Not A Tick-Tock

Last week Fox News journalist Catherine Herridge announced she had received 40 pages of text messages between former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and his FBI Lawyer Lisa Page. [See Here] These text communications have not been seen by congress, and were not released during prior requests for documents. Herridge, released and wrote about two of the pages. [See Here]

Today, Herridge releases two more pages…. She’s awesome, and likely slow in the overall release to absorb the import; and for good reason. Herridge’s release today highlights an important meeting as discussed within the texts:

In a Dec. 12, 2016, text reviewed by Fox News, Page wrote to McCabe: “Btw, [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with [CIA Director John] Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just FYSA [for your situational awareness].”

Herridge’s angle is questioning why Peter “Pete” Strzok would be told about a meeting between CIA Director John Brennan, ODNI James Clapper and Deputy CIA Director David Cohen. Current officials cannot explain the context of this December 12th, 2016 meeting and why “Pete” would know about it.

However, there’s an aspect to the background of this time-frame that Catherine Herridge is overlooking…. bear with me.

This meeting takes place on December 12th, 2016. This is in the epicenter of the time when the Obama intelligence officials, specifically Clapper and Brennan – along with DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, were hastily putting together something called the JAR “Joint Analysis Report”, on Russian activity in the 2016 election.

The Joint Analysis Report: aka “GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity” was released on December 29th, 2016, to coincide with President Obama kicking out Russian diplomats as punishment for the content therein which outlined malicious Russian activity in the 2016 election.

[Sidenote: CTH has had to fight to keep our copy of that report accessible – long story]

We’ve been talking about the JAR from the day it was initially released. This specific report is total garbage. [Read it Here] The “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report” is pure nonsense. This is the report that generated the “17 intelligence agencies” narrative and talking points. The JAR outlines nothing more than vague and disingenuous typical hacking activity that is no more substantive than any other hacking report on any other foreign actor. But the “17 Intel Agencies” narrative stuck like glue.

What the report does well is using technical terminology to describe common cyber activity. Example: “ATPT29” sounds looming, but really is Olaf, the imaginary round faced chubby guy probably working from his kitchen table; and “ATPT28” is his unemployed socially isolated buddy living in Mom’s basement down the street. But when put into technical terms they sound more alarming…. more colluding or something.

All that JAR nonsense is saying is a general explanation for how hacking, any hacking, is generally carried out. This entire report is nothing more than a generalized, albeit techno-worded, explanation for how Nigerians, Indians, or in this case Russians, attempt to gain your email passwords etc., nothing more.

However, even more alarming was how far the various radical political ideologues, and the media, were willing to go to create a straw-man crisis for political benefit. Secondly, how terribly diminished the integrity of the executive office of the U.S. presidency became amid this level of ridiculous manufactured propaganda.

There’s no doubt the intended outcome was to create confusion and begin selling a narrative to undermine the incoming President-elect Trump administration. No-one expected him to win; Trump’s victory sent a shock-wave through the DC system the professional political class were reacting to it. The emotional crisis inside DC made manipulating them, and much of the the electorate, that much easier.

Understanding the JAR was used to validate the Russian sanctions and expulsion of the 35 Russian diplomats; and understanding that some coordination and planning was needed for the report therein; and understanding that Brennan and Clapper would need someone to author the material; that’s where Peter “Pete” Strzok comes in.

Remember, CIA Director John Brennan enlisted FBI Agent Peter Strzok to write much of the follow-up within the ICA report, another sketchy construct. Paul Sperry wrote a great article about it (emphasis mine):

[…] In another departure from custom, the report is missing any dissenting views or an annex with evaluations of the conclusions from outside reviewers. “Traditionally, controversial intelligence community assessments like this include dissenting views and the views of an outside review group,” said Fred Fleitz, who worked as a CIA analyst for 19 years and helped draft national intelligence estimates at Langley. “It also should have been thoroughly vetted with all relevant IC agencies,” he added. “Why were DHS and DIA excluded?” Fleitz suggests that the Obama administration limited the number of players involved in the analysis to skew the results. He believes the process was “manipulated” to reach a “predetermined political conclusion” that the incoming Republican president was compromised by the Russians. “I’ve never viewed the ICA as credible,” the CIA veteran added. A source close to the House investigation said Brennan himself selected the CIA and FBI analysts who worked on the ICA, and that they included former FBI counterespionage chief Peter Strzok. “Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan and [former FBI Director James] Comey, and he was one of the authors of the ICA,” according to the source. (read more)

Now does the picture from within Catherine Herridge’s story make more sense?

Peter “Pete” Strzok knew about the December 12th meeting between Brennan, Clapper and Cohen, because Clapper told Strzok of the meeting. Likely this discussion surrounded the need for Pete’s help in constructing the JAR; which would be the underlying evidence President Obama would use to expel the Russians…. Which is to say, give increased validity to the manufactured premise there was Russian interference. There wasn’t.

Fucking Brennan!

The scale of the scam they pulled off is remarkable. Of course none of it would have been possible without a compliant media. If anyone in the media had been asking direct questions in December of 2016 this entire house-of-cards would have collapsed.

The outgoing administration needed to create something, some narrative, to block Trump from upending their entire political system and protect their own asses from all of the spying and surveillance operations they deployed throughout 2015 and 2016.

They sold this ridiculous Russian Narrative to a gullible U.S. left-wing electorate, because the Obama administration -writ large- knew media would help them, and millions of already shocked people would buy into these fabrications.

Consider the December 2016 example from a Yahoo News article:

[…] The US intelligence community has concluded that a hack-and-release of Democratic Party and Clinton staff emails was designed to put Trump — a political neophyte who has praised Putin — into the Oval Office. (link)

There was, and still is, absolutely no evidence the DNC was “hacked” (WikiLeaks claims the information was an inside job of “leaking”), and even John Podesta admitted himself he was a victim of an ordinary “phishing” password change scam.

The Russian Interference narrative was constructed ex post-facto to cover for a political surveillance operation that was targeting candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. The Carter Page FISA warrant (an insurance policy) was needed as cover for the investigative data trail and time spent by FBI officials enlisted in the surveillance operation.

You can watch the Herridge report inside this video at 00:39 [Prompted]