Foxes in Charge of Intelligence Hen House

Recent revelations of “inadvertent” deletions of electronic data at the FBI and NSA relating to alleged felonies are being described as a “foul-up,” but the intelligence agencies’ track record suggests a possibly more nefarious explanation, explains Ray McGovern in this op-ed.

By Ray McGovern

We learned in recent days that the FBI and the National Security Agency “inadvertently” deleted electronic messages relating to reported felonies, but one noxious reality persists: No one in the FBI or NSA is likely to be held to account for these “mistakes.”

NSA Headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland

It is a 70 year-old tradition. Today’s lack of accountability is enabled by (1) corruption at the top of intelligence agencies; (2) the convenient secrecy behind which their leaders hide; (3) bureaucratic indignities and structural flaws in the system; (4) the indulgence/complicity of most of the “mainstream media;” and (5) the eunuchs leading the Congressional “oversight” committees, who — history shows — can be bullied by threats, including blackmail, a la former longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

It is a safe bet, though, that neither the FBI nor NSA have deleted their holdings on key Congressional leaders — including House Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who used to boast about her very long tenure as head of the House Intelligence Committee, only to complain later that “they [intelligence officials] mislead us all the time.”

In fact, Pelosi was briefed by the NSA and CIA on all manner of crimes, including warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and torture.

The lack of intelligence accountability has created a kind of perfect storm, enabling felonies and lesser mischief ordered by those sitting atop the intelligence community. While press reports indicate that the Congressional oversight committees now have “explosive” documentary proof — not yet deleted — of such crimes, it remains to be seen whether the committees will have the courage to do their duty under the law.

Even if they try, the odds are against their being able to make much headway, in the face of stiff resistance from the heads of intelligence agencies and a suborned/frightened “mainstream media.”

Rosemary Woods on Steroids

Those of us with a little gray in our hair will remember the infamous, 18.5-minute gap “mistakenly” caused by Rosemary Woods, President Richard Nixon’s longtime secretary, while transcribing a key Oval Office tape of a discussion between President Richard Nixon and his partner-in-crime-cum-chief of staff H.R. Haldeman right after the Watergate break-in. (The tape itself was then destroyed.)

Younger folks may recall reporting on the videotapes of waterboarding at a CIA “black site” in Thailand in 2002, tapes that were deliberately destroyed in 2005 at the order of Jose Rodriguez, head of the CIA operations directorate at the time.

Woods testified that she had erased part of the tape by mistake. She suffered no consequences for her “mistake,” and died in 2005 at age 87.

And to no one’s surprise, Rodriguez also landed on his feet.

CIA officials initially claimed that the videotapes were destroyed to protect the identity of the interrogators — read torturers. It was later revealed that then-Executive Director of the CIA, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, wrote in an email that Rodriguez thought “the heat from destroying is nothing compared with what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain,” adding that they would be “should devastating to us.”

Foggo ended up in prison as a result of an unrelated fraud case. Sadly, no senior intelligence official following the time-(dis)honored Foggo/Rodriguez approach today are likely to end up behind bars, unless this time Congress shows unaccustomed courage.

Ray McGovern works with the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. After retiring from a 27-year career as a CIA analyst, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

90 comments for “Foxes in Charge of Intelligence Hen House

  1. Laura Borst
    January 30, 2018 at 14:15

    The intelligence agencies are too often overstepping their boundaries, such as spying on citizens without warrants. This seems to be done in many ways that have been criticized by the U.S. when perpetrated by other regimes. It seems like it is done more to oppressively control the people rather than to protect them. Classifying information is done too often to hide things that make the government look bad, such as some of the abuses under Operation Paperclip likely were for awhile, until they were exposed. Operation Paperclip involved bringing Nazi fugitives into the United States and pardoning them for their various war crimes. This was likely done because the government wanted to increase its ability to dominate and control people, although it made it seem like it was about fighting communism. But, I think that it was really more about statists wanting to learn ways to control and dominate other people, such as the psychological “research” that was done under MK-ULTRA. The agents of our government and their minions in psychiatry and psychology likely colluded with Nazi psychiatrists and psychologists in that “research”, which might have involved replicating “research” that was done in Nazi concentration camps. Please visit the web site of the Alliance for Human Research Protection(www dot ahrp dot org) for more information.

  2. Jack Francis
    January 30, 2018 at 00:56

    Hahahahaha….. Ohh, Ray….. You have a wicked sense of humour. In this day and age your last seven words……. classic.

  3. Michael Keenan
    January 26, 2018 at 22:28

    Intelligence House Chair Nunes Wins Rose Mary Woods Award!

    Due to the Congressman Nune’s extremely, very, very slow response to Twitter hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo he has been honored with the Rose Mary Woods Award. Every year the National Security Archive nominates a government agency for the Rosemary Award for worst open government performance. The award is named after President Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who erased ?18 1?2 minutes of a crucial Watergate tape. Past “winners” include the Department of Justice, the Federal Chief Information Officer’s Council, the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, the Air Force, and the CIA.

    Just kidding. We are open for nominations though.

  4. Ramaski
    January 25, 2018 at 00:35

    Good points Mr. McGovern. But please dispense with the newspeak term “intelligence community”. There is nothing community minded about them.

  5. Flamingo
    January 24, 2018 at 18:06

    Thank you consortiumnews for this item. It is so bleeding obvious that it is a crappy setup. Here is this klutz Mueller who has been at the upper deck of the FBI forever and he is given a brief to investigate Trump for being too cuddly with a foreign power. So he goes and stacks his inquiry team with Trump haters. He is so full of himself he thinks this could never be known. Now the entire prosecution is poisoned with prejudice by these appointments. This Mueller couldn’t exercise due diligence over toilet tissue.

