This lead, us to Michael Flynn's Leak Killers:
Something interesting I found in relation to some of my earlier Flynn speculations:
Who is David Cattler and why is that relevant to Flynn's plea?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-of ... or-staff-0 Cattler's position on the NSC senior staff was created by Flynn, one of two new deputy assistant positions he created within the NSC. This is important because Cattler was approved and granted TS/SCI clearance along with the other senior NSC staff hand picked by Flynn - this is actually a higher security clearance than he held in his previous (well decorated) positions within the USIC. It allows him access to see raw SIGINT without violating national security - something that was denied to many other Trump appointees in Jan/Feb:
"In February, intelligence agencies denied a high-level security clearance to Robin Townley, an African affairs specialist and close aide to then-White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
The denial of the Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance, the high-level security clearance known as TS/SCI, was widely viewed as a bureaucratic power play by opponents of both Flynn and Townley inside intelligence agencies.
Angelo Codevilla, an intelligence expert, said the denial of clearances was engineered by the CIA and came despite Townley's holding of the high level clearance for many years when he worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The clearance denial drove Townley out of the White House National Security Council staff.
(snip)
The TS/SCI clearance grants a holder access to special intelligence, such as information obtained from foreign recruited agents and electronic communications intelligence.
The clearance also can include signing extensive non-disclosure agreements."
Source:
http://freebeacon.com/national-security ... liticized/ Cattler was hired February 2, 2017 - 11 days before Flynn would resign, less than a week after Flynn's interview with the FBI where he lied, and thirty two days after Flynn's phone call was leaked to the press (illegally since what was released was the raw SIGINT content of Flynn's phone call with the Ambassador).
Flynn steps down February 13th. February 20th, McMaster is hired and he immediately begins reassigning Flynn's NSC senior staff and eliminating positions Flynn created, including Cattler's:
*************************************************
(From March 1st, 2017 -
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/ ... ges-235579 )
President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, is taking steps to streamline the National Security Council — starting by eliminating positions created by his short-lived predecessor Michael Flynn, according to two people familiar with the moves.
McMaster did away this week with two deputy assistant spots, one overseeing the NSC’s regional desks and another overseeing transnational issues, according to a senior White House aide.
*************************************************
Cattler was not fired, he was reassigned:
*************************************************
Dave Cattler, who was named deputy assistant to the president for regional affairs, will return to the office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he worked during the Obama administration.
(snip)
“McMaster took a look at them and thought he didn’t need the extra layer,” the White House aide said of the two positions. “He wanted to go back to the way it had been prior.”
*****************************************************
Excluded from this article is the fact that Cattler returned to his former post while retaining his TS/SCI clearances, clearances he did not hold previously.
The same article then goes on to add:
*****************************************************
Cattler and Hansell are generally well-regarded, according to a person familiar with the current NSC.
Cattler was a Flynn pick, the person said. According to his LinkedIn page, Cattler worked under the former NSC boss at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn was forced out of the DIA in 2014.
According to the person familiar with the NSC, some career intelligence professionals regarded Cattler with suspicion because of his connection to Flynn, a vocal critic of the CIA and its tactics.
******************************************************
(The last few quotes all from the same source above:
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/ ... ges-235579 )
Those of you paying close attention might already see where this is going...
Let's go back and ask some questions about Flynn:
What did Flynn do professionally before joining Trump's team?
What specifically did Flynn and the previous administration have a falling out over? (Hint, Congressional Testimony)
Why is that relevant to the Russian-gate investigation and narrative?
Which IC chief did Trump retain?
Did Trump meet with that IC Chief in an unconventional way that made headlines?
Why is that important?
What was THAT IC Chief's relationship with the previous administration?
What specifically did that IC Chief and the previous administration have a falling out over?
How does that relate to Flynn's falling out with the previous administration?
Who has everyone's secrets?
And with those questions in mind let's reexamine the entire Flynn timeline because it's important:
December 28, 2016 - 44's administration sanctions Russia for Russian "meddling" and expels over 30 diplomats.
December 29, 2016 - Flynn, acting as a member of the transition team, called the Russian Ambassador Kislyak and asked him not to escalate the situation in response to 44's sanctions. This call was made on an open line, not a secured one. It's safe to assume Flynn, with his 33 year career as a spy, was aware that the call was being monitored and recorded by many different parties, including the USIC and FBI.
