Breaking: CIA Admits Russia NOT Behind Hack, and Obama CIA Chief IS Behind Trump-Russia Rumors

From: Constitution.com

By - Onan Coca -  April 20, 2017 

  
Thursday has NOT been a banner day for the CIA (or the FBI). Dueling stories have exposed the profound failures of the CIA during the Obama administration.

In one story we finally learn that Russia was NOT behind the hacks that exposed so much embarrassing information from the CIA. Instead the CIA and FBI are now admitting that it was an insider, and the CIA is currently hunting for that leaker. The second story explains how former CIA chief John Brennan worked hard to undermine the possibility of Donald Trump becoming President by leaking intelligence from our European allies to the rest of the government and to the media. It’s a sordid, and ugly story that finally proves just how dastardly, and underhanded Brennan truly is.

CBS News broke the story on the CIA leaks:

CBS News has learned that a manhunt is underway for a traitor inside the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA and FBI are conducting a joint investigation into one of the worst security breaches in CIA history, which exposed thousands of top-secret documents that described CIA tools used to penetrate smartphones, smart televisions and computer systems.

Sources familiar with the investigation say it is looking for an insider — either a CIA employee or contractor — who had physical access to the material. The agency has not said publicly when the material was taken or how it was stolen.

WikiLeaks published the leaked material in March and CBS points out that WikiLeaks has said all along that they got the material from a CIA insider. What CBS fails to report is that for quite some time our intelligence community and the media have been blaming Russia for these leaks (WikiLeaks published the material in March but has had it for longer), when the truth is that Russia seems to have had NOTHING to do with it.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper broke the story on John Brennan though they attempted to shield the Obama/Clinton acolyte from blowback even as they explained his underhanded dealings.

(Our own Andrew West brought part of this story to you earlier today.)

The Guardian  explained that British spies first noticed the connections between the Trump team and the Russians but that other European intelligence agencies soon also picked up on the ties. These agencies then brought that information to Brennan at the CIA, because, the Guardian opines, American laws don’t allow our own intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens.

The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.

“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’

The reality is that our agencies weren’t “asleep,” they too could see the interactions, there just wasn’t any reason to think that the connections between some Trump team members and Russia was underhanded. While we in the United States believe in due process and the need for the government to have “probable cause” before accusing people of wrongdoing, apparently in Europe, no such probable cause is necessary.

The American Spectator explains what the Guardian‘s report had really uncovered. Here’s a hint, it wasn’t wrongdoing by Trump… but by John Brennan and the CIA:

Seeking to retain his position as CIA director under Hillary, [John] Brennan teamed up with British spies and Estonian spies to cripple Trump’s candidacy. He used their phony intelligence as a pretext for a multi-agency investigation into Trump, which led the FBI to probe a computer server connected to Trump Tower and gave cover to Susan Rice, among other Hillary supporters, to spy on Trump and his people.

John Brennan’s CIA operated like a branch office of the Hillary campaign, leaking out mentions of this bogus investigation to the press in the hopes of inflicting maximum political damage on Trump. An official in the intelligence community tells TAS that Brennan’s retinue of political radicals didn’t even bother to hide their activism, decorating offices with “Hillary for president cups” and other campaign paraphernalia…

Any other CIA director would have disregarded such a flaky tip, recognizing that Estonia was eager to see Trump lose (its officials had bought into Hillary’s propaganda that Trump was going to pull out of NATO and leave Baltic countries exposed to Putin). But Brennan opportunistically seized on it, as he later that summer seized on the half-baked intelligence of British spy agencies (also full of officials who wanted to see Trump lose).

The truth is clear, Obama’s intelligence community worked hard to scuttle Donald Trump’s presidential aspirations and ensure that Hillary Clinton would become President. When that didn’t work, they turned to the media for help undermining the newly elected president and the media embraced the farce with gusto. The nighttime tales of Russian terror are nothing more than fairytales told by Obama’s cronies and regurgitated to the American people by a complicit media that seems willing to believe and repeat any negative story they hear about Donald Trump.


God bless,
JohnnyD

Trump’s first 100 days have been better than you think

From: New York Post

By Michael Walsh - April 15, 2017

As the end of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office approaches, now’s a good a time to cut through the fog of misinformation, disinformation, media propaganda, ideological bias and outright hostility that has greeted his arrival in Washington and take a clear-eyed look at how he’s really doing.

Answer: much better than you think.

