals and moderates will still vote democrat. Name any abhorrent action and liberals will still vote for democrats because they live in denial. When the violence knocks their door in they will blame conservatives. I know that Durham's cases need to be airtight but the Doj can't even settle the Flynn case after all of the shameful blatant lying involved. So how will they ever find a judge and jury to do the right thing with so many moving parts. I don't see how any jury gets a conviction these days. I just want to get this going and see it in the rear view mirror.

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    1. @RobertM: I want to see convictions, also - trust me there. But even more important than that is for the people to know what really happened, and properly executed trials that happen to fall short of conviction due to jury nullification still serve that vital self-government purpose of letting the voters know what the hell their government's doing when they're not watching.

      Just about the worst possible outcome in all this would be for DOJ to say, in effect, "we caught the bastards good and hard and we've got mounds of evidence on them and their guilty as hell, but we think there'd be jury nullification at trial so we're just gonna let them go and never let the voters see for themselves, via trials, what really happened."

      In other words, if the bad guys get charged and have to go to trial for it, that should be enough to claim a good chunk of victory, for now at least. (IMHO, of course.)

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    2. "trials that happen to fall short of conviction due to jury nullification still serve that vital self-government purpose of letting the voters know".

      Sounds right, esp. if, in the process, Barr can announce pleas from folks around the level of Baker/ Strzok/ McCabe.

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    3. Great point about "if in the process Barr can announce pleas from..."

      That sure would help frame things better leading up to any trials, regardless of the final verdicts.

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    4. Plenty of jurors available. Come to my house for example. They’re all clueless and have no interest unless forced too.

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  9. End of the day I agree with Mark that sundance has been an obnoxious jackass but has provided a good overall theory of the crime. And that theory is a conspiracy by the FBI and various Brennan connected intelligence contractors to bypass FISA, 702, and other sundry federal wiretapping laws that goes back to 2012 and was uncovered in part by ADM (Ret) Mike Rogers in March 2016.

    My understanding of the sundance theory is that sometime after the compromise of CIA Director David Petraeus, ie after the FBI discovered that he had shared TS/SAP notebooks with his biographer, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, in summer 2012, Deputy Director Michael Morrell, a staunch Clinton loyalist became de facto head of the CIA as a placeholder for John Brennan, who was still in the White House.

    Brennan and Morrell concocted a scheme with FBI General Counsel Andrew Weismann and Director Mueller that would allow private intelligence firms like those Brennan had founded in his stints between government with the appropriate clearances that were already working for the CIA to get access to the restricted 702 database on USPERSONS, the thing only the FBI is supposed to have access to. This was the unlawful program discovered by then VADM Rogers and castigated by then FISC Chief Judge Collyers in her declassified but heavily redacted April 2017 report.

    Such a program would have allowed a politicized FBI to grant any private company whose employees had a TS/SCI clearance access to a database with virtually unlimited access to the communications of pretty much any American that had ever called or emailed anyone located or using a switch located overseas. The possibilities for unlawful political, industrial, or even religious espionage (2015 conclave) boggle the imagination.

    If my gut is right, and I'm just some dude who had way too much time on his hands when this all started 3 years ago in between taking care of my mom's brain cancer but I've had a good track record on predictions, Barr figured this out before he wrote that unsolicited letter to Rosenstein in 2018.

    He wants, and Durham wants, the guys who granted the private contractors access to the 702 program. Brennan, McConnell, Mueller, and Weissman. Of those four though, even though I'm going to contradict a previous prediction that Mueller is the priority target, I think it's Weismann.

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    1. Neither you nor I have seen all the evidence that Durham has been gathering. One thing we know--it could probably bury Mt. Everest. The interesting thing about Weissmann is that he provides a personal link to so many of the main players--not only to Comey and Mueller, for both of whom he was FBI General Counsel, but to various people near the top of the Clinton campaign. Does some of the evidence flesh that out?

