DOJ Corruption – The Fork in The Road Few Noticed – What Bill Barr Needs to Explain to Everyone…

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Foolishness and betrayal of our country have served to reveal dangers within our present condition. Misplaced corrective action, regardless of intent, is neither safe nor wise. The intelligence apparatus was weaponized against our candidate by those who controlled the levers of government. This is what AG Bill Barr needs to explain to the nation.

The position of Bill Barr today is a direct result of decisions made by the DOJ in the Fall of 2017 & Summer of 2018. The events surrounding the leaking of the FISA warrant used against U.S. person Carter Page, and the 2018 DOJ decision not to prosecute SSCI Security Director James Wolfe for those leaks, was the fork in the road moment for the DOJ.

Attorney General Jeff Session was recused, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was in charge and the Mueller investigation was ongoing. That was when the DOJ made a decision not to prosecute Wolfe for leaking classified information. DC U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu signed-off on a plea deal where Wolfe plead guilty to only a single count of lying to the FBI.

If the DOJ had pursued the case against Wolfe for leaking the FISA application, everything would have been different.  The American electorate would have seen evidence of what was taking place in the background effort to remove President Trump. We would be in an entirely different place today if that prosecution or trial had taken place.

Three 2018 events revealed the Wolfe issue:

EVENT ONE – On February 9th, 2018, the media reported on text messages from 2017 between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, a lobbyist named Adam Waldman.

EVENT TWO – Four months after the Mark Warner texts were made public, on June 8th, 2018, another headline story surfaced.  An indictment for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Security Director James Wolfe was unsealed on June 7th, 2018.

EVENT THREE – Slightly less than two months after release of the Wolfe indictment, another headline story.  On July 21st, 2018, the DOJ/FBI declassified and publicly released the FISA application(s) used against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.

♦ Later on December 14th 2018 a fourth albeit buried public release confirmed everything.  The FBI filed a sentencing recommendation proving it was the Carter Page FISA that was leaked by Wolfe:

HINDSIGHT – What we didn’t know at the time, simultaneous to the decision-making regarding Wolfe, was another (a second) DOJ cover-up effort was taking place surrounding the origin of the Russia-collusion fraud.

To further understand the decision-making of Rosenstein/Liu, as to why they hid the James Wolfe leak it is important to note the DOJ in the Eastern District of Virginia was creating the cover-story to block sunlight on the origin of how Wikileaks gained the leaked DNC emails.

On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment  was unsealed in the EDVA.  From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:

 

The rest is here. Long but thorough

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No explanation required, let it be a surprise to them when the subpoenas are delivered. Maybe arrested by swat team in the early AM.
Attacks simply mean Barr is on the trail, or has them treed.

So, is Wolfe serving 7 to 9 in a federal penitentiary for perjury?

It was in the media’s interest NOT to cover, or dig into, the Wolfe story.

It was in the DNC’s interest not to have this information exposed; the media merely facilitates what the DNC needs.

For the FBI to simply come completely clean on how they’ve facilitated and covered up crimes directed to prevent Trump from winning and then removing him from office would cast a shadow on everything the FBI has done. Attorneys could cast doubt on every case lost to the FBI. I see the hazards.

A far greater hazard is allowing the idea to live that seditious activity is allowed. That is exactly the impression promoted.

@Deplorable Me: It may be part of justice reform release all Barrys political enemies/prisoners railroaded by the FBI and DOJ.

No explanation is required? I don’t know what the significance of any of this is supposed to be, and challenge anyone to explain it in a single short, clear, comprehensible statement.

If you’re thinking a leak to a reporter somehow establishes that the DoJ was corrupt before, but now Barr and Trump are heroically straightening it out, it doesn’t. They are the problem. An authoritarian president who is unanswerable to statutory law or Congress weaponizing the DoJ to go after his political enemies and protect his political operatives is corruption.

@Greg:

I don’t know what the significance of any of this is supposed to be, and challenge anyone to explain it in a single short, clear, comprehensible statement.

OK. Democrats are corrupt.

@Greg: They arrested Stone to prove that Trump conspired with Russia a fact they knew was fabricated.Then put him in front of a jury and judge that were obviously biased. Barr only withdraws a sentence recommendation why are they going crazy over that? He drops the investigation of McCabe, well sort of.
Confessions of guilt seem to be ignored, both Bidens and McCabes whats up with that?