Let’s take the area that was supposed to be his Achilles’ heel, foreign policy. After flirting publicly with the likes of John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and David Petraeus, Trump settled on dark horse Rex Tillerson, the former chief of ExxonMobil, to be his secretary of state. Like his boss, Tillerson had no prior experience in government — which has turned out so far to be an excellent thing.

Unencumbered by the can’t-do conventional wisdom of the Foggy Bottom establishment and its parrots in the Washington press corps, Tillerson has played the carrot to Trump’s stick, soothing Chinese feathers ruffled during the campaign with a March visit to Beijing and setting up the successful meeting earlier this month between The Donald and the Chinese president at Mar-a-Largo that — purely coincidentally! — coincided with the cruise-missile salvo fired at Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Since then, the Chinese have openly cautioned the troublesome regime of Kim Jong un in North Korea not to antagonize the US with further nuclear saber-rattling in the region; “Trump is a man who honors his promises,” warned the People’s Daily, the ruling party’s official newspaper. Among those promises: a better trade deal for China and an ominous presidential tweet to the Norks that they’re “looking for trouble,” and signed “USA.” Even now, US warships are steaming Kim’s way.

Regarding Russia, Tillerson rocked the former Soviets with a “frank discussion” in Moscow on Wednesday — diplo-speak for “contentious.” Meanwhile, at the UN, ambassador Nikki Haley has already proven her mettle, taking a hard line toward the Russians for their tactical alliance with Assad while making clear the US commitment to Israel.

Domestically, a first attempt at repealing and replacing ObamaCare flopped when Speaker Paul Ryan’s needlessly complex “better way” couldn’t muster enough GOP votes to make it to the House floor. But the fault was the ambitious Ryan’s. Now the way’s clear for a cleaner repeal. And, yes, tax reform’s on its way, too.

True, the president’s two executive orders regarding visitors from several Muslim countries have been stayed by federal judges refusing to acknowledge the plain letter of both the Constitution and the US Code 1182, which give the president plenary power regarding immigration. But the recent confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as an associate justice will quickly clear up that misunderstanding when the cases land in the Supreme Court. Further, the Republicans’ use of the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster for high court nominees means Trump’s next pick is guaranteed a speedy confirmation.

Over at the National Security Council, H.R. McMaster has brought order out of the chaos that followed the abortive tenure of Mike Flynn, shuffling some staffers but retaining the services of crucial personnel. And at the Pentagon and Homeland Security, former Marine generals James Mattis and John Kelly can be counted on to faithfully execute presidential policy. Worries that they’re too soft on radical Islam are unfounded.

Less remarked but equally important has been the administration’s speedy action on downsizing the federal government, proposing real spending cuts and reorganizing the bloated bureaucracy, which has drawn bleats of protest from the DC swamp creatures watching their sinecures circling the drain. Trump’s also lifted the hiring freeze, in order to flesh out a still-undermanned executive staff and replace Obama holdovers.

Despite these clear successes, the Beltway media continues to depict the White House as a floundering, latter-day court of the Borgias, a back-stabber behind every arras. But that’s to be expected of a novice administration in its infancy. When the smoke clears, look for an uneasy balance of power between chief counselor Steve Bannon and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump can ill-afford to lose Bannon and his die-hard conservative base. And the sooner the floundering White House press operation is rebooted, the better; the administration has played defense against a hostile, sneering media long enough.

No new president will ever match the whirlwind of new programs introduced by FDR when he took office during the Depression — the gold standard cited by Democrats who equate activity with action. But Trump got elected for precisely the opposite reason: Less government is more freedom.

As long as he keeps that in mind, he — and we — will do just fine.


God bless,
JohnnyD

LIBERALS

LIBERALS ARE LIKE

GLOW STICKS

Sometimes I want to snap

them and shake them until

the light comes on.

God bless

JohnnyD

Report: Growing Islamic Extremism In Latin America Poses ‘Major Security Threat’ To US

From: Daily Caller

By - Peter Hasson - March 30, 2017


Growing Islamic extremism in Latin America constitutes a “major security threat” to the United States, according to an analysis published this month by the National Center for Policy Analysis.

“The threat from Islamic extremists in Latin America remains an overlooked aspect of U.S. national security strategy,” NCPA senior fellow David Grantham argued.

Grantham noted that “Saudi Arabia has invested millions to construct mosques and cultural centers in South America and Central America that expand the reach of its rigid version of Islam, known as Wahhabism.”

