Update: Intelligence Community already blocking Trump’s order to declassify.
https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1132008200700669954
Some firings are in order.
On to the FBI FISA story:
A former top lawyer for the FBI described to lawmakers the “unusual” way the surveillance request targeting former Trump campaign associate Carter Page was handled by top leadership at the Justice Department and FBI, according to a transcript released this week.In front of a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Aug. 31, 2018, former FBI Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson said she was normally responsible for signing off on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications before they reached the desk of her superiors for approval. Anderson said the “linear path” those applications typically take was upended in October 2016, with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates signing off on the application before she did. Because of that unusual high-level involvement, she didn’t see the need to “second guess” the FISA application.
Meanwhile, the Russian academic who was falsely claimed to be a spy and a “honeypot” by media and Russiagate figures — in order to make the case that Michael Flynn was kompromatted — is now suing her false accusers.
Cambridge academic is suing FBI informant Stefan Halper and several major news organizations for defamation.Svetlana Lokhova is accusing Halper of planting false information about her brief interactions in 2014 with Michael Flynn during an event at Cambridge.
Lokhova was the subject of several stories in 2017 that suggested she had improper contacts with Flynn. She believes that Halper, who has since been outed as an FBI informant who targeted the Trump campaign, planted the rumors about her in order to further the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
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The academic, Svetlana Lokhova, is also suing several news organizations she accuses of publishing false information provided by Halper, a former Cambridge professor.
“Stefan Halper is a ratfucker and a spy, who embroiled an innocent woman in a conspiracy to undo the 2016 Presidential election and topple the President of the United States of America,” Lokhova wrote in the lawsuit, which she filed in federal court in Virginia.
Lokhova asserts that Halper worked with the FBI and “political operatives” at Cambridge to seed stories about her interactions with Flynn at a dinner hosted at the storied British university on Feb. 28, 2014, when Flynn served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). (RELATED: Cambridge Academic Reflects On Interactions With ‘Spygate’ Figure)
The stories were planted, she claims, in order to “fuel and further the now debunked and dead narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.”
She claims that Halper, who served in four Republican administrations, spread false allegations and insinuations in the press and at Cambridge that she was a Russian agent who had attempted to recruit Flynn at the dinner. Stories that appeared in the press beginning in 2017 hinted that she used sex to lure the retired lieutenant general.
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In addition to The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post, Lokhova is also suing NBC Universal. She claims that MSNBC analyst Malcolm Nance has defamed her by calling her a “Russian intelligence officer” and a “honeypot,” the espionage term used to describe a spy who uses sex to lure targets.
Lakhova had previously wondered why Stefan Halper, a man she’d barely met, invited her twice to two dinners, and seated her next to Michael Flynn.
Trisha Anderson would have been ignored anyway they had a plot to brew.
The Honey pot is learning fast about capitolism https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3062954/Banker-dubbed-Crazy-Miss-Cokehead..
It is beginning to be surprising that they bothered with the facade of a FISA warrant at all. All that was important was to initiate spying on Trump and the Trump campaign.
Is it beginning to become more clear why Democrats are frantic about the prospect of more documents being released?
@Deplorable Me:
The warrant gave them permission to spy, without it none of the entrapment evidence would be admissible.
@kitt: They had to believe they were going to stumble across something as yet unseen that would implicate Trump in something. They wanted to know what Trump was doing in his campaign. Again, it is such a weak, transparent farce, I wonder why they bothered.
I guess, just in case Trump actually won.
Where are all the lefty comments. The Barr investigation has hardly started releasing information and we already find “The Carter Page FISA Application Was Approved in a Non-Standard Way”. Further information will show people didn’t make mistakes. They deliberately collaborated to prevent Trump from winning the election and afterwards, they continued to provide false information to have him impeached. Then they tried to cover everything up by pretending there was a link with the Russian effort to interfere with the election. Much of this information has already been available but ignored.
@Randy: I guess they are having trouble spinning this one.
@Deplorable Me: That must be the case. We all know they have no conscience or moral guiding principles.
@Deplorable Me: Well you know, they don’t want anything declassified because they are very concerned it will damage sources and methods. It has nothing to do with CYA so they say. Just like they were concerned about Hillary’s illegal server that was breached by at least three foreign actors thus compromising national security. And just like they were concerned when they leaked classified material to the press in order to push their coup. And John Brennan is really concerned, and to show his concern, on Friday he revealed that one of the sources they are trying to protect is someone close to Putin who told them that Putin wanted to favor Trump over Hillary. So much for that source thanks to the former CIA Director who is very concerned about protecting sources. Then again, that source could also be an agent for Putin putting out disinformation which would make Brennan look like a real dupe.
@another vet: There just is not enough pop corn!