DC Tom Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 14 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said: snip https://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-naftali/shifting-blame-for-the-ir_b_4846.html Hayden knowingly bungled WMD assessments in Iraq that directly lead to 17 years of uninterrupted war, trillions of dollars and millions of lives lost. He bungled nearly every element of this... and now he's a source of truth? If you have to use Hayden as a source of truth, you've already lost. If you have to use HuffPo as a source of truth, you've already lost. That is a completely inaccurate description of the intelligence. The truth...is actually much, much stupider.
Deranged Rhino Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 19 minutes ago, DC Tom said: If you have to use HuffPo as a source of truth, you've already lost. That is a completely inaccurate description of the intelligence. The truth...is actually much, much stupider. Not using it as a source of truth, it's just a source on the level of tibs. Hayden's incompetence, political bias, and bumbling is not inaccurate. He was on the front lines of the WMD intel gathering and the politicizing of that intel. He's an academic who lacks the respect of the men who served under him because they saw him for what he truly is: an inept toady with delusions of grandeur. He's not a paragon of virtue. We know he's not above playing politics and cooking the intel books to get the outcome his masters demand. He doesn't serve the interests of the United States and never has. He serves the interest of the MiC (who now are paying him in his "retirement"). The left has done a 180 since the election, embracing the very people they railed against for 8 years under W. What changed? The political talking points, not the measure of the men involved in this deception.
GG Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 On 12/13/2017 at 11:58 AM, Deranged Rhino said: "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40." Text from Peter Strozk to Lisa Page, August 2016 https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/12/fbi-agents-trump-mueller-texts-294156 If not for the whole thing of actively helping the DRC campaign, Strozk would have a lot of fans here
DC Tom Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 1 hour ago, Deranged Rhino said: Not using it as a source of truth, it's just a source on the level of tibs. This is fair. 1 hour ago, Deranged Rhino said: Hayden's incompetence, political bias, and bumbling is not inaccurate. He was on the front lines of the WMD intel gathering and the politicizing of that intel. He's an academic who lacks the respect of the men who served under him because they saw him for what he truly is: an inept toady with delusions of grandeur. Nobody was on the front lines for that intel. It was one great big positive feedback loop that was so ridiculous it included the Iraqis. It's hilarious reading, particularly if you're gatorman. 1 hour ago, Deranged Rhino said: The left has done a 180 since the election, embracing the very people they railed against for 8 years under W. What changed? The political talking points, not the measure of the men involved in this deception. Nothing changed. The left is populated by hypocrites. Hell, they nominated their biggest example.
Deranged Rhino Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 6 minutes ago, GG said: If not for the whole thing of actively helping the DRC campaign, Strozk would have a lot of fans here Strzok is the sort of person who was NEVER supposed to be revealed publicly. His whole job depends on some level of anonymity. He's a counter intel spook. The fact that he was so sloppy with his opsec and tradecraft still stuns me. 1 minute ago, DC Tom said: Nobody was on the front lines for that intel. It was one great big positive feedback loop that was so ridiculous it included the Iraqis. It's hilarious reading, particularly if you're gatorman. I know what you're getting at and you are correct. The WMD debacle was precisely that. But Hayden was directly involved in the now infamous presentation Powell gave to the UN. It was his agency that provided the intel, he personally signed off on not just the inclusion of specific evidence but of Powell's interpretation of it (which Hayden admitted in his book this year he didn't even believe at the time). He did it not because it was truth, not because he even believed it - but because the politics of the day demanded it. What that shows me, above all else, is that Hayden is a man who follows orders, nothing more. He's a toady. An academic sycophant who, despite his titles and oaths, has never worked in the best interests of his country, only in the best interests of his masters in the MiC. He lacks the principles and courage to stand his ground and do what's right for the country. I've yet to meet a single person who served under Hayden who has a kind thing to say about the man's talents and abilities on the job. Not one. I know that's anecdotal and I'm not offering it as evidence of anything, but passing along the knowledge. Compare that to the men and women I've interviewed who served under Flynn (or Mattis) and it's really hilarious. Hayden was loathed, and remains so, by the men and women in the IC.
