November 24th, 2019 • 2h 49m

1193: Blafrican

25 for 45

I have insurance': Rudy Giuliani warns Trump against throwing him 'under the bus' | Daily Mail Online

Sat, 23 Nov 2019 21:16

President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said on Saturday that he has 'insurance' should Donald Trump try to throw him 'under the bus' over the Ukraine scandal.

Giuliani covered a breadth of topics during an interview with Fox News, including the implication that he has compromising information on the Commander-in-Chief should their relationship ever flounder.

While railing against 'fake news,' Giuliani warned Trump against abandoning him - even as the former mayor becomes more deeply embroiled in the scandal.

Rudy Giuliani (pictured) said President Donald Trump would not turn on him during the impeachment inquiry, but said he had 'insurance' if so

'I see things like, ''he's going to throw me under the bus." I say he isn't, but I have insurance,' Giuliani said with a shrug.

Giuliani did not specify what the 'insurance' entailed, but insisted he has a 'very, very good relationship' with Trump anyway.

Prior to that, Giuliani dismissed suggestions he could be indicted as a result of the impeachment inquiry.

'How long have you known me?,' Giuliani asks the host.

'Do you think I'm afraid? Do you think I get afraid? I did the right thing. I represented my client in a very, very effective way.'

Despite the admission, Giuliani says his relationship with Trump is 'good'

Giuliani is currently dealing with his own investigation federal investigations following claims that he possibly engaged in illegal lobbying and campaign finance violations.

Documents released late Friday show Donald Trump´s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was in contact with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the months before the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was abruptly recalled.

The State Department released the documents to the left-wing activist group American Oversight in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. They show that Pompeo talked with Giuliani on March 26 and March 29.

Each of the calls lasted about four minutes, and they came before and after Giuliani passed Pompeo a packet of information from his freelance investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter's dealings in Ukraine.

Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, claimed the documents reveal 'a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani´s smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador.'

Documents released late Friday show Donald Trump´s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was in contact with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in March

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch (above) told House impeachment investigators she felt 'kneecapped' by a 'smear campaign' Giuliani led against her

Last week, former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch told House impeachment investigators she felt 'kneecapped' by a 'smear campaign' Giuliani led against her.

She was withdrawn from her post in Ukraine in May.

The documents released Friday also include materials that appear to be the information packet that Giuliani handed off to the State Department.

The report includes Trump hotel stationery, and appears to summarize a January 23, 2019, phone interview that Giuliani had with Ukraine´s former prosecutor general, Victor Shokin.

In the interview summary, Shokin claims he was removed from his position under pressure from then-Vice President Biden, after being warned by U.S. diplomats to break off investigations into Burisma, the gas company where Biden's son Hunter sat on the board.

Biden has bragged openly of how he threatened to withhold loan guarantees to ensure Shokin was removed from office in early 2016.

The documents released Friday also include summary of an interview that Giuliani had with Ukraine's former prosecutor general, Victor Shokin (above)

Giuliani is seen with fixer Lev Parnas, who assisted with translation in the Shokin interview. Parnas is now under indictment on campaign finance charges

Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, has pursued the theory that Shokin was removed to end investigations into Burisma.

Biden supporters dismiss that claim as a conspiracy theory, saying that Biden put pressure on Ukraine to oust Shokin was because the prosecutor failed to tackle corruption.

The interview summary released on Friday says Giuliani and two business associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were present.

Parnas and Fruman were arrested last month on a four-count indictment that includes charges of conspiracy, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and falsification of records.

The men had key roles in Giuliani´s efforts to launch a Ukrainian corruption investigation against Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

A second memo appears to be a summary of an interview with Yuri Lutsenko, also a former prosecutor general of Ukraine, conducted in the presence of Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman.

Lutsenko is quoted saying that he believes Hunter Biden received millions of dollars in compensation from the Ukrainian oil company Burisma.

The documents released Friday include this summary of Giuliani's interview with Shokin

(1) Rudy Giuliani on Twitter: "TRUTH ALERT: The statement I've made several times of having an insurance policy, if thrown under bus, is sarcastic & relates to the files in my safe about the Biden Family's 4 decade monetizing of his office. If I d

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Sat, 23 Nov 2019 17:02

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JustOneMinute: Not The Bombshell I Was Waiting For

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Sun, 24 Nov 2019 06:33

The NY Times sneak previews the long awaited IG report investigating the investigators. If we can believe the Times - IF! - there will not be fireworks:

Russia Inquiry Review Is Said to Criticize F.B.I. but Rebuff Claims of Biased Acts

A watchdog report will portray the pursuit of a wiretap of an ex-Trump adviser as sloppy, but it also debunks some accusations by Trump allies of F.B.I. wrongdoing.

WASHINGTON '-- A highly anticipated report by the Justice Department's inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump, according to people briefed on a draft.

However!

More broadly, Mr. Horowitz's report, to be made public on Dec. 9, portrays the overall effort to seek the wiretap order and its renewals as sloppy and unprofessional, according to the people familiar with it. He will also sharply criticize as careless one of the F.B.I. case agents in New York handling the matter and say that the bureau and the Justice Department displayed poor coordination during the investigation, they said.

At the same time, however, the report debunks a series of conspiracy theories and insinuations about the F.B.I. that Mr. Trump and his allies have put forward over the past two years, the people said, though they cautioned that the report is not complete. The New York Times has not reviewed the draft, which could contain other significant findings.

Hmm. Their source may well be a Resistance figure providing a generous gloss on this. I guess we see soon enough.

New York Times Confirms Peter Strzok Team Underling, Kevin Clinesmith, is FBI Lawyer Who Altered FISA Application'...

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Source: The Last Refuge

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 06:42

The New York Times is confirming that Kevin Clinesmith is the ''low-level lawyer'' within the FBI who doctored evidence within the Carter Page FISA application.

As anticipated, the DOJ and FBI 'small group' leaks are from their individual review of a heavily compartmented IG report; and now they are being selectively shaped by the favorite 'small group' media network: NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Politico et al.

Remember, each of the principals only was able to see the draft of the IG report specific to their outline therein. All principal reviews were very compartmented. No principal has any idea what the bottom line conclusions are from the totality of the assembled compartments. An example of this is in the very first paragraph.

The New York Times article is purposefully heavy on narrative engineering. However, given how the accountability trends are identified by the specifics of the narrative construction, that's not a bad thing. As CTH outlined in anticipation of this phase, take the first wave of media justification with a grain-of-salt. There are two clear angles visible in the narrative assembly. First, here is the New York Times:

One can read that from the perspective of accountability and become frustrated. However, notice the construction closely: ''to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump'''... or put another way, there was an ''abuse of power'', but that abuse cannot specifically be attributed to bias against the President. Key point: there was an ''abuse of power'', it is in the motive for that abuse where narratives step in.

Secondly on this point'... CTH has specifically, intentionally and repeatedly outlined how the ''bias'' issue was a foregone conclusion ever since the July 2018 IG report of FBI conduct in the Clinton investigation outlined the same position. If the IG report of the DOJ/FBI conduct in the ''mid-year-exam'' found no overarching political bias; and all of the principals were exactly the same in the 2019 report on the Carter Page surveillance issue; it stands to reason that same lack of bias conclusion would extend.

['...] Investigators for the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, uncovered errors and omissions in documents related to the wiretapping of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page '-- including that a low-level lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap, the people said.

Mr. Horowitz referred his findings about Mr. Clinesmith to prosecutors for a potential criminal charge. Mr. Clinesmith left the Russia investigation in February 2018 after the inspector general identified him as one of a handful of F.B.I. officials who expressed animus toward Mr. Trump in text messages and resigned about two months ago, after the inspector general's team interviewed him.

Three points here: (1) While Clinesmith, as a normal function of his FBI job, did not report to Peter Strzok, when the teams were assembled for MYE, Crossfire Hurricane, and Robert Mueller investigation, Clinesmith DID work directly for Peter Strzok. When the teams were selected, Kevin Clinesmith reported to Peter Strzok. Therefore when the inappropriate behavior was identified; and when the action of manipulating FISA evidence was done; Kevin Clinesmith was reporting directly to FBI supervisory agent Peter Strzok.

(2) Kevin Clinesmith remained in the FBI during the entirety of the Horowitz investigation. He was not released until the investigation was complete and the draft report was submitted. So the FBI knew they had a problem with Clinesmith back in February of 2018 and he was allowed to continue work until September of this year. It would seem obvious he was being monitored.

(3) Clinesmith's status during the investigation aligns with another Main Justice employee also connected to the FISA process who was similarly in position throughout and also left in September 2019. That would be Tashina Guahar.

['...] More broadly, Mr. Horowitz's report, to be made public on Dec. 9, portrays the overall effort to seek the wiretap order and its renewals as sloppy and unprofessional, according to the people familiar with it. He will also sharply criticize as careless one of the F.B.I. case agents in New York handling the matter, they said.

In my opinion, the report is going to be much more than that. Why? Because they didn't just get a 'wiretap', they got a Title-1 FISA authorized surveillance warrant; the most extensive and intrusive form of surveillance warrant possible. A Title-1 warrant allows any and all surveillance. Wiretaps, bugs, electronic surveillance, physical surveillance, the works. A Title-1 warrant is used against suspected terrorists in the U.S.

['...] In particular, while Mr. Horowitz criticizes F.B.I. leadership for its handling of the highly fraught Russia investigation in some ways, he made no finding of politically biased actions by top officials Mr. Trump has vilified like the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey; Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy who temporarily ran the bureau after the president fired Mr. Comey in 2017; and Peter Strzok, a former top counterintelligence agent.

Notice the contradiction and the parsing: ''in some ways he made no finding of politically biased actions'''... Some ways? So there are findings of bias, just not in all ways. Notice how they repeat a needed narrative tone, yet simultaneously contradicting their lead paragraph.

Again, take this stuff with the proverbial grain of salt. This is the ''small group'' selling their narrative through their media allies. They are trying to make an argument that they are simultaneously undermining. That's what happens in the narrative engineering process.

This entire NYT article is fraught with the intent to be obtuse.

['...] The early accounts of the report suggest that it is likely to stoke the debate over the investigation without definitively resolving it, by offering both sides different conclusions they can point to as vindication for their rival worldviews.

['...] The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first approved wiretapping Mr. Page, who had close ties to Russia, as a suspected unregistered agent of a foreign power in October 2016, after he had left the campaign.

The Justice Department obtained three renewal orders. The paperwork associated with the renewal applications contained information that should have been left out, and vice versa, the people briefed on the draft report said.

''and vice versa'', meaning there was information that should have been included. Yes, that would be the exculpatory information'.... the absence therein speaks to the motive of assembly.

The email Mr. Clinesmith handled was a factor during the wiretap renewal process, according to the people.

Mr. Clinesmith took an email from an official at another federal agency that contained several factual assertions, then added material to the bottom that looked like another assertion from the email's author, when it was instead his own understanding.

Mr. Clinesmith included this altered email in a package that he compiled for another F.B.I. official to read in preparation for signing an affidavit that would be submitted to the court attesting to the facts and analysis in the wiretap application.

The details of the email are apparently classified and may not be made public even when the report is unveiled.

['...] Additionally, Mr. Clinesmith worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russia investigation. He was among the F.B.I. officials removed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after Mr. Horowitz found text messages expressing political animus against Mr. Trump.

Wait, the article just said, including the lead paragraph, Horowitz found no evidence of political bias?

Shortly after Mr. Trump's election victory, for example, Mr. Clinesmith texted another official that ''the crazies won finally,'' disparaged Mr. Trump's health care and immigration agendas, and called Vice President Mike Pence ''stupid.'' In another text, he wrote, in the context of a question about whether he intended to stay in government, ''viva la resistance.''

In a June 2018 report by Mr. Horowitz about that and other politically charged texts, which identified him as ''F.B.I. Attorney 2,'' Mr. Clinesmith said he was expressing his personal views but did not let them affect his official actions.

The inspector general apparently did not assert in the draft report that any of the problems he found were so material that the court would have rejected the Justice Department's requests to continue surveilling Mr. Page. But the people familiar with the draft were uncertain about whether Mr. Horowitz said the problems were immaterial, or instead avoided taking a position on that question.

['...] The report is also said to conclude that Joseph Mifsud, a Russia-linked professor who told a Trump campaign official that Russia had damaging information on Mrs. Clinton in the form of hacked Democratic emails '-- a key fact used to open the investigation '-- was not an F.B.I. informant. That undercuts an assertion of conservative critics of the inquiry.

No-one in conservative critic circles said Mifsud was an ''FBI informant.'' The concern is whether he is a CIA, or Western Intelligence, operative'.... not FBI.

You can continue reading the NYT article here. The bottom line is there is going to be much more than presented in these weak defenses and media constructs.

