Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Buried ObamaGate Whistleblower Complaint Unearthed

Neil W. McCabe, "The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower"
President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department regularly surveilled retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s financial records and transactions beginning in December 2015 and well into 2017, before, during and after when he served at the White House as President Donald Trump’s National Security Director, a former senior Treasury Department official, and veteran of the intelligence community, told the Star Newspapers.

“I started seeing things that were not correct, so I did my own little investigation, because I wanted to make sure what I was seeing was correct” she said. “You never want to draw attention to something if there is not anything there.”

The whistleblower said she only saw metadata, that is names and dates when the general’s financial records were accessed. “I never saw what they saw.”

By March 2016, the whistleblower said she and a colleague, who was detailed to Treasury from the intelligence community, became convinced that the surveillance of Flynn was not tied to legitimate criminal or national security concerns, but was straight-up political surveillance among other illegal activity occurring at Treasury.

“When I showed it to her, what she said, ‘Oh, sh%t!’ and I knew right then and there that I was right – this was some shady stuff,” the whistleblower said.

“It wasn’t just him,” the whistleblower said. “They were targeting other U.S. citizens, as well.”

Only two names are listed in the whistleblower’s official paperwork, so the others must remain sealed, she said. The second name is Paul J. Manafort Jr., the one-time chairman of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The other names include: Members of Congress, the most senior staffers on the 2016 Trump campaign and members of Trump’s family, she said.

“Another thing they would do is take targeted names from a certain database – I cannot name, but you can guess – and they were going over to an unclassified database and they were running those names in the unclassified database,” she said.

This ruse was to get around using classified resources to surveil Americans, she said. Once the Treasury personnel had enough information about someone they were targeting from the black box, they would go to the white box for faster and more informed search.
It was routine for these searches that had no criminal nor national security predicate, merely a political predicate, she said.

Complaint filed with Treasury Inspector General

In March 2017, she filed a formal whistleblower complaint with Acting Treasury Inspector General Richard K. Delmar, who continues in that office today, she said. Beyond Delmar acknowledging receipt of the complaint, the inspector general never followed up on the matter.

This formal complaint was a follow-up to an August 2016 notification to Delmar that did not meet the full requirements of formal complaint, but it provided Delmar with the details of Treasury’s surveillance of Flynn, she said.

The whistleblower filed a subsequent complaint with the Office of Special Counsel May 2017, which is the permanent office established to work with whistleblowers and is not related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

This surveillance program was run out of Treasury’s Office of Intelligence Analysis, which was then under the leadership of S. Leslie Ireland. Ireland came to OIA in 2010 after a long tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency and a one-year stint as Obama’s daily in-person intelligence briefer.

The whistleblower said Treasury should never have been part of the unmasking of Flynn, because its surveillance operation was off-the-books. That is to say, the Justice Department never gave the required approval to the Treasury program, and so there were no guidelines, approvals nor reports that would be associated with a DOJ-sanctioned domestic surveillance operation.

“Accessing this information without approved and signed attorney general guidelines would violate U.S. persons constitutional rights and civil liberties,” she said.

“IC agencies have to adhere to Executive Order 12333, or as it is known in the community: E.O. 12-Triple-Three. Just because OIA does not have signed guidelines does not give them the power or right to operate as they want, if you want information on a U.S. person then work with the FBI on a Title III, if it is a U.S. person involved with a foreign entity then follow the correct process for a FISA, but without signed AG guidelines you cannot even get started,” she said. Title III refers to the FBI authority to electronically surveil Americans.

Top Obama Treasury officials among those who unmasked Flynn

Because the intercepts from Flynn’s Dec. 29, 2016 phone call with the Russian ambassador Sergei were captured by an entity other than Treasury, Patrick Conlon, the OIA director, who succeeded Ireland, was on the list of 37 Obama administration officials who either requested that Flynn’s name be unmasked or were shown the unmasked surveillance product.

Conlon accessed the Flynn file Dec. 14, 2016.

There must have been some kind of meeting that day. These are all of the other Treasury Department officials looking at Flynn that day: Secretary Jacob Lew, Acting Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis A. Daniel “Danny” McGlynn, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Michael Neufeld, Deputy Secretary Sarah Raskin, Under Secretary Nathan Sheets and Acting Under Secretary Adam Szubin.

Lew is the only one who made the list again, this time Jan. 12, 2017 – and if his deputy’s name sounds familiar, Raskin is the wife of Rep. Jamin B. “Jamie” Raskin (D.-Md.), one of the House Prosecutors, who argued for the removal of Trump after his impeachment. The congressman’s wife was also an Obama-appointed Federal Reserve governor.
– – –
Neil W. McCabe is a Washington-based national political reporter for The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. In addition to the Star Newspapers, he has covered the White House, Capitol Hill and national politics for One America News, Breitbart, Human Events and Townhall. Before coming to Washington, he was a staff reporter for Boston’s Catholic paper, The Pilot, and the editor of two Boston-area community papers, The Somerville News and The Alewife. McCabe is a public affairs NCO in the Army Reserve and he deployed for 15 months to Iraq as a combat historian.

36 comments:

  1. Quote: Recently people on the right have started pushing a ludicrous pseudo-scandal they're calling Obamagate. It holds that investigations by Barack Obama's administration into Russia's attack on the 2016 U.S. presidential election were a form of illicit sabotage of Donald Trump and his team. ... Obamagate exists to rewrite the history of Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference to make Trump the victim, rather than someone who actively sought Russia's help and then took steps to reward the nation's president, Vladimir Putin, for providing it. [end quote].

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  2. Gee, that might sound serious had this whistleblower complaint not been filed before the election... and re-filed after the 2016 election...

    This formal complaint was a follow-up to an August 2016 notification to Delmar that did not meet the full requirements of formal complaint, but it provided Delmar with the details of Treasury’s surveillance of Flynn, she said.

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  3. Too bad the timeline doesn't allow your conspiracy theory to pass the plausibility test...

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  4. So the f*ck what? This "whistleblower" is simply wrong about what they think the motivation was. Must be a "mind reader". She "became convinced that the surveillance of Flynn was not tied to legitimate criminal or national security concerns" but the evidence shows that Flynn (as per the judge) sold out his country.

    Toady Barr's reasons for dropping the charges against Flynn don't pass the plausibility test.

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  5. What evidence does the judge have other than a coerced 'false' confession obtained without any legal predicate?

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  6. Is the judge a 'superior' mind reader?

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  7. ...because he seems completely unfamiliar with legal processes and role of the judiciary.

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  8. ...hence the judge will soon be removed by a writ of mandamus.

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  9. Flynn plead guilty of his own accord in a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid some other very serious charges. You can call that "coerced" but that's the way it works. And Dotard fired Flynn because (he says) Flynn told the same lie to VP Pence. Was Flynn's lie to Pence "coerced"?

    Judge Sullivan appointed a lawyer to argue the DOJ's case -- given the DOJ's refusal to argue it. He's attempting to arrive at a decision by following proper procedure. There is no reason to remove him. It is the Dotard administration that needs to be removed. Judge Sullivan is highly respected.

    btw, if Flynn lied about being guilty, he should be charged with perjury. Also, I remember you claimed Judge Sullivan was on your side and that when he told Flynn he'd arguably betrayed his country -- according to you it was because Flynn plead guilty and that Sullivan was waiting for him to withdraw his plea so he could throw out the case.

    Clearly you were wrong in that mind reading attempt. LOL!

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  10. Dotard "discredits" whistleblowers by saying that they are motivated by hate for tRump. Maybe that was this whistleblower's motivation? She hates Obama. She and her colleague should be tried for treason and executed.

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  11. You've such a soft spot in your heart for Deep State moles.

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  12. I don"t know who your delusions are telling you are "deep state moles". Maybe you mean patriots like the people who testified at the House impeachment hearings? If so then I guess I'd agree. Certainly I view them as courageous heroes for risking their careers to tell the truth about the corrupt Dotard administration.

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  13. Like the whistleblower in this thread did against the Obama Administration, right?

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  14. I mean, do YOU want the Treasury Department to run illegal surveillance operations on US citizens using restricted NSA databases?

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  15. No. As I already told you, that person is an Obama hater and a spy that should be hung for treason. And, if there was any "illegal surveillance", where are the charges? Why isn't Toady Barr bringing them forward? Instead Barr says [in reference to Obama and Biden] "I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man". Huh? Looks like Durham and Barr are only interested in (attempting to) affecting the outcome of the upcoming election (and have no real evidence that could convict anyone).

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  16. Who is "that person" whom you would hang (a name for our whistleblower please).

    And AG Barr was right, if the Deep Staters were setting up illegal NSA databases and searching them like Treasury was, Obama/ Biden shouldn't go to jail... just like FDR shouldn't go to jail for J. Edgar Hoovers "file-making".

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  17. The Democrats IRS "Secret Project" exposed...

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  18. Hillary got all her cloth=based "server wiping" experience there...

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  19. You can't "expose" something that doesn't exist/never happened.

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  20. Unfortunately for you, the tree fell in the forest and some people heard. You can't muzzle them anymore.

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  21. The liars aren't being muzzled. They are in charge. And yes, that is unfortunate. For people who believe in facts and the truth. As opposed to "alternative fact", Russian propaganda lovers like yourself.

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  22. ...says the fan of the DNC funded and Russian propaganda packed Mueller Report.

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  23. I'm not a fan of your delusions at all (there is no such report).

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  24. Was that in today's DNC talking points memo? The Mueller report never happen d?

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  25. You said there is a "Russian propaganda packed Mueller Report". That's the report that doesn't exist. The actual Mueller report details bigly collusion and obstruction of justice by Dotard.

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  26. ...based upon an investigation PREDICATED by Russian propaganda *The Steele dossier".

    Yes, let's investigate ALL of the US politicians that Putin and his Rusky minions may bad mouth.

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  27. Factcheck.org. "[It] is wrong to say the dossier started all of this. Competing memos from the Republicans and the Democrats on the House intelligence committee both say that information about George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, had prompted the FBI investigation in July 2016".

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  28. It would have been impossible to have "gotten started" without the dossier. Remove the dossier, and the whole scandal "disappears".

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  29. ...after all, the FBI was closing "Crossfire Hurricane" until Peter Strzock held the closing up and Comey sent agents to interview Lt. Gen M Flynn and enacted the Democrats "insurance policy" to prevent Trump and started renewing illegal FISA warrants based upon the DNC/Clinton paid for dossier.

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  30. btw The "inception" of a. DNC Russian Hack was from a US IC operative, Joseph Misfud planting the idea with Popodopolous. Al that based upon false Russian propoganda that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russians paid for and collected BY the DNC...

    Steele was also asked to investigate Michael Flynn by the FBI...

    Damn, those Russian propogandists in the DNC really had our FBI fooled.

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  31. The dossier began as republican oppo research. And Italian intelligence says Misfud is not a "US IC operative". That was their response when Barr traveled there looking for evidence to support the discredited bullshit conspiracy theory that Dotard was "set up".

    "Russia, if you're listening"... I wonder how Putin was able to get "Russian propaganda" to come right out of Dotard's mouth?

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  32. Italian intelligence says Misfud is not a "US IC operative".

    Nope. They say's he's not an ITALIAN operative.

    The Italian government has determined that its intelligence services had no connection to a Maltese professor who told a Trump campaign adviser in 2016 that the Russian government had thousands of stolen emails that could damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, according to two senior Italian intelligence sources with knowledge

    You really are illiterate.

    And the fact that Hillary hadn't turned ALL her e-mail from her secret e-mail server to the Department of State was Russian propaganda and that she really HAD turned them ALL over? Nothing was "missing"? Who knew?

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  33. Did Putin tell that to Trump? Then how'd the WaPo find out? Were they colluding with the Russians, too?

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  34. Compare this date:

    Hillary Clinton Missing Email: 15 Emails Not Available Between Sidney Blumenthal And Former Secretary Of State's Aides

    By Clark Mindock @clarkmindock 06/25/15 AT 8:15 PM

    Up to 15 work-related emails from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state were missing from the archive Clinton handed over to the State Department earlier this year. The emails in question -- which are from before the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others -- are reportedly between Clinton aides and longtime Clinton political confidant Sidney Blumenthal.


    with this date:

    Lost emails from Clinton server discovered
    By Julian Hattem - 03/24/16 03:39 PM EDT

    with this date:

    The FBI found 15,000 emails Hillary Clinton didn’t turn ...
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/22/the-fbi-found-15000-emails...

    Aug 22, 2016 · The professional ones were turned over to the State Department. Here's how that broke down: ... "The FBI’s year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server uncovered 15,000 …


    with the date of Trump's statement:

    On July 27, 2016, Trump called on Russia to find presidential Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump proclaimed. He added, “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

    Seems to have been more than Russian propaganda at the time. Seems the scandal goes back to 2013...

    It also seems that the FBI had just absolved Clinton of wrongdoing vis the server on July 5, 2016

    Was Comey spreading Russian propaganda?

    The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.

    This helped us recover work-related e-mails that were not among the 30,000 produced to State. Still others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.

    With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”

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  35. Quote: The Washington Post reports that Durham has already disappointed Trump. In the course of Horowitz's investigation, Durham declined to endorse one key Republican talking point: that one witness, Joseph Mifsud, was actually a CIA or FBI agent deployed to undermine and defeat Trump's presidential bid.

    Durham, according to the Post, has "said he could not offer evidence to the Justice Department’s inspector general to support the suspicions of some conservatives that the case was a setup by American intelligence". [end quote]

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