January 12th, 2017 - David Ignatius of the Washington Post, relying on unnamed sources, reports the following and ignites a media firestorm:
"According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions?"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 752efd0d54 January 15th, 2017 - Pence goes on Face the Nation and describes the Flynn Kislyak call as coincidental and not prompted by 44's sanctions the day prior. He bases this on a conversation Pence had with Flynn days before. The firestorm of speculations in the media intensifies, as pundits breathlessly write about just what might have been said in the call between Flynn and Kislyak. Pence is in the spotlight and dragged through the mud as op-eds claim he's covering for Flynn and Trump both.
January 20th - 21st, 2017 - 45 sworn into office. Flynn's senior staff begins to get deployed and granted TS/SCI clearances while Trump immediately begins to fire swaths of people at both State and CIA, going as far as to give a speech at Langley wherein he joked about building a new entry way for the CIA "without any columns". Columns in intelligence speak is defined as such: any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. This is an incredibly audacious "joke" for a newly elected president to make while standing in front of the CIA's wall of honor.
During the same speech, well before he makes the "column" comments, 45 specifically calls out Flynn. This is significant because he's standing in Langley. Flynn was once head of DIA - DIA and CIA do not get along and it was Flynn's clash with the CIA which lead to him losing his position under the previous administration. The subtext here is perhaps more than just Trump standing behind Flynn amidst the fire storm, it's more a "game on" statement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... MBqDN7-QLg The columns comment comes immediately after 45 "rambles" about "liking honest reporting" @ the 15:09 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... MBqDN7-QLg"We'll get rid of the columns." The columns in this could possibly mean those in CIA and other USIC agencies who have been leaking classified intel damaging to the administration to the "dishonest" press.
January 24th, 2017 - Flynn has his meeting with the FBI and lies about the contents of the call on the 29th. Flynn had the legal right not to answer the question, or even to take the meeting, yet rather than do that he knowingly lies to the FBI about a call which a) he knows to have been legal, and b) he knows the FBI has a complete transcript of already.
January 26th, 2017 - Sally Yates (per her congressional testimony in May) informs White House Counsel that Flynn is now vulnerable to Russian blackmail because he lied to the FBI and to Pence about the contents of the call. It's important to note here that Sally Yates did not have TS/SCI clearance and thus could not legally read the contents of Flynn's call unless Flynn's name had been unmasked and shared with her by 44's administration. Also note that Flynn was cleared of any illegalities with regards to the contents of the call itself - meaning, there was nothing illegal or treasonous in the transcripts for which Flynn could be charged. This is why he only got hit with Process Crimes.
“We weren’t the only ones that knew all of this, that the Russians also knew about what General Flynn had done and the Russians also knew that General Flynn had misled the vice president and others,” Yates said.
https://www.thewrap.com/sally-yates-say ... sians/amp/ February 2nd, 2017 - In the midst of a media firestorm and leaks causing the Administration headaches and twitter tantrums, Flynn who knows he's on borrowed time, creates a new deputy assistant position in the NSC senior staff and appoints Cattler to fill it.
February 8th, 2017 - Flynn denies the story to the Washington Post, saying the topic of sanctions never came up on his call with Kislyak. This sets off another media firestorm.
February 9th, 2017 - Flynn then backtracks to the Washington Post, and through a spokesman said the topic "might have come up".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... dc1946409c February 13th, 2017 - Flynn resigns, officially for lying to Pence and the FBI.
February 20th 2017 - McMaster is hired as National Security Advisor and recycles Flynn's staff. McMaster eliminates the two new deputy positions Flynn created, transfering Cattler back to the office of the DNI, though he is now armed with TS/SCI clearance good for 12 months.
Why is this timeline important?
Because by January 24th we know Flynn knew three things for certain:
1) His phone call to the Ambassador was not illegal, nor was discussing sanctions.
2) His phone call to the Ambassador was being monitored and recorded.
3) The administration was in the midst of trying to plug leaks of classified intelligence to the media by members of the USIC:
"It is the second consecutive day that Trump has been critical of leakers, a tirade that followed the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn earlier this week. Perhaps seeking an avenue with which to go on the offensive amid the swirling controversy, Trump has kept his attacks focused on the means by which reporters have sourced stories harmful to his administration, not the substance of the stories themselves. He has especially aimed his bombast at the intelligence community, escalating his long-running feud by accusing its officials of delivering leaks to reporters."