DC Tom Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 5 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said: Strzok is the sort of person who was NEVER supposed to be revealed publicly. His whole job depends on some level of anonymity. He's a counter intel spook. The fact that he was so sloppy with his opsec and tradecraft still stuns me. His anonymity is still pretty safe, given that his name is completely unpronounceable. Not as anonymous as going by "Richie Incognito," of course...but still pretty good. 10 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said: Strzok is the sort of person who was NEVER supposed to be revealed publicly. His whole job depends on some level of anonymity. He's a counter intel spook. The fact that he was so sloppy with his opsec and tradecraft still stuns me. I know what you're getting at and you are correct. The WMD debacle was precisely that. But Hayden was directly involved in the now infamous presentation Powell gave to the UN. It was his agency that provided the intel, he personally signed off on not just the inclusion of specific evidence but of Powell's interpretation of it (which Hayden admitted in his book this year he didn't even believe at the time). He did it not because it was truth, not because he even believed it - but because the politics of the day demanded it. What that shows me, above all else, is that Hayden is a man who follows orders, nothing more. He's a toady. An academic sycophant who, despite his titles and oaths, has never worked in the best interests of his country, only in the best interests of his masters in the MiC. He lacks the principles and courage to stand his ground and do what's right for the country. I've yet to meet a single person who served under Hayden who has a kind thing to say about the man's talents and abilities on the job. Not one. I know that's anecdotal and I'm not offering it as evidence of anything, but passing along the knowledge. Compare that to the men and women I've interviewed who served under Flynn (or Mattis) and it's really hilarious. Hayden was loathed, and remains so, by the men and women in the IC. All that, and he sucked as Anakin too.. 1
Tiberius Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 How did these private text messages become public?
DC Tom Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 Just now, Tiberius said: How did these private text messages become public? They went through Hillary's server? 1
Deranged Rhino Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 6 minutes ago, Tiberius said: How did these private text messages become public? Flynn's Leak Killers On 12/3/2017 at 6:26 PM, Deranged Rhino said: Long read warning! 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-office/2017/02/02/white-house-national-security-advisor-announces-nsc-senior-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/white-house-clearance-process-increasingly-politicized/ 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/mcmaster-national-security-council-staff-changes-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/mcmaster-national-security-council-staff-changes-235579 ) Those of you paying close attention might already see where this is going... Let's go back to earlier questions I asked about Flynn: (Abridged the first lengthy post for space purposes, click on the post to see it in full) 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/why-did-obama-dawdle-on-russias-hacking/2017/01/12/75f878a0-d90c-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html?utm_term=.00752efd0d54 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: The columns comment comes immediately after 45 "rambles" about "liking honest reporting" @ the 15:09: "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-says-told-white-house-michael-flynn-blackmailed-russians/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-fix/wp/2017/02/10/just-how-much-trouble-is-michael-flynn-in/?utm_term=.2fdc1946409c 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/trump-tweet-leakers-will-be-caught-235081 (More articles about Trump v the Leakers) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-administration-leaks_us_589a45f1e4b04061313a1fbb http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tweets-fbi-unable-to-stop-national-security-leakers-2017-2 https://thinkprogress.org/trump-loved-leaks-before-he-hated-them-8df720204c7b/ http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/16/donald_trump_has_changed_his_tune_on_leakers.html http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/05/25/intel-leakers-putting-hatred-trump-above-love-country.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/08/trump-rages-about-leakers-obama-quietly-prosecuted-them/?utm_term=.052b5a6c3797 https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-hates-leaks-federal-whistleblowers-153550049.