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    2. I've always thought it was odd that Bruce Ohr stovepiped Steele's pseudo-intelligence to Weissmann, when there was no organizational justification for him to do so.

      I reject the idea that it was random chance, or that Ohr shared it with Weissmann as though it were water-cooler gossip at DOJ.

      There's a piece of the puzzle missing here, and I hope the Hell Durham has it.

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    3. Could not possibly have been coincidence.

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    4. M.P., where you write "Brennan, McConnell, ....", do you really mean Mitch, or do you mean McCabe, or....?

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    5. Weissmann is the very personification of the Deep State, and why its utterly repugnant to what is referred to as trad-Americans.

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    6. "Weissmann is the very personification of the Deep State"

      Fact check: TRUE (although the tech Masters of the Universe and their "independent" leftwing "fact" checkers would claim otherwise)

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    7. CIA Directors

      Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Army (September 6, 2011–November 9, 2012)

      John Brennan (March 8, 2013–January 20, 2017)

      I wonder who filled the gap between Petraeus and Brennan.

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    8. Mike "Mendacious" Morrell.

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    9. Michael Morrell was acting CIA Director from Nov 9, 2012-Mar 8, 2013.

      I think in addition to the Sundance Theory presented above, I have seen a post on CTH suggesting the 702 database likely also was used to facilitate insider trading to enrich friends and family members of folks. Simply tap into the private communications of XYZ Corp. company officers in the know of mergers and acquisitions. Is there evidence of that? Hard for us to know. Is it plausible? I think it's extremely plausible. And not necessarily unique to corrupted Dems. Nevertheless, I do think it was more speculation than anything.

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    10. "The interesting thing about Weissmann is that he provides a personal link to so many of the main players--not only to Comey and Mueller, for both of whom he was FBI General Counsel, but to various people near the top of the Clinton campaign. Does some of the evidence flesh that out?"

      Weissmann showed up for Hillary's "Victory Party". Don't know how much more evidence one needs.

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  10. Really, really bad typo on my part. Morrell not McConnell. As in this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Morell

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  11. Brian Cates is expecting bombshell stuff to emerge, out of the bust in Cleve the other day.
    He's struck by DJT having a farewell party for the W.H. staff, before he left for *Cleve*, and then his NJ resort.

    "And over the next *several weeks*, you're going to be seeing a lot of ASSETS being seized around the world, some in the US, some in Europe and elsewhere...."

    See https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1291802483682168834.html .

    Between this assets stuff, the Flynn hearing, Durham's busts, and (?) sundance's boasts, the next 4-6 weeks figure to be like no other similar span in US history.

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    1. Yeah, I was wondering about all that.

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    2. If any of this is true it's some serious ... WOW!

      Makes me think I should leave the DC region for a while.

      And not just Trump. I sincerely hope Barr and the other cabinet members are protected.

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    3. "If any of this is true"

      A very important caveat when considering anything from Cates.

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    4. In dealing with Cates, in my experience the problem is not with the facts but that he draws unwarranted conclusions and mistaking coincidental facts for causal connections. It's true that these news-reported facts are eye brow raising, but we simply can't know whether it all hangs together.

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    5. Irrespective of his bent toward unwarranted conclusions, I still suspect that the next 4-6 weeks figure to be like no other similar span.
      If the Dems are on the run nearly as much as he maintains, they will "come after him in sheer desperation."
      If they do so, I lean toward expecting them to hurl disproportionate fire toward the biggest Blue states, where Dems would hope to so truncate the (Deplorables) voting population, so as to turn those states "red' in Nov.
      Such states incl. FL, OH, TX, and PA.

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    6. I'm not saying he's wrong in this case, just that it's hard to say. In fact, other commentators have also noted the suggestiveness of this Ukraine connected actions with regard to the big picture conspiracy. After all, the Fake Impeachment was also Ukraine based and fit in with the previous Russia Hoax. It suggests a connection of players, which we've seen.

