Timeline of U.S. Political Transformation, 5
§5. Perfidious Albion and the Walrus, January - June 2016
‘Perfidious Albion’ is the name bestowed by both admirers and detractors on British diplomacy. The ‘Walrus’ is a CIA human asset of wide girth, who was used to entice campaign staffers into the appearance of serving Russian interests. Both played significant roles in the 2016 U.S. election.
The sequence of actions and events, policies and programs that transformed the United States from a free society into one lacking the Constitutionally required ‘consent of the governed’. How this gap in governance is increasingly filled by force and violence, livelihood threats, mass surveillance, centralized control of messaging, censorship, distraction, and miscounting of electoral results. Updated by inserting facts often revealed years after the event into the record when they actually took place.
Early 2016: NSA compliance officer alerts Director Admiral Mike Rogers to a significant uptick in FISA-702(17) 'About' (nebulous catchall) queries using the FBI/NSA database that holds all metadata records on every form of electronic communication.
Jan 2016: Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough III tells Senate Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees that emails beyond the 'Top Secret' level passed through Sec Clinton's unsecured personal server. He receives word from Clinton campaign that he will be fired if she wins election.
Jan 4, 2016: John Podesta emails Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, 'Look forward to working with you to elect the first woman President of the United States'. Sandberg replies she is 'thrilled' by Clinton's progress toward this goal. SF Mortgage billionaire Herb Sandler gives $4.4 million to Clinton campaign. || Source1 ; Source2 ; FEC records.
Jan 15, 2016: Intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough tells members of Congress that several dozen additional classified emails, including some with a higher classification than top secret, regarding highly sensitive programs, are found in former Sec Clinton's private records.
Jan 17, 2016: President Obama announces final agreement on nuclear agreement with Iran. Obama Admin removes DEA Cassandra Task Force authority to continue investigating Hezbollah drug and weapon networks, moves supervisory agent Jack Kelly and other senior agents to other positions. Ten years of information on Hezbollah connections to Syrian, Venezuelan, and other officials, and on the extent of cocaine entering the United States, are lost, due to prioritizing of nuclear agreement with Iran. || Source
Jan 22, 2016: United States pays $1.7 billion in cash to Iran. The payment is converted to Euros and Swiss Francs by Dutch and Swiss central banks and delivered on pallets in three tranches on Jan 17, Jan 22, and Feb 5, via Iranian cargo planes. U.S. Treasury Dept says cash is necessitated to avoid U.S. sanctions specified in Section 560.204 of Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations. || Source
Jan 25 to Nov 16, 2016: Burisma sends nine wires totaling $752,054.99 to 'Owasco, PC/Robert Biden'. || Source: Senate HSGA and Finance Committees report, Oct 2020.
Jan 29, 2016: John Giacalone, who had developed the case on Hillary Clinton violating laws on safeguarding classified information, retires. FBI Director Comey declines to refer the case to DOJ for prosecution and promotes Andrew McCabe to FBI Deputy Director, in place of Giacalone. Clinton associate Terry McAuliffe had given $675,000 to Virginia State Senate campaign of Andrew McCabe's wife Jill in late 2015 (she lost, but kept some of the campaign funds).
Feb 2, 2016: Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin obtains a court order to seize oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky’s property to recoup theft of government funds during Yanukovich tenure. Zlochevsky lives in Switzerland with five billion dollars he looted from Ukraine, but still owns gas-distribution company Burisma.
Feb 2, 2016: Zlochevsky's home is raided and his assets are seized. Assets include 'housing estate with a total area of 922 square meters, a land plot of 0.24 hectares, a garden house with a total area of 299.8 square meters, a garden house in the territory of Vyshgorod district, a garden house of 2,312 square meters, a land plot of 0.0394 hectares, a Rolls-Royce Phantom car, a Knott 924-5014 trainer'. || Source
Feb 11, 2016: VP Biden calls Ukranian President Poroshenko on Feb 11, 18, and 19.
Feb 21, 2016: Burisma’s lobbyist contacts requests meeting with State Department, adding in writing 'by the way, did I mention Hunter Biden’s on our board?'
March 9, 2016: Admiral Mike Rogers initiates a full compliance audit for the period of November 1, 2015, through May 1, 2016. The audit shows 85 percent of those queries were 'non-compliant' with requirements to minimize the scope of queries, meaning they were unlawful. Source: 99-page judgment by FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer.