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/ ... ght-235081 (More articles about Trump v the Leakers)
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tr ... 61313a1fbbhttp://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tw ... ers-2017-2https://thinkprogress.org/trump-loved-l ... 720204c7b/http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... akers.htmlhttp://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/ ... untry.htmlhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... 2b5a6c3797https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-hates- ... 50049.htmlhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... f-confirms Now, it's entirely possible Flynn knowingly lied to the FBI about something he knew they'd know was a lie because he didn't trust the FBI to keep his answer confidential. Had he answered yes, and the FBI leaked it, in that environment (which was even more hysterical than it is now) this news would have SUNK Trump's administration in Russian scandal to the point of crippling it less than two weeks after being sworn in. 45 might never recover from Flynn answering honestly about a conversation he knew was in no way illegal or treasonous. With that in mind, Flynn, being a patriot, fell on his sword to protect the administration from undue and unfair scrutiny...
Can't rule that out.
But there's another possibility...
It's also possible that a career master spook was doing something else entirely. That's where Cattler comes in and where this gets fun:
Cattler's career in the USIC is flawless. His specialty? Counter terrorism. He and Flynn go way back, but Cattler isn't a politician or a public figure or a department head who sits behind a desk and pushes paper. He's a field spook who specializes in finding terrorists using SIGINT and HUMINT. He's an expert at finding Terrorists who hide in population centers and build networks and cells in secret... Kind of like spies or people leaking classified intel to the media would do...
I'm proposing that it's possible - if not likely - that Flynn brought on Cattler (and others) to hunt for the leakers inside the USIC feeding the media as well as to root out CIA corruption/influence in both the FBI and DOJ. Remember, National Security Advisor is not confirmed by the Senate, Flynn was an outsider who had just been torched by the outgoing administration at the time he was picked for the job - he was already a target before he took the job.
Flynn appointed Cattler at a period of time when he knew he had lied to the FBI and they had the proof. He knew that proof, which was classified TS/SCI intelligence, was being shared illegally with members of the media with the explicit purpose to undercut the incoming administration's ability to dictate its own foreign policy agendas. Flynn created a new position within the NSC senior staff to bring Cattler on, assuring he would get TS/SCI clearances above his existing clearances, which Cattler would then retain for the next 12 months even after his transfer out of the NSC.
This would allow the NSA (and other friendly agencies) to share raw SIGINT with Cattler even after Flynn's resignation without violating the law.
For those of you unaware, the raw SIGINT that would be most useful for someone hunting leakers would be the same SIGINT that would be useful to a terrorist hunter: cell phone records, conversations and all and all electronic communications - encrypted or not.
Who holds the keys to that particular kingdom?
(Drum roll please.....)
Image result for navy admiral mike rogers and michael flynn
That's right. The person who holds the keys to that kingdom, the agency that knows everyone's secrets and has them on file, is the only USIC chief 45 retained...
Curious, isn't it? Why would Trump retain Rogers? You can start to answer that by remember what Rogers has in common with Flynn.
Both were Obama appointees who had serious falling outs with the administration. So much so that 44 warned 45 that both Flynn and Rogers should be viewed with caution. Dig into what specifically Flynn and Roger's clashes with the administration were all about and you (unsurprisingly) arrive at the same answer. (That's on you to dig for - the answer is surprising)
Immediately following the election, Rogers had an unscheduled meeting with Trump that outraged 44's administration and was painted in the press as Rogers "begging" to keep his job.
https://www.npr.org/2016/11/22/50298000 ... is-way-out Others before me have speculated (with solid evidence to support their speculations) that Rogers was not there to beg for his job but instead there to warn Trump about leakers and the coup attempt by elements within the USIC.
Which one is the truth? Perhaps both? Whatever was discussed, Rogers was retained as head of NSA and in that position he has the keys to the world, as well as everyone's email and phone conversations. Information he could share with men like Cattler once he got his TS/SCI clearance.
Information and intelligence that a master mole hunter can deploy to locate and oust leakers.
To recap: Flynn brought counter intel spooks into the NSC (more than Cattler, look into the rest of his NSC staff picks. Nearly all of them are career spooks outside of the ones who are/were known media personalities), got them TS/SCI clearances which they retained after Flynn's resignation in order to assist the administration in tracking down the leaks coming from within the USIC.
And they've been at work since February 13th... Has it worked?
Well... let's go back to this story which broke last week:
Mueller Removed Top F.B.I. Agent Over Possible Anti-Trump Texts
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/p ... texts.html In late July [2016], the F.B.I. opened an investigation into possible collusion between members of Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives. Besides Mr. Comey and a small team of agents, officials said, only a dozen or so people at the F.B.I. knew about the investigation. Mr. Strzok, just days removed from the Clinton case, was selected to supervise it.
