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Timelines, Paul Manafort, Fusion GPS & Illegal Surveillance

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The release of the House Memo provided us with a wealth of new information – most of it damning.

In particular the inference that a likely Title I Request – or a Traditional FISA – was issued on Carter Page.

But the Memo also provided us with some important additions to our timeline. Which leads to some new conclusions.

FISA Application Timeline:

On October 21, 2016, the FBI and DOJ obtained the initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and later obtained three FISA renewals from the FISC.

A FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC (FISA Court) every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause.

October 21, 2016 – First FISA Warrant requested AND granted.

January 19, 2017 – First FISA renewal (90 days).

April 19, 2017 – Second FISA renewal (90 days).

July 18, 2017 – Third FISA renewal (90 days).

October 16, 2017 – Final FISA extension expires.

Then-DAG Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein – each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ. Per the Memo, Lynch never signed a FISA application.

January 20, 2017 – AG Loretta Lynch retires on Inauguration Day.

January 30, 2017 – Acting AG Sally Yates fired by President Trump for refusing to uphold Travel Ban.

April 25, 2017 – Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein confirmed by Senate.

This would imply that Yates signed two FISA applications – 10/21/16 & 1/19/17.

Boente signed one – 4/19/17.

Rosenstein signed one – 7/18/17.

Of greater importance is the fact that surveillance of Page – which allowed surveillance of the Trump Campaign and President Trump & his administration – was in place from October 21, 2016 through October 16, 2017.

Christopher Steele Timeline:

September 2016 – Steele has admitted in British Court filings that he met with Yahoo (below) along with “several other outlets” in September. He did so at the direction of Fusion GPS.

September 2016 – Steele meets with Associate Deputy AG Bruce Ohr at least once in September – but almost certainly several times.

September 23, 2016 – Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focused on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This information was used to corroborate the Steele Dossier. Steele leaked this information to Isikoff – likely in the days just preceding the article. Steele has admitted this in British Court.

October 2016 – DNC law firm Perkins Coie hosts at least one meeting after Steele’s media leaks in September 2016. The meetings could have taken place in later months but October is likely in front of the 10/21/16 Page FISA application. Members from Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS (Simpson) and Steele attend this meeting.

October 2016 – Steele probably meets with Associate Deputy AG Bruce Ohr. The Memo alludes to this but does state October directly.

October 2016 – Bruce Ohr provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, which had been paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. Nellie Ohr was hired by Fusion in April/May 2016. The information handoff could have taken place in later months but early/mid October is likely as it lies in front of the 10/21/16 Page FISA application.

October 21 2016 – Corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial Page FISA application – per FBI Counterintelligence Head Bill Priestap. This more subtle reference to Bill Priestap is potentially telling. It may indicate that he’s flipped.

October 30, 2016 – Steele makes unauthorized disclosure of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jones article by David Corn. Again, Steele likely leaked this information in the days just preceding the article.

October 30 2016 – Steele was suspended as an FBI source for his unauthorized disclosure of his relationship with the FBI – presumably the same day as the article’s publication.

Late October/Early November – Steele is terminated as an FBI source for his unauthorized disclosure of his relationship with the FBI.

Late October/November 2016 – Steele meets with Associate Deputy AG Bruce Ohr at least once in November – but probably does so several times.

November/December 2016 – Following Steele’s termination by the FBI, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within the FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated.

December 2017 – Deputy FBI Director McCabe testified before the Committee that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.

Papadopoulos:

May 2016 – Per the NYT, George Papadopoulos was speaking to an Australian diplomat while at a bar in London, mid May 2016. Papadopoulos supposedly told the diplomat that “Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton”.

July 2016 – The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russia in late July 2016 by FBI agent Peter Strzok.

The Page FISA application mentions information regarding Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos. There is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos.

Use of the Papadopoulos information to trigger the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Peter Strzok seems odd for two primary reasons:

As far as we know, the FBI did not even speak to Papadopoulos until January 15, 2017 – six months after the investigation in Russia had been started.

Nowhere in the Joint Analysis Report on Russia Activities is Papadopoulos even referenced. Not once.

Two questions immediately arise from the newly formed timeline.

1) The FISA application and grant happened on October 21, 2016. How did the FBI legally use prior knowledge of Papadopoulos to open the July 2016 Trump-Russia counterintelligence investigation. Was whatever information the FBI had on Papadopoulos – slim by all accounts – enough to justify the opening of a full-scale investigation.

2) Surveillance of Carter Page began on October 21, 2016. Why did the FBI not obtain a FISA Warrant earlier.

The answer to the first question may be simple. The FBI just did it. They opened the July 2016 Trump-Russia counterintelligence investigation because they wanted to. Any justification would suffice.