Having read the initial round of justifications and defenses, CTH is more optimistic than a week ago on the issue of accountability. It won't stop at Kevin Clinesmith.

Trump Carries Out Sting Operation Against Coup Plotters Via UKRAINEgate '-- Part 2 | SOTN: Alternative News, Analysis & Commentary

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Sun, 24 Nov 2019 07:16

''Trump knew he risked impeachment by exposing multiple Democrat scandals in the Ukraine. However, he had no choice. Trump knows his vindication lies with revealing the Deep State corruption perpetrated in Kiev by the Obama administration. The Biden Crime Family set up a full-blown criminal enterprise with Burisma warranting a RICO prosecution. Plus, the CrowdStrike server proving the DNC hacked their own servers is housed in the Ukraine. More importantly, if there was a highly organized foreign conspiracy to steal the 2106 election, it was executed by the Democrats in Ukraine. Then there was the Clinton scheme to start WW3 against Russia by using Kiev to attack Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.'' '-- Intelligence Analyst & Former U.S. Military OfficerTrump tricks the Democrats into blowing UKRAINEgate wide openState of the Nation

Truly, it all comes down to the Ukraine. Or, rather, UKRAINEgate.President Trump has known this all along, but he's been biding his time before blowing it all wide open '... which he has now done'--BIG TIME!

In order to properly understand what's really going on with UKRAINEgate, the following expos(C) provides critical background info and relevant history.

Trump Carries Out Sting Operation Against Coup Plotters Via UKRAINEgate '-- Part 1 The preceding link spells it all out. Trump had to make himself vulnerable in order to expose his enemies and especially the enemies of the American Republic.

Having done so, it's now just a matter of execution, both figuratively and literally. The various unparalleled scandals associated with the Ukraine will each be revealed in graphic detail henceforth.

With the gory details of each CIA-coordinated criminal conspiracy to commit high crimes and misdemeanors by Obama's lawless administration, the noose will surely tighten around the necks of so many Democrat corruptocrats, Deep State traitors, Intelligence Community coup plotters, Big Tech corporate criminals and Mockingbird Media cover-up artists.

BIDENgateIf the following bombshell news report foreshadows just a fraction of the rampant crime and corruption carried out by the Biden Crime Family, Joe and Hunter are in big, BIG trouble.

Ukraine's Upcoming Criminal Referral Cites Hunter Biden for ''money raised through criminal means and money laundering'' and ''money stolen from citizens''The sheer depth and breadth of the Biden crime spree committed over two Obama terms in the Ukraine is as stunning as it is inconceivable. That the Vice President of the United States '-- JOE BIDEN '-- would state so brazenly state that he got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was ready to investigate his own son for committing crimes against the state and its citizens is quite incomprehensible. Nevertheless, there you have it: Joe Biden Brags about getting Ukrainian Prosecutor Fired (Video).

Of course, there are very good reasons why point man Rudy Giuliani is taking so much heat. Not only is Rudy Trump's personal counselor, he's also his PI for ferreting out the numerous criminal conspirators who attempted to steal so many Ukrainian assets and citizen wealth. Hence, compared to the previous bombshell report, the one below is like the ''Mother of all Neutron Bombs'' where all the career crooks are taken out while the buildings are left standing.

BOMBSHELL REPORT: U.S. diplomats were working for George Soros running massive ''massive pay-for-play'' schemes in Ukraine (Video)Now that BIDENgate has been blown wide open, surely SOROSgate and CROWDSTRIKEgate will quickly follow.

KEP POINT: What Soros did to the Ukraine he does in collusion with the U.S. State Department around the globe. When the U.S. gives a $400 million aid package to the Ukraine, most of that money is taken in the form of outright graft, kickbacks, bribes, inflated contracts with the Military-Industrial Complex and other types of financial malfeasance. One thing is certain: that kind of money ends up right back in the pockets of the hopelessly corrupt American politicians, lobbyists, lawyers and banksters who are anywhere near the scene of the crime spree.

SOROSgateIt doesn't get any bigger than SOROSgate.

How George Soros has avoided scrutiny (and prosecution) when so much corrupted U.S. foreign policy comes down to his malevolent influence is a case study in the ponerization of American government. See PONERIZATION: How the American Republic was taken over by political cliques of criminally insane psychopaths

No other nation in Eurasia has been so abused and misused by the Soros Crime Syndicate as the Ukraine. Soros has in fact taken advantage of the endemic and paralyzing corruption that Ukraine has experienced over several decades.

The long-time Soros MO is first to take over the U.S. State Department personnel where it concerns each and every nation-state that the Soros Crime Syndicate aims to first exploit and then take over. See: Soros Controls Large Swaths of the U.S. Department of State '-- Former U.S. Attorney

There's no department within the U.S. Federal Government that is as powerful and influential throughout the planetary civilization as the State Department. The power elite know this quite well and have, therefore, strategically stationed consummate manipulators like Soros. Soros is a flaming front-man for the International Banking Cartel; in fact, there are many other bagmen who have likewise taken over different parts of the U.S. State Department.

The U.S. State Department has its own Very Deep StateCROWDSTRIKEgateAs far as the President is concerned, CROWDSTRIKEgate is the real megillah. Once that Democrat criminal conspiracy and immense fraud perpetrated against the American people is fully disclosed, everything changes in a day and a night.

As for the back story, the following link presents many of the most pertinent details and criminal elements.

CROWDSTRIKEgate: A Massive Deep State Scandal that Will Collapse the Democrat PartyAfter the mainstream media is compelled to publish the many inconvenient truths and hard evidence associated with CROWDSTRIKEgate (under threat of being prosecuted as a co-conspirator), Trump will be able to show the whole world that the RUSSIAgate hoax was itself an enormous criminal conspiracy fabricated by the highest echelons of the Obama administration and U.S. Intelligence Community.

Once that happens, President John F. Kennedy's greatest vow will come to pass through the deliberate and justifiable executive actions of President Donald J. Trump. What timing that these extraordinary revelations have occurring around November 22, 2019, the 56th anniversary of JKF's assassination by his own Central Intelligence Agency.

How fitting it is that the C.I.A. will be the first institution within the U.S. Federal Government to be dissolved in this presidential undertaking to drain the swamp. After all, it's now been proven that the entire impeachment scam is nothing but a SUPER-PSYOP! The whole thing was set up as a CIA-directed presidential entrapment scheme.

KEY POINT: The pure genius of Trump in triggering the Democrats to blow wide open their own scandal will go down in the history books as the greatest sting operation'--EVER! It's entirely true, however, that the Deep State had no choice but to go after Trump. After all, when CROWDSTRIKEgate is exposed, they know that the communist Democrat Party will effectively cease to exist. Moreover, the secret plan to start the hot phase of World War III with Russia will also be outed. This is why hardcore Russophobe Adam Schiff was put in charge of the impeachment inquiry.

ConclusionVery few folks are aware, but there is much more at stake here than fending off the ongoing soft coup, or even averting a full-scale violent coup d'(C)tat. As follows:

Deep State's Impeachment Coup Much More Than Overthrowing Trump'....Not only is Trump determined to take back the country from those who have stolen it, he's also thwarting the premeditated collapse of the American Republic.

However, there are HUGE obstacles to be overcome if the POTUS is to be successful. These challenges can only be met with the full support of the Patriot Movement as the time will certainly come when the Democrat traitors and Deep State co-conspirators will find themselves cornered. That's where the rubber meets the road, and every patriot needs to be locked and loaded'--FOR REAL.

BOTTOM LINE: State of the Nation November 21, 2019

Responding to Lt. Col. Vindman about my Ukraine columns '... with the facts | John Solomon Reports

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Sat, 23 Nov 2019 07:37

I honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman'sservice to his country. He's a hero. I also respect his decision to testify atthe impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimonywas easy.

But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought onthe battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate in America, onethat can't be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.

So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman aboutthe testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress, he asserted allthe factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, exceptmaybe my grammar

Hereare his exact words:

''I thinkall the key elements were false,'' Vindman testified.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. ''Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?''

''All theelements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false'....Were there more items in there, frankly, congressman? I don't recall. I haven'tlooked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might havebeen right.''

Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.

And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.

Fact 1: Hunter Biden was hired in May 2014 by Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at a time when his father Joe Biden was Vice President and overseeing US-Ukraine Policy. Here is the announcement. Hunter Biden's hiring came just a few short weeks after Joe Biden urged Ukraine to expand natural gas production and use Americans to help. You can read his comments to the Ukrainian prime minister here. Hunter Biden's firm then began receiving monthly payments totaling $166,666. You can see those payments here.

Fact 2: Burisma was under investigation by British authorities for corruption and soon came under investigation by Ukrainian authorities led by Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

Fact 3: Vice President Joe Biden and his office were alerted by a December 2015 New York Times article that Shokin's office was investigating Burisma and that Hunter Biden's role at the company was undercutting his father's anticorruption efforts in Ukraine.

Fact 4: The Biden-Burisma issue created the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially for State Department officials. I especially refer you to State official George Kent's testimony here. He testified he viewed Burisma as corrupt and the Bidens as creating the perception of a conflict of interest. His concerns both caused him to contact the vice president's office and to block a project that State's USAID agency was planning with Burisma in 2016. In addition, Ambassador Yovanovitch testified she, too, saw the Bidens-Burisma connection as creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. You can read her testimony here.

Fact 5: The Obama White House invited Shokin's prosecutorial team to Washington for meetings in January 2016 to discuss their anticorruption investigations. You can read about that here. Also, here is the official agenda for that meeting in Ukraine and English. I call your attention to the NSC organizer of the meeting.

Fact 6: The Ukraine investigation of Hunter Biden's employer, Burisma Holdings, escalated in February 2016 when Shokin's office raided the home of company owner Mykola Zlochevsky and seized his property. Here is the announcement of that court-approved raid.

Fact 7: Shokin was making plans in February 2016 to interview Hunter Biden as part of his investigation. You can read his interview with me here, his sworn deposition to a court here and his interview with ABC News here.

Fact 8: Burisma's American representatives lobbied the State Department in late February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company, and specifically invoked Hunter Biden's name as a reason to intervene. You can read State officials' account of that effort here

Fact 9: Joe Biden boasted in a 2018 videotape that he forced Ukraine's president to fire Shokin in March 2016 by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid. You can view his videotape here.

Fact 10: Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here.

Fact 11: The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here.

Fact 12: Burisma's legal representatives secured that meeting April 6, 2016 and told Ukrainian prosecutors that ''false information'' had been spread to justify Shokin's firing, according to a Ukrainian government memo about the meeting. The representatives also offered to arrange for the remaining Ukrainian prosecutors to meet with U.S State and Justice officials. You can read the Ukrainian prosecutors' summary memo of the meeting here and here and the Burisma lawyers' invite to Washington here.

Fact 13: Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here.

Fact 14: In March 2019, Ukraine authorities reopened an investigation against Burisma and Zlochevsky based on new evidence of money laundering. You can read NABU's February 2019 recommendation to re-open the case here, the March 2019 notice of suspicion by Ukraine prosecutors here and a May 2019 interview here with a Ukrainian senior law enforcement official stating the investigation was ongoing. And here is an announcement this week that the Zlochevsky/Burisma probe has been expanded to include allegations of theft of Ukrainian state funds.

Fact 15: The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here. Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying ''Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning.'' You can read her testimony here.

Fact 16: Chalupa sent an email to top DNC officials in May 2016 acknowledging she was working on the Manafort issue. You can read the email here.

Fact 17: Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, Valeriy Chaly, wrote an OpEd in The Hill in August 2016 slamming GOP nominee Donald Trump for his policies on Russia despite a Geneva Convention requirement that ambassadors not become embroiled in the internal affairs or elections of their host countries. You can read Ambassador Chaly's OpEd here and the Geneva Convention rules of conduct for foreign diplomats here. And your colleagues Ambassador Yovanovitch and Dr. Hill both confirmed this, with Dr. Hill testifying this week that Chaly's OpEd was ''probably not the most advisable thing to do.''

Fact 18: A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here. Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality.

Fact 19: George Soros' Open Society Foundation issued a memo in February 2016 on its strategy for Ukraine, identifying the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Action Centre as the lead for its efforts. You can read the memo here.

Fact 20: The State Department and Soros' foundation jointly funded the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. You can read about that funding here from the Centre's own funding records and George Kent's testimony about it here.

Fact 21: In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here. Kent testified he signed the letter here.

Fact 22: Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here.

Fact 23: Ambassador Yovanovitch and her embassy denied Lutsenko's claim, calling it a ''fabrication.'' I reported their reaction here.

Fact 24: Despite the differing accounts of what happened at the Lutsenko-Yovanovitch meeting, a senior U.S. official in an interview arranged by the State Department stated to me in spring 2019 that US officials did pressure Lutsenko's office on several occasions not to ''prosecute, investigate or harass'' certain Ukrainian activists, including Parliamentary member Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre and NABU director Sytnyk. You can read that official's comments here. In addition, George Kent confirmed this same information in his deposition here.