The Times also reported that Strzok relied on information provided to the FBI by Christopher Steele, the former British spy who was hired by an opposition research firm working for the Clinton campaign to investigate Trump’s Russia activities.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/02/fbi-a ... site-share The initial reports attempted to paint Strzok as a middling level agent involved in the investigation. This is a lie. He was running the investigation into Clinton's emails and was heading up the FBI's Russia investigation before Mueller was hired as special prosecutor. After which he played a prominent role on Mueller's team.
Why specifically was Strzok reassigned off the investigation and into human resources (which is about as humiliating of a demotion a senior agent can get in the FBI)?
"The people briefed on the case said the transfer followed the discovery of text messages in which Mr. Strzok and a colleague reacted to news events, like presidential debates, in ways that could appear critical of Mr. Trump."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/p ... texts.html In other words, precisely the kind of raw SIGINT that the NSA collects on every one of us every day. Precisely the kind of SIGINT Flynn's spooks like Cattler were given clearances to see and analyze.
But there's more...
When was Strzok reassigned?
"But Mr. Strzok was reassigned this summer from Mr. Mueller’s investigation to the F.B.I.’s human resources department, where he has been stationed since."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/p ... texts.html Yet, the Strzok news did not leak until after Flynn signed his plea deal. Why is this significant?
Remember back to the speculations revolving around Papadapoulos, he was arrested in July but:
The next day, in the motion to seal the filings associated with his arrest, the office of the special counsel argued that “public disclosure of the defendant’s appearance” would “significantly undermine his ability to serve as a proactive cooperator.”
“I assume that means he wouldn’t be able to wear a wire and trick a target of the investigation into making incriminating statements, because his cooperation would then be known,” said Bruce Green, a former associate counsel in the Iran-Contra affair and a Fordham Law School professor.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/544493/ Popodopoulos wasn't formerly incited until October because they did not want to expose to the world that he'd been caught and ruin his ability to gather intelligence for the special investigation.
Why didn't the news of Strzok's reassignment leak until after Flynn signed his plea? Could it be because the Strzok texts were given to Mueller by Flynn's leak hunters and announcing that in July would have exposed Flynn's network? A network run by men like Cattler.
ABSOLUTELY.
And if that's true, now that Flynn has come in from the cold, it could mean that Strzok is just the beginning. We are perhaps about to see the results of the network Flynn deployed before resigning.
This next week should be interesting...
Addendum:
*This is an article about one of Flynn's DIA spooks... it's important to read in context with the above:
There was one person, however, who McMaster couldn’t get rid of: Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence programs. McMaster tried to remove him in March, but President Trump, at the urging of Bannon and Jared Kushner, told McMaster that Cohen-Watnick was staying, as first reported by Politico. ... That Cohen-Watnick, 31 years old and largely unknown before entering the administration, has become unfireable reveals how important he has become to the Trump White House, where loyalty is prized.
31 year old unknown senior NSC position who's suddenly unfirable. What exactly was his position?
The senior in Cohen-Watnick’s title reflects the importance of his job, if not the level of experience he brings to it. The senior director for intelligence programs on the NSC is a powerful position, designed to coordinate and liaise between the U.S. intelligence community and the White House.
(snip)
The CIA has traditionally had control over who fills this position, and normally the job is staffed by a more experienced official. McMaster, assuming he’d be allowed to relieve or reassign Cohen-Watnick, had gone so far as to interviewCohen-Watnick’s potential replacement, Linda Weissgold, a veteran CIA officer.
CIA traditionally has control over who fills this spot - Flynn fills it instead with an unknown 31 year old from the DIA:
Despite his prominent, and apparently quite secure, position in Trump’s NSC, little is known about Cohen-Watnick, who had spent much of his short career as a low-ranking official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Information about him in publicly available sources is scarce. Few higher-ups from the DIA remember him. Only one picture of him can be found online
Sure sounds like the type of background you'd associate with a spook, not a suit, doesn't it? Notice how the article describes people going out of their way not to describe the man. Protecting an intelligence officer's identity is one of the most important national security secrets in existence. Perhaps that's the reason for the unusual behavior:
Unlike other White House officials who have become public figures in their own right, Cohen-Watnick never speaks for himself publicly, leaving others to fill the void. Yet he hardly comes into sharper focus when you talk to co-workers, friends, and former colleagues. Ask around about Ezra Cohen-Watnick, and people get defensive. Some profess not to know him, or ask why anyone would want to write about him. Others simply refuse to discuss him.
