Haven't several of y'all stated that "conspiracy" cases are very hard to prove?

Yes, I want everyone hit, and hit hard, with indictments and convictions, but I do want convictions. Yes, my feelings want extended sentences of five years, or more, but my reasoned self wants some form of felonies for everyone involved on their record forever.

That way, when all of these folks eventually join the Dem Party election apparatus, the stain of a felony will be there (like most Dems should have)!

Is Clinesmith under 24 hour observation yet? Because he's likely to wind up in a ditch somewhere the way these things work. An FBI attorney going through the step of materially altering a digital document isn't your ordinary type of error. That speaks to some level of impunity which means top cover.

Well then it is my belief that rudy Contreras will be indicted soon. Obama appointee. If it only takes one then it makes sense for Rosemary to be pissed as well as others. Shes the presiding judge, so she has to be the one to issue the letter and many of the other FISC judges have only been serving since 2018. It would be before their time. That places the honus on all members of the FISC pre 2016 which is a very select group. Contreras is going down hard.

When I spoke with one judge's office to get a reflection on rosemary's letter, it was near 9 at night. They were up late working on something. DC must be scrambling.

I don't know about that since the FISC are presidentially nominates/senate confirmed article III judges. He may get plucked from the FISC, but I would be cautious about any machinations of removal or prosecution.

Considering the zeal of our American conspirators, I'm surprised they (Brennan, et al) didn't offer to pay for all expenses.

Hell, they seemed to be more than happy to pay Halper a minimum of $700 K.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Impeachment_Hastings.htm

I wish we had real investigative reporters that would seek out clinesmith for comment. Even if he didn't give a real response it would be neat to see some pressure and at least maybe a tell after certain questions are asked.

Rockdoc said:

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I've just been here off and on, but can you put into layman's terms why the Flynn case has drug on forever? I understand a sentencing date has been set. Is it because of Flynn's legal team, and what do you think is the ultimate outcome? TIA

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It would have gone down quick and dirty until the original judge, Stzrok's buddy, Rudy Contreras, was recused from the Flynn case shortly after accepting his guilty plea. To this day, it is still unclear whether that was his decision or if the supervising judge removed him. (Point of order here, although Contreras was also on the FISA court, he was operating as a regular federal district court judge in the Flynn case.)

When Sullivan was assigned to be the new judge, things got a bit derailed at the first hearing with Judge Sullivan inexplicably going off on Flynn accusing him of being treasonous and an agent of a foreign power while he was serving the national security apparatus of the United States. Flynn and his then legal team were reeling from the unexpected turn of events, as they had been led to believe they had a deal wherein Flynn (with the government's agreement) would not serve time.

There was a recess wherein Flynn and his attorneys had to reassess whether to go through with the plea deal with an openly hostile judge or withdraw the plea. Flynn had agreed to continuing cooperation with Team Mueller originally and I'd imagine his lawyers has a conversation about kicking the sentencing can down the road until Flynn's cooperation was deemed fullfilled. (Again, speculation since there would not be a court record of those conversations but that makes the most sense to me.)

When court reconvened, Sullivan walked back his earlier comments and proceeded to ask Flynn the standard plea deal questions including if he wanted to withdraw his plea. Because of the most recent agreement with Team Mueller, he had his "orders" so to speak and went along with the plan.

The one flaw here was the delay, not in Sullivan's court but now in other courts in which Flynn was expected to be called to testify as part of that cooperation agreement. So the can (sentencing) kept getting kicked down the road as the other case was still in pre-trial proceedings with no trial date set.

The trial of Flynn's business partner finally occurred this past July but Flynn had changed counsel in the interim which also contributed to some more delay.

Clear as mud, I know but my best guesstimate of how this has played out.

ETA: Have no idea how this ends for Flynn ultimately but I think Sullivan gives him some jail time on January 28th, barring unforseen circumstances. Whether he actually serves time or not is another question.

Ok thanks much! Disturbing, but I understand now.

