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Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Jul 31

Durham Classified Appendix is almost entirely about "Clinton Plan". Unsurprisingly, nothing about the post-election events during which Russiagate collusion hoax actually metastasized under FBI and CIA into a national flesh-eating disease.
Emails from Lenny Benardo of Soros' Open Society Foundation feature prominently. Note that Benardo was mentioned in a Washington Post article by Demirjan and Devlin Barrett on May 24, 2017 (a few days after Mueller appointment) - archive archive.is/w43O2 reporting that the email had been dismissed by FBI as "unreliable". DWS, Benardo and Renteria said at the time that they had never been interviewed by FBI.

https://x.com/FOOL_NELSON/status/1658525717183725569

Fool_Nelson proposed Julie Smith as Foreign Policy Advisor-2 in Durham report at the time:

https://x.com/FOOL_NELSON/status/1658525717183725569

Here's a July 27, 2016 email (attributed to Benardo) which contains a detail relevant to the argument against @DNIGabbard's first drop, claiming that Russian interference concern was NEVER about election infrastructure, but always about DNC hack and Buff Bernie memes. Here Benardo talks about how to make Russia "a domestic issue" by raising the spectre of a "critical infrastructure threat for the election". Brennan subsequently did just that: raised concern about "infrastructure threat". ODNI played down that threat in their briefings and ultimately in the proposed post-election PDB of December 8, 2016 which was cancelled by Obama intervention.

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Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Jul 22

the ICA version in the recent DNI documents is a different version (dated January 5, 2017) than the released version (dated January 6, 2017). There were many changes overnight - some substantive.

Before editorializing, I'll laboriously go through comparisons - final version on left, previous day version on right. (I apologize for not marking this on each of the following slides.)

The Jan 6, 2017 version contained a preface entitled "Background... The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution", not present in the Jan 5 version (as shown). It has two sections.

The first section entitled "The Analytic Process" stated that these assessments "adhere to tradecraft standards".

"On these issues of great importance to US national security, the goal of intelligence analysis is to provide assessments to decisionmakers that are intellectually rigorous, objective, timely, and useful, and that adhere to tradecraft standards."

Now recall the dispute over inclusion of Steele dossier information in the ICA as an appendix and, as we recently learned, as a bullet supporting the assessment that Putin "aspired" to help Trump. Some IC professionals objected to the inclusion of Steele dossier information on the grounds that it did not meet tradecraft standards for inclusion in an ICA. Comey, McCabe and FBI insisted on its inclusion on the grounds that Obama had said to include "everything" - which they interpreted as mandating inclusion of Steele dossier information even though it didn't meet tradecraft standards.

Reasonable people can perhaps disagree on whether this was justified or not. What was not justified was the claim that the inclusion decision complied with "tradecraft standards". It was bad enough to include non-compliant material, but the claim that the included material "adhered to tradecraft standards" was miserably false. The recent Tradecraft Review should have addressed this fault.

The preface also included the following assertion:
"The tradecraft standards for analytic products have been refined over the past ten years. These standards include describing sources (including their reliability and access to the information they provide), clearly expressing uncertainty, distinguishing between underlying information and analysts’ judgments and assumptions, exploring alternatives, demonstrating relevance to the customer, using strong and transparent logic, and explaining change or consistency in judgments over time."

The "past ten years" here refers to the period of time since the savage tradecraft review by the WMD Commission, an excellent repot on a previous intelligence failure of similar scale to the Russia collusion hoax as an //intelligence failure// - which it was (even if non-criminal).

They state that "standards include describing sources (including their reliability and access to the information they provide)". Now apply that to the description of the Steele network in the classified appendix (declassified and released in 2020) shown below and transcribed as follows:
"the source is an executive of a private business intelligence firm and a former employee of a friendly foreign intelligence service who has been compensated for previous reporting over the past three years. The source maintains and collects information from a layered network of identified and unidentified subsources, some of which has been corroborated in the past. The source collected this information on behalf of private clients and was not compensated for it by the FBI".

