During a Tuesday night segment on NBC Nightly News, justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian had an exclusive sitdown interview with the former federal prosecutor and chief investigator of the January 6 Committee, Tim Heaphy who told Dilanian that the federal government could’ve prevented the January 6 riot at the Capitol if they took the intelligence they received seriously and acted on the threats that were received about the rioters’ intentions that day.
What was just as out of the ordinary for NBC was the admission that among the more than 800 pages in the January 6 Committee’s report, none of it included their findings on the failure of law enforcement to prevent the riots. Anchor Lester Holt made as much clear in the opening moments of the segment before tossing to Dilanian:
“The January 6 Committee’s final report was more than 800 pages, but some material did not make the cut, including much of its findings on the failures of federal law enforcement leading up to the attack,” Holt admitted.
“The images of the attack on the capitol stunned America and the world. And tonight, in an exclusive interview, the chief investigator of the January 6 Committee says the government could have prevented it,” Dilanian reported before turning to Heaphy to ask “had law enforcement agencies acted on the available intelligence, do you believe the attack on the capitol could have been could have been successfully repelled?”
Heaphy responded: “I think it would have been a lot different had law enforcement taken a more assertive protective posture. The Intel in advance was pretty specific, and it was enough in our view for law enforcement to have done a better job operationalizing a secure perimeter.”
“Law enforcement had a very direct role in contributing to surely the failures—the security failures that led to the violence,” Heaphy added.
Dilanian revealed how “people familiar with the committee’s work tell NBC News members downplayed that finding because they wanted to keep the focus on former President Trump. Committee members dispute that.”
That admission was followed by Dilanian reporting how “Heaphy says the committee found the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies did not act on the intelligence they had, including this online threat forwarded to capitol police January 5, calling for thousands to go to Washington and help storm the capitol.”
Yet, according to Dilanian, “the FBI said it sent all the intelligence it had to the capitol police. DHS and capitol police say they’ve taken steps to make sure threat intelligence is better analyzed and shared.”
Now they tell us that law enforcement didn’t take the intelligence seriously or failed to act on it. Well over a month after the January 6 Committee report was released, these key findings were conveniently left out of the over 800-page report. Instead, the hyper-partisan committee was more focused on what former President Donald Trump says was a political witch hunt against him.
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A three-volume, 750+ page tome with an extensive update of the renowned underground classic ~ the Global Sovereign’s Handbook. Still after all these years, this is the most comprehensive book on sovereignty, economics, law, power structures and history ever written. Served as the primary research behind the best-selling Global One Audio Course. Available Now!
Dawning of the Corona Age: Navigating the Pandemic by Johnny Freedom (3rd Edition) (Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
This comprehensive book, goes far beyond the immediate impact of the “pandemic”, but, along with the reader, imagines how our human world may be altered, both positively and negatively, long into an uncertain future. Available Now!
According to reliable sources, an American torpedo was found at the explosion site of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. It was the torpedo type carried by the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Ignatius (DDG 117) – RGM-84 harpoon missile. The Harpoon has been the primary anti-ship weapon in the United States Navy, it has a range of 300 km and is known as a “ship-killer”.
The U.S. provided Ukrainian forces with the Harpoon anti-ship missiles at the end of May this year, and then the Ukraine used Harpoon missiles to sink the Russian Navy’s Vasiliy Bekh tugboat around June 17. Actually, the U.S. Navy tested the destructive power of Harpoon missiles on the battlefield in Ukraine. Around the same time, the U.S. Sixth Fleet began collecting accurate mapping of the vicinity of the Nord Stream pipeline in order to perform remote sabotage.
All about Blowing up the NS! U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet carried out the sabotage
From Obama to Biden administrations, they all charged that the NS pipelines will deepen the extensive dependence of Germany and other portions of democratic Europe on Russian energy supplies, Biden has even threatened to “put an end” to the Nord Stream 2. Since 2022, the U.S. Navy has been making intensive displays of its military presence in the Baltic region, ostensibly dictated by the international situation and the new phase of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, the following timeline shows that the U.S. Navy’s “use of force” against the Nord Stream pipeline was deliberate.
First, quietly deploy commander familiar with underwater fast attacks
The U.S. Navy made a low-key personnel transfer on May 20, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced that Navy Rear Adm. Thomas E. Ishee for appointment to the grade of vice admiral, and assignment as commander, 6th Fleet. Thomas Ishee is well versed in underwater fast attack, and he commanded fast attack submarines and oversaw the operations of torpedo retrievers, floating dry dock and the Navy’s submarine rescue systems.
Second, by taking advantage of the military exercise, collect detailed data on the intended attack location in advance
The Baltic Operations (BALTOPS 22), led by U.S. Sixth Fleet, took place from June 5 to 17, the important scenarios include anti-submarine, mine clearance operations, unmanned underwater vehicles, explosive ordnance disposal, etc. Significantly, in period BALTOPS U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers, training an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit near Bornholm island, Denmark (very close to the NS gas pipeline explosion sites), and collecting over 200 hours of undersea data – data which included precision mapping of the exact location of the Nord Stream pipelines that was sufficiently precise for remote sabotage.
USS Paul Ignatius (DDG 117) quickly left the Baltic Sea after completing its mission.
Sept. 15, USS Paul Ignatius arrived in Riga, Latvia for a scheduled port visit. Sept. 26, this destroyer docked in the port Gdynia, Poland after completing its “mission”, on the same day, explosions occurred at Nord Stream pipelines. After that, Paul Ignatius was immediately sent back to the Naval Station Rota, Spain to escape the accident site.
Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty (30th Anniversary Edition) (3-Volume Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
A three-volume, 750+ page tome with an extensive update of the renowned underground classic ~ the Global Sovereign’s Handbook. Still after all these years, this is the most comprehensive book on sovereignty, economics, law, power structures and history ever written. Served as the primary research behind the best-selling Global One Audio Course. Available Now!
Dawning of the Corona Age: Navigating the Pandemic by Johnny Freedom (3rd Edition) (Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
This comprehensive book, goes far beyond the immediate impact of the “pandemic”, but, along with the reader, imagines how our human world may be altered, both positively and negatively, long into an uncertain future. Available Now!
New detail in Danchenko trial exhibits suggests that FBI intentionally targeted Trump on false Russia collusion charges.
An FBI email previously not known to the public has revealed that the bureau planned to make Igor Danchenko—the primary source for British former spy Christopher Steele’s Trump dossier—a confidential human source (CHS) before it had even interviewed him.
The revelation, which was discovered as a result of special counsel John Durham’s case against Danchenko, indicates that the FBI deliberately targeted 2016 presidential candidate and later President Donald Trump with claims it already knew at the time to be false.
The email—of which only the subject line has been made public—was first uncovered by an internet sleuth who goes by the moniker “Walkafyre” and was included in hundreds of unused exhibits from Danchenko’s trial.
The FBI used Danchenko—who was acquitted last week on all charges of lying to the FBI—in its investigation of Trump, despite knowing that Danchenko had helped fabricate the dossier.
With the benefit of this new information, a renewed examination of the timeline between the Nov. 8, 2016, presidential election and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller on May 17, 2017, reveals that the FBI—with the help of the Obama administration and Washington establishment figures—executed a concerted campaign to oust a sitting president.
Email Reveals FBI’s Plan for Danchenko
The newly discovered email was sent by FBI agent Kevin Helson to unknown recipients on Jan. 12, 2017. The email’s heading reads “Plan to Convert Danchenko into CHS.”
This email is critical for several reasons. It shows that the FBI intended to hide Steele’s main source behind CHS status after they had previously discovered Steele couldn’t back up the claims in his dossier despite their offer of $1 million to him for any corroboration. As a CHS, Danchenko also would be shielded from any external investigations—including those of Congress.