Fact 25: In May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions sent an official congressional letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking that Yovanovitch be recalled as ambassador to Ukraine. Sessions and State confirmed the official letter, which you can read here.

Fact 26: In fall 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors, using a third party, hired an American lawyer (a former U.S. attorney) to proffer information to the U.S. government about certain activities at the U.S. embassy, involving Burisma and involving the 2016 election, that they believed might have violated U.S. law. You can read their account here. You can also confirm it independently by talking to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan or the American lawyer representing the Ukrainian prosecutors' interests.

Fact 27: In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here.

Fact 28: In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here.

Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradictsany of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make it publiclyavailable. Your testimony did not.

If you don't have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.

Russia Inquiry Review Is Said to Criticize F.B.I. but Rebuff Claims of Biased Acts - The New York Times

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Archived Version

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 06:33

A watchdog report will portray the pursuit of a wiretap of an ex-Trump adviser as sloppy, but it also debunks some accusations by Trump allies of F.B.I. wrongdoing.

Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general, will release a report on aspects of the F.B.I.'s investigation into Russia's election interference and the Trump campaign. Credit... Erin Schaff for The New York Times WASHINGTON '-- A highly anticipated report by the Justice Department's inspector general is expected to sharply criticize lower-level F.B.I. officials as well as bureau leaders involved in the early stages of the Trump-Russia investigation, but to absolve the top ranks of abusing their powers out of bias against President Trump, according to people briefed on a draft.

Investigators for the inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, uncovered errors and omissions in documents related to the wiretapping of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page '-- including that a low-level lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, altered an email that officials used to prepare to seek court approval to renew the wiretap, the people said.

Though Mr. Trump's allies have seized on the messages from Mr. Clinesmith and his colleagues as proof of anti-Trump bias, Mr. Clinesmith has not been a prominent figure in the partisan firefight over the investigation. His lawyer declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Mr. Horowitz.

In particular, while Mr. Horowitz criticizes F.B.I. leadership for its handling of the highly fraught Russia investigation in some ways, he made no finding of politically biased actions by top officials Mr. Trump has vilified like the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey; Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy who temporarily ran the bureau after the president fired Mr. Comey in 2017; and Peter Strzok, a former top counterintelligence agent.

The early accounts of the report suggest that it is likely to stoke the debate over the investigation without definitively resolving it, by offering both sides different conclusions they can point to as vindication for their rival worldviews.

The wiretap of Mr. Page emerged as a political flash point in early 2018, though it was one relatively narrow aspect of the sprawling inquiry that found that Moscow sought to help Mr. Trump win the election and that his campaign expected to benefit, but found insufficient evidence to charge any conspiracy with the Trump campaign.

Rod J. Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who oversaw legal matters related to the 2016 election, asked Mr. Horowitz to scrutinize the wiretap and broader issues related to the investigation, absorbing pressure from Mr. Trump and his allies.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first approved wiretapping Mr. Page, who had close ties to Russia, as a suspected unregistered agent of a foreign power in October 2016, after he had left the campaign.

The email Mr. Clinesmith handled was a factor during the wiretap renewal process, according to the people. Mr. Clinesmith took an email from an official at another federal agency that contained several factual assertions, then added material to the bottom that looked like another assertion from the email's author, when it was instead his own understanding.

The details of the email are apparently classified and may not be made public even when the report is unveiled.

The investigators' referral of its findings on Mr. Clinesmith went to John H. Durham, a prosecutor assigned by Attorney General William P. Barr to also re-examine the Russia case and its origins. The referral from Mr. Horowitz's team appears to be at least in part the basis for the elevation of Mr. Durham's inquiry from an administrative review to a criminal investigation, the people said.

Additionally, Mr. Clinesmith worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russia investigation. He was among the F.B.I. officials removed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after Mr. Horowitz found text messages expressing political animus against Mr. Trump.

CNN first reported that the draft accused a lower-level lawyer of altering a document. Mr. Clinesmith's identification and details about the findings have not previously been reported.

In a phone call on Friday to ''Fox & Friends,'' Mr. Trump played up the initial revelations to claim that ''they were spying on my campaign and it went right to the top and everybody knows it and now we're going to find out'' and ''they tried to overthrow the presidency.'' The accounts of Mr. Horowitz's findings do not support that assertion.

And in other crucial respects, the draft inspector general report is said not to corroborate conspiracy theories and insinuations offered by Mr. Trump and his allies about the early stages of the Russia investigation, before Mr. Mueller was appointed as special counsel and took it over.

For example, the draft report also concludes that the F.B.I. had enough evidence to meet the legal standard for opening the investigation, though Mr. Horowitz emphasized that the bar is low, the people said.

The report is also said to conclude that Joseph Mifsud, a Russia-linked professor who told a Trump campaign official that Russia had damaging information on Mrs. Clinton in the form of hacked Democratic emails '-- a key fact used to open the investigation '-- was not an F.B.I. informant. That undercuts an assertion of conservative critics of the inquiry.

None of the evidence used to open the investigation came from the C.I.A. or from a notorious dossier of claims about Trump-Russia ties compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats, the report concludes, according to the people briefed on it.

Mr. Trump's allies have complained about how the Justice Department used information from the Steele dossier in the wiretap applications. Along with evidence from other sources, the filings cited some information from Mr. Steele's dossier about meetings that Mr. Page was rumored to have had with Kremlin representatives during a trip to Russia that year.

Republicans have criticized any use of political opposition research in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act wiretaps, which are among the most intrusive tools investigators have and are highly regulated. But the people briefed on the draft said Mr. Horowitz does not criticize them for the basic fact that they used the information.

Still, people familiar with questions asked by Mr. Horowitz's investigators have suggested that he is likely to conclude that the filings exaggerated Mr. Steele's track record in terms of the amount of value that the F.B.I. derived from information he supplied in previous investigations. The court filings in the Page wiretap application said his material was ''used in criminal proceedings,'' but it was never part of an affidavit, search warrant or courtroom evidence.

But it remains unclear what other judgments Mr. Horowitz is preparing to render about related disputes related to the use of Mr. Steele's information in the surveillance materials.

The wiretap applications contained a lengthy footnote telling the judges that Mr. Steele's research was believed to have been commissioned by someone seeking information that would damage the Trump campaign. But it did not specifically identify the funders '-- the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

The original October 2016 application said investigators did not know the identity of Mr. Steele's patrons. But even in 2017, after they specifically learned that Democrats paid a research firm to unearth material that could hurt Mr. Trump, law enforcement officials did not update the language in the renewal applications.

Defenders of the bureau's inaction argued that the original footnote was sufficient to alert the surveillance court that Mr. Steele gathered the information in a political context and noted that it is standard practice to keep names of individual Americans or organizations out of such documents.

It also remains unclear what the inspector general concluded about Mr. Steele's contacts with Bruce Ohr, a Justice Department official. Mr. Ohr, an expert on Russian organized crime and himself a frequent target of Mr. Trump, spoke with Mr. Steele several times after the F.B.I. terminated its relationship with him. Mr. Ohr briefed the bureau about those conversations. His wife also worked for the opposition research firm that hired Mr. Steele.

In his comments to Fox on Friday, Mr. Trump appeared to be looking past Mr. Horowitz's report and potentially anticipating its complex findings. ''Perhaps even more importantly,'' he said, ''you have Durham coming out shortly thereafter.''

STUNNING if True '' NYT Reports U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer Blackmailing President Trump'... | The Last Refuge

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Archived Version

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 06:27

The initial jaw-dropping compromise within the Pentagon was first noted when Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, on assignment to the National Security Council, admitted during his deposition to defying White House policy and delivering countermanding instructions to his colleagues in the Ukraine government.

Alex Vindman compromised his position, compromised his leadership, and made himself an issue for National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien. However, it wasn't what Vindman did per se', but rather what the Dept. of Defense didn't do that was more alarming. Immediately upon notification of the compromise Defense Secretary Mark Esper (above left) was under the obligation to remove the compromise, yet he did nothing.

The Vindman example was/is a concerning lack of action by Defense Dept. leadership, and that situation is made all the more alarming today as the New York Times is reporting Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer is now openly blackmailing CiC President Donald J Trump and rebuking civilian authority and oversight.

New York Times ['...] The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday.

The Navy is proceeding with the disciplinary plans against the commando, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who counts Mr. Trump as one of his most vocal supporters. After reversing a demotion in recent days, the president suggested on Thursday that he would intervene again in the case, saying that the sailor should remain in the unit.

The threats by the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, and the commander, Rear Adm. Collin Green, are a rare instance of pushback against Mr. Trump from members of the Defense Department. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, scrambled to come up with a face-saving compromise this past week in the hope that Mr. Trump could be persuaded to change his mind.

['...] One argument that officials said may be relied on is the assumption that a tweet does not constitute a formal presidential order. Mr. Esper and General Milley conveyed to the president that if he followed up that tweet with a direct order, there would be huge consequences: Mr. Trump would lose Mr. Spencer and Admiral Green, further infuriate his top military leadership and do untold damage to decades of military justice doctrine, according to administration officials. (read more)

Let's cut through the chaff and fog.

The military, nor any person therein, does not get to ''threaten'' the President of The United States. The President is the Commander in Chief of all armed forces. It is not President Trump who would be doing ''untold damage to decades of military justice doctrine'', but rather the insubordination of flag officers who are duty bound to carry out legal and constitutional instructions from the President.

The DoD inaction surrounding Lt. Col Vindman was a precursor, a visible symptom few were paying attention to; indicating a political cancer within the unified chain of command. The U.S. Secretary of the Navy threatening the U.S. President is an even more alarming symptom.

A military officer does not get to threaten his leadership with a 'do what I demand or I will quit' approach. Any senior level military officer who would express such a sentiment would be regarded as unstable, compromised and unfit to hold a leadership rank.

Yes, it really is that simple.

Former FBI lawyer under investigation after allegedly altering document in 2016 Russia probe - CNNPolitics

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Archived Version

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 20:35

By Katelyn Polantz and Evan Perez, CNN

Updated 12:36 PM EST, Fri November 22, 2019

Washington(CNN) A former FBI lawyer is under criminal investigation after allegedly altering a document related to 2016 surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, several people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Yet the situation did not sway an independent Justice Department watchdog from finding the surveillance was valid, sources said.

Still, the possibility of a substantive change to an investigative document is likely to fuel accusations from President Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI committed wrongdoing in its investigation of connections between Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign.

The findings are expected to be part of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's review of the FBI's effort to obtain warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide. Horowitz will release the report next month.

Horowitz turned over evidence on the allegedly altered document to John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed early this year by Attorney General William Barr to conduct a broad investigation of intelligence gathered for the Russia probe by the CIA and other agencies, including the FBI. The altered document is also at least one focus of Durham's criminal probe.

It's unknown how significant a role the altered document played in the FBI's investigation of Page. The alterations were significant enough to have shifted the document's meaning and came up during a part of Horowitz's FISA review where details were classified, according to the sources. It did not change Horowitz's finding that the FISA application had a legal basis, The Washington Post first reported.

Some witnesses who have been interviewed in Horowitz's investigation have said they expect the inspector general to find mistakes in the FBI's handling of the FISA process, but that those mistakes do not undermine the premise for the FBI's investigation.

American intelligence agencies and the Justice Department have not swayed from their finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election by hacking the Democrats and spreading pro-Trump propaganda online. And even former top Trump campaign officials have corroborated special counsel Robert Mueller's finding that the Trump campaign planned some of its strategy around the Russian hacks, and had multiple contacts with Kremlin-linked individuals in 2016.

Horowitz's investigators conducted more than 100 witness interviews in their review. During one of interviews this year, they confronted the witness about the document. The witness admitted to the change, the sources said.

The lawyer, who was a line attorney, is no longer working at the bureau, said a person familiar with the matter. A line attorney is a lower level lawyer within the FBI.

No charges that could reflect the situation have been filed publicly in court.

The Justice Department and inspector general's office declined to comment.

Horowitz reportHorowitz is expected to release his report on December 9 and testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee two days later.

The internal, independent investigator so far, over several reports, has criticized top members of the FBI for their actions leading up to and during the Russia investigation. Those IG reports have looked at situations including former FBI Director James Comey's handling of his personal memos about meetings with the President and former official Peter Strzok's anti-Trump text messages.

A finding of alleged wrongdoing from Horowitz could further fuel Republican criticism and conspiracies about previous investigators' targeting of Trump associates. It could also provide them a political boost at a moment where Democrats' impeachment investigation into Trump's political quid pro quo with Ukraine has battered the President.

