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s Trump won primary after primary in 2016, a rattled John Brennan started claiming to colleagues at the CIA that Estonia’s intelligence agency had alerted him to an intercepted phone call suggesting Putin was pouring money into the Trump campaign. The tip was bogus, but Brennan bit on it with opportunistic relish. Out of Brennan’s alarmist chatter about the bogus tip came an extraordinary leak to the BBC: that Brennan had used it, along with later half-baked tips from British intelligence, as the justification to form a multi-agency spy operation (given the Orwellian designation of an “inter-agency taskforce”) on the...

CBS Films has optioned Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s “Russian Roulette,” the story of the Russian attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. The book is currently on top of nonfiction titles on the New York Times bestseller list. Isikoff and Corn will serve as executive producers. Nick Wechsler, whose credits include “American Assassin,” is on board to produce. The deal, announced Thursday, came following an auction of the movie rights. It was made on behalf of the Ross Yoon Agency by Hotchkiss & Associates. Wechsler is represented by Carlos Goodman at Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal LaViolette Feldman Schenkman...

[FULL TITLE] [ ‘Stand down!’ Obama’s orders to national security officials who wanted to hit back at election-meddling Putin revealed ] A new book, 'Russian Roulette,' details Donald Trump's business ties in Russia and Russia's efforts to meddle in the presidential election The interference was one of the greatest policy challenges for the outgoing Obama administration Advisors debated the pros and cons of hitting back at Russia, whether to go public with what they knew, and how to get it to stop One risk was fueling the chaos intelligence officials believe Russia was trying to sew Two security advisors prepared...

The seeds of the relationships between Donald Trump and key figures in the Russian business and political worlds — now the subject of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — were planted at least five months before Trump’s now famous 2013 trip to Moscow, during a previously unreported visit to a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub with the son of a prominent oligarch and Putin ally, according to a new book about Trump and his Russian ties. The excerpt being published today explores the events surrounding Trump’s November 2013 visit to Moscow to oversee the Miss Universe pageant, and to vigorously pursue...

Two pieces of evidence that have come together prove anti-Trump dossier writer Christopher Steele was the key source for a Yahoo News story that the FBI cited to support its wiretap application. Identifying the source of that September 2016 article on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page has taken on added importance in recent weeks. First, Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a declassified memo on Feb. 2. It said the FBI relied greatly on Mr. Steele’s discredited Democrat-financed dossier to obtain a surveillance warrant on Mr. Page. To bolster the...

It’s not every day that investigative journalists discover their work was cited in a controversial warrant application that has become a flashpoint of partisan conflict in the US. So, it’s telling that, rather than being honored to see his work having such a profound impact, Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff said he was “stunned” to see a story he published more than a year ago cited in the “FISA memo” as one of the justifications in a FISA warrant application for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. As Isikoff explains, his story was almost entirely based on information from the...

A criminal referral from top Senate investigators confirms explosive charges in last week’s House Intelligence Committee memo regarding abuse of surveillance authorities at the FBI and Department of Justice. It also reveals a host of problems arising from the bureau’s cooperation with foreign investigator Christopher Steele, who was working on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The eight-page memo from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) includes underlying evidence to support the claims.“It appears the FBI relied on admittedly uncorroborated information, funded by and obtained for Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign,...

Fusion GPS was hired by the Obama for America campaign to perform opposition research against Mitt Romney. Fusion GPS’s job was to gather research and connect reporters who would publish hit pieces while the lawyers made the payments and managed the relationships. In early 2012, the Obama campaign launched a political hit job against Mitt Romney campaign donors.... .... It is clear now that David Corn and Michael Isikoff are all connected to the strategy of hitting “enemies” of Obama. It also seems apparent that Mother Jones and Fusion GPS may have multiple connection points. They may also have been...

On July 14, 2003, a Robert Novak column in The Washington Post outed the CIA-agent wife of vociferous Bush administration critic, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson. Thus was born the "Plame Affair" which quickly became a morality tale of how an out of control Bush Administration would do anything to justify its war in Iraq. A mere three days later, journalist David Corn, summarized the allegations that would color reporting on the Iraq War for the next three years and eventually lead to the indictment of a top aide to the vice president for lying to a grand jury: ((((THE OLD...

In a new podcast, Yahoo News Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff gives details of a key passage in the controversial Republican memo alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI and the Department of Justice — a passage in which Isikoff himself, to his surprise, played a leading role. The memo, which was released Friday after it was declassified by the White House, says a September 2016 article by Isikoff was “cited extensively” in an FBI application for a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Isikoff was the first to report that Page was under federal investigation over a...