“The international spread of Saudi dogma, which the State Department’s first special representative to Muslim communities worldwide, Farah Pandith, called ‘insidious,’ has laid the foundation for likeminded radicals to thrive in other areas of Latin America,” he explained.

Later in the brief, Grantham noted that the “threats to U.S. security in the Greater Caribbean region are even more alarming in Trinidad and Tobago. The small island nation off the coast of Venezuela, once the target of an overthrow by Islamic militants, has also become a breeding ground for ISIS — 70 of the 100 Latin Americans known to have joined ISIS originated from the small country.”

The ease of mobility Islamic extremists have in Latin America is also cause for concern.

“Islamic extremism thrives where there is illicit finance and relative ease of movement across national and international borders. The mobility of terrorists throughout Latin America poses a serious problem,” Grantham stated.

Perhaps the greatest Islamic extremist threat in Latin America, though, is the Islamic Republic of Iran, which Grantham said could potentially strike the US from Latin America as a retaliatory act.

“The Islamic Republic has the capability and infrastructure to strike the United States from Latin America, but experts disagree over whether it would take that risk,” Grantham writes. “Experts consistently discuss the likelihood of a preemptive or first strike attack on the United States, though, which creates too high a standard. Instead, the argument should focus on the prospect of retaliatory attack.”

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton also warned of Iranian sponsored terrorism through Latin American “proxies” during a 2013 off-the-record speech to Goldman Sachs employees that was made public by WikiLeaks.

“If we had a map up behind us you would be able to see Iranian sponsored terrorism directly delivered by Iranians themselves, mostly through the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the operatives, or through Islah or other proxies from to Latin American to Southeast Asia,” Clinton said.

“The growth of extremist activity in Latin America is a major security threat. The prospects of retaliation from Iran, in particular, should not discourage action against Iran where necessary but should heighten awareness regarding the high probability of revenge attacks,” Grantham concluded. “Iran’s influence in Latin America and extremists, in general, demand new national security strategies in the region. Such an approach could begin with U.S. support to allied governments that improves their intelligence capabilities, and with targeted financial interdiction strategies.”

The brief can be read in its entirety here.

 

God bless,

JohnnyD

God bless America

John Wayne 1970

Legendary actor John Wayne in a clip from 1970 on the TV variety show he hosted celebrating America’s history. Many famous actors and actresses are featured in this video singing God Bless America including Ann Margaret, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, George Burns, Johnny Cash, Roy Clark, Bing Crosby, Phyllis Diller, Lorne Greene, Bob Hope, Forrest Lewis, Dean Martin, William Shatner, Tom Smothers, and many more. What a classic video.

TURN ON YOUR SPEAKERS.






God bless,
JohnnyD

THE REAL 'RUSSIAN SCANDAL' (AND IT DOESN'T INVOLVE TRUMP)

Russia scandal? Inside the Obama-Clinton uranium deal

Hillary OK'd sale as cash flowed to foundation, Bill's pockets 

From: World Net Daily 

by -  Art Moore - March 28, 2017

Tens of millions of dollars from uranium investors flowed into the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian bank tied to the Kremlin before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped decide whether to approve the sale to the Russian government of a company that held one-fifth of America’s uranium capacity.

That’s the “deal” that Donald Trump referenced in a tweet Tuesday morning in which he essentially said that if Congress really wants to find evidence of U.S. politicians colluding with the Russians, it should investigate the $145 million in donations the Clintons’ received from uranium investors before Russia’s energy agency Rostatom secured the purchase of Uranium One.

Trump tweeted: “Why isn’t the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech.”

He followed up with: “… money to Bill, the Hillary Russian “reset,” praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!”

Meanwhile, Congress is examining allegations that the president and his aides colluded with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

The 2010 deal for a majority stake of Canadian-based Uranium One – which required approval from Clinton’s State Department and eight other federal agencies – and its plausible connection to major donations to the Clinton Foundation was exposed by author Peter Schweizer in his book “Clinton Cash and confirmed in a 3,000 word, front-page story by the New York Times.

Former Uranium One chairman Ian Telfer was among several individuals connected to the deal who made donations to the Clinton Foundation. Telfer made four foreign donations totaling $2.35 million, the Times reported.

The donations flowed as the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013. Snopes and other “fact checkers” who insist there was no quid pro quo have argued that most of the donations were made in 2008, before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state. But she was running for president at that time.

The origin of the deal traced back to 2005, when mining financier Frank Giustra traveled with Bill Clinton to work out an agreement with the government of Kazakhstan for mining rights.