The Conservative Treehouse provided a possible answer to the second question:

Consider the following abbreviated timeline:

  • November 2015-April 2016 – The FBI and NSD uses private contractors to access raw FISA information using “To” and “From” FISA-702(16) & “About” FISA-702(17) queries.
  • February/March 2016 – Trump’s securing of GOP nomination seen as probable.
  • Early March 2016 – Fusion approaches DNC law firm Perkins Coie about being hired to continue opposition research into the Trump Campaign.
  • March 21 2016 – Carter Page joins the Trump Campaign as an advisor on foreign policy.
  • March 28 2016 – Paul Manafort joins Trump Campaign as campaign convention manager.
  • April 2016 – National Security Agency (NSA) Director Rogers orders NSA compliance officer to run full audit on 702 NSA compliance.
  • April 2016 – Fusion GPS hired by Perkins Coie on behalf of the DNC.
  • April 18 2016 -Mike Rogers shuts down FBI/DOJ contractor access to the FISA Search System.
  • April 18 2016 – The FBI discontinues private contractor access to raw FISA information.
  • April 19 2016 – Wife of Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS) Mary Jacoby visits White House.
  • April 25 2016 – Two WH meetings between FBI Counsel James Baker and Trisha B Anderson (FBI), Tashina Guahar( DOJ), John T Lynch (DOJ), John (Brad) Wiegmann (DOJ), Alan Rozenshtein (DOJ), Norman (Christopher) Hardee (DOJ), and Iris Lan (DOJ). DOJ attorneys Tashina Guahar, Christopher Hardee, Brad Wiegmann are FISA attorneys.
  • Late April 2016 – Clinton Campaign begins paying Fusion GPS.
  • April/May 2016 – Fusion GPS hires Christopher Steele.
  • April/May 2016 – Fusion GPS hires Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ Assoc. Deputy AG Bruce Ohr.
  • May 2016 – Trump becomes presumptive GOP Nominee.
  • May 19 2016 – Paul Manafort promoted to campaign chairman and chief strategist for Trump Campaign.
  • May 23 2016 – Nellie Ohr applies for a HAM Radio license.
  • June 2016 – FBI Agent Peter Strzok – and possibly DOJ’s Bruce Ohr – meet with Christopher Steel.
  • Late June 2016 – First draft of Trump Dossier shared w/Fusion & possibly FBI’s Strzok.
  • Late June 2016 – First FISA 702 Surveillance Authority request made. It is denied.
  • July 19 2016 – Trump officially becomes GOP Nominee.
  • Mid/Late July 2016 – FBI begins counter-intelligence investigation into Russia and Trump.
  • Late July – Second draft of Trump Dossier shared with FBI.
  • August 2016 – Strzok sends “insurance policy” text referencing Deputy FBI Director McCabe.
  • August 19 2016 – Paul Manafort “resigns” from Trump Campaign amidst reports of foreign lobbying efforts.
  • September 2016 – Carter Page resigns from Trump Campaign after a Trip to Moscow in July.

This item fits neatly in the above timeline:

  • April/May 2016 – Surveillance of Paul Manafort likely begins. FISA warrant issued?

And it potentially answers a lot of questions.

Before proceeding, I want to touch on the first FISA request reportedly made – and denied – in June 2016.

There are several origins to the supposedly denied FISA request.

One comes from an April 2017 Washington Post article by Devlin Barrett, who has been referenced as one of the reporters that Strzok and Page leaked to.

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

Since the 90-day warrant was first issued, it has been renewed more than once by the FISA court, the officials said.

The Post’s article correctly named Page as a target and referenced the FISA extensions.

But the inclusion of the words “last summer” appear to incorrect. We now know the correct date to be October 21, 2016.

An earlier reference came from a January 11, 2017 Guardian article:

The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The Fisa court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus. According to one report [Heat Street – link non-functioning], the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation.

Lastly, there was mention of a denied FISA warrant by Heat Street – but the article no longer exists. I obtained a quote through a related National Review article:

Two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of ‘U.S. persons’ in Donald Trump’s campaign with ties to Russia.

The FBI’s counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-drew an earlier FISA court request around possible financial and banking offenses related to the server. The first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia’s Alfa Bank. While the Times story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.

Note the conflation. The articles seem to mix and conflate the application of Carter Page with one of then-candidate Trump.

At this point I don’t know if there was an earlier, denied FISA request.

But Page had been under at least indirect surveillance back in 2013. From the Post’s article:

Among other things, the application cited contacts that he had with a Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013, officials said. Those contacts had earlier surfaced in a federal espionage case brought by the Justice Department against the intelligence operative and two other Russian agents. In addition, the application said Page had other contacts with Russian operatives that have not been publicly disclosed, officials said.

In that case, one of the Russian suspects, Victor Podobnyy — who was posing as a diplomat and was later charged by federal prosecutors with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government — was captured on tape in 2013 discussing an effort to get information and documents from Page. That discussion was detailed in a federal complaint filed against Podobnyy and two others. The court documents in that spy case only identify Page as “Male 1.’’ Officials familiar with the case said that “Male 1’’ is Page.

