Bye, Bye, Boente

Yesterday we learned that Dana Boente--long time Deep State operative in the DoJ, and currently General Counsel at Chris Wray's FBI--was apparently given the choice of being fired or of resigning. He resigned. The General Counsel is essentially the FBI Director's personal lawyer for official business, so it can be assumed that the two work hand in glove together. Nevertheless, reports had it that 

"the decision to dismiss [Boente]came from high levels of the Justice Dept. rather than directly from FBI Director Wray."

I think it's safe to say that this was AG Bill Barr's decision, and that Barr saw no reason to consider anything Wray had to say on the matter. If Barr took that attitude toward firing Wray's right hand man for all things legal pertaining to the FBI, it's hard to see how Wray himself is not on thin ice--despite Barr's typical supportive statements. That's just Barr's style--everything's fine until suddenly they're not fine. 

Monica Showalter has a nice summary of the firing and its possible implications for Wray: Bell tolling for FBI Director Christopher Wray? As a reminder of who Boente is, she quotes sundance:

Dana Boente is enmeshed in all of it: the Wolfe case and cover-up, the Assange case and cover-up, and the hiding of documents in the Flynn case and cover-up.  Boente’s role as a manipulative fixer to protect the ongoing corrupt action of the Mueller probe was exactly why FBI Director Chris Wray hired him.

Boente also signed off on one of the Carter Page FISA renewals, so that could be another thing hanging over his head.

Sundance, of course, has to aim one of his trademark dumb-ass asides at Barr, but I think Showalter gets it exactly right:

Attorney General Bill Barr is a tough player. And the Trump team has already demonstrated that 'you're fired' is a thing.

Trump could have cleaned house before Barr took over. He didn't do it, presumably for good reasons. Barr is doing his housecleaning at his own pace and in his own style. His style is apolitical--actions speak louder than words. Barr's views are well known. He has no need to convince anyone that he's in charge. When the time is right he pulls the trigger, and he doesn't back down. For example, Barr apparently thought Tim Shea was the right guy for the USAO in DC, but when Shea screwed up he was quickly removed, without fanfare. Wray may be about to find out all about Barr's approach to managing.

Save Joe's Voice!

Among the newly released documents relating to the Flynn case are previously unreleased text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. Among those messages is an exchange dated February 10, 2017.

The part you want to focus on is the blue part beneath the yellow. In that exchange we see that Lisa Page has been asked by Strzok to review his work on a document. Page gets back to Strzok and accuses him of "lazy work," producing a document that isn't "cogent and readable."

Strzok defends his work by saying,

Lisa, you didn't see my edits that went into what I sent you. I was 1) trying [not]* to completely re-write the thing so as to save [Joe's]** voice and 2) get it out to you for general review and comment in anticipation of needing it soon. I greatly appreciate your time in reviewing and your edits. I incorporated them. Thank you.

* The "not", as you can see, is Strzok's correction in a follow-up text.
** I inserted "Joe's" for the short redacted space because it's logical and it fits. More below.

What's going on here?

USA Jensen To Join Powell: Release The Docs!

USA Jeffrey Jensen is AG Bill Barr's handpicked "reviewer" of the Flynn case. Jensen made waves when he released to Flynn's legal team 5 pages of frankly, IMO, incriminating notes from FBI planning sessions in preparation for the attempted framing of Flynn. Those notes are said to have been taken by Comey's right hand man and top FBI lawyer, James Baker, who is said to be cooperating with the Durham investigation.

Now we learn that Jensen will join Sidney Powell in calling on Judge Sullivan for those records to be unsealed--presumably the first 5 pages. There are now reported to be 11 more pages of related records being redacted.

