THE RAVAGES OF LIBERALISM ... "TAT TVAN ASI" ... THERE IS NO REVERSE IN LIFE

"... AND FOR THE SUPPORT OF THIS DECLARATION WITH A FIRM RELIANCE ON THE PROTECTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, WE MUTUALLY PLEDGE TO EACH OTHER OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES, AND OUR SACRED HONOR." 

WELL, I GUESS THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF 1776 NO LONGER EXISTS ... 

WHEN DO YOU STOP DIGGING THE HOLE ...

RIGHTS FOR THE MASSES ... MEAN RITES FOR THE MASSES ... WE AS A COUNTRY ARE IN THE QUICKSAND OF CONFIDENCE ... THE DAY MUELLER EXPERIENCED THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT HE (AS HIS TEAM) FELT SEPARATE AND SUPERIOR TO ALL OTHER CITIZENS OF OUR REPUBLIC, THAT MOMENT THAT DAY HE (AND HIS TEAM) BEGAN SOWING THE SEED OF THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION NOT TO MENTION THE GREATER MASSES ... BUT WHAT OF THE RESPECT AND CONFIDENCE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OVER THE CENTURIES HAVE INGRAINED WITHIN OUR CULTURAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH GENERATION THE BEDROCK OF THE FOUNDATION OF THIS GREAT COUNTRY NOW IS CRUMBING FROM THE INSIDE.  MUELLER AND HIS TEAM IS THE FACE OF THIS CANCER, WE PRAY HE IS NOT THE LEGACY.

JUST CHANGED THE WORLD PARADIGM ... THE GOOD, BAD, AND UGLY ...

Lockheed Martin Now Has a Patent For Its Potentially World Changing Fusion Reactor

When it first announced the project, the company said it could have a working prototype of the revolutionary power source as early as 2019.

By Tyler Rogoway

Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin has quietly obtained a patent associated with its design for a potentially revolutionary compact fusion reactor, or CFR. If this project has been progressing on schedule, the company could debut a prototype system that size of shipping container, but capable of powering a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier or 80,000 homes, sometime in the next year or so.

The patent, for a portion of the confinement system, or embodiment, is dated Feb. 15, 2018. The Maryland-headquartered defense contractor had filed a provisional claim on April 3, 2013 and a formal application nearly a year later. Our good friend Stephen Trimble, chief of Flightglobal's Americas Bureau, subsequently spotted it and Tweeted out its basic details.

In 2014, the company also made a splash by announcing they were working on the device at all and that it was the responsibility of its Skunk Works advanced projects office in Palmdale, California. At the time, Dr. Thomas McGuire, head of the Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Project, said the goal was to have a working reactor in five years and production worthy design within 10.

“I studied this in graduate school [at MIT] where, under a NASA study, I was charged with how we could get to Mars quickly,” McGuire said back in 2014 in an interview with Aviation Week. “I started looking at all the ideas that had been published. I basically took those ideas and melded them into something new by taking the problems in one and trying to replace them with the benefits of others.”

Since the 1920s, scientists have been working on fusion reactor concepts, but unfortunately most the functional examples have been inefficient and large – typically the size of small building – as well as exceptionally expensive. For example, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, which an international consortium is building in France and expects to have ready in 2021, has an estimated total cost of $50 billion and has a design that will weight approximately 23,000 tons.

Below is a video presentation that Lockheed Martin released in 2014 in which Dr. McGuire explains the basics of nuclear fusion and his reactor design.

THE TRUE DEFINITION OF THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA ...

A TRUE STORY BUT NO COVERAGE IN THE MSM ... HOW SAD ...

Stefan Halper and the origins of the FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign

May 14, 2018

IF SESSIONS PERHAPS KNOWS WHO THE MOLE IS OTHERWISE WHY DID HE LEGALLY SEQUESTER (recused) HIMSELF SO QUICKLY? 

The true story of how senior officials in the FBI and intelligence community conspired to spy on the Trump campaign and presidency on suspicion of nefarious dealings with Russia is starting to emerge, and with it, the possible role of a shadowy figure: Stefan Halper. The counterintelligence investigation at the FBI was officially launched, as Sundance notes:

On July 31st, 2016 [as] the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign. They did not inform congress until March 2017. •At the beginning of August (1st-3rd) 2016 FBI Agent Peter Strzok traveled to London, England for interviews with UK intelligence officials.

We have no explicit information about whom Strzok met with in London immediately after the investigation was launched, but given what follows below, it seems quite likely that Stefan Halper was on his agenda and that generating a plan to ensnare unwitting dupes into incriminating-looking behavior had something to do with the trip.

On August 15th, 2016 Peter Strzok sends a text message to DOJ Lawyer Lisa Page describing the "insurance policy", needed in case Hillary Clinton were to lose the election.

But what led up to the formal opening? An "E.C." (electronic communication) apparently "was generated by CIA Director John Brennan and passed on to FBI Director James Comey. The EC initiated the FBI Counterintelligence Operation" and now is the subject of demands by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, as the Washington Post reported:

At one point, Nunes had threatened to impeach top Justice Department officials when they did not immediately hand over an unredacted document detailing the origin of the investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election. The department later gave Nunes access to a version with modest redactions, and Nunes thanked Rosenstein for his cooperation.

Still secret is the name of someone at the heart of the so-called "raw intelligence" that Brennan passed on to Comey, which resulted in the FBI counterintelligence investigation that began on the last day of July 2016, three months before the presidential election.