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-24/russia-meddled-in-american-election-trump-spy-chief-confirms Now, it's entirely possible Flynn knowingly lied to the FBI about something he knew they'd know was a lie (and wasn't legally compelled to answer in the first place) 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.....) 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) 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/2016/11/22/502980006/reports-suggest-nsa-director-mike-rogers-is-on-his-way-out Others, before me, have speculated (with solid evidence to support their speculation) 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: 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/politics/mueller-removed-top-fbi-agent-over-possible-anti-trump-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/politics/mueller-removed-top-fbi-agent-over-possible-anti-trump-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/archive/2017/10/what-did-george-papadopoulos-give-robert-mueller/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. 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. 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/archive/2017/07/ezra-cohen-watnick/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/fbi-agent-removed-trump-investigation/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 1
Tiberius Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 Rosenstein released them, apparently. That's strange
B-Man Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 ANDREW MCCARTHY IN THE WASHINGTON POST: Mueller Needs To Make A Change. Mueller’s investigation was triggered when former FBI director James B. Comey, no fan of the president who dismissed him, leaked a memo of a meeting with President Trump. Comey admitted hoping this revelation would lead to appointment of a special counsel. Furthermore, the investigative team Mueller has assembled includes Democratic donors and supporters, including one lawyer who represented the Clinton Foundation and one who represented a subject in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. This month, moreover, it came to light that two members of the team, who had also worked on the Clinton email investigation, were having an extramarital affair and exchanged text messages expressing partisan political views — favoring Clinton and depicting Trump as ‘loathsome.’ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIALIZES: The FBI’s Trump ‘Insurance:’ More troubling evidence of election meddling at the bureau. Fusion DOJ: It’s getting hard to tell where the Clinton campaign ends and the federal law enforcement apparatus begins. THIS IS GOLD: Those Trump-Hating FBI Tweets Came Out As A Result of Democratic Complaints About FBI Bias: .
Tiberius Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 22 minutes ago, B-Man said: ANDREW MCCARTHY IN THE WASHINGTON POST: Mueller Needs To Make A Change. Mueller’s investigation was triggered when former FBI director James B. Comey, no fan of the president who dismissed him, leaked a memo of a meeting with President Trump. Comey admitted hoping this revelation would lead to appointment of a special counsel. Furthermore, the investigative team Mueller has assembled includes Democratic donors and supporters, including one lawyer who represented the Clinton Foundation and one who represented a subject in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. This month, moreover, it came to light that two members of the team, who had also worked on the Clinton email investigation, were having an extramarital affair and exchanged text messages expressing partisan political views — favoring Clinton and depicting Trump as ‘loathsome.’ . Fine, he's worried only that appearance will be bad but he praises Mueller and his team. It's all blowing smoke. Mueller will present his evidence and that will be what we argue over. And judging by all the lies from Trump, the meetings with the Russians, the contacts to Wikileaks, the Putin love, the beyond strange coincidences of Team Trump acting on info received from these sources, I'm betting the evidence is, shall we say, interesting. But at at this point, what does it matter? Trump is in trouble politically anyway. Take treason off the table and he's still a dumb dude walking . 31 minutes ago, B-Man said: THIS IS GOLD: Those Trump-Hating FBI Tweets Came Out As A Result of Democratic Complaints About FBI Bias: . Probably not going to generate any outrage outside right wing media land because these people saw Trump as a complete retard. Most intelligent people do. This is funny though: Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pressed Rosenstein on that text message, suggesting that Strzok was indicating that he planned to prevent Trump from being elected. ok!
Deranged Rhino Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 1 hour ago, Tiberius said: Rosenstein released them, apparently. That's strange Incorrect. They came from the IG report which is still being compiled. They were then leaked (by Congress and FBI sources).
Tiberius Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 2 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said: Incorrect. They came from the IG report which is still being compiled. They were then leaked (by Congress and FBI sources). And they were on FBI devices so that does make them open to public scrunity, IMO
Deranged Rhino Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 (edited) 19 minutes ago, Tiberius said: Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pressed Rosenstein on that text message, suggesting that Strzok was indicating that he planned to prevent Trump from being elected. ok! His own words make it quite clear he wasn't above taking the law into his own hands. He bragged about it. Your whole narrative is crumbling and the best you can do is claim this is a right wing smear? No, it's evidence of politicization inside the FBI and DOJ and evidence the previous administration empowered those corrupt elements to create a pretense to get FISA warrants on the opposition party. This is something dictators around the world would do. And it was done by 44 and is being lauded by those on the left as "okay" because "Trump is bad". That's not patriotism. That's authoritarianism masquerading as "protecting the people from themselves". 1 minute ago, Tiberius said: And they were on FBI devices so that does make them open to public scrunity, IMO Only the disclosed ones were on open phones. The IG report allegedly is going to detail there were SECRET phones used to discuss more. There were several ways in which they tried to work around NSA's sniffers. And they're all being outed. Just wait. Edited December 14, 2017 by Deranged Rhino
Tiberius Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 Just now, Deranged Rhino said: His own words make it quite clear he wasn't above taking the law into his own hands. He bragged about it. Your whole narrative is crumbling and the best you can do is claim this is a right wing smear? No, it's evidence of politicization inside the FBI and DOJ and evidence the previous administration empowered those corrupt elements to create a pretense to get FISA warrants on the opposition party. This is something dictators around the world would do. And it was done by 44 and is being lauded by those on the left as "okay" because "Trump is bad". That's not patriotism. That's authoritarianism masquerading as "protecting the people from themselves". What's clear?? You are seriously reaching if you say that message is clear about anything. He could be talking about moving to Canada for all we know If you think people can't have political options, fine. But you are loopy to jump to all those conclusions And this source claims Rosenstein was responsible for the release of the texts https://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-rod-rosensteins-testimony releasing private messages to the public of people who did not do anything wrong. Strange
DC Tom Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 5 minutes ago, Tiberius said: And they were on FBI devices so that does make them open to public scrunity, IMO !@#$ing WHAT??? I'm going to tell my FBI neighbor he has to show me what's on his work phone because it's open to public scrutiny, see what he says. 1 1
Deranged Rhino Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 Just now, Tiberius said: What's clear?? You are seriously reaching if you say that message is clear about anything. He could be talking about moving to Canada for all we know If you think people can't have political options, fine. But you are loopy to jump to all those conclusions It's clear by his actions and text. Only a partisan hack (cough) would deny such. This is a man who supervised several key investigations into Trump and Clinton, and in his own words he wanted to assure that Trump would not win and wasn't shy about talking about his plans to do so with his direct superior who SUPPORTED this. (In other words, a conspiracy by the legal definition of the term). We know he changed the language from something meeting the criminal standards to warrant prosecution to something less criminal in Clinton's investigation. We all but know he used the Dossier to get a FISA warrant on Flynn and others (we know this because of his words and the fact the judge took himself off the Flynn case), we know he and Ohr used CIA contacts to directly communicate with and influence Steele's dossier. We also pretty much know for a fact the FBI paid Steele for his work as well as Ohr's wife. If this were an investigation into President Hillary Clinton being run by pro-Trump FBI, DOJ, and FISA personnel marching to the orders of 43 you would rightfully be throwing a hissy fit.
DC Tom Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 32 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said: It's clear by his actions and text. Only a partisan hack (cough) would deny such. This is a man who supervised several key investigations into Trump and Clinton, and in his own words he wanted to assure that Trump would not win and wasn't shy about talking about his plans to do so with his direct superior who SUPPORTED this. (In other words, a conspiracy by the legal definition of the term). We know he changed the language from something meeting the criminal standards to warrant prosecution to something less criminal in Clinton's investigation. We all but know he used the Dossier to get a FISA warrant on Flynn and others (we know this because of his words and the fact the judge took himself off the Flynn case), we know he and Ohr used CIA contacts to directly communicate with and influence Steele's dossier. We also pretty much know for a fact the FBI paid Steele for his work as well as Ohr's wife. If this were an investigation into President Hillary Clinton being run by pro-Trump FBI, DOJ, and FISA personnel marching to the orders of 43 you would rightfully be throwing a hissy fit. People are calling "This man cannot be president" ambiguous?
Deranged Rhino Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 1 minute ago, DC Tom said: People are calling "This man cannot be president" ambiguous? Even smart people are doing so. I wish I had a recording of the conversation I had today with two very bright people trying to convince me that using the surveillance state against your political rivals is okay so long as it's the left doing it to the right because, and I **** you not this was word for word what they laid out: "history shows that right wing fanatics are far more dangerous than left wing, who has ever been rounded up and put into camps by a leftist government? Nobody. But look at Hitler in Germany." Conditioning is a hell of a thing. Like you've been saying, they're fighting Nazism, so everything is justified and the cognitive dissonance is allowed to go forth undeterred.
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