House Probe Accuses Clapper of Misleading Congress

freebeacon.com ^ | 3/22/2018 | bill gertz

[bitt]

A House Intelligence Committee investigation of Russian election meddling has concluded that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper misled Congress about disclosing information to CNN.

The committee's final report on the investigation was approved on Thursday and now awaits an intelligence agency review.

Despite 472 days of investigation and thousands of witnesses, the committee stated in its list of final conclusions and recommendations that it found no evidence of collusion between President Donald Trump, his campaign aides, and Russia.

"The committee found no evidence that meetings between Trump associates—including Jeff Sessions—and official representatives of the Russian government—including Ambassador Kislyak—reflected collusion, coordination, or conspiracy with the Russian government," the list states.

The report also said former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI regarding conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak "even though the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents did not detect any deception during Flynn's interview."

The finding suggests the FBI improperly charged Flynn.

The Obama administration also failed to notify the Trump campaign that members of the campaign were assessed to be counterintelligence concerns, the report said.

The committee said opposition to Trump from the U.S. national security establishment prompted the campaign to hire unqualified aides such asGeorge Papadopoulous and Carter Page.

Trump advisers had contacts with the pro-Russian Wikileaks, but none were involved in the theft or publication of Clinton campaign emails, the report said.

On the former DNI, the report says that Clapper, now a contributor to CNN as a national security analyst "provided inconsistent testimony to the committee about his contacts with the media, including CNN."

A CNN spokeswoman did not return an email seeking comment. Clapper could not be reached for comment.

The report also states that leaks of classified information about Russian intentions to sow discord in the U.S. presidential election began prior to Election Day. The disclosures of U.S. secrets alleging Russia was working to help elect Trump "increased dramatically" after the Nov. 8, 2016 election.

The panel suggested that the leaks "correlate to specific language" in a U.S. intelligence community assessment of Russian election meddling.

The finding suggests that leaks of classified information were politically motivated to undermine Trump after he won the election.

The findings also say the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign funded the anti-Trump dossier produced by former British intelligence officers Christopher Steele.

Steele "claims to have obtained his dossier information second- and third-hand from purported high-placed Russian sources, such as government officials with links to the Kremlin and intelligence services," the report says.

"Christopher Steele's information from Russian sources was provided directly to Fusion GPS and Perkins Cole and indirectly to the Clinton campaign," the report said.

The report suggests that the research group Fusion GPS was used by Russia for disinformation. "Prior to conducting opposition research targeting candidate Trump's business dealings, Fusion GPS conducted research benefitting Russian interests," the report said.

The Washington Free Beacon hired Fusion GPS early in the 2016 election campaign but had no role in the Steele dossier.

The report also concluded that Russia intelligence used social media to sow political discord and undermine the election.

The FBI was criticized by the committee for not providing victims information about Russian hacking operations.

Also, U.S. intelligence community judgments regarding Russian leader Vladimir Putin's strategic intentions "did not employ proper analytic tradecraft," the report said.

The report said Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted former Trump campaign aide Paul Manafort on charges unrelated to collusion, coordination, and conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

[bitt]

p

[MAGAthon]

lots more detail at the link:

18 Mar: Lifezette: Meet Hillary Clinton’s Other, Much More Powerful and Shadowy Oppo Research Firm
Executives with London-based Hakluyt & Co. contributed thousands of dollars to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign
by Mark Tapscott
Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co., founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums...

Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Henry Williams as “one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world” and as “a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking … ”
The firm’s “style appears to be much more in the mold of the Christopher Steele dossier. Clients pay for pages of well-sourced prose from Hakluyt’s contacts across the globe,” Williams wrote...

When the drunken junior Trump foreign policy adviser George Papodopoulous boasted in a London bar in May 2016 about Russian intelligence operatives peddling hacked emails that were damaging to Clinton, his most interested listener, according to The New York Times, was Alexander Downer, Australian high commissioner to the U.K...
Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt’s advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive...

The link between Clinton and Hakluyt is ironic considering the former secretary of state’s strong commitment to liberal Democratic environmental causes. Hakluyt’s record includes being caught planting spies in Greenpeace and other environmental groups on behalf of energy giants British Petroleum (BP) and Shell.
https://www.lifezette.com/polizette/meet-hillary-clintons-other-more-powerful-shadowy-oppo-research-firm/

[MAGAthon]

amazing stuff from Assange:

22 Mar Tweet: Julian Assange: There is something very odd about the Joseph Mifsud story and the role of the UK in the 2016 US presidential election:
(thread)
https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/976943588394323973

[blueplum]

‘less than candid’ eh? that should cost a pension

[SaveFerris]

“Misleading”.....?

[shelterguy]

“”””‘less than candid’ eh? that should cost a pension””””

Slow people like me just say LIED, it’s easier to spell.

[

[eyeamok]

Did the FBI immediately open a Criminal Investigation like they did for Sessions??

[alloysteel]

“Misleading” = lying.

Isn’t there some sort of injunction about “bearing false witness”?

Check the US legal code. Once a person has sworn to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, certain rules about perjury and blatant misstatements apply.

[bitt]

geez, it gets deeper and deeper..

https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/976943588394323973

https://www.lifezette.com/polizette/meet-hillary-clintons-other-more-powerful-shadowy-oppo-research-firm/

[timestax]

ping

[rbmillerjr]

blah blah blah

Pelosi will be Speaker so all investigations will be shut down. Also, they will not give the GOP any ability to put out minority memos.

Great Budget guys.

[Jane Long]

That’s the spirit!!

[rktman]

Islamic taquia(?).

[Davy Crocket]

It’s called lying!

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks so much for your support to this point... I personally apprecaite it...
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President Donald J. Trump and the Free Republic of the United States of America
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[beethovenfan]

So what happens to the Crapper? Nothing?

[LIConFem]

I'm sure Jeff Sessions' DOJ will instruct the FBI to investigate and they, in turn will get hand down an indictment in short order.

not...

[Revel]

Well the statute of limitations to charge him with a crime ran out just few days ago. I am not sure if a congressional investigation would have stopped the clock or not. But I doubt it. Congress wouldn’t ask DOJ to charge him anyways.

[BatGuano]

Crapper is just that. Inept fool, has been over his head from the time he was commissioned a 2nd Lt.