For the intelligence agencies, Nunes's request threatened to cross a red line of compromising sources and methods of U.S. intelligence-gathering, according to people familiar with their views. Intelligence officials fear that providing even a redacted version of the information Nunes seeks could expose that person and damage relationships with other countries that serve as U.S. intelligence partners.

Yesterday, Clarice Feldman laid out the case that:

... there was collusion between certain members of the U.S. and British intelligence communities to spy on the Trump campaign. This may explain, in large part, the reluctance of the Department of Justice to reveal what it knows publicly. After all – with rare exceptions – the two countries' intelligence services have long had important information gathering and sharing agreements, and exposure of this may harm the traditional reciprocal relationship.

And that the likely suspect is shadowy Stefan Halper...

... someone who worked with U.S. and apparently British intelligence, with a record of trying to spy on lowly campaign workers and even trick them into compromising actions, a U.S. citizen with strong ties to British intelligence who lived in the U.K.: Stefan Halper, a former advisor to three Republican presidents (and therefore, had perfect cover), a Cambridge Fellow, who, as we detail, interacted with various Trump campaign workers ostensibly to assist them. On November 3, 2016, he publicly stated that Hillary would be the best option for U.S.-U.K. relations. It's reasonable to assume, therefore, that the "help" was not for the Trump campaign, but for Hillary.

"I believe [Hillary] Clinton would be best for US-UK relations and for relations with the European Union. Clinton is well-known, deeply experienced and predictable. US-UK relations will remain steady regardless of the winner although Clinton will be less disruptive over time," Halper, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs and senior adviser to the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice, said.

Here's how Halper "helped" the Trump campaign from publicly available information:

• On July 16, 2016 he invited Carter Page to a Cambridge symposium 
• On September 11, 2016 he met with a senior Trump official 
• On September 13-16 he met with Papadopoulos. 

Halper is a close associate of former MI6 head Richard Dearlove, who in a recent video interview, cagily refused to acknowledge the veracity of the Steele dossier.

It was previously reported that Halper had conducted a data-gathering operation to collect inside information on Jimmy Carter's foreign policy during the 1980 campaign, a charge he strongly denied. But if that charge were true, he certainly had experience in such things.

If Halper was not a person we'd consider a mole in the campaign, as he never was actually part of the campaign team – just someone trying to fish for dirt (or lure people like Page and Papadopoulos into some compromising acts) – why the weasel description in the report Nunes is examining?

Photo credit: VOA via Wikipedia.

Since the publication of Clarice's column, some fascinating information has come to light. Twitter bloggers Jacob Wohl, Deplorable Lori, and Deplorable Jeff dug up public records indicating that Stefan Halper, who is said to have some sort of title connected with Cambridge University, has been receiving fat contracts from the federal government for "Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities":


Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller News Foundation has uncovered some of Halper's pre-election maneuvering of a key figure in what was used to justify the FISA warrant:

Two months before the 2016 election, George Papadopoulos received a strange request for a meeting in London, one of several the young Trump adviser would be offered – and he would accept – during the presidential campaign.

The meeting request, which has not been reported until now, came from Stefan Halper, a foreign policy expert and Cambridge professor with connections to the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6.

Halper's September 2016 outreach to Papadopoulos wasn't his only contact with Trump campaign members. The 73-year-old professor, a veteran of three Republican administrations, met with two other campaign advisers, The Daily Caller News Foundation learned.

Papadopoulos now questions Halper's motivation for contacting him, according to a source familiar with Papadopoulos's thinking. That's not just because of the randomness of the initial inquiry but because of questions Halper is said to have asked during their face-to-face meetings in London.

According to a source with knowledge of the meeting, Halper asked Papadopoulos: "George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?"

Papadopoulos told Halper he didn't know anything about emails or Russian hacking, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. The professor did not follow up on the line of inquiry.

Halper first contacted Papadopoulos by email. In a Sept. 2, 2016, message sent to Papadopoulos's personal email account, he offered the Trump aide $3,000 to write a policy paper on issues related to Turkey, Cyprus, Israel and the Leviathan natural gas field. Halper also offered to pay for Papadopoulos's flight and a three-night stay in London.

I have heard through an intermediary from a veteran D.C. foreign policy figure who described Halper as "a hanger on around D.C. conservative circles who claims he worked for Ford, Nixon, and Reagan." In 1983, according to Leslie Gelb of the New York Times:

Stefan A. Halper, a campaign aide involved in providing 24-hour news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, as the person in charge. Mr. Halper, until recently deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs and now chairman of the Palmer National Bank in Washington, was out of town today and could not be reached. But Ray S. Cline, his father-in-law, a former senior Central Intelligence official, rejected the account as a ''romantic fallacy.''

Halper's father-in-law, Ray S. Cline, who recently died, was one of the most influential members of the intelligence community and was chief CIA analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis, going on to head the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies.

My source adds that "[t]hen, with no apparent connections in the U.K., he went to Cambridge and became very left-wing."

I can't claim to know any details of Halper's compensation (if any) from Cambridge University or his responsibilities (if any) there. But I do know that what looks like a $200,000-a-year income from the United States government would be enough to maintain an agent useful to the intelligence community in various capacities in an overseas location.

If and when President Trump starts tweeting about Halper and his role in the abuse of our intelligence apparatus to spy on and accuse his campaign and presidency of collaboration with Russia, I suggest he adopt the nickname "Shadowy Stefan Halper" for this man.

POND SCUM IS ON THE TOP OF THE WATER ... NO PROXY

From the Strzok/Page texts: ‘The White House is running this’ ...

It’s been my contention for some time that the FBI’s 2016 involvement in both the Hillary e-mail investigation and the Trump/Russia investigation were essentially political operations directed by the Obama White House. I’ve argued that this represents a scandal worse than Watergate because we’re basically talking about the Obama Administration abusing federal law enforcement to achieve the same goals as the Watergate burglars sought by bugging the Democratic National Committee headquarters back in 1972.

Nixon’s people used two-bit criminals. Obama used the FBI. Obama’s offense is worse because he took what is supposed to be a non-political agency dedicated to the law and used it as a tool to let one candidate get away with a felony, while wiretapping and infiltrating the other under the thinly veiled guise of a legitimate criminal investigation.

Yet most of the coverage of this story, even in conservative media, has not focused on one element of the story that strikes me as increasingly obvious: All of the redactions, stonewalling and excuse-making are for the purpose of doing one thing: Protecting Barack Obama by hiding the fact that he was driving this whole thing.

Today, newly reviewed texts between the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Lisa Page more starkly point us in that direction:

On the afternoon of August 5, Strzok and Page engaged in a tense conversation which involved an imminent meeting with “agency people” — an apparent reference to the CIA. Strzok suggested that, for the new case, they should conduct Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning meetings “with [REDACTED]” just “like we did with mye” — Mid Year Exam, the Clinton probe.

Finally, after some back-and-forth over who should be invited to a major meeting about the new case, a meeting was held. In the aftermath, at about 4:30 p.m., Strzok and Page had the following exchange:

Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: “the White House is running this.” My answer, “well, maybe for you they are.” And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we’ve got an hour, but with Bill [Priestap] there, I’ve got no control….

Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We’ve got the emails that say otherwise.

It would be interesting to know what is in the emails that apparently clarify how the Obama administration divided responsibility for running the Trump-Russia investigation. Just like it would be interesting to know what is behind all the many redactions in these texts about how and why the Trump-Russia investigation got started.

Do note that Strzok and Page are furiously pushing back on the idea that the White House is running the investigation, but that’s immaterial. What we clearly see here is that there’s a power struggle for who is going to be in control of it, and there’s at least someone – because of the redactions, we don’t yet know who-who is trying to assert to Strzok that the White House is in the driver’s seat.

You can argue if you want that Page’s response casts doubt on my premise. But if you really think about it, you have to know that’s disingenuous.

With a standard criminal investigation undertaken by the FBI, there would be little to no involvement from the White House or from any other political entity. There may be cases that the White House would take an interest in and want to be briefed on, but everyone would understand that professional investigators would take the lead – if it’s really a matter of law and not politics.

The fact that they’re even having this conversation means, at the very least, someone in the Obama White House wants to be in charge of this, and the only conceivable reason for that is that the investigation is driven by politics and not by a legitimate question of law.

We’ve learned in recent days that the FBI likely planted a mole within the Trump campaign. There’s much speculation about the name of this individual, and while we’ve seen it, we won’t repeat it here until it’s confirmed. But this begs another question, doesn’t it? If the Obama White House was directing the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign for political reasons, and the FBI tapped a mole to infiltrate the Trump campaign, was the mole’s purpose to gather evidence for a criminal case or to relay campaign secrets that could then be shared with Hillary’s campaign?

In other words, did Obama direct the FBI to initiate a sham criminal investigation that included the infiltration of the Trump campaign, with the real purpose being to report back intelligence to the Clinton campaign? Because if he did, that’s an abuse of the FBI that’s more serious than what the Nixon campaign did when it broke into the Watergate and planted those listening devices.

And if that is what happened, then we know who Rod Rosenstein is trying to protect with his foot-dragging and stonewalling.

He’s trying to protect Barack Obama.

The presumption of the Obama White House was clearly that Hillary would win and none of this would ever see the light of day. When Trump shocked everyone by winning, all of this was suddenly at risk of exposure, and everything that’s happened since then has been for the purpose of covering it up.

By the way, what was the real purpose of that tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch? No one believes they were talking about grandchildren. Was Lynch there to brief Clinton on what the FBI’s mole had learned about the Trump campaign? Or about the FBI’s larger effort to sabotage Trump on Hillary’s behalf under the guise of a legitimate investigation?

The only way to know for sure is for the DOJ to give Devin Nunes all the documents he’s subpoenaed, in unredacted form. And that, I suspect, is precisely why Rosenstein is doing everything he can to avoid turning them over. If he does, the man who gets exposed is none other than Barack Obama himself.

It does beg the question: Where is Sessions? Why isn't he doing his job? Has he been threatened? His family threatened? What's in it for him to NOT get involved with getting the unredacted documents to the House Intelligence Committee?

SGT. JOE FRIDAY, "JUST THE FACTS MAM, JUST THE FACTS" ...

Mueller may have a conflict — and it leads directly to a Russian oligarch

Special counsel Robert Mueller has withstood relentless political attacks, many distorting his record of distinguished government service.

But there’s one episode even Mueller’s former law enforcement comrades — and independent ethicists — acknowledge raises legitimate legal issues and a possible conflict of interest in his overseeing the Russia election probe.

TABLES HAVE BEEN TURNED ... OR ARE TURNING ON HIM

In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.

• Yes, that’s the same Deripaska who has surfaced in Mueller’s current investigation and who was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration.

The Levinson mission is confirmed by more than a dozen participants inside and outside the FBI, including Deripaska, his lawyer, the Levinson family and a retired agent who supervised the case. Mueller was kept apprised of the operation, officials told me.

Some aspects of Deripaska’s help were chronicled in a 2016 book by reporter Barry Meier, but sources provide extensive new information about his role.

• They said FBI agents courted Deripaska in 2009 in a series of secret hotel meetings in Paris; Vienna; Budapest, Hungary, and Washington. Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither involve nor harm his homeland. 

“We knew he was paying for his team helping us, and that probably ran into the millions,” a U.S. official involved in the operation confirmed.

SPEED DATING ...

One agent who helped court Deripaska was Andrew McCabe, the recently fired FBI deputy director who played a seminal role in starting the Trump-Russia case, multiple sources confirmed.

Deripaska’s lawyer said the Russian ultimately spent $25 million assembling a private search and rescue team that worked with Iranian contacts under the FBI’s watchful eye. Photos and videos indicating Levinson was alive were uncovered.

Then in fall 2010, the operation secured an offer to free Levinson. The deal was scuttled, however, when the State Department become uncomfortable with Iran’s terms, according to Deripaska’s lawyer and the Levinson family.

FBI officials confirmed State hampered their efforts.

“We tried to turn over every stone we could to rescue Bob, but every time we started to get close, the State Department seemed to always get in the way,” said Robyn Gritz, the retired agent who supervised the Levinson case in 2009, when Deripaska first cooperated, but who left for another position in 2010 before the Iranian offer arrived. “I kept Director Mueller and Deputy Director [John] Pistole informed of the various efforts and operations, and they offered to intervene with State, if necessary.”

SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES ...

FBI officials ended the operation in 2011, concerned that Deripaska’s Iranian contacts couldn’t deliver with all the U.S. infighting. Levinson was never found; his whereabouts remain a mystery, 11 years after he disappeared.

"WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE ..."

“Deripaska’s efforts came very close to success,” said David McGee, a former federal prosecutor who represents Levinson’s family. “We were told at one point that the terms of Levinson’s release had been agreed to by Iran and the U.S. and included a statement by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointing a finger away from Iran. At the last minute, Secretary Clinton decided not to make the agreed-on statement.”

DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND

The State Department declined to comment, and a spokesman for Clinton did not offer comment. Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, declined to answer questions. As did McCabe.

The FBI had three reasons for choosing Deripaska for a mission worthy of a spy novel. 

• First, his aluminum empire had business in Iran. 
• Second, the FBI wanted a foreigner to fund the operation because spending money in Iran might violate U.S. sanctions and other laws. 
• Third, agents knew Deripaska had been banished since 2006 from the United States by State over reports he had ties to organized crime and other nefarious activities. He denies the allegations, and nothing was ever proven in court.

The FBI rewarded Deripaska for his help. In fall 2009, according to U.S. entry records, Deripaska visited Washington on a rare law enforcement parole visa. And since 2011, he has been granted entry at least eight times on a diplomatic passport, even though he doesn’t work for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Former FBI officials confirm they arranged the access.

Deripaska said in a statement through Adam Waldman, his American lawyer, that FBI agents told him State’s reasons for blocking his U.S. visa were “merely a pretext.”

“The FBI said they had undertaken a careful background check, and if there was any validity to the State Department smears, they would not have reached out to me for assistance,” the Russian said.

Then, over the past two years, evidence emerged tying him to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the first defendant charged by Mueller’s Russia probe with money laundering and illegal lobbying.

Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money.

Mueller’s indictment of Manafort makes no mention of Deripaska, even though prosecutors have evidence that Manafort contemplated inviting his old Russian client for a 2016 Trump campaign briefing. Deripaska said he never got the invite and investigators have found no evidence it occurred. There’s no public evidence Deripaska had anything to do with election meddling.

The U.S. government in April imposed sanctions on Deripaska, one of several prominent Russians targeted to punish Vladimir Putin — using the same sort of allegations that State used from 2006 to 2009. Yet, between those two episodes, Deripaska seemed good enough for the FBI to ask him to fund that multimillion-dollar rescue mission and to allow him into the country eight times.

I was alerted to Deripaska’s past FBI relationship by U.S. officials who wondered whether the Russian’s conspicuous absence from Mueller’s indictments might be related to his FBI work.

They aren’t the only ones.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told me he believes Mueller has a conflict of interest because his FBI previously accepted financial help from a Russian that is, at the very least, a witness in the current probe.

“The real question becomes whether it was proper to leave [Deripaska] out of the Manafort indictment and whether that omission was to avoid the kind of transparency that is really required by the law,” Dershowitz said.

Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a “far more significant issue” is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: “It’s possible the bureau’s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.”

George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley agreed: “If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.”

Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted.

50 SHADES OF GRAY ... SORT OF!

In the meantime, the episode highlights an oft-forgotten truism: The cat-and-mouse maneuvers between Moscow and Washington are often portrayed in black-and-white terms. But the truth is, the relationship is enveloped in many shades of gray.

WOW A JOURNALIST ... LIKE HENS TEETH

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill’s executive vice president for video.a

MY MONEY IS ON JEFF SESSIONS ... THINK ABOUT IT!

About That FBI ‘Source’

Did the bureau engage in outright spying against the 2016 Trump campaign?

Kimberley A. StrasselMay 10, 2018 6:50 p.m. ET

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 24 at National Harbor, Md. Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it agreed to brief House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.

Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.” Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.

House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”

This is desperation, and it strongly suggests that whatever is in these files is going to prove very uncomfortable to the FBI. 

The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.