    There are vastly more important issues for the USA to address like making peace with the world not war. Like making friends with other nations not antagonists. Like building its social wealth not bleeding it dry on armaments.Like making america a civil society again not an argumentative, viciously competitive snake pit. Like free education and health care for all paid from the peace dividend. Get back to the real world where people matter guys.

  6. bobolink
    January 24, 2018 at 13:34

    In Canada the secret service has been “losing” key evidence for decades. One notorious case involved lost surveillance tapes in the Air India bombing, which killed more than 300 people [nobody thought it would be a good idea to make backup copies?] In a more recent prosecution for terrorism, CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service [from what we know about this institution, none of the elements of its title seem very appropriate], admitted to deliberately destroying surveillance tapes and used purported transcripts of them to secure a conviction; instead of reprimanding the guilty CSIS agents and arranging their incarceration for destroying evidence, on appeal the Supreme Court of Canada merely upheld the terrorism conviction.

  7. Liam
    January 24, 2018 at 11:03

    Exposing “The Last Men in Aleppo” – FSA Terrorist Psyop and Oscar Nominated Propaganda Campaign

    https://clarityofsignal.com/2018/01/24/exposing-the-last-men-in-aleppo-fsa-terrorist-psyop-and-oscar-nominated-propaganda-campaign/

  8. homegrown Hanssen
    January 24, 2018 at 10:18

    FBI’s latest disgrace is helpfully spotlighting some of the countless CIA ‘focal points’ infesting DoJ, such as Strzok and Rybicki. These CIA secret agents just got respectively submerged in the SES ooze and punted out to corporate obscurity. We’ll get nowhere until people face what Fletcher Prouty told us four decades ago: CIA deepest-cover illegal agents are the ones inside the US government. CIA is not out of control, it’s in control. The only way to purge the CIA moles is to remove CIA’s impunity. That is a job for the outside world. The US government is too far gone. People have to go over the government’s head to treaty bodies, charter bodies, and special procedures, especially those concerned with CIA’s gravest universal-jurisdiction crimes: the CAT to stop CIA torture, the HRC to stop CIA assassination and domestic armed attacks, VEREX to stop illegal CIA germ warfare, the CRC to stop CIA child trafficking and pedophile blackmail.

  9. michael
    January 23, 2018 at 21:34

    Our government security/ police are always losing vital evidence. That’s why so few Americans are in jail.

    • Jack Francis
      January 30, 2018 at 00:58

      Unless you are black…..

  10. Virginia
    January 23, 2018 at 20:04

    Just want you all to know that I was not able to post a reference to an RT article here. I did 2 days ago and it’s still under moderation. Q: is moderation more stringent while Parry is recuperating? We miss him, and wish him speedy recovery.

  11. MLS
    January 23, 2018 at 14:02

    What, no mention of BushCo’s email whoopsie during the Iraq boondoggle?

    What was it, 3 or 4 million of them – that we know of?

    Presumably Big Dick Cheney is still looking for them …

  12. Maxim
    January 23, 2018 at 13:12

    “No matter how paranoid or conspiracy minded you are, what your government is actually doing is worse than you imagine”…..William Blum.
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051
    The world is controlled by a highly intelligent, mutant, psychopathic, sub-species of humans.

  13. exiled off mainstreet
    January 23, 2018 at 12:50

    As usual, McGovern has got it right. I recall a Paul Conrad cartoon appearing the day after the 18 minute gap was announced. Nixon had claimed that a “sinister force” had erased the tapes, and Conrad drew a cartoon devil with Nixon’s nose furtively disappearing with the tapes. As McGovern has stated, this appears to be Rosemary Woods on steroids, particularly since the exact dates not provided directly coincide with the key dates in the put-up “Russiagate” scandal. Since whatever you think of Trump, this was instrumental in the power structure threatening and neutering Trump, and since the neutered Trump is a bigger threat to world survival since military control is defensively increased and nuclear war has become more likely, this is far more momentous than Rosemary Woods’ erased tapes.

  14. Hank
    January 23, 2018 at 11:09

    Read: The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles refused to release material when ordered to do so….today when material is release it is often Blacked Out pages… no transparency at all….

  15. BobS
    January 23, 2018 at 10:01

    “they hold in their possession a memo that…”…is a four-page ‘TOP SECRET!’ report prepared by staffers of Devin ‘no agenda’ Nunes based on their completely objective interpretation of investigative files they reviewed on January 5.

    “other than Fox..”
    Well, there is (hahahahahahaha) Breitbart.

  16. Christene Bartels
    January 23, 2018 at 09:47

    So let me just recap what we have so far:
    Republicans and the President are running around making nuclear-level, explosive charges that they hold in their possession a memo that shows irrefutable proof that there was unprecedented, treasonous collusion between the Obama administration, the Intelligence Community, the F.B.I., the Clinton Campaign, the DNC, and the DOJ to illegally spy on and take down a duly elected President and not only is it being completely ignored by the MSM News, other than Fox, but not a SINGLE Dem is expressing interest in viewing the memo AND they decide to waste a GOLDEN, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to completely destroy the Republican Party AND the President by demanding the memo is released to show the American people that it is nothing but a bold-faced, hysterical lie. Which, of course, according to THEM, it has to be. And I’m sure it is somehow connected to the dastardly Russians.
    And to detract from ALL OF THIS, the F.B.I. stands there like a 21st version of the Keystone Cops and gives their version of “my dog ate my homework”.
    Have I missed anything???
    Things that make you go hmmmmm……
    #Releasethememo

    • Joe Tedesky
      January 24, 2018 at 10:26

      It makes one contemplate canceling the 4th of July parade.