Giustra has donated $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation.

In June 2010, shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Bill Clinton personally received a speaking fee of $500,000 from a Kremlin-tied Russian investment bank connected to the uranium deal.

The Times pointed out that the Canadian tax records show the contributions to the Clinton Foundation were not publicly disclosed, which violated an agreement Clinton signed with the Obama administration when she became secretary of state to disclose all foreign donations.

Meanwhile, the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group reported last week Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, John Podesta, may have opened himself up to a Russian “influence campaign” designed to temper his views of the Kremlin. Podesta possibly violated federal law when he failed to fully disclose his membership on the executive board of an energy company that accepted millions from a Vladimir Putin-connected Russian government fund.

Russia ‘conquers the world’

After Rostatom finally secured 100 percent of Uranium One in 2013, the Russian-government news website Pravda declared: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The acquisition of uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain, the New York Times said.

In an interview after the U.S. government approved the deal, Putin sat down for a staged interview with Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko.

“Few could have imagined in the past that we would own 20 percent of U.S. reserves,” Kiriyenko told Putin.

The agreement came as the Obama administration, led by Hillary Clinton’s State Department, famously was seeking to “reset” strained relations with Russia.

Because uranium is considered a strategic asset that has implications for national security, the agreement had to be approved by a panel of representatives from a number of United States government agencies, including the State Department.

The Times noted that both Rosatom and the U.S. government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians, but the promises were repeatedly broken.

The Times commented that while it can’t be proved that the donations had a direct impact on the approval of the uranium deal, “the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation’s donors.”

When the Times prepared its story during the 2016 election campaign, it obtained a statement from Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, who insisted no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.”

Fallon argued that the Canadian government and other U.S. agencies also had to sign off on the deal.

“To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless,” he said.

The appearance of undue influence, however, prompted the Clinton Foundation to announce changes, including limiting donations from foreign governments and barring Russia from giving to all but its health care initiatives.

But the Times noted the foundation continued to “accept contributions from foreign sources whose interests, like Uranium One’s, may overlap with those of foreign governments, some of which may be at odds with the United States.”

The Times got insight into the significance of the deal from Michael McFaul, who served under Clinton as the U.S. ambassador to Russia.

“Should we be concerned? Absolutely,” he said.

“Do we want Putin to have a monopoly on this? Of course we don’t. We don’t want to be dependent on Putin for anything in this climate.”

Bill Clinton at his side

Russia’s acquisition of American uranium deposits began in 2005 in Kazakhstan, where Canadian mining financier Giustra orchestrated his first big uranium deal.

Bill Clinton, strategically, was at his side, the Times noted.

“Clinton Cash” author Schweitzer explained the importance of Clinton’s role, in an interview with Breitbart News Daily in March 2016.

Giustra had wanted a large uranium concession in Kazakhstan but had never been able to get it from the country’s repressive dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

“Bill Clinton shows up, declares at a press conference that Nazarbayev is a wonderful leader, should actually lead an international human rights organization,” Schweizer said. “And lo and behold, a couple of days later, Nazarbayev gives Frank Giustra this uranium concession.

“A few weeks after that, Bill Clinton’s Clinton Foundation gets more than $30 million from Frank Giustra.”

The Times noted Bill Clinton undercut “American foreign policy and criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, his wife, then a senator.”

Giustra’s fledgling company, UrAsia Energy Ltd., signed a preliminary deal with Kazakhstan giving the company stakes in three uranium mines controlled by the state-run uranium agency Kazatomprom.

UrAsia merged in 2007 with Uranium One, a South African company with assets in Africa and Australia, which soon began purchasing companies with assets in the United States.

By June 2009, Uranium One’s stock had dropped 40 percent, but Russia, lacking domestic uranium reserves, was eyeing a stake in the company.

That’s when Uranium One pressed the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan, which was under Hillary Clinton’s authority, to talk with Kazakh officials about clearing the way for a deal.

American cables show the U.S. Embassy energy officer met with Kazakh officials, and three days later, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosatom completed a deal for 17 percent of Uranium One.

Within a year, Russia sought a 51 percent controlling stake.

The only obstacle to the deal was that the U.S. government, namely the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, had to sign off on it.

The Times pointed out that when a company controlled by the Chinese government sought a 51 percent stake in a tiny Nevada gold mining operation in 2009, it set off a secretive review process in Washington. Officials were worried about the mine’s proximity to a military installation and the possibility that minerals at the site, including uranium, to come under Chinese control.

