Category Archives: FBI

Brace for More Political Plotting Impact

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The question now is will Speaker Pelosi approve yet another impeachment inquiry operation against President Trump now that the president has been acquitted in the Senate trial on both articles of impeachment.

Listening to Congressmen Schiff and Nadler, they tell us that investigations will continue placing emphasis on future testimonies of former White House Counsel Don McGhan, former White House National Security Council advisor John Bolton and the court decision on the matter of full release of Trump’s tax returns. Further, BuzzFeed, CNN and the House have issued subpoenas for documents held sequestered by the Mueller investigation team.

In short, there is more going on with regard to the resistance movement against President Trump.

Are there counter-measures to possibly stop this constant political adventure? The short answer is yes.

There are many ramps that can be taken if not all. Senator Lindsey Graham pledged continued investigation into all things Biden. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani is at work on all things Biden, Ukraine and operatives in Washington DC. There are also a few key Senators, namely Grassley and Johnson that are requesting documents from the National Archives, travel documents, electronic communications and other evidence as they relate to the meeting(s) in the Obama White House that hatched the operation on protecting several within his administration relating to Ukraine, Biden and other DNC personnel and diplomats.

Rand Paul Puts Up Billboard On Floor Of Senate With Eric ...

Indeed there are other real key items underway including Senator Rand Paul pursuing Eric Ciaramella. It appears he is not going to let up and rightly so.

There is the case involving former FBI officials, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Then we cannot overlook the most awaited case that U.S. Attorney John Durham has in his sphere, investigating all things related to Crossfire Hurricane, the dossier, the DNC, Hillary Clinton, Perkin Coie, Marc Elias and foreign interference.

We may soon know more as to the roles Victoria Nuland, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, James Comey, Loretta Lynch had during this almost forgotten nightmare.

Prosecutor Who Unraveled Corruption in Boston Turns to C.I ... source

Without any real media notice due to impeachment operations is that John Durham brought on a new well respected criminal attorney, Sarah Karwan. Her specialty is financial fraud, money laundering, public corruption and national security/cyber crime. The status is unclear at this point in the investigation relating to Kevin Clinesmith, the former FBI lawyer that altered a document used in the FISA warrant applications on Carter Page. A great deal of evidence was brought forth in the Horowitz Inspector General report and it is noted that IG Horowitz is collaborating with the Durham team and the Senate team led by Lindsey Graham. We cannot forget several others under scrutiny including Stephan Halper, John Brennan and James Clapper. Where is Joseph Mifsud? Only John Durham knows as there is testimony from Mifsud or about him acquired by Durham during Durham’s travels to Italy.

Who really needs to brace for impact? Nancy, Adam, Gerry, Barack, Joe……

al Qaeda Leader to be Extradited From Arizona to Iraq

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He ran an Arizona driving school and was described by friends and acquaintances in Phoenix as an outgoing, friendly member of the city’s Iraqi community and had been in the U.S. for more than a decade and had recently married and had a child. He arrived in the U.S. in January 2008 as a refugee from Iraq.

Ahmed and other members of al Qaeda shot and killed a lieutenant and an officer with the Fallujah Police Directorate in 2006, according to the Department of Justice. A warrant was issued for his arrest on Wednesday.

Jabir Algarawi, a board member of the Phoenix refugee assistance organization Refugees and Immigrants Community for Empowerment, said he met Ahmed in 2010 and knew him well.

Al-Qaeda Leader Wanted by Iraq for Murder Arrested in Arizona - C-VINE Network Ali Ahmed's arrest as suspected al-Qaida terrorist stuns Phoenix friends

PHOENIX – On January 31, 2020, a Phoenix-area resident, who is alleged to have been the leader of a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, appeared today before a federal magistrate judge in Phoenix, Arizona in connection with proceedings to extradite him to the Republic of Iraq. He is wanted to stand trial in Iraq for two charges of premeditated murder committed in 2006 in Al-Fallujah.

The arrest was announced by Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Michael Bailey for the District of Arizona.

An Iraqi judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, 42, on murder charges. The Government of Iraq subsequently requested Ahmed’s extradition from the United States. In accordance with its treaty obligations to Iraq, the United States filed a complaint in Phoenix seeking a warrant for Ahmed’s arrest based on the extradition request. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Z. Boyle issued the warrant on January 29, 2020, and Ahmed was arrested the following day.

According to the information provided by the Government of Iraq in support of its extradition request, Ahmed served as the leader of a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, which planned operations targeting Iraqi police. Ahmed and other members of the Al-Qaeda group allegedly shot and killed a first lieutenant in the Fallujah Police Directorate and a police officer in the Fallujah Police Directorate, on or about June 1, 2006, and October 3, 2006, respectively.

