Rogers’ Cooperation With Durham Team the ‘Biggest Single Development’ in Case, Here’s Why

https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/12/26/digenova-calls-mike-rogers-cooperation-durham-team-biggest-single-development-heres/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=8669d0fc2af5c2bedbe03e793662256b

Whistleblower Is Willing To Submit Written Answers To House Republicans, Lawyer Says

The intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint against President Donald Trump is willing to answer questions from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in writing, his lawyer said Sunday.

The attorney, Mark Zaid, said he reached out Saturday to GOP California Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, to offer to provide written answers under oath to Republicans.


The proposal would allow Republicans to circumvent the intelligence panel’s Democratic majority, led by California Rep. Adam Schiff, who has unilateral power to call witnesses as part of the impeachment inquiry of Trump. (RELATED: House Democrats Vote To Open Impeachment Inquiry)

Zaid said that the whistleblower, who is reported to be a CIA analyst, will not respond to questions about his identity.

Trump and a handful of House Republicans have called for the whistleblower to be identified. Democrats and the whistleblower’s lawyers argue that the identity of the analyst is irrelevant given testimony given by other witnesses in the impeachment inquiry.

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Tom Cotton Unloads On Intelligence Community IG Over ‘Evasive’ And ‘Obstructive’ Testimony About Trump Whistleblower

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton accused Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson of being “evasive” and “obstructive” during a closed-door hearing on Sept. 26 in which he refused to shed light on the potential political bias of a Trump whistleblower.

“Your disappointing testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on September 26 was evasive to the point of being insolent and obstructive,” Cotton, a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Community, wrote Wednesday to Atkinson.

Atkinson refused to discuss what he meant in an Aug. 26 letter that said the whistleblower had an “indicia of an arguable political bias” in favor of one of President Donald Trump’s rival political candidates, according to Cotton.

Cotton argued that information regarding possible bias is “urgently relevant” to determining whether the complaint is part of a “well-coordinated partisan attack” aimed at impeaching Trump.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer for the whistleblower, said on Twitter after Cotton released his letter that the questions about the whistleblower’s alleged bias are intended to “detract from the substance of the complaint.”

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Intelligence Analyst Allegedly Leaked Classified Info To Journalist With Whom He Was Romantically Involved

An analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency has been charged with leaking top secret information about a foreign country’s weapons systems to two journalists, including one he was romantically involved with, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

Henry Kyle Frese, 30, was charged with two counts of the willful transmission of national defense information.

Frese accessed Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) computer systems in April 2018 to obtain information unrelated to his job about an unidentified country’s weapons capabilities, and provided it to the reporters, according to the indictment.

One of the reporters published eight articles based on leaks that Frese provided from five classified DIA reports, prosecutors alleged, according to the Department of Justice.

“Frese was caught red-handed disclosing sensitive national security information for personal gain,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement.

The journalists are not identified in the indictment, but prosecutors said Frese shared an address with one of them for more than a year.

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Chuck Todd Blows Up On GOP Senator For Asking About John Brennan

• Chuck Todd and Sen. Ron Johnson had a heated exchange on “Meet the Press” Sunday when the Wisconsin Republican brought up questions about possible CIA leaks during the Trump-Russia probe.
• “Sen. Johnson, please!” an exasperated Todd bellowed at one point.
• Todd pressed Johnson over his conversations with Trump over Ukraine. Johnson suggested that Todd ask former CIA Director John Brenann about a Peter Strzok text that suggested the CIA was leaking for political reasons. 

“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd blew up on Sen. Ron Johnson Sunday after the Republican brought up possible CIA leaks during the Trump-Russia investigation.

“Sen. Johnson, please,” Todd said at one point during the contentious interview. “Can we please answer the question that I asked you instead of trying to make [President] Donald Trump feel better here that you’re not criticizing him?”

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Whistleblower Did Not Disclose Contact With Schiff’s Office, Intel Inspector General Told Congress

• Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson testified Friday that the Trump whistleblower did not disclose contacts with Adam Schiff’s office when filing his complaint on Aug. 12.
• ICIG forms require whistleblowers to disclose contacts with other government officials related to their complaints.
• Rep. Adam Schiff’s office confirmed this week that the whistleblower reached out to one of the Democrat’s aides and that Schiff had a general idea of what was alleged in the complaint.

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson told the House Intelligence Committee on Friday that a CIA whistleblower did not disclose contact with Chairman Adam Schiff’s office before filing a complaint against President Donald Trump, a source familiar with the watchdog’s testimony told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Fox News’ Catherine Herridge first reported that Atkinson said that the whistleblower did not disclose having contact with Schiff’s office, and so he did not investigate the matter.