Catherine Herridge
@CBS_Herridge

#FLYNN DOJ official confirms @CBSNews US attorney will join Flynn Attorney @SidneyPowell1 calling for new records to be unsealed. AG Barr directed US attorney Jeffrey Jensen to scrutinize Flynn case. First batch docs small, including handwritten notes.  But review delivering more 

2:48 PM · Apr 29, 2020

Undercover Huber
@JohnWHuber 

DOJ provides 11 pages of additional materials to Flynn’s defense team, material “even more appalling” according to Sidney Powell
Quote Tweet

Sidney Powell 
@SidneyPowell1 

While we await Judge Sullivan's order to unseal the exhibits from Friday, the government has just provided 11 more pages even more appalling that the Friday production.  We have requested the redaction process begin immediately.
@GenFlynn
@BarbaraRedgate

4:25 PM · Apr 29, 2020

It seems significant to me that Jensen is joining Powell in calling for the unsealing of these documents--for two reasons.

1) It appears that Jensen has not only reviewed the Flynn case, he also seems to have taken over the handling of the case. Brandon Van Grack does not appear to be playing any role in what's now unfolding. Perhaps he's too busy answering questions that various investigators are putting to him.

2) In these circumstances it's difficult to understand how the government would oppose Powell's motion to dismiss the prosecution. It's conceivable that Jensen is simply doing the right thing in releasing clear Brady material to the defense, but joining in in calling for the material to be unsealed immediately suggests that he agrees with Powell's view as to the nature of the material. It's also always possible that there could be some procedural reasons for delay, but it's very difficult for me to conceive that this charade of justice is not coming to an end. And that eftsoons or right speedily.

It's also difficult to believe that, given what we're hearing about the nature of these documents, that John Durham doesn't have a number of people in his crosshairs for their role in the Flynn case, some of whom may already be cooperating: James Comey, James Baker, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Joe Pientka, Lisa Page, Sally Yates, Mary McCord, David Laufman, Rod Rosenstein, Team Mueller generally, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, Zainab Ahmad, Brandon Van Grack. And possibly more.

UPDATED: Breaking: DoJ Files Exculpatory Docs In Flynn Case

I guess I can call it "breaking," since Sean Davis of The Federalist reported it about a half hour ago.

Details are murky, since the documents were filed under seal. In the body of the brief story Davis qualifies the report with the word "allegedly":

Newly Filed Court Documents Include Exculpatory Evidence For Michael Flynn

New documents filed under seal in federal court include exculpatory information about former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, an FBI official told The Federalist on Friday.

Further, the use of the term "Department of Justice" is ambiguous, given that many reporters fail to distinguish among various components of DoJ--Main Justice components, a local US Attorney (here, DC). Here's what Davis is able to tell us. Note that the information is sourced to the FBI, rather than to DoJ. The sentence is long, but the beginning and end are the important parts:

The new documents, which were filed under seal by the Department of Justice Friday, allegedly include exonerating evidence about Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his conversations with foreign diplomats as Trump’s top incoming foreign policy adviser and is currently attempting to withdraw his plea, as well as evidence of malfeasance by the FBI during its investigation of Flynn.

And then there's this important added bit of information:

According to the FBI official who spoke to The Federalist, FBI general counsel Dana Boente led the charge internally against DOJ’s disclosure of the new materials. Boente, who briefly served as acting Attorney General after Trump became president, personally signed off on one of the federal spy warrants against former Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page. The new documents, which were filed under a protective order by DOJ on Friday, will reflect poorly on the FBI, the official told The Federalist. It is not clear when, or even if, those documents will be unsealed and made available to the public for review.

Finally, while we can only speculate at this point, we do know that at the beginning of April AG Barr brought in an outside US Attorney--Jeffrey Jensen of St. Louis--to "reexamine" the entire Flynn case. Was this disclosure of documents--apparently strongly opposed by Dana Boente, a longtime highlevel DoJ official and now FBI Director Wray's counsel--made at the instigation of Jensen? I think we know it wouldn't have been undertaken by the lead prosecutor, former Team Mueller lawyer Brandon Van Grack, whose work Jensen is "reexamining."

Very interesting.

UPDATE 1: OK, I was right--the release of documents was by USA Jensen, whom Barr appointed to "reexamine" the Flynn case. "EDMO" in the letter from Shea (USA-DC) that Sidney Powell posted means "Eastern District of Missouri," which is St. Louis--and that means Jensen.