March 2016: CIA engages mysterious Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, a longtime Western intelligence asset, to entice newly appointed Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. CIA's purpose is to implant incriminating Russia-collusion materials in Trump campaign via Papadopoulos. Mifsud, through former associates of Papadopoulos, invites Papadopoulos to Rome. Papadopoulos, in London for a conference, accepts the invitation as a chance for a three-day holiday in Rome before returning to Washington. Mifsud tells him that he (Mifsud) had just met with Russian sources in Moscow who had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails'.
March 2016: Nellie Ohr applies for ham radio license to route information from husband Assistant AG Bruce Ohr to Christopher Steele outside NSA electronic monitoring.
March 2016: Fusion GPS approaches Perkins Coie, the law firm for the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, seeking employment.
March 22, 2016: VP Biden calls Ukranian President Poroshenko, asks for prosecutor general Shokin to be fired.
March 31, 2016: In Kiev, VP Joe Biden tells Ukraine President Poroshenko ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor [Viktor Shokin] is not fired, you’re not getting the money [one billion dollars in U.S. aid]'. Shokin is investigating illicit payments by Burisma to VP Biden's son, Hunter Biden. || Source: Council on Foreign Relations conference
March 31, 2016: Ukranian Prosecutor Viktor Shokin is fired, as previously demanded by U.S. VP Biden as a condition for receiving one billion dollars in U.S. aid. Replacement Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko stops the Burisma-payments investigation.
April 14, 2016: DOJ Assistant AG for National Security John Carlin, Acting U.S. Attorney Nancy Harr, Tennessee (where TVA is located), and FBI National Security Executive Assistant Director Michael Steinbach indict China General Nuclear and U.S. citizen Allen Ho, owner of Wilmington Delaware-based Energy Technology International (ETI) for theft of nuclear secrets and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. || Source
April 17, 2015: Burisma Board advisor Vadym Pozharskyi sends email to Hunter Biden: 'Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.' || Source
April 18, 2016: NSA Admiral Mike Rogers stops all 702(17) “about query” requests, and blocks all FBI contractor access to the NSA database.
April 19, 2016: Mary Jacoby, wife of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, visits the White House. The Clinton Campaign and DNC then hire Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research, with a Russian emphasis. Fusion GPS then hires Nellie Ohr who specializes in Russian-centric counterintelligence. Nellie Ohr then contacts MI6 agent Christopher Steele to write a Russian Dossier. Nellie Ohr and her husband FBI ADAG Bruce Ohr remain back-channel contacts for Steele after the former British spy is disqualified by the FBI as a trusted source in Nov 2016.
April 25-26, 2016: Obama post-presidential organization OFA (‘Obama For America’) pays $98,047 to Perkins Coie law firm for 'legal services', for Fusion GPS payments to Christopher Steele for his dossier. From April 2016 through October 2017, OFA pays Perkins Coie $972,000, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records. || Source
April 26, 2016: Mysterious Maltese Professor Joseph Mifsud tells Trump campaign staffer Papadopoulos during a meeting in London that Russian government had access to Clinton emails with embarrassing or incriminating information.
April 2016: Clinton campaign hires Fusion GPS, using law firm Perkins Coie (Marc Elias, a Perkins Coie partner and general counsel for both the campaign and DNC) to transfer funds. May 3-4 2016: Texas Sen Ted Cruz drops out of the Republican primary on May 3. Ohio Gov John Kasich drops out the next day, leaving Trump as the only GOP candidate.
May 4, 2016: Donald Trump locks up Republican nomination.
May 6, 2016: DNC contracts with cyber-security firm CrowdStrike (CEO Dmitri Alperovitch), which 'determines' there were two breaches and names the culprits behind them – Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear – claimed by CrowdStrike to be Russian elite hacker units of FSB and GRU, respectively. However, forensics experts note that a hack always leaves traces of its network route, which the NSA would certainly know about if it existed.
May 10, 2016: Papadopoulos meets Australian diplomat Alexander Downer at London’s Kensington Wine Room, tells him Russia may have Hillary Clinton's 30,000 missing emails. 'According to Papadopoulos’s account, Mifsud alleged that the Russians had 'thousands of emails’ on Clinton.' || Source
May 2016: Fusion GPS and Perkins Coie finalize contract. 'Mark Elias told Fusion GPS to report only to him, so Fusion GPS's communications could be solely with a lawyer and thus covered by attorney-client privilege, where the clients, in this case, were the DNC and the Clinton Campaign.' Steele says that he was hired in preparation for Clinton to challenge 2016 presidential election results, based on evidence to be gathered on Trump-Russia collusion. || Source: Senate Intel Report, V5, p 858, and Aug 2, 2018 declaration in defamation lawsuit brought by AlfaBank owners.
