U.S. Attorney Durham Seized 2 Interesting Blackberries

Posted on October 18, 2019October 18, 2019 by Denise Simon

AG Barr assigned John Durham to investigate the origins of the FBI’s counter-intelligence operation known as Crossfire Hurricane. Durham is working the globe on the investigation and two key people are Joseph Mifsud and Stephan Halper. There may be others that include Alexander Downer, Azra Turk, Seems that Peter Strzok issued two Blackberries to Joseph Mifsud. Durham has those two phones in his possession. You can bet that Durham is working the channels to see who else has FBI issued phones. The FBI loves those phones.

US News on Flipboard by The Epoch Times

Mr. Mifsud, a university professor and well-traveled lecturer, told George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, in London in April 2016 that Moscow owned thousands of Hillary Clinton emails. When the news reached the FBI in July, agent Peter Strzok initiated the probe.

Ms. Sidney Power is representing General Michael Flynn as she has added to the Mifsud intrigue with her motion before District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan asking him to order the government to turn over the BlackBerrys’ data. The filing lists the two phones’ model number, PIN and SIM card information. She filed a court motion on Monday disclosing the phones’ existence while tying them to Western intelligence.

She told the judge that on Oct. 11 she asked the prosecution for phone data. She was ignored until she sent notification days later that she planned to file the discovery motion.

The motion says: “Michael T. Flynn requests the government be ordered to produce evidence that has only recently come into its possession……… This information is material, exculpatory, and relevant to the defense of Mr. Flynn, and specifically to the “OCONUS LURES” and agents that western intelligence tasked against him likely as early as 2014 to arrange—unbeknownst to him—‘connections’ with certain Russians that they would then use against him in their false claims. The phones were used by Mr. Joseph Mifsud.”

“OCONUS LURES” is an FBI acronym for an operation to lure a person back to the U.S.

Ms. Powell has been filing motions demanding the government turn over exculpatory evidence. She wants to show it was withheld early on, violating Judge Sullivan’s order.

Reacting to the BlackBerry disclosure, Mr. Papadopoulos tweeted: “I lived this spy story. The government’s of the UK, Australia, Italy sent their agents: Mifsud, Downer, Halper, Azra Turk and many more. With the new info on Mifsud’s phones with the DOJ, my story was the one that exposed the greatest spying scandal in history. Downer is next!”

Alexander Downer was the Australian ambassador in London to whom Mr. Papadopoulos relayed the Mifsud gossip. Mr. Downer denies he was a spy. Stephan Halper and Azar Turk were FBI/western intelligence spies assigned to Mr. Papadopoulos in London.

Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec declined to comment on the Flynn motion.

When news broke that Mr. Durham was in Rome, she released a statement:

“As the Department of Justice has previously announced, a team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the origins of the U.S. counterintelligence probe of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries. At Attorney General Barr’s request, the President has contacted other countries to ask them to introduce the Attorney General and Mr. Durham to appropriate officials.” More here for full story and context.

*** One other detail from the Daily Beast due to AG Barr’s travels to Rome with John Durham was to listen to a taped deposition of Joseph Mifsud. Meanwhile:

The Italian intelligence community had Mifsud on its radar for some years before he got involved in the Trump campaign’s troubles. His affiliations with both the Link University of Rome and London Center of International Law Practice—both often affiliated with Western diplomacy and foreign intelligence agencies—made him an easy target. So did the slew of apartments he owned in Malta that are allegedly tied to a racket involving Russians buying Maltese passports for cheap.

Two New Items on Biden and Burisma

Posted on October 18, 2019October 18, 2019 by Denise Simon

Due to two recent testimonies, a few fascinating items have surfaced. Burisma was considered a money-laundering operation and in order to clean up the image of the company, they hired Hunter considering his last name would point to credibility and a boost in reputation.

George Kent, a top U.S. State Department official, told lawmakers Tuesday he warned the Obama administration that the Ukrainian company that employed then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son was corrupt.

Kent’s comments came during his deposition in the House Democrats’ impeachment probe.

Near the end of an article on his testimony, NBC News noted:

During his nearly 10 hours of testimony, Kent also told members of Congress and their staff that Burisma, the energy company where Hunter Biden was a board member, was corrupt, according to a separate person who was present in the room. Kent said he told the Obama administration in 2016 that they should not hold an event with Burisma because of the company’s extensive corruption in Ukraine. More here.

Then…

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent testified that he worried Ukrainian officials would use Hunter Biden’s position at the company, Burisma Holdings, as an opportunity to influence his father. Kent said he tried to convey his opinion to Joe Biden’s office, but that a staffer told him the vice president didn’t have the “bandwidth” to address the issue because his other son, Beau, was battling cancer.