Significant development regardless, and Powell characterizes the documents as "remarkable new & long withheld BRADY evidence."

UPDATE 2: I'm about to start reading Sidney Powell's supplement to the motion to dismiss. According to TGP Powell says that the new material “defeats any argument that the interview of Mr. Flynn on January 24 was material to any “investigation.” The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution—knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn.” This, of course, was at the heart of what I argued strenuously: The FBI agents who interviewed Flynn--and those like Comey and McCabe who ordered their actions--were acting outside their official authority. They knew there was no crime to investigate or any other legitimate action. They were part of a conspiracy to deprive Flynn of his civil rights under color of official authority and law.

Powell also claims that she “has found further evidence of misconduct by Mr. Van Grack specifically.” Maybe Van Grack will want to spill the beans on Team Mueller?

It's hard to believe that what's going down isn't part of Durham's investigation.

UPDATE 3: This passage from the Supplement to the Motion to Dismiss gives an idea of what may be coming:

Since August 2016 at the latest, partisan FBI and DOJ leaders conspired to destroy Mr.Flynn. These documents show in their own handwriting and emails that they intended either to create an offense they could prosecute or at least get him fired. Then came the incredible malfeasance of Mr. Van Grack’s and the SCO’s prosecution despite their knowledge there was no crime by Mr. Flynn. All this new evidence, and the government has advised there is more to come, proves that the crimes were committed by the FBI officials and then the prosecutors. The government’s misconduct in this case is beyond shocking and reprehensible. It mandates dismissal.

Furthermore, this Court should order the government immediately to provide the defense with unredacted copies of the documents in Exhibit 3, filed under seal. Those documents were filed under seal solely in an abundance of caution because the government produced them under the protective order, and we request that they be unsealed. Consequently, Mr. Flynn is filing Exhibit 3 to this Supplement contemporaneously and asks that the Court promptly unseal the document.

Avenues Of Inquiry Into Team Mueller?

Today at CTH sundance does an overall nice job of evaluating an important document: a letter from Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers to Rosemary Collyer, Chief Judge of the FISC (the "FISA Court"). Demers, you might like to know, succeeded John P. Carlin as head of the National Security Division, as of February 22, 2018. Here's his Wikipedia bio:

Prior to his post in the United States Department of Justice, Demers served as the vice president and assistant general counsel at Boeing. Demers clerked for Diarmuid O'Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. He worked in private practice before serving in the Office of Legal Counsel. Demers was on the leadership team of the United States Department of Justice National Security Division, first as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General and then as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Law & Policy. Demers is an adjunct professor of national security law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Demers' letter was dated July 12, 2018--in other words, at the height of the Mueller Witchhunt, with high hopes in the air that the Dems would retake the House in November and use the Mueller Dossier to impeach President Trump. What this letter is all about is the fact that, as a result of the efforts--largely--of Devin Nunes, serious and persistent questions had been raised publicly about the fraudulent nature of the Carter Page FISA order (and its three renewals). By the time Demers wrote his letter to the FISC it was well known that the application for the FISA had been largely based on materials developed by opposition research contractors working for the Hillary Clinton campaign, and that those materials were as suspect as that characterization makes them sound. Another major source behind the FISA application, it was well known by then, had been undercover FBI assets and foreign operatives who were used to target persons in the Trump campaign--"with no basis", as AG Bill Barr recently put it.

Briefly Noted: Eric Ciaramella, Tashina Gauhar, Dana Boente

A few brief, but nevertheless important, stories today.

First, Larry Johnson makes a compelling case that, given Eric Ciaramella's known contacts, it's highly probably that Ciaramella was part of the John Brennan's "Task Force" that ultimately produced the Intelligence Assessment that was so instrumental in launching Team Mueller and maintaining the Big Lie of the Russia Hoax: Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force. Peter Strzok, of course, was the FBI rep on that Task Force and did further duty running back and forth, to and fro, and amongst and between Brennan, Comey, and Clapper. That Task Force is also a central focus of the Barr/Durham investigation--as it should be. Presume that Durham has had his eye on Ciaramella for some time now.