The details contained in the complaint are allegations and have not yet been proven in court. If Ahmed’s extradition is certified by the court, the decision of whether to surrender him to Iraq will be made by the U.S. Secretary of State.

Ahmed’s arrest was executed by the FBI Phoenix Field Office, HSI Phoenix Field Office and the U.S. Marshals Service. The extradition case will be handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona and the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs.

The Hack of the UN was a Secret

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A secret espionage hack actually. 40 servers; 400GB of data; administrator accounts; out of date cyber protections systems

Building A and Flags, The United Nations Office at Geneva ...  UN/Geneva

Leaked report shows United Nations suffered hack UN/Vienna

GENEVA (AP) — Sophisticated hackers infiltrated U.N. networks in Geneva and Vienna last year in an apparent espionage operation that top officials at the world body kept largely quiet. The hackers’ identity and the extent of the data they obtained are not known.

An internal confidential document from the United Nations, leaked to The New Humanitarian and seen by The Associated Press, says dozens of servers were compromised including at the U.N. human rights office, which collects sensitive data and has often been a lightning rod of criticism from autocratic governments for exposing rights abuses.

Everything indicates knowledge of the breach was closely held, a strategy that information security experts consider misguided because it only multiplies the risks of further data hemorrhaging.

“Staff at large, including me, were not informed,” said Geneva-based Ian Richards, president of the Staff Council at the United Nations. “All we received was an email (on Sept. 26) informing us about infrastructure maintenance work.” The council advocates for the welfare of employees of the world body.

Asked about the intrusion, one U.N. official told the AP it appeared “sophisticated” with the extent of damage unclear, especially in terms of personal, secret or compromising information that may have been stolen. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to speak freely about the episode, said systems have since been reinforced.

Given the high skill level, it is possible a state-backed actor was behind it, the official said. “It’s as if someone were walking in the sand, and swept up their tracks with a broom afterward,” the official added. “There’s not even a trace of a clean-up.”

The leaked Sept. 20 report says logs that would have betrayed the hackers’ activities inside the U.N. networks — what was accessed and what may have been siphoned out — were “cleared.” It also shows that among accounts known to have been accessed were those of domain administrators — who by default have master access to all user accounts in their purview.

“Sadly … still counting our casualties,” the report says.

Jake Williams, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Rendition Infosec and a former U.S. government hacker, said the fact that the hackers cleared the network logs indicates they were not top flight. The most skilled hackers — including U.S., Russian and Chinese agents — can cover their tracks by editing those logs instead of clearing them.

“The intrusion definitely looks like espionage,” said Williams, noting that the active directory component — where all users’ permissions are managed — from three different domains were compromised: those of United Nations offices in Geneva and Vienna and of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“This, coupled with the relatively small number of infected machines, is highly suggestive of espionage,” he said after viewing the report. “The attackers have a goal in mind and are deploying malware to machines that they believe serve some purpose for them.”

The U.N. is known to have been trying to patch its myriad IT systems for years, and Williams said any number of intelligence agencies from around the globe are likely interested in infiltrating it.

The hack was not severe at the U.N. human rights office, said its spokesman, Rupert Colville. “We face daily attempts to get into our computer systems,” he said. “This time, they managed, but it did not get very far. Nothing confidential was compromised.”

Clearly concerned that word of the hack could have a chilling effect on people reporting human rights violations to it, the office said in a statement issued later that it wanted to “assure all concerned parties” no sensitive information was compromised.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said earlier Wednesday that attack was “serious,” compromised “core infrastructure components” and was contained. T he earliest activity appeared to have come in July and was detected in August, he said in response to emailed questions. He said the world body does not have enough information to determine the author but added that “the methods and tools used in the attack indicate a high level of resource, capability and determination.”

Dujarric noted that the U.N. “detects and responds to multiple attacks of various level of sophistication on a daily basis.”

Peter Micek, general counsel of the digital civil liberties nonprofit AccessNow, said U.N. leadership made a “terrible decision” from an information-security standpoint by denying staff information about the breach.

“It’s best practice to alert people, let them know what they should look out for (including phishing attacks and social engineering) and inform them of what steps are being taken on their behalf,” he said.

Otherwise, you are compounding the threat, and a missed opportunity for a teaching moment becomes an example of “intransigence and obfuscation, which is unfortunate,” said Micek, who works with U.N. human rights workers to shore up their cyber-defenses.

