The Climate Con

The Climate Con

By Dave Ball

Beware Global Warming!  Not because it will consume our planet in fire but rather because it is a Trojan horse concealing a much more real threat, one that will consume our economy, our democracy and our way of life.
Ever since Michael Mann’s fantasy “hockey stick” temperature graph was thoroughly discredited and since Climategate outed institutional scale phony climate data a decade ago, the existence of actual global warming has been rendered null.  The same is true for the impact of CO2 on climate.  No experiment can confirm its impact, models can’t predict its influence and collateral data (sea level, animal populations etc.) do not confirm a correlation.
The conclusion must be that man-made climate change and the need to eliminate carbon emissions to avoid climate change simply do not exist. None of the narrative is based on objective science.  It is a massive hoax and maybe the biggest con job in history.  All the classic elements of a con job are present; the victim (mostly liberals and other virtue signalers), the play (appeal to environmental issues), the rope (emotional foundation and persuasion – the world is coming to an end), the convincer (the way it will work to your benefit – eliminate carbon and all is well) and so on.  The dangled payoff is saving the world.  As in all con jobs, the con artist gets what he wants and the mark gets nothing.
Like all cons, this one looks good to the rubes.  Who doesn’t want to save the world and breathe clean air?  The basic problem, even if the basic mechanism of eliminating CO2 to stop increasing temperatures were real, is that it would not achieve what its adherents think it would.  Let’s look at some facts.
What if we could reduce CO2 emissions?  The U.S. produces only 15 percent of the carbon emissions in the world.  The rest we have no control over.  That leaves 85 percent of emissions in place after spending trillions of dollars.
Most, if not all, of the big proposals for reduction of Carbon emissions by reducing CO2 are simply impossible, impractical or ineffective.  Eliminating coal fired electrical generating plants in the US is just one example.  The cost of shutting down the US coal industry with the attendant loss of jobs and downstream business would be astronomical. What impact would it have globally? Seventy three percent of India’s electricity is generated from coal fired power plants.  India has no plans to reduce its production and consumption of coal.  Coal India Ltd. will produce 660 million tons of coal next year, increasing to one billion tons by 2022 - 2023. 
In other words, if the U.S. destroyed its economy and eliminated all coal fired electricity production, whatever CO2 reduction that might net would be offset by the increase in coal consumption by India alone.  The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, the largest civil engineering project in the world, will include 700 new coal fired power stations.  When they are all in operation, these plants could consume an incredible 1.8 billion tons of coal a year.  So why are the US and the UK risking catastrophe in their economies when whatever they eliminate will be more than replaced elsewhere?
This, then, brings us to the final piece of the global warming con – what role do the Green New Deal and related decarbonization programs play?
The components of the GND are staggering in magnitude, cost and audacity.  They include such “modest” proposals as shutting down the entire coal, oil and natural gas industry, requiring all housing and buildings to be rebuilt and reinsulated, eliminating all gasoline cars and trucks, forcing populations to relocate to urban areas, controlling population by selective abortion and it just goes on.
The reality of many variants of the Green New Deal and all the other absolutely preposterous proposals is that they are not even intended to address environmental issues.  Note how often you see the word “justice” associated with certain proposals.  Social justice, environmental justice, economic justice and racial justice to name a few.  These are code words that lead one back to One World Government socialist theology and redistributive economics.  The idea, in a nutshell, is to transfer enormous sums of money and other resources from first world countries in the West to third world and developing nations.  Rest assured that a significant portion will find its way into the pockets of the charlatans promoting this con through choking the energy needs of the industrialized nations and transferring that wealth to developing nations.  This is done by socialist redistribution in the name of the nebulous concept of sustainable development. 
It was, and is, necessary to create the “existential crisis” of global warming in order to scare the multitudes into following the socialist elites blindly down the path of economic destruction to global governance.
Only in the recent round of hysteria have the concepts of Marxist redistribution been introduced and the whole concept of environmental concern been taken over by a political agenda.
If one is to examine the GND closely, it speaks of five goals and three of them are solely focused on some type of social or economic “justice” rather than an environmental outcome.  The two environmental goals use language quoted from UN literature.  Much of the current virulently Marxist bent of the GND is related directly to the 1992 UN Earth Summit from which came the infamous Agenda 21 that pledged “to change the way people live, eat, learn and communicate, all in the name of saving the earth from mankind’s mistakes, particularly global warming.”  So, tying all of what we have said together let’s see what we have.

