UPDATED: Trump Back, Pushing For Declass

COS Mark Meadows spoke with Fox News this morning and indicated that President Trump is already getting close to returning to a pretty normal work schedule. In welcome news, and as an example of Trump's involvement with ongoing matters, Meadows stated:

He [Trump] has already tasked me with getting some *declassification rolling* in a followup to some of the requests that Devin Nunes and some others have made.

 

So, we don't know the specifics of what may be involved, but the declassifications will be made in response to requests by Devin Nunes and others. The reference to Devin Nunes almost certainly is a reference to the Igor Danchenko interview, which debunked the entire Steele "dossier," but we can only speculate as to who "some other" requesting declass--and what documents are involved. There's plenty of possibilities.

Presumably this will be happening before the election, so we'll be following the news closely.

ADDENDUM: What I find so interesting about this is the fact that the President is directing his COS to get involved. We all know--or in the case of some, think they know--that Trump put AG Barr in charge of declassification for the Russia Hoax investigation. The reality isn't so simple as some think.

Contrary to those who seem to think that Barr was made a sort of dictator for declassification, that isn't really the case. Barr was made the ultimate authority for purposes of the investigation, but he still needs to go through normal processes. You can see that from the terms of Trump's executive order, which I will append below. Crucially, agency heads retain a voice in the process and can--as in the case of the FBI's Wray and CIA's Haspel, throw up barriers and slow things down. Thus the need for the president to get involved, because only the president can issue direct orders to agency heads when the agency head retains authorities. 

For example. What does "promptly" mean? As in "promptly provide such assistance and information as the Attorney General may request"? COB today? Tomorrow? Next week? As soon as the agency head deems it practicable? Note, too, that Barr must follow certain standards and is required to "consult with the head of the originating intelligence community element or department." And those agency heads retain their lawful authorities. The AG, then, is more a coordinator than a head cracking dictator.

Therefore, I read Meadows' remark to mean that, most likely, AG Barr himself has requested the President to get involved because of roadblocks that he's having difficulty overcoming.

SUBJECT:  Agency Cooperation with Attorney General’s Review of Intelligence Activities Relating to the 2016 Presidential Campaigns

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct the following:

Section 1.  Agency Cooperation. The Attorney General is currently conducting a review of intelligence activities relating to the campaigns in the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters. The heads of elements of the intelligence community, as defined in 50 U.S.C. 3003(4), and the heads of each department or agency that includes an element of the intelligence community shall promptly provide such assistance and information as the Attorney General may request in connection with that review.

Sec. 2.  Declassification and Downgrading.   With respect to any matter classified under Executive Order 13526 of December 29, 2009 (Classified National Security Information), the Attorney General may, by applying the standard set forth in either section 3.1(a) or section 3.1(d) of Executive Order 13526, declassify, downgrade, or direct the declassification or downgrading of information or intelligence that relates to the Attorney General’s review referred to in section 1 of this memorandum.  Before exercising this authority, the Attorney General should, to the extent he deems it practicable, consult with the head of the originating intelligence community element or department. This authority is not delegable and applies notwithstanding any other authorization or limitation set forth in Executive Order 13526.

Sec. 3.  General Provisions.   (a)  Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  The authority in this memorandum shall terminate upon a vacancy in the office of Attorney General, unless expressly extended by the President.

(d)  This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(e)  The Attorney General is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

 

This, I believe, is what's behind Nunes' call to "shut down" the intel agencies until they proceed with declassification. Obviously, Barr can't shut them down. Only Trump can take the kind of drastic action that may be required. I'm quite sure Barr has communicated that to the president.

UPDATE: Apologies for not getting this complete the first time through. To properly understand where Barr stands in all this, note that the executive order has three sections. 

The first section requires agency cooperation with Barr's review. That means the agencies are required to promptly provide the materials that Barr needs to conduct his review. As far as that goes, I have no doubt at all that Barr has had whatever access he needs. So, for example, I don't doubt that Barr and his investigators have seen the unredacted original of Neil Eggleston's 1/19/2017 TOP SECRET letter to James Comey. However, access to those documents emphatically does NOT involved declassification. Barr and his investigators will all have the clearances to view such documents, but the documents remain agency property.