The internal document from the U.N. Office of Information and Technology said 42 servers were “compromised” and another 25 were deemed “suspicious,” nearly all at the sprawling Geneva and Vienna offices. Three of the “compromised” servers belonged to Human Rights agency, which is located across town from the main U.N. office in Geneva, and two were used by the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe.

The report says a flaw in Microsoft’s SharePoint software was exploited by the hackers to infiltrate the networks but that the type of malware used was not known, nor had technicians identified the command and control servers on the internet used to exfiltrate information. Nor was it known what mechanism was used by the hackers to maintain their presence on the infiltrated networks.

Security researcher Matt Suiche, the Dubai-based founder of the cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies, reviewed the report and said it appeared entry was gained through an anti-corruption tracker at the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime.

The report mentions a range of IP addresses in Romania that may have been used to stage the infiltration, and Williams said one is reported to have some neighbors with a history of hosting malware.

Technicians at the United Nations office in Geneva, the world body’s European hub, on at least two occasions worked through weekends in recent months to isolate the local U.N. data center from the i nternet, re-write passwords and ensure the systems were clean. Twenty machines had to be rebuilt, the report says.

The hack comes amid rising concerns about cyber espionage.

Last week, U.N. human rights experts asked the U.S. government to investigate a suspected Saudi hack that may have siphoned data from the personal smartphone of Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and owner of The Washington Post, in 2018. On Tuesday, the online civil rights sleuths at Citizen Lab published a report on the attempted hack of the T he New York Times’s bureau chief in Beirut, Ben Hubbard, about the same time by a Saudi-linked group.

The U.N. human rights office is particularly sensitive, and could be a tempting target. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and her predecessors have denounced alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and in places as d iverse as Syria, Venezuela, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia.

Richards, of the U.N. Staff Council, complained of uncertainty over the safety of U.N. networks. “There’s a lot of our data that could have been hacked, and we don’t know what that data could be,” he said.

“How much should U.N. staff trust the information infrastructure the U.N. is providing them?” Richards asked. “Or should they start putting their information elsewhere?”

So, Who Stole John Solomon’s Laptop?

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The reader is invited to apply some strategic thinking on this one. Those journalists doing exceptional investigative work seem to have some very odd things happen to them including Sharyl Attkisson. Remember her and her work with Fast and Furious and Benghazi and how her home computer was attacked?

Okay, so read on but perhaps Solomon should have been more security conscious. It was found later, in just enough time for the thief to copy the full hard-drive.

On the night before the Senate impeachment trial began, someone broke into veteran Washington investigative journalist John Solomon’s car, which was parked near the White House, and stole his laptop, according to a D.C. Metropolitan Police Department report obtained by RealClearInvestigations.

John Solomon: DOJ watchdog's FISA report will have '6 to ...

The computer contained notes on Ukraine and former Vice President Joe Biden and other sensitive information, Solomon said in an interview. He said he was preparing to launch a new podcast and news site at the time.

Though the laptop has since been recovered, the investigation is still open. “The case has been assigned a detective and is under investigation,” MPD spokesman Sean Hickman told RCI.

The Secret Service is also involved in the matter, which appears suspicious. Break-ins are relatively rare in the high-security area where the crime occurred, just outside the White House perimeter, and a sophisticated device appears to have been used to get into the vehicle.

In the early evening of Jan. 20, the police report states, Solomon’s Apple MacBook laptop and computer bag, valued at around $1,800, were stolen from his 2019 Toyota SUV parked at 1776 F St. NW, across from the White House’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building. No windows were broken, and there were no other signs of forced entry. Authorities suspect the thief or thieves used an electronic jamming device to open the car door lock.

Solomon said that, other than the bag, nothing else was stolen from his car, including cash he used for the Metro.

The computer and bag, which also contained his U.S. Capitol press security badge, were discovered the next day nearly a block away from where his car had been parked. The contents of the bag had been dumped out on a picnic bench near the FDIC building. The location had no security cameras, so there is no known video surveillance footage that can be reviewed. Authorities described it as one of the few “dark spots” in the area.

Solomon, who noted that an iPod was missing from his bag, says he is working with computer forensics experts to determine if any of his laptop information was exploited or if his hard drive was scanned within the period the laptop went missing.

“It’s a pretty professional job,” he said of the break-in, “but it’s probably just a coincidence.”

“It was probably just a street criminal searching for pass codes,” he added. “Or it could be someone searching for my Ukraine stuff. We don’t know at this point.”

An award-winning investigative reporter, Solomon has been a political target in recent months.