“I won’t talk to any journalist about Ezra,” said Michael Ledeen, a Flynn confidant who knows Cohen-Watnick well.
And here is where it gets potentially really interesting in context with the rest of this post:
Washington got its first real look at Cohen-Watnick when he was identified as one of two White House sources who provided House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes with evidence that former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the “unmasking” of the names of Trump associates in intelligence documents. In the intelligence world, incidental collection refers to intelligence agencies obtaining, in the course of monitoring foreigners, communications that either refer to or involve Americans, whose names are typically “masked” unless officials request that they be “unmasked.”
The incident, coming in the aftermath of Trump baselessly accusing his predecessor of wiretapping Trump Tower, became one of the first dust-ups related to the investigations into possible Russian collusion during the 2016 campaign that have gripped the White House. The president later accused Rice of having committed a crime; for her part, Rice has denied that she ordered the unmasking for political purposes.
Again, if Cohen-Watnick is who this post suggests he is, and his job at DIA was in line with Cattler's and Flynn's (counter terror/counter intel), then it becomes conceivable that this whole Nunes / wire tapping tweets and hoopla was actually a trap being set by Flynn's network. The results of which might be about to break.
For example: We know from Sally Yates own testimony that she knew for certain just two days after Flynn's FBI interview that he had lied about the call. The only way she could know such a thing with certainty was if she saw the transcript of the call - which legally could only be shown to a Yates if Flynn's name had been unmasked and Trump's team was under surveillance for Russian collusion. We also now know that at that time - January 26th - Strzok was the lead FBI agent running the investigation into Trump's team AND WAS THE AGENT WHO QUESTIONED FLYNN ON THE 24th!
It's possible Yates obtained this information illegally from a leak within the USIC - from a man like Strzok perhaps?
Back to Cohen- Watnick...
Nunes had to step down from the investigation because of his role in this, but Cohen-Watnick?
Despite that early controversy, Cohen-Watnick retains one of the most consequential intelligence jobs in the nation, and his influence is rising.
Notice in the article there is mention of the central (and ongoing) rivalry between CIA and DIA. I point this out in relation to the larger context of everything we're discussing:
According to a former senior intelligence official, Cohen-Watnick later served overseas in Afghanistan at a CIA base. “He was embedded with the Agency guys,” said a person familiar with Cohen-Watnick’s career. “But the Agency guys were all like ‘!@#$ this guy, he’s just here to spy on us for Flynn and the DIA.’”
A White House official said that Cohen-Watnick did not know Flynn at the time he was in Afghanistan but did not dispute that there were “rivalries between CIA and DIA.”
Now the best part in relation to the thesis of this post:
Nunes claimed at one point that his source had been an intelligence official, not White House. Citing four U.S. officials, the Times later reported that his sources on the intelligence reports were Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis, a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office focused on national security. But the question of who cleared Nunes onto White House grounds, and why Cohen-Watnick was looking into the material, have never been fully answered.
I believe we are answering that question in this post. Cohen-Watnick was looking into unmasking material because he was part of Flynn's network deployed to root out leakers and politicization of the DOJ/FBI (ie CIA influence/compromised elements within those agencies).
The Washington Post reported in April that days after McMaster’s effort to remove Cohen-Watnick, the CIA’s liaison to the White House was fired. The Guardian’s story on the firing cited sources describing it as an “act of retaliation” against the CIA for encouraging McMaster to sack Cohen-Watnick, a report unlikely to endear him to his colleagues.
:ph34r:
The article really is worth the time to read and reflect on what I'm laying out above. Cohen-Watnick is basically outed in this article as being an unfirable DIA spook loyal Flynn, it's really incredible in hindsight:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ck/534615/ Addendum 2:
This came out today, from the DOJ Office of the Inspector General and is more circumstantial evidence of the case I outlined above:
"The January 2017 statement issued by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announcing its review ofallegations regarding various actions of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in advance of the 2016 election stated that the OIG review would, among other things, consider whether certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations and that we also would include issues that might arise during the course of the review.
The OIG has been reviewing allegations involving communications between certain individuals, and will report its findings regarding those allegations promptly upon completion of the review of them."
- Justice Department Office of the Inspector General
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/02/politics/ ... index.html What that statement is saying in simpler terms: For the past 11 months the DOJ IG has been investigating the politicization within the DOJ and FBI and deciding if the action, or lack of action, was driven by the political ideology of the participants therein.
