Footnote 43 Russiagate

John Solomon at the Hill: FBI’s smoking gun: Redactions protected political embarrassment, not ‘national security’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI have tried to thwart President Trump on releasing the evidence, suggesting it will harm national security, make allies less willing to cooperate, or even leave him vulnerable to accusations that he is trying to obstruct the end of the Russia probe.

Before you judge the DOJ’s and FBI’s arguments — which are similar to those offered to stop the release of information in other major episodes of American history, from the Bay of Pigs to 9/11 — consider Footnote 43 on Page 57 of Chapter 3 of the House Intelligence Committee’s report earlier this year on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Footnote 43

And it was, in turns out, the same meeting that was so heavily censored by the intel agencies from Footnote 43 in the House report — treated, in other words, as some big national security secret.

What makes this so extraordinary is that the FBI and the DOJ would have Americans believe that a contact with a lawyer for a political party during the middle of the election is somehow a matter of national security that should be hidden from the public.

Well, that argument was proven to be a lie by the very way the interview with Baker played out last Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Baker was not interviewed in a "SCIF" — a "sensitive compartmented information facility" routinely used to discuss super-secret, highly sensitive information. There was no claim of classification over any information he provided Congress that day.

So we can now say with some authority that the earlier redaction in Footnote 43 was done in the name of a national security concern that did not exist.

Which raises the question of what the real reason was that it was hidden from public view. I think the answer can be found in an earlier set of documents that DOJ and FBI fought hard to keep secret — the text messages of those FBI love-birds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. What we learned from their messages was that the investigation was a whole lot more about politics and and a whole lot less about verified intelligence.

There is now a concrete storyline backed by irrefutable evidence: The FBI allowed itself to take political opposition research created by one party to defeat another in an election, treated it like actionable intelligence, presented it to the court as substantiated, and then used it to justify spying on an adviser for the campaign of that party's duly chosen nominee for president in the final days of a presidential election.

And when, nine months later, the FBI could not prove the allegation of collusion between Trump and Russia, unverified evidence was leaked to the media to try to sustain public support for a continued investigation.

That means the redaction of Footnote 43 had more to do with political embarrassment than with national security. And that should concern us all.

It's a pattern we see over and over, classification and redactions being used to protect the DOJ and FBI from legitimate scrutiny, and not to protect real national security. And that's why Rosenstein needs to go.

And speaking of foreign actors in our campaigns Sundance at CTH, Trail Covering: As Predicted U.S. DOJ and Treasury Turn on Oleg Deripaska…

Some things are just so predictable they become funny. The story of Oleg Deripaska is a little bit convoluted and challenging to keep up with. The short version is that former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Agent Peter Strzok and corrupt U.S. DOJ officials tried to recruit Deripaska in 2016 for their vast Russian conspiracy plot against candidate Trump, President-Elect Trump and President Trump.

Because of the associations with the scheme and coup-plotters, Oleg has buckets of dirt on corrupt U.S. officials who were trying to target Donald Trump. In the wake of a soft-coup failure, Oleg then became a risk. So it comes as no surprise to see today the U.S. DOJ and Treasury turn on him and confiscate his U.S. assets.

It means any American companies engaging in business with him must cease operations by November 12, extended from the original October 23 deadline reports Crime Russia. (read more)

CTH predicted this would happen when we wrote:

“All of a sudden Deripaska the asset becomes a risk to the corrupt Scheme Team (DOJ/FBI et al); especially as the DOJ/FBI then execute the “insurance policy” effort against Donald Trump…. and eventually enlist Robert Mueller.”
“It is entirely possible for a Russian to be blackmailing someone, but it ain’t Trump vulnerable to blackmail; it’s the conspiracy crew within the DOJ and FBI. Deripaska now has blackmail material on Comey, McCabe and crew.”

Oleg Deripaska is a typical Russian gremlin, and if you research him you can tell he loves mocking the corrupt elements within U.S. politics. I’m almost positive it was Oleg who put the Trump “pee tapes and hookers” into the Steele Dossier just to see if the knuckleheads in the DOJ/FBI would actually use it.

Considering Christopher Steele was a contracted employee of the billionaire it just looks like something Oleg would do. Deripaska and many Russian political types just work that way. To them, manipulating U.S. officials is funny….. ‘stoopid Amerikans‘ etc.

Rick Gates Sought Online Manipulation Plans From Israeli Intelligence Firm for Trump Campaign and the NYT is upset.

A top Trump campaign official requested proposals in 2016 from an Israeli company to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation and to gather intelligence to help defeat Republican primary race opponents and Hillary Clinton, according to interviews and copies of the proposals.

The Trump campaign’s interest in the work began as Russians were escalating their effort to aid Donald J. Trump. Though the Israeli company’s pitches were narrower than Moscow’s interference campaign and appear unconnected, the documents show that a senior Trump aide saw the promise of a disruption effort to swing voters in Mr. Trump’s favor.

The campaign official, Rick Gates, sought one proposal to use bogus personas to target and sway 5,000 delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention by attacking Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Mr. Trump’s main opponent at the time. Another proposal describes opposition research and “complementary intelligence activities” about Mrs. Clinton and people close to her, according to copies of the proposals obtained by The New York Times and interviews with four people involved in creating the documents.

A hi-tech version of astroturfing, a well known democratic tactic. But somehow, they can't be bothered to care if Hillary bought dirt from Russia through her cut outs at Perkins Coie.