Please see updates at Substack:
§6. Notes On The Insurance Policy , July 2016 – January 2017 and
§6a. The Insurance Policy, Pre-Election, July – November 2016:
§6b. The Insurance Policy, Post-Election, November 2016 – January 2017
§6. The Insurance Policy, Nov 2016 – May 2017
[Labeling something a ‘conspiracy theory’ is often enough to dismiss it from serious consideration. Yet denying the existence of conspiracies amounts to claiming that every official act is done in public, and that the general public knows in real time everything there is to know about it. That is clearly not the case: Covert action is the rule, not the exception. Knowledge about it takes years and even decades to emerge. That is the premise of this timeline. It is in large part a record of conspiracies unveiled.]
[Recognition-seeking delivers another source of revelations for our timeline. Joe Biden, for example, congratulated himself profusely on his own savoir-faire, before a worshipful audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, in executing a billion-dollar bribe of Ukraine President Poroshenko. The kleptocrat dutifully complied with then Vice-President Biden’s wishes, after checking that President Obama’s wishes were the same, and promptly fired Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor investigating Biden’s son Hunter.]
[Renmin University Economics Professor Di Dongsheng spoke on Chinese TV about his having used people ‘at the top of America’s core inner circle of power and influence’ to ‘fix’ problems with the U.S. Administration.]
[Not to be outdone, Molly Ball wrote proudly in Time magazine, ‘There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans’ — an agreement between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce to endorse prolonging the 2020 vote-count.]
[Former CIA Acting Director John McLaughlin was the first alumnus of the Deep State to acknowledge its existence, while also invoking Divine endorsement for a ‘higher calling’ superseding the Constitution.]
[Conspirators sometimes slip-up and inadvertently disclose secrets potentially damaging to themselves, as when Director of National Intelligence Clapper was overheard by a staff member to instruct Washington Post writer David Ignatius to ‘take the kill shot‘, meaning publish allegations of collusion between Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak.]
[The ‘insurance policy’ was a backup plan to apply the techniques of regime change used by the CIA in Libya and Ukraine to the United States. Immediately after the Nov 2016 election, the CIA and other spy agencies moved to de-stabilize the incoming Administration. Even before the new president took office, the FBI Director brought out the much-circulated dossier to remind the President-Elect ‘there’s more where that came from’. Routine transition meetings with the Russian Ambassador were characterized as collusion to reverse last-minute sanctions imposed by the outgoing Administration. These charges neutralized the Attorney General and caused the removal of the National Security Adviser, the only two officials in positions to reveal and (in the case of the AG) prosecute illegal activities. Next, bureaucratic legerdemain resulted in the appointment of a Special Counsel who staffed his office with people following the ‘insurance policy’ plan. A three-year investigation of non-existent treason paralyzed many of the normal functions of government, but failed to prevent implementation of an economic program that led to unprecedented gains in income and employment, energy independence, and improved terms of trade with China and the EU.]
[Investigations authorized by secret FISA courts, based on allegations known to be false by those requesting warrants, continued throughout most of 2017. These covered the same ground already trod by previous FISA warrants, which were renewed at three-month intervals. FBI officials altered meeting notes, violated the Bureau’s own rules for opening investigations, conflated ‘intelligence’ with ‘criminal’ categories of investigation, permitted outside contractors to search confidential files, and made illegally broad searches of NSA databases, as later adjudged by a FISA court.]
[Thus the ‘insurance policy’ developed during the previous Administration proceeded without legal or constitutional restraint. Agency officials overtly declared they had a ‘higher calling’ than ‘the consent of the governed’.]
PM
Nov 17, 2016: FBI agent Gaeta reports Steele’s misbehavior to superiors including Bill Priestap. FBI terminates Steele for revealing his FBI relationship to reporters. Steele continues to provide information to FBI through DOJ Attorney Bruce Ohr. Ohr meets FBI on 13 occasions between Nov 17, 2016 and May 15, 2017, to provide information from Steele and maintain continuing contact with him despite his termination as a CHS. Source: DOJ IG Horowitz Report, p 7.