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Also, how many judges do you need to sign off on a given FISA?

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Apparently, only the judge "on duty", who is on a rotation. As for duties...

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Title III. Structure and Powers of the Court
...
Rule 5. Authority of the Judges.

(a) Scope of Authority. Each Judge may exercise the authority vested by the Act and such other authority as is consistent with Article III of the Constitution and other statutes and laws of the United States, to the extent not inconsistent with the Act.

(b) Referring Matters to Other Judges. Except for matters involving a denial of an application for an order, a Judge may refer any matter to another Judge of the Court with that Judge's consent. If a Judge directs the government to supplement an application, the Judge may direct the government to present the renewal of that application to the same Judge. If a matter is presented to a Judge who is unavailable or whose tenure on the Court expires while the matter is pending, the Presiding Judge may re-assign the matter.

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Also, from the same pdf ("Rules of Procedure"), any Judge may ask for additional judges to review or participate, if there are complications or the Govt wants to modify the previous authorization.

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Do you need a majority of them to agree? Do you only need one?

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In the case of multiple judges called in, under Title VIII (En Banc) in the pdf, it does appear that they do vote...

Rockdoc said:

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Ok thanks much! Disturbing, but I understand now.

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Sidenote here was the conflict of interest Flynn's former lawyers had in steering away from the FARA charges to the lying to the FBI charge. Since the same law firm was the one representing him and advising him regarding filing under federal lobbying disclosure statutes were his criminal counsel. Thus his former attorneys had a vested interest in which way Flynn agreed to plea. It was the FARA stuff that could have roped in Flynn's son, as I understand it.

So the law firm had a very plausible reason to tell Flynn to take that exact plea deal other than getting themselves off of the hook in the process. (And no, that was not ethical behavior on their part.)

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A judge in New York threw out mortgage fraud charges against Paul Manafort on Wednesday, ruling that the case against the former Trump campaign manager violated the state's laws against double jeopardy, according to the Associated Press.

Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed the case from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in a brief hearing, according to the wire service.

Manafort was reportedly absent, and has been hospitalized in recent days with heart problems.

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The Hill

Ol Cy seems to have a bad case of unsatisfied vengeance!

fasthorse05 said:

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Ol Cy seems to have a bad case of unsatisfied vengeance!

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It was a stupid case to begin with. He was counting on the double jeopardy law being changed but even if it had, the case was filed before the law change and given the statute of limitations, would not be refiled after the change in the law, making his case both barred by double jeopardy and then the principle of ex post facto.

I do recall having some arguments with my usual detractors over whether the double jeopardy provision even applied to the state case. Seeing no daylight between the timing and the properties involved in both the federal and the state case, I said it did apply and that the state case would be dropped.

My short victory lap.

Hhmm.

More of the moderate and conservative blogging legal class are weighing on Sullivan's weird attack on Sidney's ethics in that opinion. From Powerline

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In his post about Judge Emmet Sullivan's decision refusing to find prosecutorial misconduct in the case against Michael Flynn, Scott noted that Sullivan berated Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, for lifting a portion of her brief to the court. Scott added that Sullivan's accusation "is misplaced," but did not discuss the matter further because it was not the subject of the post.

Jonathan Turley takes up Sullivan's accusation in this article. He shows not only that Scott was right, but that he was gentle.

Sullivan suggested that Powell engaged in unethical conduct by "[lifting] verbatim portions from a source without attribution." Sullivan added that "in a footnote, Mr. Flynn's brief merely provides a hyperlink to the 'excellent briefing by Amicus [sic] in support of the Petition for Writ of Certiorari in Brown v. United States.'"

But in the electronic age, the hyperlink is attribution. The source of Powell's language was there for anyone to see with just one click.

Powell clearly wasn't trying to deceive anyone into thinking that the language originated with her. Even if one believes she should have made the attribution on the face of her brief rather then through a hyperlink, Sullivan's suggestion that she "engage[d] in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation" is ludicrous.