This description does not remotely comply with the warranty in the Preface. We know that Steele (the "source") had told the FBI that his information was funneled through a "Russian-based sub-source" who Steele refused to identify. Steele did however tell the FBI that Sergei Millian was one of the sub-subsources to the "Russian-based sub-source". By mid-December 2016, the FBI had figured out that Steele's "Russian-based sub-source" was Igor Danchenko, an alumnus of U of Louisville, Georgetown and Brookings Institute, who lived in northern Virginia and had an American-born daughter. A fulsome description of sources IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WARRANTY IN THE PREFACE would have included these details and more.

It would have also stated that the FBI planned to interview the Primary Sub-Source as soon as possible. Given the importance of the document, the obvious question from any sane reviewer of the draft ICA would be: "uh, why don't you interview Steele's Primary Sub-Source right now? Today? " "And, by the way, why are you saying that he is 'Russian-based' when he lives in northern Virginia?"

If the reviewers had known that Steele's Primary Sub-Source had lived in northern Virginia and was available for interview, maybe they would have said: "uh, maybe we should hold off this ICA until we talk to Danchenko. This is a big document, maybe we should do some due diligence". But they weren't given that option, because Danchenko's location in northern Virginia was concealed from them. The warranty in the prefatory Background was false.

Subsequently, a few weeks later, when the FBI interviewed Danchenko and he revealed that there wasn't any "layered network" and that the key allegations were based (at best) on an anonymous phone call and that many of the sourcing claims in the dossier were untrue, the intelligence community had an obligation to fess up. To retract their claims about the Steele dossier, which, by the end of January, had emerged in public consciousness as the driving predicate of the Russia collusion investigation. Once the FBI knew that the sourcing claims were fraudulent, they had an obligation to disclose that to the rest of the IC and to publicly disown the Steele dossier, which had become important to the public precisely because of its endorsement in the ICA.

Read 9 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Jul 14

Trump's latest tariff venture is a 50% tariff on copper, ostensibly for national security reasons. Copper markets are something that I analysed in the 1970s; so I know the structure of the markets and statistics. I was even been involved as a junior analyst in a trade case about US copper tariffs.

Under the US Defense Production Act, Canada is considered "domestic production" for the purposes of national security, but neither Trump nor the Canadian government seem to have had any interest in this legislation.

I remember the difficulties of trying to make long-term forecasts of copper supply and demand. Copper is also a market with voluminous statistics maintained consistently for a very long period. US Geological Survey for US consumption and primary production of refined copper for 1950-2024 are shown below. As someone who, in the 1970s, actually thought about what this chart would look like, it was interesting to re-visit.

In the 1920s and 1930s, US copper company were industrial behemoths: Anaconda, Kennecott, Phelps Dodge and Asarco, all now forgotten, were among the top 20 or top 50 US stocks back in the day. In the 1970s, they were still major companies. US accounted for about 25% of world production and consumption.

But, as you can see, since 2000, both US primary production and US refined consumption have declined precipitously. US refined consumption is now at lower levels than in the 1970s and US primary production is less than the early 1950s.

What will be the impact of a 50% tariff on copper imports? In the next post, I'll show how the changes in US market compare to world production.

although US copper production has declined since the 1970s, world copper production has almost quadrupled. US share of world copper refined production (here primary plus secondary scrap) has decreased from about 25% to 3%.

US copper production and consumption no longer dominate world markets - despite what the Beltway may imagine. An approximate 3% share doesn't get to dictate prices.

That means that the 50% copper tariff will be borne entirely by US copper consumers (i.e. manufacturers using copper). US producers will almost certainly increase their price to match the price of imports. So the tariff will be a bonanza for US domestic producers (e.g. Freeport McMoran) and a burden for US manufacturers.

the copper data also shows a vignette into the remarkable change in world economic geography since 9/11. In 2001, US still produced more copper than China. In 2024, China produced more than 13(!) times as much copper as USA. This isn't just production, but also consumption. Chinese manufacturers consume most of their copper production; their copper consumption is accordingly an order of magnitude greater than US copper consumption.

So when Trump puffs about the importance of USA as a market, this is simply not true of a basic commodity like copper. And I'm skeptical that it is true for other basic commodities.