• There is no demonstrable or provable pattern of net temperature change over a millennium so it cannot be said that we’re confronted by catastrophic global warming or cooling. 
• While CO2 may have some impact on global temperature, its exact influence is not known and cannot be accurately modeled.  In any case, CO2 is not the sole or dominant driver of global temperature so that controlling CO2, if it could be done, would have little predictable impact on temperature.
• No accurate predictive model of global temperature exists because the system is too complex and too many variables are either unknown or their influences and relationships are not understood.
• If spending untold trillions of dollars on reducing CO2 in this country actually did reduce CO2 output, that reduction would be offset many times over by increases from developing nations such as China and India that have every intention of dramatically increasing their CO2 output.
• Reliable engineering calculations show very convincingly that the chance of replacing carbon energy sources with renewable energy is exactly zero. 
• The current global warming narrative has been hijacked by Marxist One World Order extremists to press their revolution to destroy industrialized nations and to redistribute wealth to developing nations and create a world government.

Within the above context, we can see much more clearly that powerful Marxist forces forces are using the construct of a manufactured climate crisis, populist environmental language, and public fear to prosecute their political agenda which is to destroy the Western world and create a One World Order, nirvana to a Marxist, where a group of elites run the world.  That’s the con.

The Puritans and the Founding of America 

The Puritans and the Founding of America

By Trevor Thomas

On November 29, 1623, two years after the first Thanksgiving, Governor William Bradford made an official proclamation for a second day of Thanksgiving. In it Governor Bradford thanked God for their abundant harvest, bountiful game, protection from “the ravages of savages… and disease,” and for the “freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.”  Well over a hundred Natives attended, bringing plenty of turkey and venison along with them.
The Pilgrims had the proper perspective. As Bradford would note, “As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light [of Jesus] kindled here has shown unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation…We have noted these things so that you might see their worth and not negligently lose what your fathers have obtained with so much hardship.”
A handful of years later, another group of devout believers would set out for America’s shores in search of a new home. Unlike the Separatists (Pilgrims), the Puritans did not want to break away from the Church of England. (The Puritans were very critical of the Separatists for such action.) The Puritans sought reform, however, for the most part, the Church saw no need for reform.
In general, the Puritans were more affluent than the Pilgrims. To head out for a new home, they had much more to leave behind. The decision was not as easy for them as for the Pilgrims. Furthermore, for a period of time, the Church tolerated the Puritans much more than it tolerated the Pilgrims. In order for the Puritans to get to the place they needed to be (America) -- and as hindsight reveals, exactly the place where God wanted them to be -- their level of suffering needed to increase.
While James I was king (1603-1625), the persecution of the Puritans was tolerable. Moreover, the Archbishop of Canterbury was sympathetic to the Puritan cause. This all changed when Charles I (1625-1649) ascended to the throne. The Puritans then began to be singled out for harassment. The king and the bishops were now making any real Church reform impossible.
Thus, for any real reform to take place -- for, in spite of everything, the Puritans still desired reform -- a significant distance (literally) between the Puritans and England was necessary. Therefore, America became the destination for the Puritans as well.
On June 11, 1630, aboard the Arbella, John Winthrop, one of the leaders of America’s first Puritans, wrote and delivered A Model of Christian Charity. This was a 6,000-plus-word thesis which, for much of American history, was required reading among those in the United States who considered themselves educated. What’s more, it became a model for future constitutional covenants of the colonies. It read:

We are a Company, professing ourselves fellow members of Christ, (and thus) we ought to account ourselves knit together by this bond of love…For the work we have in mind, it is by a mutual consent through a special overruling providence, and a more than an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ to seek out a place of Cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of Government both civil and ecclesiastical…

Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing…

We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when He shall make us a praise and glory, that men of succeeding plantations shall say, “The Lord make it like that of New England.”

Winthrop’s powerful and wise words would resonate throughout America for centuries. It was this message which first gave rise to the notion of American Exceptionalism, and the idea of America’s Manifest Destiny.
The Puritans were not the sin-obsessed, witch-hunting, killjoys in tall black hats that many modern pseudo-historians (especially those in Hollywood) have made them out to be. They were determined to build a free society around a Christianity that worked.
In June 1630, 10 years after the Pilgrims founded the Plymouth Colony, Winthrop and 700 other Puritans landed in Massachusetts Bay, marking the beginning of the Great Migration, which over a 16-year period saw more than 20,000 Puritans leave Europe for New England. Under the leadership of their ministers, the Puritans established a representative government with annual elections. By 1641, they had a “Body of Liberties” (essentially a Bill of Rights), which was penned by the Rev. Nathaniel Ward. This document was the first legal code established by the colonists. It, too, contained over 6,000 words. It consisted of 98 declarations that governed everything from private property to capital crimes.
In 1636 the Rev. Thomas Hooker, along with other Puritan ministers, founded Connecticut. They also established an elective form of government. In 1638, after hearing a sermon by Hooker, Roger Ludlow wrote the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. This was the first constitution written in America. It served as a model of government for other colonies and, eventually, a union of colonies. It also served as a model for the U.S. Constitution.
The opening reads,

FORASMUCH as it has pleased the Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence so to order and dispose of things… and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one public state or commonwealth; and do, for ourselves and our successors and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into combination and confederation together, to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the discipline of the churches, which according to the truth of the said gospel is now practiced among us; as also in our civil affairs to be guided and governed according to such laws, rules, orders and decrees as shall be made, ordered and decreed, as follows…

However, as historian David Barton notes,

While Connecticut produced America's first written constitution, it definitely had not produced America’s first written document of governance, for such written documents had been the norm for every colony founded by Bible-minded Christians… This practice of providing written documents had been the practice of American ministers before the Rev. Hooker's constitution of 1638 and continued long after.

As noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, Puritanism was as much a political theory as it was a religious doctrine. The general principles of Puritanism, which, as Tocqueville points out, correspond “in many points with the most absolute democratic and republican theories,” laid the groundwork for future American constitutions.
The New England area of America became steeped in Puritanism, and with a lengthy period of healthy immigration from the British middle classes (as Tocqueville notes, “it was from the heart of the middle classes that the majority of the emigrants came”), prosperity soon followed. Tocqueville concluded that one of the “main causes of their prosperity” was that the government of the Puritans allowed for “greater personal and political independence than the colonies of other nations.”
Establishing a political framework that would lead to the “Miracle of America,” the governments established by the Puritans did not derive their powers from the British, or any other secular source. Instead, “We see them at all times exercising the rights of sovereignty, appointing magistrates, declaring peace or war, establishing law and order, enacting laws as if they owed allegiance to God alone.” This devoted allegiance to God was the foundation for the liberty and prosperity that would set America apart from the rest of the world.

Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation: What a Different Era

His words and humility stand in stark contrast to the politicians of our time.

Devin Foley | November 27, 2019

(This story was originally published by Intellectual Takeout on November 22, 2017.)

Thanksgiving is a quintessential American holiday. It is a holiday that in many ways requires some sense of the supernatural – whether we care to acknowledge it or not. Below you will find our first President’s proclamation of Thanksgiving in which his sense of the hand of Providence upon the American Republic is quite clear. Indeed, his mixing of church and state, of belief and practice is undeniable.

When you read it, consider the tone, humility, and outlook of President George Washington and ask yourself if any of our current leaders match him. It is, for me, a breath of fresh air, a reminder that while our Founders had many sins, they were at the same time driven to seek the good, the true, and the beautiful. They were deeply rooted in Western Civilization and understood the symbiosis between belief and practice.

For those who would argue that the Founders believed in a firm separation between church and state, a division of belief and practice, this document is a challenge. Here we have the first president, a man who served his country in humility, helped steer her course, and intimately understood the type of government they were creating, assigning a day through government proclamation to be one “devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficient Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be…” President Washington even gives thanks to the Almighty for the Constitution!

Taking our cue from our first President, on this Thanksgiving we should give thanks and, furthermore, take the time to refresh both our spirits and minds. Godspeed!

---

Thanksgiving Proclamation
New York, 3 October 1789
(Bold is added by the author.)

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

With Proposition CC’s failure, Colorado Democrats face a budget crunch in 2020. Here are their 4 options to address it. 

With Proposition CC’s failure, Colorado Democrats face a budget crunch in 2020. Here are their 4 options to address it.

Democrats in the Colorado legislature will have to choose between sacrificing parts of their ambitious agenda, or finding creative –– and politically risky –– ways to pay for it

Published on Nov 27, 2019 5:07AM MST

 

Brian Eason @brianeason

• As a news piece, this article cites verifiable, third-party sources which have all been thoroughly fact-checked and deemed credible by the Newsroom in accordance with the Civil Constitution.
Learn more about Civil’s Credibility Indicators

With the defeat of Proposition CC, voters ensured two features of Colorado state government are here to stay: 

Taxpayer refunds and the periodic legislative exercise in avoiding them.
The 2020 budget cycle is shaping up to be no exception. The legislative session is still weeks away, and Colorado budget writers already face a daunting list of requests.
Two federal health care programs –– the Children’s Health Insurance Program and a supplemental funding program for hospitals — are scheduled to reduce their payments to Colorado by nearly $70 million next year.

Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has asked again for $69 million he was denied last session to expand the state preschool program, provide paid family leave to state employees and stash money in the rainy day fund.
Democratic lawmakers, who control both legislative chambers, have spending ambitions of their own, like a family leave program for private sector workers.
And the Joint Budget Committee still has to find a way to pay for $80 million to $100 million worth of legislation that passed in 2019 –– all while doling out $428 million in taxpayer refunds through various mechanisms, with more refunds likely on the way next budget year.
“We’re in a really tough place,” state Sen. Dominick Moreno, a Democratic budget writer from Commerce City, told The Colorado Sun in an interview. “And I think it’s going to mean that there’s a lot more scrutiny on how we proceed, on what kind of policy changes we consider.”

