ICYMI-the arrest of Michael Lee Tomasi for making online threats against FBI agents.

You might have missed it because neither DOJ's press release-nor the statements of senior DOJ/FBI personnel-detail the website & specific threats.

So let's do that.

1/
justice.gov/opa/pr/arizona… Tomasi's indictment notes the threats appeared on patriots[.]win. Neither DOJ's press release, nor the statements of senior DOJ/FBI personnel, mention the nature of patriots[.]win, let alone its progenitor website, thedonald[.]win, and its role in the run-up to Jan 6.

2/

I read through the complaint, and it's bad - very bad. 🧵

It's a 3 count complaint:
- 18 USC 371 (conspiracy to act as foreign agent/defraud the US)
- 18 USC 951 (acting as illegal agent of foreign govt
- 18 USC 1542 (use of passport obtained via false statement)

1/

https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1731715562076524991

Cuba has several intelligence and counterintelligence entities; the complaint identifies the Directorate of Intelligence/Dirección General de Inteligencia (commonly known as the DGI) as the entity Rocha allegedly worked for.

2/

Looking at some of the detail in the indictment, one thing which stood out was the effort Nauta appears to have taken to hide his presence - beyond the text 🤫 emojis - at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend of at least June 25-27, 2022.

Including de Oliveira's bush-jumping Monday.

1/ On Mon, June 27th, Nauta went to Mar-a-Lago but doesn't appear to have entered the property, meeting De Oliveira instead on an adjacent property on the north end of Mar-a-Lago.

Note the very specific times - quite possibly derived from CCTV coverage in the govt's possession.

2/

Another campaign event, another photo of Trump surrounded by LE next to his airplane.

I get the authoritarian goals of this for his campaign.

But disappointed so many LE officers choose to do so with a man – facing multiple criminal indictments – that a judge declared a rapist.





Particularly when Trump places them all over his social media feed next to things like this.

Are you going to “do things to [us] that have never been done before”?

Newly unredacted Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit information: before the search, the FBI and DOJ knew more than half (between 34 and 39 of approximately 64) of the boxes that were removed from the storage area had not been returned. More newly unredacted info: the FBI and DOJ also knew, prior to the search warrant, that “classified information was possessed in other areas of” Mar-a-Lago. How? Witness testimony?

Interesting find re Susie Wiles.

Something not mentioned in news reporting: I really hope the FBI has sent all of the original classified docs from Mar-a-Lago to the lab for fingerprint analysis.

All clearance holders are fingerprinted, meaning a couple of things:
1/

https://twitter.com/the_peetape/status/1674270624825622528

Investigators should be able to get an idea of:
1) who with a clearance handled the docs and
2) ID fingerprints not matching any clearance holder

IDing who is associated with the latter can be hard because most people have never been fingerprinted.

2/
le.fbi.gov/science-and-la…

As bad as it is, it's quite possible the indictment does not include the most sensitive documents recovered from MAL. 🧵

The indictment charges 31 distinct classified documents (para 77):

21 Top Secret
9 Secret
1 unmarked

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

1/ Those documents can be further defined by whether they were produced on June 3, 2022, in response to DOJ's subpoena vs seized during the search warrant on August 8, 2022 (see the ending date of offense for each item in para 77):

TS: 10 subpoena, 11 SW
S: 9 SW
Unmarked: 1 SW

2/

Far better quality photos

https://twitter.com/ardenfarhi/status/1667235403470872594

Unbelievable

There's some bad info floating around about classified litigation. This post from @lawfareblog about the Classified Information Procedures Act is good. CIPA is designed to balance defendants' rights with the govt's need to keep classified info secure.

lawfareblog.com/classified-inf…

1/ If you prefer a 🧵 to a blog, @BVanGrack (who is a former DOJ attorney with a lot of experience in classified litigation) has a great thread here:

https://twitter.com/BVanGrack/status/1563877511108468745

CIPA adds litigation to a trial, and presents opportunities for defendants to slow things down.

2/

Hey DOJ, looks like there's still an empty classified folder and FOUO document at the bar in the base of Trump Tower.

In New York City. Tonight, Tuesday March 14, 2023.