Read 4 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Jul 9

on first page: Brennan's lawyer, Robert Litt, was General Counsel at ODNI in 2016 and involved in some key events. Litt published an article in October 2017 lawfaremedia.org/article/irrele… which claimed that "The dossier itself played absolutely no role in the coordinated intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in our election." The recent Tradecraft Review, abysmal as it was, admitted that the dossier was cited in the classified ICA as a bullet support for the claim that Putin "aspired" to help Trump get elected.

@15poundstogo very Clintonian here

Brennan refers here to two press releases issued by William Evanina in July and August 2020. The Evanina statements were prompted in large part by the release of Biden-Poroshenko tapes by Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Derkach (who had previously in October 2016 published receipts showing that Hunter Biden was getting paid $1 million per year by Burisma). Shortly after Evanina's statements, "Trump" administration sanctioned Derkach. As a result of these sanctions, Derkach was de-platformed and the Biden-Poroshenko tapes were deleted from nearly all locations. One of the tapes showed that Poroshenko and Biden gloated in August 2016 about the removal of Manafort as Trump campaign chair as a result of Ukrainian interference (Black Ledger announcement.)

Read 11 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Apr 13

New thread on new information from redactions.

I just noticed that the information in Binder on Trump briefing in Aug 2016 was previously published by Grassley in July 2020, a few days after identification of Steele Primary Sub-source (and thus we, in this corner, were otherwise preoccupied).
grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…

The new version sheds light on a previous redaction. Katrina, Norm, Ted, John and Amir were mentioned. Just noting this for future reference.

something else that I'm noticing in the less redacted documents: Kevin Clinesmith was much more prominent in Crossfire Hurricane operation than we previously realized.

In real time, Hans, myself and others had vehemently and savagely criticized Durham's useless plea agreement with Clinesmith that had failed to use their leverage over Clinesmith to obtain a road map of the Russiagate hoax operation. Compare for example Mueller's use of leverage over Rick Gates to interview him about 20 times, If anything, there was more leverage over Clinesmith.

Durham's failure to lever Clinesmith looks worse and worse as we now see Clinesmith's name in multiple Crossfire documents that had previously been redacted.

For example, here is Clinesmith on August 30, 2016 - early days of Russiagate hoax - approving the reporting of FBI surveillance of Trump and Flynn while they were supposedly providing a counterintelligence briefing.

In this briefing, they failed to give Trump and Flynn the same warning about Turkey that they had previously given Clinton's lawyers.

here's an example where the "declassified" Binder contains a redaction not made in the version published by Grassley almost five years ago. the name of Edward (Ted) Gistaro of ODNI

Read 19 tweets

Stephen McIntyre

@ClimateAudit

Apr 12

The "Binder"

I've long predicted that the "Binder" would NOT be anything remotely approximating a comprehensive collection of documents pertaining to the Russia collusion hoax, but would be a re-hash of documents already available, very few of which shed any light on the FBI's role in the metastasis of a Clintonista campign dirty trick into the national flesh-eating disease that undermined and threatened to consume the first Trump administration.

To fully appreciate why the Binder is so uninformative, one needs to consider the circumstances of its construction - illustrated below by the insolent FBI response in Tab #14 (shown in the FOIA release at FBI vault vault.fbi.gov/crossfire-hurr…, but NOT in the present release.)

On December 22, 2020, in response to a request for "all FBI documents concerning contacts between those agencies and [Marc Elias, Michael Sussmann] or other lawyers from Perkins Coie", the FBI insolently stated that "the FBI is not able to search its holdings for 'Perkins Coie' without more information such as FBI custodians and a time period. If the Department of Justice is able to provide additional information, please contact the FBI Office of Congressional Affairs... Thank you".

This exchange shows that the compilation of the Binder was done late in the transition period after Trump had already lost the election and that the FBI was being uncooperative (to say the least) in responding to the request from an outgoing administration. Given the uncooperativeness of the FBI in regard to the Perkins Coie request, the base case has to be that it was uncooperative elsewhere.

This is indeed the case. Much of the Binder is recycled material already available (e.g. from HGSAC in December 2020) or already published by Solomon in early 2021.