State Sen. Dominick Moreno, of Commerce City. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)

Prop. CC, the measure to permanently eliminate the state revenue cap, along with the refunds owed under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, would have alleviated much of the budget pressure, providing lawmakers as much as $1 billion in new revenue to spend over the next two years under some estimates. But voters resoundingly rejected the TABOR overhaul in the low-turnout contest earlier this month.
Now, Democrats will have to choose between sacrificing parts of their ambitious agenda, or finding creative –– and politically risky –– ways to pay for it. That could include strategies that have worked in the past, like raising new fees to fund public programs or exempting existing fees from the TABOR cap.
There’s even preliminary talk of a more ambitious move: exempting the $660 million gas tax from the state’s revenue limits.
As of now, budget writers say, everything’s up for consideration. But some things, of course, are more likely than others. Here’s four options Democrats are discussing in the wake of Prop. CC’s defeat.

Option 1: Raise new fees.

Under TABOR, using fees to raise revenue is the most direct way to generate money without asking voters for permission to increase taxes, as required by the constitution. It also risks political backlash, because it hits voters’ wallets directly.
One proposal that’s sure to resurface from a year ago is a family medical leave program, which would be financed like insurance, through employee and employer payroll deductions. The proposal was rejected last year with the legislature opting instead to commission a study on the issue. An earlier version would have raised more than $900 million in annual premiums to fund the program.
In the past, lawmakers have also relied on fees to fund more traditional public services, like highways, bridges and parks. In an election year, though, even lawmakers who believe new fees are justified may be hesitant to pull the trigger.

State Rep. Chris Hansen, D-Denver. (Handout)

“I think some members are very comfortable with it, some are less comfortable and we’re just going to have to see if we can craft something that will work broadly across the (General) Assembly,” said Rep. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat who also serves on the Joint Budget Committee.
But because the state is over the TABOR cap, there’s a flip side to that coin: Not all fees will create new revenue that can actually be spent on public services.
The governor’s office, for instance, has requested ramping up air pollution enforcement to bring the Denver metro area into compliance with federal ozone standards. In many years, the 19 employees needed to enforce new permitting and compliance efforts would pay for themselves by generating as much as $2.4 million in new fees. But these particular fees aren’t exempt from the TABOR cap. And any new money the state brings in next year that isn’t TABOR-exempt will trigger an equal amount of taxpayer refunds, reducing the money that can be spent out of the general fund on other public services.
“That might as well be a general fund expenditure because we’re just not in a place where we have the luxury of bringing in new revenue,” Moreno said.

MORE: The next fiscal fight in Colorado starts now: A bid to repeal TABOR and one to raise taxes on top earners

Option 2: Exempt existing revenue from the cap.

Another option is to convert existing revenue to enterprise funds, much like the legislature did a few years ago when it reclassified a state hospital fee in order to clear out more room to spend revenue under the TABOR cap.
The sheer size of the fee — around $600 million at the time — made it a high impact target for lawmakers seeking to create new spending capacity. Budget writers told The Sun there aren’t other fees currently subject to TABOR that would generate that much money. But Moreno said they are exploring whether they could convert something else to a TABOR-exempt enterprise fund: the 22 cent state gas tax, which generates around $660 million annually.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis presents his budget proposal to the legislature’s Join Budget Committee on Nov. 13, 2019. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)

Legally, that’s a murkier proposition than converting the hospital fee, because the gas tax has long been labeled a tax, not a fee. But the line between tax and fee is blurry. Colorado’s hospital fee, for instance, is defined as a “bed tax” in many states.
And the state Supreme Court has historically given lawmakers a lot of leeway in making that distinction, as long as the money it generates is earmarked for a related purpose. Much like some of Colorado’s TABOR-exempt car registration fees, Colorado gas tax revenue funds highway construction.
It’s too early to say whether this will emerge as a legislative push next session, though. “It’s pretty early on” in the discussion, Moreno said.

Option 3: Raise the cap by $200 million.

Another possibility is to raise the TABOR cap to where it was before lawmakers struck a deal to lower it by $200 million in 2017. This idea first surfaced last year, but never got off the ground.
Legally, this one might be an easier sell than a gas tax overhaul. The thinking is, if lawmakers voluntarily lowered the cap, they should theoretically be able to reverse course without asking voters for permission.
But politically, this one might be even less likely to happen. It was already fraught, requiring Democrats to renege on a deal struck with Republicans just a few years ago. And now, they’d be attempting it just months after voters sent a clear message in Prop. CC that they wanted to keep their taxpayer refunds.

Voters cast their ballots at downtown Denver’s Bannock Street polling location on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2019. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)

Option 4: Go back to voters.