Thus, section 2 addresses the question of declassification--which is totally separate from the question of investigative access. And it's in this area that the limits of Barr's authorities become apparent. His right to view the documents he needs doesn't give him unilateral authority to declassify those documents--as section 2 makes clear. The documents still remain agency property and Barr is required to consult before the documents can be declassified. 

This is the point at which we are now. Notice that neither Nunes nor anyone else that I'm aware of are pointing fingers at Barr over declassification matters. Barr may well want to control the flow of declassification for prosecutorial or investigative reasons. But that's not the real problem--which lies with the intel agencies delaying. This is why Barr needs Trump to be involved.

Or Maybe THIS Is What Lindsey Was Talking About?

Lindsey Graham's office today released an unclassified summary of an FBI Counterintelligence investigation of an individual who was believed to be cooperating with the Russian intelligence services--a Russian 'asset'. It's the kinda stuff that's hard to make up. The Counterintelligence investigation was of Igor Danchenko--Christopher Steele's so-called 'Primary Sub-source (PSS).' The investigation began in 2009 as a Preliminary Investigation, but was upgraded to a Full Investigation. The investigation was closed in 2011. 

When the FBI learned in December, 2016, that Danchenko was Steele's PSS they searched their records and learned about the investigation. In other words, they knew all this when they interviewed Danchenko in late January, 2017, regarding his role in providing material to Steele for the 'dossier.' Danchenko was not questioned about his relationship with the Russian intelligence services at that time, and the FBI continued to claim that Danchenko's 'dossier' material was reliable as they sought three renewals of the Carter Page FISA. They apparently saw no reason to inform the FISA court that the probable cause for Carter Page FISA was heavily based on material provided by a person they suspected of being a Russian spy.

Interestingly, the FBI sought a FISA on Danchenko in the second half of 2010. However, before the FISA could be processed Danchenko left the country. Here's how the investigation was left:

Because the Primary Sub-source had apparently left the United States, the FBI withdrew the FISA application request and closed the investigation. The record documenting the closing of the investigation stated that consideration would be given to re-opening the investigation in the event that the Primary Sub-source returned to the United States. 

In other words, as of the last time the FBI was involved with Danchenko before they interviewed him in January, 2017, they believed they had probable cause to believe that Danchenko was an agent of the Russian government--a spy. Apparently the FBI lost track of Danchenko, who later reentered the US. 

The details of the investigation itself aren't terribly important--read them for yourselves. From my perspective Danchenko comes across as rather clumsy and probably not terribly stable--which fits in with what we've heard about him to this point.

The real point is that the FBI knew all this about Danchenko and their own past concerns that he was a Russian spy. They knew this by December, 2016, and knowing this they failed to inform the FISA court and probably also withheld this information from DoJ as well. They should have terminated the Carter Page FISA at that point. Instead, they fraudulently renewed the FISA three times.

I have to say, I'm flabbergasted. 

On the other hand, this certainly looks more and more like Durham has a legitimate shot at proving a big picture conspiracy--a conspiracy on the part of FBI management to defraud the government of the FBI's honest services in furtherance of the attempted political goal of ousting the President of the United States from the office of the presidency on false pretenses through the means of criminal false statements to the FISA court. And they did all this while utilizing material provided by a suspected Russian spy which was known to be unreliable, but which they presented to the court as highly reliable.

David Laufman To The Fore

With the revelation that Igor Danchenko was the Washington, DC, based Primary Subsource for the fraudulent Steele Dossier, attention has once again turned to David Laufman--another disgraced former DoJ official. Until being forced out of DoJ, Laufman ran DoJ's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. It was Laufman who negotiated a "use immunity" deal for Danchenko, with a rabidly anti-Trump DC attorney who represented Danchenko during his three day FBI interview.

The reason Laufman's name is getting so much buzz now is because his involvement with the Danchenko interview can now be seen to be only the tip of the iceberg of his involvement in the Russia Hoax. As it happens, Laufman's DoJ section also handled the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which was used to spearhead the FBI's offensive against Trump.

We've gone over FARA previously. It was enacted originally in 1938 to deal with US persons propagandizing on behalf of Nazi Germany. The idea was to require such persons to publicly declare themselves, so that Americans could judge how to evaluate the propaganda they were spreading. While there were 23 prosecutions of the Act during WW2, since then DoJ enforcement policy has normally been to send a letter to the subject advising them to register. I know this because I had experience with FARA. The fact is that FARA, over the years, was often honored in the breach, in the sense that nobody really saw a need to register as long the person made no attempt to conceal his agency relationship--concealment of such a relationship had been the whole point of enacting FARA.

