A Republic Under Assault Page 13

  … (5/9/17 White House Document, “Working Visit with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia”)… (5/10/17 Email, Ciaramella to Kelly et al.). The meeting had been planned on May 2, 2017, during a telephone call between the President and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the meeting date was confirmed on May 5, 2017, the same day the President dictated ideas for the Comey termination letter to Stephen Miller.… (5/10/17 Email, Ciaramella to Kelly et al.). Information about this phone call was subsequently leaked to The New York Times.

  Again, in addition to his Ukraine work at the White Houses of Obama and Trump, Ciaramella is widely reported as the person who filed the whistleblower complaint that triggered the impeachment proceedings. His name, as reported by Real Clear Investigations, reportedly was “raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry.”

  Our Judicial Watch investigative team took the lead and was the first to compile an extensive list of persons Ciaramella met while in the Obama-era White House. That list includes, but is not limited to, Daria Kaleniuk, cofounder and executive director of the Soros-funded Anticorruption Action Center (AntAC) in Ukraine (which is also connected to the Biden-Burisma-Ukraine interference scandal); Gina Lentine, formerly the Eurasia program coordinator at the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations; and former assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland, who had extensive involvement with the Clinton-funded dossier. The logs also reveal that Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor hired by the DNC during the 2016 election who, according to Politico, coordinated with Ukrainians to investigate President Trump and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and visited the White House at least twenty-seven times during the Obama administration.

  Some people don’t visit their grandmother twenty-seven times… in their lifetimes.

  Thanks to the Obama Spygate scandal and the related abusive impeachment of President Trump, there is significant public interest in Ciaramella’s activities. We know he was involved in the Russia collusion investigation, and he was a key CIA operative on Ukraine in the both the Obama and Trump White Houses. Our lawsuits were designed to break through the unprecedented cover-up of his activities.

  Rather than cooperate and expose the full truth about what Ciaramella did, the CIA and Justice Department have attempted to completely shut down our inquiry. They used the shield that is most difficult to overcome—they refused to confirm or deny the existence of any records about him.3 The CIA response to us states:

  In accordance with section 3.6(a) of Executive Order 13526, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to the requests. The fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is itself exempt from FOIA under exemption (b)(3) and Section 6 of the CIA Act of I 949, 50 U.S.C. § 3507, and, to the extent your request could relate to CIA intelligence sources and methods information, the fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is exempt from FOIA under exemption (b)(I) and exemption (b)(3) in conjunction with Section 102A(i)(l) of the National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C § 3024(i)(I).

  The Justice Department also refused to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records, citing, among other justifications, the personal privacy of Ciaramella. The CIA’s position is Americans can know nothing about their operative Ciaramella, who is documented to be involved in the Russia collusion investigation and was a key CIA operative on Ukraine in both the Obama and Trump White Houses. The incredible secrecy about his activities shows that the DOJ and CIA are trying to cover up rather than expose any agency abuses that led to unprecedented attacks on President Trump.

  So Schiff (and most cowed Republicans) refused to say Ciaramella’s name, even in the most neutral and factual context. And now the CIA and DOJ want to keep his conduct in a Deep State black hole. On top of this, major tech companies Google (which also operates YouTube) and Facebook (which also runs Instagram) decreed that no one could mention this important government official’s name, either. His name is not protected from disclosure by law, but the tech giants bought into the Schiff cover-up and did his bidding in censoring Judicial Watch and millions of other Americans wanting the full truth about this attack on their republic.

  Our lawsuits continue but never before has so much government and private energy been used to cover up the activity of one bureaucrat—especially one who tried to bring down a president!

  SCHIFF SCANDAL EXPOSES ANOTHER DEEP STATE COUP PLOT AGAINST TRUMP

  As we are learning with the conduct of Eric Ciaramella and other Deep State operatives—the very hard way—it was all too easy for our intelligence agencies, acting behind their curtains of secrecy, to abuse their power. As outlined earlier, one Deep State player in particular was likely up to no good, and we are on the case.

  We filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department for communications records of Schiff enabler Michael K. Atkinson—former assistant attorney general in DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) from 2016 to 2018 and the past inspector general of the intelligence community (ICIG).

  The records we sought were regarding Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Weiner, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and/or presidential impeachment. We’re also seeking all emails and text messages of Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and members of Schiff’s staff.

  We sued after the Justice Department failed to respond to our October 1, 2019, FOIA request (Judicial Watch vs. U.S. Department of Justice [No. 1:19-cv-03566]). We asked for:

  All emails (whether on .gov or non-.gov email accounts) and text messages sent to or from former Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General Michael K. Atkinson regarding Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Weiner, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, and/or presidential impeachment.

  All emails and text messages between former Senior Counsel Atkinson and Representative Adam Schiff or any member of Mr. Schiff’s staff.