@kitt: It is also important to have convictions. Convictions at all costs. Then the left can say, “Look at all of Trump’s associates that have been convicted. That means Trump is bad.” Not mentioned is that they were ALL set up with process crimes and nothing to do with Trump. They were convicted the moment they were accused. The left is using the justice system as their own personal toy and a propaganda tool. They are despicable garbage.

@Greg:

They are the problem. An authoritarian president who is unanswerable to statutory law or Congress weaponizing the DoJ to go after his political enemies and protect his political operatives is corruption.

You know, you can keep repeating this all you want, but it’s just not true. Trump ran as anti-corruption, and WOW, the corrupt Dems he’s taking down are fighting back. It’s to be expected, but accusing Trump of corruption and authoritarianism while he’s uncovering real, provable corruption and authoritarianism by the Dems just looks like a captured prey animal sh*tting itself in the hopes it won’t get eaten.

In short, you’re full of sh*t. The “Trump is corrupt” disinformation campaign just hasn’t taken any real root in the American consciousness…

@Nathan Blue: Maybe it’s more acceptable to Greg if Trump used the IRS to attack opponents and the FBI to spy on them as his deity Obama did.

@Deplorable Me: Headline from the Atlantic today:

Trump Is Going to Cheat
How should Democrats fight against a president who has no moral or legal compass?

Not listed as opinion, but it’s one of the top articles for google news and in the “Ideas” section of the Atlantic website.

Here’s the info for the writer at the bottom:

Sarada Peri is a writer and communications strategist, and was a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama.

Trump wins because people are sick of this information cartel these corrupt Dems have built over the past 40 years or so. It has to come down.

Two things: The tyranny of the majority is a thing. Ours is a Republic not meant to be destroyed by a simple rabid mob of misinformed morons.

AND

The over saturation of the media with articles above is why more people are Democrats than would be if they were actually informed by real data, and thought for themselves. I always laugh when Leftists say “no no, it’s YOU who are being brainwashed!!”

Uh huh.

there is a very interesting read in PowserLine today: Media’s attack on Barr — MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FEDERALIST. it is very well written and worth the time.

@Nathan Blue: What kind of moral compass do you have to use voter fraud, dead people and illegal immigrants for a large portion of your votes?

Comedy gold in Epoch Times, Pelosi Warns Democrats ‘Must Be Unified’ to Make Sure Trump Isn’t Reelected.
Pelosi also responded to a question about former Vice President Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign has suffered recent setbacks in New Hampshire and Iowa.

“With all the respect in the world for Iowa and New Hampshire, I’m not counting Joe Biden out. There’s still races ahead that are much more representative of the country,” she explained.
Oh really? How many more States are not really representative of the country, cause they dont want Quid Pro where in the hell am I you lying, fat assed, dogfaced pony soldier, kid groping Joe?

@kitt: Did Pelosi just reveal how little she cares for the national heartland?

@Deplorable Me: We see their vision for the US in her state, in the long term Democrat run cities. Im not really feeling decaying, rat infested shitholes of crime and poor education is the way forward.

@kitt: It’s amazing how Democrats can promote their false promises with so many examples of their actual accomplishments available.

Is a one-million-million dollar per year deficit at a time when the economy is strong an accomplishment Trump takes credit for? How about seriously damaging our constitutional checks and balances system, diminishing confidence in the equity and impartiality of our legal system, and exploiting and widening every national division to gain more personal political power?

Fortunately for the GOP, we have rising stupidity and gullibility surpluses that offset the negative political consequences of this accomplishment.

@Greg:

Is a one-million-million dollar per year deficit at a time when the economy is strong an accomplishment Trump takes credit for?

That’s all you got? The Deficit?

You remind me of the Republicans during the Clinton and Obama years, when those two President’s broke the deficit records, too.

Cheap burn. Does nothing.

Your frontrunner candidates want to increase the deficit by much, MUCH more…

So why are you complaining?

@kitt:

There’s still races ahead that are much more representative of the country,”

That statement alone by Nancy says it all. It’s called the “tyranny of the majority“.

@Nathan Blue, #18:

That’s all you got? The Deficit?

I tend to forget that republicans no longer even pretend to care about fiscal responsibility.