The report is said to cover the FBI's approach to foreign surveillance during the Russia investigation, including of warrants used to wiretap Page, who had advised the Trump campaign in 2016. Witnesses are currently reviewing Horowitz's findings.

Horowitz has shared information from his review with Durham, CNN previously reported.

The Justice Department has been tight-lipped on outlining exactly what Durham has been looking at. But the attorney general himself said soon after appointing him that he was concerned officials acted inappropriately as they oversaw the counterintelligence probe of the 2016 Trump campaign.

Barr's embrace of these theories aligns with Trump's chief grievance that he was the victim of a "deep state" spy operation that has clouded his presidency.

The New York Times, CNN and other outlets have reported that Durham's investigation had become a criminal investigation.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to reflect the official is a lawyer who is no longer with the FBI. It has also been updated with information about the impact of the matter under investigation.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz contributed to this report.

Graham Announces DOJ Inspector General Report to be Released on December 9, Testifies Before the Senate on December 11 | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

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Archived Version

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 20:18

November 21, 2019

WASHINGTON '' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) announced that Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz has accepted an invitation to testify before the Committee on Wednesday, December 11, 2019.

Graham also announced that the Inspector General's report on the investigation into DOJ and FBI's conduct during the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant process as it relates to the 2016 presidential election would be released on Monday, December 9, 2019.

The report release date was detailed in a letter from IG Horowitz to Graham. Click HERE to read the letter.

''Mr. Horowitz's report will be released on December 9 and our hearing will be on December 11. I appreciate all the hard work by Mr. Horowitz and his team regarding the Carter Page FISA warrant application and the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.

''I look forward to reviewing the report and hearing Mr. Horowitz's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he will deliver a detailed account of what he found regarding his investigation, along with recommendations as to how to make our judicial and investigative systems better.''

Background:

Go to Source Author:

Handwriting Expert Analyzes Trump: Shows 'Sign of a Liar' - Rolling Stone

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Archived Version

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 15:10

President Donald Trump's ''I want nothing'' notes went viral this past week '-- a sheet of paper scrawled with ''I WANT NOTHING. I WANT NOTHING. I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO,'' which Trump brought to this week's impeachment hearings. While the notes don't say all that much, the way the president wrote them apparently tells us a lot about his mindset, according to forensic handwriting examiner Sheila Lowe.

''Some of the Os have little stabby strokes coming into the middle, such as in 'word,''' she tells Rolling Stone in an email. ''This is a special area of communication in handwriting and should be clear. When there are such interferences, the usual interpretation is '-- wait for it '-- the sign of a liar.''

Lowe has been analyzing Trump's handwriting since the early Nineties, she says, and notes that the president almost always uses a Sharpie, which ''suggests someone who is attracted to the trappings of luxury but wants it without having to put in a lot of effort to obtain it.''

As for the large, blocky writing, Lowe attributes that to him being ''someone who has a strong need for security and to be in control, to be looked up to.'' The way the letters disconnect point to ''someone who was unable to assimilate the difficulties he experienced in childhood, which leaves him open to life's various adversities. He lacks good coping mechanisms and has trouble relating fully to himself and to others.''

And his famously spiky signature? ''There's a certain arrogance, confirmed by his signature, [which] looks like a barbed wire wall, whose many sharp angles are hostile,'' Lowe says. ''At the end of the signature, the final stroke on the 'p' turns back and slashes through the signature, which, because one's name represents the self, is self-destructive.''

Forensic handwriting analysis should not be seen as definitive, however. A recent study found that ''the overall error rate even for experts is large enough as to raise questions about whether their estimates can be sufficiently trustworthy for presentation in courts.''

Thursday was the last impeachment hearing on the docket at this time. It ended with Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) allowing that Trump mentioning a ''favor'' and ''Biden'' on his July 25th call with Ukraine's president was ''inappropriate'' and showed a ''misguided foreign policy.'' Still, he finished with ''I have not heard evidence proving that the president committed bribery or extortion,'' indicating that he won't be voting yes when it comes to Trump's impeachment.

The Washington Post Helps Identify FBI Lawyer Who Altered FISA Docs'... | The Last Refuge

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Archived Version

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 17:17

At 8:15pm last evening Washington Post journalist Devlin Barrett posted a supportive article for the CNN (Manu Raju) news exclusive that outlined an ''FBI Official'' who was under criminal investigation as an outcome of the inspector general review of FISA.

The original WaPo article by Devlin Barrett noted the FBI official was actually a ''line-level'' lawyer who worked ''under FBI Agent Peter Strzok.''

At 12:15am, the WaPo article was significantly edited, two more journalists (Ellen Nakashima and Matt Zapotosky) were added to the byline. Unfortunately, no explanation or notation of the changes were given.

~ Above: 8:15pm Washington Post Screen Grab prior to 12:15am edit ~

However, that said, the edit(s) help to identify the identity of the FBI lawyer. The updated article removed the references to Peter Strzok, and identifies the line-level lawyer thus:

['...] The person under scrutiny is a low-level FBI lawyer who has since been forced out of the agency, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss material that has not yet been made public.

The employee was forced out of the FBI after the incident was discovered, two U.S. officials said. Horowitz found that the employee erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim, they said. (link)

If you have followed the case closely, the intentional removal of Peter Strzok in combination with the explanation of the lawyer's FISA responsibilities; and in combination with prior reporting of FBI lawyer 2; it seems pretty obvious the line-level lawyer was Kevin Clinesmith.

If the WaPo article had added all the detail and left in how the line-level attorney worked for Peter Strzok everyone would have known who it was. Hence they put in more details about his activity but removed the Strzok reference.

Kevin Clinesmith was one of the key FBI small group members on the original Clinton investigation known as the ''mid-year exam'', or in text messages the ''MYE''.

Within the MYE Clinesmith was one of the key legal staff working with Peter Strzok. Clinesmith was lawyer #2 for Strzok who eventually transferred to the subsequent Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Clinesmith was also previously reported to be having an intimate relationship with another member of the FBI team, Sally Moyer, though that is uncertain. [Tashina ''Tash'' Guahar was also a key legal figure on the Main Justice side of the MYE team.]

Sally Moyer was FBI unit chief in the Office of General Counsel (counterintelligence legal unit within the FBI Office of General Counsel).

Ms. Moyer was responsible for the legal compliance within the FBI counterintelligence operations that generated FISA applications.

When the MYE investigation finished, the Carter Page FISA construction is where Kevin Clinesmith and Sally Moyer come together in their next assignment, the FBI investigation of Trump.

Additionally, Tashina ''Tash'' Guahar was then Deputy Assistant Attorney General (DAAG) in the Department of Justice National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) with responsibility over the assembly of FISA applications in Main Justice. In essence the FISA lawyer.

[ Related Sidebar : Current ICIG Michael Atkinson, the IG who modified the whistle-blower forms and allowed a hearsay CIA whistle-blower complaint, was the chief legal counsel for the head of the DOJ-NSD at the time all of this was happening. Yeah, sketchy]

This is what it looks like put together:

In the Carter Page FISA application FBI line-level lawyer Clinesmith is responsible for the underlying evidence. FBI unit chief lawyer Sally Moyer is responsible for the citations (the ''woods file'') that identifies the underlying evidence. And then DOJ Tashina Guahar is responsible for the final application assembly; then it goes off to the top level DOJ and FBI superiors for signatures and submission to the court.

The WaPo article cites Clinesmith: ''erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim.'' That ''back up citation'' would be where his girlfriend Sally Moyer puts the Woods File citation.

This FISA assembly process: Clinesmith to Moyer to Guahar, took place in October 2016.

Almost three years later, Inspector General Michael Horowitz finishes his investigation and notes the issue with the documentation that supports the Woods File requirement.

This is part of Horowitz draft report as delivered to Attorney General Barr in September. According to the Washington Post the lawyer was ''forced to resign.'' Further confirmation of the identity is found within the LinkedIn profile for Kevin Clinesmith, which shows he left the FBI in September. Sally Moyer has unknown status. However, when Horowitz delivered his initial report Tashina Guahar was still at DOJ-NSD.

Shortly after IG Horowitz delivers the draft of his investigative report to AG Bill Barr, Tash Guahar quietly leaves the DOJ-NSD {Go Deep} and is reported to have taken a job with Boeing Corp. In hindsight the reason for Guahar's mysterious exit makes sense.

According to both the CNN and Washington Post report, the issue with the underlying 'Woods File' evidence has led U.S. Attorney John Durham to conduct a criminal investigation. That investigation would include Kevin Clinesmith, the ''line-level lawyer''.

A concerning part of the Washington post report is this:

['...] That conduct did not alter Horowitz's finding that the surveillance application of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had a proper legal and factual basis, the officials said.

That sounds like a white-wash outcome; mistakes were made, move along etc. etc. But, if we look back upon the status of our research when the Sally Moyer transcript was released, that outcome was actually predictable.

FromMAY 2019:

Sally Moyer was FBI unit chief in the Office of General Counsel (counterintelligence legal unit within the FBI Office of General Counsel). Moyer reported to an unnamed section chief, who reported to Trisha Beth Anderson, who was deputy legal counsel to James Baker.

Ms. Moyer is responsible for the legal compliance within the FBI counterintelligence operations that generated FISA applications:

Pictured Above: Ms. Sally Moyer

A review of the Moyer transcript clarifies a few aspects:

First, the DOJ/FBI team, ''the small group'', specifically the legal officials who were ultimately participating in the process that permits politicization and weaponization of government intelligence systems, was also the exact same legal group who reviewed (and approved) the 2018 inspector general report into FBI conduct during the 2016 election outlining the DOJ and FBI activity.

In essence, the DOJ/FBI bureaucratic corruption is so widespread, the corrupt officials involved are the same people who are the decision-makers in the amount of sunlight the Office of Inspect General is allowed to put forth. Now the disconnect between the OIG executive summary and the body of content material makes sense:

Secondly, Ms. Moyer explains how FBI verification of the FISA application used against U.S. Person Carter Page is essentially just making sure the citations align to show who is making the claims.

The underlying FISA application material does not need to be verified; rather the FBI source material is just accurately cited and attributed. Note that's where Clinesmith comes in.

Ultimately what this testimony reveals is that any U.S. person can be subjected to a Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant so long as the FBI (and DOJ) can accurately cite the reason for the underlying suspicion. The FBI citation is the ''Woods Procedure'', and it is in this citation process where Kevin Clinesmith is said to have made false documents to support the citation(s).

Sally Moyer infers the merit of the accusation has nothing to do with the citation for the claim. However, this is where the IG report is taking issue with the FBI citation:

'...Horowitz found that the employee [Kevin Clinesmith] erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim'... (link)

If he's altering an email, it sounds to me like Clinesmith is modifying communication with an FBI source to construct a citation for a claim within the FISA application; perhaps that FBI source is Christopher Steele.

Again, it's circular.

Judicial Watch Obtains Strzok-Page Emails Showing FBI's Special Accommodation of Clinton Email Witnesses

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Archived Version

Source: Judicial Watch

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 17:21

November 22, 2019 | Judicial Watch(Washington, DC) '' Judicial Watch announced today it received 35 pages of records of communications between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page that show the attorney representing three of Hillary Clinton's aides met with senior FBI officials.

Two March 2016 emails show then-FBI General Counsel James Baker and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had discussed meeting with attorney Beth Wilkinson, who was representing Clinton aides Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines. The FBI officials discussed holding ''discreet'' meetings with Wilkinson in secure locations that were set up to avoid any ''stakeouts'' by the press. (In a separate Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said that he was ''dumbfounded'' that Cheryl Mills had been given immunity and was allowed to accompany former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her FBI interview:

I had myself found that Cheryl Mills had committed perjury and lied under oath in a published opinion I had issued in a Judicial Watch case where I found her unworthy of belief, and I was quite shocked to find out she had been given immunity in '-- by the Justice Department in the Hillary Clinton email case. So I did not know that until I read the IG report and learned that and that she had accompanied the Secretary to her interview.)

In an email exchange with Deputy Assistant Director in the Counterintelligence Division Jonathan Moffa, Strzok discusses Clinton aides' laptops, and that Wilkinson said that the laptops in the FBI's possession did not contain Clinton's 60,000 emails. She also said that the two laptops that had them are the personal laptops of Mills and Samuelson that were still in use at that time.

The document production is in response to Judicial Watch's January 24, 2018, lawsuit filed after the Department of Justice failed to respond to a December 4, 2017, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).

Strzok and Page were lead investigators in the Clinton email and Russia collusion investigations. The records include:

On March 1, 2016 an unidentified official from the FBI Office of General Counsel asks Baker if he'd had a chance to speak with Wilkinson, noting ''CES [Counterespionage Section] wants to reach out to discuss scheduling additional interviews but wanted some feedback from you first.'' Baker replies, ''Just did'... She appreciated the heads up about the pending press articles. She wants to meet with the DD [Deputy Director] but can only meet on the weekends right now. I will check his availability tomorrow.''