This is the first known instance in which a career diplomat tried to raise concerns regarding Hunter Biden’s business holdings in Ukraine. Several of Joe Biden’s former advisers also reportedly had discussions about whether his son’s business dealings could be seen as a conflict of interest.

Then…

Hunter Biden worked for the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm that consulted for Burisma. Biden was in charge for the company’s legal affairs with international companies, according to a press release, but Biden has disputed that characterization. At the time, Burisma’s founder faced multiple investigations into alleged tax evasion and money laundering.

Hunter Biden later stepped down from the board in April 2019 when his term expired. More here.

Coming from NPR in part:

Burisma is registered in Cyprus and is invisible in Kyiv. Lucian Kim of NPR: That’s Alexander Paraschiy, the chief of research at the Ukrainian investment bank Concorde Capital. After the bloody revolution on Kyiv’s streets five years ago, Mykola Zlochevsky, like many other government officials, fled the country. Burisma was facing a money laundering investigation and questions over how it had obtained its licenses.

PARASCHIY: Hiring some reputable guys with recognition in the world is one of the easiest and maybe cheapest ways to protect your business in Ukraine.

KIM: Burisma appointed Hunter Biden, son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, to its board of directors. A former president of Poland also joined the board.

DARIA KALENIUK: I believe the only reason Burisma and Zlochevsky were inviting people with such names was to whitewash their reputation and to present themselves as the company which is doing legitimate business in Ukraine.

KIM: In other words, the appearance of a conflict of interest arose because Hunter Biden’s father, Joe Biden, was responsible for U.S. policy on Ukraine as vice president. But Joe Biden, like many other Western leaders, was criticizing Ukraine exactly because it failed to convict a single high-level official for corruption, including Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma.

As for Burisma, the company has continued to try burnishing its reputation. In 2017, it added another American to its board, Cofer Black, a former CIA official and a foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

KIM: But for a company with global ambitions, it’s hardly transparent. Burisma is registered in Cyprus, keeps a low profile in Kyiv and has ignored NPR’s repeated requests for comment. Nobody knows where its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, lives. But behind the scenes, he’s continuing to buy influence.

Burisma supports the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, and hosts an annual energy conference on the French Riviera attended by the prince of Monaco and former European and U.S. government officials. Hunter Biden, for one, no longer works at Burisma. He left the company earlier this year as his father was launching his presidential campaign. More details and context here.

Burisma was founded in 2002. Consolidation of Burisma Group took mainly place in 2006–2007. It became a major shareholder of Sunrise Energy Resources, a Delaware Corporation, which in 2004 acquired Ukrainian companies Esko-Pivnich and Pari, which owned natural gas exploration licenses.

What is really weird about Sunrise Energy, while being a registered Delaware corporation, the official address is 5353 Memorial Drive, Houston, Texas suite 4012. This is NOT an office building but rather a luxury high rise residential building. This is noted to be the address of the principal executive offices.

5353 Memorial Dr, Houston, TX 77007 photo

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, 570 7th Ave., New York is also listed as an address. Well this is a tall building that is also multi-use condos.

There will likely be more….stay tuned.

Abolishing Columbus Day is Based on Lies

Posted on October 14, 2019October 14, 2019 by Denise Simon

Roughly 10 states and 100+ U.S. cities observe some version of Indigenous Peoples Day this month.
• Native American advocates have been working since the early 1990s to get states to make the swap, the AP reports.
From today: Columbus statues in San Francisco and Providence, Rhode Island, were vandalized with red paint, CNN reports.
• “Vandals had chained a sign to the base of the statue that said ‘Stop Celebrating Genocide’ and spray painted the word ‘Genocide’ on the monument.”

***

You can be sure this all began within the education system where U.S. history was taught using Howard Zinn’s book titled A People’s History of the United States. This book was full of lies and distortions that educators and faculty including higher education administrators never bothered to validate any claim he made. Now we have legislators at the state level that have bought into the same falsehoods.

In part from the Federalist:

Zinn died in 2010, but his work continues on through the Zinn Education Project that in September collaborated with the Smithsonian in offering credit-bearing “teach-in” classes on abolishing Columbus Day for teachers. On October 8 they mailed out a newsletter that lauded two states, Maine and New Mexico, and cities, such as Columbus, Ohio, and Alexandria, Virginia, that in the past year replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. Also just joining the list are Washington, D.C. and Princeton, New Jersey.

The newsletter urged teachers to purchase and download their materials to lead students in lobbying their schools and cities to join the effort to “Abolish Columbus Day.”

“Celebrating Columbus means celebrating colonialism, celebrating racism, celebrating genocide,” the newsletter announced. Instead, “tribute” should be paid “to the people who were here first, who are still here, and who are leading the struggle for a sustainable planet.”