Nov 17, 2016: NSA Dir Adm Mike Rogers meets with President-elect Trump at Trump Tower in NY, informs him of FBI and DOJ surveillance of his email and phone communications.
Nov 18, 2016: Trump appoints Michael Flynn National Security Adviser.
Nov 2016: Steele gives copies of his dossier to longtime Clinton friend Strobe Talbot to convey to top State Department officials. Additional information from a foreign source, previously unpublished, is supplied to Steele by State Dept staff, probably Johnathan Winer. Source: Letter of Senator Grassley to DAG Rosenstein 2018.2.5, referring Steele for potential violation of 18 U.S.C.§1001.
Nov 18, 2016: Arizona Sen. John McCain and a former assistant, David Kramer, are told about the existence of the dossier by an associate of Steele’s, former British diplomat Sir Andrew Wood.
Nov 27, 2016: National Security Advisor Susan Rice requests British GCHQ to renew spy operation on President-Elect Trump, following Aug 2016 GCHQ spy operation on candidate Trump. || Source
Nov. 28, 2016: Sen McCain associate David Kramer flies to London to meet Christopher Steele for a briefing on the anti-Trump research. Afterward, Fusion GPS’ Glenn Simpson gives Sen McCain a copy of the dossier.
Dec 5, 2016: FBI analysts recognize it is not a ‘logical investigative step’ to seek General Flynn’s financial records and that ‘this is a nightmare’. Source: District Court filing in Criminal Action No. 17-232-EGS, Sept 24, 2020
Dec 6, 2016: President Obama orders CIA Dir Brennan to prepare an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) integrating the views of all 17 intelligence agencies on Trump-Russia collusion, to be completed before President-Elect Trump’s inauguration Jan 20, 2017. Washington Post, New York Times, and other media report ICA findings three days later.
Dec 9, 2016: McCain provides a copy of the Steele dossier to FBI Director James Comey during a meeting at the latter’s office. McCain had received the dossier from his aide David Kramer, who had received it from Fusion GPS owner Glenn Simpson. This route of transmission informs McCain the dossier is opposition research and not official intelligence. Former British Ambassador to Russia Andrew Wood, urged by his friend Christopher Steele, had advised McCain in early Dec 2016 of the contents of the dossier.
Dec 9, 2016: Washington Post (Entous-Nakashima-Miller) writes ‘CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system’. New York Times (Sanger-Shane) writes ‘American intelligence agencies have concluded with ‘high confidence’ that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald J. Trump’.
Dec 9, 2016: CIA tells Congress that they believe the Russians hacked the DNC to help defeat Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Dec 10, 2016: An associate of Republican Sen John McCain gives BuzzFeed a copy of the Steele dossier.
Dec 12, 2016: Intelligence professionals dispute claim that DNC was ‘hacked’, as electronic signature missing; physical transmittal more likely. || Source
Dec 2016: President Obama finalizes with Executive Order 12333 rules opening raw, unedited information feeds collected by the National Security Agency to all of the 16 other agencies in the Intelligence Community before any privacy protections are implemented, giving 17 spy agencies unimpeded access to all Americans’ private information, regardless of whether they are suspected of anything. • FBI obtains confidential Trump Transition Team records. || Source: Senate HSGA and Finance Majority Staff Report, 2018
Dec 14, 2016: NBC broadcasts ‘Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News’. New York Times and Washington Post publish similar stories.
Dec 14, 2016: House Permanent Special Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chair Rep Devin Nunes responds to media stories by requesting asking CIA Dir Brennan ‘to clarify press reports that the CIA has a new assessment that it has not shared with us. The Committee is deeply concerned that intransigence in sharing intelligence with Congress can enable the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes’. ICA appears to include only CIA, FBI, NSA, DNI, not all 17 intelligence agencies. || Source
Late Dec 2016: ICA completed, concludes with ‘high confidence’ that Russian Govt interfered with 2016 election to assist Trump.
Dec 28, 2016: President Obama signs Executive Order 13757 applying aditional sanctions to Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Dec 28, 2016: National Security Advisor-designate Michael Flynn talks with Russian Ambassador Kislyak by telephone. The FBI wiretaps and records these conversations. FBI and other spy agencies perform 30,355 searches of 5,288 Americans during 2016.