  17. john wilson
    January 23, 2018 at 06:09

    The author of this piece appears to have just woken up from a long Rip-Van-Winkle sleep. Sensitive emails, documents and spying material have been deleted since man first learned to write. When we had documentation only, the shredders were working overtime and had to be replaced every month. Now the ‘delete’ key is worn smooth in a week and falls to pieces within a month. The only reason that anything ever comes out is because the quantity is so voluminous that things get missed from time to time. The whole point of secrecy is to hide things, that’s why we call it a secret service etc. If we could read all the stuff that “they” have deleted and shredded we would become a basket case.

  18. backwardsevolution
    January 23, 2018 at 02:27

    Ray McGovern – Greg Jarrett on Sean Hannity’s program tonight said at 18:28:

    “If the evidence was actually destroyed, it may have been obtained first (before it was destroyed) by the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz. And there is some indication – Ed Henry is reporting this – that that is the case. If so, we will invariably get to the bottom of destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice.”

    Michael Horowitz came out a few days ago with a 1.2 million page report. Perhaps he had already captured the text messages. We’ll see.

    Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida said at 19:00 said:

    “Sean, you laid out a great timeline, but there are even more damaging facts to come. I know that’s hard to believe, but trust me, around the corner we’re going to be learning even more about how infected this investigation is, particularly the Mueller probe.”

    Then listen to Sarah Carter a little further on:

    “If Horowitz did get those text messages without them knowing, and they withdrew…..they went in and somehow tried to clean it up…..look, they would have to go to the Records Management System at the FBI. They would have to have somebody in there help them clean this up.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI2SIpKgfS4

    • BobS
      January 23, 2018 at 08:22

      Breitbart and Devin Nunes?
      Sean Hannity and Matt Gaetz?

      Hahahahahahahahahaha.

  19. January 23, 2018 at 01:39

    Blackmail of civil servants and legislators is a real problem in a democracy. We are all supposed to do what we believe is right but when people in the corridors of power find themselves surrounded by young and active girls and boys who show their admiration then its apparent that bored officials cannot keep it in their trousers and the path to the most common form of influence (we’ll tell your wife) suddenly opens up.

    Its not new. The story put about by LBJ’s girlfriend is his evil deeds were known to JFK and were probably the cause of LBJ’s selection as VP. Blackmail is likely a feature in many appointments. Julius Caesar lamented he did not know who to trust. Its been the same for millennia. It makes me wonder what to believe. Was Nixon really a bad man or did he not provide the usual means of blackmail so the power-holders had to do something exceptional to neutralise him?

    Trump was right about the swamp. Its just a pity that he lacks the ability or the guts to deal with it.

    • backwardsevolution
      January 23, 2018 at 02:45

      RBHoughton – good post. Yes, I wish Trump would get on the ball, or, even better, Jeff Sessions. Everybody is screaming about how ineffective that guy is.

      But then I read a post by someone who had knowledge of Jeff Sessions. This guy said he works quietly, behind the scenes (probably smarter that way). He said he’s sneaky and sly that way. Maybe, just maybe, Jeff Sessions pretended to be twiddling his thumbs, all the while knowing that Michael Horowitz was compiling the evidence. We’ll see.

      Paul Craig Roberts had this to say about the NSA:

      “The main function of the National Security Administration is to collect the dirt on members of the house and senate, the staffs, principal contributors, and federal judges. The dirt is used to enforce silence about the crimes of the security agencies.

      The blackmail mechanism was put into gear the minute the news reported that the House Intelligence Committee had assembled proof that the FBI, DOJ, and DNC created Russiagate as a conspiracy to unseat President Trump. Members of Congress with nothing to hide demanded the evidence be released to the public. Of course, it was to be expected that release of the facts would be denounced by Democrats, but Republicans, such as Rep. Mike Conaway (R, Texas), himself a member of the committee, joined in the effort to protect the Democrats and the corrupt FBI and DOJ from exposure. Hiding behind national security concerns, Conaway opposes revealing the classified information. “That’d be real dangerous,” he said.

      As informed people know, 95% of the information that is classified is for purposes that have nothing to do with national security. The House Intelligence Committee memo has no information in it related to any security except that of Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Hillary, Obama, Mueller, Rosenstein, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, the DNC, and the presstitute media. The logical assumption is that every member of Congress opposed to informing the American public of the Russiagate conspiracy to unseat the President of the United States is being blackmailed by the security agencies who planned, organized, and implemented the conspiracy against the President of the United States and American democracy.

      American insouciance is a great enabler of the ability of the security agencies and their media whores to control the explanations.”

      There are so few times that the Swamp shows its face. This is one of them, and it only happened because they did not in a million years expect that Trump would win. The American people must demand that all of the evidence comes out or they can kiss the country good-bye.

    • Oscar
      January 23, 2018 at 03:14

      You may be on to something there. Remember that Nixon was single-handedly taken out by the “Deep Throat” confirming source to the Post (without which none of Woodward and Bernstein’s speculations would have been published). We now know that source was an FBI agent. Hmmm. Nixon certainly deserved to be impeached for obstructing justice (the tapes essentially proved it, with the 18 minute gap probably just containing proof beyond any doubt), but was Deep Throat a heroic leaker or a traitorous guardian of the deep state? And it is now appearing that in 2016 persons within the FBI used the questionable Steele dossier to get a FISA warrant to intrude secretly on one party’s political opponents — at best an “extra-legal” method of spying on your political opponent vs. using the more crude method of physically breaking in to your opponent’s offices at the Watergate Towers — but with similar motives and perhaps results. As the evidence mounts, transcripts go missing and data is allegedly irretrievable, and the parallels are stunning, except that in this case we have yet to see either the Inspector General’s report on the FBI interference or the Special Prosecutor’s report on the alleged Trump-Russia collusion. Grab your popcorn!