Prior to its release, I published a projection of the contents of the Binder based on the considerable available information on its contents available at the FBI Vault and in litigation (see stephenmcintyre.substack.com/p/the-binder).

This projection was almost exactly correct.
Almost everything that I predicted to be in the Binder release was in the release with one major exception. The FBI Vault version of the binder included a heavily redacted version of the third renewal of the Carter Page FISA warrant. The new release not only doesn't contain an unredacted or lesser redacted version of this document, but omits it entirely.

Another interesting omission: the insolent FBI refusal of information regarding Perkins Coie which was part of the FBI Vault version of the dossier is omitted from the 2025 version.

In my prediction, I had observed that there were 815 pages in the Bates index of the FOIA Vault version, of which 569 pages were published (mostly highly redacted) in the Vault version and 246 pages withheld. There were two major withheld blocks in the Vault version (74 pages from Bates 150 to 223 and 94 pages from Bates 592 to 685.) These can now be identified as FBI administrative documents for Halper (new) and the (already available) 94-page FBI spreadsheet on Steele dossier "corroboration".

The new version has varying degrees of redaction. Here and there, there's a new detail from an unredaction. Conversely, there are occasional instances in which a previously unredacted detail is redacted.

The Binder originated with the 40 items listed by John Solomon - see below justthenews.com/accountability….

This will be a long thread correlating sections of the Binder to the Solomon requests and to previous versions, commenting in particular on redactions.