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GOP Senators Ask Intelligence Community’s IG About Classified Leaks Of Whistleblower Complaint

Two Republican senators are asking the intelligence community’s inspector general whether he is investigating leaks of classified details of the whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump, as well as leaks for news stories published about the Trump-Russia investigation.

“As you are aware, there have been a number of leaks of highly sensitive information in the past two years, arguably perpetrated to advance political or personal interests to the apparent detriment to the national security and the integrity of federal administrative, law enforcement, and counterintelligence investigations,” Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wrote Wednesday to Michael K. Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG).

They noted that classified information about a CIA whistleblower’s complaint over a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president leaked to the media in the weeks before the complaint was released.

The whistleblower filed the complaint on Aug. 12, but it was not made public until Sept. 26.

“However, between those dates, news reports used anonymous sources to report on information relating to the complaint and phone call that were classified at the time,” Grassley and Johnson said.

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Intelligence Director Adamantly Disputes WaPo Report He Threatened To Resign

Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, unequivocally disputed a Washington Post report published Wednesday that he threatened to resign if the White House blocked him from testifying candidly about his handling of a whistleblower complaint concerning President Donald Trump.

“At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on Aug. 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now,” Maguire said in a statement minutes after WaPo’s story was published.

“I am committed to leading the Intelligence Community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation.”

The WaPo story cited anonymous current and former officials “familiar with the matter.”

Maguire has been caught in a bureaucratic firestorm involving the Intelligence Community Inspector General, the Justice Department and Congress over how to handle a whistleblower complaint an intelligence community official filed Aug. 12.

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Reports Identify The Country At Center Of Mysterious Trump Whistleblower Complaint

The Trump phone call at the center of a mysterious intelligence community whistleblower complaint reportedly involves Ukraine.

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times report that an intelligence official who worked in the White House filed the complaint Aug. 12 after growing alarmed about the details of a phone call that President Donald Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Trump and Zelensky, who took office in May, spoke by phone July 25. The Ukrainian government released a read-out of the phone call that said the two leaders spoke about corruption investigations “that have hampered interaction between Ukraine and the USA.”

Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has reportedly pushed the Ukrainians to release information about former Vice President Joe Biden’s business ties to Ukraine.

It is still not clear exactly what triggered concern in the whistleblower, who has not been identified. Andrew Bakaj, a lawyer for the whistleblower, declined a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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EX-CIA OFFICIALS FUME ABOUT DECLASSIFICATION ORDER, IGNORING PREVIOUS LEAKS OF SECRET SOURCES AND METHODS

• John Brennan and other intelligence community operatives are circling the wagons against President Donald Trump’s declassification directive, claiming that it could expose top-secret sources and methods used in the Trump-Russia probe.
• But Brennan’s complaint may be misplaced given that virtually all of the significant leaks about sources and methods used in the investigation have been given to left-leaning news outlets.
• In one case, FBI official Peter Strzok expressed concerns that the CIA was leaking inaccurate information about the intelligence gathered on Trump associates.

Former intelligence community officials, including former CIA director John Brennan, have expressed concern over President Donald Trump’s declassification order due the potential release of CIA sources and methods.

“The concern is that very, very precious source and methods of the United States intelligence community as well as our partners and allies abroad — those who share this sensitive information with us,” Brennan said on MSNBC on Friday.

But Brennan’s concern, which was echoed by other intelligence community veterans and TV pundits on Friday, may be misplaced.

Government officials who appear to not be allies of Trump have been behind countless leaks of classified information regarding sources, methods and investigative targets in the Trump-Russia probe. Some of the leaks have disclosed the existence of surveillance warrants and FBI informants used against the Trump campaign.

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PAPADOPOULOS SUSPECTS OTHER 2016 GOP CAMPAIGNS WERE SPIED ON

Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos told Tucker Carlson on Tuesday that he suspects the Obama administration spied on other 2016 presidential primary campaigns.

Papadopoulos, whose meeting with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was used to open the FBI’s July 31, 2016 counterintelligence probe, says he believes he was being monitored long before he joined the Trump campaign.

“In November of 2015, upon the same month that I was going to the Ben Carson campaign—because people forget that I was on Carson’s campaign before I joined Trump’s campaign—I was living in London and I had been approached by high-level State Department officials and even the CIA in London,” Papadopoulos said.

He continued, “They invited me to the U.S. embassy to meet with me and to basically probe me and to get to know why I’m joining the Ben Carson campaign and what the Ben Carson campaign was really all about. And the man who invited me was David Kovatch, who still works at the U.S. embassy in London. I think he’s directing the Energy Department over there. So clearly, by November 2015, I don’t think that Trump’s campaign was the only one that was under surveillance, quite frankly.”

