Working Man's Russiagate

Well the start of another "work week". So what do we have? From Town Hall, Bronson Stocking writes of how Trump Rips Mueller Team for Destroying Evidence 'Just Like Crooked Hillary'. He has a point.

ALERT: So now we find out that the entire Mueller “hit squad” illegally wiped their phones clean just prior to the investigation of them, all using the same really dumb reason for this “accident”, just like Crooked Hillary smashing her phones with a hammer, & DELETING HER EMAILS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2020

So does Mollie:

The Mueller team intentionally wiped their phones to thwart an investigation into their work. Stunning revelation about something that actually happened, as opposed to debunked claim from anonymous sources. Note disparity in media coverage.

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 11, 2020

As far as I can determine searching its site, WaPoo still hasn't acknowledged this. At Bongino, Former NSA Head Lawyer Testifies: The Trump Team Was Subject to Political Surveillance

The key points from Baker’s testimony are as follows:

• Campaign Mudslinging: Baker contends that the Hillary Clinton campaign, in an attempt to deflect from the FBI investigation into her handling of the private email server, sought to tarnish the Trump campaign with an FBI investigation of its own. “The Clinton Campaign, like any other, had assembled opposition research files on Trump. Focusing some of that research on his disturbing affinity for Vladimir Putin was not an exactly original idea.”
• Steele Dossier: The DNC’s general counsel, Mark Elias, paid Glenn Simpson’s firm, Fusion GPS, $60,000 per month of DNC funds for opposition research. DNC funds were used to pay Christopher Steele, a “free-lance former British intelligence officer with credibility at the FBI on Russian issues.” Elias then instructed Glenn Simpson to report his research only to Elias so as to be protected under attorney-client privilege. As part of Steele’s work, he recruited a Russian in Washington, D.C. as a sub source who in turn provided what the Senate Intelligence Committee referred to as part of “a Russian disinformation campaign.”
• Steele Lobbied the National Security Agencies: After the FBI terminated its relationship with Christopher Steele over a leak, Steele used a backchannel through Bruce Ohr. Ohr, who was associate deputy attorney general at the FBI, laundered his information the FBI top-brass Andrew McCabe, the then Deputy Director of the FBI, who acted as an informal conduit for Steele to later provide more information.
• The Carter Page FISA Application: The first FISA application on Carter Page relies on the Steele Dossier. “Fully a third of this section is based on Steele’s reports, and the dossier provides the only support for the central allegation of the application – that Russia hacked and leaked Clinton campaign emails as part of an agreement with members of the Trump campaign.” This allegation was never corroborated by the FBI or by Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel. Further, Baker alleges, “All these were grounded on false statements in a dossier paid for by the party in power and designed to discredit the party trying to unseat it.”
• Reverse Targeting with FISA: The Obama Administration understood that it could monitor Russian Ambassador Kislyak’s conversation with Trump Transition team member Michael Flynn if Kislyak was the “target of the surveillance.” This sort of monitoring coincides with the Obama Administrations’ 2015 wiretapping of Israeli officials that “offered a rich vein of political intelligence about where Republicans stood, what they were planning, and even whether they had the votes to overturn the administration’s policies.” As it turns out, the Israelis suspected that “they were being spied on.”
• Targeting of Michael Flynn: Baker writes of the Michael Flynn conversations with the Russian Ambassador, “in all of the accounts of the meeting, there’s no sign any of the participants cared what the ambassador had said; as with the Israeli intercepts, it was the American side of the conversation that had the Obama White House exercised.” Further, the Logan Act implications of Flynn’s conversation is “preposterous,” as “it certainly doesn’t prevent an incoming administration from talking to foreign leaders before inauguration day.” The Obama Administration had a certain dislike of General Flynn. Baker writes, “President Obama himself raised questions at the meeting about whether intelligence should be withheld from the incoming team; Flynn was the only candidate for such an exclusion.”
• Leaking FISA Contents: “It is not unreasonable to conclude that the White House had not only encouraged a criminal investigation of Flynn under the Logan Act but had also leaked his exposure to the press – along with the contents of a wiretap.” Baker further notes that the leak of FISA wiretap contents “to attack an American was unprecedented,” and this inevitably ended Flynn’s career.

But don’t expect to see this widely reported anywhere else.

Herr Professor Jacobsen at LI, Aggressive Attempts To Discredit Durham Investigation May Reflect Something Big Is Coming Down regarding the announcement of the resignation of Durham's prosecutor.

Again, this is all based on rank speculation by people who don’t have direct knowledge of anything.

So what’s going on? Who is whispering in the Hartford Courant’s ear?

Someone or people who know something big is coming down, and want to discredit it in advance.

You can’t take away my dreams.

A man must have dreams. Although, mine don't make much sense most of the time.

At sundance's CTH, Devin Nunes whines on Sunday Talks:  “We Don’t Have Handcuffs or Guns” On Our Investigative Side…. Some interesting news on the great "Mueller phone wipe."

 

From Chuck Ross at Da Caller, Schiff Touts Whistleblower Complaint From DHS Official He Previously Accused Of Lying To Congress

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is touting a whistleblower complaint from a Department of Homeland Security official who he accused just last month of potentially lying to Congress about the agency’s intelligence-gathering activities.

On Wednesday, Schiff released a whistleblower complaint filed by Brian Murphy, the former acting under secretary for intelligence and analysis, who claimed that senior DHS officials and the White House pressured him to alter intelligence reports regarding Russian interference in the 2020 election as well as about Antifa’s involvement in social justice protests.

Murphy claimed in his complaint that he was demoted on Aug. 1 because he questioned DHS leaders’ requests that he alter intelligence reports.

Schiff said in a statement on Wednesday that Murphy’s complaint “outlines grave and disturbing allegations that senior White House and Department of Homeland Security officials improperly sought to politicize, manipulate, and censor intelligence in order to benefit President Trump politically.”

Speaking of "election interference, from the WaFreeBee, Iran Behind Hack Attacks, Online Disinformation Campaigns to Boost Biden "Tehran waging cyber attacks to sway 2020 presidential election" Possibly related? Who Are These 'Unemployed' Donors Contributing Nearly Half of Democrat Group ActBlue's Massive Campaign Funds? A way to funnel Iranian and Chinese funds into the election?

The fundraising group ActBlue is the most successful leftwing money group in the country. In 2019, they raised more than $467 million from 3.7 million donors.

But there are questions where a lot of that money comes from. More than 40 percent of the cash came from donors who said they were “unemployed.” Federal law requires that political donors disclose the name of their employer in giving money.

By contrast, a GOP group called WinRed raised $301.8 million in 2019 but only 5 percent of the donors were unemployed.

Take Back Action Fund, a conservative group, examined the ActBlue fundraising figures. They found the discrepancies and are continuing to see if they can track down who these unemployed donors are.

The fear is that foreign sources have been funneling millions of dollars into liberal coffers in violation of U.S. law.
. . .
ActBlue also allows unverified credit card donations. This is an open invitation to avoid campaign contribution limits, says the Take Back Action Fund.

Linked at 357 Magnum in this week's Wednesday Link Roundup.