Cutting Ties with Qatar, Not so Fast

Several Gulf countries announced isolating Qatar by recalling diplomatic personnel due to the al Thani dynasty funding and harboring terror organizations.

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Ah, cool right? But the United States has a large footprint in Qatar least of which is the Al Udeid air base in Doha. The location is rather known as the Centcom of the Middle East with a minimum of 9000 U.S. military personnel and it comes with a swimming pool too.

Image result for Al Udeid Image result for Al Udeid

The al Thani clan was a good friend of the West, well kinda sorta. The very day that Barack Obama swapped 5 Gitmo detainees for Beau Bergdahl, Obama was attending the West Point graduation ceremony where a son of al Thani himself was graduating. You read that right, a Qartari at West Point.

No, it is no secret that Qatar hosts an embassy for the Taliban. It is no secret that Russia provides weapons, intelligence and funding to the Taliban. Qatar also hosts the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. So, exactly why is the United States so tolerant of Qatar? Money.

Oh, Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia and is beginning to have results with regard to Qatar. Not so fast.

Qatar has begun to expel Hamas leaders taking refuge within its borders, the Lebanese Al Mayadeen network reported over the weekend.

The report cited “diplomatic sources” as saying that on Saturday, Qatar gave Hamas a list of names of members required to leave the country. Al Mayadeen did not name the individuals forced to leave.

According to the report, a Qatari envoy met with prominent Hamas figures to deliver the list, which, the sources say, includes mainly those responsible for collaborating with the organization’s leadership in the Judea and Samaria region.

You see, Qatar plays a double game all the time, people are expelled while others rotate in.

It was also just a few days ago Qatar officials called Tehran to congratulate them on the recent elections and expressed continued understanding and alliance with Hezbollah and Hamas. As a result of all this, the Qatar New Agency was hacked and oh yeah, Qatar funds al Jazeera.

The region plays an important role for the US military in the fight against Daesh. Bahrain houses the US Navy’s Fifth fleet, which patrols the seas of the Middle East and Central Asia, while Qatar is home to the Al Udeid Airbase, from where the United States carries out airstrikes against militants in the region.

Tillerson urged the Gulf Cooperation Council nations to sort out their differences and said that the United States was willing to play a role in helping the countries address their differences.

Meanwhile, as President Trump attended the ceremony to open the counter-terrorism center in Saudi Arabia, that center is at least years old, the Saudi for the most part have expelled Qatar from participation in the center’s operations. Hummm, is that really smart given the terror operations being hosted in Qatar and being cut off? Messy isn’t it?

In recent years, evidence has mounted that Turkey under the rule of Erdogan is building a larger Islamist new version of the Ottoman Empire and has even aligned more so with Russia and Iran against the West and the efforts in Syria. So, how about that merging relationship with Qatar and Turkey? Here are some more details on that, which shows the relationship order in the Middle East is changing dramatically.

A Turkish military base to be deployed in Qatar will be headquartered in Doha and lead by Qatari-Turkish generals, top official has said after sessions at parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission.

“Within the framework of the agreement, it is envisaged that a joint Turkish-Qatar divisional tactical headquarters should be established, that its place should be in Doha, that the commander of the unit is to be a major general and a Qatari, and that the commander assistant is to be a brigadier and Turkish,” said Defense Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Major Ihsan Bülbül.

Stating that the number of troops to be deployed will be 500 to 600, Bülbül said Qatar also requests the sending of units in Turkey with a flexible structure to allow them to be transferred to Qatar if needed. “We are sending troops to Qatar and setting up bases and Qatar pays for it. What is Turkey’s interest in this business? What is Qatar’s interest in it? We need to further investigate Turkey’s relations with Qatar, which we cannot pinpoint the strategic meaning of,” Salıcı said.

“In the introduction of the agreement, it refers to ‘other duties found appropriate.’ This expression within such an agreement is open-ended, as there is a transfer of soldiers and base development that will be paid for by the host country,” he added.

Salıcı also noted that Qatar’s current army presence is made up of 11,800 individuals. More here.

 

Did Megyn Kelly ask Vladimir Putin About these Items?

Image result for megyn kelly vladimir putin Business Insider

LONDON — Vladimir Putin again denied that Russia interfered in last year’s U.S. election, joking to NBC News’ Megyn Kelly on Friday that even her “underage daughter” could have been behind the hacking.

The journalist asked the Russian president about what American intelligence agencies say is evidence that he became personally involved in a covert campaign to harm Hillary Clinton and benefit Donald Trump.

“IP addresses can be invented — a child can do that! Your underage daughter could do that. That is not proof,” Putin replied.

He also said that U.S. accusations about Russia were reminiscent of “anti-Semitism and blaming the Jews,” describing them as “disinformation.”

*** Hummm, okay, but he also said this:

Moscow (CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to suggest Thursday that “patriotic hackers” may have meddled in the US election, but insisted that none of their potential activities were state-backed.