I'm as apt as any oldtimer to indulge in get off my lawnism. But Sullivan's accusation goes beyond that phenomenon. It smacks of personal hostility.

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As far as the Powerline lawyers go Mirengoff is no fan of Trump.

IG Horowitz Tells Senate: I Did Not Say No Political Bias in FBI Investigation

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On Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) asked Horowitz to clarify the point:

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Hawley: Was it your conclusion that there was that political bias did not affect any part of the [former FBI lawyer Lisa] Page investigation, any part of Crossfire Hurricane? Is that what you concluded?

Horowitz: We did not reach that conclusion.
Hawley: Because I could have sworn in fact, I know for a fact that I've heard that today from this committee. But that's not your conclusion?

Horowitz: We have been very careful, in connection with the FISAs, for the reasons you mentioned, to not reach that conclusion, in part as we've talked about earlier the alteration of the email, the text messages associated with the individual who did that, and our inability to explain or understand what to get good explanations so that we could understand why this all happened.

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https://www.theepochtimes.com/21-key-quotes-from-inspector-generals-report-testimony_3178817.html

Excellent analysis of Horowitz's report by Jeff Carlson.

From my continuing reading of the IG Report:

Page 59:

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...Strzok, the Intel Section Chief, the Supervisory Intelligence Analyst (Supervisory Intel Analyst), and Case Agent 2 told the OIG that, based on this information, the initial investigative objective of Crossfire Hurricane was to determine which individuals associated with the Trump campaign may have been in a position to have received the alleged offer of assistance from Russia.

After conducting preliminary open source and FBI database inquiries, intelligence analysts on the Crossfire Hurricane team identified three individuals Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn-associated with the Trump campaign with either ties to Russia or a history of travel to Russia....

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Now keep this in mind: Papadopoulos had no known ties to Russian or Russian officials at that time. He had never traveled to Russia. So the selection criteria used to identify Page, Manafort & Flynn seems very arbitrary/dubious IMO. Why wouldn't their primary consideration be to sniff out those who were directly associated with Papadopoulos; i.e., who was his Campaign supervisor, who were his associates in the Trump Campaign, who were his business associates, with whom did he travel, etc.?? (& remember, Papadopoulos was working in London, not the US.) Better still, wouldn't it have been more logical/prudent to peruse the formal list (link below) of influential people working in the Trump Presidential Campaign in order to establish ties/connections with Papadopoulos??? And, if there was collusion going on with the Russians, one would certainly assume that such encounters would be clandestine & conducted in secret, not out in the open such as being conducted while traveling to Russia. I find this reasoning/explanation very strange for counterintelligence personnel.

http://www.p2016.org/trump/trumporggen.html

But guess who didn't hold a formal position in the Trump hierarchy? Flynn. Yes, Trump had a personal association with Flynn & there were rumors circulating that Flynn was a VP candidate, but Flynn was a registered Democrat & had been Obama's DIA for 2 years, & he did not hold any working or formal position in the Trump Organization...making him a very unlikely person upon whom to open a CI. But isn't it peculiar that on July 9, 2016, the following article was published in Vox about General Flynn, "Trump's favorite general", beaming Flynn into the spotlight & mentioning this little blurb:

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/9/12129202/michael-flynn-vice-president-donald-trump

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And like Trump, Flynn has an odd affection for Russia and its authoritarian government. He has spent much of his time since retirement cozying up the Putin regime, and he's a frequent guest on its English-language propaganda channel, RT (formerly known as Russia Today).

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Just another coincidence? (The author of the above article, Zack Beauchamp, has a prolific record of publications about Flynn, Trump, etc. -- he would be a good candidate to be on Glenn Simpson's payroll.)

Flynn was definitely on the radar long before Crossfire Hurricane came into existence.

LINK

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Attorney General William Barr provided new details Wednesday of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe and said in an interview on Fox News that the federal prosecutor is looking into the activities of federal agencies outside the FBI, as well as those of "private actors."