Dec 30, 2016: Russian President Putin announces Russia would not retaliate against the sanctions imposed by President Obama.
Dec 31, 2016: Ambassador Kislyak calls Flynn to advise him Russia will not retaliate against Obama’s recent sanctions.
2017: Bohai Harvest, an investment company 10%-owned by Hunter Biden, participates in face-recognition company Face++’s $460 million public offering. China uses the company’s products for surveillance of Uiguhrs and other minorities detained in concentration camps and elsewhere. || Source
Jan 2, 2017: Wikileaks’ Assange says he guarantees emails did not come from Russia; that Obama administration is trying to undermine Trump
Jan 3, 2017: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, ‘You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.‘ This warning or threat proved to be prescient.
Early Jan 2017: FBI renews FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page. FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates again sign the application. Britain’s national security adviser sends letter to outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice and NSA-designate Flynn, disavowing former British Secret Service Agent Christopher Steele, calls his credibility into question, and declares him untrustworthy. Flynn later states he does not remember this letter.
Jan 2017: Clinton campaign manager and lobbyist John Podesta meets with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson to consider further anti-Trump research. Podesta later (Oct 2017) tells Senate Intel Committee he knows nothing about an arrangement to pay for anti-Trump research, despite his role as Clinton campaign manager and DNC fund-raiser.
Jan 4, 2017: FBI Washington field office issues official Closing Memoranum, closes its investigation of Michael Flynn, finds ‘no derogatory information’ on Flynn, and no basis to ‘predicate further investigative efforts’ into whether Flynn was being directed and controlled by a foreign power (Russia) in a manner that threatened U.S. national security or violated FARA or its related statutes. || Source: Memorandum disclosed in April 2020 pursuant to Flynn attorney Sidney Powell’s requests for all exculpatory information required under Brady rules, and U.S. Attorney Jensen’s response providing it.
Jan 5, 2017: Comey testifies to Senate Intelligence Committee that DNC refused multiple requests to examine their servers after Russian-hacking allegations. Separately, DNC denies having refused requests to examine server, claims FBI never made any such requests.
Jan 5, 2017: Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Obama, Biden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice meet in Oval Office to consider what to disclose to President-Elect Trump, and what to withhold. They must appear to cooperate with the transition while not disclosing that Trump has been and still is the actual target of FBI investigation. All those in this Oval Office meeting being subject to embarrassing exposure and possible prosecution — for fraudulent allegations Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, based on one fabricated DNC-funded dossier — they discuss what must be done to prevent discovery by the incoming administration.
Comey advises removing Flynn, who as National Security Adviser would review the FBI’s illegal Russia collusion investigation. Comey cautions against alerting Flynn, and advises not discussing Russia with him, on the grounds that Flynn is a national security risk due to his many conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. While Comey does not indicate how he intends to remove Flynn, handwritten notes by FBI agent Priestap suggest ‘getting him to lie’ (which would be a crime). Biden asks whether the Logan Act could be used, apparently unaware it is only applicable to private citizens and since enactment in 1799 has never been used successfully. Obama instructs those present to inform incoming Trump Administration, while excluding information about previous and continuing secret espionage against Trump.