It’s the first time the Russian leader has conceded that any election-related hacking attacks may have emanated from his country.
In comments to reporters at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Putin likened hackers to “artists,” who could act on behalf of Russia if they felt its interests were being threatened.
“(Artists) may act on behalf of their country, they wake up in good mood and paint things. Same with hackers, they woke up today, read something about the state-to-state relations.
“If they are patriotic, they contribute in a way they think is right, to fight against those who say bad things about Russia,” Putin said.
*** Typical Kremlin, squishy on truth and commitment. Now…how about this mess that the Trump White House is working a deal with the Kremlin to return the two dachas in Maryland and New York that Obama ordered shuttered in December? It is said that the Kremlin did not respond to this action by Obama, but actually they did by terminating the construction of our diplomatic post in St. Petersburg. C’mon Tillerson really? Why should we be so hard on Putin and the Kremlin? Let’s go deeper shall we? We may also have to wait for the full Putin/Kelly interview to be aired.
Image result for megyn kelly vladimir putin  There are many more Russia vs. United States issues like Russian bombers buzzing U.S. military aircraft or that Russian spy ship that hovered off the Atlantic coast….moving on….
***
How many Russian spies are inside the United States? Answer unknown, but the estimates are in the tens of thousands. One such former FBI sleuth explains the condition here:

A national-security expert who has worked as a double agent for the FBI against Russian intelligence operations says the bureau’s current model for identifying Russian assets relies too much on a Cold War-era style of human-asset recruitment.

Naveed Jamali, who secretly reported to the FBI for four years while pretending to work for a Russian spy, was invited by Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to brief the House Intelligence Committee last week on Russia’s techniques for recruiting foreign spies. More here.

***

Politico: Russian diplomats, whose travel was supposed to be tracked by the State Department, were going missing.The diplomats, widely assumed to be intelligence operatives, would eventually turn up in odd places, often in middle-of-nowhere USA. One was found on a beach, nowhere near where he was supposed to be. In one particularly bizarre case, relayed by a U.S. intelligence official, another turned up wandering around in the middle of the desert. Interestingly, both seemed to be lingering where underground fiber-optic cables tend to run.

According to another U.S. intelligence official, “They find these guys driving around in circles in Kansas. It’s a pretty aggressive effort.”

It’s a trend that has led intelligence officials to conclude that the Kremlin is waging a quiet effort to map the United States’ telecommunications infrastructure, perhaps preparing for an opportunity to disrupt it.

“Half the time, they’re never confronted,” the official, who declined to be identified discussing intelligence matters, said of the incidents. “We assume they’re mapping our infrastructure.”

As the country — and Washington in particular — borders on near-obsession over whether affiliates of Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with the Kremlin to swing the 2016 presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials say Moscow’s espionage ground game is growing stronger and more brazen than ever.

It’s a problem that’s sparking increasing concern from the intelligence community, including the FBI. After neglecting the Russian threat for a decade, the U.S. was caught flat-footed by Moscow’s election operation. Now, officials are scrambling to figure out how to contain a sophisticated intelligence network that’s festered and strengthened at home after years’ worth of inattention.

“We’ve definitely been ignoring Russia for the last 15 years,” another intelligence official said, calling the Kremlin “resurgent.”

POLITICO spoke with half a dozen current and former U.S. intelligence officials about Russian spy strategies. All requested anonymity to openly discuss espionage.

“They’ve just got so many bodies,” the first intelligence official said of the Russians. “It’s not about what we know [is happening]. It’s about what we don’t know.”

It’s one of the most poorly kept secrets in the intelligence community: The Russian effort is a startlingly open and aggressive one, and often falls in a complex legal gray zone.

For example, the second official said, diplomats wandering around the desert might be in violation of certain travel requirements, but it’s not necessarily illegal.

Most U.S. intelligence officials can relay stories of run-ins with Russian intelligence operatives — often moonlighting as lobbyists, diplomats and businessmen — hanging around popular Washington happy hours. It’s an open assumption that they use Capitol Hill and its public office buildings as a farming ground for potential recruits. And the presumed agents aren’t hard to spot, according to officials: An oft-traded joke is to go to one of Washington’s handful of Russian restaurants and look for the guy in a tracksuit.

As the Russians continue aggressively pushing legal boundaries in both the United States and Moscow, there’s a tangible frustration among U.S. intelligence officials and on Capitol Hill that the U.S. has consistently missed its chance to crack down on Moscow’s spy games.

For years, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle pressed a hesitant Obama White House to crack down on some of the Kremlin’s more brazen stateside maneuvers.

“There was a general feeling that this was not getting the attention it deserved,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has supported the panel’s efforts in pressing the White House to tow a harder line with the Kremlin.

Around last summer, that tension reached a fever pitch.