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 24, 2018 at 10:21

        I’m not sure myself Oscar, but there are those who believe Nixon paid a price for his trip to China and Russia, for his signing into law the EPA, and introducing into our society Affirmative Action, plus Nixon was fighting back hard against the CIA, and FBI. Although, this may sound like just another conspiracy theory, it also sounds like a fix for a politicial leader who strayed to far away from the reservation. I don’t know, but this version, I just described, of Nixon’s demise certainly does make sense. Joe

  20. backwardsevolution
    January 23, 2018 at 00:36

    Senator Ron Johnson, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair, speaking on Tucker Carlson tonight:

    “We’re going to try and recover those five months worth of emails/texts because that’s a pretty crucial time, between December of 2016 and May. An awful lot was going down in terms of the FBI investigation…..”

    So they are going to try to recover the text messages. I’m sure someone has them. At 18:50 in the following video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiQ7MwDtsYQ

    • Flamingo
      January 24, 2018 at 19:00

      Good comment backwards revolution, They may not recover the messages. It is important to note that Strzoc advised Page that they were not recorded on the phones they used. I guess he knew there were backup problems and felt they were in the clear as long as they controlled the message memory. I suspect he went out of his way to be issued with one of these phones and she did too. The initial texts we see reported were from the sims or older phones and it could well be that the switch meant that they had absolute control. If you delete a contact on your phone the entire text string evaporates. When you reinstate the contact there is no string of old texts attached. If they both did that voila! no trace and no backup. Knowing this sequence would help to understand the mechanics of their game.

      The FBI is ruined from this, as is the NSA.

  21. mrtmbrnmn
    January 23, 2018 at 00:32

    RogueNationUSA has been a banana peel republic in the making for at least the past 50 yrs. Mission almost accomplished!

  22. January 23, 2018 at 00:10

    This is why we need Wikileaks, and Julian Assange. No media corporation reports it, and no one pays for whoops, my bad in the DC Justice-FREE zone. Only a few news agencies I trust. Consortium News is one. With Ray McGovern’s recent articles, I loose all hope of the PURGE of rotten blood in DC. Thanks for trying. I hope this leads everywhere.

    • BobS
      January 23, 2018 at 08:24

      Breitbart and Fox (hahahahahahaha) are to be trusted, according to at least one of the more moronic Consortium regulars.

      • Sam F
        January 23, 2018 at 09:38

        BobS, he made no such comment. You are capable of good comments, and if respectful and well argued, others will respond accordingly. The issues are quite complex. None of the regular commenters here are “moronic” and such denunciations indicate unwillingness to consider alternative views, the prerequisite of public debate. It is when you use insult that you lose the argument.

        • BobS
          January 23, 2018 at 09:51

          Didn’t click on the links, did you?
          To Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson on (hahahahahahahaha) Fox News.

          • JanJ
            January 23, 2018 at 14:17

            Just wondering, what links? I saw none in your previous comments on this thread. Just lots of hahahahahahaha.
            You’re so funny!

  23. Virginia
    January 22, 2018 at 23:41

    I’m waiting for the David Nunes memo to be made public. Why, when the Republicans are in control, don’t they vote to release this document? Very important, and apparently is along the same line McGovern is writing about here! — Foxes in Charge of Intelligence Hen House.

    It does seem rather nefarious that incriminating evidence was destroyed, allegedly to make room for more documents. See https://www.rt.com/usa/416682-missing-texts-fbi-trump/

    Thanks again, Ray. Keep these excellent contributions to CN coming!

    • Skip Scott
      January 24, 2018 at 11:33

      Virginia-

      “Why, when the Republicans are in control, don’t they vote to release this document?”

      I would say the answer to this is obvious. The majority of Republicans are in cahoots with the Deep State, either willfully, or as the result of blackmail. The few who are trying to disrupt the coup against Trump are gnats on the elephants behind.

      The current war is not between Dems and the GOP, it is a war between the “Never Trumpers” (and the Deep State), and a coalition of Libertarians and Progressives who would like their country back.

      • Virginia
        January 24, 2018 at 12:30

        So right, Skip.

  24. backwardsevolution
    January 22, 2018 at 22:08

    Here’s also a good timeline of what occurred: “A Curious Case of Counterintelligence – Bill Priestap…”

    Bill Priestap is Peter Strzok’s boss, and yet no one has been mentioning his name. Comey mentioned Bill Priestap (although not by name) when giving testimony in front of Congress. Comey said he didn’t tell Congress about investigating Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence told him not to. That would be Bill Priestap.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/12/15/a-curious-case-of-counterintelligence-bill-priestap/

    • Joe Tedesky
      January 22, 2018 at 22:44

      I read some of that link, and I’ll ask you this backwardsevolution, how do we know that this little Cabal of characters didn’t already break laws, such as extortion, or their hiding their misgivings from the light of day, could there have been others they effected that we have no idea about?

      How many cliques, or other little cabals, are there?

      Intriguing, and Machiavellian, and although constant in world history we must stay constant in our aims to bring it about.

      Again, I’m hoping someone pays a price, but my ‘hope level’ after all these disappointing years is little deflated. Joe

  25. Joe Tedesky
    January 22, 2018 at 22:06

    Funny (not) how at the very moment JFK was shot there were investigations going on in the U.S. Congress of Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker that implicated LBJ into their corruption scandals, and then magically after LBJ becomes president, it’s all gone.

    How can it be that Elliot Abrams advising any president is good news, but yet in America it isn’t even questioned when he does?

    Call it short term memory loss, or Orwellian by it’s nature, but it ain’t healthy for a nation to have such an eradicated knowledge of current events, let alone any grasp of history. It’s okay though, because we are the right ones…right? Wrong, no accountability has helped in a huge way to bring us to this spot we are now living in. Waging war, and more threats of war in UN circles and what not places, are what’s being waged by the very same people who got us bogged down into this endless, mindless, culture of war in the first place. Until these warhawks, and war profiteers, are made to pay for their war crimes, then nothing much in a good way will come about.