In a follow up email thread on March 4, Wilkinson tells Baker that she would be able to do the meeting with McCabe that day. Baker forwards the note to McCabe, saying ''Andy, do you want to try to do this today?'', and copies numerous top FBI officials, including Michael Steinbach, Bill Priestap, Trisha Anderson, and Page. Page forwards the note to Strzok. Strzok then tells Page that he's been ''Talking to DOJ, they ([George] Toscas and CES) have strong opinions about it. Call me.'' Page replies, ''He's not calling. Don't worry about it.'' Strzok then adds, ''Also you need to know what [redacted] and she discussed. I can tell you over lunch'...''

In a March 4, 2016, email with the subject line ''Interview,'' Baker emails the same top FBI officials, saying that he's just spoken with Wilkinson and ''I think we are now back on track. She is going to call [redacted] today or tomorrow about scheduling the next interview. Given the witness's personal schedule, Beth said that it may not happen for a few weeks but she will work that out with [redacted]. We also discussed making sure that this is done in a secure location in a discreet way; she will work with [redacted] and the FBI team on that as well but I said that we will make sure that it happens in a high quality way.''

In a follow-up email sent only to Strzok, Baker writes, ''She understands that it needs to be in a SCIF [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility]. She seems more comfortable with NYFO [New York Field Office], but I think would be open to WFO [Washington Field Office] if she can get in and out in a discreet manner (i.e., no chance of a press stakeout or too many people in the office seeing them and having awareness of what is going on). Is there an offsite somewhere in the DC area that might be better? If so, don't tell me where it is.''

On March 20, 2016, Strzok emails FBI Deputy Assistant Director Moffa, writing: ''Big news of the day? Beth [presumably Wilkinson] said none of the laptops we have had the original 60k [presumably Hillary's 60,000 emails]. The two that did were '' and are '' the personal laptops of Cheryl [Mills] and Heather [Samuelson]. [Redacted] That they are still using now. Funny that never cane [sic] up before now.'' Strzok forwards this email with Moffa on to Page with the note: ''My frustration.''

The new documents show Strzok expressing concern about the office of DNI using private email in an exchange containing information regarding a sensitive U.S.-European Community information sharing agreement. On January 31, 2016, Strzok writes: ''GIVEN EVERYTHING GOING ON WHY IS [redacted] USING A YAHOO! ACCOUNT FOR THIS? [Emphasis in original] (Actually, apparently a Yahoo! account from [redacted] iPad'') Make him stop!!!!!!''

Page responds: ''What do you want me to do?!''

Strzok replies, ''I have no idea. It's not clear what account [redacted] iPad used. [Redacted] at DNI is the one with the Yahoo! account. Maybe tell [redacted] with the IC IG [Intelligence Community Inspector General] investigating use of private servers and webmail, perhaps it's not an opportune time for he/DNI staff to be doing the same? I don't know.'' (Judicial Watch had previously reported that FBI officials used unsecure devices in discussing how the U.S. could improve the sharing of sensitive data with the European Union top executive governing commission.)

In a February 29, 2016 email exchange Strzok tells Page he tried to reach ''Bill'' [presumably Strzok's boss, Bill Priestap, Assistant Director of FBI Counterintelligence] to get him to pass some information to Baker but was unable to via email. Page says, ''Just call him.'' Strzok replies, ''I can't. This isn't life or death and I need to give the chain of command a few minutes to work.'' Further along, Page agrees, saying, ''I totally get it. I completely hate this about our organization, but it is what it is. Np.'' Strzok responds, ''It's necessary to have a chain of command and gatekeepers. Otherwise you'd have 790 idiots calling the GC, EADs, and DD every day.''

The FBI will continue producing Strzok-Page documents through 2021.

''These documents show that the Hillary Clinton team had advocates at the top of the Obama FBI '' no wonder the investigation was a sham,'' stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. ''With explosive material such as this, no wonder the FBI is slow-rolling the release of Strzok-Page documents to Judicial Watch '' wanting to wait until late 2021 to produce records!''

###

2020

Joe Biden's Stutter, and Mine - The Atlantic

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 22 Nov 2019 20:29

H is eyes fall to the floor when I ask him to describe it. We've been tiptoeing toward it for 45 minutes, and so far, every time he seems close, he backs away, or leads us in a new direction. There are competing theories in the press, but Joe Biden has kept mum on the subject. I want to hear him explain it. I ask him to walk me through the night he appeared to lose control of his words onstage.

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''I'--um'--I don't remember,'' Biden says. His voice has that familiar shake, the creak and the croak. ''I'd have to see it. I-I-I don't remember.''

We're in Biden's mostly vacant Washington, D.C., campaign office on an overcast Tuesday at the end of the summer. Since entering the Democratic presidential-primary race in April, Biden has largely avoided in-depth interviews. When I first reached out, in late June, his press person was polite but noncommittal: Was an interview really necessary for the story?

Then came the second debate, at the end of July, in Detroit. The first one, a month earlier, had been a disaster for Biden. He was unprepared when Senator Kamala Harris criticized both his past resistance to federally mandated busing and a recent speech in which he'd waxed fondly about collaborating with segregationist senators. Some of his answers that night had been meandering and difficult to parse, feeding into the narrative that he wasn't just prone to verbal slipups'--he's called himself a ''gaffe machine'''--but that his age was a problem, that he was confused and out of touch.

Detroit was Biden's chance to regain control of the narrative. And then something else happened. The candidates were talking about health care. At first, Biden sounded strong, confident, presidential: ''My plan makes a limit of co-pay to be One. Thousand. Dollars. Because we'--''

He stopped. He pinched his eyes closed. He lifted his hands and thrust them forward, as if trying to pull the missing sound from his mouth. ''We f-f-f-f-furthersupport'--'' He opened his eyes. ''The uh-uh-uh-uh'--'' His chin dipped toward his chest. ''The-uh, the ability to buy into the Obamacare plan.'' Biden also stumbled when trying to say immune system.

Fox News edited these moments into a mini montage. Stifling laughter, the host Steve Hilton narrated: ''As the right words struggled to make that perilous journey from Joe Biden's brain to Joe Biden's mouth, half the time he just seemed to give up with this somewhat tragic and limp admission of defeat.''

Several days later, Biden's team got back in touch with me. One of his aides gingerly asked whether I'd noticed the former vice president stutter during the debate. Of course I had'--I stutter, far worse than Biden. The aide said he was ready to talk about it. Last night, after Biden stumbled multiple times during the Atlanta debate, the topic became even more relevant.

''S o how are you , man?''

Biden is in his usual white button-down and navy suit, a flag pin on the left lapel. Up close, he looks like he's lost weight since leaving office in 2017. His height is commanding, but, as he approaches his 77th birthday, he doesn't fill out his suit jacket like he used to.

I stutter as I begin to ask my first question. ''I've only '... told a few people I'm '... d-doing this piece. Every time I '... describe it, I get '... caught on the w-word-uh stuh-tuh-tuh-tutter.''

''So did I,'' Biden replies. ''It doesn't'''--he interrupts himself'--''can't define who you are.''

Mark PeckmezianMaybe you've heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like that night in Detroit, Biden's lingering stutter is hard to miss. He stutters'--if slightly'--on several sounds as we sit across from each other in his office. Before addressing the debate specifically, I mention what I've just heard. ''I want to ask you, as, you know, a '... stutterer to, uh, to a '... stutterer. When you were '... talking a couple minutes ago, it, it seemed to '... my ear, my eye '... did you have '... trouble on s? Or on '... m?''

Biden looks down. He pivots to the distant past, telling me that the letter s was hard when he was a kid. ''But, you know, I haven't stuttered in so long that it'shhhhard for me to remember the specific'--'' He pauses. ''What I do remember is the feeling.''

I started stuttering at age 4.

I still struggle to say my own name. When I called the gas company recently, the automated voice apologized for not being able to understand me. This happens a lot, so I try to say ''representative,'' but r's are tough too. When I reach a human, I'm inevitably asked whether we have a poor connection. Busy bartenders will walk away and serve someone else when I take too long to say the name of a beer. Almost every deli guy chuckles as I fail to enunciate my order, despite the fact that I've cut it down to just six words: ''Turkey club, white toast, easy mayo.'' I used to just point at items on the menu.

My head will shake on a really bad stutter. People have casually asked whether I have Parkinson's. I curl my toes inside my shoes or tap my foot as a distraction to help me get out of it, a behavior that I've repeated so often, it's become a tic. Sometimes I shuffle a pen between my hands. When I was little, I used to press my palm against my forehead in an effort to force the missing word out of my brain. Back then, my older brother would imitate this motion and the accompanying sound, a dull whine'--something between a cow and a sheep. A kid at baseball camp, Michael, referred to me as ''Stutter Boy.'' He'd snap his fingers and repeat it as if calling a dog. ''Stutter Boy! Stutter Boy!'' In college, I applied for a job at a coffee shop. I stuttered horribly through the interview, and the owner told me he couldn't hire me, because he wanted his caf(C) to be ''a place where customers feel comfortable.''

Stuttering is a neurological disorder that affects roughly 70 million people, about 3 million of whom live in the United States. It has a strong genetic component: Two-thirds of stutterers have a family member who actively stutters or used to. Biden's uncle on his mother's side'--''Uncle Boo-Boo,'' as he was called'--stuttered his whole life.

In the most basic sense, a stutter is a repetition, prolongation, or block in producing a sound. It typically presents between the ages of 2 and 4, in up to twice as many boys as girls, who also have a higher recovery rate. During the developmental years, some children's stutter will disappear completely without intervention or with speech therapy. The longer someone stutters, however, the lower the chances of a full recovery'--perhaps due to the decreasing plasticity of the brain. Research suggests that no more than a quarter of people who still stutter at 10 will completely rid themselves of the affliction as adults.

''Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what's that word?,'' a nun asked Joe Biden in front of his seventh-grade classmates.The cultural perception of stutterers is that they're fearful, anxious people, or simply dumb, and that stuttering is the result. But it doesn't work like that. Let's say you're in fourth grade and you have to stand up and recite state capitals. You know that Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but you also know that you almost always block on the j sound. You become intensely anxious not because you don't know the answer, but because you do know the answer, and you know you're going to stutter on it.

Stuttering can feel like a series of betrayals. Your body betrays you when it refuses to work in concert with your brain to produce smooth speech. Your brain betrays you when it fails to recall the solutions you practiced after school with a speech therapist, allegedly in private, later learning that your mom was on the other side of a mirror, watching in the dark like a detective. If you're a lucky stutterer, you have friends and family who build you back up, but sometimes your protectors betray you too.

Joe Biden (back) with his brother James and his sister, Valerie, at her First Communion (Random House)A Catholic nun betrayed Biden when he was in seventh grade. ''I think I was No. 5 in alphabetical order,'' Biden says. He points over my right shoulder and stares into the middle distance as the movie rolls in his mind. ''We'd sit along the radiators by the window.''

The office we're in is awash in framed memories: Biden and his family, Biden and Barack Obama, Biden in a denim shirt posing for InStyle. The shelf behind the desk features, among other books, Jon Meacham's The Soul of America. It's a phrase Biden has adopted for his campaign this time around, his third attempt at the presidency. In almost every speech, Biden warns potential voters that 2020 is not merely an election, but a battle ''for the soul of America.'' Sometimes he swaps in nation.

Joe Biden: 'We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation'

But now we're back in middle school. The students are taking turns reading a book, one by one, up and down the rows. ''I could count down how many paragraphs, and I'd memorize it, because I found it easier to memorize than look at the page and read the word. I'd pretend to be reading,'' Biden says. ''You learned early on who the hell the bullies were,'' he tells me later. ''You could tell by the look, couldn't you?''

For most stutterers, reading out loud summons peak dread. A chunk of text that may take a fluent person roughly a minute to read could take a stutterer five or 10 times as long. Four kids away, three kids away. Your shoulders tighten. Two away. The back of your neck catches fire. One away. Then it happens, and the room fills with secondhand embarrassment. Someone breathes a heavy sigh. Someone else laughs. At least one kid mimics your stutter while you're actively stuttering. You never talk about it. At night, you stare at the ceiling above your bed, reliving it.

''The paragraph I had to read was: 'Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentleman. He laid his cloak upon the muddy road suh-suh-so the lady wouldn't soil her shoes when she entered the carriage,'''' Biden tells me, slightly and unintentionally tripping up on the word so. ''And I said, 'Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man who'--' and then the nun said, 'Mr. Biden, what is that word?' And it was gentleman that she wanted me to say, not gentle man. And she said, 'Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what's that word?''''

Biden says he rose from his desk and left the classroom in protest, then walked home. The family story is that his mother, Jean, drove him back to school and confronted the nun with the made-for-TV phrase ''You do that again, I'll knock your bonnet off your head!'' I ask Biden what went through his mind as the nun mocked him.

''Anger, rage, humiliation,'' he says. His speech becomes staccato. ''A feeling of, uh'--like I'm sure you've experienced'--it just drops out of your chest, just, like, you feel '... a void.'' He lifts his hands up to his face like he did on the debate stage in July, to guide the v sound out of his mouth: void.

By all accounts, Biden was both popular and a strong athlete in high school. He was class president at Archmere Academy, in Claymont, Delaware. His nickname was ''Dash'''--not a reference to his speed on the football field, but rather another way to mock his stutter. ''It was like Morse code'--dot dot dot, dash dash dash dash,'' Biden says. ''Even though by that time I started to overcome it.''

I ask him to expand on the relationship between anger and humiliation, or shame.

''Shame is a big piece of it,'' he says, then segues into a story about meeting a stutterer while campaigning.

I bring it back up a little later, this time more directly: ''When have you felt shame?''

''Not for a long, long, long time. But especially when I was in grade school and high school. Because that's the time when everything is, you know, it's rough. They talk about 'mean girls'? There's mean boys, too.''

Bill Bowden had the locker next to Biden's at Archmere. I called Bowden recently. ''It was just kind of a funny thing, you know?'' he told me. ''Hopefully he wasn't hurt by it.'' Bob Markel, another high-school buddy of Biden's, went a little further when we spoke: ''''H-H-H-H-Hey, J-J-J-J-J-Joe B-B-B-B-Biden''--that's how he'd be addressed.'' Markel said the Archmere guys called him ''Stutterhead,'' or ''Hey, Stut'!'' for short. He fears that he himself may have made fun of Biden once or twice. ''I never remember him being offended. He probably was,'' Markel said. ''I think one of his coping mechanisms was to not show it.'' Bowden and Markel have remained friends with Biden to this day.

Before collecting from customers on his paper route, Biden would preplay conversations in his mind, banking lines'--a tactic he still sometimes uses on the campaign trail, he says. ''I knew the one guy loved the Phillies. And he'd asked me about them all the time. And I knew another person would ask me about my sister, so I would practice an answer.''

After trying and failing at speech therapy in kindergarten, Biden waged a personal war on his stutter in his bedroom as a young teen. He'd hold a flashlight to his face in front of his bedroom mirror and recite Yeats and Emerson with attention to rhythm, searching for that elusive control. He still knows the lines by heart: ''Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.''

Biden performs the passage for me with total fluency, knowing where and when to pause, knowing how many words he can say before needing a breath. This is what stutterers learn to do: reclaim control of their airflow; think in full phrases, not individual words. I ask Biden what his moment of dread used to be in that essay.

''Well, looking back on it, 'Meek young men grow up in li-li-libraries,'''' he begins again. ''''Li''--the l.''

''That kind of sound, the l sound, is like the '... r sound,'' I say.

''Yes.''

''Sometimes I've noticed, watching old clips, it looks like you do have a little trouble on the r. It's your middle initial.''

''Yeah.''

''Like 'ruh-ruh-ruh-remember,'''' I say, intentionally stuttering on the r.

''Well, I may. I-I-I-I-I haven't thought I have. But I-I-I-I don't doubt there's probably ways people could pick up that there's something. But I don't consciously think of it anymore.''

Biden says he hasn't felt himself caught in a traditional stutter in several decades. ''I mean, I can't remember a time where I've ever worried before a crowd of 80,000 people or 800 people or 80 people'--I haven't had that feeling of dread since, I guess, speech class in college,'' he says, referring to an undergraduate public-speaking course at the University of Delaware.

This is when I ask him what happened that night in Detroit.

After saying he doesn't remember, Biden opines: ''I'm everybody's target; they have to take me down. And so, what I found is'--not anymore'--I've found that it's difficult to deal with some of the criticism, based on the nature of the person directing the criticism. It's awful hard to be, to respond the same way in a national debate'--especially when you're, you know, the guy who is characterized as the white-guy-of-privilege kind of thing'--to turn and say to someone who says, 'I'm not saying you're a racist, but '...' and know you're being set up. So I have to admit to you, I found my mind going, What the hell? How do I respond to that? Because I know she's being completely unfair.''

I eventually realize that he's describing the moment from the first debate, when Harris criticized his record on race.

''These aren't debates,'' he continues. ''These are one-minute assertions. And I don't think there's anybody who hasn't been taking shots at me, which is okay. I'm a big boy, don't get me wrong.''

Listening back to that part of the conversation after our interview made me feel dizzy. I can only speculate as to why Biden's campaign agreed to this interview, but I assume the reasoning went something like this: If Biden disclosed to me, a person who stutters, that he himself still actively stutters, perhaps voters would cut him some slack when it comes to verbal misfires, as well as errors that seem more related to memory and cognition. But whenever I asked Biden about what appeared to be his present-day stuttering, the notably verbose candidate became clipped, or said he didn't remember, or spun off to somewhere new.

I wondered if I reminded Biden of his old self, a ghost from his youth, the stutterer he used to be. He and I are about the same height. We happened to be wearing the exact same outfit that day: navy suit, white shirt, no tie. We both went to all-male prep schools, the sort of place where displaying any weakness is a liability.

As I listened to the recording of our interview, I remembered how I used to respond when people asked me about my stutter. I'd shut down. I'd try to change the subject. I'd almost always look away.

In early September, I got in touch with my high-school speech pathologist, Joseph Donaher, who practices at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I hadn't heard Donaher's voice for almost 15 years. Immediately, I was transported back to the little windowless room in the hospital where we used to meet. Donaher was the first therapist'--really the first person'--who ever leveled with me. I can still see his face, the neutrality in his eyes on the day he looked at me square and said the sentence my friends and parents had avoided saying my entire life: You have a severe stutter.

Donaher and his colleagues try to help their patients open up about the shame and low self-worth that accompany stuttering. Instead of focusing solely on mechanics, or on the ability to communicate, they first build up the desire to communicate at all. They then share techniques such as elongating vowels and lightly approaching hard-consonant clusters, meaning just touching on the first sound in a word like stutter'--the st'--to keep the mouth and throat from tensing up and interfering with speech. The goal isn't to be totally fluent but, simply put, to stutter better.

This evolution in treatment has been accompanied by a new movement to destigmatize the disorder, similar to the drive to view autism through a lens of ''neurodiversity'' rather than as a pathology. The idea is to accept, even embrace, one's stutter. There are practical reasons for this: Research shows, according to Donaher, that the simple disclosure ''I stutter'' benefits both the stutterer and the listener'--the former gets to explain what's happening and ease the awkward tension so the latter isn't stuck wondering what's ''wrong'' with this person. Saying those two words is harder than it seems. ''I'm working with people who spend their whole lives and are never able to disclose it,'' Donaher told me.

Biden says his father taught him about ''shouldering burdens with grace.'' Specifically, he told his son, ''Never complain. Never explain.''Eric S. Jackson, an assistant professor of communicative sciences and disorders at NYU, told me he believes that Biden's eye movements'--the blinks, the downward glances'--are part of his ongoing efforts to manage his stutter. ''As kids we figure out: Oh, if I move parts of my body not associated with the speech system, sometimes it helps me get through these blocks faster,'' Jackson, a stutterer himself, explained. Jackson credits an intensive program at the American Institute for Stuttering, in Manhattan, with bringing him back from a ''rock bottom'' period in his mid-20s, when he says his stutter kept him from meeting women or speaking up enough to reach his professional goals. Afterward, Jackson went all in on disclosure: Every day for six months, he stood up during the subway ride to and from work and announced that he was a person who stutters. ''I had this new relationship with my stuttering'--I was like Hercules,'' he told me. At 41, Jackson still stutters, but in conversation he confidently maintains eye contact and appears relaxed. He wishes Biden would be more transparent about his intermittent disfluency. ''Running for president is essentially the biggest stage in the world. For him to come out and say 'I still stutter and it's fine' would be an amazing, empowering message.''

Occasionally, Biden has used present-tense verbs when discussing his stutter. ''I find myself, when I'm tired, cuh-cuh-catching myself, like that,'' he said during a 2016 American Institute for Stuttering speech. Biden has used the phrase we stutterers at times, but in most public appearances and interviews, Biden talks about how he overcame his speech problem, and how he believes others can too. You can watch videos posted by his campaign in which Biden meets young stutterers and encourages them to follow his lead. They're sweet clips, even if the underlying message'--beat it or bust'--is out of sync with the normalization movement.

Emma Alpern is a 32-year-old copy editor who co-leads the Brooklyn chapter of the National Stuttering Association and co-founded NYC Stutters, which puts on a day-long conference for stuttering destigmatization. Alpern told me that she's on a group text with other stutterers who regularly discuss Biden, and that it's been ''frustrating'' to watch the media portray Biden's speech impediment as a sign of mental decline or dishonesty. ''Biden allows that to happen by not naming it for what it is,'' she said, though she's not sure that his presidential candidacy would benefit if he were more forthcoming. ''I think he's dug himself into a hole of not saying that he still stutters for so long that it would strike people as a little weird.''

Biden has presented the same life story for decades. He's that familiar face'--Uncle Joe. He was born 11 months after Pearl Harbor and grew up in the last era of definitive ''good guys'' and ''bad guys.'' He's the dependable guy, the tenacious guy, the aviators-and-crossed-arms guy. That guy doesn't stutter; that guy used to stutter.

''My dad taught me the value of constancy, effort, and work, and he taught me about shouldering burdens with grace,'' Biden writes in the first chapter of his 2007 memoir, Promises to Keep. ''He used to quote Benjamin Disraeli: 'Never complain. Never explain.''''

Jill and Joe Biden, shortly after they first met, with his two sons, Beau and Hunter (Steven Goldblatt / Random House) Stephen Colbert launches across the Ed Sullivan Theater stage, as if from a pinball spring. It's early September, and his Late Show taping is about to begin. To warm up, he takes a few questions from the studio audience. Someone asks what he'd want in a potential new president. ''Empathy?'' Colbert deadpans. ''A soul?''

Colbert tapes in Midtown Manhattan on the same stage where the Beatles made their American television debut 55 years ago, when Joe Biden was a mere 22. Biden struts out to a standing ovation and throws up his hands in amazement: For me? A brief ''Joe! Joe! Joe!'' chant erupts.

At first, Colbert lobs softballs, and Biden touches on the key parts of his 2020 stump speech: Why voters must stand up to the existential threat of Trumpism and how the Charlottesville, Virginia, white-supremacist rally crystallized his decision to run. Then Colbert goes for it.

''In the last few weeks, you've confused New Hampshire for Vermont; saidBobby Kennedy and MLK were assassinated in the late '70s; assured us, 'I am not going nuts.' Follow-up question: Are you going nuts?''

''Look, the reason I came on the Jimmy Kimmel show was because'--''

The audience howls. Biden flashes a flirty smile. Colbert adjusts his glasses, sticks his pen in his mouth, and nods in approval. The joke was probably canned, but Biden landed it.

Colbert continues to press him about accuracy issues in his storytelling. The studio audience is silent; I'm watching from the balcony and can hear the theater's air-conditioning humming overhead.

''I-I-I-I-I don't get wrong things like, uh, ya know, there is a, we, we should lock kids up in cages at the border. I mean, I don't'--'' People applaud before Biden can finish.

When the interview is over, Biden receives a second standing ovation. He peers up toward the rafters, using his hand as a visor against the bright lights. A white spotlight follows him offstage. Several minutes later, he glides through the stage door and out onto West 53rd Street. People call to him from the sidewalk. ''Joe! Joe Biden!'' He climbs into the back of an idling black SUV, and the doorsclunk close.

Read: Tyranny of the 70-Somethings

I follow Biden for a couple of days while he campaigns in New Hampshire. His town halls have a distinctly Norman Rockwell vibe. One takes place in the middle of the day on the third floor of a former textile mill, another on a stretch of grass as the wind whips off the Piscataqua River. His crowds are predominantly older, filled with people who stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and wait patiently to ask questions. After he speaks, Biden typically walks offstage to Bruce Springsteen's ''We Take Care of Our Own,'' then saunters down the rope line for handshakes and hugs and selfies. One voter after another tells me they're unaware of Biden's stutter. ''Knowing that he has had something like that to deal with and overcame it, as well as other really sad things that have happened'--it just makes me like him more,'' says 70-year-old Grace Payne.

Back in New York, I start to wonder if I'm forcing Biden into a box where he doesn't belong. My box. Could I be jealous that his present stutter is less obvious than mine? That he can go sentences at a time without a single block or repetition? Even the way I'm writing this piece'--keeping Biden's stammers, his ums and pauses, on the page'--seems hypocritical. Here I am highlighting the glitches in his speech, when the journalistic courtesy, convention even, is to edit them out.