In December, House impeachment manager Adam Schiff released a report that published Solomon’s phone records. The Democratic leader cited Solomon no fewer than 35 times in his impeachment report. He added Solomon’s phone call history in a spreadsheet he compiled in the footnotes section of the report, which claimed Solomon reported “conspiracy theories” in The Hill newspaper to help President Trump “push false narratives” about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton, as well as Biden’s attempts as vice president beginning late 2015 to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating a gas industry oligarch whose company paid his son millions of dollars.

Solomon, who previously worked for the Associated Press and Washington Post, suspects Schiff was singling him out as part of a political smear campaign.

Earlier From Paul Sperry’s Notebook: “Whistleblower” Censorship at Facebook and in Senate

“I’m the only [reporter] who ends up having his records released,” Solomon said in a recent interview with Fox Business News anchor Lou Dobbs.

“It makes me wonder whether it’s a political payback, because a few months ago, I wrote a story exposing the fact that Chairman Schiff had met with Glenn Simpson at the sidelines of the Aspen Institute at a time when he shouldn’t have been having contact with Glenn Simpson,” he added. “It feels like a political payback.”

Congress had been investigating Simpson, whose opposition research firm Fusion GPS was hired by the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Trump in 2016. Simpson hired former British intelligence officer and FBI informant Christopher Steele to compile the discredited Trump-Russia “dossier” the Obama administration used to spy on a Trump campaign adviser. Some of the spy warrants were declared invalid because the government made “material misstatements” in obtaining them, according to a new court order.

In early 2019, moreover, Solomon reportedly was put on a list of U.S. journalists whom then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch sought to have “monitored.”

An Obama holdover, Yovanovitch was ousted as ambassador last May after Solomon reported that she tried to block investigations into Ukrainian meddling and corruption tied to the previous administration. She subsequently testified before Schiff’s impeachment committee. On Friday it was reported that she had retired from the State Department.

 

Chinese National Arrested for Smuggling US Microchips

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US federal agents arrested a Chinese citizen attempting to obtain hundreds of radiation-hardened microchips typically used in satellites and ballistic missile systems as he tried to leave the United States last year, according to court documents obtained by Quartz.

The bust, which had not been reported in the media until now, was the culmination of an elaborate international sting that stretched from China to Arizona, and included an undercover operation in Bangkok.

The made-to-order chip is manufactured and sold in the United States by Cobham, a multinational defense contractor headquartered in Britain. They cost $2,500 each, and the company only makes about 1,000 of them a year. They are made to withstand extreme temperatures, severe vibrations, and radiation exposure. Known as “rad-hard chips,” they require a license from the Department of Commerce to export, and sending the chips to China—as well as a small handful of other countries, including Russia—is banned outright. A commercial version of the same chip, with the same memory capacity but without the ability to survive in the harsh conditions of outer space, goes for about $60.

A 2011 attempt by the Chinese to obtain an earlier version of the same chip was also foiled by the Department of Homeland Security. But more than 100 of the 312 chips purchased by the suspect in that case remain missing.

In this latest case, authorities say Jian Fun Tso, who goes by Steven, emailed Cobham in January 2018 to ask about purchasing the microchips for a group of unidentified customers. He said the buyers intended to use the chips in a radar-assisted parking device for cars. Tso called the sales potential “huge.” According to prosecutors, Tso’s clients were based in China.

A Cobham representative told Tso that, although his managers would certainly love “huge” numbers, the chips he was inquiring about—aside from being illegal to ship to China—cost far more than anyone creating such a product would ever need to spend.

Nicholas Eftimiades, a veteran intelligence officer who held positions with the CIA, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and the Defense Intelligence Agency during his 34-year career, said the technology in radiation-hardened microchips is “very, very closely guarded.” He said Tso’s explanation of how his clients would use them was nothing short of “ridiculous.”

“That chip could only be used by a certain number of state institutions in China, all leading to the People’s Liberation Army,” Eftimiades told Quartz. “They’re trying to steal it in a covert manner, the likelihood is a military space program or missile program.” Court documents quote a Cobham official saying there was “absolutely no rational reason” for anyone to use the chip in an automotive application.

China, which maintains the most extensive intelligence apparatus in the world, has increased the size and scope of its efforts in recent years. Beijing’s attempts to acquire sensitive American technology target not just the US government and the defense industry, but major universities and research scientists as well.

Chinese hackers have already compromised dozens of critical US weapons systems. In 2018, Chinese hackers stole top-secret plans for a supersonic anti-ship missile the Navy was developing. Last fall, two Chinese diplomats living in the United States—one of whom authorities believe was in fact an undercover intelligence officer—were expelled from the country after attempting to get onto a secure Virginia military base. Authorities recently charged a Chinese-born tour guide in San Francisco with passing US secrets to China’s Ministry of State Security. And last month, two different Chinese nationals were caught surveilling the same Florida military base twice in two weeks.