Strzok texts ‘Don’t do it yet [meaning don’t close the Flynn case]’. Having been informed by Strzok that the FBI case against Flynn is not officially closed despite finding ‘no derogatory information’, Comey keeps the investigation open. Strzok texts that this mistake is ‘serendipitously good’ and ‘our utter incompetence actually helps us’. Texts between unidentified FBI agents: ‘people here are scrambling for info to support certain things and its a mad house’. ‘[J]esus, [T]rump was right. [S]till not put together… why do we do this to ourselves. [W]hat is wrong with these people?’ || Source
Jan 6, 2017: CIA Director Brennan releases declassified version of Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) ordered by President Obama on Dec 6, 2016. While purporting to be the consensus of 17 intelligence agencies on Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to rig the 2016 election, only CIA, FBI, and DNI efforts are included. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers dissents from the ICA conclusion. The ICA report concludes ‘Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him’. To protect ‘sources and methods’, proof is not supplied. Conclusions echo those provided by Brennan to Washington Post, New York Times, and NBC during the Dec 9 – 14, 2016 period. Later, on Aug 19, 2018, Brennan states on TV he had no evidence of Russian collusion with Trump as of the date he left CIA. || Source
Jan 6, 2017: Comey, Clapper, Brennan and Mike Rogers meet President-elect Trump in Trump Tower to brief him on the Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian election interference. The ICA consists of conclusions and inferences without specifications of overt acts by identifiable individuals. Separately, as planned, Comey asks for a one-on-one briefing with President-elect. Comey tells Trump of the ‘salacious’ Clinton-fabricated allegations, such as the hiring of Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed in a Moscow hotel that former President Obama had slept in. DNI Dir Clapper had previously briefed Jake Tapper of CNN on these fabrications. Comey’s briefing omits any mention of the origin of the Steele dossier as DNC-paid opposition research (implying that it was an official intelligence report), and also omits its use to obtain FISA warrants, implying that Trump is not an object of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation. Comey also conceals from Trump the fact that National Security Adviser-designate Flynn is under FBI investigation. Surveillance of Trump staff continues under active (undisclosed) FISA warrant authorizations. || Source
Jan 6, 2017: Comey reports in a memo to Clapper ‘I said I wasn’t saying this was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands. I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook‘. Comey’s briefing of Trump supplies the news hook.
Jan 7, 2017: Clapper and two other Obama administration officials request Flynn unmasking (access to Flynn’s communications incidentally retrieved by FISA-authorized spying on Flynn’s associates in the Trump campaign).
Jan 7, 2017: FBI interviews Steele’s primary sub-source, Igor Danchenko, who disavows much of the Russia collusion evidence attributed to him in the dossier. FBI omits this disavowal in its FISA warrant applications. ‘The government did not disclose that Steele himself had undercut the reliability‘ of his own source, telling the FBI he was a ‘boaster‘ and an ‘egoist‘ and ‘may engage in some embellishment.’ Source: FISC Chief Judge James Boasberg order.
January 9, 2017: Obama administration NIH Director Francis Collins lifts funding moratorium on ‘gain-of-function’ research to give SARS bat viruses a ‘spike protein’ precisely adapted to human ACE2 (angiostatin-converting enzyme) receptors, a design suited for use as a bio-weapon, without informing U.S. national security officials.
Jan 10, 2017: CNN reports Comey’s Jan 6 briefing of Trump on Steele dossier. Citing that reporting as justification, BuzzFeed publishes the Steele dossier. Many FBI agents and analysts purchase taxpayer-funded professional liability insurance to defend probable lawsuits on their illegal activities. || Source
Jan 11, 2017: UN Ambassador Samantha Power makes another Flynn unmasking request.
Jan 12, 2017: FBI renews FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page, falsely stating that Steele’s information was still reliable because previous information he had reported to the FBI had been verified and used in criminal proceedings; and omitting information received by FBI in Nov and Dec 2016 undermining Steele’s credibility and trustworthiness. FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates again sign the application. Britain’s national security adviser sends letter to outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice and NSA-designate Flynn, disavowing former British Secret Service Agent Christopher Steele, calls his credibility into question, and declares him untrustworthy. Flynn later states he does not remember this letter.
Jan 12, 2017: Obama administration finalizes new rules under Executive Order 12333 allowing NSA to distribute raw intel to other U.S. intel agencies without normal privacy protections, removing longstanding restrictions on access to contents of phone calls and email, including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners as they cross network switches in the United States, and messages acquired overseas or provided by allies. || Source1 , Source2 , Source3
Jan 12, 2017: Vice President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew request Flynn unmasking in intelligence communications.
Jan 12, 2017: Washington Post, David Ignatius, publishes information leaked either by Obama Admin officials or by Stephen Halper, about phone calls between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and General Flynn. The article mentions the Logan Act, a 1799 law prohibiting private individuals from discussing foreign policy with foreign governments. The Logan Act has never been successfully used and is inapplicable to Flynn as a designated public official.
Jan 2017: Assistant Director of FBI Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap writes handwritten note for meeting to plan an ‘ambush interview’ with Flynn: ‘What is our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?’ Source: document disclosed in April 2020, in response to Flynn attorney Powell’s request for Brady-required exculpatory material.