This one is certain to happen sooner or later. The only question is what will be asked of voters –– and how much more receptive the 2020 electorate will be than those who cast ballots in the low-turnout affair of November 2019.
Outside groups are evaluating a variety of TABOR reforms, including outright repeal and more targeted changes, like a progressive income tax. Moreno says past legislative bills may resurface as well, like a Republican-led plan that would have asked voters to tie the TABOR growth formula to personal income rather than inflation.
Don’t expect much support from Republicans against the backdrop of a presidential election year. To victorious conservatives, the message from voters in November was clear: leave TABOR alone. But to Democrats, Prop. CC’s defeat wasn’t a sign that they should stop trying to loosen its grip on state government.
“The voters who showed up in what was a very low turnout election said they wanted to keep their refund checks,” Hansen said. “That’s fine; that’s a data point. But I don’t take some broader philosophical conclusion from it. … I don’t think it takes away from the options that we’re looking at.”

New Fusion GPS Info Confirms The Special Counsel Probe Was A Hit Job

New Fusion GPS Info Confirms The Special Counsel Probe Was A Hit Job

The renewed focus on the Steele dossier are cementing the case that the special counsel probe served as a taxpayer-funded political hit on President Trump.

By Margot Cleveland

November 26, 2019

In April, when the special counsel’s report on Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election was released to the public, a glaring omission quickly made clear indicating Robert Mueller was either incompetent or a political hack. As I wrote at the time: “Not once in the 448-page tome does Mueller mention an investigation into whether Russia interfered with the U.S. presidential election by feeding dossier author Christopher Steele misinformation.”
Today’s release of Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch’s book on the Steele dossier, “Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump,” has put the former MI6’s collection of anti-Trump memoranda back in the news. The renewed focus on the Steele dossier are cementing the case that the special counsel probe served as a taxpayer-funded political hit on President Trump and not a true investigation into Russia’s election interference.

A Serious Investigation Would Have Included the Dossier

Former Wall Street Journal reporters who co-founded Fusion GPS, Simpson and Fritsch appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The bit was intended as a PR push to increase sales for their new book on Steele. Whether the media blitz that began in stride over the weekend will prove successful is unclear. But one thing the interview made clear is that a serious investigation into Russia’s interference in our elections would have focused on the Steele dossier.
This point became evident when host Chuck Todd confronted the Fusion founders with a video of the impeachment testimony of Fiona Hill. Hill, an expert on Europe and Russia and a former member of Trump’s National Security Council, testified that the Steele dossier was a “rabbit hole” and “very likely” contained Russian disinformation. Hill also testified that she “thought he got played.”
Simpson responded that Hill is entitled to her opinion and that while Hill is a Russia expert, she is not a disinformation specialist, like Steele. The Fusion GPS founders sought to further bolster Steele’s work during the interview by stressing that he ran the Russian desk for MI6. “This is one of the most capable and one of the most knowledgeable experts on Russia in the world today,” Fritsch said, adding that Steele “spent a lot of time going through the dossier to separate information from disinformation, credible facts from non-credible facts.”
That Fusion GPS continues to sell the dossier and Steele as solid is baffling. After all, the dossier got a pretty straightforward and easily verified (or refuted) detail wrong—that Michael Cohen was in Prague in August of 2016. Steele also bought into the “pee tapes” scene painted by the Russian sources. So much for separating “information from disinformation” and “credible facts from non-credible facts.”

Mueller Was Curiously Uninterested in Steele

Given that “one of the most knowledgeable experts on Russia in the world today” got these facts (and others) wrong, the question remains: Why? Was Steele pushing a disinformation campaign on behalf of Hillary Clinton in his dossier? Or was Steele “played” by the Russians, as Hill thought?
It’s hard to know. But you know who should have found out? Robert Mueller!
Yet, as I wrote shortly after the release of the special council’s report: “Even though Mueller was authorized, as he put it in the special counsel report, to investigate ‘the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,’ the report is silent of efforts to investigate Russia’s role in feeding Steele misinformation.”
Hill made this same point in her closed-door deposition testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last month. During her October appearance before that Democratic-controlled Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan asked Hill whether she though the Steele dossier was Russian propaganda.
The Russian expert said that she was not “in a position to assess that,” but “that I felt that it [should] also be looked at and investigated.” Hill added that she believed “that the Mueller report and Mr. Mueller and his team did look at some of this information.”
But Hill then noted that she would “have much preferred to see . . . [the] Mueller report focusing at the outset on what was in [the Steele] dossier that the Russians were doing and then, as the course of that, following the ‘investigative leads, which, you did in any case to find out what doors were opened for them into our political system.”

Was Steele Played by the Russians?

While Mueller ignored these questions, in her deposition testimony Hill also expanded on why she believed Steele had been “played” by the Russians. After seeing the dossier in BuzzFeed, “I expressed the misgivings and concern that he could have been played,” Hill told the House Committee.
“If you also think about it,” the Russian expert explained, “the Russians would have an ax to grind against [Steele] given the job that he had previously. And if he started going back through his old contacts and asking about, that would be a perfect opportunity for people to feed some kind of misinformation. He’s obviously out there soliciting information. What a great opportunity to, basically, you know, present him with information that he’s looking for that can be couched—some truth and some misinformation.”
Hill then illustrated how this works by explaining that when she was working on a book, her phone was hacked repeatedly and that it became clear that a draft of her manuscript had been accessed. “After this, I started to get emails from people who purported to have met me at different points in my career. . . . And they’d start offering me information, you know, that somehow pertained to, strangely enough, some of the chapters that I was actually working on.”
They were trying to play me, Hill explained to the House Intelligence Community, and from her testimony that’s what Hill believed the Russians had done to Steele. But after nearly two years and more than $30 million wasted, Mueller’s team didn’t even consider these questions.