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    7. @Mouse; “come after him in sheer desperation”. As in you mean worse than Russiagate, worse than impeachment, worse than virus responses, worse than riots and Antifa myths silence as well as defunding law enforcement?
      What could be worse to crookedly ensure a Democrat administration? Crooked voting? No. It would most likely be war IMO.

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    8. Yeah, AC, I'm thinking of *guerilla* war, e.g. Dems sending antiFa, BLM etc., to *incapacitate* Deplorables in places like FL, OH, TX, and PA.
      From spreading the virus into GOP strongholds, to sit-ins blocking (pro-GOP) voting places, to having Soros-bought DAs target known Deplorables (e.g. for "illegal ownership of restricted ammo"), etc.

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    9. About Cass, on "all the real estate, the PrivatBank money was used to buy in Cleveland and Miami, will also end up being seized.
      Now you know, why Trump has been carefully *setting up asset forfeiture* for the past 3 years.... over the next *several weeks*, you're going to be seeing a lot of ASSETS being seized around the world...."

      How true does this ring, esp. about "over the next *several weeks*?

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    10. @MW

      "In dealing with Cates, in my experience the problem is not with the facts but that he draws unwarranted conclusions and mistaking coincidental facts for causal connections."

      Live shot from Cates' webcam...
      https://www.lifehacker.com.au/content/uploads/sites/4/2017/04/conspiracy.jpg

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    11. Clarice Feldman has written on the possible reason for President Trump’s unusual remark.

      https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/a_solution_for_this_weeks_mystery_announcement.html

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    12. I read it. She's basically repeating Brian Cates. What Cates leaves out is important: Where did all the money go?

      Of course we know that went into a lot of people's pockets, but what I as an investigator would want to know is: Was that money also channeled into politics and politically related activity in the bigger sense--the whole sexual agenda movement, global climate movement, educational movments, etc. All sorts of movements for fundamentally transforming America. Almost too numerous to count. All standing athwart the path of MAGA.

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  12. While I realize that most media types — and a whole lot of everyone else — seem to sometimes have difficulty relating to reality except through "a scene from a movie," if we could refrain from diminishing the significance of very serious and historic events by comparing them to "reality teevee" ... that would be great.

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    1. Anonymous, I was hoping someone would say this someday. No matter what the subject or how serious the matter, someone has a movie or a TV show to compare it with. It seems to me to be the very depth of superficiality. It may also explain why those who live by the television shows have expected the Durham investigation to wind up rapidly like “Law & Order”… arrest, trial, kaboom. All in less than an hour.

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    2. I want spontaneous confessions all around. You've got 45 minutes with commercial breaks. Go!

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  13. According to this report, the guy we love to hate, Brennan, will be escaping prosecution:

    "Former CIA Director John Brennan appears to have dodged prosecution in U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal inquiry into the Russia investig"

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/john-brennan-escapes-prosecution-in-john-durham-investigation-report

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    1. We'll just have to wait to hear something more definitive.

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    2. This has all the Eeyores wobbling … the sentence I saw as a “tell” for this planted report:

      “ The news is sure to disappoint some of President Trump's most ardent supporters who believe Brennan and other top officials in the Obama administration sought to sabotage Trump's candidacy in 2016 and later his presidency.”

      Our reflex action is to blame Barr and Durham and thereby Trump. At least that is what they hope we’ll do when we read this highly speculative stuff.

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    3. Has anybody (other than me) wondered about the Washington Examiner? As in where they're coming from?

      I know virtually nothing about this 'newspaper'. I know Byron York is a columnist there and he seems to be a sensible person...based on his television commentary. But, not infrequently, the paper also seems to report a (planted?) Deep State perspective which makes me wonder...

      Who are they?

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    4. I've wondered too, because there seems to be some inconsistency. But I know no more than you.

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    5. The "Brennan is safe" story originated last night with NPR, as I recall. Examiner appears to just be reiterating the story based on NPR reporting, probably to get some click through revenue from people searching on the topic.