Lawmakers, frustrated by Russian diplomats’ repeated violation of travel rules, inserted a provision in last year’s intelligence authorization bill that would have required Russian diplomats to provide ample notice to the State Department if they planned to travel more than 50 miles from where they were based, and further, would have required the FBI to validate that travel. According to several sources involved in the discussions at that time, the administration fought desperately — and failed — to get those provisions taken out of the bill.

Around that same time, two key Democratic lawmakers informed the White House of plans to publicly finger Russia as the foreign power behind a widespread effort to manipulate the ongoing U.S. election — something no official U.S. government entity had yet done. Fearful of escalation, the administration tried to get Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff, then the two leading Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, respectively, to back off. The California lawmakers didn’t, and they released the statement. Backed into a corner by Congress, the administration released a statement saying the same a week later.

The Obama administration’s tentativeness in the weeks leading up to Nov. 8 — especially in the high-stakes context of a presidential election — is something that still bewilders corners of the intelligence world. Some speculate that Secretary of State John Kerry, desperate for a peace deal in Syria, urged the White House to lie low. Some blame it on fear of igniting a cyberwar, and still others say it stemmed from a generalized underestimation of the Russian threat.

Blaming one factor, one of the officials said, is “oversimplified.” But the frustration — and regret — is tangible.

Underscoring all this is that the Kremlin shows none of the same reluctance at home, nor does it show any propensity to abide by the gentlemen’s espionage rules that the U.S. tends to uphold, sometimes to the chagrin of its own spy corps.

“We can’t even leave the compound over there without being followed,” the first U.S. intelligence official said.

One well-publicized incident continues to agitate officials in Washington. In June of last year, a U.S. diplomat was returning to the embassy in Moscow when a guard with the FSB, the domestic Russian security service, exploded from his booth on the compound’s perimeter and assaulted him. A surveillance video shows the guard tackling the man and throwing him to the ground before the U.S. diplomat was able to drag himself inside the doors of the embassy to safety.

The U.S. diplomat, whom POLITICO confirmed was actually a CIA officer, had done the impossible — he had lost his tails as he maneuvered in Moscow. Infuriated, the Russians sent an FSB guard the man wouldn’t recognize to wait outside the embassy for his inevitable return. The officer was beaten so badly he was immediately flown out of the country for urgent medical attention.

The account was confirmed by another person familiar with the incident.

“They are far more aggressive on counterintelligence issues in Russia than we are here,” one of the officials said.

It’s these incidents that worry and frustrate the Americans. The unspoken rules of spying mean nothing to the Kremlin.

“They agree to rules, and then break them,” another U.S. official said.

Former CIA Director John Brennan made reference to this frustration in recent congressional testimony. Though he stopped short of explicitly discussing the June 2016 incident in Moscow, he told lawmakers that he had brought up the broader harassment issue to his Russian counterpart at Russian state security services last August.

“I first told him, as I had several times previously, that the continued mistreatment and harassment of U.S. diplomats in Moscow was intolerable and needed to stop,” Brennan said.

The CIA declined to comment. The FBI did not respond to an official request for comment by deadline.

1975 Pike Cmte: WH v CIA v Congress

The CIA’s Constitutional Crisis:

The Pike Committee’s Challenge to Intelligence Business as Usual

By John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi

This electronic briefing book focuses on the experience of the Pike Committee in 1975. Formally known as the House Select Committee, and the forerunner of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence—the current oversight mechanism—the Pike Committee encountered the same CIA reluctance to endure investigation as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) did during the more recent torture inquiry from 2009-2012. Indeed, at the time, Donald Gregg, a senior CIA officer who served as the agency’s top liaison person with Pike’s committee, recalled the experience as more difficult than some of his most hair-raising covert operations.[i] The Pike Committee’s investigation brought the Ford administration to the brink of a constitutional crisis over the principle that Congress had a right to investigate any aspect of Executive Branch activity. Pike also established a procedure—which congressional overseers typically neglect to make use of—for Congress to declassify information. Such procedures may prove crucial in the future.

The administration of Gerald R. Ford was far different from that of Donald J. Trump. So was the Congress in the two eras. Today’s Congress, although controlled by one party, is hampered by bitter political infighting. In 1975, Capitol Hill, though it was in the hands of the Democratic Party and coming off the Watergate affair, had a tradition of bipartisanship. President Ford faced congressional efforts to build mechanisms for dismantling what had come to be regarded as the “imperial presidency.”[ii] But Ford could enlist allies in Congress and reasonably hope to build consensus toward measures he considered desirable. Aspects of the intelligence crises of 1975, 2012-2014, and 2017-on, evolved with eerie similarity.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s problem at that time was, if anything, worse than in the Obama-Trump era, because there were parallel investigations of the agency by a presidential commission, the Senate, and Pike’s House of Representatives panel. Also, Otis Pike, the New York congressman chairing the HSC, moved fast to make up for lost time, because his HSC had ben reconstituted after a previous inquiry had failed to get off the ground. The CIA had tried to impose controls on all the investigations in the form of exacting agreements on the handling of classified information. To a large extent it had succeeded with the presidential commission (the Rockefeller Commission) and the Senate inquiry (the Church Committee), but the previous HSC had been derailed precisely because of the impression of collusion between the CIA and the committee. Pike was not about to fall into that trap.


Henry Kissinger and Otis Pike (undated photo).

Equally troubling, there were suspicions on both sides from the start. Director William E. Colby of the CIA thought Pike’s investigators a pick-up team who knew nothing, and the HSC principals a troop of publicity hounds. CIA officials were already on the defensive based on a number of damaging stories about them in the press in the course of 1975. Chairman Pike compounded CIA hostility by refusing to obligate his staff to sign CIA-like secrecy agreements, while opening a second front by declining to implement CIA-style compartmentation for storage of agency documents. Chairman Pike also rejected the formula later adopted under Ronald Reagan and used by subsequent administrations—including during George W. Bush’s presidency to shield CIA torture—of briefing only the committee chairman and vice-chair (which at higher levels translated into the “Gang of Four” or “Gang of Eight” groups). Robustly, Pike ruled that if the House of Representatives had wanted to create a two-person investigative committee it would have done so. Gaming the system was not permitted on his watch.

Responding to the House committee, Director Colby made CIA lawyer Mitchell Rogovin the point of contact for HSC requests to interview CIA officers, laid down access conditions to Pike, and informed CIA employees of both actions. When Pike rejected a letter from Rogovin, Colby and the lawyer then met with Pike, but that encounter turned into a confrontation. Rogovin believed Pike sought to avoid charges of having been coopted by the agency. Pike all but said as much when he responded to Colby’s follow up letter: “It’s a delight to receive two letters from you not stamped ‘Secret’ on every page …. You are concerned with the concept of ‘need to know’ and I am concerned with the concept of ‘right to know.’”[iii]

Pike held his first public hearing on August 4, 1975. He used the occasion to contrast the Ford administration’s public posture that it was cooperating fully with the CIA and White House’s actual practice of obfuscation and delay. The impasse escalated tensions, leading to destructive clashes between the sides. One prime example was the “briefcase episode.” Ford’s Office of Management and Budget had been refusing to hand over data regarding CIA’s budget, which Pike had requested from Colby on July 28. When White House lawyers Philip Buchen and Roderick Hills visited HSC offices to discuss the matter, Hills inadvertently left his briefcase behind with a secret document in it. Weeks later, Pike cited the incident as an example of how the Committee safeguarded classified information more carefully than the Ford administration. On September 3, White House staff secretary James E. Connor drew the battle lines within the administration over the Pike committee’s access to information by arguing that if President Ford failed to act a series of terrible consequences would follow (Document 3).

On September 10, with the administration pulling back on access, the Pike Committee subpoenaed documents for its next case study – of U.S. officials being caught by surprise by the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. The CIA was reluctant to comply. This is where our documentary exhibits pick up. It was at this point that the Ford White House escalated the dispute over access to information. On September 12, Assistant Attorney General Rex E. Lee, alleging Pike Committee leaks, terminated the Ford administration’s supply of information to the House committee (Document 4). The HSC threatened to go to court. Agency lawyer Rogovin failed to get Pike to modify his committee’s requests. Rogovin was then told the CIA had no authority to alter the deadline for it to respond to the subpoena.

Pike responded by returning just one item, using the opportunity to point out – in elaborate detail in a cover letter – that the “secret” classification had been unjustifiably imposed on inconsequential information (Document 10).

Seymour Hersh’s explosive revelations in The New York Times on December 22, 1974, led to White House and congressional investigations into the intelligence community, including establishment of the Pike Committee.

The demands for information, on the one side, and foot-dragging on the other, built to a crescendo that September. The HSC moved to hold a hearing to examine intelligence performance during the October War of 1973, and wanted to quote a paragraph from a CIA postmortem of this action. CIA tried once again to keep the material secret leading Pike to demand the material be released. Colby tried to shield a particular passage concerning intercepts of Egyptian radio communications, but Pike refused. When the HSC voted to release the material over CIA objections, that furnished Assistant Attorney General Rex Lee with his rationale for terminating cooperation (Document 4). The White House’s turn to the Department of Justice to enunciate its official position signaled the Pike Committee that President Ford’s patience had worn thin.

The CIA’s “Family Jewels” document collection triggered fresh hostility between the agency and the committee throughout this period. Colby showed Pike the full collection, but when HSC investigators wanted to see it, Langley supplied only a sanitized version. Upon renewed demand, Donald Gregg informed the HSC that top staff could review a different—also sanitized—version, but only at CIA headquarters. In November, fifteen minutes ahead of a press conference Pike had called to lambast CIA on this and other matters, the agency suddenly furnished a full copy.

