Tuesday, March 9, 2021
The Swamp Creatures Never Go Away
National Security Adviser Susan Rice speaks to reporters in Washington on July 22, 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Biden Admin Officials Had Roles in Probes, Surveillance of Trump Campaign
News Analysis
As Joe Biden constructs his new administration, individuals from the Obama administration are quietly resurfacing in positions of power. Some of these people are well known, others lesser so. But they all played critical roles at various times during the Obama administration.
Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser and now the “top adviser to the president on domestic policy and related decisions,” has admitted to participating in the unmasking of members of the Trump transition team. Unmasking is the process whereby a U.S. citizen’s identity is revealed from collected surveillance.
Initially, Rice publicly denied the allegations, claiming that “I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.” Two weeks later Rice stated that she had not done so for “for any political purposes.” It was later reported that Rice told House investigators that “she unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York.”
Rice was also a participant in an early January 2017 meeting with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates where President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak was discussed.
According to a filing in the Flynn legal case, notes from FBI Agent Peter Strzok revealed that “former President Obama, James Comey, Sally Yates, Joe Biden, and apparently Susan Rice discussed the transcripts of Flynn’s calls and how to proceed against him. Mr. Obama himself directed that ‘the right people’ investigate General Flynn.” According to Strzok’s notes, it also appears that “Biden personally raised the idea of the Logan Act” that would initially be used to pursue Flynn.
Rice, whose level of participation in the spying on the Trump 2016 campaign is still not fully known, sent herself an email on Obama’s last day in office detailing events that took place during this meeting. In addition to Flynn, Rice also noted that Obama asked his team to be “mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully [with the incoming Trump team] as it relates to Russia.”
Meanwhile, Samantha Power has been named as administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development. Her position has not yet been confirmed. Power was the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration. According to a July 27, 2017, letter to then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) noted that “one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama administration.” That official was later identified in the media as Power. For her part, Power has denied that she was the person making the unmasking requests.
In addition to the better-known names from the Obama administration, there are other lesser-known members of the new Biden administration who had played roles, sometimes crucial ones, in the surveillance of the Trump transition team.
Acting Deputy AG John Carlin
John Carlin, currently the acting deputy attorney general, is involved in the DOJ’s investigation into the events of Jan. 6 at the U.S. capital. Carlin recently confirmed that more than three hundred people have been charged in relation to the events on Jan. 6 and more than two hundred and eighty have been arrested. Carlin told reporters on Feb. 26 that the investigation is “moving at a speed and scale that is unprecedented.” Earlier in his career, Carlin was the deputy chief of staff and counselor to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller, who would later be appointed as special counsel during the Trump administration.
During the Obama administration, Carlin was the assistant attorney general for national security and head of the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) from April 2014 through October 2016 and was involved in the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign.
According to testimony by FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Carlin was receiving briefings on both the Clinton and the Trump investigations directly from FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Page testified that Carlin “was kept abreast of the sort of investigative activity that was going on” and said that “Carlin might call over to Andy McCabe, and sort of make his team’s pitch.” As part of this process, Carlin was receiving briefings on the progress of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
This likely wasn’t the first time Carlin heard about Page. In March 11, 2016, Carlin and Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the southern district of New York, released a joint statement noting the guilty plea of Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian Intelligence officer convicted of spying. Page had assisted in this investigation and had met with the FBI on the matter on March 2, 2016. Carlin’s knowledge of Page’s previous assistance to the FBI suggests he would have known Page was not a Russian agent. This, however, did not impede the FBI’s efforts to obtain a FISA warrant on Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
Despite Carlin’s involvement in the Page FISA and the earlier espionage case in which Page had assisted, Carlin stated that his recollection of Carter Page and the FBI’s FISA application on Page was limited when he was interviewed in July 2017 by the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
When asked by then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) if he had participated in any FISA application related to Page, Carlin stated “I believe—I believe I did. There’s been so much public reporting since I left, but I remember being involved in the preparation of the FISA application for an individual that was related to the Trump campaign.” Carlin told Gowdy that “I remember there was one application. I don’t remember whether or not I actually signed it.”
As head of the DOJ’s NSD, Carlin also maintained oversight of the intelligence agencies’ use of Section 702 authority. The NSD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) jointly conduct reviews of the intelligence agencies’ Section 702 activities every 60 days and the NSD is required to report any incidents of agency noncompliance or misconduct to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
Additionally, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are required by Section 702 to provide the FISC with annual certifications and show that Intelligence Community agencies are following targeting and minimization procedures that are approved by the FISC. These annual certifications are filed by the NSD.
A Jan. 7, 2016, report by National Security Agency (NSA) Inspector General George Ellard disclosed a fundamental issue that appeared to cause issues with oversight of Section 702 data. Ellard noted that the methodology that the DOJ and NSD “have agreed on does not include providing all records of queries performed.” Furthermore, the IG report also found that “controls for monitoring query compliance have not been completely developed” and there was “no process to reliably identify queries” being performed.