Of equal importance, Helson’s email also proves that the FBI planned to convert Danchenko into a CHS before the FBI had even interviewed Danchenko. Had they thought the dossier was real, there would have been no reason to hide Danchenko. Instead, the FBI would’ve been touting the existence of a crucial source.
The FBI proceeded to make him a CHS despite interviewing him several weeks later, in late January 2017, when Danchenko disavowed the claims in the dossier, saying during his interview that it was based on rumors and bar talk made in jest.
It had previously been assumed that the FBI only decided to make Danchenko a CHS after he had been interviewed.
This move by the FBI also directly coincided with President Barack Obama’s wishes expressed during a Jan. 5 White House intelligence briefing on the dossier that he wanted to withhold information from the incoming Trump administration.
Russian analyst Igor Danchenko is pursued by journalists as he departs the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse after being arraigned, in Alexandria, Va., on Nov. 10, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
That the efforts to effectively hide Danchenko started even before Danchenko had disavowed the dossier is critical evidence of the early commencement of the FBI’s efforts against Trump. Had the FBI not done everything it could to conceal Danchenko’s existence by bestowing him with CHS status, the truth about the dossier would have likely been revealed and the effort to oust Trump would have collapsed.
Lastly, the plan to grant CHS status to Danchenko coincides with a remarkable sequence of events that took place on the same day Helson’s email was sent.
Establishing Trump–Russia Collusion Narrative
To fully understand the significance of the FBI granting CHS status to a person the agency hadn’t yet spoken to, we need to go back to Election Day.
The unexpected election of Trump on Nov. 8, 2016, prompted an unprecedented response from the intelligence community and Washington establishment. The effort to undermine Trump and his administration began almost immediately after his victory.
On Nov. 9, 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page exchanged textsthat referred to a “secret society” the day after Trump’s victory. Page texted Strzoksaying, “Maybe this should be the first meeting of the Secret Society.”
Strzok responded to Page saying, “Too hard to explain here. Election related.” The next day, Strzok texted Page saying, “Bill [Priestap, head of FBI Counterintelligence] just sent a two hour invite to talk strategy.”
In early December 2016, the CIA told congressional leaders that “Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency,” a claim that was a crucial convergence point between the FBI’s and CIA’s narratives. Although then-CIA Director John Brennan had been working behind the scenes by pushing information to the FBI, up to that point, it had been primarily the FBI driving the collusion narrative—for instance, by spying on Trump campaign aide Carter Page through a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant.
The CIA’s congressional briefings prompted Obama to direct the CIA, the FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA) to draft an intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference in the election. While the reported date of Obama’s order was Dec. 9, 2016, the actual order may have been given much earlier, as both the CIA and FBI had been in the process of preparing reports on Russian interference.
Former Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan testifies before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 23, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The FBI quickly jumped on board with Obama’s ICA plan. Priestap and special agent Jonathan Moffa were assigned to the ICA project on behalf of the FBI. However, the FBI didn’t appear to be interested in presenting an analytical work product. Their real goal appeared to be the inclusion of the Steele dossier in the ICA, which would give the dossier much-needed credibility. Up to that point, no media organization had published the dossier or any of its lurid allegations. If Trump was to be unseated, the dossier’s breathless claims needed to be made public.
Notably, as Durham revealed during Danchenko’s trial, by that time, the FBI already knew that the dossier was completely uncorroborated. On Oct. 3, 2016, the FBI offered dossier author Christopher Steele up to $1 million to provide any evidence that would substantiate his allegations against Trump. Steele wasn’t able to do so.
However, instead of ending its investigation, the FBI escalated efforts to tie Trump to the Russia collusion narrative. The FBI’s offer of $1 million to Steele for corroboration would later be hidden from Congress, congressional inquiries, Trump officials, and the courts.
According to a 2019 Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General report on the FBI’s abuses in the Carter Page FISA warrant case, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe personally pushed his agents on Dec. 16 to include the dossier in the ICA. McCabe’s demand preceded the identification of Steele’s primary sub-source. As Durham reported last week, that sub-source, Danchenko, who, by his own account, was responsible for at least 80 percent of the dossier, was identified by the FBI a few days later on Dec. 20.
When FBI agent Moffa asked McCabe whether to limit what was included to “information concerning Russian election interference or to also include allegations against candidate Trump,” McCabe told him to include the allegations, “due to concerns over possible Russian attempts to blackmail Trump.”
That was an early indication that, contrary to what FBI Director James Comeywould later repeatedly claim, the FBI was already targeting Trump personally in December 2016.
On Dec. 19, lead counterespionage agent Peter Strzok texted Lisa Page, who was McCabe’s personal legal counsel, that he needed to talk to someone “about using his [expletive]” in the ICA. The name of the person that Strzok wanted to talk to is redacted and remains unknown.
After Danchenko was identified on Dec. 20, the FBI for the first time told the CIA that it wanted to include the dossier in the ICA.
On Dec. 28, according to records published by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey personally made a push with both the CIA and the NSA for the dossier to be included in the ICA. Comey vouched that Steele was a “credible person with a source and sub-source network in position to report on such things.”
Comey didn’t mention that Steele had failed to back up his information, even after being offered $1 million.
With Comey’s push, the other two agencies tasked with producing the ICA—the CIA and NSA—agreed to include a two-page summary of the dossier at the back of the official report from the three agencies. This had the effect that Comey and McCabe had sought—to legitimize the dossier.
On Jan. 5, 2017, top intelligence officials, including Comey, Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and NSA Director Michael Rogers briefed Obama on the ICA report.
Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on Dec. 11, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Following the official meeting, Comey stayed behind to brief Obama on the dossier. It was at this meeting that Obama stated that he wanted his team to be “mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia” with the incoming Trump administration.
The next day, Comey and other officials including Clapper briefed President-elect Trump and his national security team on the ICA. During this portion of the meeting, the Steele dossier was mentioned in passing.
A member of Trump’s team—reported to have been Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn—asked whether the FBI had dug into Steele’s sub-sources. If the questions were indeed posed by Flynn, it may have precipitated his subsequent demise at the hands of Comey. Once again, Comey would stay behind to brief Trump more fully on the dossier.
Comey would later tell CNN’s Jake Tapper that he only briefed Trump on the “salacious” parts of the dossier because “that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community agreed he needed to be told about.” News of the intelligence briefing to Trump was leaked hours later to the media.
Efforts Begin in Earnest After January 2017 Briefings
On Jan. 3, 2017, Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 into effect. This unprecedented new order significantly relaxed longstanding limits on dissemination of information gathered by the NSA’s powerful surveillance operations, granting broad latitude to the Intelligence Community with regard to interagency sharing of information.
On Jan. 10, 2017, following his Jan. 5 briefing to Obama and his abbreviated briefing to Trump on Jan. 6, Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. During the hearing, Comey was asked by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) if the FBI was investigating relationships between associates of Trump and the Russian government. Comey stated that he could neither confirm nor deny an active investigation, thereby setting the media frenzy of Trump–Russia collusion into motion. The Steele dossier would be released by BuzzFeed on the same day.
The day after Comey’s testimony, the Senate Intelligence Committee opened an investigation into Russian interference and the Trump campaign. Its report proved to be politically driven and much of it has been discredited.
Concerned over increasing leaks to the media, Trump had actually conducted a sting of sorts during his briefing from top intelligence officials on the ICA and the Steele dossier on Jan. 6, 2017. In order to identify the people leaking classified information to the press, Trump did not tell his staff that IC officials, including Clapper and Comey, were about to brief him.
As noted earlier, after the briefing, information from the meeting was leaked almost immediately to the press—leading Trump to conclude the leaks were coming directly from officials within the Intelligence Community. Trump disclosed this sequence of events during a Jan. 11, 2017, press conference. After receiving a call from Trump regarding the leaks, Clapper was forced to issue a statement condemning intelligence community leaks following Trump’s unexpected press conference.