The political agenda is clear. Like Zinn himself, the project presents the American Indian as one amorphous mass embodying the stereotype of communistic pacifist feminists. It’s the “Usable Indian,” which at one time embodied the “savage,” but then in the 1960s the hippie. The Indian serves as proxy in the never-ending “struggle.”

Truth be told, as an explorer, Columbus made four trips, never reaching what is known as America or any part of the mainland. In 1492, Columbus reached the Bahamian islands, arriving in San Salvador.

Whose History Matters? Students Can Name Columbus, But ... photo

He sailed around the islands such as Hispaniola and Dominican Republic. He soon departed leaving behind a handful of crew members. Arriving back in Spain, he had very little to offer the Queen. In 1493, he sailed again reaching Hispaniola finding the settlement destroyed and ordered it rebuilt. He did gift the Queen about 500 slaves and she was horrified ordering them to be returned. In 1498, sailing again reaching Trinidad and the South American mainland. Here there was a bloody revolt and Spanish authorities sent a new governor to take over.

There was one more trip in 1502. This time he reached what is known as Panama. Due to major storms there was such damage to two of his four ships, two had to be abandoned. He returned once again to Spain, for the most part again empty handed and he died in 1506.

He kept a journal which he gifted to the Queen.

Christopher Columbus Diary Quotes. QuotesGram photo

In all of the travels and in the end, the result was in fact more open trade between Spain and Latin America in goods such as wheat, coffee, sugar, corn, tomatoes and potatoes.

Ever wonder if the part about successful trade entered any part of the studies of Columbus?

Two Formal Challenges to Pelosi’s Impeachment Inquiry Mission

Posted on October 3, 2019October 3, 2019 by Denise Simon

You read it here, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is creating an off ramp to the early launch of the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. In previous months, Gerald Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has been on a quest to impeach listing all kinds of reasons to do so. Nothing was really sticking as far as Pelosi was concerned. But then came this phone call President Trump had with Ukraine that gave us a whistleblower and before all the facts and the complaint was released, Pelosi lit the impeach inquiry candle. Turns out all along, she knew about the call details and the whistleblower all due to Congressman Adam Schiff office secret work with authoring the whistleblower complaint in the first place. Deep state is getting deeper….
Meanwhile…..

Image result for congressman kevin mccarthy
Enter House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. He sent a letter to Pelosi challenging telling her to halt the whole inquiry thing because she is clearly not following rules, procedures and protocol. (I think she is doing that on purpose, read ‘off ramp)
In the McCarthy letter to Pelosi he demands answers to the following questions, which prove so far that Pelosi is not following procedures.

Those questions were as follows:

Do you intend to hold a vote of the full House authorizing our impeachment inquiry?
Do you intend to involve the full House in each critical step of this inquiry, including defining its scope and establishing its rules and procedures?
Do you intend to grant co-equal subpoena power to both the Chair and Ranking Member at the committee level?
Do you intend to require that all subpoenas be subject to a vote of the full committee at the request of either the Chair or Ranking Member?
Do you intend to provide the President’s counsel the right to attend all hearings and depositions?
Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to present evidence?
Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to object to the admittance of evidence?
Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to cross-examine witnesses?
Do you intend to provide the president’s counsel the right to recommend a witness list?
Do you intend to refer all findings on impeachment to Chairman Nadler and the Judiciary Committee, as prescribed by Rule X of the Rules of the House, or is Chairman Schiff in charge of leading the inquiry as reported in the press?

“By answering ‘no’ to any of the above, you would be acting in direct contradiction to all modern impeachment inquiries of a sitting president,” McCarthy wrote.

Okay, hold on because here comes Congressman Doug Collins.

Collins is the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, is telling a federal judge that the Democrats’ impeachment investigation has no legal basis per his amicus brief.

The amicus brief: doug.collins.amicus

(in part)

That part of the text of the amicus brief echos that of Minority Leader’s letter to Pelosi.

All the while, the whole Ukraine phone call thing the House Democrats are using to pull the trigger on impeachment inquiries is also falling apart. The whole Biden scandal continues to fester.

Stay tuned…

SF: Spy, Leave the Room Key at the Front Desk

Posted on September 30, 2019September 30, 2019 by Denise Simon

This is a movie thing for sure not only that happened in San Francisco but went to Columbus, Georgia. China is operating with hired spies in the United States and Beijing is overtly stealing and buying from the United States.

Northern California Resident Charged with Acting as an Illegal Agent

American Citizen Arrested for Acting as an Illegal Foreign Agent of the People’s Republic of China

The Department of Justice unsealed charges today in a criminal complaint charging Xuehua Peng, also known as Edward Peng, 56, for acting as an illegal foreign agent in delivering classified United States national security information to officials of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS).