Meanwhile, HSC investigators had discovered that, in a 1974 internal political crisis in Cyprus, U.S. diplomats had complained in State Department dissent channels that the Department’s favoritism toward Greece had worsened the situation. Pike’s staff wanted to look into this, too. Henry Kissinger, who simultaneously held the positions of national security adviser and secretary of state, not only demanded that nothing be given to Pike but insisted upon the return of all classified materials from the HSC. It is a measure of the falsity of many claims of national security damage caused by the release of classified information that Kissinger himself had already leaked the October war communications intelligence data that the Pike Committee was now to be punished for releasing. The leak had been to the writers Marvin and Bernard Kalb, who had written a biography of Kissinger.[iv] The “revelation” had already been public for a year. Scholar Frank J. Smist argues that the Pike declassification was a “phony issue” because the HSC’s wording was ambiguous and would have required the CIA to identify the offending text and explain how it was so damaging.[v]

By September 16, the CIA’s effort to control congressional access to records had had to be modified. Director Colby’s attempt to completely deny access to decision-making material collapsed amid the white heat of public controversy. Now the CIA and White House tried to apply different restrictions to HSC review of 40 Committee records (Document 8). The 40 Committee was the administration’s interagency unit that approved covert operations. Ford officials wanted to allow only cursory information to be reviewed, and to require that all examination of documentation take place at the White House, in NSC offices, with any notes retained at the NSC. (The Intelligence Community demanded similar restrictions during the 1987 Iran-Contra congressional hearings and the 2009 SSCI investigation of CIA torture programs.)

The White House scheme for a revised system to provide materials did not pass muster with the House Select Committee. Ford administration officials inexplicably resisted taking Pike Committee objections seriously until a White House liaison, meeting with ally Robert McCrory, senior Republican member of the HSC, noted that the committee fully intended to proceed in its own way – in other words, that GOP members would support the Democratic majority (Document 11). A letter from another Republican member to President Ford, affirming that committee members from both parties were united (Document13), made it plain the White House had little alternative.

In fact, neither Colby nor Ford had any running room. On September 20 it became clear the Pike Committee was preparing to sue the president (Document 14). Officials sought expert opinion. In a legal brief on September 22, the CIA’s own lawyers concluded that the HSC subpoena had been legally issued by an authorized body. The courts would accept that, the lawyers believed, and an “excellent chance” existed the judiciary would uphold the subpoena. Conversely, there was little probability a court would order a congressman or committee not to report on what he/they had investigated, or to avoid discussion of matters under their jurisdiction. Consequently, “there does not appear to be any realistic way in which the Agency can come out the winner” (Document 16). Colby and his lawyer, Rogovin, had sat through many meetings in the White House Situation Room at which officials had railed at congressional demands for information, only to have to yield the documents days or weeks later. Congress had a constitutional right to investigate, so the Ford administration was obliged to reply.

White House lawyers, reviewing these issues themselves, were only a little more optimistic, but they feared the courts would rely on the doctrine of “political issues” to avoid ruling on the very narrow grounds the lawyers saw open (Document 22). They, too, advised accommodation. Political adviser Max Friedersdorf predicted that “a serious confrontation is coming” (Document 20). Republican members of the Pike Committee warned the White House that both parties would unite to demand access, and that Pike was inclined to litigate, and to go as far as the Supreme Court to seek a judgment. The Ford White House and the CIA were on track for a white-hot constitutional crisis with the House Select Committee.

For his part, Henry Kissinger continued to advise President Ford to stand fast. The secretary of state held out for defying the congressional requests for documentation, and denying Congress had any role to play in releasing information (Document 21). Kissinger, in effect, was inviting the president to ignite a constitutional crisis, bringing the behind-the-scenes dispute over access into the open. The main impact of Kissinger’s stand, had he succeeded, would have been to widen the constitutional breach by suppressing the release of information on the Cyprus crisis and October War. This was information Congress had a right to ask for, and it amounted to substituting the secretary’s personal objectives for the U.S. government’s overall interests.

On September 24, a decision document went to President Ford, who approved a compromise that effectively overrode Kissinger’s objections. The compromise provided that, if the Pike Committee agreed to White House conditions, it would immediately receive the information it sought, excepting categories such as intelligence sources and methods. The documents would be considered to be on loan to the HSC. If Congress wished to release (declassify) information and an agency objected, the administration would have a chance to make its case for secrecy and, if that were rejected, the president would make the final decision. White House and CIA officials deliberated over new rules for documents to be provided to the Pike Committee. If Pike rejected the compromise offer, Ford agreed to adopt a “maximum control” standfast position (Document 25).

The HSC, facing an approaching deadline to complete its inquiry, could hardly afford a lengthy controversy. Pike agreed to Ford’s formula. On September 29, the two met in the Oval Office along with the senior House leadership to consecrate the new arrangement. Secretary Kissinger opted out (the documents do not explain why Ford permitted him to do so) , and sought to keep State Department materials from HSC hands. The committee later issued a separate subpoena against him, resulting in an eventual agreement to allow State Department officials to create a substitute document containing the gist of the documents the HSC had requested.

Meanwhile, following the September compromise, the CIA had gained confidence in its ability to preserve secrecy. Director Colby’s agency adopted the device of “lending” its documents to the House Select Committee as a means of asserting that only the agency could “declassify,” or release the information. By October 3, the CIA had provided 80 documents requested. One remained pending. Some 188 lines had been blanked out. Another 100 items had come from the Defense Intelligence Agency. In the end, CIA secret documents, alone some 90,000 pages, filled 32 file cabinets in the HSC offices (Document 34).

The last act revolved around the Pike Committee’s actual report. It remains unclear when, exactly, President Ford got the idea of quashing the document by inducing the full House of Representatives to refuse to release it, but it was very possibly linked with the September compromise. Or it could have happened in connection with a very embarrassing development for Ford on November 20, when the HSC’s Senate counterpart, the Church Committee, refused to suppress its investigation of CIA assassination plotting, and released its conclusions to the public. That provided a discomfiting precedent for the Pike report, which the White House certainly wished to avoid. On the other hand, the HSC was continuing its foraging among secret records with fresh subpoenas issued in November, looking toward a January 31, 1976, deadline.

On January 15, Ford wrote Pike that he had determined that publication of the HSC Report would be detrimental to national security. When Pike persisted, Ford insisted on January 29 that outstanding disputes over classified information had to be submitted to the Executive for its determination. That forced Pike to seek an extension for printing the report, which the House Rules Committee granted only on the condition that the White House approve release of the report. Ford relied upon Pike’s September compromise to claim the committee’s report itself was a classified document and thus subject to White House approval. Pike failed to convince the House to overrule that condition and the president duly rejected release of the report.[vi] Suddenly, on February 16, 1976, large excerpts of the Pike Report appeared in the newspaper The Village Voice, to which it had leaked. Journalist Daniel Schorr was the acknowledged recipient of the leak. The text that appeared, in discussing the Ford administration’s practices in furnishing classified material, included the passage, “when legal proceedings were not in the offing, the access experience was frequently one of foot-dragging, stone-walling, and careful deception.”[vii]

When the House of Representatives created its Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on July 14, 1977, the struggle over the congressional power to declassify information was reflected in House Rule XLVIII, Section 7, which acknowledges the HPSCI’s power to “disclose publicly any information in [its] possession.” Specifically, the rule provided that the Select Committee may vote to release classified information. It would notify the president in cases where secrets had been furnished by the Executive. If there were no objections, after five days the information could be declassified. If there were, the president would be required to submit them “personally, in writing.” In that case the HPSCI could either take no action, leaving the information classified; or it could vote to send the dispute to the House floor with a recommendation for consideration. The full House of Representatives would then determine the outcome. The procedure specified an ability to consider such matters in secret session, set a maximum time for debate, and made an explicit promise that HPSCI would not reveal properly classified information except under this procedure.

The legacy of Otis Pike and his committee was thus not only to promote intelligence oversight in general, but also to establish an explicit mechanism for the House of Representatives to declassify secret documents. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has available to it a similar provision under Section 8 of Senate Resolution 400, which brought the committee itself into existence.[viii] These congressional rules were careful to delineate that the Executive’s ability to prevent congressional declassification of information was limited to documents which Executive agencies, such as the CIA, had provided to Congress. The White House has no power to limit the release of classified information originated in Congress itself. Except for the courtesy which Congress has chosen from time to time to extend the Executive in these matters, several presidents would have sustained deeper political wounds from congressional investigations.[ix]

The Other Side of General Flynn

During his time at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn had access to all kinds of covert operations and intelligence and tactics. After being fired by Barack Obama, it appears Flynn applied some of the schemes and plots in civilian life as he maneuvered his way into the Trump campaign orbit. There is much more to all this intrigue with regard to Turkey/Gulen/Flynn Intel Group LLC. Below are some key items.

Kidnapping

WASHINGTON/McClatchy

In part: Days after Donald Trump’s stunning election victory, Michael Flynn phoned former CIA Director James Woolsey about taking another stint as head of the spy agency in the new administration, but then added a condition, Woolsey said.

Image result for james woolsey Woolsey/NBC

Flynn said the CIA director “would be expected to report to him,” not the president, Woolsey told McClatchy in a phone interview. Woolsey, who led the CIA in the first two years of the Clinton administration, said he promptly rejected the offer because there are times that he would need to “call on the president face to face.”

Washington attorney Robert Kelner, who is defending Flynn in the face of FBI, Pentagon and congressional investigations into his ties to Russia and Turkey, said Woolsey’s account is “false.” Kelner did not elaborate.

McClatchy reported May 17 that in the final days of the Obama administration, and without divulging the identity of his Turkish client, Flynn took a step directly benefiting Turkey. He asked the Obama administration to hold off plans to arm Syrian Kurds, a plan to which Turkey objected, for an invasion of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the terrorist group ISIS, short for the Islamic State.

Flynn’s resignation stemmed from misleading comments about whether he discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia during phone conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016.

On that day, three weeks before Trump took office, President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and toughened other sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s government as punishment for a Kremlin cyber offensive aimed at interfering with last year’s U.S. elections and helping Trump win the Oval Office.

It’s not clear whether Trump okayed Flynn’s rerouting of the president’s longtime line of authority over the CIA, which provides daily intelligence updates on matters around the globe.

Flynn had listed Woolsey as a member of an advisory board to his company, Flynn Intel Group, but Woolsey said he never received any compensation and had no contract or official role. He did attend one meeting, in September, and said he left deeply troubled.

Woolsey said he arrived late to the meeting and found Flynn and some Turkish government officials brainstorming a plan to kidnap and fly to Turkey one of the country’s leading dissidents – Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara has accused of assisting in a failed military coup attempt last summer. Gulen is living in a heavily secured compound in Pennsylvania.

“They were working on the assumption that they could take Gulen,” said Woolsey, who told the Wall Street Journal in March that such a scheme would be illegal.

Woolsey said Flynn began the Nov. 14 phone call, which occurred a couple of days before Flynn was formally named national security adviser, by saying the Trump administration would be “restructuring the intelligence community” and asked if he would “be willing to be director of the CIA.” The full story here.

Image result for fetullah gulen Fetullah Gulen

Producing a Documentary

Unfinished documentary

In part Reuters: Mueller, who takes over leadership of an FBI investigation that began last July, can present evidence to grand juries and hear testimony from witnesses.

Trump fired Flynn in February after it became clear that he had falsely characterized the nature of phone conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December, just after the Obama administration imposed new sanctions on Russia for what U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded was a Kremlin-led effort through computer hacking, fake news and propaganda to boost Trump’s chances of winning the White House.

Flynn’s work for Inovo came under scrutiny after he published a commentary on a political news website on Election Day calling Gulen a “radical Islamist” who should be extradited to Turkey.

Along with the editorial, the Flynn Intel Group also produced a 75-page report on Gulen based mainly on news reports and some video footage for a documentary that was never made, according to three people familiar with the project.

Alptekin, who is chairman of the Turkey-U.S. Business Council, told Reuters he was satisfied with Flynn’s research because it had helped him understand how Gulen’s network operates in the United States.

He said the $530,000 payment to Flynn’s firm came “mostly” from his personal funds.

On Nov. 18, the day after Flynn was appointed Trump’s national security adviser, Trump transition team lawyer William McGinley raised concerns on a call with the Flynn Intel Group and others involved in the Inovo project over who had paid for Flynn’s commentary, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation.

Flynn did not participate in that call, they said.

At the time of the call, Flynn had not disclosed that his work for Alptekin meant he was being paid to represent Turkish interests during the election campaign. Flynn Intel Group had said in a September 2016 filing that it was lobbying for Inovo but did not disclose its Turkish links. In March, Flynn retroactively registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In a letter accompanying the March filing, Flynn’s lawyer, Kelner, said the disclosure was being made because Flynn’s work for Inovo “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey,” which he noted was seeking to extradite Gulen.

The House of Representatives intelligence committee, which is also investigating Russian interference in the election, subpoenaed records from Flynn on Wednesday. The Senate’s intelligence committee, which has a separate probe under way, has also served subpoenas on Flynn and two of his businesses, and earlier this week Flynn indicated that he would start turning over relevant materials.

Classified Information Sent to Clinton Foundation Employees

Hey FBI, can you fellas look at this again and have another presser to explain it?

Hey Hillary, how about that separate plane? Don’t you owe the taxpayers some money for demanding exclusive luxury because you did not want to share a plane with Michelle?

Image result for hillary on military plane NYDailyNews

Clinton and her top aide, Huma Abedin, discussed in a July 2011 exchange Clinton’s plans to attend the funeral of fellow former First Lady Betty Ford in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Looks like plane won’t be an issue,” Abedin wrote. “Also, looks like Michelle Obama also going.”

“Is it ok [sic] that we and Mrs. O take two separate planes?” Clinton asked.

“I think it’s ok [sic]. But let me see what kind of plane she’s taking,” Abedin responded.

“I would rather have our own of course,” Clinton added.

***

Emails also show Abedin providing government plane and hotel reservations to Chelsea Clinton for trip to Germany while employed at Clinton Foundation

Abedin tells Band that she has ‘hooked up’ people from the Russian American Foundation with ‘the right people’ at the State Department

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 2,078 pages of documents revealing more instances of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sending and receiving classified information via an unsecured email server. They also show Clinton’s daughter Chelsea and others involved with the Clinton Foundation receiving special favors from Huma Abedin, the former secretary’s deputy chief of staff.

The records were obtained in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015, lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to a March 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking: “All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-‘state.gov’ email address.”

The new documents included 115 Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to at least 432 emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department. These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.