The Jan. 7, 2016, IG report notes that the “NSA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) notified DOJ NSD of the FISA incidents.” However, it does not appear that the NSD ever disclosed the IG report to the FISC.
In addition to the IG findings, on March 9, 2016, “DOJ oversight personnel conducting a minimization review at the FBI’s [redacted] learned that the FBI had disclosed raw FISA information” to an undisclosed entity. In an April 2017 ruling, the FISC noted that this unknown division or center was “largely staffed by private contractors” and that these contractors “had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.”
The Court also stated that the contractor’s access to raw FISA data appears to have been the “result of deliberate decision making” and the access to FBI systems “was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding” that had been “prepared or reviewed by FBI lawyers.” Despite this pre-existing multi-agency agreement, “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016.”
The NSA’s IG report combined with the discoveries on March 9, 2016, prompted an internal compliance review instigated by then-NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA court of the findings from his investigation, which the FISC found to include “significant noncompliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers.”
The court noted that the “full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court” and that preliminary results from additional reviews suggested that “the problem was widespread during all periods under review.”
Carlin had filed the government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016, but did not disclose the Jan. 7, 2016, IG report to the FISA court. Additionally, it appears that the court was again not notified of the IG report during an Oct. 4, 2016, follow-up hearing.
In its April 2017 ruling, the “the Court ascribed the government’s failure to disclose those IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing to an institutional ‘lack of candor.’”
On Sept. 27, 2016, the day after he filed the annual certifications, Carlin announced his resignation from the DOJ, which would become effective on Oct. 15, 2016. At this time, the FBI’s application of the Page FISA was nearing completion. On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and FBI obtained a FISA warrant on Page. At this point, the FISA court still was unaware of the Section 702 violations.
Victoria Nuland
Biden recently announced that he nominated Victoria Nuland as “undersecretary of state for political affairs”—the third-highest ranking post at the State Department. Nuland has a lengthy history in the State Department and played several roles during the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.
Sometime in the latter half of 2014, Christopher Steele, author of the infamous dossier at the center of the Russia probe, began to informally provide reports he had prepared for a private client to the State Department. One of the recipients of the reports was Victoria Nuland, who was then the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
On July 5, 2016, FBI agent Michael Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele’s firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele’s early dossier reports were passed to Nuland and the State Department—possibly through Jonathan Winer, then a State Department official who was friends with Steele, perhaps through Gaeta or possibly through Steele himself.
During an interview, Nuland said that “in the middle of July, when he [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned…he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation.” Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and Secretary of State John Kerry.
Nuland was later briefed on the larger Steele dossier during a meeting with an associate of Sen. John McCain, David Kramer, in December 2016. Kramer said that McCain instructed him to meet with Nuland and Russian Affairs Director Celeste Wallander. The purpose of the meeting was to verify whether the dossier “was being taken seriously.” Kramer said he didn’t physically share the dossier with them at this point, but met again with Wallander, a National Security Council member, “around New Years” and “gave her a copy of the document.”
Monday, March 8, 2021
Will You Join The Fight?
Exclusive from Gen. Flynn: 5 Lessons I Learned When the Deep State Came After Me and My Family
Manuel Balce Ceneta / APMichael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security advisor, leaves federal court in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 10, 2019. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP)
You do not have to watch the news for long to see that America is rapidly changing. The downward slide can be found not only in our leadership but also in the shifting definitions of right and wrong blindly accepted by many Americans today.
Our leaders would have us believe that these changing values are inevitable and that they are good. That is why they are called “progressive.”
Yet to those of us who still believe in the immortal truths upon which America was founded, their so-called “progress” is alarming, to say the least.
Sadly, some will allow this alarm to grow into defeatism. They will turn their faces away from the battle before us in hopes of finding a position to retreat to.
To those who would prefer retreat or surrender rather than the fight, I ask you one simple question:
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If America falls, where will you go?
Where will you go to find another nation that provides the opportunities and individual guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Where will you find a nation whose founding documents guarantee a government of, by and for the people?
Name a place that offers you and your family the same or more than our United States of America.
The answer is simple: There is no such place.
In spite of our downward slide, America is still the best nation on the face of the earth. This is our land, these are our people, these are our cities, neighborhoods, and streets. This is our country.
Though the battle for the soul of America is fierce before us, we cannot afford to look away in hopes of finding retreat. There will be none.
Though I may sound pessimistic, I am anything but. God enabled me to endure a yearslong campaign by the left to destroy me and my family. They wanted me to serve as an example to anyone who would defy the entrenched bureaucrats of the swamp.
Despite their best efforts, I stand before you as living proof that victory is absolutely possible.
The very fact that we are gathered here today as American citizens free to speak and peaceably assemble should fill us with hope.
But being hopeful is not a survival plan. Hope has never won a war, nor will it win peace on the home front. In this article, it is my intention today to share with you a few lessons I learned in my battle against the dark forces that still threaten our nation today.
When fighting for truth, the most important place to start is to be well-grounded in the Truth itself. I am referring to Truth with a capital T, as in “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Faith in God is an essential part of the fight to restore American greatness. Our personal faith is inextricably linked to our personal liberties.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French author of the groundbreaking work “Democracy in America,” wrote “Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention…
“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.”
De Tocqueville is exactly right. Prior to America’s founding, no document in the world had directly linked the individual rights of citizens to their unique value and autonomy before an omnipotent Creator.
We should not try to commemorate our Founders’ willingness to pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor without also acknowledging the faith that served as the foundation for such boldness.
Faith and freedom can never be separated from one another.
If you wish to have boldness in the fight for America like our Founding Fathers did, have faith in Almighty God. Trust in his power as your sword and your shield.
I must confess that I am rarely one to wear my faith on my sleeve, but fighting with the deep state taught me just how faithful our God is. Even when so many of my friends and colleagues abandoned me, God never did. In fact, going through those trials only brought him closer. Make faith an essential part of your battle strategy today.
As we root ourselves in faith, we must also root ourselves in the writings of our Founding Fathers. If we are to preserve the legacy of such great men as George Washington, John Adams and Patrick Henry, we must know what they stood for.
Will you join in the fight to preserve our founding values?
100% (727 Votes)
0% (0 Votes)
Anyone can learn more about our nation’s founding. Start simple. When was the last time you read the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?
We tend to forget just how easy it is to read the Constitution from cover to cover. President Obama’s Affordable Care Act was more than 314,000 words long, but the document that frames our entire system of government is only 4,500 words in length. The average American can read it in half an hour.
Of course, if we really want to get into the mindset of our Founding Fathers, we must dig deeper. “The Federalist Papers,” de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” Paine’s “Common Sense” and the writings of John Locke are all well worth the read.
America’s conception was indeed miraculous, but it was far from accidental. The men who met in Philadelphia were bold men of faith and character who risked everything to “secure the blessings of liberty.”
We must learn of their sacrifice, and we must honor it.
The great pamphleteer Thomas Paine eloquently wrote in his “The American Crisis” that “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
Those words were read to the entire Continental Army by order of General George Washington, but they still apply equally to us today. Freedom requires the sacrifices of every generation.
As we build upon our faith and a clear understanding of our founding documents, we must never forget the importance of our family in the stand for truth.
When no one else would stand by my side, my wife Lori was there, just as she has been since we met at 13 years old. I married my high school sweetheart in 1981, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Lori has been my rock on a sea of uncertainty. The same strength of character and conviction that made her an amazing Army wife has also equipped her to withstand the political battles of the past few years.
She is my best friend. I count myself blessed beyond measure to have her by my side.
There is a reason why the forces of darkness are trying so hard to eradicate the family as we know it. They see how powerful the bond of family can be, so they want to redefine it, water it down and replace it with a dependency on the state.
We cannot allow them to destroy the family. As long as marriages and families are strong, freedom will always have a fighting chance.
Never concede to those who say they know how to raise your children better than you do. God entrusted the care of children to parents, not to governments.
As Ronald Reagan famously said, “Freedom is a fragile thing, and it’s never more than one generation from extinction.” Take Reagan’s words to heart as you train up your children. Your fight for freedom today will mean nothing if the next generation does not know to keep it.
Do not think of the fight to protect our families as distinct from our fight to save America. The fight to protect the family is the cornerstone of our fight to save America. It is unlikely that anything else you do in life will be as important or as meaningful.
Looking again to our forefathers, we see that they acted courageously for the sake of future generations. We see their concern for their children and their children’s children in everything they said and did.
Benjamin Franklin urged ratification of the U.S. Constitution with the reasoning that “For the sake of our Posterity we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution, wherever our Influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.”
When you fight for America, remember that you are fighting for your family (moms, dads). Make that a guiding light when you do battle against the forces of darkness.
After building the importance of family upon the foundation of faith and the founding, patriots must come to see the importance of true friendship.
John Adams called friendship “one of the distinguishing glories of man … From this I expect to receive the chief happiness of my future life.”
When I became the favorite target of the left for the crime of helping candidate Trump win the presidency of the United States and then serving as his first national security advisor, I was abandoned by many who said they were my friends.
Those who I had previously spent time with suddenly stopped calling, texting and engaging with me and my family. Only when I needed them most did they reveal their true colors.
To be honest, I felt betrayed.
Yet, it was during these dark days that I discovered that I had more friends than I ever realized. Letters began pouring in from every corner of the nation, and in some cases, from around the world.
These letters, many of them from Christians and patriots I had never met, contained words of encouragement, funds for my legal defense and offerings of prayers on my behalf in my darkest hours. These were the expressions of true friends.
I was so moved by these thousands of friends that I made it my mission to thank every one of them. I still treasure their letters to this day.
You may not receive thousands of letters of encouragement as I did, but you should think now about who your true friends are. If you are going to fight the battle for liberty, you must ask yourself whether the people you depend on are going to be with you when the going gets tough.
Remember, you are not alone. There are many other Americans like us who want to defend our great national heritage, but those who stand against us want to divide in order to conquer us.
Don’t let them get away with it. Find your true friends and stand with them boldly. We can win this fight if we work together.
So far, I have told you the importance of faith, addressed our nation’s founding and spoken to the importance of family and the value of true friendship. These are the elements I have found to be vital when everything else seems stacked against you.
Now I would like to talk about the fight.
America needs fighters today. We need those who will say as President Andrew Jackson did, “I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me.”
We need those who will stand against failed Marxist ideologies that have invaded the mainstream of our consciousness like a network of choking vines seeking to strangle the mighty American oak tree.
These vines manifest themselves through:
- Social media censorship of the free exchange of ideas
- Mainstream messaging that drives toward thought control
- Political correctness designed to force behavioral compliance
- The selective application and weaponization of the very ideals, laws and institutions designed to protect us
- Large-scale attacks on the family and on patriotism itself
These problems are big problems, but you do not have to be some D.C. superstar to be a part of the solution. Victory can be achieved through the coordinated efforts of many people doing small but courageous acts of patriotism.
Start by reaching out to those around you. Be an outspoken voice in your church and community. You will be amazed how many hearts and minds can be swayed just by calmly, intelligently and respectfully presenting a viewpoint outside of what is said in mainstream news.
Next, make it your goal to be where the action is taking place. It is commonly said that “history is made by those who show up.” Take the time to go to meetings at city hall. Be a presence at your local school board meetings. Get to know your state’s legislators and keep on top of what is going on at your state’s capitol.
Don’t just complain about how elections are not conducted fairly. Be a part of the solution by petitioning or lobbying at whatever political level that suits you to strengthen election integrity laws. Contact your local party precinct about volunteering as a poll watcher. Remember, the most powerful office in the world is not the President of the United States but, on any given election day, it is a determined and patriotic precinct volunteer.
If your local officials refuse to stand for what is right, employ the ultimate weapon of the grassroots activist. Tell them that you will run against them and follow through on it.
Every politician at every level fears nothing more than the possibility of losing their power. Even if the odds are stacked against you in your township or district, a strong showing from conservatives can keep your officials from straying too far to the left in the future.
However you decide to get involved, make the decision today. America needs soldiers in the fight for freedom.
No one is coming to rescue us from our problems. Some think that the judiciary will solve all of our problems, but they have proven themselves to be unreliable at best.
Rather than waiting for someone else to fight for us, we must be willing to do the hard work ourselves.
The forces arrayed against us are great. They have money, power and privilege on their side.
They want to force the neck of every hardworking American into the yoke of servitude and taxation.
They want to force our mouths into the muzzle of Big Tech censorship and cancel culture.
They want to take our children from us, forcing them to look to Big Brother government rather than those who truly love them.
Yet, for all their plans and power, the forces of darkness can still be defeated.
A friend recently gave me an interesting new perspective on a familiar chapter in American history. Remember that General George Washington commanded a small band of patriots against the greatest military force on the planet.
My friend said “His Continental Army was out-trained, out-gunned, and out-numbered by the British Regulars. The Red Coats were a hardened and well-disciplined army against whom Washington’s rag-tag volunteers were no match.
“The colonies were divided over the war. Congress was practically dysfunctional during the most critical period. And in the infamous 1778 winter encampment at Valley Forge, Washington’s 11,000[-man] army nearly dissolved from starvation, disease, and discouragement among the ranks!”
We all know how the story ended. Against all odds, the Americans beat the British and formed the greatest nation in world history.
It wasn’t strokes of luck but divine Providence that made this possible. President Washington later charged his fellow Americans that “We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”
As today’s patriots, we fight for those same “eternal rules of order and right.” No matter what anyone says, the character of righteousness has not changed.
Those rules were established before the foundation of the world, affirmed by our great Founding Fathers and maintained by every American generation up to this critical chapter in our history.
With these eternal truths at stake, will you fight with me now in the cause of freedom?
Will you be counted among those who cared enough to pass the torch of freedom to a new generation while it still burns bright?
There can be no retreat and no surrender. As I asked before, where will you go if America falls?
Our battleground is here. Our shield is faith. Our sword is truth.
Victory is ours if we do not cower in the face of evil and oppression.
Will you join the fight?
For the sake of our children and grandchildren, I pray you will.
God bless America.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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