That changed when Donald Trump ran for president, and Laufman was the reason for that change. Paul Sperry does a fine job explaining this in:

What Kind Of Deal Could Comey Make?

Yesterday, commenting on a fine article by Shipwreckedcrew, I pointed out that in January, 2017, the FBI did two things that tied them firmly to the Steele Dossier:

1) At the beginning of the month they inserted a two page summary of the Dossier as Annex A to the Intel Community Assessment (ICA). This placed an Intel Community seal of approval on the Dossier, and drove all subsequent events in the attempted coup against Trump--especially the institution of the Team Mueller witchhunt. Even though Crossfire Hurricane had supposedly been predicated on the Downer - Papadopoulos bar conversation, the ICA in effect--although not in formal reality--superseded that narrative except for occasional tactical purposes when the Dossier came under fire.

2) Toward the end of the month, following Trump's inauguration, the FBI appears to have made the decision to take over operation of Chris Steele's notional "Primary Subsource" (PSS), Igor Danchenko. The FBI had known Danchenko's identity since before the 2016 election, which means they also knew that he was an employee of the premier Dem thinktank The Brookings Institute--then run by long time Clinton crony Strobe Talbott. Further, the vetting interview with the Washington based Danchenko confirmed definitively what the Bureau would have long suspected--that the Dossier was a hoax concocted by the Clinton campaign's "opposition research" arm (spearheaded by Glenn Simpson's Fusion GPS, for which Steele was simply a subcontractor, probably used as a frontman to insulate the US operatives). Danchenko appears to have been unproductive in the role of a FBI source, but this action again tied the FBI closely to the Dossier. They could not disavow the Dossier for purposes of the ongoing FISA operation as long as they were also trying to mine its supposed sources for more "dirt" on Trump.

This all plays into the very recent rumors that Comey has been interviewed by John Durham. I gave it as my view that Comey would never sit for an interview with Durham except as part of a plea agreement. That's simply common sense--there would be no benefit for Comey in submitting to an interview under any other circumstances. If here were called before a GJ he would simply be forced to take the 5th.

Thus, I wrote:

Oh Sh*t! It's Hitting The Fan!

Shipwreckedcrew (SWC) is a very busy guy. In addition to following the Flynn case and the BLM/Antifa rioting, today--working off Paul Sperry's lengthy article on the FBI's Danchenko interview--he combines that with a deep dive into the Horowitz Report. The results are stunning, and amply demonstrate the reasons for Dem alarm and consternation at the revelation of the Danchenko interview.

SWC begins with the question several have commenters raised here: Why? Why did the FBI interview Steele? I speculated that Comey and the top levels of the FBI needed to be on solid ground as they proceeded with their coup attempt against a recently inaugurated president. As SWC puts it:

Let’s begin with the fact that Danchenko did not just walk into an FBI building, show his driver’s license and say “I’m Igor Danchenko.  I was Christopher Steele’s primary source on his Steele Dossier memos about President Trump.  I’d like to talk with someone about what I said to Mr. Steele.”

However, SWC's conclusion is even more pointed than mine: FBI Interview of Christopher Steele’s Primary Sub-Source Was To Prepare for Him To Work Directly With Crossfire Hurricane Team.

Now, that scenario might be one thing, if the FBI had, like, just a bit of predication for Crossfire Hurricane. Of course, we all know that they didn't. And you may recall that I've always maintained that, in spite of the FBI's nonsensical claim that CH was predicated on the Downer - Papadopoulos chat, the real "predication" for CH was always the Steele dossier. By going with the Papadopoulos story they were simply steering clear of Steele's connections to the Clinton campaign.