“The Chinese have been eating our lunch since the eighties,” former CIA officer Robert Baer told Quartz. “Nearly every single scientific and technological breakthrough they’ve made is thanks to what they’ve ripped off from us. And it’s only getting worse. Chinese theft of our technology is up there with our worst national security threats.”

Tso tries again

According to court filings, Cobham—which in 2018 alone received eight requests from Chinese entities for the valuable microchips—reported Tso’s call to US counterintelligence.

Unable to get the chips from Cobham, Tso tried a US electronics distributor that acts as a reseller. This time, Tso left out the part about China being the chips’ ultimate destination.

The distributor emailed Tso a blank end user agreement to fill out. Tso returned it, listing the end user as an electrical engineer named “John Anderson” from Metech ICT, an automotive electronics company based in Liverpool, England. Like Cobham, the distributor found his request suspicious and referred him to an undercover agent with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).

Tso soon made contact with the undercover agent, who was stationed in Phoenix, Arizona. He sent the agent, who claimed to work for the distribution company, a purchase order for the chips. DCIS checked the information Tso provided for Metech ICT against the UK corporate registration database. No one named John Anderson worked there. The address Tso provided was for a restaurant he ran in Liverpool.

The undercover agent agreed to sell 200 chips to Tso, who said he planned to pick them up in the United States and personally take them back to the UK. Tso said he would wire the undercover agent 50% of the payment up front, and the remainder upon delivery, transferring his own money from Hong Kong to the UK and then on to the United States, claiming the nonexistent John Anderson would reimburse him later.

***

In what Eftimiades describes as a “whole of society approach,” the Chinese security services deploy overseas agents who range from trained intelligence officers to rank amateurs who engage in comically bad spycraft. Non-professional “freelance” operatives like Tso tend to do it for the money, and often become involved through personal networks.

It’s all part of a worldwide program to steal information that will increase Chinese power economically and politically, former CIA officer Joseph Wippl told Quartz. “It is not limited to the United States, although we are the priority No. 1 target,” he said.

To Bangkok and back

In November 2018, some 10 months after Tso’s original email to Cobham, the undercover agent met him at the Bangkok Intercontinental Hotel to finalize the deal.

Tso, who brought his wife to the rendezvous, asked the agent to provide him with a set of false invoices reflecting a total price of $10,000 for the $550,000 worth of chips, saying it would help him avoid any potential problems with customs if he were stopped.

That’s when Tso admitted the chips were ultimately destined for China. Tso also confided to the undercover agent that the money he sent from the UK had in fact originated in Hong Kong and China, and that Metech ICT was a front company he had set up.

As long as they were “both protected,” the agent told Tso this was fine. Tso called a female contact he referred to as “Big Sister,” who told the undercover agent she planned to meet Tso in the UK and hand-carry the chips from there to Hong Kong. “Other individuals” would transport the chips from Hong Kong to China, Big Sister said.

The following month, Tso wired a payment of $275,000 to the undercover agent’s bank account, which was $10,000 more than the actual balance due. Tso, who had given his customers a purposely inflated price, was planning to keep the extra money for himself and asked to be reimbursed when he arrived in Phoenix to pick up the chips.

***

On January 14, 2019, Tso flew from Liverpool to Philadelphia, where he boarded a connection to Phoenix. A day later, he met with the undercover agent, who gave Tso $10,000 in cash and a box he said contained the 200 radiation-hardened chips they had discussed. The agent reminded Tso that it would be illegal to bring the chips from the UK to China, to which Tso responded that he “hoped” the chips would stay in the UK but that “the less he knew about the ultimate end user, the better.”

The next day the undercover agent drove Tso to Phoenix’ Sky Harbor airport. He was intercepted by US Customs and Border Protection as he attempted to board his flight.

Tso pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges a year later, just before his trial was set to begin. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 13, and faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Tso’s lawyer, Seth Apfel, declined to comment, as did the federal prosecutors handling the proceedings.

John Sipher, who spent 28 years in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service before retiring in 2014, told Quartz that the Tso case “mirrors dozens of other cases and is likely the tip of the iceberg.”

This time, Tso’s unlikely story for how the chips would be used gave away his intentions before it was too late, said Eftimiades. “When someone’s putting $200,000 out, not asking for financing, and they don’t know the [real] use of the chip, it becomes apparent very quickly that this is a lie.”