1.Documents showing all the requests made by Obama administration officials to unmask the overseas phone calls of Trump campaign, transition and family members from the beginning of the 2016 election through Inauguration Day 2017. These records have been declassified by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe but have been awaiting Attorney General William Barr's permission for release, officials told Just the News.
2.The FBI interview reports of Igor Danchenko, the man identified as the primary sub-source for the Christopher Steele dossier, and any intelligence community documents raising concerns since 2008 that Danchenko had contacts with Russian intelligence.
3.Any and all documents gathered during the Justice Department inspector general's office interviews with Christopher Steele, including any notes or documents he turned over concerning his interactions with the FBI and any interview reports, synopses or transcripts.
4.All FBI 302 interview reports, confidential human source validation reports and CHS contact reports for Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper from May 2016 to December 2018.
5.All records showing whether and why Steele or Halper were ever discontinued as confidential human sources for the FBI and CIA.
6.All FBI text messages about the Russia investigation between former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, FBI attorney Lisa Page or agent Peter Strzok.
7.The 2018 classified report of referral from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to the CIA concerning spy tradecraft failures in the Russia Intelligence Community Assessment.
8.The classified appendix to the DOJ inspector general's report on the FBI Mid-Year Exam investigation, which has been sought by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) for more than a year.
9.All threat assessment and risk assessment documents produced in connection with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review and approval of the Uranium One transaction to Rosatom's ArmZ subsidiary in 2010.
10. An FBI email chain from the early days of Crossfire Hurricane that was identified by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)
11.The final spreadsheet created by FBI analysts that assesses the accuracy and substantiation for all allegations contained in the Steele dossier.
12.The Defense Intelligence Agency documents concerning former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Russia requested by Grassley more than a year ago, including any records of a defensive briefing and tasking orders given to Flynn or debriefings provided by Flynn in connection with his attendance at a Russia Today dinner in Moscow in 2015.
13.All copies of FBI 302 reports created in connection with Flynn from December 2016 and January 2017
14.All emails, text messages and memos from January 2017 concerning discussions about the Flynn probe between former Comey, Priestap and McCabe.
15.All emails between Comey and former NSA Director Mike Rogers regarding involvement of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
16.All FBI 302 interview reports of former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr and any evidence Ohr provided to the FBI or DOJ, including thumbdrives from his wife Nellie Ohr, in 2016 or 2017 concerning Russia or the Trump campaign.
17.All records of defensive briefings given in the 2015-16 election cycle to then-candidate Clinton or her campaign and any records of defensive briefings given to Trump or his campaign during the same time frame.
18.All records related to the State Department's July 26, 2016 meeting with an Australian government official concerning George Papadopoulos, Alexander Downer, Russia collusion, DNC hacking or related topics.
19.All records related to the State Department official providing that Australian government information to the FBI or any other member of the U.S. Intelligence Community from May 2016 to August 2016.
20.All State, CIA and FBI records related to the State Department and Australian government contacts between May 2016 and August 2016 concerning Papadopoulos, Downer, Russia collusion, DNC hacking or related topics.
21.All FBI records concerning Bill Priestap's trip to London in May 2016 and Peter Strzok's July 2016 trip to London.
22.All records related to Christopher Steele's contact with State Department officials, including Victoria Nuland, Kathleen Kavalec and Jonathan Winer.
23.All records related to meetings or communications between Glenn Simpson and any State Department, Justice Department, CIA or FBI official between April 2016 and July 2019.
24.All records from 2016 through 2017 related to communications between former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott or any other employee of the Brookings Institution and any then-current State Department official about Christopher Steele or the Trump campaign.
25.All records from 2016 through 2017 related to communications between Sidney Blumenthal or Cody Shearer and the State Department, FBI, CIA or DOJ concerning matters related to Russia or the Trump campaign.
26.All intelligence reports and memos that Christopher Steele provided the State Department between 2013 and 2017.
27.Any FBI 302 interview reports in 2016 or 2017 with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
28.Any correspondence to or from the U.S. Embassy in London about the FBI sending any official or affiliated person to the United Kingdom to gather information about Trump campaign or Trump family associates.
29.All FBI 302 interview reports with former Senate Intelligence Security chief James Wolfe and any copies of documents he leaked to reporters, including 87 text messages transmitted to a reporter on one day in March 2017.
30.All FBI documents that describe the source of the leak of Michael Flynn's intercepted calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak or the source of the leak of the Carter Page FISA warrant.
31.All CIA and FBI documents concerning contacts between those agencies and Marc Elias, William Sussmann or other lawyers from Perkins Coie.
32.All FBI 302 reports of any interviews with former NSA Director Rogers concerning Russia and the Trump campaign/transition.
33.The unredacted version of a May 10, 2017 email from NSC staffer Eric Ciaramella and NSC Strategic Communications official William Kelly referenced in the Mueller report volume II and recently released as fully redacted to the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
34.All FBI 302 reports of interviews with professor Joseph Mifsud between January 2016 and September 2020.
35.All FBI, DOJ or CIA documents concerning the Party of Regions "black ledger" document discovered in 2016 in Ukraine, including any assessments about its accuracy, any interview reports and any analysis of handwriting.
36.All FBI and DOJ records of an August 2016 meeting with FBI officials, Bruce Ohr, Bruce Schwartz, and/or Andrew Weissman concerning Russia or Trump.
37.All FBI and DOJ records concerning an April 2017 meeting between editors and reporters of the Associated Press and FBI and DOJ officials, including Agent Karen Greenaway and DOJ prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.
38.The fully unredacted version of the fourth and final FISA warrant application targeting Carter Page.
39.The CIA communications in 2016 and 2017 to the FBI concerning Carter Page's relationship with the Agency and possible disinformation fed by Russia to Steele's dossier.
40.Any correspondence between the British national security advisor or his deputy during the transition in January 2017 to Michael Flynn or K. T. McFarland concerning the issue of Russia.

Nothing in Binder responsive to:
1. Documents showing all the requests made by Obama administration officials to unmask the overseas phone calls of Trump campaign, transition and family members from the beginning of the 2016 election through Inauguration Day 2017. These records have been declassified by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe but have been awaiting Attorney General William Barr's permission for release, officials told Just the News.

Nothing in Binder responsive to "The FBI interview reports of Igor Danchenko, the man identified as the primary sub-source for the Christopher Steele dossier, and any intelligence community documents raising concerns since 2008 that Danchenko had contacts with Russian intelligence."

A redacted version of Danchenko January 2017 interview was published in July 2020 by Senate Judiciary Committee, but nothing is published on his subsequent interviews. At the time of Solomon's question, it wasn't known that Danchenko had been granted CHS status, a tactic which concealed Danchenko from scrutiny. At this time, the better request would be for all documents and correspondence pertaining to (1) the granting of CHS status to Danchenko; and (2) the internal reporting of Danchenko's information within the FBI.

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