Month: March 2017

Various versions circulated over the Internet regarding the alleged theft of a laptop belonging to a female Secret Service Agent. Why alleged? Because the whole action looks more and more like a dead drop to be picked up at a certain time.

New York Post had the most comprehensive article I could find. Here it is:

‘A Secret Service laptop containing sensitive information about Trump Tower, details about the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe and other national security secrets was swiped from an agent’s motorcycle in Brooklyn, police sources said Friday.
The computer was taken Thursday morning from the driveway of agent Marie Argentieri’s Bath Beach home, the sources said.
The thief drove up to Argentieri’s home around 8:40 a.m., walked right up to her Bajaj motorcycle and took the items. He was then caught on video fleeing the scene on foot, sources said.
Argentieri told investigators that the laptop held sensitive information about national security, the floor plans for Trump Tower, evacuation protocols and details about the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server.
While none of the info pertains to White House officials or foreign leaders, she said it could ultimately compromise national security. Sources told The Post that the laptop cannot be remotely erased or traced.
A black bag with the Secret Service insignia on it was also taken — along with an access keycard, several lapel pins that Secret Service agents are required to wear when protecting the president and other sensitive documents, sources said.
An agency-issued radio, used for closed-circuit communications between agents, was also among the stolen items, according to Politico.
“The U.S. Secret Service can confirm that an employee was the victim of a criminal act in which our Agency issued laptop computer was stolen,” the agency said in a statement Friday.
“Secret Service issued laptops contain multiple layers of security including full disk encryption and are not permitted to contain classified information. An investigation is ongoing and the Secret Service is withholding additional comment until the facts are gathered.”
The NYPD is assisting the agency in their investigation. It is unclear if the theft was targeted or simply a random act.
The black bag and some other items were later discovered at nearby Poly Prep HS by the head of security, Carol Bongnan, and returned to Argentieri.
But the laptop and lapel pins were still missing as of 2:30 p.m. Friday, sources said.
Sources said somebody had brought left it at the school.
Thursday’s heist is just the latest in a long line of public embarrassments for the Secret Service in recent years.
A Congressional investigation in 2015 found that it had transformed into an “agency in crisis” — entrenched in low morale, heavy boozing and dimwitted security decisions.
In Sept. 2014, President Barack Obama’s Secret Service detail allowed a security guard with a gun and three prior convictions for assault and battery into an elevator with him for a photo.
Two years after that, a pair of agents allegedly got drunk and interfered in a bomb investigation outside the building.
In 2014, a man was able to bypass Obama’s security detail and speak to him by pretending to be a congressman.
Most recently, two agents came under investigation after snapping selfies with President Trump’s 8-year-old grandson, Donald III, last weekend.’

Highlights from the article:
– the laptop along with a bag of goodies (including access keycard)
– the said laptop cannot be remotely accessed or erased
– laptop contains sensitive information about Hillary Clinton’s email investigation, Trump Tower’s floor plans, evacuation protocols

However, the media could not get the story straight and there are many other versions of the incident, enough to make your head spin.

NY Daily ‘narrative’ …
“frantically searching for the laptop since it was stolen Thursday morning […] Neighbors said the thief struck about 3 a.m.” – “Neighbor Jaime Palazzi, 40, saw the thief […] “I was smoking a cigarette on my balcony,” – “I looked at him, he looked at me, and he kept on going. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.” Another neighbor, Mike Mignuolo, 73, believes, based on the video police showed him, that the suspect moved quickly and with a purpose. […] “It showed somebody running to the car and running back out,”
NY Daily – http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/laptop-trump-tower-floor-plans-stolen-secret-service-article-1.3001078
** 3 a.m. ~ who is out smoking at 3am? and the other saw a video the police showed him? And then get this … “Mignuolo said he was excited by the intrigue and theorized the thief is from nearby Brighton Beach, a Russian enclave. “What’s going on is crazy,” he said, “with the Russians and the President.” ** So this guy surmises that it must be the “Russians”, by just seeing a police video? **

USA Today ‘narrative’ …
“Surveillance video uncovered a few clues. The film showed what might be a Chevy Malibu pull up to the agent’s home and a white man exit the passenger side, […] The computer was taken from the car of a female agent, […] The man is later seen carrying the agent’s bag and walking down the street”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/17/laptop-secret-service-employee-stolen/99316412/
** surveillance video can make out the car and the thief is white and just ‘walking away’ **
CBS 2 ‘narrative’ …
“An unoccupied vehicle with Maryland plates was broken into and a bag with a laptop [..] was stolen. […] Surveillance video possibly from the street shows a white man wearing dark clothing exit the back passenger side of what may be a Chevrolet Malibu after pulling up to the secret service agent’s street. The car then pulls up to the house and stops with its hazard lights on.”
Secret Service Agent’s Laptop Stolen In Brooklyn
** Flashing hazard lights ..? Not a worry in the world …
** Plus,a MUST HEAR report from Peter Haskell on the CBS 2 link … Before, they have even done any research …. “it’s possible for Russia to steal, and the Secret Service are Russian targets.”

So, we don’t know if it was a car or a bike? it was happening very early in the morning (3 am) or around 8 am?

The whole alleged theft stinks pretty badly and begs some very important questions:
– How could anybody that stupid- I am talking about the SS agent named Argentieri- pass the security clearance to work for the POTUS?
– Why did she have sensitive information pertaining to FBI activity when she was Secret Service?
– Along with the access keycard, did she leave password info? Because in that case it does not matter how many levels of encryption exist, once the password is known, it becomes a moot point.
– Why would Secret Service tell the media what was on the stolen laptop?
– Why the laptop did not have a tracking software?

Yesterday I read that the ex- president Obama is on vacation on Marlon Brandon’s private island in Tahiti. First thought that crossed my mind: he concocted something horribly bad and left the country to pretend he was not involved. Something big is going down.

President Trump recently tweeted claiming that former President Obama wiretapped him during his campaign. One can only imagine how nuts the media would have gone if the roles had been reversed: President Trump wiretapping either Obama or the Clintons, though his DOJ could have authority to do just that given the expansive leaks of intelligence information by Obama and Clinton supporters the last few months.

Conservative Treehouse released a timeline of the unlawful spying by the Obama administration on the opposition party’s candidate in Trump Tower.

The list includes the revelation that the Obama administration continued to spy on Trump Tower and opposition party after October even after no evidence was found of wrongdoing.

1. June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers. The request, uncharacteristically, is denied. Note: this date was not included in Conservative Tree House timeline. In my opinion it was one of the main events that triggered the whole clusterfuck that followed. Monday, 27 June 2016: AG Loretta Lynch has secretive meeting with Bill Clinton in plane on tarmac at Phoenix airport.
2. July: Russia joke. Wikileaks releases emails from the Democratic National Committee that show an effort to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from winning the presidential nomination. In a press conference, Donald Trump refers to Hillary Clinton’s own missing emails, joking: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” That remark becomes the basis for accusations by Clinton and the media that Trump invited further hacking.
3. October: Podesta emails. In October, Wikileaks releases the emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out batches every day until the election, creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton campaign blames Trump and the Russians.
4. October: FISA request. The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found — but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National Review later notes. The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.
5. January 2017: Buzzfeed/CNN dossier. Buzzfeed releases, and CNN reports, a supposed intelligence “dossier” compiled by a foreign former spy. It purports to show continuous contact between Russia and the Trump campaign, and says that the Russians have compromising information about Trump. None of the allegations can be verified and some are proven false. Several media outlets claim that they had been aware of the dossier for months and that it had been circulating in Washington.
?
The dossier included inaccurate accusations of businessman Trump on Russian hookers. The dossier was complete rubbage.

* Admiral Michael Rogers had a visit with President Trump on Friday, November 11th.
* According to the Executive Order rule changes DNI James Clapper signed off on December 15th.
* General Michael Flynn spoke to the Russian Ambassador on December 29th
* Dec 29th 2016 – Obama announces sanctions on Russia
6. January: Obama expands NSA sharing. As Michael Walsh later notes, and as the New York Times reports, the outgoing Obama administration “expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.” The new powers, and reduced protections, could make it easier for intelligence on private citizens to be circulated improperly or leaked.
The new rules, which were issued in an unclassified document, entitled Procedures for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence Information by the National Security Agency (NSA), significantly relaxed longstanding limits on what the NSA may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations.
These operations are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. Surveillances include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls, and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.
The changes initiated by the Obama Administration in its waning days empowered far more agents and officials to search through raw intelligence data.
* Jan 3rd 2017 – Loretta Lynch signs off on rule changes for phone taps.
* Jan 12th 2017 –  WaPo reports On Phone Calls Anonymous Intel Sources
* Jan 15th 2017 – VP Pence appears on Face the nation.
* Jan 20th 2017 – Inauguration
* Jan 23rd 2017 –  FBI reports nothing unlawful in content of Flynn call
* Jan 26th 2017 – Sally Yates (acting DOJ) informs President Trump there might be a conflict between VP Pence’s stated TV version (was told by Flynn), and what Intel community communicate to Yates that Flynn actually expressed to Russia.
* Jan 27th 2017 – White House counsel begins investigation to discrepancy.
7. January: Times report. The New York Times reports, on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies — the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of Russian ties.
Other news outlets also report the existence of a multi-agency working group to coordinate investigations across the government,” though it is unclear how they found out, since the investigations would have been secret and involved classified information.
8. February: Mike Flynn scandal. Reports emerge that the FBI intercepted a conversation in 2016 between future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — then a private citizen — and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The intercept supposedly was  part of routine spying on the ambassador, not monitoring of the Trump campaign. The FBI transcripts reportedly show the two discussing Obama’s newly-imposed sanctions on Russia, though Flynn earlier denied discussing them.
Sally Yates, whom Trump would later fire as acting Attorney General for insubordination, is involved in the investigation. In the end, Flynn resigns over having misled Vice President Mike Pence (perhaps inadvertently) about the content of the conversation.
9. February: Times claims extensive Russian contacts. The New York Times cites “four current and former American officials” in reporting that the Trump campaign had “repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials. The Trump campaign denies the claims — and the Times admits that there is “no evidence” of coordination between the campaign and the Russians. The White House and some congressional Republicans begin to raise questions about illegal intelligence leaks.
10. March: the Washington Post targets Jeff Sessions. The Washington Postreports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had contact twice with the Russian ambassador during the campaign — once at a Heritage Foundation event and once at a meeting in Sessions’s Senate office.
The Post suggests that the two meetings contradict Sessions testimony at his confirmation hearings that he had no contacts with the Russians, though in context (not presented by the Post) it was clear he meant in his capacity as a campaign surrogate, and that he was responding to claims in the “dossier” of ongoing contacts.
The New York Times, in covering the story, adds that the Obama White House “rushed to preserve” intelligence related to alleged Russian links with the Trump campaign. By “preserve” it really means “disseminate”: officials spread evidence throughout other government agencies “to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators” and perhaps the media as well.
In summary: the Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.

From the Conservative Tree House comments section:

The first dot in the timeline is Clinton operative Alexandra Chalupa.
“Manafort’s work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC’s arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.
clip
“In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities — including Ukrainian-Americans — she said that, when Trump’s unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump’s ties to Russia, as well.”
clip
She said she shared her concern with Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn’t particularly concerned about the operative’s ties to Trump since he didn’t believe Trump stood much of a chance of winning the GOP nomination, let alone the presidency.”
This is a long article chock-full of information that sheds light on how the Russia story got rolling and who was involved.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446

Former Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski told Judge Jeanine on Saturday that the Obama Administration wiretapped sitting US Senator Jeff Sessions while he was still a sitting senator!
Lewandowski: What we’ve seen from the previous administration is that they did spend time listening to conversations between then Senator Jeff Sessions and the ambassador to Russia while he was in his US Senate office. if that were to take place which supposedly did take place, what other conversations did they listen in on?
Judge Jeanine: Whoa, you’re saying they were listening to conversations between then Senator Sessions and the Russian Ambassador Kislyak or are you talking about Mike Flynn and Kislyak?
Lewandowski: No, I’m talking about Jeff Sessions.

It really shouldn’t be shocking about this wiretapping of the Trump Tower, before the Nov. election.
In June, 2013, in an interview with TV One, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) praised President Barack Obama for putting together a campaign database that “will have information about everything on every individual.”
US Rep. Maxine Waters went on to say, “And that database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before,” Waters told “Washington Watch” host Roland, referring to Obama’s “Organizing for America,” which was changed from a campaign organization to a 501(c)(4) called Organizing for Action.
Now that Obama is out of the WH, he will try to cause mayhem in Pres.Trump’s administration. It’s not about Flynn or Sessions.