Jan 15 2017: VP Pence on CBS Face the Nation, in response to question ‘Did any advisor or anybody in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians who were trying to meddle in the election?‘ states ‘Of course not. And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.’ Transcript
Jan 15, 2017: Bob Woodward calls Steele dossier ‘garbage’. || Source
Jan 19, 2017: State Dept European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland sends classified materials on Russia investigation to Senators Warner, Corker, and Cardin. Transmittal message ‘We made the deadline!‘ indicates urgency to provide information on Russian election-interference, anti-EU, and anti-NATO activities in Europe, before Trump is to be inaugurated as President the following day. || Source
Jan 20, 2017: Susan Rice writes a memo to herself about Obama ‘continuing to do everything by the book‘ with regard to the Flynn investigation. The word ‘continuing’ suggests Obama had already known about the FBI plan to ‘get Flynn to lie‘.
Jan 20, 2017: Donald Trump inaugurated as 45th President of the United States.
Jan 20, 2017: Wikileaks raises previous reward for information on murder of Seth Rich to $130,000.
Jan 22, 2017: Michael Flynn sworn in as National Security Adviser.
Jan 2017: FBI agent’s handwritten note on purpose of interviewing Flynn ‘to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired’. Source: DOJ documents released to Flynn defense attorney Powell.
Jan 2017: FBI Dir Comey places mole in White House, cybersecurity expert Anthony Ferrante, who retains FBI employment ‘reserve’ status, to report any incriminating info on President Trump to FBI. || Source
Jan 23, 2017: FBI places story in Washington Post stating, ‘FBI reviewed Flynn’s calls with Russian ambassador but found nothing illicit’ and ‘Although Flynn’s contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were listened to, Flynn himself is not the active target of an investigation, U.S. officials said‘. This reassures Flynn he is not under investigation, so that when interviewed by FBI the following day at the White House, he does not suspect an ambush.
Jan 23, 2017: UK GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan suddenly resigns. Hannigan had shared reports supporting the Russia-collusion narrative with U.S. spy agencies, and had cooperated with requests by President Obama to spy on and supply information about then-candidate Donald Trump in Aug 2016.
Jan 24, 2017: Noticing the case against Flynn is not formally closed, and it is therefore unnecessary to open a new case, Comey on his own initiative and without notifying his nominal superior at DOJ (Acting AG Sally Yates), sends Peter Strzok and Joseph Pientka to the White House for an ambush interview of Flynn about his phone calls to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, despite the fact these calls are unrelated to the previous case against Flynn. Comey does not ask White House Counsel because, as he later explains, he ‘thought he could get away with it‘ since the new Administration was not yet organized. Flynn, reassured based on previous day’s Washington Post article that he is not the target of an FBI investigation, answers questions in an unguarded way.
Jan 25, 2017: DOJ Chief Counsel James Baker, FBI Priestap, and other officials meet to consider options for removing Flynn. They reject Logan Act as inapplicable. Baker asks ‘how could you prosecute Flynn for lying to FBI officials when there was no underlying crime because the contact with Kislyak was normal’. They settle on stirring up a conflict with VP Pence over Pence’s assurances on Jan 15 CBS-TV interview that there had been no contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.
Jan 26, 2017: DOJ Yates reinforces this narrative to White House Counsel McGahn by conflating Flynn’s official contacts with Kislyak as normal transition planning, and campaign-type contacts (which had not occurred), implying these activities undercut VP Pence’s TV assurances. When McGahn asks her whether Flynn should be fired, Yates responds ‘that’s not our call’.
Jan 30, 2017: Trump fires Acting AG Sally Yates for refusing to follow the president’s Executive Order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries.
Jan 30, 2017: Attorney Mark Zaid, who later represents impeachment source Eric Ciaramella, writes on Twitter that ‘#coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow’.
Jan 30, 2017: Internal DOJ document by FBI exonerates Michael Flynn of being ‘an agent of Russia’; concealed until DOJ compelled by Court order to produce it for Flynn defense in Sept 2019. Source: Flynn Defense attorney Sidney Powell case filing 17-232-EGS Sept 11, 2019.