"He's not just looking at the FBI," Barr said of Durham. "He's looking at other agencies and also private actors, so it's a much broader investigation."

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Fusion, GPS and Perkins, Coie sphincter check time.

is it just me or has Brennan suddenly gone radio silent?

An Amazing Feat + Coincidences + Unusual Footnotes

A Timeline to the Opening of Crossfire Hurricane:

1. July 28, 2016 Communication received from FFG about Papadopoulos' revelations.
2. July 31, 2016 Crossfire Hurricane opened.
3. August 1, 2016 Strzok & Priestap fly to London to meet with Downer & Co.
4. Early August, 2016 Case Agent 1 from NYFO assigned to Crossfire Hurricane Team.
5. Early August, 2016 Crossfire Hurricane Team targets Page, Papadopoulos, Manifort & Flynn.
6. August 10, 2016 CI investigations opened on Page, Papadopoulos & Manafort.
7. August 11, 2016 Case Agent 1 meets with Halper in London

So, Horowitz would have us believe, based upon his interviews & findings, that the investigation into Trump Campaign individuals & the Russians went from zero to full speed in two weeks time. I just can't help noticing how much was accomplished in such a short period of time -- they identified the 4 'suspects' & opened CIs on them, brought in Case Agent 1 from the NYFO where there was already an ongoing CI on Page -- Case Agent 1 being Halper's Handler (a 'coincidence'), & Case Agent 1 flew to London to meet with Halper (who was acquainted with 3 of the 'suspects', another 'coincidence') about being a CHS. All the while claiming that Steele's Reports didn't reach the Crossfire Hurricane Team until September 19, 2016 (see below). Hah!

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On September 19, 2016, the Crossfire Hurricane team received the Steele reporting for the first time when Handling Agent 1 emailed SSA 1 six reports for SSA 1 to upload himself to the sub-file: Reports 80 and 94, and four additional reports (Reports 95, 100, 101, and 102) that Handling Agent 1 had since received from Steele. 226 FBI officials we interviewed told us that the length of time it took for Steele's election reporting to reach FBI Headquarters was excessive and that the reports should have been sent promptly after their receipt by the Legat. Members of the Crossfire Hurricane team told us that their assessment of the Steele election reporting could have started much earlier if the reporting had been made available to them.

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Handling Agent 1 = Michael Gaeta
The entire scenario of how it took so long for Gaeta to pass Steele's reports to the Crossfire Hurricane Team is a story unto itself involving bungling, ignorance & stupidity (or most likely, cover-up activity) that perhaps I will cover sometime.

Now let me share with you a couple of obscure Footnotes:

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223 As we summarize in Chapter Ten, at approximately the same time that Handling Agent 1 was reporting information about Simpson to ASAC 1, an FBI agent from another FBI field office sent an email to his supervisor stating that he had been contacted by a former CHS who "was contacted recently by a colleague who runs an investigative firm. The firm had been hired by two entities (the Democratic National Committee as well as another individual...not name[d]) to explore Donald J. Trump's longstanding ties to Russian entities." On or about August 2, 2016, this information was shared by a CD supervisor with the Section Chief of CD's Counterintelligence Analysis Section I (Intel Section Chief), who provided it that day to members of the Crossfire Hurricane team (then Section Chief Peter Strzok, SSA 1, and the Supervisory Intel Analyst).

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Page 310:

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461 The only express direction we found that McCabe gave regarding the use of a CHS concerned a former FBI CHS, who contacted an FBI agent in an FBI field office in late July 2016 to report information from "a colleague who runs an investigative firm ... hired by two entities (the Democratic National Committee [DNC] as well as another individual...[who was] not name[d]) to explore Donald Trump's longstanding ties to Russian entities." The former CHS also gave the FBI agent a list of "individuals and entities who have surfaced in [the investigative firm's] examination," which the former CHS described as "mostly public source material." In mid-September 2016, McCabe told SSA 1 to instruct the FBI agent from the field office not to have any further contact with the former CHS, and not to accept any information regarding the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. McCabe told the OIG he did not remember giving those instructions, and could not tell us why he might have done so. We found no evidence that the FBI reopened the former CHS for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, or tasked the former CHS in connection with the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

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There is no other info provided concerning the above 2 Footnotes -- the material sent to Strzok & Co. was not described/listed.