Wonder how it got there.

Wonder if the box it came out of is still there.

Wonder what else is in that box.

https://twitter.com/runasand/status/1635773058010021888

It looks just like the folder Trump put over a "landline telephone next to his bed, [which] has a blue light on it... so that it would keep the light down so he could sleep at night.”

You know, the one that his attorney just returned to you last month.

nbcnews.com/politics/donal…

Suddenly getting a lot of this over the last couple of days - did something happen? Here's an ex-FBI agent even Jim Jordan didn't want to testify yelling FIGHT ME like some twelve year old child on a playground.

Btw, his rt? A QAnon influencer who obtained and published internal FBI emails identifying more than a dozen FBI employees. Wonder where she got them.

I mean, why stop now?

“But the work so far, the Republican says, has been ‘very much amateur hour,’ adding that airing this ‘stuff on live television would make us look like morons.’” rollingstone.com/politics/polit… Wonder how the FBI views the counterintelligence issues of a “whistleblower” Special Agent giving an interview to a registered agent of the Russian govt. Did he even tell the FBI?

“Friend said in an interview with Russia Today that Jordan’s office had “attached’ him to Foster.”

An astonishing article. In 20 years of working cases involving classified information, I never - not once - encountered prosecutors who wanted to get a search warrant and reluctant - even refusing! - agents. The other way around, sure.

wapo.st/3ZavxSl The article points to a damning fear in the FBI stemming from political fear, not from fact.

“The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton…had proved damaging to the FBI”

Really? Name one. I’ll wait.

@richsignorelli @DeadlineWH @NicolleDWallace Really? Let’s take a look at some dates and event highlights.

Smith was appointed Nov 18, 2022

justice.gov/opa/press-rele…

1/7 @richsignorelli @DeadlineWH @NicolleDWallace On June, 2022 - 5 months before Smith was appointed - attorney John Eastman and Jeff Clark’s phones were seized. Clark’s house was also searched.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

2/7

Difficult to read.

Fair to ask if:

- four years of intimidation by Trump
- Barr’s constant focus on left-wing violence in 2020 and
- the fact Jan 6 participants were largely conservative white men

contributed to the “lack of imagination.”

Gift link:
nytimes.com/2023/02/01/us/… “Lack of imagination”

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1620560588538777600

While everyone's looking at George Devolder-Santos, it's worth looking at him - especially his wealth and fundraising questions - from a counterintelligence perspective. From the "many times during [his] career" he claims to have visited Moscow,

1/ to the over $56,000 he received from Andrew Intrater, a cousin and money manager for sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg,

2/

thedailybeast.com/republican-geo…

Literally hours off the plane, Victor Bout sits down for a hate-filled propaganda interview with convicted felon and Russian agent Maria Butina.

You know what that means?

It’s time for One Degree of Separation with Maria!

https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1601635260630208512

Rick Santorum

SCO thoughts:
- Mueller did not "start from scratch" - the investigations had been ongoing for 10 months, and already obtained hundreds of financial/communications records, conducted scores of interviews, consensual monitorings, and executed searches - there was little delay - Mueller was appointed on May 17 and he and his leadership team were at FBIHQ getting briefed two days later
- existing agents/analysts largely transferred over to the SCO; identifying attorneys took a few weeks (work already done in current SCO cases)

Not an atty, but this sounds suboptimal.

(Btw, this is the case Habba et al tried to venue shop to get in front of Judge Aileen Cannon)

https://twitter.com/katiephang/status/1590823205866205186

As in his order granting the motion to dismiss, the judge had some things to say

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

“The amended complaint was, in its entirety, frivolous”

“The Soviets helped Maclean to defect to Moscow in 1951. In Moscow, Maclean worked as a specialist on British policy and relations between the Soviet Union and NATO. He died there on 6 March 1983.”

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Ma… “And what are we to make of his loathing for the work of a spy, even as he was determined to do it? Ideology and distaste for the job were always at war inside him; it was, he said, ‘like being a lavatory attendant – it stinks but someone has to do it’”.

amp.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr…

Trump’s lawsuit against me and many others just dismissed. The Court had some things to say.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… Habba-quality law