This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting. It would also be a major escalation from the electronic surveillance we already knew about, which was bad enough. Obama political appointees rampantly “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to monitor their conversations, while the FBI played dirty with its surveillance warrant against Carter Page, failing to tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that its supporting information came from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now we find it may have also been rolling out human intelligence, John Le Carré style, to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

Which would lead to another big question for the FBI: When? The bureau has been doggedly sticking with its story that a tip in July 2016 about the drunken ramblings of George Papadopoulos launched its counterintelligence probe. Still, the players in this affair—the FBI, former Director Jim Comey, the Steele dossier authors—have been suspiciously vague on the key moments leading up to that launch date. When precisely was the Steele dossier delivered to the FBI? When precisely did the Papadopoulos information come in?

And to the point, when precisely was this human source operating? Because if it was prior to that infamous Papadopoulos tip, then the FBI isn’t being straight. It would mean the bureau was spying on the Trump campaign prior to that moment. And that, in turn, would mean that the FBI had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.

We also know that among the Justice Department’s stated reasons for not complying with the Nunes subpoena was its worry that to do so might damage international relationships. This suggests the “source” may be overseas, have ties to foreign intelligence, or both. That’s notable, given the highly suspicious role foreigners have played in this escapade. It was an Australian diplomat who reported the Papadopoulos conversation. Dossier author Christopher Steele is British, used to work for MI6, and retains ties to that spy agency as well as to a network of former spooks. It was a former British diplomat who tipped off Sen. John McCain to the dossier. How this “top secret” source fits into this puzzle could matter deeply.

I believe I know the name of the informant, but my intelligence sources did not provide it to me and refuse to confirm it. It would, therefore, be irresponsible to publish it. But what is clear is that we’ve barely scratched the surface of the FBI’s 2016 behavior, and the country will never get the straight story until President Trump moves to declassify everything possible. It’s time to rip off the Band-Aid.

Correction
The FBI briefed House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source but did not allow them to see documents. An earlier version of this article misstated this.

MUELLER AND HIS MERRY BAND OF CLOWNS ... REALLY!!! SOMEONE HAS TO PAY!!!

Mueller Indicted A Russian Company That Didn't Even Exist, Court Transcripts Say

Alex Wong/Getty Images

ByRYAN SAAVEDRA

@REALSAAVEDRA

May 12, 2018 

This week, one of the Russian companies accused by Special Counsel Robert Mueller of funding a conspiracy to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was revealed in court to not have existed during the time period alleged by Mueller's team of prosecutors, according to a lawyer representing the defendant.

U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey asked Eric Dubelier, one of two lawyers representing the accused Russian company, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, if he was representing a third company listed in Mueller's indictment.

"What about Concord Catering?" Harvey asked Dubelier. "The government makes an allegation that there's some association. I don't mean for you to – do you represent them, or not, today? And are we arraigning them as well?"

"We're not," Dubelier responded. "And the reason for that, Your Honor, is I think we're dealing with a situation of the government having indicted the proverbial ham sandwich."

"That company didn't exist as a legal entity during the time period alleged by the government," Dubelier continued. "If at some later time they show me that it did exist, we would probably represent them. But for purposes of today, no, we do not."

The term "indict a ham sandwich" is believed to have originated from a 1985 report in the New York Daily News when New York Chief Judge Sol Wachtler told the news publication that government prosecutors have so much influence over grand juries that they could get them to "indict a ham sandwich."

READ MORE: ROBERT MUELLER RUSSIA

PELOSI AND FINESTIEN TERRITORY ... COME VISIT

I DO, I DO, I DO & I DO UNTIL I'M DEPORTED

Get married in sanctuary court to avoid deportation
Boston Herald 11:40 am May 7, 2018


The Moakley federal courthouse is being turned into a wedding chapel for illegal immigrant criminals desperately trying to avoid deportation from the promised land of:

I DO WANT EBT cards, I DO WANT Section 8 housing, I DO WANT Mass Health cards, and I DO WANT Obamaphones.

HOW TOUCHING ...
Last week in a U.S. District courtroom, an illegal immigrant unlicensed alleged drunk driver was married to his “fiancee,” who happens to be the mother of his 21-month-old anchor baby in, where else, Chelsea.

GET ME THE AIR SICKNESS BAG ...
This week, it gets even more absurd — the “advocates” want to have a photographer in a federal courtroom to take pictures of the next lovely illegal immigrant couple, or two, or three.

I am not making this up.

“It seems unimaginable that there should be no photographic record of a modern marriage,” a “freelance news reporter” from Cambridge named John A. Hawkinson wrote to Judge Mark Wolf late last week. “Often considered the defining moment in a person’s life, to have no visual record of that moment in time seems injurious to human sentimentality, needlessly harsh and at odds with the societal standards of marriage.”

Funny how seldom these illegal immigrants consider marriage when they impregnate their girlfriends. Because if you’re married, you’re supposed to support your own offspring, rather than leave the back-breaking job to law-abiding citizens. However, faced with the prospect of deportation back to a country where they might actually have to support themselves, on rare occasions, the illegal immigrants decide to tie the knot.

Hey, it beats working.

So you read about this illegal immigrant from El Salvador, Jaime Antonio Alvarez Figueroa. He’s locked up at the Plymouth House of Correction after his arrest for drunk driving with no license (stop me if you’ve heard this one before).

Suddenly he decides to marry his girlfriend, Tatiana Chavez Vanegas, who is seeking “asylum.”

