Category Archives: Media corruption

FISA, Horowitz v. FBI

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The second hearing in the Senate where Inspector General Horowitz delivered more testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was quite chilling and revealing.
There was a particular exchange between Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Horowitz that explains the bias or perhaps even the plotting.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was blunt in trying to get to the bottom of what happened during Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.

“Were they just all incompetent?” he asked. Hawley then noted that due to the complexities involved, “it doesn’t sound like they’re very stupid to me.”

Hawley ultimately asked why the members of the FBI would commit such failures to mislead a court multiple times.

“That was precisely the concern we had,” Horowitz said. The inspector general made clear that he did not reach any conclusions regarding intent, but he did not necessarily accept the reasons people gave him during his investigation.

“There are so many errors, we couldn’t reach a conclusion or make a determination on what motivated those failures other than we did not credit what we lay out here were the explanations we got,” Horowitz said.

This echoed what Horowitz said in his opening statement, where he made clear that “although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or the missing information and the failures that occurred.”

Horowitz previously appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the aftermath of his report on the subject, but Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate homeland security panel comes a day after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) sharply criticized the FBI in a rare public order that referenced his findings.

Horowitz said that both Justice Department attorneys and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “should have been given complete and accurate information,” adding, “that did not occur and as a result, the surveillance of Carter Page continued even as the FBI gathered evidence and information that weakened the assessment of probable cause and made the FISA applications less accurate.”

So, the Democrats along with the media prepackaged the headlines prior to the Horowitz testimony that the IG report found NO bias. We are now getting more concise and factual information that says otherwise. Seems those on the top floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building opened some old history books on the former Director of the FBI and used several of Hoover’s tactics for all things Crossfire Hurricane and the 4 FISA warrants.

 

Image result for fisa courtThe IG report is teeming with deceit and clandestine maneuvers at the hands of the SSA’s (Special Agents) on the top floor and not those of 7 levels down from the Director level as Comey and McCabe have declared.

The first FISA application: “contained seven significant inaccuracies and omissions.”. None of these were corrected with an addendum or with the 3 renewals.  Contrary to Comey’s constant testimony, the dossier played the largest role in the warrant application and the FBI knew that Carter Page worked as an agent for the CIA to collect and share information on his Russian interactions, yet that was stripped out of the hundreds of pages in the warrant applications. By the way, both the FBI and the CIA as a matter of practice use civilian informants and even top leaders of global corporations to gather intelligence during foreign travels and interactions.

Now, where is the outrage of the pesky now very loyal and dedicated pro-Constitutional Democrats and where is the media on all this? In fact, with the top judge, Rosemary Collyer at the FISA court issuing a demand letter after the IG report and testimony to the FBI, what will the all the clean up measures include and will there be legal consequences for those who lied, cheated and deceived the court? Beware, much of our media, TV and print operates with wild abandon by applying propaganda….the Kremlin would be proud.

GOP War Room v. Pelosi’s Impeachment?

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Do the Republicans in both Houses of Congress need to collaborate with the Department of Justice to create a war room to counter the Democrat’s impeachment operation? Yes, and there are several legal and factual avenues to explore. But one in particular is already in play. In fact, it has been in play since at least 2016, long before Former Vice President Joe Biden announced his candidacy for President of the United States.

The Democrats for months have been not only alleging President Trump for inviting a foreign power into our 2020 election process by asking a favor of the Ukraine President. They additionally charge President Trump for publicly asking China for the same thing. Remember, President Trump said in the phone call: can you do US a favor, OUR COUNTRY has been through a lot. That is not a personal favor for President Trump but rather a service to our nation as a whole. Given the decades of rampant corruption in Ukraine and frankly in our own country, you would think the Democrats would want the same favor right when it comes to money-laundering and interference into our election(s).

So, let us go back to that one avenue already in play since 2016 and that is Rosemont Seneca and Bohai Capital.

