115 times since we elected him!

Real journalist Sharyl Attkisson has compiled a list of 115 times the media has reported false claims about something done or said by President Trump. Read it here.

Can the DOJ's Inspector General be trusted?

Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson writes in The Hill,

Everyone hopes the Department of Justice’s inspector general (IG) will fairly investigate surveillance activities conducted on U.S. citizens by the FBI and intel agencies. Just like we hope the IG’s office will reach fair conclusions in its probes of alleged FBI misconduct concerning the Hillary Clinton investigation, leaks to the media and conflicts of interest.

But, for me, there’s reason to be wary.

I turned to the IG’s office in 2013 after independent forensics proved my computers had been infiltrated by remote intruders using software proprietary to a federal intel agency. Instead of fair findings, I got a lot of mischief and stonewalling.

And wait until you hear what I recently learned.

By way of background, in 2013, I filed a complaint with the IG’s office asking it to investigate the government-based computer surveillance. CBS News — where I worked at the time — would not allow the IG to examine my CBS laptop, which had been infiltrated (as CBS publicly announced on Aug. 7, 2013). But I asked the IG to examine one of my personal home computers that was also compromised.

Some of my intel sources didn’t want me to hand over any computer. “You can’t trust the inspector general,” they told me.

But I figured there was little downside. We already had our irrefutable forensics findings from our examinations. If the IG probe was competent and honest, as I expected it might be, then it could turn up names of the government actors responsible. If not, no harm done.

I don’t blame the IG computer investigators for what ultimately went wrong. They got briefed up on Apple forensics for their inspection of my computer, visited my house on numerous occasions, communicated freely, shared findings along the way and seemed to earnestly do a thorough job.

But as the investigation neared a conclusion, things changed.

On their last visit to my house, they wanted to be sure to segregate the malicious activity they identified from any work I might have done on the computer. They told me someone operated the computer in advanced mode, something I don’t know how to do. They found that — like the CBS laptop — the intruders had repeatedly altered the computer’s internal system times and dates. And they discovered that — like the CBS laptop — key files had been destroyed. (We already knew these things and more from our own exams.) We went through pages of their notes together. I asked for copies.

“You can get those later,” the lead investigator assured me. "When the investigation is finished.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t count on getting something from the government tomorrow. I made contemporaneous notes of the visit and findings.

...As our lawsuit continues, so do our forensics. New computer investigative tools have become available, and grains of evidence have been solidified into forensic mountains. Our evidence involves multiple computers and government I.P. addresses discovered improperly residing in them.

Some of my intel sources didn’t want me to hand over any computer. “You can’t trust the inspector general,” they told me.

But I figured there was little downside. We already had our irrefutable forensics findings from our examinations. If the IG probe was competent and honest, as I expected it might be, then it could turn up names of the government actors responsible. If not, no harm done.

I don’t blame the IG computer investigators for what ultimately went wrong. They got briefed up on Apple forensics for their inspection of my computer, visited my house on numerous occasions, communicated freely, shared findings along the way and seemed to earnestly do a thorough job.

“You can get those later,” the lead investigator assured me. "When the investigation is finished.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t count on getting something from the government tomorrow. I made contemporaneous notes of the visit and findings.

The weirdest part of the visit was that, for the first time, the IG investigators began insisting the intruders weren’t working remotely but were in my house, sitting at my computer, doing these things. They had dates and times. I told them that was impossible; nobody was sitting at my computer upstairs in my home for hours while my husband was home on those days, at those times. Besides, we already knew from our own forensics that the intruders had operated remotely. My forensics team said the IG experts were not fully competent on their Apple work and, for some reason, seemed to be misreading the remote intrusions as local intrusions. Still, if nothing else, the IG work provided additional confirmation of some of our more basic forensics. No harm done.

Not long after that, my communications with the IG’s office changed. They notified me that their investigation had been “narrowed,” from looking into an illegal intrusion to determining only if there had been a remote intrusion. Nobody would explain to me who narrowed the scope of the probe or why. You’d think they’d be interested in any intrusion, remote or otherwise. Why the distinction?

In the next few weeks, when I learned the IG had finished its investigation into my Apple computer, I asked for my copy of the report. The investigators told me they’d been ordered to send it to the office of IG general counsel Bill Blier for approval.

Over the coming weeks, I repeatedly asked for the findings but was told it was still in the IG general counsel’s office. I formally requested that the general counsel release a copy to me. No luck.

One investigator had told me I could always file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain my report and notes. I did so; under the law, a response was due within about 30 days. It’s been years.

When the DOJ’s inspector general won’t follow the law, to where can a citizen turn?

Meantime, under pressure from Congress, the IG eventually released what my attorney refers to as a “wiped” summary — not the actual report or notes — with spin that implied there had been no intrusion. This was quickly presented, publicly, by then-Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who had gotten a copy of the summary with lightning speed; and it was dutifully reported by some in an unquestioning press.

The IG’s obfuscation and stonewalling doesn’t adversely impact my lawsuit against the federal government for the computer intrusions. The case is progressing through court with evidence from multiple forensics exams.

As our lawsuit continues, so do our forensics. New computer investigative tools have become available, and grains of evidence have been solidified into forensic mountains. Our evidence involves multiple computers and government I.P. addresses discovered improperly residing in them.

That brings us to the news.

Not long ago, my forensics team asked if I used that Apple computer after the IG returned it. My team was conducting a new exam. “No,” I replied, “it hasn’t functioned since before I gave it to the IG. I just stored it when they returned it. Why?”

“Because — that’s not your hard drive inside the computer they gave back to you,” they told me. “… We know the serial number on the hard drive when you bought it. We recorded the same serial number on our earlier forensics exams. This is a different hard drive. Completely different serial number. Not even close.”

I would never have known if we hadn’t gone back in that computer for additional forensics.

In addition to somebody changing the scope of the IG investigation midstream, and the office withholding from me the notes and the report on my own complaint, somebody also switched out my hard drive before the IG returned it to me.

What does all this mean to the integrity of the DOJ’s inspector general?

You decide.

Read more here.

Sharyl Attkisson back in court today to prove Obama administration spied on her

Sharyl Attkisson writes at The Hill,

Many in the media are diving deeply into minutiae in order to discredit any notion that President Trump might have been onto something in March when he fired off a series of tweets claiming President Obama had “tapped” “wires” in Trump Tower just before the election.

According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed “wiretap” the former head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected. If Trump officials — or Trump himself — communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.

But we’re missing the bigger story.

If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.

...Nobody wants our intel agencies to be used like the Stasi in East Germany; the secret police spying on its own citizens for political purposes.

he government subsequently got caught monitoring journalists at Fox News, The Associated Press, and, as I allege in a federal lawsuit, my computers while I worked as an investigative correspondent at CBS News. On Aug. 7, 2013, CBS News publicly announced:

… correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was hacked by ‘an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,’ confirming Attkisson’s previous revelation of the hacking.

I have spent more than two years litigating against the Department of Justice for the computer intrusions. Forensics have revealed dates, times and methods of some of the illegal activities. The software used was proprietary to a federal intel agency. The intruders deployed a keystroke monitoring program, accessed the CBS News corporate computer system, listened in on my conversations by activating the computer’s microphone and used Skype to exfiltrate files.

We survived the government’s latest attempt to dismiss my lawsuit. There’s another hearing Friday. To date, the Trump Department of Justice — like the Obama Department of Justice — is fighting me in court and working to keep hidden the identities of those who accessed a government internet protocol address found in my computers.

Evidence continues to build. I recently filed new information unearthed through forensic exams. As one expert told the court, it was “not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.”

Read more here.

A real journalist

"We (in journalism) have become conduits and tools to advance the smears of the influencers who put narratives out.

"PR firms sit down with reporters and hand them the research. The reporters don't even try to find out who is behind it."

"Democrats, Republicans and the media are colluding together to fight Trump in any way possible. This includes fake social media accounts. There is now software that the government uses, as well as private interests, that can maintain 20 social media accounts that look like they are from different people but they are being operated by one actor."

Don't watch this if you have not taken your blood pressure medicine!

When the government misbehaves...

Highly respected journalist Sharyl Attkisson writes about the fact that the FBI is improperly withholding her FBI file. She also has a separate lawsuit

against the federal government over illegal surveillance of my work and home computers by intruders using software proprietary to a U.S. intelligence agency. The intrusions were detected and confirmed by three independent forensics exams in 2013.

Read more here.

The FBI investigation that "ended" in July

Want to read something substantial? Sharyl Attkisson provides us with

The Clearest (No Spin) Summary of FBI Report on Hillary Clinton Email.

She provides us with

The Takeaways. The Players. The Timeline.

The Takeaways:

The FBI could not review all of the Hillary Clinton emails under investigation because:

The Clintons’ Apple personal server used for Hillary Clinton work email could not be located for the FBI to examine.

An Apple MacBook laptop and thumb drive that contained Hillary Clinton email archives were lost, and the FBI couldn’t examine them.

2 BlackBerry devices provided to FBI didn’t have their SIM or SD data cards.

13 Hillary Clinton personal mobile devices were lost, discarded or destroyed. Therefore, the FBI couldn’t examine them.
Various server backups were deleted over time, so the FBI couldn’t examine them.

After State Dept. notified Hillary Clinton her records would be sought by House Benghazi Committee, copies of her email on the laptops of her attorneys Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson were wiped with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review them.

After her emails were subpoenaed, Hillary Clinton’s email archive was also permanently deleted from her then-server “PRN” with BleachBit, and the FBI couldn’t review it.

Also after the subpoena, backups of the PRN server were manually deleted.

Even though the FBI did not have a complete record of Hillary Clinton’s emails on three unclassified personal servers, it found:

2,093 emails State Dept. currently classifies as Confidential or Secret. (State Dept. did not address what their classification was at the time they were sent.)

193 emails (81 separate email conversations) that were classified at the time they were sent, ranging from “Confidential” to “Top Secret/Special Access Program.”

68 of the 81 email chains remain classified today.
8 were Top Secret.
37 were Secret.
36 were Confidential.
7 were Special Access Program.
3 were Sensitive Compartmentalized Information.
36 were Not Releasing to Foreign Governments.
2 were Releasable Only to Five Allied Partners.
12 of the suspect email chains were not provided by Hillary’s attorneys. The FBI found them other ways.
The email chains contained classified information from 5 other agencies: CIA, DOD, FBI, NGA and NSA.

Read about the players and a detailed timeline here.

Attkisson interview with Trump will air Sunday

Sharyl Attkisson caught up with Donald Trump in Fort Meyers, Florida. She interviewed him, and the interview will air Sunday on Full Measure. Look at the crowd for Trump in Fort Meyers!

The facts are incredibly damning.

Superb journalist Sharyl Attkisson has compiled a list of dates regarding facts about Hillary's email acandal. As bookworm writes today,

If you’re trying to make sense of Hillary’s email chicanery — or, even better, you’re trying peaceably to get your Progressive friends to understand why you think there’s a problem — you can’t do better than Sharyl Attkisson’s timeline, which organizes the facts and the players without editorials or judgments. And really, Attkisson is right that editorial comments and judgments are superfluous. The facts are incredibly damning.

The definitive timeline of the Hillary Clinton email scandal

Sharyl Attkisson has provided the definitive timeline of the Hillary Clinton email scandal here.

"Loathsome"

Cheryl Mills, left, was Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff and former White House counsel who defended President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial. (Photo: Newscom)
Sharyl Attkisson writes at Daily Signal,

To Sonya Gilliam, a recent account of improper sorting of Benghazi-related documents at the State Department brought back vivid memories of her own encounters with high-level government officials who withheld, deleted or destroyed public records.

And one name stood out for its familiarity: Cheryl Mills.

A former deputy assistant secretary of state had told The Daily Signal that Mills was present during an after-hours document operation in a basement room of the State Department in October 2012. Mills was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The purpose of the session, former State Department official Raymond Maxwell said, was to “separate” documents damaging to Clinton before records were turned over to an independent review board probing the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Two years into the investigations, on April 3, 1996, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others were killed in a plane crash while on an official trade mission in Croatia. Brown recently had been served with a deposition notice regarding the alleged sale of trade mission seats.

Evidence revealed a “flurry of document shredding in the [Commerce] secretary’s office” following his death. The document obstruction, which continued for years, is detailed in a 1998 federal court ruling.

Judge Calls Mills’ Behavior ‘Loathsome’ in Other Case

In a separate case involving missing documents that was brought against the FBI in 1997, Lamberth found no obstruction or conspiracy but referred to Mills’ conduct as a White House official as “loathsome.”

Lamberth faulted Mills for making “the most critical error in this entire fiasco”: learning of missing White House emails but not taking proper steps to resolve the situation.

“Mills’ actions were totally inadequate to address the problem,” Lamberth concluded.

And she gives Maxwell a great deal of credit for speaking up about what he saw in the State Department basement in October 2012.

“I never met Ray Maxwell,” Gilliam told The Daily Signal. “I don’t know Ray Maxwell. But I am Ray Maxwell because I lived Ray Maxwell’s story. And I felt compelled to say something.”

The account of Cheryl Mills told by Raymond Maxwell, former assistant deputy secretary of state, sounds familiar to Sonya Gilliam. (Photo: Sharyl Attkisson)
Read more here.

A dead-end road