On December 6, 2010, Secretary Clinton shared classified information with non-U.S. government employees Justin Cooper, then-aide to President Clinton who helped manage Hillary Clinton’s unsecure email system, and Clinton Foundation director Doug Band (neither of whom held security clearances). The email instructs her aide Oscar Flores to “print for Bill” (presumably Bill Clinton). The email exchange, which involved allegations of the theft of foreign aid by Bangladeshi banker and major Clinton Foundation donor Muhammad Yunus, started with an email from an unidentified person to State Department official Melanne Verveer, who forwarded her exchange on to Hillary Clinton, who then sent it on to Flores, Cooper and Band.

Image result for grameen bank hillary

Yunus was accused of embezzling $100 million from the Grameen Bank he founded and was removed from it, although the charges were never proven, and Yunus reportedly returned the money. Subsequently, Clinton’s State Department was accused of threatening IRS action against the Bangladesh prime minister’s son in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of Yunus.

In a similar instance on March 14, 2011, State Department official Maria Otero emailed Clinton information about the Grameen Bank/Foundation that was again deemed classified as Confidential by the State Department and redacted under FOIA exemption B1.4(D) – “Information specifically authorized by an executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy … Foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.” Clinton then responds to Otero using her HDR22@clintonemailcom account and copies Abedin on Abedin’s unsecure email account, [email protected].

In May 2010, Ben Ringel, whose donations to the Clinton Foundation Judicial Watch previously documented, asked Abedin to intervene in an employment dispute on behalf of a USAID employee. Abedin agreed, telling Ringel to forward the woman’s documents to her official State Department email account.

In a May 21, 2011, email exchange sent to Abedin’s unsecure account, then- Ambassador Princeton Lyman sent information relating to his conversation with South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit that is also redacted and classified as “Confidential.”

On July 17, 2012, Abedin forwarded to her private email account for printing a call briefing sheet for Clinton’s upcoming call with Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan, which was classified Confidential and redacted under FOIA exemption B1.4(D).

The new Abedin emails also reveal additional instances in which Clinton’s then- scheduler Lona Valmoro forwarded the former secretary of state’s detailed daily schedule to top Clinton Foundation officials.

The new emails also reveal a number of favors that were requested and carried out.

Image result for doug band Doug Band and Chelsea/DailyMailUK

In May 2010, Abedin tells Band that she has “hooked up” people from the Russian American Foundation with “the right people” at the State Department after Abedin received a request from Russian American Foundation Vice President Rina Kirshner, forwarded by Clinton Foundation donor Eddie Trump (no relation to President Trump).

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 9:41 PM, Huma Abedin <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Rina – wanted to connect on meeting at state department. Eddie trump passed on your email. Will be in touch soon

From: Rina Kirshner

Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 11:29 AM

To: Huma Abedin

Subject: Re: Eddie Trump/Doug Band

Ms. Abedin,

Just wanted to follow up and express our gratitude. I was contacted today by Ms. Christina Miner who invited us to be part of the US-Russia Cultural Sub-Working Group meeting next week. Thank you very much for all your assistance – if there is any way we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Rina Kirshner

From: Huma Abedin [[email protected]]

Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 12:19:12

To: Doug Band

Subject: FW: Eddie Trump/Doug Band

fyi – we hooked her up with the right people here

The Russia-American Foundation was staffed by Clinton political supporters and operatives, received over $260,000 in grants for “public diplomacy” from the Clinton State Department, and its leadership was supportive of Obama’s Russia policies.

In July 2011, when Chelsea Clinton, using the alias Diane Reynolds and the email address [email protected], was planning to fly to Germany to see the U.S. women’s soccer team play, her travel agent asked Abedin to confirm that Chelsea’s travel costs could be placed on her parents’ credit card. In response, Abedin tells the agent that she can “stand down” from making arrangements to get Chelsea to Germany, as Chelsea and Bari Luri, Chelsea’s Clinton Foundation chief of staff, would be made part of the “official delegation” going to the match and she would “fly on official govt plane both ways and they will take care of hotels and all transportation.” Chelsea was a fully employed Clinton Foundation executive at this time.

In July 2011, Clinton tells Abedin that she doesn’t wish to fly on the same airplane with Michelle Obama on their way to Betty Ford’s funeral: “I’d be honored to speak. Is it ok that we and Mrs. O take two separate planes?”

A December 15, 2012, email chain shows that a committee of Clinton staffers, including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines, was required to draft a “doctors statement” as to why Hillary supposedly fainted due to “dehydration,” causing her supposedly to hit her head and suffer a “concussion” in December 2012. The same committee then prepared a “discharge statement” when Hillary was released from the hospital.

“These shocking new Clinton emails show why the Justice Department should reevaluate, reopen, or reinvigorate Clinton, Inc. investigations,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The casual violation of laws concerning classified material and noxious influence peddling show the Clinton State Department was ‘corruption central’ in the Obama administration.  No wonder Clinton’s allies in the State and Justice Departments had been slow-walking and hiding these emails.”