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Saturday, December 5, 2020

Read Thomas Lifson Re Clinesmith

You can find the article here--please read the whole piece:


FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who lied on Carter Page FISA warrant, may get a slap on wrist


Lifson presents the situation lucidly:


But now comes news that Durham is asking only for a sentence of a few months, at most, for an officer of the court who knowingly lied to the court [in a situation of extraordinary peril to our national security, endangering the performance of CinC duties--both military and foreign policy--by a sitting president].


and concludes with the common sense, gut level observation:


Something odd is going on with all of this, but I don't know what it is.  Is it possible that Clinesmith has made a deal implicating higher-ups, but that it is not reflected in the court documents available to the public?  That sounds like a bit of a fantasy to me, even though it would be my own deepest wish.

The idea that a rogue official complicit in lying to a court to spy on a presidential campaign would get off with probation is repulsive.

 

Context matters--including in the law. Talk of sentencing guidelines becomes meaningless babble in this context. Every person with a sense of decency should be revolted. To my way of thinking, no lawyer who engaged in this type of conduct and confessed to what he did--as Clinesmith did do--should get away with less than a serious jail sentence. Even if he cooperated.


39 comments:

  1. On the bright side, if the election is stolen and none of the coup participants face significant punishment, we will all know exactly where we stand: The government is not "us" and the political process is pointless. We will no longer waste time trying to preserve an America that has been destroyed, nor deceive ourselves into thinking we can reason with its enemies.

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    1. That, N.S. Palmer, is exceedingly well-put.

      Delete
    2. Ouch. Hurts to acknowledge, but very succinctly put. Thank you.

      Delete
    3. The 'beauty', if you will, of Donald Trump.

      Imagine if he had never come down the escalator.

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    4. The criminality of the Election Hoax appears to surpass the criminality of the Russia Hoax, the legal malpractice of the Flynn Prosecution and the ethical depravity of the Impeachment Hoax.

      Occam's Razor suggests that we are living through a coverup conspiracy of galactic proportions.

      And when the truth finally, inevitably comes out?

      Delete
  2. You know you guys pretty much told me I was bat-S crazy for implying that the Clinesmith case wasn't on the up and up when I first came here.

    Specifically I was pointing to the 0-6 months and lacking of any mention of a plea that is required to be disclosed under federal rules.

    He fell on the sword and got the James Wolf treatment.

    The charging docs and investigative scope read like spygate or a larger conspiracy never existed and Clinesmith was just off on his own little "whoopsie".. his plea reads the same, it was just a giant misunderstanding of interpretation.

    When his case opened up in court was when I threw in the towel and said Durham is Huber their gonna bury this.

    And I still say Rosenstein not Barr brought in John Durham. Barr just happened to use his name publicly which is why the general population believes what they do.

    This will go down like the JFK files in history. Too big to know about.

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    1. In fairness to myself I've pointed out several times (at a minimum) that Durham appears to have been active in DC months before Barr was even nominated. Barr talked the talk until very recently, and also made many of the right moves. He's been an exemplary AG in many respects. Jen Dyer points out that he's still in the administration. I can't claim to know the full story. However, I'll stick with Lifson's assessment of the Clinesmith deal. I don't like it, even if he is cooperating in some significant capacity. He should be hammered for what he did.

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    2. I could live with him not be hammered for what he did, if his singing led to big busts of major perps.
      That we've seen no such busts makes his skating the travesty of the century.

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    3. It's a young century so far...

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    4. Trump was asked the other day whether he still has confirmed in Barr, to which he responded "ask me again in a couple weeks."

      What a tease!

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    5. @ Mark, no explanation needed we are all entitled to our beliefs and opinions. I've always found you fair in every sense of allowing us to be here and agree to disagree... Also, there ARE times I am definitely bat-S crazy!!!

      @mistcr, best comment of the week on young century!

      @ anany Agreed, that was my big hissy fit in the beginning. If he was singing it HAD to be disclosed.

      It seems to me he is more being rewarded for keeping his mouth shut.

      Delete
  3. I sincerely wish that DJT would start declassifying everything NOW. His administration seems to be going the way of the dodo, hope I'm 180 degrees off, so start bloodletting as soon as possible. The R's aren't doing, with a very few exceptions, a thing for him. Let's get some payback, Real payback. All the secrets out in the open. You want to know who's corrupt? Well, here they are. Sound vindictive? Damned right! If we're not going to be America anymore then let's drop the pretense of fair play. Smash-mouth is the only viable option when dialog won't work. Past time to get heads in the game.
    Rant over, but it won't go away.