The alleged drunk driver’s lawyer wrote to the judge: “It is important for his immigration case because he will be granted derivative asylum status should Ms. Chavez Vanegas be granted asylum” and remain together.

There is, of course, another way they can remain together — just go back to El Salvador and support themselves. No problemo.

But nooooo, this alleged drunk-driving jailbird illegal immigrant is desperate to become a “derivative asylee” — you know, like the Tsarnaevs, the Muslim terrorists who bombed the Boston Marathon. Those derivative asylees were so oppressed by living on welfare all those years that they couldn’t return to their Third World homeland, except to get terrorist training for six months at a time.

The illegal immigrant lovebirds could have gotten married down at the jail. But they would have had to wait five months, until September.
“A delay of five months” wrote Judge Patti Saris, a Clinton appointee, “is unreasonable.”

Yes, because he would have been deported by then.

• All in all, it was a big week at the courthouse for El Salvadoreans who commit crimes in Chelsea. An MS-13 gangbanger named David “Cilindro” Lopez was sentenced to 20 years for the attempted murder of a gangbanger he shot six times after another “migrant” had stabbed the victim 21 times.

• “As a reward for his violence,” the feds’ sentencing memo read, “MS-13 promoted Lopez to ‘homeboy’ for his May 2014 attempted murder.”

This raises an interesting point. If we’re going to accommodate all these quaint Central American customs like drunk driving without licenses and machete slayings, why stop with welfare-protecting weddings at the courthouse? Why wasn’t gangbanger Cilindro allowed to attend his MS-13 initiation before he was carted off to prison?

That brings us back to the case of Dos Santos v. Nielsen, and the request to have a wedding photographer at Tuesday’s illegal immigrant courthouse nuptials. The decision on those festivities will be made by Judge Mark Wolf.

“While it would be uncharitable not to congratulate the newlyweds,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said Friday night, “we don’t support impromptu weddings during federal court proceedings just so ICE detainees can better fight deportation.”

Which is why Wolf, even though he’s a Ronald Reagan appointee, will probably allow both the wedding and photographers in the courtroom. Anything to thumb their noses at Donald Trump, that’s how most federal judges think. Why not postpone the next wedding until Wednesday, when the trial of Mafia boss Cadillac Frank Salemme begins in the same courthouse.

Maybe Cadillac Frank can serve as best man. The witnesses can be gangsters Stevie “The Rifleman” Flemmi and Bobby DeLuca.

TOTO WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANY MORE

THE TIN MAN ... 

PETTIFOGGERY ... WTF ... MUELLER IS SO FAR INTO THE WEEDS THAT ...

Judge rejects Mueller's request for delay in Russian troll farm case
Russian firm linked to Putin’s chef accuses special counsel of ‘pettifoggery.’



Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team proposed that both sides file briefs on the issues of whether Concord has been properly served, with the government filing on May 25 and Concord’s lawyers weighing in by June 15. 

MUELLER IS SO FAR INTO THE WEEDS THAT THE "NORMAL" VOTER HAS NO IDEA WHAT IN THE HELL HE IS DOING!  BESIDE THAT WHY WASTE MONEY ON 13 RUSSIAN CITIZENS THAT WILL NEVER STEP FOOT ON US SOIL ... AND BESIDE WHO REAL CARES. TRUMP IS DOING A GREAT JOB 'BRINGING HOME THE BACON SO TO SPEAK' ... WHEN THE MID-TERM ARRIVE THE DEM'S WILL BE THE LOSERS ACROSS THE BOARD!


A federal judge has rejected special counsel Robert Mueller’s request to delay the first court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In a brief order Saturday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich offered no explanation for her decision to deny a request prosecutors made Friday to put off the scheduled Wednesday arraignment for Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three firms charged in the case.

The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged Russian troll farm operation — the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management, and Concord Catering — were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.

Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case, notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.

On Friday, Mueller’s prosecutors disclosed that Concord’s attorneys, Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly, had made a slew of discovery requests demanding nonpublic details about the case and the investigation. Prosecutors also asked a judge to postpone the formal arraignment of Concord Management set for next week.

The prosecution team sought the delay on the grounds that it’s unclear whether Concord Management formally accepted the court summons related to the case. Mueller’s prosecutors also revealed that they tried to deliver the summonses for Concord and IRA through the Russian government, without success.

“The [U.S.] government has attempted service of the summonses by delivering copies of them to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, to be delivered to the defendants,” prosecutors wrote. “That office, however, declined to accept the summonses. The government has submitted service requests to the Russian government pursuant to a mutual legal assistance treaty. To the government’s knowledge, no further steps have been taken within Russia to effectuate service.”

Mueller’s team sent a copy of the formal summons to Dubelier and Seikaly and asked them to accept it on behalf of Concord Management, but Dubelier wrote back on Monday saying that the government’s attempt to serve the summons was defective under court rules. He did not elaborate.

The three companies named in the indictment are all reported to be controlled by a Russian businessman known as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “chef,” Yevgeny Prigozhin. He’s also one of the 13 individuals criminally charged in the case.

In their request on Friday to put off the arraignment, prosecutors included the extensive demands for information that the lawyers for Concord Management have set forth since they stepped forward last month.

“Until the Court has an opportunity to determine if Concord was properly served, it would be inadvisable to conduct an initial appearance and arraignment at which important rights will be communicated and a plea entertained,” attorneys Jeannie Rhee, Rush Atkinson and Ryan Dickey wrote. “That is especially true in the context of this case, which involves a foreign corporate defendant, controlled by another, individual foreign defendant, that has already demanded production of sensitive intelligence gathering, national security, and foreign affairs information.”