    Thank you Ray McGovern, great subject, and a great presentation of it. Joe

    • Bob Van Noy
      January 23, 2018 at 09:46

      As always, thank you Joe. I recall being in a Bay Room watching the only TV in our unit, with my Division on alert and restricted to quarters, as Johnson made his first address to the Nation and I thought, my Dad’s generation has just resumed control of the Country (A very negative thought) but it has taken a lifetime to totally understand just how negative and pernicious the reality actually was.

      I’ll bet that maybe 1 in 100 Americans understand your comment about Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker and how they relate to Johnson and President Kennedy. It’s beyond infuriating to witness officially sanctioned crime, that comes packaged with government benefits to boot…

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 23, 2018 at 11:02

        What this all proves Bob, and you know this, is power can manipulate it’s consequence. This is nothing new to history, as it is nothing new to history that we citizens try and arrest this type of unrestricted power. It flys in the face of ‘what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander’. No, it’s more like what’s good for the goose, depends on what goods do you have on the gander, for at least that’s the way it all appears to be from where I sit.

        I agree, that at least in terms of our generation Bob, LBJ kicked off a new era. You, and I Bob have been involved in a society, which has been maneuvered into a false reality. A reality, where the good guys get killed by the bad guys, and yet everyone rallies behind the bad guys out of the crowds naïveté to who actually pulled the trigger. Looking back, it’s hard to believe we all fell for this dastardly assassination lie, but we did.

        I use to get anxious to watch the Twilight Zone, but our reality is even more beyond the imagination of Rod Sterling.

        Good to see your comment Bob. Joe

  26. Fool
    January 22, 2018 at 21:13

    There is a fictional Republic and a very real Totalitarian National Security apparatus. Interestingly this apparatus is not controlled by the fictional government as the Awan Brothers demonstrate.

  27. BobS
    January 22, 2018 at 20:50

    “While press reports indicate that the Congressional oversight committees now have “explosive” documentary proof — not yet deleted — of such crimes, it remains to be seen whether the committees will have the courage to do their duty under the law.”

    Breitbart and Devin Nunes?
    Hahahahahahahahaha.

  28. backwardsevolution
    January 22, 2018 at 20:28

    Ray McGovern – great report. Thank you. The NSA came out first with an announcement that they had lost files from Bush’s tenure, and then the FBI came out secondly with their announcement of losing files from Strzok and Page.

    I know the FBI said that they don’t have Strzok and Page’s texts any more because of some technical glitch, but wouldn’t the NSA still have this information? Couldn’t the NSA, who collects everything, provide these texts?

    Or are you saying that the initial announcement by the NSA of “inadvertent” deletions of electronic data now is providing an excuse for the NSA to say they have lost Strzok and Page’s texts as well?

    “Sadly, no senior intelligence official following the time-(dis)honored Foggo/Rodriguez approach today are likely to end up behind bars, unless this time Congress shows unaccustomed courage.”

    Many members of Congress are angry, but, you’re right, we’ll see if there’s enough of them.

    When I saw Rod Rosenstein being grilled by congressmen in front of some intelligence committee, I noticed that he didn’t have a care in the world. He was not at all worried or fazed by the hard questions. Now I know why. Rod Rosenstein knows that if Congress start getting too close to the truth, evidence just “inadvertently” gets lost.

    This is the Shadow Government. There is no rule of law, and I’m wondering why I’m sitting here because I just realized that nothing will ever be done.

  29. Michael Rohde
    January 22, 2018 at 19:27

    It would have been nice if the actual information erased had been shared in the article. What information was inadvertently erased? By whom? When and where? What felonies were committed? Please, inform us.

    • backwardsevolution
      January 22, 2018 at 21:06

      Michael Rhode – the erased files at the FBI are texts between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page from the period of December 14, 2016 to May 17, 2017. Peter Strzok is the man at the FBI who said that although he was quite certain that Trump would not win the election, they still needed an “insurance policy” against him. These missing texts are from after Trump’s election and some are saying that these people (along with others at the FBI and the Department of Justice) were the ones responsible for setting up Russiagate in the first place in order to smear President Trump.

      If you’ve been watching the mainstream media and reading the New York Times or the Washington Post, you will have heard nothing about this because they are keeping a lid on it. Fox News are one of the only news outlets that are peeling back the onion and forcing the treasonous parties out into the light (especially Sean Hannity). Now they are erasing their misdeeds.

      Paul Craig Roberts said:

      “It is exactly as I told you. Russiagate is a conspiracy between the FBI, the DOJ, and the Hillary campaign to overturn Donald Trump’s election. We have treason committed at the highest levels of the FBI and Department of Justice and the Democratic National Committee.

      If you believed one word of Russiagate, you now must laugh or cry at your incredible gullibility.

      This scandal should also bring down the presstitute media who have done the dirty work for the conspiracy against Trump.”

      Former prosecutor, Joe diGenova, gives perhaps “the most comprehensive rundown of the Obama Administration’s ‘brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton’ and ‘frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy’.”

      https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-21/brazen-plot-exonerate-hillary-clinton-and-frame-trump-unraveling-says-former-fed

      This is treason.

      • BobS
        January 22, 2018 at 21:16

        “This is treason.”
        You’re right for a change. Of course, treason is a time-honored Republican tradition.
        You had Nixon queering the Vietnam peace negotiations, Reagan/Bush interfering in Iran hostage negotiations, this time it was the Money-Launderer-in-Chief.

        • backwardsevolution
          January 22, 2018 at 22:20

          BobS – “You’re right for a change.”