Mueller Didn’t Only Ignore Steele

While the absence of any discussion concerning whether Steele had been played by the Russians was an obvious omission in the special counsel report, Simpson and Fritsch’s Sunday sit-down with Todd revealed another area of inquiry ignored by Mueller’s crack team.
In that interview, Todd quizzed the Fusion GPS founders about Natalia Veselnitskaya. Veselnitskaya is a former Russian prosecutor who served as a lawyer for the Russian company Prevezon. After the DOJ instituted a civil forfeiture case against Prevezon in New York, Veselnitskaya hired an American law firm to represent her client. In turn, the American law firm hired Fusion GPS to assist in their representation of Prevezon.
As Todd noted in last weekend’s “Meet the Press” interview, Simpson saw Veselnitskaya on the same day as the “infamous Trump Tower meeting.” That was the June 2016 meeting which Trump Jr., Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law), and then-Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort attended in hopes of obtaining “some information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.” And the supposed source of that information? The same Veselnitskaya.
The promised dirt, however, merely served as “a pretext to provide Veselnitskaya access to Trump Jr. so she could lobby against the Magnitsky Act—a law establishing sanctions against Russian human rights abusers—and to discuss Russian adoptions.” Yet Veselnitskaya’s connection with Fusion GPS and the fact that the evening before the Trump Tower meeting she had dinner with Simpson and then dined with him again after the Trump Tower meeting seems entirely too coincidental.

Was Veselnitskaya Playing Simpson?

Simpson has long maintained that he did not know of the Trump Tower meeting and had never discussed with Veselnitskaya Fusion GPS’s investigation into Trump. He repeated that claim on Sunday, prompting Todd to note, “You even write in the book that now you’re starting to wonder that maybe you were drawn in and worked in a way,” by Veselnitskaya.
If Simpson truly did not know of the Trump Tower meeting and Veselnitskaya’s efforts to meet with Trump Jr., his reaction makes sense. Maybe Veselnitskaya was playing Simpson.
And you know who else should have pondered Veselnitskaya’s connection to Simpson and Fusion GPS? Robert Mueller!
Yet for all the investigation into the Trump Tower meeting and for all the many references to Veselnitskaya in the special counsel report, no mention is made of this dual role. There is also no suggestion that Mueller’s team even considered the possibility that Veselnitskaya was somehow “working Fusion GPS” while other Russians were “playing Steele,” with the possible goal being to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Notwithstanding Mueller’s incompetence or partisanship, we may nonetheless find out the truth when the various Department of Justice investigations into the Russia collusion hoax conclude. We may also learn more about what Mueller did—and did not—deign to investigate, as shortly after his confirmation, Attorney General William Barr told the Senate Judiciary committee that he was also reviewing the special counsel investigation to determine what the special counsel looked at.
The public and the legacy press may have forgotten that pledge, but here’s hoping Barr hasn’t.