The U.S. officials killed the deal.

Schweizer pointed out that when the Uranium One deal was under way, “a spontaneous outbreak of philanthropy among eight shareholders in Uranium One” took place.

“These Canadian mining magnates decide now would be a great time to donate tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation,” he said.

The national security issue at stake in the Uranium One deal was not primarily about nuclear weapons proliferation but about American dependence on foreign uranium sources.

While the U.S. gets one-fifth of its electrical power from nuclear plants, it produces only about 20 percent of the uranium it needs, according to Marin Katusa, author of “The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped From America’s Grasp.”

“The Russians are easily winning the uranium war, and nobody’s talking about it,” Katusa told the Times. “It’s not just a domestic issue but a foreign policy issue, too.”

Giving the Russians control

Four members of the House of Representatives signed a letter expressing concern about the Uranium One deal. Two more began pushing legislation to kill it, including Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wy., who wrote to President Obama, saying it “would give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s uranium production capacity.”

The Times observed: “Still, the ultimate authority to approve or reject the Russian acquisition rested with the cabinet officials on the foreign investment committee, including Mrs. Clinton — whose husband was collecting millions in donations from people associated with Uranium One.”

A person with knowledge of the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising operation, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about it, told the Times that for many people, the hope is that money will in fact buy influence:

“Why do you think they are doing it — because they love them?”

Two months later, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States began its review.

Did the committee weigh the U.S. desire to improve bilateral relations with Russia against the potential risks of allowing the Russian government control over the biggest uranium producer in the United States?

That information has never been disclosed, but the deal was approved in October after, the Times said, citing two people involved, “a relatively smooth process.”


God bless,
JohnnyD

 

Journalist Blows The Lid Off Obama’s Criminal Conduct

From: Great American Daily


There is a large scandal brewing in Washington.

It involves illegal leaks of classified information.

And one journalist explains how it could lead to members of Barack Obama’s team going to prison.

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post was one of the reporters who broke the Watergate story.

He recently appeared on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor to discuss the bombshell revelations from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that members of the Trump team had been under surveillance and their identities had been illegally passed around the intelligence community.

Woodward said this was a gross violation.

Woodward calls what Obama Team did "A Gross Violation" then states:"This will be Criminal for those who said let's name these people" #Nunes pic.twitter.com/7Qip0cle8r

— STOCK MONSTER (@StockMonsterUSA) March 23, 2017

When an American citizen is picked up communicating with an individual under a FISA warrant, their identity is supposed to be minimized, unless there is foreign intelligence value attached to the communication.

Nunes is alleging there was no foreign intelligence value to some of the communications he observed.

Passing around this information is illegal.

Even keeping information with no intelligence value collected through a FISA warrant is illegal.

When Trump first accused Obama of spying on him, Robert Barnes wrote on LawNewz blog that there were two possible criminal violations by the Obama team:

“…it seems the FISA-compelled protocols for precluding the dissemination of the information were violated, and that Obama’s team issued orders to achieve precisely what the law forbids, if published reports are true about the administration sharing the surveilled information far-and-wide to promote unlawful leaks to the press. This, too, would be its own crime, as it brings back the ghost of Hillary’s emails — by definition, FISA information is strictly confidential or it’s information that never should have been gathered. FISA strictly segregates its surveilled information into two categories: highly confidential information of the most serious of crimes involving foreign acts of war; or, if not that, then information that should never have been gathered, should be immediately deleted, and never sourced nor disseminated. It cannot be both.

Recognizing this information did not fit FISA meant having to delete it and destroy it. According to published reports, Obama’s team did the opposite: order it preserved, ordered the NSA to search it, keep it, and share it; and then Obama’s Attorney General issued an order to allow broader sharing of information and, according to the New York Times, Obama aides acted to label the Trump information at a lower level of classification for massive-level sharing of the information. The problem for Obama is simple — if it could fit a lower level of classification, then it had to be deleted and destroyed, not disseminated and distributed, under crystal clear FISA law. Obama’s team’s admission it could be classified lower, yet taking actions to insure its broadest distribution, could even put Obama smack-middle of the biggest unlawful surveillance and political-opponent-smear campaign since Nixon.”

Nunes’ revelations make it clear that members of the Obama team committed both of these crimes.

And Bob Woodward is right. People could end up in jail.


God bless,
JohnnyD