          Yeah, and you’re wrong, as usual.

          The Republican AND Democrat congressmen/senators are merely puppets on a string. Same with almost every President. The media hide, obfuscate and lie about what goes on, Hollywood wraps it up in a pretty package for us to swallow, and the courts look the other way.

          There is a Shadow Government running the show; all the rest are bit players.

          Are you at all interested in who is really calling the shots, or do you just want to continue dicking around?

          • bobolink
            January 24, 2018 at 13:16

            Blind partisanship makes fools of many–in sports, car brands, etc., but primarily in politics. Apart from ignorance, it must spring from some deep-seated insecurity.

        • Joe Tedesky
          January 22, 2018 at 22:21

          I don’t think backwardsevolution was blaming Trump for any of the FISA disclosures about to come out.

          • BobS
            January 23, 2018 at 08:17

            Ya don’t? Gee, thanks Joe.

          • Joe Tedesky
            January 23, 2018 at 12:12

            Your welcome Bob.

        • Sam F
          January 23, 2018 at 09:19

          These forms of subversion of democratic institutions by economic and information power are bipartisan, although done more by the Reps when the Dems were populist. These forms of power were almost unknown to the framers of the Constitution, who therefore did not protect democratic institutions from economic and information power.

          We should recognize these schemes of subversion as treason, when they go far enough as to constitute war upon the US, and as subversion in lesser cases. We should also enact amendments to restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual contributions. We cannot do these things because gangsters of the zionist/MIC oligarchy already control elections and mass media.

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 22, 2018 at 22:32

        It’s so big, that it’s biggest asset maybe that it’s too big to bring down, is my fear. This DC attitude in certain circles is what saved Nixon from a darker fate. A friend of mine who served under Peter Rodino told me how all of Washington has Skelton’s in their closets, so go figure how Justice gets served.

        I’m with you backwardsevolution I want to see this Russia-Gate thing get it’s head ripped right off, and revealed for the ugly monster of conspiracy that it is. No new White House Administration should need to be encountered by such a underhanded group of individuals. Individuals who supposedly represent vital law enforcement bureaus at that, what a dilemma. These people, and yes if it means the Clinton’s or Obama, should go down with these revelations, then it has to be the way for what it is. Now, having said that, don’t lose sleep waiting for the guilty verdict to come in. Joe

        • backwardsevolution
          January 23, 2018 at 03:12

          Joe Tedesky – in the future I’m going to wonder, whenever I see a party bringing a new, relatively unknown candidate up through the ranks, what they’ve got on that guy. Could be the more they’ve got on him, the faster he rises up through the ranks because you don’t have to watch and observe the guy to see whether you can trust him; you’re already holding an ax over his head because of the skeletons in his closet. “Bring me the guy with the most dirt, and that guy will be the next president!” Ha.

          I was raised with “All good things come to those who wait” and “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” and all those good moral lessons, while these crooks were raised with “All good things come to those who get there first” and “Do unto others what you would never do to yourself”. Of course, they also blackmail people, just for good measure.

          Yes, Joe, I hope they blow the lid off too. Since Kennedy’s death, there has been no better time to expose these guys than right now, especially when all of the evidence is just laying there in front of you.

          • Realist
            January 23, 2018 at 06:49

            If they get close to implicating someone powerful and important (with a name like, say, Clinton, Obama or Bush) in an act of blatant treason, expect some calamitous world event to interfere with any further investigation. You know, can’t be in-fighting amongst ourselves if we’re fighting for the survival of American demonocracy against the Norks, the Mullahs or the Russkies.

          • Joe Tedesky
            January 23, 2018 at 10:47

            Then people wonder to if there are pedophils really ducted away inside of our government….hmmm, let me guess are there?

          • Joe Tedesky
            January 23, 2018 at 15:07

            Here listen to Joe DiGenov give the low down, and the who’s who, with to whom is inside of the Russia-Gate conspiracy.

            https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-21/brazen-plot-exonerate-hillary-clinton-and-frame-trump-unraveling-says-former-fed

            How much you want to be bet, no one suffers from this Russia-Gate revelation? Except for the lower rung FBI personnel I will expect that most of the upper echelon will run free, and this conspiracy will just be another wedge in between America’s left right divide.

          • Realist
            January 24, 2018 at 02:55

            Whew! That 99-page court opinion was a hard slog. But, seriously, the only way to get to a completely objective unbiased determination of what went down would be to appoint a panel of space aliens to act as special prosecutors. Washington is such a loaded canon pointed at the world, with intense leverage it uses against every other country on the planet, I wouldn’t trust the most top notch lawyers from the UN or judges from the World Court to do the job right. You are right, Joe, most of the big shot perps will run free.

          • Joe Tedesky
            January 24, 2018 at 12:06

            Hey Realist, talking about alien life interrupting our human fun (not) at waging war.

            Read this…..

            http://www.ufohastings.com

            Now I’m no UFO enthusiast, but you are right Realist, maybe we should appoint aliens to act as special prosecutors. Just an idea, right? Joe

          • Realist
            January 24, 2018 at 16:44

            Joe, I know you’re supposed to insert “ROTFLMAO” whenever the expression “UFO” comes up in order to be considered sane, but like Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, I have seen ’em, and more than once–whatever they are. People rarely look up.

        • Brad Owen
          January 23, 2018 at 06:40

          It’s being taken care, slowly and methodically. A more powerful force is intervening. The missile launch upon Hawaii that was shot down, is reassuring proof. “They” will not allow a thermonuclear inferno to engulf the people and planet ( She is a living entity too, that “They” will not allow to be destroyed by human folly). Keep watching and don’t fret. The ancient Greeks had t right, and we’ll not go too far off the rails. Faith is not required, only intuitive conclusions after lengthy readings and YouTube viewings (like an Intel analyst ), with a little help from The One who always manages to put the right info at my fingertips.