January 30, 2017: Foreign Policy magazine article by Law Prof Rosa Brooks titled 3 Ways to Get Rid of President Trump Before 2020 calls for Trump’s impeachment, his removal under the 25th Amendment, or a method ‘that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup.’
Jan 31, 2017: Former FBI analyst and Feinstein staffer Daniel Jones incorporates Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) as advised by Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson, to reinforce Steele dossier allegations, obtain similar accusations against President Trump, and distribute them to media, Congress, and FBI. Later he registers it as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit with tax-exempt status due to its claim of being nonpartisan. || Source
Feb 3, 2017: CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella and Sean Misko, both seconded to NSC, are overheard at the first NSC staff meeting openly discussing their plan to ‘take out the president’. ‘They weren’t just bent on subverting his agenda, they were plotting to actually have him removed from office’. Misko: ‘Yeah, we need to do everything we can to take out the president.’ A military staffer seconded to NSC: ‘They meant removing him from office by any means necessary’. Military staffer, alarmed, reports Ciaramella-Misko remarks to his superiors, but nothing comes of it. || Source
Feb 9, 2017: DNI Clapper calls Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, tells him ‘take the kill shot’ on Flynn, using wiretapped Flynn-Kislyak call records. Washington Post publishes leak accusing Flynn of collusion with Russia in his calls and meetings with Ambassador Kislyak regarding sanctions: ‘National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say’. Source for ‘kill shot’: DNI staff in car with Clapper during call to Ignatius, noted in Flynn defense attorney Sidney Powell’s deposition.
Feb 2017: FBI Flynn case agent William Barnett tells unit chief that he wants to be removed from the case, because the Flynn investigation ‘is problematic and could result in an IG investigation’. || Source: Interview of William Barnett conducted Sept 17, 2020 by U.S. attorney Jeff Jensen
Feb 10, 2017: Clinton campaign manager and fund-raiser John Podesta meets secretly with Fusion GPS principals Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, who are seeking funding to continue their investigation of President Trump and alleged Russia collusion. Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan and Feinstein aide Daniel Jones, who had recently started TDIP) also participate in the meeting. Simpson asks Podesta to verify Fusion GPS’s bona fides with donors and funding sources whom Podesta knows. TDIP hires Fusion GPS and Steele to update and expand the Steele dossier. Assisted by Podesta, TDIP raises more than seven million dollars during 2017, including one million dollars from George Soros, $2.1 million from Tom Steyer, and other payments from undisbursed Clinton campaign funds. Its operating methods closely track those developed by Simpson and Steele in 2016, simultaneously notifying media, Congressional committees, and FBI of ‘research’ supporting the Russia collusion narrative. Source1 , Source2 , Podesta testimony to House Intel Committee Dec 4, 2017.
Feb 10, 2017: FBI agent Strzok changes official records, called ‘302 notes’, of Flynn interview to indicate discussion of sanctions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak, when in fact no such discussion had occurred. Source: Case 1:17-cr-00232-EGS Document 129-2 Filed 10/24/19
Feb 13, 2017: Flynn is fired as National Security Adviser, removing him from a position where he could investigate the Obama Admin’s espionage operations against Trump.
Feb 15, 2017: Page, Strzok, and McCabe revise FBI agent Pientka’s ‘302’ Notes purportedly made during the Jan 24 Strzok / Pientka interview with Flynn, to conform with the charge that Flynn lied to FBI agents in Jan 24 White House interview.
Feb 15, 2017: GSA asks FBI whether confidential Trump Transition records should be preserved. FBI responds that records associated with recently resigned National Security Adviser Flynn should be preserved. GSA preserves all Trump Transition records without informing President Trump or his counsel. || Source: Senate HSGA and Finance Majority Staff Report, 2018
Feb 23, 2017: Tim Trevan, a biosafety consultant, warns that China’s authoritarian society may be incompatible with the free exchange of information required for biosafety. Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright warns that China’s expansion of hazardous biotech research is ‘inherently dual-use‘, meaning military applications are inevitable. || Source
March 1, 2017: Washington Post writes ‘Sessions Spoke Twice To Russian Envoy: Revelation contradicts his testimony at confirmation hearing’. (One meeting was brief and inconsequential, the other was as Senator.)