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    1. Too late. There will be no declass. Now that it is very nearly certain Harris/Biden will be installed any declass Trump calls for will be delayed, obstructed, sidelined, whatever'd until the drop dead date of 20 Jan. The DS will see to it.
      Tom S.

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  4. There is two justice systems in America. Those who are connected and everyone else. Actually three. The connected, those persecuted by the connected and everyone else. The past 4 years have really brought this out. That is why we have to stay involved and fight. Fight hard. If we don't we will end up in the corporatist capitalist system.

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  5. His lawyer is asking for a suspended sentence!

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  6. DOJ will need someone deeply involved in the coup to testify against the big dogs and make their case. Clinesmith seems to be that person. It will not be cheap and will probably result in what appears to be a slap on the wrist. As long as he delivers some of the higher ups, does a little jail time and ends up with final conviction I would be happy. The more solid a case against the coup leaders the harder it will be for the new AG to drop the case. As far as Barr is concerned I hope he is still engaged but I do have my doubts. From his previous comments and actions it just doesn't seem plausible that he has gone on a walkabout at this juncture.

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    1. Clinesmith could have been that person but we know he was not.

      Plea deals require disclosure in federal case. If their was one we would have known a long time ago.

      Delete
  7. One puzzling aspect of this history was the decision to obtain a fourth FISA warrant, which would be effective from June 29 to September 22, 2017. By this time, Carter Page was well aware that he was being investigated with FISA methods.

    What information did the FBI expect to expect about Page in the second half of 2017? Therefore, he would be extremely careful about his current communications.

    I speculate that the FBI wanted to continue searching through past communications to find communications or relationships between Page and Paul Manafort.

    I think that Page and Manafort separately had told the FBI that they never had any communication or relationship with each other. Therefore, if the FBI could find any information that contradicted those statements, then Page or Manafort could be threatened with prosecution and thus could be pressured to incriminate Donald Trump or his associates.

    In order to support my speculation, I would need details about when Page and Manafort were questioned by the FBI and what they said about each other. I vaguely remember reading that Page told the FBI that he never had any relationship with Manafort. I need to find that information again.

    The fourth FISA warrant was not for the purpose of collecting evidence that Page was cooperating with Russian Intelligence. Rather, the fourth FISA warrant was for the purpose of threatening Page or Manafort with process crimes so that Page or Manafort could be pressured to incriminate President Trump.

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    1. My first two paragraphs were scrambled. Correction:

      One puzzling aspect of this history was the decision to obtain a fourth FISA warrant, which would be effective from June 29 to September 22, 2017. By this time, Carter Page was well aware that he was being investigated with FISA methods. Therefore, he would be extremely careful about his current communications.

      What information did the FBI expect to expect about Page in the second half of 2017?

      Delete
    2. Its a two hop rule. So they were getting everything on the entire administration just about. Carter Page was just the vehicle to get there. I'm sure the got every byte of Trump's inner circle (and came up with nothing).

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    3. Its a two hop rule. So they were getting everything on the entire administration just about. Carter Page was just the vehicle to get there.

      Good point. That surely was a major motivation to extend the FISA warrant.

      Delete
  8. I have read the Clinesmith sentencing memo. There I did not notice a clarification of whether Clinesmith consulted with any superiors before he inserted the deceptive text into the FISA application. (Maybe I missed something in my reading.)

    Surely Clinesmith was asked by the Durham team whether he had consulted with a superior. I think that if he had denied doing so, then his denial would have been mentioned in the sentencing memo.

    Another possibility is that he answered that he indeed had consulted with a superior, but then the superior himself denied any such communication. That situation might be the reason by Clinesmith's denial is not mentioned in the sentencing memo.

    Another possibility is that Clinesmith denied a consultation, but Durham does not believe Clinesmith's denial. Rather, Durham suspects that Clinesmith is falling on his own sword to protect the superior.

    Another possibility is that Clinesmith said he did consult with a superior, and Durham intends to prosecute the superior in the future.

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  9. When the first three FISA warrants were done, surely various participating FBI officials wondered whether Carter Page had been a source for US Intelligence. After all, Page had served as a US military officer, and then had been living and working as a businessman in Russia.

    What were the odds that Page was NOT a CIA or DIA source or agent? The FBI would have been willfully negligent NOT to ask CIA and DIA about him.