          • dahoit
            January 24, 2018 at 14:43

            The missile launch at Hawaii ?Your putting me on.
            The missile that should worry you, is Musk leads our space program.zionist.

  30. Clif
    January 22, 2018 at 18:50

    Anyone else in any other business would be fired for gross incompetence. On the other hand, it’s easy enough to manufacture whatever evidence one needs, so, you know, what’s your problem?

  31. January 22, 2018 at 18:50

    hello world.

  32. mike k
    January 22, 2018 at 18:15

    Spies are scum criminals pretending to be heroes. They alibi their atrocities as done for love of the “Homeland” (trans. Fatherland). They are all eager little Nazis.

  33. January 22, 2018 at 18:08

    Rose Mary’s baby to blame?

  34. Mark Thompson
    January 22, 2018 at 16:59

    Maddening. I just read today that Strzok and Page’s texts went missing.

    The rule of law in the US has no meaning. This crime will pass through history without much more commentary than what a bunch of nutbags the right-wing conspiracy theorists have become.

    Meanwhile, the lemmings march over the cliff without much notice. God bless the USA. May she RIP.

    • Tom Welsh
      January 22, 2018 at 18:30

      “The rule of law in the US has no meaning”.

      Well, its meaning is certainly quite different from what the innocent observer might believe. And rather more complicated.

      There is a rule of law – of a kind – and this is roughly how it works.

      The law is created by legislators who are effectively bought and paid for by wealthy corporate interests. Often, the law itself is written by those interests and merely introduced by a tame legislator – who may not even have read it.

      The law is strenuously enforced against the poor, the unconnected, and especially against anyone who threatens to rock the boat. In many cases the police and other “law enforcement” agencies don’t actually bother about the law as such; they give orders, and woe betide anyone who resists or even questions their right to give orders.

      If anyone important breaks the law, no matter how flagrantly, a loophole can always be found. If necessary, a prosecutor may have to decide, with all due solemnity, that prosecution “would not be in the public interest”.

      And so it goes.

    • Zachary Smith
      January 22, 2018 at 21:59

      The rule of law in the US has no meaning.

      It’s getting very, very difficult to dispute statements like that. If THEY get away with this – as Mr. McGovern says they probably will – the idea of a US “democracy” becomes even more of a sham than it already is.

      The Intelligence people are also pushing to enact the equivalent of the Patriot Act on steroids.

      Earlier this month, Rep. Bob Goodlatte [R-VA-6] introduced H.R.4760 – Securing America’s Future Act of 2018, a sweeping bill that entails everything from Education and the Workforce to Homeland Security to the military. Also, tucked away in this 400-page behemoth of a bill are the details of a new biometric National ID card that could soon be required for everyone.

      Not surprisingly, there is almost no media coverage on this legislation.

      I saw only Republicans on the co-sponsor page, but all they have to do is throw the Democrats a bone to get them on board as well.

      https://www.activistpost.com/2018/01/congress-quietly-pushing-bill-require-national-biometric-id-americans.html

  35. Mild-ly- Facetious
    January 22, 2018 at 16:38

    More Fake News, Again from Ukraine and Once More — About the Holocaust
    11 January 2018
    UKRAINE | US | MEDIA WATCH

    ?

    While much is said in some American media outlets about “fake news” in the US, the smallness of the matters being discussed might come into focus when compared with Ukraine, which is of late producing rather much fake news about the Holocaust and elementary points in World War II history.

    As we reported back in October, Ukrainian media outlet Radio Svoboda — the Ukrainian arm of the US Government-funded arm of RFERL — posted a picture from the US Holocaust Museum. It is an image of Polish Jews being deported to a death camp. There was just one problem. Radio Svoboda claimed the picture was from 1949 of Ukrainians being deported to Siberia. In fact, so effective was Radio Svoboda’s forgery that President Poroshenko himself tweeted it claiming it showed Ukrainians being deported. To Poroshenko’s credit, his office took it down almost immediately after we pointed this out.

    Today it emerged that a major Ukrainian media outlet has struck again. In a December 20th article about the horrors of the NKVD (Soviet forerunner of the KGB), media outlet “Ukrinform” also borrowed a picture from the US Holocaust Museum, this time of Ukrainian Auxiliary Policemen shooting a Jewish child and mother — and fraudulently claimed it was actually of the NKVD shooting people. The caption reads in translation: “Atrocities of the Chekhists: the execution of a mother and child by the NKVD”.

    Ukrinform got away with it for three weeks until Ukrainian Jewish activist Eduard Dolinsky called them out. And once again, poof, Ukrinform took down the Holocaust Museum picture, naturally with no apology, comment or correction note.

    RELATED: Doctored photo in major museum in Lviv; Radio Svoboda’a photo falsification in Oct. 2017

    Ukrinform forgot about one thing though: Nothing ever completely disappears from the internet, and so now there is, for the record, the cached version of the original article showcasing Ukrinform’s abominable forgery. Compare the original Ukrinform article from December (picture is toward the bottom; as PDF) with the actual image from the US Holocaust Museum here and below.

    http://defendinghistory.com/fake-news-from-ukraine-about-the-holocaust/92630

    • Mild-ly- Facetious
      January 22, 2018 at 17:10

      the above is but 1 ingredient within the MIX of Sponsors of propaganda, which we are fed from upon a multitude of Profit Seeking Cooks & Crooks working/with/aginst/us
      down deceptive paths/ with Official People like Manuchin? leading, [us] into “prosperity” while his total life has been lived in his pursuit of a personal fiefdom for himself? –

      – STEALING HOMES FROM RETIRED PERSONS
      via his “Reverse Mortgage” SCHEME

      in the camp of Charles Keating / /
      a Professional Swindler protected by Senator John McCain

      All reside in the Category of BullSpit Artists/
      Caring Solely for Themselves

      and how good they are (b)ucking a so-called
      – – – – – //////// We The People \\\\\\\\

      Trump is the Bomb.