  All travel requests, travel authorizations, and expense reports of former Senior Counsel Atkinson.

  All calendar entries of former Senior Counsel Atkinson.

  All SF50s and SF52s of former Senior Counsel Atkinson.

  The NSD falls under the direct supervision of the assistant attorney general.

  Atkinson isn’t important just because of his improper handling of the so-called whistleblower complaint. During Atkinson’s tenure at NSD, he was senior legal counsel, first to NSD head John Carlin (Robert Mueller’s former chief of staff when Mueller directed the FBI) and later to acting NSD head Mary McCord. McCord accompanied then–acting attorney general Sally Yates to see White House Counsel Don McGahn regarding Michael Flynn.

  During the period Atkinson was legal advisor to Carlin and later McCord, the FISA court found there was “significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data,” otherwise known as spying, under the Obama administration. Additionally, during this period, DOJ-NSD was working in coordination with the FBI Counterintelligence Unit on Operation Crossfire Hurricane, which included former FBI officials Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page. Page was the intermediary between FBI Counterintelligence and DOJ-NSD.

  Atkinson, as we’ve highlighted above, also has come under scrutiny for his handling of the so-called whistleblower complaint. He seems to have changed the rules in order to “get Trump.”

  Atkinson changed the standing practice of requiring whistleblowers to present firsthand information in order to have their complaint considered both “credible” and “of urgent concern” for submission under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act.

  After receiving the complaint and a recommendation from Atkinson that it be referred to Congress, the DNI refused to forward the complaint because, based on an opinion of the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, “The complaint submitted to the ICIG does not involve an ‘urgent concern.’ ” In testimony before Congress, Acting Direct
or of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said the complaint was essentially “hearsay” and not “corroborated by other folks.”

  After the existence of the whistleblower was leaked to the press, Atkinson told Congress he was unaware the whistleblower had first gone around him to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and his staff with his complaint before submitting it to the IG’s office.

  To sum up, under the law, the “whistleblower” wasn’t actually a “whistleblower.” The complaint against Trump is like a nasty “Letter to the Editor” about the conduct of the president of the United States, whose phone calls with foreign leaders have nothing to do with the whistleblower law covering intelligence operations.

  After listening to Atkinson testify about the whistleblower behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee on October 4, ranking Republican committee member Republican Devin Nunes (R-CA) said of him:

  [The ICIG is] either totally incompetent or part of the deep state, and he’s got a lot of questions he needs to answer because he knowingly changed the form and the requirements in order to make sure that this whistleblower complaint got out publicly. So, he’s either incompetent or in on it… he’s either a quack or he’s lying… and he’s going to have more to answer for, I can promise you, because we are not going to let him go; he is going to tell the truth about what happened.

  President Trump has already fired Atkinson, citing his lack of confidence in him, but Schiff has yet to release Atkinson’s testimony—in fact Atkinson’s is the only impeachment testimony that has not been made public. One can only imagine what Schiff is desperate to hide.

  As Adam Schiff keeps Atkinson’s testimony on the impeachment attack on President Trump secret, we’ll keep up the fight in court for transparency under the law.

  DEEP STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS JOIN SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY AGAINST TRUMP

  Reports suggest that our embassy in Ukraine was a hotbed of anti-Trump, Deep State activism and tried to promote and protect leftist allies in Ukraine and the United States.

  When others—say the DOJ, for instance—ignored these reports, Judicial Watch didn’t and jumped into action. We did so by investigating if prominent conservative figures, journalists, and persons with ties to President Donald Trump were unlawfully monitored by the State Department in Ukraine at the request of ousted U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, an Obama appointee who was held over by President Trump. Yovanovitch testified as a hostile witness against President Trump in Schiff’s impeachment show trial.

  Judicial Watch obtained information indicating Yovanovitch may have violated laws and government regulations by ordering subordinates to monitor certain U.S. persons using State Department resources. Yovanovitch reportedly ordered monitoring keyed to the following search terms: Biden, Giuliani, Soros, and Yovanovitch. We did what we do best, which is to file a Freedom of Information Act request and then a lawsuit against the State Department.

  Prior to being recalled as ambassador to Ukraine in the spring, Yovanovitch and her team apparently created a list of individuals who were to be monitored via social media and other means. Ukraine embassy staff made the request to the Washington, DC, headquarters office of the department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. After several days, Yovanovitch’s staff was informed that the request was illegal and the monitoring either ceased or was concealed via the State Department Global Engagement Center, which has looser restrictions on collecting information.

  “This is not an obscure rule, everyone in public diplomacy or public affairs knows they can’t make lists and monitor U.S. citizens unless there is a major national security reason,” according to a senior State Department official. If the illicit operation occurred, it seems to indicate a clear political bias against the president and his supporters.

  Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who has also led American embassies in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, was appointed ambassador to Ukraine by Obama in 2016. She was recalled by the State Department in May 2019 before leaving the government to… wait for it… write a book trashing President Trump.

  In the public records request to the State Department, Judicial Watch asked for any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the monitoring of any U.S.-based journalist, reporter, or media commentator by any employee or office of the Department of State between January 1, 2019, and the present. That includes all records pertaining to the scope of the monitoring to be conducted and individuals subject to it as well as records documenting the information collected pursuant to the monitoring. The FOIA request also asks for all records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the State Department and any other individual or entity.

  The prominent conservative figures—journalists and persons with ties to President Donald Trump—allegedly unlawfully monitored by the State Department in Ukraine at the request of ousted U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch include: Jack Posobiec, Donald Trump Jr., Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Michael McFaul (Obama’s ambassador to Russia), Dan Bongino, Ryan Saavedra, Rudy Giuliani, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Lou Dobbs, Pamela Geller, and Sara Carter.

  On October 10, 2019, Congressman Devin Nunes backed our reporting up, telling Sean Hannity on his program, “What I’ve heard is that there were strange requests, irregular requests to monitor not just one journalist, but multiple journalists.…” Hannity followed this statement by adding that multiple sources also told him they “believe there is evidence that government resources were used to monitor communications” of U.S. journalists and that Yovanovitch may have been involved. Yovanovitch was questioned on the issue during the impeachment proceeding in the House and seemed to deny any illegal monitoring took place. She denied being directly involved, but her answers seem to confirm a monitoring op was run out of her embassy:

  Q: “Could you help us understand how the embassy and the State Department back in Washington collects information on social media?”

  A: “I can’t really answer the question, because I don’t know all the inner details of how the press section works to gather information. But they provide us with a press summary, or they used to provide me, I mean. They provide the embassy with a press summary and it goes out to other people at the State Department as well.”

  Q: “And is part of that monitoring social media accounts from…”

  A: “Yeah. I mean, in today’s age, yeah, social media is really important.”

  So, was the Ukraine embassy illegally monitoring American critics of Ambassador Yovanovitch? It certainly is disturbing that the State Department stonewalled Judicial Watch’s requests for information on this controversy until after the impeachment of President Trump. In fact, we’re still waiting for the documents.

  Also, in November 2019, our Judicial Watch lawyers filed a lawsuit against the State Department seeking documents related to a reported “untouchables list” given in late 2016 by Yovanovitch to Ukraine prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko. Lutsenko told the New York Times that Yovanovitch “pressed him not to prosecute anti-corruption activists.” Lutsenko reportedly said earlier the do-not-prosecute list included a founder of the Ukraine group Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC, the group who visited Ciaramella in the White House!), which was funded by Soros foundations, the U.S. government, and two members of the Ukrainian Parliament who vocally supported the Soros group’s agenda.

  The State Department has stonewalled all our requests on Ukraine and the coup against President Trump, using the coronavirus as an excuse to further ignore our nation’s transparency laws, but our sources tell us the truth is out there—and we won’t relent.

  SCHIFF SPIES ON TRUMP WORLD

  If a police officer took your phone records without court permission and published them, they’d face prosecution. You’ll see below that Schiff and Pelosi did exactly this—in the least, abusing the civil rights of President Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), and journalist John Solomon (among others).

  Precisely
because of Schiff’s outrageous abuse of power, we filed a lawsuit against him and the House Intelligence Committee for the controversial subpoenas issued for phone records, including those of Rudy Giuliani. The phone records led to Schiff’s publication of the private phone records of Giuliani, Nunes, John Solomon, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, attorney Victoria Toensing, and other American citizens.

  We sued under the public’s common-law right of public access to examine government records after we received no response to a December 6, 2019, records request (Judicial Watch v. Adam Schiff and U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence [No. 1:19-cv-03790]). It was a simple request for:

  All subpoenas issued by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on or about September 30, 2019, to any telecommunications provider including, but not limited to, AT&T, Inc., for records of telephone calls of any individuals;

  All responses received to the above-referenced subpoenas.

  Schiff remains a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, currently serving as chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We sued Schiff in his capacity as chairman of that committee. This lawsuit states the simple basis for our claim:

  The records are of critical public importance as the subpoenas were issued without any lawful basis and violated the rights of numerous private citizens. Disclosure of the requested records would serve the public interest by providing information about the unlawful issuance of the subpoenas.

  The requested records fall within the scope of the public’s right of access to governmental records as a matter of federal common law.

  What else is Mr. Schiff hiding? Everything.

  He and his committee ran roughshod over the rule of law in pursuit of the abusive impeachment of President Trump. This lawsuit serves as reminder that Congressman Schiff and Congress are not above the law.