      >> a lawyer familiar with the situation told NPR that the Obama-era CIA director has been told he is not a target of prosecutors. Instead, this source said, the interview will mainly consist of technical questions. <<

      Unnamed single source not associated with the investigation.

      That's not news; it's gossip, if not worse.

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    6. Although owner Philip Anschutz is known to be a conservative Christian, and reportedly gave instructions that the editorial page was to be conservative, that was some years back and I believe much of the content has drifted left. Anschutz also bought the Weekly Standard, and we know the direction Kristol took it before it folded. When I read anything from the Examiner, it is with antennae up.

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    7. I know that The Examiner has hosted some fairly doctrinaire anti- or never- Trump writers.

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  14. I see AG Barr approaching this in 2 phases.

    1st phase will be the Durham stuff shared around Labor Day.

    2nd phase will be Jensens continuation and the San Antonio DOJ 702 stuff coming post election as they got a later start. This phase will continue regardless of who’s elected due to national security interests. This is the phase to ensnare Brennan IMO.

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    1. "This phase will continue regardless of who’s elected", until Biden's goons get settled-in, whereby all such probes will be suspended, pending a "nat. security review" which never finishes.

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  15. Maybe Durham is the bright shiny object and Bash is the real main effort. After all, if Barr is serious, he won't be satisfied with taking down the Crossfire Hurricane conspirators, he's going to want to go all the way back to 2012 and the illegal 702 program, which he has already acknowledged has been spun off from Durham's bailiwick.

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    1. To be serious it has to be 'sprawling' and multi-faceted.

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  16. Exactly! (Am I posting these right? Seem out of order? I've always been a Luddite). You've drawn attention to AG Barr's statements that he's looking into distinct time periods, particularly during the transition and from the inauguration to Mueller's appointment. He's also let slip that the unmasking investigation tasked to USA Bash is associated with a broader look at abuses of the 702 FISA program, something VADM Rogers shut down in 2016.

    Brennan's role in the broader conspiracy to defraud ended with the publication of the ICA on 6 JAN 2017 and he left office with DJT's inauguration. If Durham is principally concerned with the preparation of the ICA through the appointment of the SC then it stands to reason Brennan never would have been in his crosshairs. All publicly available evidence indicates the FBI was driving that train.

    The question is what happened before the election, and if I'm reading the tea leaves right, that got farmed out to Jensen and Bash.

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    1. @MP; true but what do you make of Durhams 3 trips to Italy and i believe UK and possibly Australia last year? I think Barr accompanied him too? Was that to collect juicy rid bits for Jensen and Bash to then follow up on?

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    2. ... not to mention not one, but TWO Blackberries possessed by the elusive Prof. Mifsud, and turned over by his attorney.

      Now why would a Maltese professor have TWO Blackberries, ans hand them over to the US AG and his hand selected US Attorney.... unless said Blackberries were US property?

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  17. Holy Cow!

    >> The Spies Who Hijacked America
    As a doctoral candidate at Cambridge working under "FBI Informant" Stefan Halper, I had a front-row seat for Russiagate

    Steven P. Schrage, PhD <<

    This might be the blockbuster: must read the whole thing. Author -- doctoral student under Halper at Cambridge -- promises additional details in coming days/weeks.

    He has been interviewed recently by Durham.

    >> https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-spies-who-hijacked-america <<

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    1. I'm in the middle of transcribing the full interview with Maria B. and will get to Taibbi later and add comments. Most of this is stuff we've known about, although it's great to get an inside view.

      See why I stress 'big picture conspiracy'? How can anyone claim that the FBI wasn't targeting Trump well before the CH opening? This is why I remain optimistic.

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    2. Just watched the Maria B. interview. MUCH more detail in the article.

      Links Halper, Dearlove (MI-6), another Cambridge prof, and Steele together. Argues these people who knew each other could not have done all they things they did w/o it being coordinated.