SWC takes a closer look at just how Danchenko figured in the Horowitz Report, and what he comes up with feeds directly into that. SWC argues persuasively that--while Horowitz doesn't say so in so many words--the FBI knew that Danchenko was Steele's Primary Subsource, or "PSS", and that they had this information as early as October, 2016. Before the election:

Perspective On The Intel Community Assessment (ICA)--and James Comey

Stephen McIntyre makes a useful observation regarding the new revelations regarding the joint FBI/DoJ interview of Christopher Steele's "Primary Subsource" ("PSS", now known to be a Russian expat, think tank analyst in the US, Igor Danchenko). We now have confirmed that by late January, 2017, just days after the Trump inauguration, Danchenko over a three day period essentially debunked the entire Steele "dossier". And yet the FBI and DoJ--later including Team Mueller--continued to use an active FISA warrant nominally against Carter Page but in reality targeting President Trump. That FISA was originally obtained in October, 2016, by carefully failing to verify the Steele material that Danchenko debunked in January, 2017, but concealing that lack of verification from the FISA court. The same debunked material was used to twice renew that FISA after Danchenko had debunked it. As Andy McCarthy puts it this morning:

In each warrant, the court was told: “The FBI believes that the Russian Government’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential campaign were being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with [Trump’s] campaign.” Moreover, the warrant applications painted a picture of a “conspiracy of cooperation” between Donald Trump and the Putin regime, with Manafort at the hub, using such underlings as Page and Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, as intermediaries.

It was complete nonsense, largely based on the so-called dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, working on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Moreover, the FBI knew this was material developed and paid for by the Clinton campaign, but concealed that known fact from the FISA court.

With that in mind, let's pivot to the ICA and its FBI "Annex". That Annex simply amounted to a two page summary of the Steele "dossier". Remember--the FBI knew that the "dossier" was done for and paid for by the Clinton campaign, yet they pushed hard to get the "dossier" material included in the ICA. And that was about three weeks before they even had interviewed Danchenko, the "PSS". Here's how McIntyre paints that (edited to correct spelling and punctuation and to provide a continous read):

Two Questions Re Danchenko's FBI/DoJ Interview

As we've recently learned, Christopher Steele claims that he got the "information" in his reports (which were compiled into a "dossier" that was behind so much of the Russia Hoax) from a "Primary Subsource", Igor Danchenko. Danchenko was interviewed by a team of FBI and DoJ investigators, analysts, and lawyers in January, 2017. The interview took place in Washington, DC, over at least three days, and in the interview Danchenko basically debunked any notion that there was a solid basis in fact for anything Steele claimed in his "dossier". In fact, Danchenko specifically disclaimed all knowledge of certain "information" that Steele passed on to his employers, the Clinton campaign, and the FBI. In spite of what Danchenko told the interviewers, the FBI and DoJ proceeded to allow the Carter Page FISA (based virtually 100% on the Steele "dossier") to remain up and running then obtained two additional renewals of the same FISA on the basis of the Steele "dossier" that Danchenko had debunked!

Two pseudonymous lawyers and Twitter commenters have raised questions about that interview.

First, noting that Danchenko had a lawyer present, Undercover Huber asks:

Why May Igor Danchenko--Steele's Primary Subsource--Be Important?

This brief tweet (below) by Stephen McIntyre hints at a web of connections involving Christopher Steele's supposed primary source for his fictional "dossier" and a variety of Deep State actors whose history would lead one to suspect that their views would be antithetical to those of Trump. Primary among those actors is Fiona Hill--a former National Security Council staffer under H. R. McMaster who also testified against President Trump's interests in the fake impeachment hearings. Further, Hill worked for George Soros' Open Society Foundation from 2000 - 2006:

not long ago, I saw a tweet that quoted an article in which Fiona Hill had been approached by Steele earlier in 2016 trying to contact a person who now appears to be PSS [Danchenko]. Can anyone give me link to tweet or article.

That Fiona Hill was acquainted with Christopher Steele and held him in high regard is well known, as is the fact that Hill was in touch with Steele during the 2016 election campaign. Hill is also very familiar with Igor Danchenko--they were colleagues at the Brookings Institute. It would therefore be natural enough for Steele to go through Hill to contact Danchenko.

The connections of these various Deep State actors to Steele and Danchenko as well as to Soros is tantalizing. The question is: What has John Durham been able to make of these connections? It seems likely that Danchenko's identity has been hidden this long because Durham has been tracking down all possible leads surrounding him and interviewing everyone with a connection. It's a sprawling investigation, but it could conceivably lead to direct connections between the original Russia Hoax and the later fake impeachment.

Interesting days await us.