You remind me of the Republicans during the Clinton and Obama years, when those two President’s broke the deficit records, too.

I also tend to forget that Trump cultists aren’t really republicans or conservatives, either one.

We can only wish for a return to the comparatively insignificant Clinton era deficits. Obama, of course, had trillion-dollar deficits as a consequences of an inherited economic melt-down, when GDP growth went negative, we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs per month, federal revenue crashed, and red states couldn’t afford to keep their public schools open and their police and fire departments running without federal cash handouts—a situation that reversed and turned into 65 consecutive months of job growth with dramatically declining deficits before he left office.

Trump has fueled an economic binge by applying unsustainable stimulus measures to a recovered economy—one of which allows the wealthiest to suck cash out of the system at a record rate at the same time that the government is in the red by a trillion dollars per year. The man is a fraud. The average American will be left holding a bag of IOUs at the same time many important social programs become fiscally unsustainable.

@Greg: Can you tell us which candidate in the Democrat party is making their platform financial, or fiscal responsibility? Paying down the debt?
Shrinking government? Not 1 then STFU take your weirdness and peddle it on a liberal blog.
@Nathan Blue: Bloomberg is suddenly in second place, can we check a couple of DNC related bank acounts of those that take polls, there is no demographic that freakshow hasnt offended.

Trump just handed a get-out-of-jail card to Rod Blagojevich, convicted of wire fraud, attempted extortion, and conspiracy to solicit bribes related to attempting to sell a U.S. Senate seat; he pardoned Michael Milken, the junk bond king who was convicted of six counts of securities and tax fraud for which he served 22 months, having been released in 1993; he also pardoned Giuliani appointee Bernard Kerik, the former Police Commissioner of New York, who was convicted of felony tax fraud in connection with his acceptance of a $250,000 bribe while serving as interim Interior Minister of Iraq.

Do onto others as you would have others do unto you?

@Greg:

I tend to forget that republicans no longer even pretend to care about fiscal responsibility.

Then I presume you are behind Trump’s budget which cuts deficits and spending? Or, are you like the rest of the Democrats who only bitch about deficits when a Republican is President even though they themselves support spending and waste?

@Deplorable Me, #23:

Trump’s proposed 2021 budget targets social safety net programs, boosts military spending even further, and extends tax cuts for another 10 years. It’s another set up for congressional gridlock.

February 18, 2020 – Comprehensive analysis of Trump’s tax cut shows the rich won big time — and the rest of us got crumbs

A comprehensive analysis of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts posted on Market Watch shows that America’s wealthiest families have made out like bandits since its passage in 2017, while most other taxpayers have received piddling rewards.

“In general, higher-income taxpayers reap the biggest tax savings from the TCJA, because individual tax rates were significantly reduced,” the publication writes. “Simple arithmetic dictates that folks who pay heavy taxes benefit the most from that change.”

Exemptions to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) have proven particularly helpful to high-income households, and big businesses have been massively helped by having the top corporate tax rate chopped from 35 percent to just 21 percent.

The rewards for most taxpayers, however, were comparatively meager and a survey conducted last year showed that many Americans believed they had received no tax cut at all.

“An online survey conducted for The New York Times and published in April of 2019 (after most returns for the 2018 tax year had been filed) found that only 40% of Americans believed they had received a tax cut under the TCJA,” MarketWatch writes. “Only 20% were certain they had received one. A large minority thought their taxes had actually gone up.”

Given that the economic binge isn’t going to continue indefinitely, should the average American want that?

@Greg: Once again, you fall victim to liberal propaganda. In a growing economy, the “social safety net” (welfare, buying votes) is less necessary. It is also not necessary to provide it to illegal immigrants.

Yes, as has been pointed out repeatedly, someone that pays 20 times the taxes of most citizens would reap a greater benefit from tax cuts, but in proportion to incomes, the lower income earners benefit more.

Due to the tax cuts, the tax revenues are at record highs, something that would not have been possible with higher taxes and the liberal-strangled economy.

So, your answer is, apparently, you simply want to bitch about deficits when Republicans are in office, not the enormous and wasteful deficits of liberals. Nor are you interested in CUTTING deficits through fiscal responsibility. Point made.