For example, one of the companies involved in the Henniges transaction was a billion dollar private investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). BHR was formed in November of 2013 by a merger between the Chinese-government linked firm, Bohai Capital, and a company named Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont Seneca was reportedly formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.3The direct involvement of Mr. Hunter Biden and Mr. Heinz in the acquisition of Henniges by the Chinese government creates a potential conflict of interest. Both are directly related to high-ranking Obama administration officials. The Department of State, then under Mr. Kerry’s leadership, is also a CFIUS member and played a direct role in the decision to approve the Henniges transaction. The appearance of potential conflicts in this case is particularly troubling given Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Heinz’s history of investing in and collaborating with Chinese companies, including at least one posing significant national security concerns. This history with China pre and post-dates the 2015 Henniges transaction. For example, in December of 2013, one month after Rosemont Seneca’s merger with Bohai Capital to form BHR, Hunter Biden reportedly flew aboard Air Force Two with his father, then-Vice President Biden to China.4 While in China, he helped arrange for Jonathan Li, CEO of Bohai Capital, to “shake hands” with Vice-President Biden.5 Afterward, Hunter Biden met with Li for reportedly a “social meeting.”6 After the China trip, BHR’s business license was approved.7 In December of 2014, BHR also reportedly became an investor in China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN), a state-owned energy company involved in building nuclear reactors.8 In April of 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged CGN with conspiracy to unlawfully engage and participate in the production and development of special nuclear material outside the United States which could cause “significant damage to our national security.”9 Then, in August of 2015, Gemini Investments Limited, another Chinese-government linked entity, purchased 75 percent of Rosemont Reality, a sister company of Rosemont 3 Seneca.10 Rosemont Realty became Gemini Rosemont and it reportedly focused on purchasing American real estate.11In September 2015, BHR joined with a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to acquire Henniges for $600 million. AVIC acquired 51 percent of the company, and BHR acquired 49 percent.12 According to reports, the acquisition of Henniges by BHR and AVIC was the “biggest Chinese investment into US automotive manufacturing assets to date.”13 Because the acquisition gave Chinese companies direct control of Henniges’ anti-vibration technologies, the transaction was reviewed by CFIUS. CFIUS approved the transaction despite reports that in 2007, years before BHR teamed up with AVIC’s subsidiary, AVIC was reportedly involved in stealing sensitive data regarding the Joint Strike Fighter program. AVIClater reportedly incorporated the stolen data into China’s J-20 and J-31 aircraft.14

You will notice numbered footnotes in the text above. That text is in part of a letter sent by Senator Grassley (Senate Finance Committee) to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin this past August. It is uncertain if Treasury did respond to the letter. But hold on there is more.

In May of 2016, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece regarding the sale of fake Indian tribal bonds. 7 people were charged of this fraud. Among them was a former campaign adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry and a second man once dubbed by the media “porn’s new king” along with five others. Devon Archer, an advisor to Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004 and Jason Galanis a former investor in the adult entertainment business allegedly duped clients into investing more than $43 million in sham bonds in 2014 and 2015.

Image result for Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC

Now Devon Archer and Hunter Biden were best of buddies. In 2014, there was a lot of money flowing into a Morgan Stanley account under the name of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC c/o Devon Archer.

 

Rosemont Seneca Partners Co… by JohnSolomon on Scribd

Now, we must remember that the United States has a ‘Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty’ (MLAT) with several countries.

Click here for the presentation of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty

This is an agreement between two or more countries for the purpose of gather and exchanging information in a effort to enforce laws and prosecute public or criminal cases that include witness statements, service of documents, forfeiture, illicit assets, terrorism, sanctions, freezing accounts, restraining orders, judgement, subpoenas, transfers of financial instruments, security, regulations and disclosures. Most of the time these cases are a result of transnational organized crime, tax evasions or money-laundering. Other cooperative international agencies include Europol, Interpol repatriation organizations including the FBI and the United Nations.

So Nancy, with assistance of some in the Senate, the Treasury Department and the Trump White House, Trump is doing the right thing by following the law, draining the swamp and asking for continued foreign cooperation in fraud cases. Hold your powder everyone, this will get very interesting.

Nadler Hearing was a Dress Rehearsal for Impeachment

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Let us begin with the resistance lawyers Chairman Nadler had as witnesses. A short summary of all the witnesses is here.

One particular witness, Pamela Karlan is especially combative and you can see why in the video below.
This is a presentation she made in 2006.
She gave away a big clue in her response to a question stating that she spent her Thanksgiving holiday reviewing documents and testimonies. That translates to collaboration between either the Intelligence Committee or the Judiciary Committee prior to the hearing. The minority on both committees did not receive that same benefit.