The Mueller team proposed that both sides file briefs in the coming weeks on the issues of whether Concord has been properly served.

In a blunt response Saturday morning, Concord’s attorneys accused Mueller's team of ignoring the court’s rules and suggesting a special procedure for the Russian firm without any supporting legal authority.

“Defendant voluntarily appeared through counsel as provided for in [federal rules], and further intends to enter a plea of not guilty. Defendant has not sought a limited appearance nor has it moved to quash the summons. As such, the briefing sought by the Special Counsel’s motion is pettifoggery,” Dubelier and Seikaly wrote.

The Concord lawyers said Mueller’s attorneys were seeking “to usurp the scheduling authority of the Court” by waiting until Friday afternoon to try to delay a proceeding scheduled for next Wednesday. Dubelier and Seikaly complained that the special counsel’s office has not replied at all to Concord’s discovery requests. The lawyers, who work for Pittsburgh-based law firm Reed Smith, also signaled Concord intends to assert its speedy trial rights, putting more pressure on the special counsel’s office to turn over records related to the case.

Friedrich, a Trump appointee based in Washington, sided with Concord and said the arraignment will proceed as scheduled Wednesday afternoon.

The indictment, obtained by Mueller but announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, accused the defendants of mounting an “information warfare” operation in connection with the 2016 election.

The IRA, long suspected of ties to the Kremlin, allegedly used social media, email and other means to manipulate “unwitting” American citizens and Trump campaign officials into protests, demonstrations and the recirculation of media messages. Most of the interventions were intended to benefit Trump or demean his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, the indictment alleged.



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FAKEBOOK OR F**KBOOK ... DEPENDS ON WHICH SIDE YOU'RE ON

Facebook’s ‘Favors’ for Obama’s Campaign May Have Violated Federal Law


Former President Barack Obama shakes hands with Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

Controversy continues to swirl around how the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained personal data from over 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge and used it to target ads to individuals in an effort to help Donald Trump be elected president in 2016.

But a more serious case of apparent misconduct involves Facebook data going to a different presidential campaign—this time in 2012. In this case, which is getting far less attention, Facebook reportedly voluntarily provided data on millions of its users to the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama.

If true, such action by Facebook may constitute a major violation of federal campaign finance law as an illegal corporate campaign contribution. The matter should be investigated by the Federal Election Commission—an agency I am quite familiar with because I served as one of its commissioners from 2006 to 2007. The commission enforces campaign finance laws for congressional and presidential elections.

A federal law bans corporations from making “direct or indirect” contributions to federal candidates. That ban extends beyond cash contributions to “any services, or anything of value.” In other words, corporations cannot provide federal candidates with free services of any kind.

Under the Federal Election Commission’s regulations, “anything of value” includes any “in-kind contribution.” For example, if a corporation decided to offer a presidential candidate free office space, that would violate federal law.

Corporations can certainly offer their services, including office space, to federal campaigns. But the campaigns are required to pay the fair market value for such services or rental properties.

• According to Carol Davidsen, the former media director for Obama for America, Facebook gave the 2012 Obama campaign direct access to the personal data of Facebook users in violation of its internal rules, making a special exception for the campaign.

The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, reported that Davidsen said on Twitter March 18 that Facebook employees came to the campaign office and “were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”

The type of data that the Obama campaign was mining from Facebook is a more sophisticated version of the type of data that has long been provided by professional direct mail marketers—something pioneered by Richard Viguerie.

Viguerie, for example, has detailed personal data on “12 million conservative donors and activists” to whom his company sends letters and emails on behalf of his clients. He provides information to campaigns looking for votes and money, and to nonprofit and advocacy organizations raising funds.

Political campaigns must pay for these services. Under a Federal Election Commission regulation, giving a mailing list or something similar to a campaign is considered an “in-kind contribution.”

So if Facebook gave the Obama campaign free access to this type of data when it normally does not do so for other entities—or usually charges for such access—then Facebook would appear to have violated the federal ban on in-kind contributions by a corporation. And the Obama campaign may have violated the law by accepting such a corporate contribution.

What about the story currently in the news about Cambridge Analytica using Facebook data for the Trump campaign?

The important legal distinction may be in the way the data were obtained. Fox News reported that the Trump campaign hired Cambridge Analytica to do political research on voters and reportedly to “help the campaign target specific voters with ads and stories.”

The real controversy now involving the Trump campaign deals with exactly how Cambridge Analytica obtained the data it used for the campaign. A CNBC report says that Cambridge Analytica bought the data from Aleksandr Kogan and his company, Global Science Research, which obtained the data through an app and a psychological test taken by Facebook users.

The amounts paid by the Trump campaign to Cambridge Analytica for its services—and the use of the Facebook data—are listed in its spending reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

This proves that the Trump campaign paid for services in the same way that campaigns routinely hire and pay direct mail marketers. So the Trump campaign did not get an illegal corporate contribution from Cambridge Analytica or Facebook when it received free access to very valuable data.

Whether or not Global Science Research and Cambridge Analytica violated any Facebook rules regarding this data is not the responsibility of the Trump campaign. From the standpoint of federal campaign finance law, the Trump campaign met its obligation to pay for and report this spending and did not violate the ban on corporate contributions.
However, whether or not the Obama campaign and Facebook violated this ban is an open question. It should be investigated by the Federal Election Commission and potentially the Department of Justice. The commission handles most routine violations of the law, which are civil matters. The Justice Department is responsible for investigating knowing and intentional violations of the law, which are criminal matters.