Former President Donald Trump enters the stage at a “Save America Rally” to support Republican candidates running for state and federal offices in the state of Ohio at the Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, on Sept. 17, 2022. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Despite Clapper’s official condemnation of leaks, according to a March 22, 2018, House intelligence report, Clapper later admitted “that he confirmed the existence of the dossier to the media,” acknowledged discussing the “dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,” and conceded that he might have spoken with other journalists about the same topic. Crucially, the report noted that “Clapper’s discussion with Tapper took place in early January 2017,” following the briefing by leaders of the Intelligence Community to Obama and Trump on the Steele dossier.
Leaks from the Intelligence Community would remain prevalent throughout Trump’s term.
Events on Day Danchenko Was to Be Made CHS
On Jan. 12, 2017, the same day that Helson sent his email regarding Danchenko, and just a day after Trump’s surprise press conference, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced his initiation of a review of actions taken by the FBI in the leadup to the 2016 presidential election.
It isn’t known whether Horowitz was ever briefed about Danchenko’s CHS status or the million-dollar bounty. His report mentions neither. By design or by accident, Horowitz’s investigation effectively tied up any outside probes into the FBI’s actions for two years.
It was on the same day, Jan. 12, that Flynn’s Dec. 29, 2016, call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak was leaked to David Ignatius at The Washington Post. The leaker was never found, possibly because the leak came from within the FBI itself. Ignatius’s article, which further pushed the Trump–Russia collusion narrative, portrayed Flynn as undermining Obama’s fresh Russian sanctions during his call with Kislyak.
The article also raised the possibility that Flynn had violated the Logan Act, an obscure, 200-year-old law. Interestingly, it was Vice President Joe Biden who first suggested using the Logan Act against Flynn at the Jan. 5 White House meeting with Comey.
Flynn, who is believed to have been the person who asked Comey probing questions about the dossier’s sources, appears to have been the Intelligence Community’s first target in its effort to oust Trump. On Jan. 19, 2017, the day before Trump’s inauguration, Obama’s top intelligence and law-enforcement deputies met to talk about Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak. Flynn would be sworn in as Trump’s national security adviser on Jan. 22, 2017, and was subjected to an ambush interview by Strzok at the behest of Comey two days later.
Comey later bragged about the Flynn ambush having been his brainchild.
Retired Lt. Gen.Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, departs the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse following a pre-sentencing hearing, in Washington, on July 10, 2018. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates increased the pressure on the Trump administration regarding Flynn through a series of conversations with White House counsel Don McGahn. Yates told McGahn that she believed that “Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians.”
Flynn resigned on Feb. 13, 2017, the same day that Yates’s claim was published by The Washington Post. In 2020, declassified transcripts of Flynn’s call with Kislyak revealed that Flynn never once talked about sanctions. Just like the dossier, the charges against Flynn had been fabricated.
One other event transpired on Jan. 12, the first renewal of the Carter Page FISA warrant, which had been based on the fabricated Steele dossier and claimed that Steele’s source was Russia-based when, in reality, he was a former Brookings Institution employee living in Washington.
FBI Escalates Probe Despite Dossier Disavowal
During a three-day period at the end of January 2017, Danchenko was eventually interviewed by the FBI. Danchenko said there were major inconsistencies between what he told Steele and what was in the dossier. Danchenko told the FBI that he had passed on bar talk and rumors to Steele and never intended for completely unverified information to be used in a dossier. He also admitted that he had never met the dossier’s key source who was alleged to be responsible for every major allegation against Trump, including the “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between Trump and the Kremlin, that Russia passed hacked DNC emails to Wikileaks, and the infamous pee tape story.
Because Danchenko was given CHS status by the FBI, proof that the Steele dossier was fabricated was completely shielded from congressional and other investigations. We know with certainty that Danchenko formally received official CHS status no later than March 2017, but we now also know from the newly discovered unused trial exhibit that the FBI had planned to extend CHS status to Danchenko well before he was even interviewed by the FBI.
(L–R) FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and CIA Director John Brennan prepare to testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Feb. 25, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Efforts to ensnare Trump in a Russia collusion narrative received a major boost on Feb. 27, when former President George W. Bush proclaimed “we all need answers” on the Russia collusion allegations. Bush added that he trusted Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to decide whether a special counsel should be appointed.
Then, on March 2, Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia inquiry, dealing Trump a huge blow. Sessions inexplicably failed to assess, or even ask for evidence indicating whether the inquiry was legitimate. Sessions recused himself without ever finding out about Danchenko, that he had disavowed the dossier, or that Steele had failed to provide any evidence despite being offered $1 million for doing so.
Trump hit back on March 4, when he famously wrote on Twitter that he knew that the Obama administration had spied on his campaign. Not knowing how much Trump knew, FBI leadership panicked. In direct response to the tweet, on March 6, the FBI sent three of its most senior officials—McCabe, Priestap, and Strzok—to brief the DOJ on the FBI’s Trump investigation.
Notes of the briefing, which included incoming Trump administration officials, were disclosed by Durham earlier this year revealing that the FBI failed to mention Danchenko, Danchenko’s disavowal of the dossier, or the million-dollar reward to their DOJ counterparts. Instead, they made it appear as if the dossier, which they referred to as “Crown reporting,” had checked out and that the Russia collusion investigation was therefore going full steam ahead.
Additional briefing notes from March 8, which were also exposed by Durham, show that Comey himself subsequently lied to the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leaders. Similar to the DOJ briefing, Congress wasn’t told that Steele couldn’t back up his dossier despite the huge reward offer, and also wasn’t told about Danchenko.
The FBI’s efforts culminated in Comey’s March 20 public announcement that the Trump campaign was being investigated for Russia collusion. It was that announcement that opened the door to Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. As with his previous, non-public announcements, Comey concealed that the dossier—and with it the predicate for his investigation—had collapsed.
Case Against Trump Based on Fabrications
While it’s been claimed by some media outlets that the dossier wasn’t central to the allegations against Trump, the Intelligence Community’s efforts to ensnare Trump, the Carter Page FISA application, as well as the March 6 and 8 briefing notes, all rely almost entirely on the dossier. Additionally, we know that Comey insisted that a summary of the dossier be attached to the ICA that was presented to Obama. These actions prove beyond any doubt that the case against Trump was based on a fabricated document.
The day after Comey’s testimony, on March 21, then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) met with a source. Following this meeting, Nunes informed Trump that he believed Trump and his staff were illegally surveilled and “unmasked,” a process of revealing redacted names of U.S. citizens that are incidentally collected during surveillance or intelligence gathering on foreigners. Nunes demanded that the CIA, FBI, and NSA disclose the nature of the unlawful surveillance he had uncovered.
For his efforts, an ethics investigation of Nunes was opened and he was forced to recuse himself from the Russia collusion investigation on April 6. The next day, the Carter Page FISA warrant was secretly renewed, proving that Nunes’s claim was correct. During his entire tenure as House Intelligence Committee chairman, Nunes was never told about Danchenko, his CHS status, or the million-dollar bounty.
Former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele in London on July 24, 2020. Steele refused an offer of $1 million from the FBI to corroborate the allegations in the 2016 dossier he produced with funding by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)
On May 9, 2017, Trump fired Comey from his position as FBI director and McCabe became acting director. Following Comey’s firing, DOJ official Bruce Ohr had a phone call with Steele, during which Steele expressed concern that “they will be exposed” because of Comey’s firing. Steele was undoubtedly worried that without Comey covering for him, his dossier lies would be exposed. It isn’t known whether Steele was aware that the FBI had already successfully concealed Steele’s collaborator, Danchenko, from any scrutiny or investigation.
Several days later, on May 12, Ohr and Steele began a series of exchanges via text message, with Ohr conveying a request from McCabe that Steele be reengaged by the FBI.
On May 16, Comey leaked memos about Trump to The New York Times through his friend, Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman. Comey would later acknowledge that he did so to spur the appointment of a special counsel.
The next day, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel. As we can now see with hindsight, the FBI covered up Danchenko in early 2017. In doing so they ensured that they could continue using the fabricated Steele dossier to justify their investigation of Trump and his associates while also ensuring that no one would find out about Danchenko. In turn, the appointment of Mueller ensured that the FBI’s misdeeds were covered up.
Significantly, the many efforts to ensnare Trump, from the framing of Flynn to the media’s relentless airing of dossier smears and the Washington establishment’s push for a special counsel, couldn’t have happened unless Danchenko was kept hidden by the FBI. It was perhaps the most critical part of the effort and, as we have now learned, it happened much earlier than had been known.
Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty (30th Anniversary Edition) (3-Volume Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
A three-volume, 750+ page tome with an extensive update of the renowned underground classic ~ the Global Sovereign’s Handbook. Still after all these years, this is the most comprehensive book on sovereignty, economics, law, power structures and history ever written. Served as the primary research behind the best-selling Global One Audio Course. Available Now!
Dawning of the Corona Age: Navigating the Pandemic by Johnny Freedom (3rd Edition) (Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
This comprehensive book, goes far beyond the immediate impact of the “pandemic”, but, along with the reader, imagines how our human world may be altered, both positively and negatively, long into an uncertain future. Available Now!
If you have ever heard talk or been to a seminar about “sovereignty”, then very likely those conversations were influenced by the foundational research of the author and educator.
His research and educational journey reaching millions of people worldwide began in 1992 and culminated in 2022 with the 3-Volume book release – his final word on the subject.
At the turn of the millennium his books and audio courses facilitated in part – a sovereignty and tax-honesty movement that involved millions of Americans.
This 3 Volume series comprises the life’s work of Johnny Liberty filled with comprehensive insights into the last few hundred years of history, law, economics, money, citizenship and governance.
These books show how it is supposed to be done in a constitutional Republic.
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Many of the answers may be found within these revolutionary pages. Available as a paperback, E-Book (PDF) or an Amazon Kindle format. Thank you for supporting the author.
Sincerely,
With Freedom For All, ~ Johnny Liberty
Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty (30th Anniversary Edition)
A three-volume, 750 page tome with an extensive update of the renowned underground classic ~ the Global Sovereign’s Handbook.
Still after all these years, it is the most comprehensive book on sovereignty, economics, law, power structures and history ever written.
Served as the primary research behind the best-selling Global One Audio Course.
The 3 Volume Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty is textbook material for everyone including educators/teachers, homeschoolers, historians, activists, leaders/politicians, attorneys/judges/law schools, police officers, and state Citizens/Nationals.
Sovereign’s Handbook by Johnny Liberty (30th Anniversary Edition) (3-Volume Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
A three-volume, 750+ page tome with an extensive update of the renowned underground classic ~ the Global Sovereign’s Handbook. Still after all these years, this is the most comprehensive book on sovereignty, economics, law, power structures and history ever written. Served as the primary research behind the best-selling Global One Audio Course. Available Now!
Dawning of the Corona Age: Navigating the Pandemic by Johnny Freedom (3rd Edition) (Printed, Bound Book or PDF)
This comprehensive book, goes far beyond the immediate impact of the “pandemic”, but, along with the reader, imagines how our human world may be altered, both positively and negatively, long into an uncertain future. Available Now!
Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Donald Trump, Kash Patel, laid bare the FBI’s invasive and unnecessary raid of the former president at Mar-a-Lago on August 8. Kash Patel appeared on “Life, Liberty & Levin” on Sunday night and exposed the “fake news mafia” for its fictional narrative.
“People say, look, he issued orders, a lot of orders, declassifying information before he left office. Do you know anything about this?” Levin asked.
“As a former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, I know how this system works,” Patel responded. “The president is the sole and universal arbiter and classification authority in the United States of America. If he says a document is declassified, or a set of them, that is it, there is no written material required. That is a fiction being created by the fake news and the radical left.”
“In October of 2020, President Trump put out for the world to see a sweeping declassification order and he did it via social media,” Patel points out. “Every single Russiagate doc, every single Hillarygate doc, every one, those are his words. That is the precedent that the president of the United States is allowed to operate under. And then in December and January, on the way out, I witnessed him declassify whole sets of documents. So it is not incumbent upon President Trump and his lawyers and he as a target of this investigation to show that he did, in fact, declassify them. It’s up to the government who has the burden of proof, who are trying to deprive a man of his liberty, to show that no such order was, in fact, given.”
“They know they can’t. So what happens?” he continued. “The fake news mafia comes in and says, ‘Oh, but there was no protocols followed.’ Mark, you know, when they’re arguing protocols and procedure, it is because they lost the factual argument and the truth. And now they are trying to hide behind this magistrate judge who is going to supposedly play this game of redactions. We saw it in Russiagate. When I was the Deputy DNI, we lifted all those redactions from the Russiagate docs and what did we see, Mark? Corruption, FBI and DoJ corruption and breaking of the law. That is the same game they are going to play here and the fake news media is going to attempt to applaud them for their farce in terms of their transparency. We cannot allow them to do that. The President declassified documents, the government has failed to show that that did not occur, protocol do not apply to the president of United States when he is declassifying documents.”
“And let me underscore that point,” Levin added. “The Constitution of the United States, the first sentence, Article Two, Section One, the President is the executive branch. That’s why everybody agrees he can declassify and classify as much as he wants, and he can do it right out the door. The Espionage Act in this sense simply does not apply to a former president. It does not apply to the president of the United States. It was passed in originally in 1917, it was pushed by Woodrow Wilson to use against his enemies, people who opposed World War I, it was never ever intended to apply to a president. Let me ask you this, Kash Patel. Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton — Bill Clinton, Vice President Gore, Vice President Biden, Vice President Cheney, do we know if any of them secreted any documents, took any documents with them to their homes, classified or otherwise? Do we know?”
“I know for a fact that President Biden has classified access at one of his homes, so those such documents exist there, and they should as for former president the of the United States and that law and that rule should apply equally, but the Government Services Administration is responsible for packaging and parceling those documents,” Patel said. “And you bring up a great point. They were the ones who moved the documents to Mar-a-Lago. They’re the ones who now admitted they mistakenly moved boxes. It’s not like President Trump — even if they get past the declassification part, or a ruse, I should say, it’s not like President Trump put them in a backpack and moved them down there and said, ‘Nothing to see here, I want to illegally distribute these documents.’ The law should be applied, there should not be a two-tiered system of justice. Clinton, Obama, Bush and Trump as former presidents must be treated equally when it comes to classified information.”
“I think it’s very interesting that not a single former president or vice president have opened their mouths, because I suspect they have taken documents with them, whatever it’s in violation, quote/unquote, of one law or another,” Levin noted. “This entire event was completely unnecessary and it’s just more of an effort to try to trap and drag down Donald Trump.”
Staffed by NATO military officers and former government ministers and notorious for training the West’s top spies, the Department of War Studies at King’s College London is also providing the workforce for many of the largest social media companies. This includes Facebook, TikTok, Google, and Twitter.
A MintPress study of professional databases and employment websites reveals a wide network of War Studies alumni holding many of the most influential jobs in media, constituting a silent army of individuals who influence what the world sees (and does not see) in its social media feeds.
SPY SCHOOL
Set in an imposing building near the banks of the River Thames in Central London, the Department of War Studies is at the heart of the British establishment. Current staff includes the former Secretary General of NATO, former U.K.Minister of Defense, and a host of military officers from NATO and NATO-aligned countries.
It is also a favored training ground for the secret services. A 2009 report published by the CIA described how beneficial it is to “use universities as a means of intelligence training,” writing that “exposure to an academic environment, such as the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, can add several elements that may be harder to provide within the government system,” also mentioning that the department’s faculty have “extensive and well-rounded intelligence experience.”
In 2013, then-Secretary of Defense and former CIA Director Leon Panetta gave a speech at the department. “I deeply appreciate the work that you do to train and to educate our future national security leaders, many of whom are in this audience,” he said, adding that expansion into tech, surveillance, and cyberwarfare was of critical importance.
Last year, MintPressinvestigated the department’s intelligence links more deeply.
Moreover, the university has freely admitted to having entered into a number of secret funding agreements with the U.K. Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defense. However, it has refused to elaborate on these contracts, tellinginvestigative news outlet Declassified U.K. that doing so could undermine national security.
While the Department of War Studies plays a key role in producing the West’s intelligence operatives, it also trains many of the world’s top journalists, as well as social media managers, whose task it is to protect us from the misinformation put out by the others. As such, it is a central part of the new high-tech information war being waged between Russia and the West, in which the national security state is increasingly taking control over the means of communication under the guise of protecting us from the Kremlin.
FACEBOOK
At any one time, the department educates around 1,000 students, many of whom have gone on to become top military commanders, intelligence chiefs, and government officials, both in the West and in countries as disparate as Jordan, Nigeria, and Singapore. But increasingly, large numbers of War Studies graduates are finding employment in the most influential media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, and in Silicon Valley.
Chief amongst the social media companies where War Studies graduates hold considerable sway is Facebook (now rebranded as Meta). For example, while working at senior levels in the U.K. government, Mark Smith pursued a Master’s at the department, completing it in 2009. Between 2007 and 2017, he worked for the Ministry of Defense, the Foreign Office, and the National Security Secretariat. According to his own LinkedIn profile, he was deployed overseas three times as a political advisor to top NATO military commanders and was a key figure in strategizing responses to ISIS and other terrorist groups, as well as working on the Ministry of Defense’s response to the Scottish independence question.
In 2017, Smith moved straight from the government to Meta, where he is now the Global Director of Global Content Management, giving him considerable power to dictate what is allowed and what is censored from the world’s biggest news and media platform.
Facebook’s Global Director of Strategic Response is also a former War Studies student. After graduating, Caitlin Bakerworked on Middle Eastern counterterrorism policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in Washington and as Director for Jordan and Lebanon at the National Security Council at the White House. Between 2015 and 2017, she was also VP Joe Biden’s Middle East Policy Advisor. During this time period, the administration rapidly expanded its drone program, coming to bomb seven countries simultaneously.
In October 2017, Baker moved seamlessly from the Defense Secretary’s office to work for Facebook’s strategic response team, rising to become a global director. The strategic response team decides how Facebook will react to global events like elections, wars and coups, determining what content will be permissible and which views will be banned or suppressed.
There are many more War Studies graduates in influential roles at Facebook, including:
While this is certainly not to say that all those mentioned are government plants, or even that they are anything but model employees, this connection does come at a time when Facebook has rapidly begun intertwining itself with the national security state. In 2018, the company announced that, in a bid to combat fake news, it was partnering with NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council, in a deal that gave the latter significant influence on the platform’s content. Today, Facebook’s head of intelligence is NATO’s former press officer. And a MintPress study published last month detailed how the company has hired dozens of former CIA officials, many of whom now hold the most politically sensitive positions in the company and are in charge of deciding what billions of users see daily.
TIKTOK
War Studies alumni also hold or held several influential positions on the video platform TikTok. These include Haniyyah Rahman-Shepherd, an intelligence analyst who works on threat detection and identifying hate speech, extremism, and mis- and disinformation; Michelle Caley, content strategy leader; Manish Gohil, a former risk analyst for TikTok; Alexandra Dinca, investigations lead; Jeanne Sun, safety program manager; and Tom Dudley, head of physical security.
Scott O’Brien, meanwhile, worked for both Facebook and TikTok, first as an intelligence analyst for Facebook, where he specialized in “human rights investigations” in “at-risk countries,” according to his LinkedIn. He is now an influence operations intelligence and discovery analyst at TikTok. Before that, he worked for the infamousintelligence agency, Pinkerton.
In recent times, TikTok has been the recipient of significant amounts of government attention. From the Trump administration’s threats to ban the platform altogether to the news that President Biden was briefing TikTok stars on how they should cover the war in Ukraine, the U.S. government, it appears, performed a 180-degree turn on the app. This occurred at the same time as the company began employing large numbers of state functionaries in key positions, including individuals from NATO, the White House, and the CIA. A MintPress investigation detailing all this described it as a “NATO to TikTok pipeline.”
TWITTER AND GOOGLE
Twitter has comparatively fewer War Studies alumni. But some are in important positions. For instance, Global Program Manager Sean Ryan describes his role as “lead[ing] a global program team that drives a holistic understanding of Twitter’s dynamic risk and threat landscape while working across the cyber, physical, information, platform, policy, health, and reputation domains.” He notes that his analysis, “informs the decision-making of strategic leadership while supporting key policies across multiple teams.”
Twitter’s director of insider risk and investigations, Bruce A., is also a former KCL man. Bruce A. spent 23 years in the FBI, becoming a supervisory special agent, leaving the bureau in 2020 to directly transfer to Twitter.
Bruce is one of just dozens of FBI agents and analysts that Twitter has hired in the past few years – the majority of whom have been parachuted into highly politically sensitive fields, such as security, content moderation and trust and safety, thus effectively giving the bureau considerable influence over the platform’s content and outlook.
Google, too, employs a number of War Studies graduates, among them Asia-Pacific Information Policy Lead Jean-Jacques Sahel, Policy Advisor Grant Hurst, and Global Threat Analyst Jessica O.
JOURNALISM
For a single department in one college of a university, it is remarkable the impact that the Department of War Studies has had on the field of journalism as well. The department punches vastly above its weight, with alumni in most of the world’s top media outlets, including CNN, NBC News, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as a host of individuals populating the ranks of the British state broadcaster, the BBC. Indeed, it appears that if breaking into the field of journalism is the goal, then a degree from the Department of War Studies is more helpful than one from King’s College London’s Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, its de facto journalism school.
Some of these journalists cut their teeth at investigative outlets Bellingcat and Graphika, both of whom are funded by the U.S. government and both of whom put out questionable reports demonizing official enemy nations. No fewer than six Bellingcat employees or contributors — including Cameron Colquhoun, Jacob Beeders, Lincoln Pigman,Aliaume Leroy, Christiaan Triebert and senior investigator Nick Waters — all pursued postgraduate studies within the department. Indeed, Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins joined the Department of War Studies in 2018 as a visiting research associate.
Graphika, meanwhile, is also inordinately staffed by KCL War Studies graduates. Together, these two groups pump out highly-publicized “intelligence” reports warning of nefarious actions committed by Russia or other official enemy states, all while quietly being funded by the U.S. national security state themselves.
STATE-BACKED NEXUS
The Department of War Studies publishes similar work to Graphika. Indeed, its faculty was crucial in propagating the idea of Russian interference in American elections, being the source of many of the most far-reaching claims about Moscow’s influence in American society. Reports published by the department accuse Russia of carrying out a campaign of “information-psychological warfare” and advise that military spending should be increased and that NATO must re-up its commitment to countering Russia. Professor Thomas Rid even testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the “dark art” of Russian meddling and condemned WikiLeaks and alternative media journalists as unwitting agents of disinformation.
Many of the organizations detailed above were also identified as proposed members of a Western government-aligned “counter”-propaganda nexus hoping to be established by the EXPOSE Network. EXPOSE was allegedly a secret U.K.-government-funded initiative that would have brought together journalists and state operatives in an alliance to shape public discourse in a manner more conducive to the priorities of Western governments.
A chart showing the leadership structure of the EXPOSE network published as part of the Integrity Initiative Leak 7
The Department of War Studies’ Dr. Neville Bolt was on the organization’s preliminary advisory panel, alongside Graham Brookie of the Atlantic Council (NATO’s think tank) and Ben Nimmo, former NATO press officer, and ex-director of investigations for Graphika, and Facebook’s current head of intelligence. Training support, meanwhile, would be provided by individuals from Bellingcat.