Trump Should Absolutely Not Cooperate With The Judiciary Hearings

Trump Should Absolutely Not Cooperate With The Judiciary Hearings

November 27, 2019 By David Marcus

Democrats, having run byzantine hearings in basement bunkers and on live television in the House Intelligence Committee, are set to move on to Judiciary Committee hearings. The purpose of this set of hearings is to craft Articles of Impeachment to be voted on by the entire House. One difference from the previous hearings that Democrats are touting is that in the Judiciary the White House can participate. It absolutely should not.
According to the resolution that launched the impeachment inquiry, passing without one GOP vote, the White House may have lawyers present and able to ask questions in the Judiciary hearings. Democrats point to this as fairness in the process, citing the fact that many Republicans complained that the White House had no representation in the Intelligence committee hearings. Now they will claim the White House is being inconsistent if it does not participate with the new hearings.
This is nonsense. Pointing out the obvious unfairness of one part of this process does obligate those complaining about it to jump on board with another part of the process. Further more the participation is conditional. Chairman Jerry Nadler has wide latitude to restrict such participation if, for example, the White House fails to provide witnesses. Since we already know that administration officials are exerting executive privilege Nadler will have an excuse at the ready to shut down White House efforts at any time.
But even beyond the question of fairness, it makes no sense for the White House to legitimize the impeachment by playing a role in it. It is important to understand that Trump’s position, and that of most Republicans is not that Trump did not commit the crime, but that no crime ever occurred. To send lawyers to the hearings would send the message that there is something to get to the bottom of here, when there just isn’t.
As has been the case since Trump released the transcript of his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, there is no substantial disagreement among any of the parties of the basic facts of the case. Everybody agrees Trump wanted investigations into Hunter Biden linked Burisma, 20016 election interference, and more robust aid to Ukraine from Europe. Everyone agrees he told Zelensky that. Everyone agrees that the administration delayed military aid to Ukraine; everyone agrees that that aid was eventually released.
Democrats must show that something happened in the process of the aid being released that is bribery, or abuse of power, or whatever focus group tested nefarious term they wind up using tomorrow. Thus far they have done no such thing. There is absolutely no reason that the White House should participate in a fishing expedition for a crime that doesn’t exist.
Republicans on the committee like Doug Collins and Jim Sensenbrenner are more than capable of mounting a defense of Trump in public hearings. The very simple argument that the president used his legitimate power to delay the aid, that this was proper use, not abuse of power, does not require a team of legal experts to explain. Meanwhile, the Democrats convoluted theories about what the timeline implies, and their parade of pissed off diplomats who nobody elected, is about as simple Twitter’s algorithms.
The best thing the White House can do both politically and tactically is to ignore the hearings. Politically it makes sense because it mocks the impeachment, shows Trump isn’t worried about it, and lets him continue to stay focused on the nation’s business while Democrats tie Washington in knots to get to a suicide mission in a Senate trial.
Tactically it makes sense to refuse participation because just as clearly as there can be only one predetermined outcome in a senate trial, there is only one predetermined outcome to the impeachment inquiry in the House, unless polling pushes the Democrats onto the off ramp of censure.
The only possible upside to sending lawyers for the White House is the possibility that they can score enough points to further erode support for impeachment, but that’s an awfully long shot. Impeachment poll numbers have solidified somewhere in the neighborhood of the president’s job approval numbers. Jesus Christ could come down and make a speech on the House floor and those numbers probably wouldn’t move much. Sitting the hearings out is the only play here. When and if the time comes, Trump’s lawyers can fight on ground of their own choosing in a Senate firmly in the hands of his allies.

Trump-Russia 2.0: Dossier-Tied Firm Pitching Journalists Daily on 'Collusion' 

Trump-Russia 2.0: Dossier-Tied Firm Pitching Journalists Daily on 'Collusion'

By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations
March 20, 2019

Above, Daniel J. Jones, whose outfit has hired Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele, key figures behind the Trump-Russia dossier. 

Key Democratic operatives and private investigators who tried to derail Donald Trump’s campaign by claiming he was a tool of the Kremlin have rebooted their operation since his election with a multimillion-dollar stealth campaign to persuade major media outlets and lawmakers that the president should be impeached.

The effort has successfully placed a series of questionable stories alleging secret back channels and meetings between Trump associates and Russian spies, while influencing related investigations and reports from Congress.
The operation’s nerve center is a Washington-based nonprofit called The Democracy Integrity Project, or TDIP. Among other activities, it pumps out daily “research” briefings to prominent Washington journalists, as well as congressional staffers, to keep the Russia “collusion” narrative alive.

Glenn R. Simpson, Fusion GPS co-founder now working for an anti-Trump research firm run by Daniel J. Jones, top photo.

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Top Image: Screen grab, YouTube/Rules of War Blog

TDIP is led by Daniel J. Jones, a former FBI investigator, Clinton administration volunteer and top staffer to California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. It employs the key opposition-research figures behind the salacious and unverified dossier: Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Its financial backers include the actor/director Rob Reiner and billionaire activist George Soros.
The project’s work has been largely shrouded in mystery. But a months-long examination by RealClearInvestigations, drawn from documents and more than a dozen interviews, found that the organization is running an elaborate media-influence operation that includes driving and shaping daily coverage of the Russia collusion theory, as well as pushing stories about Trump in the national media that attempt to tie the president or his associates to the Kremlin.
The group also feeds information to FBI and congressional investigators, and then tells reporters that authorities are investigating those leads. The tactic adds credibility to TDIP’s pitches, luring big media outlets to bite on stories. It mirrors the strategy federal authorities themselves deployed to secure FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign: citing published news reports of investigative details their informants had leaked to the media to bolster their wiretap requests.

Christopher Steele, ex-British intelligence officer and Trump-Russia dossier compiler now also working for Jones' operation.

Victoria Jones/PA via AP

Five days a week, TDIP  emails a newsletter to influential Democrats and prominent Beltway journalists under the heading “TDIP Research” – which summarizes the latest “collusion” news, and offers “points of interest” to inspire fresh stories regarding President Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow.
Recipients of the TDIP reports include staffers at the New York Times and Washington Post and investigative reporters at BuzzFeed, ProPublica and McClatchy, as well as news producers at CNN and MSNBC, according to a source familiar with the project's email distribution list. Democratic aides on Capitol Hill also subscribe to the newsletter.
 The briefings typically run several pages and include an “Executive Summary” and links to court documents and congressional testimony, letters and memos, as well as new articles and videos.
The Steele dossier and impeachment are common themes in the reports, which generally spin news events against Trump, copies of the newsletter obtained by RCI show. A March 13 TDIP bulletin, for instance, highlighted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s sentencing without informing readers that Special Counsel Robert Mueller closed the case without any collusion accusation against Manafort, who was punished for personal financial crimes.