Although the statute of limitations may have already run out on this conduct by the Obama campaign, one thing seems certain: Davidsen’s admissions should provide a sufficient basis for opening a federal investigation of what may have been a serious violation of the law by the Obama campaign.

THE CHINESE ACHILLIES HEEL ... CHINA CAN NOT ACHIEVE ITS GOALS ...UNLESS IT TAKES OVER SOUTH KOREA

China has too few chips to play in high stakes tech game ...
Semiconductor sector revenue in the US edged close to US$250 billion compared to China’s miserly $24.7 billion last year


Will cooler heads prevail during the coming US-China trade negotiations? 

When it comes to bargaining chips, President Xi Jinping is hedging his bets. The leader of China and the chairman of the country’s ruling Communist Party made that crystal clear last week when he stressed that increasing semiconductor production had become a priority.

As the trade dispute with the United States develops into a battle of technology, the world’s second-largest economy is being forced to revamp its small domestic chip sector or face being frozen out of the market.

If that happened, the consequences for the country’s high-tech industries, and Xi’s cornerstone ‘Made in China 2025’ policy, would be catastrophic.

To underline the problem, Xi talked openly about the enormous challenges during a visit to inspect integrated circuit assembly lines at the Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation in Wuhan.

“No matter how big a person is, he or she can never be strong without a sound and strong heart,” he said, using a typical home-spun metaphor to urge domestic tech companies to strive for major breakthroughs in semiconductor technology.

The task will be daunting. A glance at the global industry illustrates how far behind the nation is when it comes to chip manufacturing, and research and development.

Last year, revenue from the semiconductor sector in the US edged close to US$250 billion compared to China’s miserly $24.7 billion, statistics from IEK, which is part of the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan, showed.

Technological powerhouse (CHIPS ARE LIKE WATER IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL DESERT)

With such a disparity, it is hardly surprising that Chinese companies have to import about $200 billion worth of chips from the US each year.

In turn, this has left Beijing exposed, threatening the whole concept of Xi’s plan to turn China into a technological powerhouse and putting at risk ‘smart’ companies such as ZTE, Huawei, and Xiaomi.

Even online giants like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, or the BAT grouping, as well as JD.com, could feel the aftershocks if the supply of semiconductors dried up.

For China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, it would also seriously curtail its satellite and space programs.

While this is strictly a ‘doomsday scenario,’ it cannot be ruled out as President Donald Trump’s team prepares to visit China in the next seven days for tough trade talks in Beijing.

“Chinese companies have a large task ahead, given their talent and capability gaps, the high bar for global leadership, and the need for the country’s global champions to be the top one or two players in their segments,” Christopher Thomas, a principal at global consulting firm McKinsey in Beijing, said in a report back in 2015.

“The more segments and technologies in which China attempts to be number one, the more diffuse industry and government efforts will be. The more companies that attempt to become the Chinese champion for a certain segment, the more the best talent will be spread across too many teams,” he added.

Three years later, very little has changed. Data from Bloomberg showed that Intel, Broadcom, and Qualcomm, the US suppliers of semiconductors for smartphones and computers, had at least 10 times the market value of China’s biggest chipmaker Shenzhen Huiding Technology.
As for processors used in high-end electronic products, American companies dominate the landscape. Chinese chips tend to be used in low-end items such as bank and key cards.

“The gap is still huge and the semiconductor industry is capital- and labor-intensive” Dai Ming, a money manager at Hengsheng Asset Management in Shanghai, told the South China Morning Post. “It requires massive investment and technology accumulation. In the short term, it’s difficult for China to catch up with the US.”

In a move to address the problem, The National Integrated Circuitry Investment Fund, or “Big Fund,” plans to roll out new investment opportunities to boost local chip production and R&D.

Backed by the Chinese government, NICIF announced it was close to closing a 120 billion yuan ($18.98 billion) investment round for a second fund to support the industry, Reuters news agency reported.

Indeed, urgency has become the buzzword around Beijing’s corridors of power after the US Justice Department started investigating Huawei for suspected violations of export sanctions to Iran.

Last week’s decision came after fellow tech conglomerate ZTE was barred in April from buying US-made components, such as semiconductors, for seven years.

Spooked Beijing

The incidents have spooked Beijing and are seen by Xi’s administration as an attempt to wreck the country’s booming high-tech sector.

“Following the ZTE incident, China has basically reached a consensus to develop its own chip technology,” Zhang Lili, a research fellow with the Pangoal Institution, a public policy think tank in Beijing, said in an opinion piece for Global Times.

“However, making semiconductors is very complicated, involving more than 50 industries and 2,000 to 5,000 processes. Some observers have said that mere enthusiasm alone won’t lead to success and China may not achieve chip breakthroughs on its own,” he added in the state-owned newspaper.

Finding partners in any ’semiconductor war’ with Washington might be difficult as the other major players, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, would probably be reluctant to break ranks with the US in an industry which generated more than $420 billion last year, Statista, an online statistics portal, revealed.
They will be hoping that cooler heads prevail before the broader trade dispute escalates into a trade war. Yet hopes of a quick settlement appear to be fading, judging by the rhetoric from both sides.

“High technology is the core competitiveness of the US, but with China’s development getting more attention in recent years, the US fears losing its advantages and may adopt stricter measures against China,” Zhang wrote. “We need to prepare mentally for this.”

Still, in this particular game of ‘cold war trade’ poker, China holds very few chips.