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    3. @Mark
      @EZ

      Whoops! I got involved in composing a post myself on Schrage/Halper/Bartiromo/Taibbi and missed your posts. There is lots of interesting stuff there and as many new questions arise as Schrage answered.

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    4. EZ, I'm about to read the article now, but all you mention is also in the interview. More compressed is all.

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  18. OT...

    Did anybody else watch Maria Bartiromo interview Steven Schrage this morning?

    I thought the whole thing was very strange. Bartiromo called it a bombshell and Shrage claimed to have a smoking gun but the whole thing was odd.

    The smoking gun ostensibly is a recorded telephone conversation between Schrage and Stefan Halper in early January 2017 where Schrage raises the possibility of going to DC to work for Flynn and Halper hints broadly that Flynn won't have his job for very long. I.e., Halper knows stuff about what's going down with Flynn.

    Halper is supposedly Schrage's Ph.D. advisor. Why is Schrage (presumably) surreptitiously recording him?

    It was Schrage, apparently, who (according to him) innocently invited Carter Page to the Cambridge 'seminar' where Halper cozied up to Page for the first time. But Schrage disclaims any involvement by him in a scheme to set up Page. He says his agenda was to invite someone (anyone?) from Trump's team to counterbalance invited speaker Madeleine Albright's perspective. Is that plausible, given the viper's nest of other invitees? And he somehow ends up with Carter Page, who we now know worked for the CIA and FBI for decades? That's pretty hard to swallow.

    Obviously, I'm a bit skeptical of Schrage's motives for speaking out at this point. He doesn't really convincingly explain them. He says that none of the people involved in the Cambridge conference: Dearlove, Halper, and Christopher Andrew, have yet been convincingly called out for their role in Spygate. It seems Schrage is making it his mission, now, to do so.

    UPDATE: My curiosity about Schrage led me to a google search this morning where I turned up Schrage's own long-form exposé...just published a few hours ago on Matt Taibbi's webpage. The paper fills in a lot of gaps which were short-handed on Bartiromo's show this morning, but also includes a number of baffling grammatical, spelling and editorial errors. Like mis-identifying Igor Danchenko and Andrew Weissmann. As well as unanswered questions. My first reaction is that something unexplained has motivated Schrage to speak out before he was quite ready to. In any event, the totality of his disclosures raise as many questions as they answer.

    Here's a link to Schrage's paper: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-spies-who-hijacked-america.

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    1. As I say in my new post, I don't think there's much actual news in the interview--it reinforces, at a time that this is being questioned, that there really is strong evidence of the big picture conspiracy.

      Re the Brits, Durham and Barr didn't travel to London for nothing. We know Durham has been to Italy at least 3x (Mifsud) and I wouldn't be surprised if he's been to London that many times, too.

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    2. Cassander, perhaps Shrage senses that their a pot of gold at the end of the Russia Hoax rainbow and he may be able to get a share of it.

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    3. Ugh! "senses that THERE'S a pot of gold"

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    4. @Mark

      Yes. Remind me, which is the world's oldest profession...spying or whoring?

      Schrage has not yet convinced me of his altruism here. He claims to be offended...but he has spent many years palling around with these guys and destroying Flynn wasn't their first rodeo. I can't help but notice that the only job listed on Schrage's linkedin page is working for Pierre Delecto...er, Mitt Romney.

      Taibbi says Schrage has more installments to come, so I guess we'll have a chance to find out.

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  19. Not sure where to put this one, but could be interesting:

    >> Paul Sperry
    @paulsperry_
    BREAKING: Handwritten internal FBI notes suggest Strzok + [redacted] agent had a phone conversation & meeting w/ Steele regarding his dossier in the weeks before Strzok opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation on July 31, 2016, raising fresh doubts about the FBI's predication <<

    >> https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1293234106277519361 <<

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    1. No surprise here, if true. I've always argued that the real predicate was NOT Papadopoulos--that was always a subterfuge to hide the very real reliance on the dossier. I.e., on a Clinton dirty trick.

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