According to the court records, the FBI interviewed Page as part of the case against three Russian men identified as agents of the Russian overseas intelligence agency, the SVR. Page said he assisted U.S. prosecutors in their case against Evgeny Buryakov, an undercover Kremlin agent then posing as a bank executive in New York.

You can find more information here.

Which made Page an easy target when the FBI decided to pursue incremental surveillance in October 2016.

Back to Paul Manafort.

Manafort made an even easier target – which is why he was indicted on FARA violations by the Mueller Investigation. See here.

But Manafort was already know to Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS. From an article by The Tablet:

The history of the “Steele dossier” doesn’t begin with Christopher Steele or Nellie Ohr in the summer of 2016; it begins with a story that Glenn Simpson and Mary Jacoby co-wrote for The Wall Street Journal dated April 17, 2007. “How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington”. Manafort figures prominently throughout the piece.

A year later, when Simpson and Jacoby discovered that a consultant to John McCain’s 2008 presidential run was working with Yanukovich, they could hardly have been surprised to find Paul Manafort in the middle of a new scandal. As they reported in another Wall Street Journal article, dated May 14, 2008, Davis Manafort, Manafort’s lobbying firm, was escorting Yanukovich around Washington.

So when the Trump campaign named Paul Manafort as its campaign convention manager on March 28, 2016, you can bet that Simpson and Jacoby’s eyes lit up. And as it happened, at the exact same time that Trump hired Manafort, Fusion GPS was in negotiations with Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to see if there was interest in the firm continuing the opposition research on the Trump campaign they had started for the Washington Free Beacon

A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort’s work for Yanukovich. “I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire,” Chalupa told CNN in July of this year.

Look again at the close overlap of dates:

  • Early March 2016 – Fusion approaches DNC law firm Perkins Coie about being hired to continue opposition research into the Trump Campaign.
  • March 21 2016 – Carter Page joins the Trump Campaign as an advisor on foreign policy.
  • March 28 2016 – Paul Manafort joins Trump Campaign as campaign convention manager.
  • April 19 2016 – Wife of Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS) Mary Jacoby visits White House.
  • Mid/Late April 2016 – Fusion GPS hired by Perkins Coie on behalf of the DNC.
  • April 25 2016 – Two WH meetings between FBI Counsel James Baker and Trisha B Anderson (FBI), Tashina Guahar( DOJ), John T Lynch (DOJ), John (Brad) Wiegmann (DOJ), Alan Rozenshtein (DOJ), Norman (Christopher) Hardee (DOJ), and Iris Lan (DOJ). DOJ attorneys Tashina Guahar, Christopher Hardee, Brad Wiegmann are FISA attorneys.
  • Late April 2016 – Clinton Campaign begins paying Fusion GPS.
  • April/May 2016 – Fusion GPS hires Christopher Steele.
  • April/May 2016 – Fusion GPS hires Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ Assoc. Deputy AG Bruce Ohr.

The dates and sequencing would indicate there’s a decent chance that Manafort was chosen early on as the first Trump Campaign member to target.

Carter Page became the fallback option.

In The Uncovering – Section 702 “About” Queries, Independent Contractors & A New Narrative, I cover the numerous compliance violations discovered by NSA Mike Rogers and disclosed by him to the FISA Court. The information comes directly from an April 26, 2017 unsealed FISA Court Ruling.

I encourage you to read the article. What was found is disturbing, pervasive and plays directly into recent events.

From the FISA Court ruling:

The October 26, 2016 Notice informed the Court that NSA Analysts had been conducting such queries in violation of that prohibition, with much greater frequency than had previously been disclosed to the Court.

The Court ascribed the government’s failure to disclose the IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing [Obama’s NSD Director John Carlin – NOT Rogers] to an institutional “Lack of Candor” and emphasized that “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment Issue”.

A non-compliance rate of 85% raises substantial questions about the propriety of using of [Redacted – likely “About”] query FISA data.

There is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015-April 2016 period coincided with an unusually high rate.

The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to a [Redacted].

Is largely staffed by private contractors.

The {Redacted} contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI’s requests.

The FBI discontinued the above-described access to raw FISA information as of April 18, 2016.

Their [contractors] access was not limited to raw information for which the FBI sought assistance – and access continued even after they had completed work in response to an FBI request.

The FBI had given the information to the private entity [Redacted] not to an assisting federal agency.

The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI’s apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported.

The improper access granted to the [Redacted] contractors was apparently in place [Redacted] and seems to have been the result of deliberate decision-making.

This all points to substantial instances of improper surveillance. Going back to at least November 2015 – probably longer.

I find it all but impossible to believe that surveillance of the Trump Campaign began on October 21, 2016. I think we are going to discover that it began much earlier.

Perhaps it officially began on March/April 2016 with the surveillance of Paul Manafort.

 

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