March 2, 2017: AG Jeff Sessions recuses self from Russia investigation, per advice of ADAG Dana Boente. This forecloses the possibility that as AG Sessions would investigate Obama Admin operations against Trump. Both Flynn and Sessions, the two officials with the greatest responsibility to uncover illegal spying operations by FBI, CIA, and others, are thus removed, leaving a future Special Counsel effectively unsupervised.
March 2, 2017: Clear Force, Jim Jones (former NSA Dir) publish patent US2017/0061345 A1 to electronically monitor employee behavior by coordinating legal, financial, and social media databases, using AI to identify anomalous behavior.
March 4, 2017: Trump tweets ‘Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!’
March 15, 2017: Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrel, a supporter of Clinton’s, casts doubt on the dossier and Steele’s sourcing.
March 15, 2017: FBI Director Comey testifies to Senate Judiciary Committee that FBI agents did believe Michael Flynn did not lie to them.
March 16, 2017: Former SSCI Feinstein staffer and former FBI agent Daniel Jones describes Fusion GPS as a ‘shadow media organization helping the government’, funded by a ‘group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros’. Jones raises $50 million to continue paying Fusion GPS and Steele after Trump’s inauguration, distributing a daily Russia-collusion briefing paper to Congress, ‘resistors’ in Trump Admin, and media. Steele wishes to have an official written bipartisan invitation to testify to Senate Intel Committee. SSCI Vice Chair Sen Warner, in order to keep all communications with Steele ‘off the record’, texts lobbyist Adam Waldman, an intermediary for Steele in London, ‘we want to do this right private in London don’t want to send letter yet cuz if we can’t get agreement wud rather not have paper trail’. Waldman texts back ‘[I will] see if I can convince him [Steele] to speak w you directly. At the moment he seems spooked. No pun intended.’
March 16, 2017: Dan Coats confirmed as DNI, replacing James Clapper.
March 17, 2017: SSCI Vice-Chair Sen Mark Warner tells SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to give copies of Secret-classified Carter Page FISA warrant application to media.
March 20, 2017: FBI director Comey confirms to Congress that FBI is investigating President Trump, blames Priestap for previous failure to notify Congress as required by law. Comey claims to have known early on in the investigation that it was Vladimir Putin’s intention to help the Trump campaign, due to his [Putin’s] hatred for Hillary Clinton. Comey also tells Congress there is ‘salacious and unverified’ material in the Fusion GPS dossier used by FBI, in part, to obtain Carter Page wiretap. (Under FBI ‘Woods Procedures’, only facts carefully verified by the FBI may be offered as evidence to obtain FISA warrants.)
March 22, 2017: House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes demands that CIA, FBI and NSA disclose nature of unlawful surveillance he had discovered. || Source
Early April, 2017: A third FBI wiretap on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page is approved. FBI Director James Comey and Acting AG Dana Boente sign the application. CIA Director Mike Pompeo may or may not be aware of this application or its approval.
April 3, 2017: Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice reveals in an interview, despite earlier denials, that she had requested to unmask names of Trump transition officials. The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan, and Rice deputy Ben Rhodes. || Source
April 7, 2017: President Trump, advised by attorney McGahn, signs executive order 13787 enabling the third-ranking DOJ official (Dana Boente at the time) to sign FISA application renewals. The Carter Page FISA application renewal, based on the same fraudulent Steele dossier as the earlier ones, facilitates the FBI’s continued spying on the Trump Administration.
April 10, 2017: FBI Strzok text to Lisa Page: need to speak ‘about a media leak strategy with DOJ‘.
April 13, 2017: Guardian headlines ‘British Spies Were First to Spot Trump Team’s Links with Russia,’ explaining ‘US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation‘.
April 17, 2017: In response to concerns in Washington about Russian social-media influence efforts, Facebook’s Alex Stamos investigates occurrences of fake news, targeted data collection, false amplifiers on its site, and reports actions the company is taking to combat these. Senator Mark Warner later visits Facebook in person to press for evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
April 25, 2017: Christopher Steele, in a UK court proceeding, admits the dossier is ‘unverified’ and says he is ‘shocked’ it was ever made public.