@Greg: Crumbs, what crumbs are to the elitists is a months rent or a weeks grocery , tires for their car . Same old division of jealousy, we dont buy it. Obama care is no longer going to steal the poors tax returns cause they couldnt afford to buy non insurance, but made too much for a goodly discount or were American citizens and didnt qualify to get it free.
Those that couldnt figure out that they took a bit less from each paycheck withholding were the ones that didnt know they paid less. That large minority were not enlightened by the media that the government wasnt taking as much.
The budget is in the hands of Congress, what Trump suggests is simply a wishlist, they were all delighted to sign up for exactly what you are bitching about. Go sit in the corner with your dunce cap on.

What don’t you understand about a one million-million dollar shortfall per year, even when the economy is at the peak of an unsustainable boom? What do you imagine will happen when the inevitable downturn comes? I’m really curious what you think about that.

I know what Trump thinks, because he’s said. He thinks it will happen when he’s no longer the one who will have to deal with it. He thinks it will happen after he’s gone.

@Greg: Why weren’t you wailing about Obama’s $10 trillion in deficits as he presided over the worst recovery in history? Trump has not been able to get a budget passed because Democrats will not cooperate in government. He has had to finance the government through continuing resolutions where Democrats load it up with waste in exchange for their support.

Democrats have no interest in fiscal responsibility. This has been proven.

Your Swamp Drainer in Chief just commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor convicted on multiple charges related to his efforts to sell a seat in the U.S. Senate, and extortion involving a race track and a children’s hospital.

@Greg: I dont see a danger to the public by releasing the Illinois democrat.

@Greg: The fear is he might reveal how much of a kick-back Obama was going to get.

February 19, 2010 – ROD BLAGOJEVICH DECLARES HIMSELF A ‘TRUMP-OCRAT,’ PRAISING PRESIDENT FOR EFFORTS TO REFORM CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, addressed supporters and journalists outside his Chicago home Wednesday morning, declaring himself a “Trump-ocrat” and expressing his and his family’s “profoundest” and “deepest” gratitude to the president for commuting his sentence.

“From the beginning to end, this was persecution masquerading as prosecution,” he said. “I got into politics to help people. I didn’t get into politics to make money. I didn’t get into politics to enrich my family or my friends. I got into politics because I was fortunate to live in the greatest country that has ever existed.”

Blagojevich came out of his front door just before 11:30 a.m. local time with his wife and two daughters by his side. He dabbed his face with a tissue, noting in his remarks that he’d struggled to shave as he’d not had access to a normal razor in prison.

Saying that he had “10,000 reasons” to thank Trump, he lauded the president for his efforts to reform the nation’s criminal justice system. Blagojevich called the system “racist,” comparing it to “Jim Crow laws” that were long used in the south to discriminate against black Americans. He criticized the “squalid” conditions he and others faced in prison, noting that he’d been locked up with murderers, cartel members and drug dealers.

Blagojevich added that he would “try to do” what he “can to improve” what he believes to be a “broken” and in “many cases” a “corrupt criminal justice system.” He noted that the U.S. “incarcerates six to 10 times more people than any other industrialized nation in the world.”

The former governor returned to Illinois from his Colorado prison Wednesday morning, after Trump formally commuted his sentence. “I didn’t do the things they said I did and they lied on me,” he told local WGN-TV.

Blagojevich in 2011 was convicted on corruption charges for attempting to sell former President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat. In 2009, the former governor was unanimously removed from office by the Illinois state Senate. Prior to that, he was nearly unanimously impeached in the Illinois House, with only one state lawmaker voting against the indictment.

After he was removed from office, Blagojevich was a contestant on Trump’s former reality television show The Celebrity Apprentice. He was later convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison over his alleged pay-for-play scheme.

Trump said he was influenced to commute the sentence by Blagojevich’s wife’s defense of her husband in Fox News interviews. He also said that he felt that the disgraced Democratic politician was treated unfairly, similar to how he feels he has been treated through the Russian election interference investigation and the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry.

Yeah, I suppose there’s a certain similarity.

Democrats and Republicans in Illinois were highly critical of Trump’s decision to commute the former governor’s sentence.

“In a state where corrupt, machine-style politics is still all too common, it’s important that those found guilty serve their prison sentence in its entirety,” Tim Schneider, chairman of the state’s Republican party, said in a statement.