    • Anon
      January 23, 2018 at 08:59

      It is hardly a small matter that US secret agencies and mass media work together to control the institutions of democracy. Your example is merely a case of deceptive use of illustrations.

      Your claim that US media and institutions have a “mix” of many kinds of crooks in control is deceptive. There are definite interest groups and this website shows them very well.

    • January 23, 2018 at 18:08

      Facious

      There are many many holocausts in history. For example when the Spanish arrived in South America there were 17 million inhabitants there, Within 50 years there were only 3 million left. An order of magnitude worse than the Jewish holocaust. In North America the English and French were just as successful at destroying the civilization of the original inhabitants.What is happening in Palistine is a holocaust. ( well we call it ethnic cleansing) but it is a holocaust. In Australia it was the same story. the Armenian holocaust is by and large ignored. Tthe only holocaust we are allowed to talk about and is kept front and centre, is the Jewish holocaust during the Second World War. Why do you suppose that is? Possibly because MSM in the Western World is owned and operated by Jews and they make sure that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Why are Jews considered more important , more sacred than other races and civilizations. Is it because Jews consider us non Jews , Gentiles if you will, as excrement, just cattle to serve the Jewish race?Therefore our lives are not important?

      • Blue
        January 24, 2018 at 05:19

        The “Armenian Genocide” is a Western imperialist propaganda myth. The lies and deception are not different from the “fake news” you hear today. In fact, Wellington House made very similar propaganda against the Germans and Ottomans then as the US has done against Saddam, Ghadafi, and Al Assad today; and with the same purpose. That most in the West have swallowed these ever repeated racist lies about the distant past is hardly surprising when you consider how many are swallowing similar lies today.

  36. AnthraxSleuth
    January 22, 2018 at 15:07

    Been shouting it from the roof tops for years.
    Laughed at and ridiculed.
    Perhaps now people will believe the story.

    Google “AnthraxSleuth”

    • Sam F
      January 22, 2018 at 18:12

      Thanks to Ray McGovern for this analysis of the destruction of democracy by lack of secret agency accountability due to “(1) corruption at the top … (2) the convenient secrecy …(3) … structural flaws … (4) …complicity of… “mainstream media;” and (5) the eunuchs leading… ‘oversight’ committees”. I would suggest that the eunochs are gangsters pretending inability to do their critical job for the people of the US.

      The comparison with the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon tapes is important. If the present deletion of the critical six months of emails from 12/16 to 5/17 is not taken seriously by the public and mass media, this will measure the degree of brainwashing and media takeover done meanwhile by secret agencies.

      Certainly the deletion is an admission of guilt at the highest levels.

      • Michael Rohde
        January 22, 2018 at 19:29

        We knew what the 18 minute gap was about. After reading this and the comments, I guess I missed it. What was deleted and what felonies are alleged to have been hidden by the deletion? Who deleted what information? How was it deleted? I miss things once in a while but what am I missing here? Please share the information.

        • michael
          January 22, 2018 at 19:57

          “Please share the information”? Really. It’s deleted (although probably the NSA and OIG have copies). So it’s all conjecture and speculation.
          But if history is any indication:
          “No matter how paranoid or conspiracy minded you are, what your government is actually doing is worse than you imagine”…..William Blum.

        • Sam F
          January 23, 2018 at 08:37

          We know the subject here just as well. An agency did not “lose” emails from the most critical period, surrounded by emails indicating internal wrongdoing. It would be interesting to find out what the FBI OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) thinks of efforts to disrupt internal investigations. But I have seen OPR itself do coverups of agents, in the 1980s.

        • Doppler
          January 23, 2018 at 11:56

          Check out the Conservative Treehouse for what is already known about a concerted effort to use the justice department, fbi, along with private contractors like fusion gps and crowdstrike, to allow HRC to destroy all her emails, be exonerated of wrong-doing, secure immunity for her staff who destroyed all that evidence, and lied about it, then developed and put into action a plan to illegally surveill Trump campaign members, giving access to this illegal surveillance material to private contractor working for fbi counterintelligence, illegally (tho temporarily) exempted from IG monitoring, then packaged that surveillance into the information contained in the dossier, fed it to Christopher Steele in an intelligence laundering scam, and have it arrive at the fbi, and be presented to the fisa court, as if it were reliable foreign intelligence, which then became the “insurance policy” to destroy Trump if he won, put into play by a self-styled “secret society” on a mission to protect the Republic from the election winner. Joe DiGenova’s recent video interview is very cogent.

      • john wilson
        January 23, 2018 at 06:00

        Sam, the mass media are part of it and they do take it seriously making sure the public never finds out.

        • Sam F
          January 23, 2018 at 08:52

          Yes, the US mass media are certainly corrupt, now owned or controlled entirely by zionist oligarchs, and serving their purposes in deception of the people. While the Constitution limits the definition of treason to making war against the US (or abetting its enemies), we must extend the definition of war to include destruction of democracy using the more recently-arisen economic power or information power. Then it is clear that control of mass media by oligarchy, and anti-democracy contracts between mass media and secret agencies, amount to treason. Those involved certainly intend treason.

    • Dave H
      January 25, 2018 at 01:27

      You guys (white over privileged males) are a piece of work. Perry accuses the press of over zealously jumping to conclusions and miss leading the country about Trump conspiracy with Russia, but you’re ready to jump on the first conspiracy theory about the FBI. You’ve lost all credibility. Grow up!

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