April 25, 2017: Adam Waldman in London texts SSCI Vice-Chair Sen Warner, ‘I just talked to Chris [Steele] again. I can’t convince him to do a call first. He is under a lot of duress FYI. He said Dan Jones [former SSCI Feinstein staff, current distributor of Russia-collution newsletter] is coming to see you. I suggest you explain to Dan why a call is the necessary first step rather than a letter from your perspective.’
Spring 2017: Chief FISA Court Judge Rosemary Collyer finds that the Obama administration had been abusing the NSA FISA 702 database since President Obama’s re-election in 2012, by failing to minimize queries to the NSA database, ‘unmasking’ persons incidentally identified, and allowing their names and personal information (phone contacts, email, texts, banking and any other electronic information) to be provided to private contractors.
April 26, 2017: Rod Rosenstein is appointed as new Deputy AG.
April 26, 2017: A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report reveals that 85 percent of the searches conducted by FBI, CIA, and NSA consist of nebulous ‘about’ data requests impermissible according to legal minimization requirements. The FISA Court report also reveals that FBI provides raw surveillance data to outside contractors such as Fusion GPS without supervising whose privacy is violated. Unsupervised outside contractors may have engaged in political spying on Trump campaign workers, in violation of law.
April 28, 2017: NSA has decided that its Section 702 foreign intelligence surveillance activities will no longer include any upstream internet communications that are solely ‘about a foreign intelligence target. Instead, this surveillance will now be limited to only those communications that are directly ‘to’ or ‘from’ a foreign intelligence target. These changes are designed to retain the upstream collection that provides the greatest value to national security while reducing the likelihood that NSA will acquire communications of U.S. persons or others who are not in direct contact with one of the Agency’s foreign intelligence targets. In addition, as part of this curtailment, NSA will delete the vast majority of previously acquired upstream internet communications as soon as practicable. || Source
May 2017: NSC staffer Rich Higgins writes and circulates memo on political warfare aimed at de-stabilizing and ousting the Trump presidency and disenfranchising Trump’s constituency. He had also sought to declassify PSD-11, the secret blueprint for Obama’s alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood. || Source
May 3, 2017: FBI Dir Comey in Senate testimony refuses to rule out anyone, ‘including the president’ as a target of criminal investigation.
May 9, 2017: Trump fires FBI Director Comey, based on memo from Rosenstein re ‘Restoring public confidence in the FBI’. Rosenstein writes: ‘The FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department…. The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do…. the goal of a federal criminal investigation is not to announce our thoughts at a press conference. The goal is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a federal criminal prosecution, then allow a federal prosecutor who exercises authority delegated by the Attorney General to make a prosecutorial decision, and then – if prosecution is warranted – let the judge and jury determine the facts. We sometimes release information about closed investigations in appropriate ways, but the FBI does not do it sua sponte‘. FBI mole Anthony Ferrante leaves joint WH/FBI employment to work for BuzzFeed, which had published the unverified Steele dossier in Jan 2017.
May 9, 2017: Andrew McCabe, as FBI Director upon the firing of Director Comey, immediately orders criminal obstruction and counter-intelligence investigation of President Trump, with the objective of having an ongoing investigation that would be ‘difficult to quash without raising scrutiny‘. CNN reports top FBI officials open investigation because Trump ‘needed to be reined in‘. McCabe informally surveys Trump Cabinet concerning willingness to declare Trump medically or mentally unfit, to force him from the Presidency under the 25th Amendment. Acting AG Rosenstein volunteers to ‘wear a wire‘ to entrap President Trump into statements demonstrating mental incapacity. || Source: CBS 60 Minutes TV interview Feb 2019.
May 16, 2017: Comey publishes memo to self in NY Times, claiming President Trump asked him to drop investigation of Flynn. The accusation of improper presidential influence on an FBI investigation prompts calls for appointment of an independent Special Counsel to investigate Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.
May 16, 2017: Rosenstein suggests to McCabe that he (Rosenstein) secretly record President Trump. Rosenstein denies the report.