Next, CTH relays rumors of a possibly significant personnel move at DoJ: Tashina Gauhar is said to have left. Gauhar worked on FISA applications during all relevant periods of the Russia Hoax. And what's especially significant about her move is the timing:

Rumor in the DC grapevine is that a few weeks ago Tashina Guahar [sic] was quietly removed from her position as lawyer for the DOJ National Security Division (in charge of FISA applications).  This removal happened immediately after IG Michael Horowitz submitted his first draft report to Attorney General Bill Barr for classification review.   Ms. Gauhar now reportedly works for Boeing.

If confirmed, Guahar’s [sic] exit in advance of the IG report could indicate helpful participation, or DOJ Main Justice may be providing cover to protect Tash Guahar [sic] as they did with SSCI Security Director James Wolfe.

Sundance is absolutely correct that the timing of Gauhar's departure most likely indicates that she has been kept on while cooperating with internal investigations related to her duties. Which is to say, the Russia Hoax, especially from the FISA standpoint. Gauhar would have had contact with anybody who touched a FISA application at DoJ, and with many at the FBI.

Bearing in mind that another DoJ/FBI attorney who worked in that field, Trisha Anderson, testified that the Carter Page FISA was pretty much pushed through over the heads of everyone else by Andy McCabe and Sally Yates, it's interesting to go over a list of people we know that Gauhar would have interacted with on a regular basis and concerning whom she would have been questioned:

Sally Yates, David Laufman, John Carlin, Trisha Anderson, James Baker, Andy McCabe, Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page.

We also know that Gauhar was among the DoJ attorneys who persuaded Jeff Sessions to recuse himself, so we can add two more names to that list:

Rod Rosenstein and Dana Boente. 

Dana Boente, of course, is the top in house counsel at the FBI for Chris Wray, but before he did that he was at DoJ as Acting AG and Acting DAG. He also signed off on a renewal of the Carter Page FISA.  No doubt Boente has also had long, interesting conversations with DoJ investigators.

You can imagine that both OIG and the Durham team have been very busy.

John Solomon: FBI Knew Dossier Was Bogus, Used It Anyway

I know--that doesn't sound like bombshell news. However, John Solomon is reporting this based on source information and a "spreadsheet like" document that the FBI produced in their effort to verify information in Christopher Steele's "dossier". In his latest reporting, FBI's spreadsheet puts a stake through the heart of Steele's dossier, Solomon states that there is evidence not only that the FBI was warned by State Department official Kathleen Kavalec of the unreliability of Steele's work product, but that Steele himself warned the FBI as early as July and again in October of 2016. That confirms that the original FISA application was knowingly based on unreliable information, presented to the FISA court as reliable. In an interview with Sean Hannity, Solomon confirmed that this was done in the hope that dirt would be uncovered on Trump that would retroactively justify the FBI investigation. It was an attempted coup.

Over the succeeding months the FBI continued its attempts to verify Steele's work product, seeking to find substance to support the Russia Hoax collusion narrative. Every allegation was examined and the results were assembled in what Solomon describes as "a spreadsheet-like document":

Multiple sources familiar with the FBI spreadsheet tell me the vast majority of Steele’s claims were deemed to be wrong, or could not be corroborated even with the most awesome tools available to the U.S. intelligence community. One source estimated the spreadsheet found upward of 90 percent of the dossier’s claims to be either wrong, nonverifiable or open-source intelligence found with a Google search. 

In other words, it was mostly useless. 

“The spreadsheet was a sea of blanks, meaning most claims couldn’t be corroborated, and those things that were found in classified intelligence suggested Steele’s intelligence was partly or totally inaccurate on several claims,” one source told me.

In their efforts to confirm some part of the "dossier," the FBI pressed Steele to identify his Russian source. An agent interviewed that source in early 2017. The conclusion that the FBI came to was that--giving Steele the benefit of the doubt--the Russian had "misled" Steele:

For example, U.S. intelligence found no evidence that Carter Page, during a trip to Moscow in July 2016, secretly met with two associates of Vladimir Putin — Rosneft oil executive Igor Sechin and senior government official Igor Divyekin — as part of the effort to collude with the Trump campaign, as Steele reported. 