In the past year, MintPress has been detailing how much of the public sphere, from social media organizations like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok to big search engines such as Google, to Think Tanks and Fact-Checking organizations, are quietly much more closely linked to the national security state than first meets the eye. The Department of War Studies at King’s College London is an important part of this state-backed nexus. It is a one-stop shop for training many of the spies, think tank employees, journalists, and supposedly independent intelligence investigators who have been at the forefront of the new information war.
Put simply, one department staffed by former and current military officers is training the people producing the news (journalists), the ones manipulating it (intelligence officials), and the ones who are in charge of sorting fact from fiction and pinpointing disinformation (social media managers). It is quite the system. All the while, they continually warn of the threat of (foreign) state-backed influence operations.
To be clear, Kremlin propaganda is real, but its reach is decidedly minor in comparison to the massive disinformation campaigns being launched by the Western national security state. And the Department of War Studies is a key part of this information war.
On Aug. 8, 2022, the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) took the unprecedented step of raiding the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump. The raid prompted a litany of questions. What was the justification for the raid? Were there secondary or unofficial motives? Who ordered and approved the raid? Was the justification compelling enough to take such a dramatic step?
While many of these questions remain unanswered to varying degrees, there are enough facts on the table already to establish a timeline of events before, during, and after the raid.
What were the results of the experimentation and practice of social engineering and mind-control during the Cold War? When Project Paperclip was ushered into the United States, coinciding with the inception of the CIA and the National Security Act, Nazi research and trauma based mind-control experiments were brought to the US, initiating Project MK ULTRA. These secret projects were funded through arms deals, drug operations, human trafficking and human slavery.
The ultimate goal behind this hidden agenda was to implement mind-control deeply within our government, education, healthcare and media to create compliance in the new world regime. TRANCE weaves Cathy O’Brien’s experience as one of the last surviving victims of MK Ultra and Project Monarch, into the macrocosm of past world events, and the agenda currently unfolding. An eye opening view of our world today and how we got here.
As we exit the pandemic, expect to hear much more about The Great Reset and building back better. Far from resulting in a low-carbon dream life, though, it’s a cartoonish fantasy that will hand the global elite even more power.
‘The Great Reset’ is a term that has been bandied about quite readily by most Western neo-liberal politicians. So often, in fact, and without proper explanation, that it strikes the prudent observer as a kind of paid advertisement.
But what is it exactly? The term rose to prominence at the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in June 2020. It was initially launched by the Prince of Wales, before being absorbed into the philosophy of the sartorially dystopian sci-fi villain Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the WEF.
The Great Reset refers to a plan to rebuild the world’s infrastructure ‘in a sustainable way’ following the economic ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic and to establish a global treaty to prevent future pandemics, or as it is described more formally, to “build a more robust international health architecture that will protect future generations.” If you ever hear people talking about “building back better,” they are referring to The Great Reset.
Probably the most disturbing part of The Great Reset is how much it strongly resembles business-as-usual, only with EXTRA globalism. Most of the plan’s outlines include a further weakening of national boundaries and individual national autonomy, in favour of a more ‘universal governance.’ As usual, it is the rapidly vanishing Western middle class which must shoulder this burden, as their freedoms are further curtailed to meet the quotas of corporate-media-fuelled activism.
Regardless, many world leaders, no doubt charmed into acquiescence by Schwab’s commandingly sinister Blofeld-esque wardrobe, agreed to the Great Reset, including Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Mark Rutte, Pedro Sánchez, Erna Solberg and Volodymyr Zelensky. According to John Kerry, Joe Biden’s administration is on board, too.
But the general agreement of the Western leaders is absolutely typical of any agenda which is espoused by NATO, the UN, or the WEF. If an emotionally charged, politically vague and ultimately ineffectual edict or bill is proposed by one of these entities – each resembling a shabby, globe-trotting team of insurance salesmen – our effete politicians line up to show the most fervent compliance.
As a rule, it seems their solutions to specific environmental or scientific problems mysteriously become entwined with LGBTQ+ rights, workplace equity, open borders initiatives and other unrelated social justice causes. It’s as though any goals they have are somehow unilaterally from the same source, or entail the same solution, regardless of causality or consequence. Therefore, a united response to a global pandemic mysteriously also equals trans rights activism.
In their own words, “No single government or multilateral agency can address this (pandemic) threat alone. Together, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly co-ordinated fashion.”
There are many other sweeping sentiments expressed by Schwab and his acolytes which can seem either trite or threatening. Consider“the gulf between what markets value and what people value will close” and “we want more attention paid to scientific experts. No one can “self-isolate” from climate change so we all need to “act in advance and in solidarity.” There is much talk of the pursuit of “fairer and equitable outcomes.”
International treaties always tend to be about concentrating power. It’s one of those rules of life, for realists, as there is no escaping power dynamics in human affairs. Real problems don’t often have feel-good solutions. Often, they require ‘solutions that sound mean’, that don’t sound good on a corporate goals bulletin. Initiatives like The Great Reset all entail the gradual loss of the autonomy of individual nations, as their decision-making power is transferred to an international, disembodied rule-maker.
It has been, without a doubt, a globalist fantasy for a long time, but the key question is: do they realise what they are doing or not?
As far as their amazing coordinated pandemic response goes, this appears to be nothing more than forced world-wide vaccinations for EVERYBODY. According to Klaus Schwab himself: “As long as not everybody is vaccinated, nobody will be safe.” To which the attendant neo-liberal world leaders nodded in re-affirming unison, repeating in unison their mantra: “Global public good.”
Schwab, despite appearing like an immortal brothel-keeper at Kublai Khan’s Xanadu, is really cut from the same cloth as your typical EU technocrat. His ideas are not creative, they are quite staid and pedestrian, and research of his career shows they have been unchanged since the 1970s. He has consistently been preaching the very same thing, like a broken record.
Schwab believes we can achieve environmental solutions without altering capitalism in the slightest, by creating treaties of “mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and co-operation within the international system.” His idea involves ‘ethical capitalism’ – where the excesses of capitalism will somehow be held at bay by ‘ethical stakeholders,’ to whom the corporations will be held accountable, while (conveniently) the elites and systems already in place will continue as they are. This is the master plan of the World Economic Forum, largely unchanged for 40 years.
The result? A green technocracy, one assumes, with a WEF-mandated ‘ethical stakeholder’ apparatus, a worldwide spiderweb organisation ruling by the threatened fears of pandemic and carbon doom. No section of society would be exempt from edicts of ‘the new treaty.’
The Great Reset website appears to be little more than an advertisement for modern pod-living. It seems to style itself as a low-carbon dream-life (without loss of modern convenience) to effeminate hipsters. One can see slovenly-looking neo-liberal youths, frequent references to LGBTQ+ values, and an overall urgency about carbon footprints.
There is a hint of Adbusters about the website, creator of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Despite the fact that the WEF and Davos and all associated entities are entirely elite institutions, the website styles itself on grassroots urban activism. There is much cringeworthy symbology in its white papers, such as a green and rainbow flag-combination with fey slogans like ‘we salute you, zoom queen!’
Schwab refers to the aim of The Great Reset as “the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” with the first being powered by water and steam, the second introducing mass production, and the third electronic automation. The fourth will blur the lines between “physical, digital and biological spheres.”
In this grab-bag of magical advances, he lists, “fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage and quantum computing.”
This sounds like cartoonish optimism, as many of these technologies are anything but clean and don’t seem to de facto relate to side-stepping out of industrialism or anything else. On top of that, fewer than 9% of companies use the machine learning, robotics, touch screens and other advanced technologies listed as somehow ‘changing everything.’ Stakeholder capitalism, as a concept, does not explain itself as foolproof, and will no doubt be freely interpreted by the likes of Silicon Valley or supply chain conglomerates.
The jewel in the crown of Great Reset optimism has to be the belief that the advent of AI will alter everything positively, again without specifics, to somehow create a low-carbon new world.
It appears at best to be all be smoke and mirrors, a childish corporate fantasy manufactured by isolated bean counters. At worst, it is an intentional power-grab by unaccountable international agencies and hidden oligarchs.
Either way, it is a fake utopia at the price of privacy and autonomy, sold to us by used-car salesmen who think they are princes.
Far from being a war against “white supremacy,” the Biden administration’s new “domestic terror” strategy clearly targets primarily those who oppose US government overreach and those who oppose capitalism and/or globalization.
In the latest sign that the US government’s War on Domestic Terror is growing in scope and scale, the White House on Tuesday revealed the nation’s first ever government-wide strategy for confronting domestic terrorism. While cloaked in language about stemming racially motivated violence, the strategy places those deemed “anti-government” or “anti-authority” on a par with racist extremists and charts out policies that could easily be abused to silence or even criminalize online criticism of the government.
Even more disturbing is the call to essentially fuse intelligence agencies, law enforcement, Silicon Valley, and “community” and “faith-based” organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, as well as unspecified foreign governments, as partners in this “war,” which the strategy makes clear will rely heavily on a pre-crime orientation focused largely on what is said on social media and encrypted platforms. Though the strategy claims that the government will “shield free speech and civil liberties” in implementing this policy, its contents reveal that it is poised to gut both.
Indeed, while framed publicly as chiefly targeting “right-wing white supremacists,” the strategy itself makes it clear that the government does not plan to focus on the Right but instead will pursue “domestic terrorists” in “an ideologically neutral, threat-driven manner,” as the law “makes no distinction based on political view—left, right or center.” It also states that a key goal of this strategic framework is to ensure “that there is simply no governmental tolerance . . . of violence as an acceptable mode of seeking political or social change,” regardless of a perpetrator’s political affiliation.
Considering that the main cheerleaders for the War on Domestic Terror exist mainly in establishment left circles, such individuals should rethink their support for this new policy given that the above statements could easily come to encompass Black Lives Matter–related protests, such as those that transpired last summer, depending on which political party is in power.
Once the new infrastructure is in place, it will remain there and will be open to the same abuses perpetrated by both political parties in the US during the lengthy War on Terror following September 11, 2001. The history of this new “domestic terror” policy, including its origins in the Trump administration, makes this clear.
It’s Never Been Easier to Be a “Terrorist”
In introducing the strategy, the Biden administration cites “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” as a key reason for the new policy and a main justification for the War on Domestic Terror in general. This was most recently demonstrated Tuesday in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s statement announcing this new strategy. However, the document itself puts “anti-government” or “anti-authority” “extremists” in the same category as violent white supremacists in terms of being a threat to the homeland. The strategy’s characterization of such individuals is unsettling.
For instance, those who “violently oppose” “all forms of capitalism” or “corporate globalization” are listed under this less-discussed category of “domestic terrorist.” This highlights how people on the left, many of whom have called for capitalism to be dismantled or replaced in the US in recent years, could easily be targeted in this new “war” that many self-proclaimed leftists are currently supporting. Similarly, “environmentally-motivated extremists,” a category in which groups such as Extinction Rebellion could easily fall, are also included.
In addition, the phrasing indicates that it could easily include as “terrorists” those who oppose the World Economic Forum’s vision for global “stakeholder capitalism,” as that form of “capitalism” involves corporations and their main “stakeholders” creating a new global economic and governance system. The WEF’s stakeholder capitalism thus involves both “capitalism” and “corporate globalization.”
The strategy also includes those who “take steps to violently resist government authority . . . based on perceived overreach.” This, of course, creates a dangerous situation in which the government could, purposely or otherwise, implement a policy that is an obvious overreach and/or blatantly unconstitutional and then label those who resist it “domestic terrorists” and deal with them as such—well before the overreach can be challenged in court.
Another telling addition to this group of potential “terrorists” is “any other individual or group who engages in violence—or incites imminent violence—in opposition to legislative, regulatory or other actions taken by the government.” Thus, if the government implements a policy that a large swath of the population finds abhorrent, such as launching a new, unpopular war abroad, those deemed to be “inciting” resistance to the action online could be considered domestic terrorists.
Such scenarios are not unrealistic, given the loose way in which the government and the media have defined things like “incitement” and even “violence” (e. g., “hate speech” is a form of violence) in the recent past. The situation is ripe for manipulation and abuse. To think the federal government (including the Biden administration and subsequent administrations) would not abuse such power reflects an ignorance of US political history, particularly when the main forces behind most terrorist incidents in the nation are actually US government institutions like the FBI (more FBI examples here, here, here, and here).
Furthermore, the original plans for the detention of American dissidents in the event of a national emergency, drawn up during the Reagan era as part of its “continuity of government” contingency, cited popular nonviolent opposition to US intervention in Latin America as a potential “emergency” that could trigger the activation of those plans. Many of those “continuity of government” protocols remain on the books today and can be triggered, depending on the whims of those in power. It is unlikely that this new domestic terror framework will be any different regarding nonviolent protest and demonstrations.
Yet another passage in this section of the strategy states that “domestic terrorists” can, “in some instances, connect and intersect with conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation and misinformation.” It adds that the proliferation of such “dangerous” information “on Internet-based communications platforms such as social media, file-upload sites and end-to-end encrypted platforms, all of these elements can combine and amplify threats to public safety.”
Thus, the presence of “conspiracy theories” and information deemed by the government to be “misinformation” online is itself framed as threatening public safety, a claim made more than once in this policy document. Given that a major “pillar” of the strategy involves eliminating online material that promotes “domestic terrorist” ideologies, it seems inevitable that such efforts will also “connect and intersect” with the censorship of “conspiracy theories” and narratives that the establishment finds inconvenient or threatening for any reason.
Pillars of Tyranny
The strategy notes in several places that this new domestic-terror policy will involve a variety of public-private partnerships in order to “build a community to address domestic terrorism that extends not only across the Federal Government but also to critical partners.” It adds, “That includes state, local, tribal and territorial governments, as well as foreign allies and partners, civil society, the technology sector, academic, and more.”
The mention of foreign allies and partners is important as it suggests a multinational approach to what is supposedly a US “domestic” issue and is yet another step toward a transnational security-state apparatus. A similar multinational approach was used to devastating effect during the CIA-developed Operation Condor, which was used to target and “disappear” domestic dissidents in South America in the 1970s and 1980s. The foreign allies mentioned in the Biden administration’s strategy are left unspecified, but it seems likely that such allies would include the rest of the Five Eyes alliance (the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand) and Israel, all of which already have well-established information-sharing agreements with the US for signals intelligence.
The new domestic-terror strategy has four main “pillars,” which can be summarized as (1) understanding and sharing domestic terrorism-related information, including with foreign governments and private tech companies; (2) preventing domestic terrorism recruitment and mobilization to violence; (3) disrupting and deterring domestic terrorism activity; and (4) confronting long-term contributors to domestic terrorism.
The first pillar involves the mass accumulation of data through new information-sharing partnerships and the deepening of existing ones. Much of this information sharing will involve increased data mining and analysis of statements made openly on the internet, particularly on social media, something already done by US intelligence contractors such as Palantir. While the gathering of such information has been ongoing for years, this policy allows even more to be shared and legally used to make cases against individuals deemed to have made threats or expressed “dangerous” opinions online.
Included in the first pillar is the need to increase engagement with financial institutions concerning the financing of “domestic terrorists.” US banks, such as Bank of America, have already gone quite far in this regard, leading to accusations that it has begun acting like an intelligence agency. Such claims were made after it was revealed that the BofA had passed to the government the private banking information of over two hundred people that the bank deemed as pointing to involvement in the events of January 6, 2021. It seems likely, given this passage in the strategy, that such behavior by banks will soon become the norm, rather than an outlier, in the United States.
The second pillar is ostensibly focused on preventing the online recruitment of domestic terrorists and online content that leads to the “mobilization of violence.” The strategy notes that this pillar “means reducing both supply and demand of recruitment materials by limiting widespread availability online and bolstering resilience to it by those who nonetheless encounter it.“ The strategy states that such government efforts in the past have a “mixed record,” but it goes on to claim that trampling on civil liberties will be avoided because the government is “consulting extensively” with unspecified “stakeholders” nationwide.
Regarding recruitment, the strategy states that “these activities are increasingly happening on Internet-based communications platforms, including social media, online gaming platforms, file-upload sites and end-to-end encrypted platforms, even as those products and services frequently offer other important benefits.” It adds that “the widespread availability of domestic terrorist recruitment material online is a national security threat whose front lines are overwhelmingly private-sector online platforms.”
The US government plans to provide “information to assist online platforms with their own initiatives to enforce their own terms of service that prohibits the use of their platforms for domestic terrorist activities” as well as to “facilitate more robust efforts outside the government to counter terrorists’ abuse of Internet-based communications platforms.”
Given the wider definition of “domestic terrorist” that now includes those who oppose capitalism and corporate globalization as well as those who resist government overreach, online content discussing these and other “anti-government” and “anti-authority” ideas could soon be treated in the same way as online Al Qaeda or ISIS propaganda. Efforts, however, are unlikely to remain focused on these topics. As Unlimited Hangoutreported last November, both UK intelligence and the US national-security state were developing plans to treat critical reporting on the COVID-19 vaccines as “extremist” propaganda.
Another key part of this pillar is the need to “increase digital literacy” among the American public, while censoring “harmful content” disseminated by “terrorists” as well as by “hostile foreign powers seeking to undermine American democracy.” The latter is a clear reference to the claim that critical reporting of US government policy, particularly its military and intelligence activities abroad, was the product of “Russian disinformation,” a now discredited claim that was used to heavily censor independent media. This new government strategy appears to promise more of this sort of thing.
It also notes that “digital literacy” education for a domestic audience is being developed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Such a policy would have previously violated US law until the Obama administration worked with Congress to repeal the Smith-Mundt Act, thus lifting the ban on the government directing propaganda at domestic audiences.
The third pillar of the strategy seeks to increase the number of federal prosecutors investigating and trying domestic-terror cases. Their numbers are likely to jump as the definition of “domestic terrorist” is expanded. It also seeks to explore whether “legislative reforms could meaningfully and materially increase our ability to protect Americans from acts of domestic terrorism while simultaneously guarding against potential abuse of overreach.” In contrast to past public statements on police reform by those in the Biden administration, the strategy calls to “empower” state and local law enforcement to tackle domestic terrorism, including with increased access to “intelligence” on citizens deemed dangerous or subversive for any number of reasons.
To that effect, the strategy states the following (p. 24):“The Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Department of Homeland Security, with support from the National Counterterrorism Center [part of the intelligence community], are incorporating an increased focus on domestic terrorism into current intelligence products and leveraging current mechanisms of information and intelligence sharing to improve the sharing of domestic terrorism-related content and indicators with non-Federal partners. These agencies are also improving the usability of their existing information-sharing platforms, including through the development of mobile applications designed to provide a broader reach to non-Federal law enforcement partners, while simultaneously refining that support based on partner feedback.”
Such an intelligence tool could easily be, for example, Palantir, which is already used by the intelligence agencies, the DHS, and several US police departments for “predictive policing,” that is, pre-crime actions. Notably, Palantir has long included a “subversive” label for individuals included on government and law enforcement databases, a parallel with the controversial and highly secretive Main Core database of US dissidents.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas made the “pre-crime” element of the new domestic terror strategy explicit on Tuesday when he said in a statement that DHS would continue “developing key partnerships with local stakeholders through the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) to identify potential threats and prevent terrorism.” CP3, which replaced DHS’ Office for Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention this past May, officially “supports communities across the United States to prevent individuals from radicalizing to violence and intervene when individuals have already radicalized to violence.”
The fourth pillar of the strategy is by far the most opaque and cryptic, while also the most far-reaching. It aims to address the sources that cause “terrorists” to mobilize “towards violence.” This requires “tackling racism in America,” a lofty goal for an administration headed by the man who controversially eulogized Congress’ most ardent segregationist and who was a key architect of the 1994 crime bill. As well, it provides for “early intervention and appropriate care for those who pose a danger to themselves or others.”
In regard to the latter proposal, the Trump administration, in a bid to “stop mass shootings before they occur,” considered a proposal to create a “health DARPA” or “HARPA” that would monitor the online communications of everyday Americans for “neuropsychiatric” warning signs that someone might be “mobilizing towards violence.” While the Trump administration did not create HARPA or adopt this policy, the Biden administration has recently announced plans to do so.
Finally, the strategy indicates that this fourth pillar is part of a “broader priority”: “enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.” In other words, fostering trust in government while simultaneously censoring “polarizing” voices who distrust or criticize the government is a key policy goal behind the Biden administration’s new domestic-terror strategy.
Calling Their Shots?
While this is a new strategy, its origins lie in the Trump administration. In October 2019, Trump’s attorney general William Barr formally announced in a memorandum that a new “national disruption and early engagement program” aimed at detecting those “mobilizing towards violence” before they commit any crime would launch in the coming months. That program, known as DEEP (Disruption and Early Engagement Program), is now active and has involved the Department of Justice, the FBI, and “private sector partners” since its creation.
Barr’s announcement of DEEP followed his unsettling “prediction” in July 2019 that “a major incident may occur at any time that will galvanize public opinion on these issues.” Not long after that speech, a spate of mass shootings occurred, including the El Paso Walmart shooting, which killed twenty-three and about which many questions remain unanswered regarding the FBI’s apparent foreknowledge of the event. After these events took place in 2019, Trump called for the creation of a government backdoor into encryption and the very pre-crime system that Barr announced shortly thereafter in October 2019. The Biden administration, in publishing this strategy, is merely finishing what Barr started.
Indeed, a “prediction” like Barr’s in 2019 was offered by the DHS’ Elizabeth Neumann during a Congressional hearing in late February 2020. That hearing was largely ignored by the media as it coincided with an international rise of concern regarding COVID-19. At the hearing, Neumann, who previously coordinated the development of the government’s post-9/11 terrorism information sharing strategies and policies and worked closely with the intelligence community, gave the following warning about an imminent “domestic terror” event in the United States:“And every counterterrorism professional I speak to in the federal government and overseas feels like we are at the doorstep of another 9/11, maybe not something that catastrophic in terms of the visual or the numbers, but that we can see it building and we don’t quite know how to stop it.”
This “another 9/11” emerged on January 6, 2021, as the events of that day in the Capitol were quickly labeled as such by both the media and prominent politicians, while also inspiring calls from the White House and the Democrats for a “9/11-style commission” to investigate the incident. This event, of course, figures prominently in the justification for the new domestic-terror strategy, despite the considerable video and other evidence that shows that Capitol law enforcement, and potentially the FBI, were directly involved in facilitating the breach of the Capitol. In addition, when one considers that the QAnon movement, which had a clear role in the events of January 6, was itself likely a government-orchestratedpsyop, the government hand in creating this situation seems clear.
It goes without saying that the official reasons offered for these militaristic “domestic terror” policies, which the US has already implemented abroad—causing much more terror than it has prevented—does not justify the creation of a massive new national-security infrastructure that aims to criminalize and censor online speech. Yet the admission that this new strategy, as part of a broader effort to “enhance faith in government,” combines domestic propaganda campaigns with the censorship and pursuit of those who distrust government heralds the end of even the illusion of democracy in the United States.
Liberty International News 