“I think many of the Republican candidates probably had some sort of illicit surveillance upon their own campaigns, because it wasn’t just Donald Trump who was running for the presidency against Clinton…”

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FBI REFUSES TO CONFIRM OR DENY ICIG WARNED OF CLINTON SERVER INTRUSION

• The FBI won’t disclose whether it met with senior officials of the Intelligence Community Inspector General.
• TheDCNF confirmed that the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three separate occasions to warn the FBI of an “anomaly” they found 30,000 in-bound and outgoing emails.
• The anomaly showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.

The FBI refuses to disclose whether or not it met with senior members of the Intelligence Community Inspector General on the subject of foreign intrusion of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private server.

An FBI spokeswoman refused to confirm if Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) officials — including Frank Rucker, its chief investigator — briefed top bureau officials about evidence of penetration of Clinton’s private server by a Chinese government intelligence operation. “We have no comment,” she told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Earlier Wednesday, an FBI spokesman released what appeared to be a categorical statement about the Clinton server: “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised,” the FBI stated.

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TRUMP HAS BEEN SET UP, FRAMED AND RELENTLESSLY PERSECUTED BY THE AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

The frenzied furor and fomented outrage over President Donald Trump’s reluctance to express blind trust for our “intelligence community” defy reason and reality. In their choreographed cries of contempt for Mr. Trump, the “left’s” increasingly shrill proclamations of political apocalypse make “Chicken Little” look rational. At least we’ve moved on from the impending annihilation from the nuclear war with North Korea.

Power is the only thing leftists worship, and they are unraveling in front of our eyes without it. They can’t control Mr. Trump. That alone drives them insane. They have no policies that work. Cities and states they control are criminal sanctuaries and bankrupt cesspools. Check out San Francisco, Portland and Chicago.

Each of the president’s remarkable accomplishments — from unprecedented high employment, our booming economy and the tax cuts to his historic summit with Kim Jong-un — highlights their abject failures and serves to prick their narcissistic egos. The country is doing better without them every day. Even worse, they are desperate to keep their countless crimes and abuses covered up.

We know that there are many honorable, dedicated and legitimate members of our multiple intelligence and law enforcement agencies who strive to protect us the right way every day. So, why might any of us not just declare blind trust for our “intelligence community” writ large? Let me count the ways.

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Former CIA Dir. Hayden Calls Out Clapper For ‘Unknowable’ Russia Claim

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden called out James Clapper on Sunday for claiming to know that Russians decided the 2016 election.

Clapper wrote in his new book that he has “no doubt” Russian meddling swung the election in favor of Trump, but during a Friday night CNN interview he all but admitted he has no evidence for the claim.

Hayden told Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week” that it is “unknowable” how much Russians influenced the election and he knocked the former director of national intelligence for claiming otherwise.

“I agree that the Russians affected the election but how much they affected is not just unknown, it is unknowable and so we should stop talking about it,” Hayden asserted. “Donald Trump is the president.”

“You invite folks like us on your show because we’re the fact witnesses, not because we have opinions,” he added.

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Clapper Was ‘Thinking Of Something Else’ When He Lied To Congress

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed Tuesday that he “made a mistake,” but that he didn’t lie when he told Sen. Ron Wyden in 2013 that the National Security Agency doesn’t collect data on Americans.

Clapper was defending himself on “The View” after President Donald Trump called him a “lying machine.”

A report from The Guardian later that year showed that Clapper’s statement was false, that the NSA does collect phone metadata on millions of Americans.

“He was asking me about one [thing], and I was thinking about another,” Clapper said of Wyden. “So, I made a mistake, but I didn’t lie.”

When co-host Meghan McCain pressed him on whether it was a lie, he doubled back on his first answer.

“No, it isn’t a lie. I was thinking about something else, another program” — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he said.

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Brennan Is ‘Doing Putin’s Bidding’ With Anti-Trump Rhetoric, Says Former CIA Station Chief

A former CIA station chief says that former CIA Director John Brennan “is doing Putin’s bidding” by publicly attacking and speculating about President Donald Trump.

In an article at Cipher Brief, a national security website, CIA veteran Daniel Hoffman says that Brennan’s recent remarks play right into Putin’s hands.

“As a former KGB officer and director of its successor, the FSB, Putin’s weapons of choice for this covert campaign are espionage, and influence operations that target our political differences to weaken and divide us,” writes Hoffman.