May 16, 2016: FBI Director Comey begins preparing announcement of Clinton exoneration before questioning witnesses or obtaining evidence. At White House Meeting with President Obama and others, Peter Strzok persuades Comey to substitute 'extreme carelessness' for 'gross negligence' as description of Clinton behavior, as the latter phrase has criminal significance.
May 21, 2016: DNC staffer Seth Rich reportedly transfers 44,053 DNC emails and 17,761 DNC attachments to Wikileaks director Gavin MacFadyen. MacFayden dies of lung cancer Oct 22, 2016.
May 2016: DOD Office of Net Assessment (ONA) pays Steven Halper $411,575 for surveillance of Trump campaign officials Carter Page and George Papadopolus. Source: Matt Taibbi <taibbi@substack.com>, Steven P. Schrage, PhD, Aug 9, 2020 article.
June 7, 2016: Democrat Party nominates Hillary Clinton.
June 2016: DOJ, FBI arrange meeting at Trump Tower between Trump Jr, Manafort, and Kushner with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, a possible national security risk, to justify counterintelligence investigation of Trump. GCHQ begins surveillance of Trump Jr, Manafort, and Kushner, working from NSA Fort Mead Md offices. This surveillance is not illegal if done by GCHQ, even from U.S. offices.
June 2016: Fusion GPS hires former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and his London-based firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.
June 2016: DNC staffer Seth Rich contacts Wikileaks, offers an extensive sample of DNC emails, sets up DropBox account with password. Rich says 'I want money'. He also informs some unidentified people that he is in contact with Wikileaks, and writes 'I also shared this box with a couple of friends, so if anything happens to me, it’s not going to solve your problems'. Soon after, Wikileaks gets the password. || Source: Audio of Seymour Hersh telephone conversation with Ed Butowsky, 2017, based on secretly obtained FBI cyber-unit analysis of Seth Rich computer.
June 10, 2016: DNC tells employees its computer system has been hacked by Russia but refuses to let FBI examine its systems.
June 12, 2016: Julian Assange announces WikiLeaks has documents pertinent to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and would publish them.
June 14, 2016: Crowdstrike announces without evidence that it had found malware on DNC servers and that Russians had planted it. FBI claims its request for access to DNC servers was denied. CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry later testifies FBI never requested access to DNC servers for forensic or any other analysis.
June 15, 2017: Guccifer 2.0 first appears, claims responsibility for 'hack' of DNC server, and claims to be a WikiLeaks source. Guccifer's posted documents bear traces of 'false-flag' markings as edits with Russian (Cryllic) text, and are traceable back to DNC.
June 17, 2016: Washington Post writes 'Inside Trump's Financial Ties to Russia and His Unusual Flattery of Vladimir Putin'.
June 20, 2016: Steele delivers first memo of his dossier to Fusion GPS, alleging Trump used prostitutes during a visit to Moscow in 2013 and that the Kremlin was blackmailing him with the evidence. The memo also alleges that the Trump campaign was engaged in a well-orchestrated collusion campaign with Russian operatives. Steele relies in part on 'an article posted on July 28, 2009, on CNN iReport'. CNN iReport is an unmoderated compendium of random individual comments. || Source: 2019 Steele court deposition.
June 2016 FBI Agent Peter Strzok meets with Steele to review his research.
June 22, 2016: WikiLeaks begins publishing emails from Clinton campaign and DNC.
June 22, 2016: Former UN General Assembly President John Ashe dies of 'traumatic asphyxia' from a weightlifting barbell being dropped on his neck, days before a scheduled court appearance to respond to charges of receiving a $500,000 bribe from Macau real estate developer Ng Lap Seng, to seek support for construction of a UN conference center in Macau. Seng had previously donated large sums to the DNC. || Source
June 27, 2016: Bill Clinton meets with AG Loretta Lynch on Lynch's plane at Phoenix Airport (the 'tarmac meeting'), to request decision to not prosecute Hillary Clinton for diversion of classified information to an unsecured private server. Lynch's agreement is secured, according to allegations, by promise of continuation as AG or a Supreme Court nomination.
June 2016: DOJ FISA request denied.
Late June 2016: DCLeaks website begins publishing DNC emails.
§5. Notes on Perfidious Albion and the Walrus, January - June 2016
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