Grassley inquired about the above Footnote 461 during the Senate's meeting with Horowitz, but Horowitz was not familiar enough with it to answer specific questions. A few other people on Twitter have taken notice of these 2 footnotes as well. No good clues as to who this former CHS was.

I strongly suspect that the 3 'suspects' in addition to Papadopoulos who were targeted by the Crossfire Hurricane Team were identified in the 'list' provided by the above 'investigative firm' = Fusion GPS. Note that this unknown CHS described the material as being "mostly public source material" = Nellie Ohr's function.

They are hiding something.

https://www.usatoday.com/documents/6588633-Notice-Other/

https://www.usatoday.com/documents/6588632-Redacted-Document/

I don't understand the purpose of the above. Is the government requesting 'leniency"?

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461 The only express direction we found that McCabe gave regarding the use of a CHS concerned a former FBI CHS, who contacted an FBI agent in an FBI field office in late July 2016 to report information from "a colleague who runs an investigative firm ... hired by two entities (the Democratic National Committee [DNC] as well as another individual...[who was] not name[d]) to explore Donald Trump's longstanding ties to Russian entities." The former CHS also gave the FBI agent a list of "individuals and entities who have surfaced in [the investigative firm's] examination," which the former CHS described as "mostly public source material."

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Which Field Office? New York? DC? Virginia? Maryland? Knowing that would narrow the the possibilities tremendously.

Wouldn't that be something if when Horowitz inspects all the FBI FISA Warrants,for the past 5 years, he finds that the illegal misconduct is typical, analogous to cheating on your federal taxes for several years and getting caught in an audit ! Imagine the legal repercussions for the DOJ.

Flynn had a file built on him during the Obama years. Why? Not because Trump might win. No. Because he was going to be the fall guy if Obama was ever accused of wrongdoing.

aggiehawg said:

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461 The only express direction we found that McCabe gave regarding the use of a CHS concerned a former FBI CHS, who contacted an FBI agent in an FBI field office in late July 2016 to report information from "a colleague who runs an investigative firm ... hired by two entities (the Democratic National Committee [DNC] as well as another individual...[who was] not name[d]) to explore Donald Trump's longstanding ties to Russian entities." The former CHS also gave the FBI agent a list of "individuals and entities who have surfaced in [the investigative firm's] examination," which the former CHS described as "mostly public source material."

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Which Field Office? New York? DC? Virginia? Maryland? Knowing that would narrow the the possibilities tremendously.

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I think I remember Horowitz talking about the DC field office, but I'm not sure if it was in reference to this. I think it was during his Senate testimony earlier this week.

https://bongino.com/ep-1134-how-did-the-media-miss-this-explosive-footnote-in-the-ig-report/

Bongino on Footnote 461 from the IG Report; starts at 7:00 minutes into the podcast.

It's a little dramatic regarding the presentation, but circa 15 minutes into the discussion, Bongino makes the point: They couldn't open Crossfire Hurricane on the basis of Steele's reporting because that would directly implicate HRC/DNC, so that's why they needed the Papadopoulos episode...Bongino claims they knew about the cable the Aussies sent back in May about the meeting between Downer & Papadopoulos. They obviously had info about Steele's reports via Footnote 461 in late July 2016, so any evidence of that had to be buried in order that they could claim & demonstrate that they didn't received reports from Steele until September 19, 2016. Hence McCabe ordered to cut off relationships with that former CHS.

Speaking of Bongino, check out his attire today (Dec 19).

Sheila Jackson Lee? Well hell, he better resign, and quick!

Que Te Gusta Mas said:

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What a load of horse sh/t.

from hank f'ing johnson of all people.