I spend weeks watching Biden more than listening to him, trying to ''catch him in the act'' of stuttering on camera. There's one. There's one. That was a bad one. Also, I start stuttering more.

In September, before the third Democratic debate, in Houston, I called Michael Sheehan, a Washington, D.C.''area communications coach whose company website boasts clients ranging from Nike to the Treasury Department. Sheehan worked with President Bill Clinton while he was in office and began consulting on and off for Biden in 2002, when he was in the Senate. On the day we spoke, he was in Wilmington, Delaware, doing debate prep with Biden.

Sheehan and I traded stories of daily indignities'--he stutters too. ''I remember exactly where the deli was; it was on 71st and First Avenue,'' he said with an ache in his voice. He lamented the interventionists, the people who volunteer, ''''You know, why don't you speak more slowly?' I always want to say 'Holy shit! Why didn't I think of that? Thank you!''''

Sheehan's own stutter improved, but didn't fully go away, when he took up speech and debate in high school. This eventually led him to the theater, which is a common, if surprising, place where some stutterers find that they're able to speak with relative ease. Taking on a character, another voice, the theory goes, relies on a different neural pathway from the one used in conversation. Many successful actors have battled stutters'--Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, James Earl Jones. In 2014, Jones, whose muscular baritone is the bedrock of one of the most quoted lines in film history, told NPR that he doesn't use the word cured to describe his apparent fluency. ''I just work with it,'' he said.

At an August town hall, Biden briefly blocked on Obama, before subbing in my boss. The headlines afterward? ''Biden Forgets Obama's Name.''Sheehan was extremely careful with the language he used to describe Biden's speech patterns'--''I can't say it's a stutter'''--though he noted his friend's habit of abruptly changing directions mid-sentence. ''I do hear those little pauses, but I really don't hear the stuff that you would hear from me or I would hear from you,'' he said. A few minutes into our conversation, he choked up while discussing Biden's tenderness toward young stutterers. ''Sometimes I feel when he goes a little long on a speech, he's just making up for lost time, you know?''

Sheehan told me about a night when he came home with his wife and saw the answering-machine light blinking: ''Hey, Michael, it's Joe Biden. I just was watching The King's Speech with my granddaughter, and I just thought I'd give you a call, because it made me think of you. Goodbye!'' He says the message felt like a secret fraternity handshake: ''You and I have both been there, and only people in that society know what that is about.''

In Biden's office, the first time I bring up his current stuttering, he asks me whether I've seen The King's Speech. He speaks almost mystically about the award-winning 2010 film. ''When King George VI, when he stood up in 1939, everyone knew he stuttered, and they knew what courage it took for him to stand up at that stadium and try to speak'--and it gave them courage '... I could feel that. It was that sinking feeling, like'--oh my God, I remember how you felt. You feel like, I don't know '... almost like you're being sucked into a black hole.''

Presidential candidates usually don't speak about their bleakest moments, certainly not this viscerally. It resembles the way Biden writes in his memoir about the aftermath of the 1972 car accident that killed his first wife and young daughter and critically injured his two sons, Beau and Hunter: ''I could not speak, only felt this hollow core grow in my chest, like I was going to be sucked inside a black hole.''

Related Stories Joe Biden Is Schr¶dinger's Candidate Is Joe Biden 'Too Old'? The President's Cognitive Decline A few weeks later, I ask Jill Biden what she remembers about sitting next to her husband during the movie. ''It was one of those moments in a marriage where you just sort of understand without words being spoken,'' she says.

As he watched The King's Speech, Biden accurately guessed that the screenwriter, David Seidler, was a stutterer. ''He showed me a copy of a speech they found in an attic that the king had actually used, where he marks his'--it's exactly what I do!'' Biden tells me, his voice lifting. ''My staff, when I have them put something on a prompter'--I wish I had something to show you.''

He pulls out a legal pad and begins drawing diagonal lines a few inches apart, as if diagramming invisible sentences: x words, breath, y words, breath. ''Because it's just the way I have'--the, the best way for me to read a, um, a speech. I mean, when I saw The King's Speech, and the speech'--I didn't know anybody who did that!''

Biden is running for president on a simple message: America is not Trump. I'm not Trump. I'll lead us out of this. With every new debate, with every new ''gaffe,'' the media continue to ask whether Biden has the stamina for the job. And with every passing month, his competitors'--namely Senator Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg'--have gained on him in the polls.

A stutter does not get worse as a person ages, but trying to keep it at bay can take immense physical and mental energy. Biden talks all day to audiences both small and large. In addition to periodically stuttering or blocking on certain sounds, he appears to intentionally not stutter by switching to an alternative word'--a technique called ''circumlocution'''--which can yield mangled syntax. I've been following practically everything he's said for months now, and sometimes what is quickly characterized as a memory lapse is indeed a stutter. As Eric Jackson, the speech pathologist, pointed out to me, during a town hall in August Biden briefly blocked on Obama, before quickly subbing in my boss. The headlines after the event? ''Biden Forgets Obama's Name.'' Other times when Biden fudges a detail or loses his train of thought, it seems unrelated to stuttering, like he's just making a mistake. The kind of mistake other candidates make too, though less frequently than he does.

During his 2016 address at the American Institute for Stuttering, Biden told the room that he'd turned down an invitation to speak at a dinner organized by the group years earlier. ''I was afraid if people knew I stuttered,'' he said, ''they would have thought something was wrong with me.''

Yet even when sharing these old, hard stories, Biden regularly characterizes stuttering as ''the best thing that ever happened'' to him. ''Stuttering gave me an insight I don't think I ever would have had into other people's pain,'' he says. I admire his empathy, even if I disagree with his strict adherence to a tidy redemption narrative.

In Biden's office, as my time is about to run out, I bring up the fact that Trump crudely mocked a disabled New York Times reporter during the 2016 campaign. ''So far, he's called you 'Sleepy Joe.' Is 'St-St-St-Stuttering Joe' next?''

''I don't think so,'' Biden says, ''because if you ask the polls 'Does Biden stutter? Has he ever stuttered?,' you'd have 80 to 95 percent of people say no.'' If Trump goes there, Biden adds, ''it'll just expose him for what he is.''

I ask Biden something else we've been circling: whether he worries that people would pity him if they thought he still stuttered.

He scratches his chin, his fingers trembling slightly. ''Well, I guess, um, it's kind of hard to pity a vice president. It's kind of hard to pity a senator who's gotten six zillion awards. It's kind of hard to pity someone who has had, you know, a decent family. I-I-I-I don't think if, now, if someone sits and says, 'Well, you know, the kid, when he was a stutterer, he must have been really basically stupid,' I-I-I don't think it's hard to'--I've never thought of that. I mean, there's nobody in the last, I don't know, 55 years, has ever said anything like that to me.''

He slips back into politician mode, safe mode, Uncle Joe mode: ''I hope what they see is: Be mindful of people who are in situations where their difficulties do not define their character, their intellect. Because that's what I tell stutterers. You can't let it define you.'' He leans across the desk. ''And you haven't.'' He's in my face now. ''You can't let it define you. You're a really bright guy.''

He's telling me, in essence, that my stutter doesn't matter, which is what I want to tell him right back. But here's the thing: Most of the time, Biden speaks smoothly, and perhaps he sincerely does not believe that he still stutters at all. Or maybe Biden is simply telling me the story he's told himself for several decades, the one he's memorized, the one he can comfortably express. I don't want to hear Biden say ''I still stutter'' to prove some grand point; I want to hear him say it because doing so as a presidential candidate would mean that stuttering truly doesn't matter'--for him, for me, or for our 10-year-old selves.

Now his aide is knocking, trying to get him out of the room. I push out one more question, asking what he saw reflected in that bedroom mirror as a kid.

He goes off into a different boyhood story about standing against a stone wall and talking with pebbles in his mouth, some oddball way to MacGyver fluency. I do the thing stutterers hate most: I cut him off. ''What did that person look like?''

Biden stops. ''He looked happy,'' he says. ''You know, I just think it looked like he'sin control.''

This article will appear in the January/February 2020 print edition with the headline ''Why Won't He Just Say It?''

John Hendrickson is a senior editor on

The Atlantic's politics team.

How a Facebook Employee Helped Trump Win'--But Switched Sides for 2020 - WSJ

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After the 2016 presidential election, Republican Party officials credited Facebook Inc. with helping Donald Trump win the White House. One senior official singled out a then-28-year-old Facebook employee embedded with the Trump campaign, calling him an ''MVP.''

Now that key player is working for the other side'--as national debate intensifies over Facebook's role in politics.

James Barnes left Facebook this spring, and said he is now dedicated to using the digital-ad strategies he employed on behalf of the Trump campaign to get President Trump out of office in 2020. Mr. Barnes, who had been a lifelong Republican, has registered as a Democrat and recently started working with a progressive nonprofit called Acronym, where former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is on the board.

In a series of interviews over the past three weeks, Mr. Barnes discussed how he helped the Trump campaign leverage some of Facebook's powerful tools and products to extend its reach. He talked about the pressure he felt behind the scenes, both from the Trump campaign and some colleagues at Facebook. His account sheds new light on Facebook's role in the Trump campaign and what Democrats are trying to learn from it going into the next presidential election.

Mr. Barnes said he remains supportive of Facebook's mission but is uneasy about the company's influence on political discourse. One question that has nagged him over the past three years about his time at Facebook: ''Did I actually do the right thing?''

Social-media platforms are sure to be a critical battlefield in 2020, with political spending on digital advertising expected to hit $2.9 billion, up from $1.4 billion in 2016, according to consulting firm Borrell Associates Inc. The Trump re-election campaign is already pouring money into Facebook ads, and Democratic candidates are ramping up.

Facebook has openly grappled with its approach to political advertising in the wake of revelations that Russian entities purchased digital ads designed to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election. It has also faced criticism for giving political campaigns access to sophisticated targeting tools, which in some cases allowed political actors to single out groups of users for misleading ads. In response, Facebook has made changes to slow the spread of misinformation and eliminated commissions for employees who sell political ads. The company is also considering ways to make it harder to target political ads to very small groups of people.

Another big change that came out of this reckoning: Last year, Facebook said it would no longer embed its employees with political campaigns, as Mr. Barnes had done.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has discussed his own soul-searching around whether Facebook should accept political ads at all, eventually deciding that it should and that it wouldn't fact-check those messages as it does other content.

Facebook has played an increasingly large role in each of the last three U.S. presidential elections. In 2008, Barack Obama's campaign was lauded for using Facebook to help reach young voters. In 2012, President Obama's re-election campaign created an app that plugged into the Facebook developer platform and allowed users to prod friends in swing states to vote.

The company's political ad strategy was initially modeled on its playbook for top corporate clients: Facebook employees offered on-site support to the U.S. presidential candidates who were considered the presumptive nominees for their parties.

Mr. Barnes joined Facebook's political ad sales team in June 2013 in Washington, following a stint at a digital consulting firm that worked for John McCain's two presidential campaigns.

Like other tech companies, Facebook divvies up its political ad sales team by party. Republican employees usually work with Republican clients; Democrats work with Democrats. Mr. Barnes was part of the team that exclusively dealt with Republicans.

In many ways, Mr. Barnes is the archetype of a Silicon Valley tech worker. He's analytical and measured. He's earnest and idealistic, describing on multiple occasions his desire to do good in the world. He fasts intermittently, sometimes going 72 hours between meals.

In other ways, he cuts against type. He grew up in Hendersonville, Tenn., in an evangelical family that attended church on Wednesday nights. His mother, Tami West, says he was an Alex P. Keaton type: independent and staunchly Republican.

By the time the 2016 campaign was heating up, the developer platform used by the Obama campaign was mostly closed off, as part of a shift in Facebook's strategy, but Facebook's ad-targeting tools had grown more sophisticated.

Mr. Barnes became the Trump campaign's go-to resource for figuring out how to maximize those tools. In April 2016, after a weekend at the Coachella music festival in California, he and his manager flew to San Antonio to meet with Brad Parscale, who became the digital director of the Trump campaign. In Mr. Parscale's office, and later at Bohanan's, a local steak house, they discussed how Facebook could help the campaign.

One of the first things Mr. Barnes and his team advised campaign officials to do was to start running fundraising ads targeting Facebook users who liked or commented on Mr. Trump's posts over the past month using a product now called ''engagement custom audiences.''

The product, which Mr. Barnes hand-coded, was available to a small group, including Republican and Democratic political clients. (The ad tool was rolled out widely around Election Day.) Within the first few days, every dollar that the Trump campaign spent on these ads yielded $2 to $3 in fundraising dollars, said Mr. Barnes, who added that the campaign raised millions of dollars in those first few days.

Mr. Barnes frequently flew to Texas, sometimes staying for four days at a time and logging 12-hour days. By July, he says, he was solely focused on the Trump campaign. When on-site in the building that served as the Trump campaign's digital headquarters in San Antonio, he sometimes sat a few feet from Mr. Parscale.

The intense pace reflected Trump officials' full-throated embrace of Facebook's platform, in the absence of a more traditional campaign structure including donor files and massive email databases.

The Trump campaign would give Mr. Barnes certain videos or images, such as a video of Donald Trump Jr. urging voters to build the border wall. Mr. Barnes would experiment with different ways to display the ad. One ad might say ''donate'' while another would say ''give.'' Some videos would be vertical; others were square. Buttons could be highlighted in red or green.

Each variation of the ad would be targeted to certain demographics. It could be as specific as 18-to-24 year old men who visited the Trump campaign donation page and made it to the third step but never finished, according to Mr. Barnes. They tested all the variations and doubled down on those that raised the most money.

Trump campaign officials have said that some days the campaign churned out 100,000 separate versions of Facebook ads. Mr. Parscale is overseeing the Trump re-election campaign this year.

One official from the 2016 Trump campaign said it primarily relied on Mr. Barnes for troubleshooting and complained to Facebook about periodic technical issues that the campaign argued hurt the campaign's performance. The official, who is also working on Mr. Trump's re-election campaign, declined to comment further.

Mr. Barnes's Democratic counterparts at Facebook weren't getting the same reception. Tatenda Musapatike, a former Facebook employee who worked with Democratic PACs and other independent expenditure groups in 2016, said she felt many Democrats held Facebook at arm's length.

''For James, he'd suggest something and they'd say, 'Sure, let's try it,' '' said Ms. Musapatike. ''It was a battle for us to get anything accepted at a much smaller scale.''

Hillary Clinton's campaign didn't have Facebook employees stationed on site, according to people familiar with the campaign. One former Clinton campaign official said the campaign didn't want to give Facebook staffers a ''24/7 opportunity'' to sell more ads by embedding with the staff. A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton didn't respond to a request for comment.

Facebook referred to its prior comments on the embed program. Last year, Facebook told lawmakers that it didn't assign anybody ''full-time'' to either campaign and that it offered ''identical support'' to both sides.

Mr. Barnes said the experience was exhilarating but isolating. He was thrilled that the tools he helped build were working. But while he had a good relationship with Mr. Parscale and the campaign's digital advertising director, Gary Coby, at times Mr. Barnes had reservations about Mr. Trump's tone and rhetoric.

Still, Mr. Barnes said he felt he had a responsibility to help Facebook follow through on its commitment to help candidates regardless of their politics.

''I used to describe my job as defending Trump to Facebook and defending Facebook to Trump,'' he said.

Internally, Facebook staffers questioned the company's role in politics. Sometimes they would ask why Facebook was offering assistance to the Trump campaign in the first place, according to Mr. Barnes and other former Facebook employees.

The critiques wore on Mr. Barnes. ''It felt really isolating and lonely that I was at the nexus of all of this stuff,'' he said.

During the campaign, Trump campaign officials frequently threatened to go to the press if Mr. Barnes and other Facebook employees failed to address problems to their satisfaction, he said.

For example, the Trump campaign needed a large credit line from Facebook, according to Mr. Barnes and others familiar with the situation. This issue posed unique challenges. Facebook sometimes extends credit to a select group of digital agencies, but Mr. Parscale's outfit didn't qualify for a large line because it didn't have a track record with Facebook, according to people familiar with the matter. The Trump team also wanted to pay for ads with a credit card, but Facebook's payments system wasn't set up to handle payments of as much as $300,000 to $400,000 a day on a credit card, according to Mr. Barnes and others familiar with the matter.

As employees looked for ways to mend the problem, Mr. Parscale texted Mr. Barnes to say Mr. Trump would go on TV and ''say Facebook was being unfair to him'' if the issue wasn't resolved quickly, Mr. Barnes said. Eventually, Facebook came up with a fix.

Mr. Barnes said he felt responsible for protecting Facebook from these potential attacks.

Mr. Barnes said he ultimately voted for Mrs. Clinton. Ms. Musapatike said Mr. Barnes was in a funk after the election. ''He had a difficult time reckoning with the impact of the election and his work,'' she said.

A few days after the election, Mr. Coby directly praised Mr. Barnes on Twitter. In a now-deleted tweet, he said ''@jameslbarnes of FB was a MVP.''

Being called out by name at a time when Trump supporters were being targeted by threats online was ''terrifying,'' Mr. Barnes said. Facebook's security team called him with instructions on how he could protect himself and his privacy online.

Months later Mr. Barnes moved to San Francisco, joining a team that helped retailers like Macy's use Facebook's products. He tried to forget politics.

In December 2017, Mr. Barnes said, he was interviewed for nine hours by investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller. At one point they asked him if he noticed any Russians hanging around the campaign, he said. ''You wanna make a joke in that scenario,'' he said, but ''it's not the opportunity to make a joke.'' He told them he didn't see Russians.

Mr. Barnes said he also spoke to the Securities and Exchange Commission about the company's connection to Cambridge Analytica, which purchased data of about 87 million users of Facebook from a researcher without the consent of Facebook or the users.

Mr. Barnes doesn't think Cambridge Analytica uploaded any illicitly gained Facebook user data to target ads, but that it wasn't the norm for Facebook employees to ask for such details. Former Cambridge Analytica officials have denied using the data for the 2016 election. The SEC declined to comment.

At one point, in mid-2018, Mr. Barnes helped design Facebook's much-touted war room for managing election integrity in the U.S. and abroad. Shortly before a press junket to showcase the effort, he said, two Facebook public-relations officials advised him to stay away from the event in case journalists raised questions about his role helping the Trump campaign.

That week, as he sat at his desk surrounded by empty seats, his frustration reached a breaking point. ''[I'm thinking], when am I going to stop paying the price for this?''

In early 2019, Mr. Barnes took advantage of a Facebook perk called ''recharge'' which gives employees 30 days off after they have been at Facebook for five years.

He considered going back to Facebook, but opted to take an active role opposing Mr. Trump's re-election. In a private Facebook post on Aug. 5, he wrote that Mr. Trump's slogan, Make America Great Again, was about ''activating the deepest, darkest, soul of white nationalism.''

One of his calls was to former colleague Ms. Musapatike, who left in March to join Acronym as its senior director of campaigns overseeing the group's online voter registration and mobilization programs. Chris Cox, Facebook's former chief product officer, is now an informal adviser to Acronym and, people familiar with the matter say, one of its donors.

Ms. Musapatike warned Mr. Barnes that he might be viewed with suspicion at Acronym because of his work for Mr. Trump. She vouched for Mr. Barnes with Tara McGowan, the founder and chief executive of Acronym.

Mr. Barnes decided he liked Acronym's goal to beat Mr. Trump at his own game, online and on Facebook. This month, Acronym and its affiliated PAC announced plans to spend $75 million on digital ads. Mr. Barnes oversees Acronym's analytics, helping Acronym understand if its ads work.

Mr. Plouffe believes the former Facebook employee gives Democrats a secret weapon as part of a revamped effort to meet Mr. Trump on the social-media battlefield.

''He understands the most dominant platform in politics exceedingly well,'' Mr. Plouffe said of Mr. Barnes. ''He thinks differently from someone who grew up in politics a decade or more ago.''

'--Jim Oberman and Emily Glazer contributed to this article.

Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com

The Democratic ticket Trump doesn't want in 2020 | TheHill

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Pete Buttigieg Peter (Pete) Paul ButtigiegClimate change protesters stage sit-in at Mayor Pete Buttigieg's office Yang slams lack of speaking time during debate Bloomberg readies .5M ad campaign as he mulls 2020 run MORE 's recent popularity surge in Iowa and New Hampshire has many speculating that President Trump Donald John TrumpApple CEO Tim Cook promises to fight for DACA, user privacy DOJ urges Supreme Court to side with Trump in ongoing legal battle over tax returns Giuliani associate willing to inform Congress of meeting between Nunes and former Ukrainian official: report MORE could face a Democratic ticket in 2020 that he doesn't want and fears the most '-- the South Bend, Ind., mayor and another candidate recently in the spotlight, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Tulsi GabbardThe Hill's Campaign Report: Impeachment looms large over Democratic debate NYT sexist Tulsi smear Warren support dips among college students in new poll MORE of Hawaii.

Despite what the ''experts'' might say, it's certainly possible. Like weather forecasters and economists, political pundits often are proved embarrassingly wrong. Voters from both parties have a tendency to recalibrate rather quickly, and quite unexpectedly, toward candidates they believe actually might have a chance of winning.

In 2004, for example, Democratic voters threw the preening pundits a curveball when, during the primary process, they suddenly tapped on the brakes, took a much longer and harder look at front-runner Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, and turned in the slightly more ''establishment'' direction of Sen. John Kerry John Forbes KerryGraham requests State Department documents on Bidens, Ukraine So long as Iran dominates the Middle East, a new Baghdadi will rise As Buttigieg rises, Biden is still the target MORE of Massachusetts.

Four years later, Democratic primary voters most certainly went counterintuitive again when they bypassed the pundit-approved and -predicted Sen. Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonDOJ watchdog expected to say FBI erred, but absolve top leaders of anti-Trump bias: report Intel officials told senators Russia wanted to pin election meddling on Ukraine: report Trump says Pompeo would 'win in a landslide' if he ran for Senate MORE of New York for the relatively unknown Sen. Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaFar-right, anti-Islam group plans to hold event at Mar-a-Lago club Obama: 'Everybody needs to chill out' about differences between 2020 candidates Hill says Soros conspiracy theories are 'new Protocols of the Elders of Zion' MORE of Illinois.

The instincts of those primary voters almost won the Democratic Party the White House in 2004 and for sure got them a very popular two-term president in 2008.

In 2016, Republican primary voters made fools of an army of political pundits and pollsters who '-- even very late into the primary process '-- declared continually that Donald Trump had no chance of getting the Republican nomination.

Once he became the nominee, many of those same ''experts'' and Never Trumpers told us he had zero chance of beating Hillary Clinton in the general election.

Coming up on the end of the third year of his presidency, President Trump still delights in reminding those pundits and pollsters how earth-shatteringly wrong they were.

Today, many of these same political strategists tell us the Democratic nominee most likely will be either former Vice President Joe Biden Joe BidenGiuliani associate willing to inform Congress of meeting between Nunes and former Ukrainian official: report Yang slams lack of speaking time during debate Biden on Bloomberg entering 2020 race: 'I welcome the competition' MORE or Sen. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann WarrenYang slams lack of speaking time during debate Krystal Ball lays out Sanders's path to victory in 2020 Warren adds Ayanna Pressley as campaign co-chair MORE of Massachusetts.

OK, unless the voters say otherwise '-- again.

As one who was involved in three winning presidential campaigns, I have watched the ever-evolving Democratic primary campaign for 2020 with growing interest. Over the course of the past year, I've discussed with a number of friends and political operatives from both parties that the two Democrats who should strike the most fear in Trump are Buttigieg and Gabbard.

Gabbard has been in the news lately after Clinton viciously and unfairly attacked her. Even though Gabbard has broken a number of ''glass ceilings'' and served her country with honor as a member of the United States Army in Iraq and Kuwait, Clinton hinted that she is an asset of the Russians who is being ''groomed as a third-party candidate.''

An asset of the Russians? Truly despicable.

Gabbard fired back at Clinton, who had no proof to offer for her smear: ''Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.''

As irony would have it, Clinton unintentionally gave Gabbard just the boost she needed to potentially keep her going deep into the primary process.

This primary campaign '-- like the one in 2008 '-- is starting to also showcase another young, smart, well-spoken and relatively inexperienced candidate from the Midwest: Mayor Pete. He began his political career as a volunteer for Obama in 2007, before joining the Navy Reserve and serving the nation with distinction in Afghanistan. He's also openly and proudly gay.

Because of that, many are asking the expected question: Is America ready to elect a gay president? The answer, for me at least, is that America is more than ready to do so, just as the nation was more than ready to elect a black president and is more than ready to elect a female president.

As Obama demonstrated, it still comes down to the candidate '-- can he or she connect with the American people? And Democratic voters finally are paying attention to the connections that Gabbard and Buttigieg can make, she as a more centrist candidate and he more left of center.

As a package, those two candidates, with their various skill sets and experiences, do speak to a great many communities and demographics across the country. Two young veterans who served their nation in Iraq and Afghanistan now are catching the attention of American voters.

If I were in the Trump White House or campaign, that ticket would send chills down my spine.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.

Steve Marchand ð§ on Twitter: "#BoycottMSNBC, or at least do this: In honor of the MSNBC moderators taking 32 minutes to ask @andrewyang a question in last week's debate, let's all agree that we'll tune in for any @MSNBC half-hour program 32 minutes int

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