The state’s Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker shared similar sentiments. He argued that the president “has abused his pardon power in inexplicable ways to reward his friends and condone corruption, and I deeply believe this pardon sends the wrong message at the wrong time.”

@Greg: https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2020/02/19/new-york-times-double-standards-trumps-clemency-spree-vs-obamas?fbclid=IwAR2wztkBiR3DKKsAIEyn4As_Mky2oVnNGuxCPVJaU6pz2nsTAJdHTooWvTY

The story also didn’t mention more controversial moves by President Obama, including his clemency for Oscar Lopez Rivera, a member of a terrorist group for Puerto Rican independence known as F.A.L.N. that carried out a nationwide bombing campaign, including an attack at Fraunces Tavern in New York City in 1974 that killed four.
Also not noted was Obama’s controversial commutation of the sentence of Bradley Manning for handing a trove of military and intelligence secrets to WikiLeaks.

Obama is no longer president.

@Greg: Just because he is no longer President doesn’t mean his corruption, crimes and failure just disappears. If you want to criticize every single thing Trump does, you WILL be reminded of the utter failure you happily supported before. Stop whining.

Trump is a skunk. I’m not whining. I’m pointing out that something stinks to the nose-blind.

@Greg: You’re whining and you’ve been whining since Trump’s winning.

You and the rest of Trump’s red hat brigade have been whining about Obama for 10 years, and now you’ve got Trump as the head of a whiners’ glee club. He even gave you special hats.

@Greg: So, you’ll shut up about anything related to Trump that didn’t happen recently?

In case anybody missed it:

February 6, 2020 – Attorney General Barr Issues New Rules For Politically Sensitive Investigations

Barr’s memo says investigations, including preliminary ones, into a presidential or vice presidential candidate, their campaigns or staff cannot be opened without the written approval of the attorney general.

In other words, Barr can completely block or delay investigations into any suspected campaign irregularities at their earliest stages. He can prevent a reported irregularity from even being looked into, and he will know about all such reports from the moment anyone believes they merit a closer look.

@Greg: In other words, if there is ANOTHER politically motivated witch hunt like Obama started and the Democrats CONTINUE, someone’s name is going to be on paper approving it. The evidence promoting any such investigation will be examined and vetted, not just run with because it looks useful, as Comey and Mueller did.

Looks like yet another avenue for abuse the Democrats have relied on has been blocked. Awwww…..

All of these unacceptable precedents are going to drive the right insane the moment they’re inherited by a Democratic Party president—and that moment will come.

@Greg:

All of these unacceptable precedents

What precedents would that be? May I have a list so we can do a bit of face checking?
Are you just spewing lame unfounded BS again?

@kitt, #44:

What precedents would that be?

The blanket assertion of executive privilege over all Executive Branch documents pertaining to a congressional investigation; ordering Executive Branch employees to defy Congressional subpoenas entirely based upon executive privilege, rather than selectively invoking it with respect to certain sensitive information; locking down entire investigations; classifying documents and information based on personal or political concern rather than national security concerns; attempting to out and intimidate whistle blowers; retaliating against witnesses who did nothing more than coming forward to testify when summoned; interfering with active court cases by attacking the personal integrity of the judge and jury members; misusing one’s powers of office to pressure foreign governments into providing politically and personally useful favors; employing non-governmental agents to do this, while undermining the policy objectives of our own State Department; overriding the judgement of our own national security personnel to hand out security clearances to family members deemed unqualified to possess them; ordering federal employees to defy federal laws to thwart the exercise of lawful congressional oversight powers; funneling millions of tax dollars into businesses that personally benefit oneself; attacking our own government institutions; demonizing the press; making no distinction whatsoever between truth and lies…

None of this is unfounded. Under Trump, it has become the new norm. We are supposed to place our trust and faith in this particular man, over our laws, over our courts, and over all of our governmental and non-governmental institutions.

Sorry. NO.

@Greg: You forgot to put, “Waa, waa, waa, waa.”

People who don’t want answers shouldn’t ask questions.

@Greg: Or make up accusations. Right, Greg?