Hoffman, who spent five years working in Moscow, argues that Putin “knows what makes our society tick” and understands that “the best way to soil our democratic process is to link it with a touch of conspiracy, i.e. to the Kremlin.”

“He is acutely aware of the value to Russia of exacerbating the political tension that grips our country. Putin’s goal is to weaken our democratic institutions, including intelligence community agencies, which are responsible for countering Russia’s espionage onslaught on our country,” he writes.

Hoffman asserts that Brennan’s “cringe worthy” tweets and recent speculation that Putin is blackmailing Trump has added to the political polarization that Putin seeks.

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Congressional Investigators ‘Trying To Get To The Bottom’ Of Brennan’s Role In Russia Investigation

• Brennan played a ‘prominent role’ in Russia probe.
• He briefed Harry Reid about Trump associates’ contacts with Russians.
• Reid believed that Brennan had an ‘ulterior motive.’

A book published in March offered a startling but little-noticed revelation about former CIA Director John Brennan. According to “Russian Roulette,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid believed Brennan was using him as a conduit to publicize possible links between Trump campaign associates and the Russian government.

Brennan’s contacts with Reid — and other activities during the 2016 presidential campaign — are of “significant” interest to congressional investigators trying to figure out the ex-spy’s early role in the Russia investigation, The Daily Caller News Foundation is told.

“By his own account, Brennan played a prominent role in starting the investigation of Trump’s team,” a congressional source with direct knowledge of the House of Representatives’ Russia investigations tells The DCNF.

“Investigators in Congress suspect there are important details about his role that he hasn’t revealed, and we’re trying to get to the bottom of it.”

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James Clapper Provided ‘Inconsistent Testimony’ About Media Contacts, Report Claims

• James Clapper gave “inconsistent testimony” about contacts he had with the media while in office, according to a document 
• Clapper was involved in a highly significant meeting with Trump two weeks before the president’s inauguration
• Republican lawmakers voted on Thursday to formally end the Russia probe

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence under former President Barack Obama, gave “inconsistent testimony” about contacts he had with the media while in office, according to a document released Thursday by Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, now a CNN national security analyst, provided inconsistent testimony to the Committee about his contacts with the media, including CNN,” reads one entry in a seven-page summary of findings from the committee’s Russia investigation.

The committee voted on Thursday to formally end the Russia probe. A 150-page report authored by Republicans will now undergo an intelligence community review before being released to the public.

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Top NSA Whistleblower Claims ‘Russiagate’ a Fake to Increase War-Spending

William Binney is the mathematician and Russia-specialist, who quit the NSA in 2001 as its global Technical Director for geopolitical analysis, because of the lying about, and manipulations of, intelligence, that he saw — distortions of intelligence by the George W. Bush Administration — in order to ‘justify’ systematic, massive, and all-encompassing, Government snooping into all Americans’ private electronic communications. His, and some colleagues’, efforts to get the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate the matter, produced FBI raids into their homes, and seizures of their computers, so as to remove incriminating evidence they might have against higher-ups. According to Binney, NSA’s Director, General Michael Hayden, had vetoed in August 2001 a far less intrusive and more effective system of signals-intelligence collection and analysis, which, if it had been in place, might have enabled the 9/11 attacks to be blocked — a more effective system that would have been less expensive, less intrusive, and not violated Americans’ Constitutional rights. Hayden went on to head the CIA, until the end of George W. Bush’s Presidency. Afterward, General Hayden joined the Chertoff Group and other military-industrial-complex contractors of the U.S. Federal Government. There were no such rewards for any of the whistleblowers.

Binney viewed Hillary Clinton as continuing George W. Bush’s neoconservatism, and so — though reluctantly — voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

On November 15th, an interview of Binney was published at the Washingtonsblog news-site, titled “How to Instantly Prove (Or Disprove) Russian Hacking of U.S. Election”, in which Binney provides technical details to explain why he strongly believes that the Democratic Party’s allegations — the allegations which say that Russia was the source of the leaks of information from the computers of the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta — are nothing more than intentional concoctions and distortions, which are backed and promoted by America’s military-industrial complex, whose stock-values rise accordingly with the lies.

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Top Intel Community Officials Deny That Trump Pressured Them On Russia Probe

The directors of the Office of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency testified on Wednesday that they have not been pressured by President Trump on the ongoing Russia investigation, undercutting recent reports that they were.

Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of NSA, largely declined to discuss details about their interactions with Trump when pressed on the matter during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

According to news reports published last month, Trump asked both Coats and Rogers to rebut stories that Trump was under investigation as part of the Russia probe.

Both Coats and Rogers reportedly felt uncomfortable with the requests from Trump.

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