Now as part of this continued resistance coup against the President there is also another scandal getting very little to no attention and that is Chairman Schiff essentially spying on other members of Congress.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff spied on the top Republican on his panel by obtaining his phone records and publishing them in an impeachment report, Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Wednesday.

“It raises a lot of serious questions,” the Louisiana Republican said.

“I want to know all the people Adam Schiff is spying on,” Scalise told the Washington Examiner. “Are there other members of Congress that he is spying on, and what justification does he have? He needs to be held accountable and explain what he’s doing, going after journalists, going after members of Congress, instead of doing his job.”

Schiff released a 300-page report Tuesday on the Democrats’ impeachment investigation that included call records obtained from AT&T.

Schiff also did the same to investigative journalist John Solomon in obtaining his call records. Neither Nunes or Solomon received a subpoena.

Adam Schiff has 2 aides who worked with whistleblower at ...

But how about more nastiness including having a planted mole in the Trump White House? One name is Sean Misko and there could be yet another, Abigail Grace.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff hired a former National Security Council aide who worked with alleged Ukraine whistleblower Eric Ciaramella at the NSC during the Obama and Trump administrations the day after the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

It was previously reported by the Washington Examiner that public records indicated Sean Misko, 37, started work on Schiff’s committee in August as a professional staff member. A specific start date was not available until this week when the latest congressional quarterly disbursements were released.

The new records show that Misko’s official hire date was July 26.

Misko was the director for the Gulf States at the NSC between 2015 until the first half of 2018. The Washington Examiner has established that the whistleblower is a CIA officer who was on the NSC during the Obama administration and worked on Ukrainian issues with Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic candidate, when he was vice president.

Ciaramella, 33, is a career CIA analyst and was the Ukraine director on the NSC from 2016 until the summer of 2017. In October 2016, he was Biden’s guest at a State Department banquet.

Before joining the NSC, Misko worked in the Obama administration at the State Department for deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan, who went on to become Hillary Clinton’s senior foreign policy adviser during her 2016 presidential campaign.

Both Ciaramella and Misko started their tenures during the Obama administration and left during the first year of the Trump administration. The Washington Examiner was told by a former senior White House official that both had a close, “bro-like” relationship while working at the NSC together.

A career CIA analyst with Ukraine expertise, the alleged whistleblower filed an Aug. 12 complaint with the Intelligence Community inspector general about the July 25 phone conversation between Trump and Zelensky.

The suspected whistleblower did this after meeting with a House Intelligence Committee aide on Schiff’s staff about the call, which is now the focus of impeachment proceedings. Before going to the Schiff aide, the whistleblower informed the CIA legal counsel’s office.

Schiff initially denied he knew about the complaint before it was filed in mid-August.

“We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to,” Schiff said on Sept. 17. However, the statement was false, and an aide from his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before the whistleblower complaint was submitted.

The identity of the Schiff aide who spoke to the whistleblower has not been made public, and it has not been confirmed until now that Misko was on Schiff’s staff at the time.

By Oct. 5, it was reported the whistleblower had never indicated to the inspector general he contacted Schiff’s office before filing the complaint against the president. Three days later, the whistleblower met with the inspector general to clarify why he did not mention his meeting with Schiff’s staff, saying he did not think that anything of “substance” was discussed. Details here.

Both Adam Schiff and Gerry Nadler do not make a move without the knowledge and approval of Pelosi, so she has a hand in this. Taking a wide view for the last 3+ years, the orchestration against President Trump and those in his administration has been well choreographed and when added up the sum is terrifying. Just imagine what we dont know….

 

 

 

Did Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler Read Federalist No. 65?

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While Nancy Pelosi has been ‘prayerful’ during this impeachment inquiry process, Congressman Adam Schiff, HPSCI Chairman has been touting the Constitution and poor old Congressman Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary remains lost as he was forced to give up control of the impeachment process after the stupid hearing with Corey Lewandowski. Meanwhile.

Whitaker will testify before House panel after tense back ...

Nadler, a lawyer himself has previously railed against impeachment during the Clinton scandal, has invited 3 Constitutional lawyers as witnesses for his first impeachment hearing and the Republicans were only granted 1 witness. Seems Nadler needs several law classes and he and the others meaning Pelosi and Schiff should actually read Federalist No. 66. More on that later.