What makes this noteworthy, and related to my above longer post, is that IG investigators don't usually talk about investigations when they're in the middle of them. They discuss them when they're wrapping up.
Which might explain the timing of the Strzok revelation (he flipped on others inside the FBI possibly). And it wouldn't surprise me to find out Flynn's network had a lot to do with it.
The results of this investigation could actually be quite major.
Here's the announcement of the investigation, almost 11 months ago - while Flynn was still National Security Advisor and filling out his staff / deploying his network:
https://oig.justice.gov/press/2017/2017-01-12.pdf After Flynn came in from the cold, the evidence supporting this theory started pouring in:
According to a court filing, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras, who presided over a Dec. 1 hearing where Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with Russia, will no longer handle the case.
Court spokeswoman Lisa Klem did not say why Contreras was recused, and added that the case was randomly reassigned.
Reuters could not immediately learn the reason for the recusal, or reach Contreras.
An attorney for Flynn declined to comment.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... ium=Social Hmm... Where have I seen that name before? Oh, that's right:
http://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/current-membership Third name on the list.
Do you see what's happening yet? This is the judge who would have cleared the FISA warrant (based on the dossier) to surveil Flynn and Trump's team. He also presided over Flynn's hearing wherein the defense inarguably would have raised this very issue.
Now he's been taken off the case... just as this IG report is about to come out. Betcha that judge will be included in it.
Imagine the POWER of the implications of all of this. A judge, playing politics, was in position to give FISA warrants to their allies to surveillance ANYONE they wish legally. That's how you set up a blackmail network. That's how you circumvent any internal investigation. That's how you provide cover for any sort of illicit arms running programs you might set up (let's just say...). It's staggering to think about.
Telling you. The media is way behind. Flynn played them all.
******************
Judge in Michael Flynn Case recuses himself
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12 ... mself.html I am positive this is continued fallout from the Flynn Leak Killer theory floated a few pages back. And I'll lay out why below...
Flynn goaded the FBI to come after him, making himself a too-juicy-to-refuse target and then proceeded to commit a process crime by lying to the FBI on January 24th. We now know the 24th meeting/ambush was run by Pro-Obama/Clinton FBI agent Strzok and was designed to entrap Flynn and sink 45's administration in the phony Russian nonsense. We know this because Strzok was reassigned after 10,000 text messages were found and evidence he leaked the news of Manafort's raid to the WaPo. We also know now that Flynn didn't lie to cover anything up in that 24th meeting. In fact, he was cleared by the FBI for that "controversial" call with the Russian Ambassador on the 23rd of January. A day before the ambush meeting the FBI knew Flynn hadn't broken any laws or committed any form of collusion. They had the transcript of the call and couldn't charge him with any of it.
Let's look at Contreras.
He's the definition of a nonentity (or at least as much of one as you can be while being a federal judge). Look into his career. It's devoid of acclaim. Yet he's also a FISA judge. FISA judges rotate, a new one each week, and determine which cases to grant FISA warrants for (which means collection of all communications and data involved with the case/suspect). These are classified courts, completely free from oversight BUT for the judge assigned to hear them.
My speculation is that Contreras was picked by Obama to be his "yes man" on the FISA court. The evidence for this is strong if you go back through the last administrations persecution of whistle blowers of all shapes and sizes.
How does Contreras relate to Flynn? Well, there has been a long running story alleging the highly controversial dossier (which we now know was paid for by Clinton, used Russian sources and paid them for their information, and was spearheaded by Strzok himself who worked with Steele on the creation of the dossier) was used by the Obama administration to obtain FISA warrants on Flynn and other Trump team members.
If this is true, it would require a FISA judge to sign off on said FISA warrant. Enter Contreras. Who better to approve a politically motivated FISA warrant?
We know Contreras presided over Flynn's guilty plea to process crimes. Then, without explanation, Contreras removed himself from the case yesterday. The fact Contreras removed himself from the Flynn case NOW means, more than likely, that he was the FISA judge who approved the FISA warrant on Flynn himself (and probably other Trump team members) for the previous administration.
Strzok was already reassigned in July, and is the suspected agent who paid for and brought the dossier before the FISA court to get warrants. The pending IG report is allegedly going to reveal 27 leakers inside the DOJ who were playing politics. Strzok is expected to be one of those and him being the point person for the FBI on the dossier lends more credence to what I have been writing on since last year. The upcoming IG report, if it does nail Strzok, will by extension exposed the information he used to issue the FISA warrant was flawed/fabricated.