...  

The inaccuracy of Steele’s intelligence on Page is at the heart of the inspector general investigation specifically because the FBI represented to the FISA court that the intelligence on Page was verified and strong enough to support the FISA warrant. It was, in the end, not verified.

And yet the FBI used this bogus "information" in the follow FISA extension requests, signed by Sally Yates, Dana Boente (currently the top lawyer at the FBI, for Chris Wray), and Rod Rosenstein. The FISA product was used by Team Mueller throughout their inquisition.

Solomon's sources also confirmed what we have pointed out, that the "dossier" was an evolving narrative that developed and changed as circumstances changed. For example, when Carter Page left the Trump campaign a new conduit for "collusion" had to be found. So Steele came up with the Michael Cohen-in-Prague tale. That, you may recall, came after Steele met with DoJ lawyers, including Andrew Weissmann:

Another knockdown of the dossier occurred when U.S. intelligence determined former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was not in Prague in the summer of 2016 when Steele claimed he was meeting with Russians to coordinate a hijacking of the election, the sources said. 

Steele’s theory about who in the Trump campaign might be conspiring with Russia kept evolving from Page to Cohen to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. None of those theories checked out in the end, as the Mueller report showed.

Weissmann needs to be grilled about his involvement in the FISA.

In the interview with Hannity, Solomon discusses Andrew McCabe's admission in testimony that without the "dossier" there would have been no FISA. However, there's another point that we've been making over the months. Without the "dossier" there would have been no Crossfire Hurricane to begin with. Yes, Crossfire Hurricane was the sine qua non for the Carter Page FISA. But it was also the the sine qua non for the Mueller inquisition, which Rod Rosenstein confirmed to be basically no more than an extension of Crossfire Hurricane.

As we've always known, the whole thing was a hoax, from start to finish.

Oh, and Solomon is supposed to have another big story out later this week. I can't wait! Maybe this is what Devin Nunes was talking about when he said the Mueller testimony might never happen.

ADDENDUM: In response to commenter dfp21, yes, from remarks Solomon drops it's clear that his source(s) is familiar with the results of the OIG investigation--including the results of the very recent interviews of Kathleen Kavalec and Chris Steele.

UPDATED: Briefly Noted: Why Did The FBI Keep Getting FISAs Against Carter Page?

Carter Page stepped down from his position as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign in September, 2016--a month before the FBI obtained a FISA warrant against him. Not only that, but the FBI got three renewal warrants against Trump. The FISA coverage of Page--which is incredibly comprehensive and intrusive--continued until Team Mueller allowed it to lapse in August 2017. The question is: Why? Why all this intensive spying on someone who had only briefly been associated with the Trump campaign, which spying was justified on the theory of an "enterprise counterintelligence investigation?" (Mueller's "Enterprise" Witchhunt)

Margot Cleveland ran a blog yesterday that sheds light on this question: Carter Page: Obama’s FBI, DOJ May Have Spied On Trump Admin, Not Just Campaign. What emerges from recent statements by Page is that the FBI appears to have been spying on the inmost counsels of the new Trump administation--not just on the candidate, or the transitional President-Elect, but on the post-inauguration new Trump administration.

Bill Priestap's Partially Leaked Testimony

Jeff Carlson has the summary of the latest (partially) leaked testimony at the Epoch Times. This time it's the testimony of Bill Priestap, recently retired from the position of Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. There are only a few significant takeaways from his testimony.

First, Priestap flatly contradicts disgraced former FBI Director Comey's frankly non-credible claim that Priestap told him (Comey) not to brief Congress re the Crossfire Hurricane case. Non-credible, because Comey first states that the practice is to brief the Gang of Eight Intelligence group on "sensitive cases," but then claims Crossfire Hurricane was not briefed because it was "a matter of such sensitivity"--its sensitivity is precisely why it should have been briefed. Here's how the questioning of Comey went: