Talk about playing the long legal game here—and an odious one at that. We all know the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was a hoax. It was a myth. It had no evidence to back it up and yet the liberal media and the Democratic Party allowed it to eat away at what little brains they had left after the 2016 election. It’s bad, folks. It was one of the biggest most epic journalistic fails in history perhaps. How many bombshells did we endure? Bombshells that turned out to be nothing burgers because there was no evidence.
“The walls are closing in on Trump” was said countless times. Nothing has materialized. This whole fiasco stemmed by an opposition research file called the Trump dossier, compiled by an ex-MI6 spook, and funded by the Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was unverified, inaccurate, and eventually exposed as total trash. It was cited as credible evidence to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign official, and the president’s 2016 campaign itself, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane.
Michael Flynn became a target of the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Russian collusion because he made a phone call with some Russians. AS the incoming national security adviser, it’s right that he speaks with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The FBI weaponized a call against him. The transcript was leaked to the press. The anti-Trump deep state was doing it work. And yet, there was still no evidence of collusion committed by Flynn. There was none. Period. But the FBI under James Comey were going to get him no matter what. He eventually pleaded guilty to bogus “lying to the FBI charges,” pressed by the Special Counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller, which is another issue entirely, as the FBI had concluded its investigation of Flynn, with agents saying they felt he didn’t lie to them. The Mueller probe needs to be investigated for misconduct.
With Flynn being vindicated, showing him to be a victim of a malicious FBI investigation, why did Mueller rehash all of this? It looks like, as Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel wrote, to be a polish job on the FBI’s abysmal Russian collusion wild goose chase. It was set up to give the aura of legitimacy to the FBI’s laughable counterintelligence probe, but Undercover Huber has lobbed a new allegation of extreme malfeasance against the Special Counsel Office’s (SCO) investigation: it leaked a fake story about Paul Manafort being under a FISA warrant to eviscerate his attorney-client privilege in order to get his lawyer to divulge anything relating to him being a possible Russian agent to the grand jury. The goal, of course, was to find something major on President Trump. These ruthless tactics are also what caused Flynn’s lawyers at the time to push for the plea deal, as they didn’t want to be turned into legal sashimi by the SCO. The FISA warrant against Manafort was a dud. It never happened. And in the end, the former Trump campaign chair was thrown in jail, not for collusion antics, but for tax evasion. Not really earth-shattering, but lives had to be destroyed to sate the thirst for blood from the Trump-deranged officials at the DOJ.
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It’s a lengthy Twitter thread but carefully pieced together to show quite the scheme to get something, anything to prove collusion. The fake FISA warrant story was reportedly done to influence the judge in the case, to give the impression that violating Manafort’s attorney-client privilege was in the national interest given that the FBI had already had him under surveillance, which was based on complete and utter lies.
Somebody faked that the Crossfire Hurricane team had a FISA on Paul Manafort & "leaked" this to CNN
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
And the culprits may have been the Special Counsel's Office, trying to influence D.C's Chief Judge into allowing the SCO to pierce Manafort's Attorney/Client privilege
THREAD
Before looking in detail at the extraordinary claims in CNN's article, let’s just clarify that the core of the story - that the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team sought and obtained an FISA warrant on Manafort - isn’t just wrong, or false. It's totally fake. 100% made up. pic.twitter.com/rO0P0zr7GY
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
CNN itself acknowledged this when the IG report was released, appending an "editors note” in Dec 9, 2019, saying it “contradicts” their Sep 18, 2017 story, without offering any explanation or trying to defend it pic.twitter.com/o7jOu5hrA0
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
The non-existent FISA started in 2014 over Ukraine, was stopped, then “restarted”, likely after Manafort was ousted from Trump's campaign in mid Aug 2016, and “extended at least into early [2017]”, “before and after the election” pic.twitter.com/DRUgCBpz0X
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
CNN “learned” the FISA also included a *physical* search “of a storage facility belonging to Manafort”
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
(Note: it is already known that the search of this storage facility was briefed to the Associated Press by the SCO's Andrew Weissmann): https://t.co/RlnNZ9mXo2 pic.twitter.com/lEbIkHpKfW
And CNN's "sources" also claimed there was a "gap" in the FISA due to it being stopped and restarted. When was the "gap"? Oh, in June 2016, during the Trump Tower meeting. Maybe that's when the Collusion must have happened, in this "crucial" period when nobody was listening…! pic.twitter.com/Iqm7XBQuz4
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
So whoever "leaked" this story to CNN is crafting this (fake) narrative:
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
—Manafort had a FISA (meaning there's probable cause he's an agent of a foreign power)
—There was a gap in the FISA, and maybe that's where the "Collusion" was really happening, maybe even with Trump
July 26, 2017: The SCO carried out a dawn raid on Manafort's house. https://t.co/8ANaY6FeiQ
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
FYI - it's worth noting at this point that the "Collusion" allegations were based on the Steele dossier, leaked to the media. And the "payments" allegation was substantially based on the fake "black ledger" of "cash payments" to Manafort, also leaked. https://t.co/cP2sf26zJR)
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
The Chief Judge in D.C. overseeing the case (Beryl Howell) then held a hearing on Sep 19, 2017 (and two others on Sep 20 & 26). https://t.co/QwVZrJYsAz
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
And these hearings were crucial to the SCO’s case: they needed Manafort’s own lawyer to testify against him, to ensure they could get the charges about FARA violations to stick.
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
Oct 2, 2017: Judge Howell ruled against Manafort (in a non-public sealed opinion), ultimately piercing Attorney/Client privilege and forcing his lawyer to testify against him about the preparation of those FARA filings. Big win for the SCO pic.twitter.com/oqZn4T8kjz
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
Now it's admittedly speculative that the CNN story influenced Judge Howell, but the introduction to her order justifying forcing the lawyers testimony looks ridiculous in retrospect drawn right from the CNN narrative: a case of "national importance" about Manafort's "Collusion”! pic.twitter.com/CDy2BLYeRy
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
And prior to Manafort's trial, the SCO even admitted in response to Brady motions to his trial lawyers that the US government had *no surveillance intercepts* of Manafort AT ALL. Zip
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
(CNN didn’t report this, or update/retract their original story either)https://t.co/V3DpNybtoA https://t.co/1wlWwBXa7x
But there is a bigger picture about why someone would go to the elaborate lengths of faking a FISA story in the national media, helping force Manafort's lawyer to flip on him. Because this wasn't the real aim...
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
...it was to set a tone or "rep" to get to @realDonaldTrump himself
Covington and Burling no doubt feared being dragged in front of Grand Jury, leaked about in the media, and asked to explain their FARA filing preparations as Manafort’s attorney had been, especially as legal assistance with FARA is a big part of their business. So they caved.
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
The NYT: https://t.co/cD8mUd9T2F made this exact point about "setting a tone" *the day before* the CNN Manafort leak, only a couple of days before the Manafort attorney hearing, via Collusion friendly reporters
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
And just in case the D.C Chief Judge reads Lawfare (lets be honest, she probably does), you can always rely on Comey's homey's over there to get punked or boost SCO fakery, in this case saying that thanks to the CNN story "Lordy, there appear to be tapes". https://t.co/eaDt5ogorF pic.twitter.com/6mzqAyO6e3
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
This troubling pattern makes it clear that the SCO's goal was to go after even the lawyers defending Trump's team, Manafort, Flynn and Trump himself
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
CONCLUSION
— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) May 20, 2020
The media were willing participants in SCO intimidation. And while CNN did append an editors note over two years later, they've done nothing to expose the "sources" of this fake FISA, who likely are former members of the Special Counsel's Office
/ENDS
“The Chief Judge in D.C. overseeing the case (Beryl Howell) then held a hearing on Sep 19, 2017 (and two others on Sep 20 & 26),” he wrote.
“And these hearings were crucial to the SCO’s case: they needed Manafort’s own lawyer to testify against him, to ensure they could get the charges about FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violations to stick,” he added.
Huber noted that on Sep 18, 2017, “one day before those court hearings, this CNN story exploded all over the media. The takeaway - Manafort was considered such a Russian "Collusion" threat, that the FBI even got a FISA warrant, and the SCO has copies of the communications obtained under the FISA!”
When Judge Howell issued her ruling, Huber admits that the CNN FISA story being an influence is speculative, but the stars align too well, especially with her opening remarks that forced Manafort’s attorney to testify against him.
“The introduction to her order justifying forcing the lawyer’s testimony looks ridiculous in retrospect drawn right from the CNN narrative: a case of ‘national importance’ about Manafort's ‘Collusion’!” he wrote.
Huber added that Manafort faced collusion allegations that were based on the fake Trump dossier and him being the recipient of Ukrainian cash whose payments were cataloged in a “black ledger.” The FBI was warned that the latter was fake. It was an epic clown show. It was built on lies, a palace of lies. It all circles back to The Federalist Sean Davis’ piece about how the Mueller probe did their very best to prove Russian collusion, given all the investigators were die-hard liberals, but couldn’t make the pieces fit. Hey, that’s what happens in the absence of actual evidence. It’s a double-edged sword. If anything, it definitely shows the narrative was a crock, as these partisans couldn’t find anything. And this was all done in order to set the groundwork for a possible indictment of President Trump, but tax evasion and wire fraud is all they got. In some ways, these folks were using ‘drain the swamp’ against Trump, trying to nab him and paying little mind to who else they takedown.
‘Get all the bad guys in one big move,’ even if it means lying through our teeth, leaking fake stories to the press, and destroying people’s lives. It had to be done because Trump shouldn’t have won. It was Hillary’s turn, right? Well, that didn’t happen. And the functions of the state were weaponized to go after the rival party. Flynn’s politically motivated prosecution alone is enough to yank the usual suspects back onto the Hill for more questions, especially in the period when Mueller took over the FBI’s collusion probe. But we also should look into the SCO and who might have leaked this fake story to CNN in order to squeeze Manafort.
(H/T RedState)
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