@Greg: None of what you listed was unprecedented. Some of it is separation of powers, you havent a clue what was classified or why so you make unfounded assumptions based upon MSLSD conspiracy theories.
Just like Schumer Schiff thinks he can get what he wants with threats and fear mongering and lying to ill informed citizens.
Some things are just nun der beezwax.
There was no whistle blower there was a spy. A treasonous coup assisting traitor, maybe. We never saw or heard from an accuser in all of the testimony.
Barr had to deal with rogue parisan prosecutors, the judge was not hindered in sentencing.
Making more wild unfounded conspiratorial statements doesn’t help your case.

It’s Trump who is corrupting the DoJ. If not removed, Trump is the rotten apple that will quickly corrupt the entire barrel.

It’s NOT just a matter of a malignant influence lowering ethical standards by example; it’s an active, directed process, involving intentional efforts, backed by enormous quantities of dark money. It’s how Trump and those like him do business if left unchecked to do as they will, and it is in the process of destroying America’s traditional values and principles, leaving in its place what is essentially a criminal hierarchy disguised as a constitutional government.

All of the governmental and private sector institutions that have in the past served as guardians against this are being systematically attacked, discredited, coopted, or eliminated, and that process itself has been methodically and perversely mischaracterized as “swamp draining” or “corruption fighting”, to the point where a large sector of a deluded populace is cheering it on.

Witness the emerging incestuous relationships between known sleazeball malefactors reported below:

March 7, 2020 – Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups

Mr. Prince, a contractor close to the Trump administration, contacted veteran spies for operations by Project Veritas, the conservative group known for conducting stings on news organizations and other groups.

WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive intelligence-gathering operations that included infiltrating Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda, according to interviews and documents.

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.

Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation — detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union — has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.

Both Project Veritas and Mr. Prince have ties to President Trump’s aides and family. Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Mr. Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has at times served as an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. He worked with the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during the presidential transition. In 2017, he met with White House and Pentagon officials to pitch a plan to privatize the Afghan war using contractors in lieu of American troops. Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, rejected the idea.

Mr. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. Reaching out to several intelligence veterans — and occasionally using Mr. Seddon to make the pitch — Mr. Prince said he wanted the Project Veritas employees to learn skills like how to recruit sources and how to conduct clandestine recordings, among other surveillance techniques.

James O’Keefe, the head of Project Veritas, declined to answer detailed questions about Mr. Prince, Mr. Seddon and other topics, but he called his group a “proud independent news organization” that is involved in dozens of investigations. He said that numerous sources were coming to the group “providing confidential documents, insights into internal processes and wearing hidden cameras to expose corruption and misconduct.”

A spokesman for Mr. Prince declined to comment. Emails sent to Mr. Seddon went unanswered.

Mr. Prince is under investigation by the Justice Department over whether he lied to a congressional committee examining Russian interference in the 2016 election, and for possible violations of American export laws. Last year, the House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Mr. Prince, saying he lied about the circumstances of his meeting with a Russian banker in the Seychelles in January 2017.

Once a small operation running on a shoestring budget, Project Veritas in recent years has had a surge in donations from both private donors and conservative foundations. According to its latest publicly available tax filing, Project Veritas received $8.6 million in contributions and grants in 2018. Mr. O’Keefe earned about $387,000.

Last year, the group received a $1 million contribution made through the law firm Alston & Bird, a financial document obtained by The New York Times showed. A spokesman for the firm said that Alston & Bird “has never contributed to Project Veritas on its own behalf, nor is it a client of ours.” The spokesman declined to say on whose behalf the contribution was made.

The financial document also listed the names of others who gave much smaller amounts to Project Veritas last year. Several of them confirmed their donations.

The group has also become intertwined with the political activities of Mr. Trump and his family. The Trump Foundation gave $20,000 to Project Veritas in 2015, the year that Mr. Trump began his bid for the presidency. The next year, during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump claimed without substantiation that videos released by Mr. O’Keefe showed that Mrs. Clinton and President Barack Obama had paid people to incite violence at rallies for Mr. Trump.

In a book published in 2018, Mr. O’Keefe wrote that Mr. Trump years earlier had encouraged him to infiltrate Columbia University and obtain Mr. Obama’s records.

Last month, Project Veritas made public secretly recorded video of a longtime ABC News correspondent who was critical of the network’s political coverage and its emphasis on business considerations over journalism. Many conservatives have gleefully pounced on Project Veritas’s disclosures, including one particularly influential voice: Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.

This all should turn a patriot’s stomach, but patriots apparently aren’t as smart as they used to be.