Nadler has called: Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor. His position on impeachment and argument is that President Trump can be impeached even without evidence of a crime. He published an article in The New Yorker in May of 2017 stating his argument which is all the actions of the president are a pattern and can be collectively be used in sum as impeachable. Feldman has also called for Special Counsel to be assigned to investigate Rudy Giuliani and AG William Barr.

Another Nadler witness is Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford. Her concentration including being on the faculty at Stanford is voting rights and political processes. Karlan was on the Obama short list to be a Supreme Court Justice while her resume includes being an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and was a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Outside of being known as snarky, she often quotes poetry in her classes. Karlan was one of the 42 legal scholars that signed a letter before Trump took office urging him to change his views on several issues and was very critical of his rhetoric.

The last Nadler witness is Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina. Gerhardt penned an article in the Atlantic stating that impeachment proceedings are fully legitimate. Gerhardt is also a CNN legal analyst and was once the deputy media director for Al Gore’s senate campaign. Further, Gerhardt counseled Clinton on judicial selections and was special counsel to Senator Patrick Leahy on the nominations to the Supreme Court of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

The only witness the Republicans were allowed to invite was Democrat and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. Turley appears to be an okay feller when it comes to Constitutional law. He has provided testimony often on The Hill. He is often the ‘go-to’ person for being a Constitutional originalist and protector of separation of powers within government. Turley has called out the Democrats several times including over the Russia investigation. In a recent interview, Turley had this summary on the impeachment:

The fact is I think that this is the – well certainly the shortest investigation, it’s certainly the thinnest evidentiary record, and it’s the narrowest impeachment ever to go to the Senate, if they were to go on this record….did they prove something was contemptible or impeachable? Contemptible is not synonymous with impeachable. The President does set policy. They have three conversations, two of them directly, one with Senator Johnson, one with Ambassador Sondland, where Trump denies a quid pro quo….so you have a conflicted record. And the question is what do you need to remove a sitting president?…

Whether this is intentional or not, it seems designed to fail in the Senate.

Meanwhile back to Federalist No. 65:

Hamilton argued that the Senate was the body to hold the impeachment trial and not the Supreme Court where evidence of misconduct of public men was a violation of public trust, meaning that society is a victim of that violation. That misconduct would contain injuries to society itself. In Federalist No. 66, Hamilton went on to further argue that the impeachment proceedings would seldom fail to agitate the passion of the whole community and divide parties into less friendly factions stating it would become a condition and test of political strengths between warring political tribes.

It is no wonder that President Trump reminds the nation often of his accomplishments as they are hardly injurious to society, in fact just the opposite.

 

 

 

 

 

Syrian Henchmen Financial Sanctuary in Moscow

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2011: Hillary Clinton declared that Bashir al Assad was a reformer.

Primer:

Rami Makhlouf: Wealthy, powerful cousin of Syria’s president

Makhlouf, 45, is Syria’s richest man and a member of what was described during U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearings as a powerful “mafia” that also includes Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, Makhklouf’s cousin. Before his country plunged into civil war, Makhlouf was allegedly worth $5 billion thanks to his control of monopolies and semi-monopolies in the air travel, telecommunications, real estate, oil and construction sectors. Makhlouf is on U.S. sanctions lists and is a known beneficiary of corruption.

***

Several Makhlouf family members, close cousins and accomplices of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, have purchased tens of millions of dollars’ worth of properties in Moscow’s prestigious skyscraper district.

Headed by al-Assad’s uncle, Mohammed Makhlouf, the Makhloufs are considered to be Syria’s richest and second most important family. Before 2011, they controlled 60 percent of the Syrian economy, ostensibly acquired through years of corruption and intimidation.

GlobalWitness:

Our exposé of the Makhloufs’ properties is rare supporting evidence that lends substance to rumours of regime money being funnelled out of Syria throughout the war. Information about the regime’s assets and finances is notoriously scarce due to the terror fostered by al-Assad’s apparatus at home and abroad.

Our investigation further shows that the loans secured against some of the properties could be for the purposes of laundering money from Syria into Moscow. This opens the possibility that the money could then be moved into other jurisdictions, such as the EU, where members of the family are sanctioned.