This will cast MAJOR suspicion on the whole process, which means that the judge who ordered the FISA warrant will be part of that investigation. Which is why Contreras is stepping down now. The exposure of Contreras' playing politics with FISA warrants on American citizens is going to BLOW OPEN a huge investigation into the FISA system itself. Contreras, by his conflict of interest, has given the new DOJ the excuse it needs to open an investigation into the FISA court and how the system of illegal (excuse me, "legal") surveillance has been abused.
That's one of the (many) end games Flynn engineered.
In order to get that evidence on Contreras, in order to bring attention to the corruption of the FISA court itself, FLYNN HAD TO PLEAD GUILTY TO SOMETHING. He had to. Notice the rest of his charges went away. Because they weren't real to begin with.
Now, the people who were after him - a vast network of political lackeys and corrupt DOJ/FBI personnel - are being rolled up.
Let that sink in...
Flynn set up the FBI, DOJ, FISA court AND the previous administration. That's what he does. Master spooks do master spook things.
If I haven't made the point clear enough yet, this operation not only will expose the corruption of the FISA court, FBI, and DOJ, it's going to obliterate the entire Russian collusion narrative. Which again, wasn't started by HRC or the democrats just to score points against Trump. It was started by elements within the CIA and USIC who were trying to create a NEW enemy in Russia that would justify the continuation of the perma-war, perma-surveillance state under which we have all been living for the past 17 years.
Now that surveillance system - a key to maintaining control - is going to be put under the microscope. That's bad news for the corrupt elements within the USIC.
******
Fake News = Barium Meals for Leakers
In light of the bogus CNN and DB stories this week I wanted to point out another interesting connection to these phony stories and Flynn's Leak Killers. Namely, the concept of barium meals, a technique used by intelligence officers to find out who is leaking information. The idea is simple:
(From Patriot Games - though Clancy did not invent this method:)
"Each summary paragraph has six different versions, and the mixture of those paragraphs is unique to each numbered copy of the paper. There are over a thousand possible permutations, but only ninety-six numbered copies of the actual document. The reason the summary paragraphs are so lurid is to entice a reporter to quote them verbatim in the public media. If he quotes something from two or three of those paragraphs, we know which copy he saw and, therefore, who leaked it."
Let's step back to the CNN story first. What's interesting to note is not just that the story was false but that the LEAK was real. CNN (and MSNBC as well as other media outlets who ran with the story) claimed two independent sources verified this story first. While CNN's initial report made it SOUND as if they had seen the email themselves, in walking back the story later in the day CNN admitted they had never read the email and were instead relying on their two sources recollection of what they read.
CNN clearly has been relying on leaks from Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees since the investigations opened. Note too that the MSNBC reporter who ran with the ball is a known CIA plant who was fired for running his stories by CIA first:
kend-1512830769.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=540&h=456
Now, remember back to my thesis: this isn't really Dems vs GOP, it's CIA v DIA. Flynn, Rogers and the MI team assembled by both against the corrupt elements within the CIA that have hijacked our foreign policy and domestic agendas for years. Trump surrounded himself very early on with some of the finest military intelligence officers in the world. Officers who had spent their careers battling these very same corrupt elements within the CIA itself.
CNN and MSNBC both ran with a leak or leakers (likely) from either the House or Senate Intel committees, and/or the CIA itself. Let's remember, the fact the CNN story missed (confusing the 4th with the 14th) changed the ENTIRE spin of the story. By claiming the email was sent ten days earlier, it allowed CNN and everyone else to breathlessly speculate for hours that this was the smoking gun to prove collusion. All it took to change an innocuous email into a smoking gun was fudging the date.
Which brings us back to Barium Meals. The purpose of these barium meals is to leave a treat that's too tasty for a leaker to resist. One that confirms the agendas they're working to serve. Exactly like this story and the DB story (which shares a lot of the same characteristics). That's how the game works, that's how a canary trap is set and sprung. Both of these false stories represent, I believe, barium meals designed to identify leakers on the House and Senate committees as well as inside the CIA (based on the Dilanian connection).
Why are they coming out one after the other? Why the spike in dramatically wrong stories that seem to tilt the narrative back towards collusion in the days following Flynn's deal?