“According to the allegations, Peng conducted numerous dead drops here in the United States on behalf of Chinese intelligence officers and delivered classified information to them in China. His arrest exposes and disrupts an operation by those Chinese intelligence officers to collect such information without having to step foot in this country,” said Assistant Attorney General of National Security John C. Demers. “Coming on top of our many recent Chinese espionage cases—involving both national defense and intellectual property information—this case illustrates the seriousness of Chinese espionage efforts and the determination of the United States to thwart them.”

“The conduct charged in this case alleges a combination of age-old spycraft and modern technology,” said U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson for the Northern District of California. “Defendant Xuehua (Edward) Peng is charged with executing dead drops, delivering payments, and personally carrying to Beijing, China, secure digital cards containing classified information related to the national security of the United States.” U.S. Attorney Anderson further stated, “The charges announced today provide a rare glimpse into the secret efforts of the People’s Republic of China to obtain classified national security information from the United States and the battle being waged by our intelligence and law-enforcement communities to protect our people, our ideas, and our national defense.”

“The FBI, along with our partners, will aggressively pursue foreign agents operating illegally in the United States attempting to steal our country’s most sensitive information.” said Assistant Director John Brown of the Counterintelligence Division. “This case should serve as a warning to the government of China as well as any other foreign adversary looking to replicate this activity. The FBI, and our intelligence and law enforcement partners, will not waiver. We will bring all of our resources to bear to defeat hostile foreign intelligence services and protect our nation’s security. I would like to thank FBI counterintelligence personnel throughout the country who tirelessly worked this investigation over the course of many years, particularly those personnel in our Counterintelligence and San Francisco Divisions.”

“Putting an end to Mr. Peng’s alleged actions are an important and significant step in dismantling the PRC’s overall efforts against our country,” said Special Agent in Charge Bennett of the FBI San Francisco Division. “Our message is clear: the FBI, along with our intelligence community partners, will pursue foreign adversaries -at any level of an operation- and disrupt their malicious activity when it is detected.”

According to the complaint filed Sept. 24, 2019, and unsealed this morning, Peng, 56, a U.S. citizen living in Hayward, California, acted at the direction and under the control of MSS officials in China in retrieving classified information passed to him by a confidential human source (the source), leaving money behind for the source, or both. His activities included one dry run and at least five successful “dead drops” between October 2015 and July 2018. The dead drops occurred in the Bay Area and in Columbus, Georgia.

The table below summarizes the allegations in the complaint about each successful dead drop, including the date of the dead drop, the location of the dead drop, what Peng left in the hotel room, and what Peng retrieved from the hotel:

Date

Location

Peng Left in the Hotel

Peng Retrieved from the Hotel

6/23/2015 Newark, CA n/a Empty package (dry run)

10/24/2015 Newark, CA n/a SD card

4/23/2016 Oakland, CA $20,000 SD card

7/1/2017 Columbus, GA $20,000 n/a

9/9/2017 Columbus, GA $10,000 SD card

6/30/2018 Columbus, GA $20,000 SD card

In the June 23, 2015, “dry run,” no information or money was exchanged. Instead, an empty package was left by the source for Peng at the front desk of a hotel, and Peng later retrieved it. In the first successful dead drop, Peng retrieved a package containing an SD card from the front desk of a hotel. In each of the other four successful dead drops, Peng booked hotel rooms and left a room key to be picked up by the source. Peng then left envelopes of cash in the room, retrieved a secure digital card left there by the source, or both.

In each instance in which he retrieved an SD card from the hotel room, Peng then traveled to Beijing, China, shortly thereafter. The complaint further alleges that Peng was told by an MSS handler, in coded language, where and when to conduct the dead drops, how much money to leave in exchange for the SD cards, and when to return to China to deliver them. As alleged in the Complaint, the FBI secretly filmed Peng conducting some of the dead drops, and intercepted Peng’s telephone conversations with his MSS handlers in China.

On Friday, Sept. 27, 2019, Peng was arrested at his residence in Hayward and made his initial appearance in federal court in San Francisco before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero. Magistrate Judge Spero ordered Peng held without bond pending further proceedings. Peng’s next hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 2, 2019, at 10:30 am before the Honorable Jacqueline Corley, 450 Golden Gate Ave., 15th Floor, for a detention hearing and identification of counsel.

A complaint merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If convicted, Peng faces a maximum sentence of 10 years, and a fine of $250,000 for acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the United States Attorney General in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 951. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

This case is being prosecuted by the Special Prosecutions Section of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the Department of Justice, National Security Division. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI.