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Confirmed: Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal helped spread Russia collusion fever before...
Legal Insurrection ^ | 2/9/18 | William A Jacobson

Posted on 02/09/2018 8:34:47 AM PST by markomalley

The Clintons created a media and law enforcement echo chamber of Russia collusion.

Earlier this week we wrote about the possible involvement of Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal in feeding information to Christoper Steele, author of the infamous Clinton/DNC funded dossier. That dossier formed a key part of the FBI’s presentation to the FISA court to obtain a warrant to surveil Carter Page.

One of the key links in the Blumenthal-Steele stories was former State Department employee Jonathan Winer:

Devin Nunes has a new target: Jonathan Winer, the Obama State Department’s special envoy to Libya, and longtime Senate aide to John Kerry. Winer received a memorandum written by political activist Cody Shearer and passed it along to Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence official who had compiled his own dossier on Donald Trump.

The release of last week’s House Intelligence Committee memo accusing the FBI of surveillance abuses marked the end of the first phase of Nunes’s investigation into the probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now, the committee chair told Fox News on Friday, the probe is moving into “phase two,” which involves the State Department. His focus is on the dossier compiled by Shearer, and passed along by Winer, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

That Blumenthal was the source of the information passed on to Winer appeared to be confirmed by Trey Gowdy in an interview with Martha McCallum, Trey Gowdy suggests Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal fed info to Steele weeks before election:

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., strongly implied to Fox News Tuesday night that Clinton family confidant Sidney Blumenthal was a key link in a chain of information that helped create the controversial Trump-Russia dossier.

Gowdy told Fox News’ “The Story” that “when you hear who … one of the sources of that information is, you’re going to think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve heard that name somewhere before.’”

When host Martha MacCallum asked if he was referring to Blumenthal, Gowdy answered, “That’d be really warm. You’re warm, yeah.”

Winer has published an Op-Ed at WaPo in which he confirms his involvement with Blumenthal, though he downplays its significance, Devin Nunes is investigating me. Here’s the truth.

… In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved “active measures,” a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.

In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the “dossier.” Steele’s sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.

I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material.

In late September, I spoke with an old friend, Sidney Blumenthal, whom I met 30 years ago when I was investigating the Iran-contra affair for then-Sen. Kerry and Blumenthal was a reporter at The Post. At the time, Russian hacking was at the front and center in the 2016 presidential campaign. The emails of Blumenthal, who had a long association with Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been hacked in 2013 through a Russian server.

While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele’s reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature.

What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources.

On my own, I shared a copy of these notes with Steele, to ask for his professional reaction. He told me it was potentially “collateral” information. I asked him what that meant. He said that it was similar but separate from the information he had gathered from his sources. I agreed to let him keep a copy of the Shearer notes.

Given that I had not worked with Shearer and knew that he was not a professional intelligence officer, I did not mention or share his notes with anyone at the State Department. I did not expect them to be shared with anyone in the U.S. government.

But I learned later that Steele did share them — with the FBI, after the FBI asked him to provide everything he had on allegations relating to Trump, his campaign and Russian interference in U.S. elections.

The Clintons created a media and law enforcement echo chamber of Russia collusion.

Hillary’s campaign and the DNC paid for the Steele dossier. Other Clinton operatives, such as Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer, were spreading similar accusations and sharing information with Steele. Steele was also feeding accusations to the media. Employees of the FBI and possibly other agencies who hated Trump used that information both before and after the election.

In assessing the threats that Hillary and Trump posed to our liberty, respectively, in October 2016 I wrote that Hillary represented the greater threat because Hillary was “a systemic threat.”

I was right.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2013; 201609; 201802; 2201802; blumenthal; clintoncampaign; clintoncrimefamily; codyshearer; collusion; cybersecurity; fisagate; hillary; hillarytrumpdossier; johnkerry; jonathanwiner; nunes; shearer; sidneyblumenthal; trumprussia
Full headline: Confirmed: Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal helped spread Russia collusion fever before the election
1 posted on 02/09/2018 8:34:47 AM PST by markomalley
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To: markomalley

Indictments will be coming down the pike any decade now. Or not.


2 posted on 02/09/2018 8:37:11 AM PST by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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To: markomalley

You gotta dig deep to find if Trump made even the slightest contact with anyone resembling a Russian, but the Clinton campaign’s contact with them were so blatantly out in the open for everyone to see!


3 posted on 02/09/2018 8:39:59 AM PST by dowcaet
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To: markomalley
...and 17 "national security agencies" did NOT vet the Pee-Pee-Dossier!
4 posted on 02/09/2018 8:41:11 AM PST by SERKIT ("Blazing Saddles" explains it all.......)
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To: markomalley

Whenever the Clintons get into trouble, they go on the offense and attack.

Libya.

That’s where they are vulnerable.

BIG CRIMES in Libya.


5 posted on 02/09/2018 8:41:41 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

Absolutely Libya. Benghazi should have defeated Obama the second election. Still is a national disgrace what happened, (all the details we have yet to learn), the lack of response, media blackout and reaction, lies to families. Big big disgusting scandal and they deserve to hang for the whole affair.


6 posted on 02/09/2018 8:46:50 AM PST by outinyellowdogcountry
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To: markomalley

Let’s be honest. These Democrats were duped by the Russians. It’s hard to believe how corrupt they are.


7 posted on 02/09/2018 8:52:13 AM PST by ProudDeplorable
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To: markomalley

The worm is turning. Let the deal cutting begin.


8 posted on 02/09/2018 8:53:38 AM PST by TallahasseeConservative ( Isaiah 40:31)
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To: markomalley

Ignored by everyone now publicly linking Billary Inc. with the Steele dossier and the FBI/DOJ political collusion with Billary Inc. on it, is a question no one asks: Is it not also possible that the dossier is a case of Billary Inc. collusion with Putin, by way of any Russian sources for any part of the Steele dossier?


9 posted on 02/09/2018 8:59:15 AM PST by Wuli
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To: markomalley; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
Thanks markomalley.

10 posted on 02/09/2018 9:04:03 AM PST by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: outinyellowdogcountry

Benghazi should have defeated Obama the second election.


Assuming Romney was an actual candidate and not the Appointed Loser of the Loser Party, did he have time to build a strong case on this issue before election day?


11 posted on 02/09/2018 9:20:23 AM PST by samtheman (We dont need no stinking summaries. Release unedited FISA documents.)
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To: Corporate Law

ping


12 posted on 02/09/2018 9:41:17 AM PST by timestax
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To: markomalley

All roads lead to the Clintons.


13 posted on 02/09/2018 9:46:14 AM PST by bgill (CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola.")
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To: markomalley

I know that Carter Page is repeatedly noted as the subject of the FISA warrant. More importantly, I would like to know who else got caught up in the surveillance and then unmasked. I think the list would be quite long. The rights of those unmasked as a result of the illegitimate FISA warrant have had their constitutional rights trampled on.


14 posted on 02/09/2018 9:58:53 AM PST by lakecumberlandvet (Appeasement never works.)
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To: markomalley

Since the Clintons always accuse others of the crimes they are committing themselves, we know who was colluding with Russia.

Uranium One and the 2016 election are probably just the tip of the ice berg.

But.....will they ever pay for their treason and crimes?


15 posted on 02/09/2018 10:46:44 AM PST by No Socialist
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To: markomalley

He needs to be locked up.


16 posted on 02/09/2018 10:47:51 AM PST by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters.)
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To: All

From link: http://observer.com/2016/03/hillary-has-an-nsa-problem/

........one of the most controversial of Ms. Clinton’s emails released by the State Department under judicial order was one sent on June 8, 2011, to the Secretary of State by Sidney Blumenthal, Ms. Clinton’s unsavory friend and confidant who was running a private intelligence service for Ms. Clinton.

This email contains an amazingly detailed assessment of events in Sudan, specifically a coup being plotted by top generals in that war-torn country. Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from a top-ranking source with direct access to Sudan’s top military and intelligence officials, and recounted a high-level meeting that had taken place only 24 hours before.

To anybody familiar with intelligence reporting, this unmistakably signals intelligence, termed SIGINT in the trade. In other words, Mr. Blumenthal, a private citizen who had enjoyed no access to U.S. intelligence for over a decade when he sent that email, somehow got hold of SIGINT about the Sudanese leadership and managed to send it, via open, unclassified email, to his friend Ms. Clinton only one day later.

NSA officials were appalled by the State Department’s release of this email, since it bore all the hallmarks of Agency reporting. Back in early January when I reported this, I was confident that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from highly classified NSA sources, based on my years of reading and writing such reports myself, and one veteran agency official told me it was NSA information with “at least 90 percent confidence.”

We can confirm that the contents of Sid Blumenthal’s June 8, 2011, email to Hillary Clinton, sent to her personal, unclassified account, were indeed based on highly sensitive NSA information. The agency investigated this compromise and determined that Mr. Blumenthal’s highly detailed account of Sudanese goings-on, including the retelling of high-level conversations in that country, was indeed derived from NSA intelligence.

Specifically, this information was illegally lifted from four different NSA reports, all of them classified “Top Secret / Special Intelligence.” Worse, at least one of those reports was issued under the GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). GAMMA is properly viewed as a SIGINT Special Access Program, or SAP, several of which from the CIA Ms. Clinton compromised in another series of her “unclassified” emails.

Currently serving NSA officials have told me they have no doubt that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from their reports. “It’s word-for-word, verbatim copying,” one of them explained. “In one case, an entire paragraph was lifted from an NSA report” that was classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence.

How Mr. Blumenthal got his hands on this information is the key question, and there’s no firm answer yet. The fact that he was able to take four separate highly classified NSA reports—none of which he was supposed to have any access to—and pass the details of them to Hillary Clinton via email only hours after NSA released them in Top Secret / Special Intelligence channels indicates something highly unusual, as well as illegal, was going on.

Suspicion naturally falls on Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA senior official who was Mr. Blumenthal’s intelligence fixer, his supplier of juicy spy gossip, who conveniently died last August before email-gate became front-page news. However, he, too, had left federal service years before and should not have had any access to current NSA reports. There are many questions here about what Hillary Clinton and her staff at Foggy Bottom were up to, including Sidney Blumenthal, an integral member of the Clinton organization, despite his lack of any government position.

How Mr. Blumenthal got hold of this Top Secret-plus reporting is only the first question. Why he chose to email it to Ms. Clinton in open channels is another question. So is: How did nobody on Secretary Clinton’s staff notice that this highly detailed reporting looked exactly like SIGINT from the NSA?

Last, why did the State Department see fit to release this email, unredacted, to the public?


17 posted on 02/10/2018 5:18:14 AM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 Trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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