Because the IG report is wrapping up and Flynn's network is making their final push to identify the leakers. The pump was primed. Flynn plead guilty, he had flipped. The ones pushing the narrative believe they have it all lined up to finally go their way - so when a too-good-to-resist email comes on their radar they RACE to leak it to their connections in the media and in turn, out themselves as leakers to Flynn's spooks.
That means I would expect a steady diet of barium pills to surface as "fake news" between now and when the IG report is released officially. So stay sharp. Double check any headline that seems too good to be true.
Things are heating up.
*********
This leads us into a deep dive into Michael Horowitz and his Investigation:
Why is everyone on the left suddenly so concerned about the IG report?
Perhaps it has something to do with the man running the investigation...
WHO IS MICHAEL HOROWITZ
Horowitz was nominated to fill the position in July of 2011 after Glenn Fine resigned, and officially confirmed in April of 2012.
By this point, the position of the IG had been neutered by then AG Holder's interpretation of section 6 of the Inspector General Act of 1978:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html ... -000-.html Holder and his legal team interpreted this to mean the IG had to request information. This allowed Holder and other agencies to bog down requests with bureaucratic red tape and, in some cases, deny them outright.
What prompted this new interpretation in 2011? (F&F - this is where Horowitz first started getting stonewalled by Holder)
From the day he took the job, Horowitz was a lame duck. A neutered lame duck who was unable to do the job he swore an oath to perform due to this interpretation. So what did Horowitz do?
He went to war with the administration...
In March of 2013, Horowitz's office prepared a report for congress titled: "Open and Unimplemented IG recommendations could save tax payers $67b".
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/ ... G-Recs.pdf This report draws attention to the stonewalling by pointing out the waste as Horowitz sought out allies in Congress.
Then, in April of 2014 - after 2 hours of Eric Holder's testifying about the DOJ's budget, Horowitz gives his testimony (to a now empty room - everyone having cleared out after Holder left).
Notice this interesting exchange with Shelby - who at the time was in the minority and clearly working with Horowitz here to make the situation clear:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4495940/ ... -documents This is a really eye opening exchange - that again, no one saw, or covered, because Horowitz was very much fighting an uphill battle as an outsider. Not because he was politically motivated to do so, but because his job required him to do so.
And yet, the ability to do that job properly was being purposefully hindered by Holder and his interpretation of the IG Act.
In August of 2014 other IG's begin to come to Horowitz's side:
DROYiwMVoAA0X-V.jpg
Then in September of 2014, Horowitz is invited to testify about this problem to the House Oversight Committee. Here is his opening statement, listen closely:
(Side note, but related: Think about how the wiretap issues relate DIRECTLY to the politico article today re Hezbollah and the DOJ
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2 ... stigation/ )
This testimony lays out explicitly how this interpretation of the IG Act could potentially allow for massive corruption and cover up.
Here's his full testimony to the House Oversight Committee entitled: "Obstructing Oversight: Concerns from the Inspector General".
https://oig.justice.gov/testimony/t140910.pdf This led to Issa introducing a new act in the House:
DROv-VoW4AAKJPE.jpg:large
In November of that year, 44 loses the Senate and the 114th Congress convenes. In February 2015, Grassley introduces a bill in the Senate, cementing Horowitz's alliance with Congress:
DROx0kvXcAEdnau.jpg
In July of 2015, 44's administration makes one last attempt to block Horowitz. The DOJ Office of Legal Counsel issued a ruling against the IG:
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/f ... access.pdf(It's 68 pages of rambling legalese devoid of merit or logic.)
August 3rd, 2015 Horowitz responds, eviscerating 68 pages of nonsense with 2.5 pages of legal argument:
http://1yxsm73j7aop3quc9y5ifaw3-wpengin ... 8-3-15.pdf December 2016 - after four years of fighting the administration, and after an unexpected Trump win, Horowitz gets his victory as the bill becomes law:
DRO9tElWkAA6Spw.jpg
Then, in January, armed with the full powers of his job for the first time in his tenure, Horowitz announces the start of his investigation:
https://oig.justice.gov/press/2017/2017-01-12.pdf His investigation has had a wide berth and is now wrapping up - and if you've been following this thread you know we have already begun to see some of the fruits of its labor.
So where does that leave us with Michael Horowitz as we await his report?
Based on the panic we're seeing in DC about Mueller and Trump and the numerous deflections being deployed (cough - Tom Delonge - cough), I say there are a lot of people who are VERY nervous.
Remember. "She was never supposed to lose".
************************
Happy to share more, but this is a good starting point for this topic with real world examples/evidence that continues to come pouring in.
Let me know:)
Best
G
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