Of the newly-revealed Moscow property purchases, the largest amount was bought by Hafez Makhlouf, one of Bashar al-Assad’s first cousins.

Hafez is accused of overseeing the killings and torture of detainees and protestors. Most of Hafez’s purchases were arranged using an opaque Lebanese loan structure that bears several hallmarks of money laundering, possibly with the purpose of moving the money beyond Russia.

Russia has been a key ally of the al-Assad family over their almost 50-year rule. It intervened on their side of the war in Syria in 2015, turning it in their favour through airstrikes and land offensives on opposition-controlled territory.

Reports of Russian banks aiding the Syrian regime surfaced in 2012 and 2013, after Western sanctions hit and the more powerful family members were stripped of European visas and their EU and Swiss bank accounts were frozen. Now it seems that the Syrian regime has been using Moscow as an alternative safe haven, and possibly a potential gateway for its ill-gotten gains to enter the wider financial system.

Hafez Makhlouf, who purchased US$22.3 million worth of property in Moscow’s ‘City of Capitals’ towers, was head of the Damascus ‘Section 40’ of Syria’s infamous General Intelligence Directorate until late 2014. This is the Syrian agency charged with quelling internal dissent, formerly and popularly known as the State Security service. As Damascus is the capital, this was already an important role, but Hafez appears to have had a great deal more authority than this official title reflects.

Testimony collected by Syrian human rights groups about Hafez’s Section 40 and its command branch, the Al-Khatib Branch, as well as wider testimony collected by journalists about the systemic use of torture by Syria’s intelligence services, points to how Hafez would have potentially overseen the detention of  thousands of Syrians and their subsequent abuse, and, in some cases, even murder.

Moreover, multiple regime defectors have since testified, in a 2019 book by journalist Sam Dagher, that Hafez was a hard-line member of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle and one of his most influential advisers. According to the testimony, Hafez was one of two main advocates for crushing the demonstrations in 2011. Dagher’s book includes testimony from witnesses who saw Hafez shooting civilians in Douma and giving shoot-to-kill orders on hundreds of peaceful protestors in Daraa and Homs.

Makhlouf Family Tree Diagram english  When buying the Moscow office space in 2016, Hafez Makhlouf’s Russian-registered property companies took out loans using 11 of the properties as collateral. The complex structure of these loans disguises Hafez’s connection to the funds. This is characteristic of money laundering and could have been designed to establish money flows between Russia and Syria which would appear unconnected to Hafez, raising the possibility that the ultimate aim is to move the money out of Russia.

The loans were provided to Hafez’s Russian companies by a Lebanese company called Nylam SAL Offshore. The company is classified as ‘offshore’ in Lebanon; while Lebanese ‘offshore’ companies do not hide their owners like offshore companies in so-called secrecy jurisdictions like the British Virgin Islands, these companies do benefit from enhanced banking secrecy. The exact amount loaned by Nylam is unknown.

In 2018, two years after the property purchases, Hafez, the sole shareholder of his three Russian companies, passed his shares to Briana SAL Offshore, a Lebanese company with identical shareholders, directors and address as Nylam. Russian corporate records for the Russian property companies contain details about Briana because it is a shareholder. These records show that Briana states its country of business as Syria.

Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, provided banking services for at least one of the Russian property companies formerly owned by Hafez and now owned by Briana, a Russian corporate database shows.

As the loans from Nylam to Hafez’s Russian companies were international (coming into Russia from Lebanon), it is feasible that they were transacted in US dollars, which is the commonly used international currency. If that were the case, the money could have transited through Sberbank’s SWIFT payment system, which, according to anti-money laundering expert Graham Barrow, could risk breaching the terms of the US sanctions against Hafez Makhlouf.

The convoluted nature of the loans taken against the properties should have raised red flags with Sberbank, but it is unclear what due diligence was carried out on the loans.

Sberbank’s dealings with the Makhloufs are part of a broader pattern of major Russian banks helping the Syrian regime. In 2012 and 2013, both Reuters and Wall Street Journal reported that the al-Assad regime held accounts at Gazprombank and VTB, two of Russia’s largest banks, which, like Sberbank, have extensive international correspondent banking relationships. More here.