    ---------

    I suppose it's plausible that someone who graduate from the US Naval Academy and then served as a Navy officer for many years might separate from the US Navy and then go to work for Russian Intelligence.

    However, it's barely plausible. It's something like 1% (one percent) plausible.

    During Page's Navy service, he specialized in Russia issues. After he separated from the Navy, his decision to involve himself in business in Russia does not deserve FBI suspicion.

    As a businessman living and working in Russia, he naturally talked and associated with many Russian officials and businessman. If some of those Russians were working secretly for Russian Intelligence, then that fact itself does not deserve FBI suspicion.

    How many Americans have lived and done business in Russia? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?

    How many of those particular Americans are former US military officers? Hundreds? Does the FBI suspect that all of them are working secretly for Russian Intelligence?

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  10. If the CIA had been involved in the FBI's operational shenanigans, then the CIA might have helped Clinesmith with his problem. The CIA could have crafted a clever answer to Clinesmith's question so that Clinesmith could safely deny Page's CIA relationship.

    This is yet another reason for me to think that the CIA was not involved at all in the FBI's effort to use Christopher Steele's Dossier as a basis to incriminate Donald Trump. I think that the CIA soon figured out that Steele was a fabricator.

    The CIA's assessment that Russia was meddling in the US election was based primarily on two considerations:

    1) CrowdStrike's finding that the DNC computers were hacked by means of computer viruses that had been developed by Russian Intelligence.

    2) Reports from Oleg Smolenkov, an assistant to an official in Vladimir Putin's Presidential Administration.

    The CIA did not need Steele for its assessment. Only the FBI needed Steele.

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  11. Mike

    1. There was (and still is) no proof (other than Crowdstrike's say so) that the DNC computers were hacked by 'Russia'. Surely the CIA is obligated to investigate and corroborate Crowdstrike's word if it were inclined to rely it.

    2. What evidence did Smolenkov provide (given the now established fact that there was no collusion) to CIA?

    3. I've asked you before, but who do you think Halper (ex-CIA) and Mifsud were working for?

    4. If CIA has clean hands and believed that Steele was a 'fabricator', why didn't CIA tell (i) President Trump, (ii) the FISA Court, (iii) Mueller and (iv) the MSM? And stop the Russia Hoax in its tracks.

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    1. who do you think Halper (ex-CIA) and Mifsud were working for?

      The FBI's Counterintelligence Division

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    2. If CIA has clean hands and believed that Steele was a 'fabricator', why didn't CIA tell (i) President Trump, (ii) the FISA Court, (iii) Mueller and (iv) the MSM? And stop the Russia Hoax in its tracks.

      How is the CIA involved in FISA procedures?

      For example, at what point in the procedures does the CIA read an FBI application for a FISA warrant?

      Delete
    3. Surely the CIA is obligated to investigate and corroborate Crowdstrike's word if it were inclined to rely it.

      Is the CIA supposed to examine the DNC's computer in order to corroborate CrowdStrike's word?

      Delete
  12. Steele's Dossier began mentioning Carter Page no later than July 19, 2016 (Report 94). The last known mention of Page was on December 13, 2016 (Report 166). Between those two dates, Page is mentioned also in Reports 95, 101, 102, 134, 135 and 136. All those mentions insinuate the Carter was involved somehow with Russian Intelligence.

    As far as the public knows, however, none of the FISA warrants against Page mention the Dossier as evidence against him. What is the FBI's reason for not using the Dossier as evidence in any of the FISA applications?

    The FBI concocted a fiction that none of the Dossier reports reached FBI Headquarters until September 19, 2016. Even assuming for the sake of argument that this late date is true, the first FISA warrant was submitted in October 2016. There was plenty of time to include a mention or even just a hint about the Dossier.

    By the time that the second FISA application was submitted in January 17, the FBI indeed did have Dossier Reports 94, 95, 101, 102, 134, 135, 136 and 166, all of which insinuated that Page was working for Russian Intelligence.

    However, the FBI continued to refrain from mentioning that "evidence" in all three FISA applications that were submitted during 2017.

    Steele was a former officer in the United Kingdom's MI-6 Intelligence organization. The FBI considered Steele to be a reliable source and had even hired him to be a paid source. So, why not use Steele's allegations to justify the FISA applications to the FISA judge?

    ======

    I think that the FBI had a lot more than the 16 Dossier reports that have become available to the public. The last known Dossier report is number 166. I think that the FBI had all 166 of them.

    I think the numbering was based on Steele's work for Glenn Simpson. The first report that Steele gave to Simpson was #1, the second report that Steele gave to Simpson was #2, and so on to #166 and beyond. And the FBI got all of them at least through #166.

    I speculate that some of those still publicly unavailable Dossier reports that were obtained by the FBI provided even more insinuations and allegations against Page. In other words, the FBI's suspicion of Page was based on Steele stuff that the public still does not know about.

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    1. Yeah but none of that explains several things...

      The CIA initiated "crossfire"... That fusion center name then came over to the FBI afterwards.

      Halper and Mifsud were previously entangled with Flynn, the CIA and Cambridge before Papadopoulos ever came into the picture.

      The ONA was paying for Halper's involvement.

      It's very hard to explain that and several other things away to call the CIA clean.

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    2. The CIA initiated "crossfire"... That fusion center name then came over to the FBI afterwards.

      Please provide a link.

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    3. The assumption that all Steele memos in numerical sequence deal with Trump campaign Russia Collusion is unfounded and counter factual.

      Typical document numbering schema used in the business world number documents sequentially based on time within an organizational unit by year. In a small commercial intel org like Orbis, they probably have only one numbering system for the whole org. First memo of the year is #1, and increase sequentially w/ each subsequent memo, regardless of project or purpose, until the end of the year.

      Under such a system, the HRC/DNC work product memos that make up the Steele/DNC Dossier would be mostly non-sequential, the missing numbered memos being on subjects or projects unrelated to the DNC Dossier work.

      There is to my knowledge zero evidence to suggest the Dossier memos/reports were sequentially numbered; standard numbering schema used on the commercial world would using time sequenced enumeration would, by definition, very likely result in non-sequential numbered documents/report/memos on specific topics or projects.

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    4. The assumption that all Steele memos in numerical sequence deal with Trump campaign Russia Collusion is unfounded and counter factual.

      Here is what I wrote (emphasis added):

      [quote]

      I think the numbering was based on Steele's work for Glenn Simpson. The first report that Steele gave to Simpson was #1, the second report that Steele gave to Simpson was #2, and so on to #166 and beyond. And the FBI got all of them at least through #166.

      [end quote]

      Steele began writing reports for Simpson many months before the allegation of Trump-Russia collusion.

      I did not write that all Steele memos [are] in numerical sequence deal with Trump campaign Russia Collusion.

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    5. Steele had several clients, one of whom was Simpson. For each client, Steele sequentially numbered the reports that were provided to that particular client.

      The first publicly available Steele report is #80, dated June 20, 2016. That was the eightieth report that Steele provided to Simpson. Steele began providing reports to Simpson many months before June 2016.

      I explained my thinking about Steee's numbering system in my blog article titled Michael Gaeta and FBI Counterintelligence -- Part 8.

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    6. @ Mike

      Clappers testimony

      https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/05-08-17%20Clapper%20Testimony.pdf

      RedState glazes it, lots of links to chase, my only disagreement is all evidence points to MONTHS before the FBI.

      https://redstate.com/michael_thau/2020/09/12/before-crossfire-hurricane-began-brennan-led-his-own-top-secret-probe-into-russian-collusion-n254164

      Peter's memo Sept 2016 (section 3 CIA Crossfire Hurricane Fusion Cell)

      https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2020-10/ENCLOSURE_2__DCIA_Memo_09-07-16__U.pdf

      The horse himself Brennan in his 2017 testimony to Congress admitted to opening the Crossfire Hurricane Fusion Cell ahead of the FBI.

      Chuck Grassley has been chasing the car ever since.

      https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/johnson-grassley-question-cia-s-commitment-producing-crossfire-hurricane

      We know it was started before, by they are still hiding "how long" before.

      Which is why I point to Hapler, Mifsud, ONA links, payments, Cambridge, etc.

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    7. Did Clapper, Brennan or anyone else call earlier investigations "Crossfire Hurricane"?

      Delete
    8. As the links show "crossfire hurricane fusion" was CIA and predates "crossfire hurricane investigation" which was FBI.

      That's what the quotes mean.

      Many many people have put weight on the crossfire hurricane investigation being started as cover for the previous and illegal actions being preformed by the CIA under "crossfire hurricane fusion".

      And Muller becoming the ultimate cover for both.

      So yes... 100% Crossfire Hurricane was originally both in name and in action Brennan's team out of Langley.

      The FBIs counter intelligence team was not the origin of this mess.

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    9. Thanks for that information, which is news to me.

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  13. If true AND Trump 'loses', all bets are off.

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