Donald Trump said today he may ask the federal judge overseeing an upcoming civil fraud trial involving the now defunct Trump University to recuse himself because he is Hispanic and is therefore biased against him due to his plan to build a wall to keep out immigrants from Mexico. Trump first raised the idea of filing a motion to recuse U.S. Judge Gonzalo Curiel during a campaign rally on Saturday in which, without mentioning him by name, the Republican candidate said the judge overseeing his case has shown “tremendous hostility” to him. “He’s Hispanic, which is fine,” Trump said. “Why...

Via the Daily Caller, you would think an eyewitness account of the disappearance of the last American POW in Afghanistan would be easy money for a publisher. But sometimes there are higher considerations. While the U.S. Army weighs whether to bring charges against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was freed earlier this year after spending nearly five years as a Taliban captive in Afghanistan, six of his former platoon mates are shopping proposals for a book and movie that would render their own harsh verdicts… “I’m not sure we can publish this book without the Right using it to their ends,”...

Michael Isikoff, the left-wing journalist most famous for getting scooped on The Story of the Decade by Matt Drudge, is exiting NBC News ... It was during his time with Newsweek that Isikoff became yet-another icon of a mainstream media more interested in protecting power than holding power accountable. In 1998, Isikoff had uncovered the affair between then-President Bill Clinton and a young intern named Monica Lewinski. Newsweek, however, refused to publish the story. So Drudge did -- not the story but the news that Newsweek was refusing to explode its own bombshell... -- and an era in New Media...

In a major blow to the Justice Department, one of its biggest leak prosecutions in years all but collapsed late Thursday when federal prosecutors withdrew all their felony charges against a former National Security Agency official accused of providing classified information to a journalist. Instead, under a plea deal reached with prosecutors, former NSA official Thomas Drake has agreed to plead guilty in federal court on Friday to a single misdemeanor count of "exceeding authorized use of a computer" -- a minor charge for which he will receive no jail time, a senior administration official told NBC. “This is close...

Panetta orders internal probe of secret spy program after some members of Congress say CIA misled them. ### CIA Director Leon Panetta has ordered an internal inquiry into the agency's handling of a contentious and still highly classified intelligence program that has caused a heated dispute between the CIA and Democrats on the House intelligence committee. The move by Panetta appears to be an implicit acknowledgment by the agency that it should have disclosed information about the post-9/11 secret program to Congress much earlier than it did. *snip* CIA and congressional officials have refused to describe the nature of the...

There has been very little attention paid in the MSM to a meeting on Wednesday between President Obama and various leftwing "human rights" groups except for a brief mention at the CBS News Political Hotsheet. However, according to a detailed report provided by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show, Obama has revealed that there won't be any prosecutions of Bush administration for so-called torture. Perhaps this was the reason for so little MSM coverage on this meeting. They don't want to disappoint their audience, many of whom are still holding out hope for such prosecutions. However, the leftwing...

During the recently completed presidential campaign, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff was all excited over his "web exclusive" piece on staffers with the McCain campaign that had connections with past lobbying efforts. Back in those days Newsweek was all about the evils of those darn lobbyists. For their part, Obama supporters at the time ballyhooed the pledges that Barack Obama had made stating that his was going to be a kinder, gentler campaign, one that chased those evil lobbyists away. Phooey on those lobbyists, became the popular mantra. But, now that The One has made a successful and historic run for the...

Most Alaskans may seem excited about Gov. Sarah Palin’s selection as John McCain’s running mate. But there’s at least one group of her constituents that has had a more subdued reaction: the state’s Muslims. There are only about 2,000 to 3,000 Muslims in Alaska, and, while there are no mosques, Anchorage (which is home to most of the state's Muslims) does have an Islamic Community Center, located in a rented office in a strip mall, where members pray on Fridays. But Osama Obeida, the center’s vice president, said his group has never had any contacts at all with Alaska’s governor....

It’s been 10 years since the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. But the way it broke changed the way the news cycle functioned and has had a profound impact on the business of media. In 1998, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff leaked the Lewinsky story to Matt Drudge’s Drudge Report. The story took off from there, and the rest is history. But a decade later, Isikoff said he doesn’t think Drudge is the player he once was. “I’d say he is much less of a factor than he was five years ago,” Isikoff said. “I think he has lost a little bit of...

One of the many untold stories about the defence of the west, it seems to me, is the war within the west that has been waged by the CIA. Over and over again I hear accounts of the campaign of disinformation, lies and political point-scoring emanating from disaffected CIA operatives that has fuelled the anti-war movement. Indeed, the evidence has been all around us ever since the Iraq war started, as a steady stream of books and articles has gushed from an apparently endless line of former spooks, all placing the Bush administration in the worst possible light. There was...