Part of a daily newsletter from The Democracy Integrity Project, or TDIP, blasted out to Beltway journalists and congressional staffers to keep the Russia “collusion” narrative alive (image enhanced for contrast). 

Paul Sperry/RCInvestigations

A Feb. 12 briefing led with an NBC News exclusive report on the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s two-year Russia probe. But it misstated what the news was — that both Democrats and Republicans agreed with the conclusion that there was "no factual evidence of collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russia – claiming instead that Democrats “rejected” the conclusion.
“What’s significant about them is they're totally one-sided,” said a veteran reporter with a major  newspaper who is plugged into the national security beat in Washington and insisted on anonymity. “It’s really just another way of adding fuel to the fire of the whole Russia collusion thing."
Jones' project doesn’t just spin the news. Its more ambitious goal is to make news by essentially continuing the Clinton-funded investigation into alleged Trump/Russia ties that began in 2016, and then sharing findings with news outlets, congressional investigators and federal agents.
Jones has hired Fusion GPS, the same Washington firm co-founded by former journalist-turned-opposition-researcher Simpson that was paid more than $1 million by lawyers for the Hillary Clinton campaign to collect information damaging to Trump during the 2016 election.
Jones is also paying Steele, another anti-Trump partisan, to continue to dig up dirt on the president. Fusion GPS paid the former British intelligence officer $168,000 to produce a series of anonymously sourced memos for Clinton accusing the Trump campaign of hatching an espionage plot with the Kremlin to hack Clinton campaign emails and steal the election. The memos also claimed that the Kremlin held compromising material on Trump, including video of him carousing with prostitutes in Moscow. Three years of multiple federal investigations have failed to verify the accusations, which were nonetheless used by the FBI to obtain a secret court-approved wiretap on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
In a letter last year, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that the anti-Trump trio was responsible for spreading “inaccurate” information about the Russia investigation and the Trump campaign. “Mr. Jones stated he planned to push the information he obtained from Fusion and Steele to policymakers on Capitol Hill, the press and the FBI,” Grassley wrote Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, referring to an FBI interview with Jones.
Simpson and Steele have a history of feeding the FBI and Congress unsubstantiated allegations and rumors, sending investigators down rabbit holes. They have also planted several anti-Trump stories in the media that have proved unverifiable, unfounded, or just plain false.

Cleta Mitchell, who says a McClatchy article about her, the NRA and Russia was a "complete fabrication" pushed by Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS.

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

These include a McClatchy newspapers story asserting that "NRA attorney Cleta Mitchell" warned during the 2016 campaign that Russians had infiltrated the NRA and were using it to launder illegal donations to Trump. Mitchell called the article a "complete fabrication," noting that she hadn’t worked for the NRA in a decade and had no contact with it in 2016. She claims Simpson personally shopped the bogus story to McClatchy. Her allegation was bolstered by senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who revealed in recently released closed-door congressional testimony that Simpson fed him the same rumor after the election and asked him to pass it on to his colleagues at the FBI.
Simpson also appears to have been the source behind another discredited McClatchy story about Trump attorney Michael Cohen traveling to Prague during the campaign to hatch a plot with Kremlin officials to hack Clinton campaign emails.
This account first appeared in the Steele dossier. But after Cohen offered his passport to disprove it, a new twist emerged: allegations that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had evidence that Cohen’s phone pinged a cell tower near Prague at the time. After McClatchy bit on the sketchy tip — which was the lead item in TDIP’s Jan. 2, 2019 newsletter to the Washington press corps – Mueller’s office took the highly unusual step of issuing a statement warning other reporters off the story, an important detail TDIP ignored.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former lawyer, with his attorney Lanny Davis, right. TDIP has pushed a discredited story that Cohen visited Prague to plot with the Kremlin.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Although the Cohen-in-Prague story appears to be fiction, TDIP keeps pushing it through its bulletins. Neither Simpson nor the two McClatchy reporters who wrote about it responded to requests seeking comment.
Jones has a long history himself of promoting conspiracy theories. He has personally placed anti-Trump news stories with media outlets after feeding related tips to the FBI.
For instance, he was a key source behind the now widely disputed story that Trump and the Russians were secretly communicating through a “back channel" system they allegedly set up between a Trump Tower server and Alfa-Bank, one of Russia's largest banks, which operates branches in New York, according to published reports. The foundation for the rumor was first laid by the Steele dossier, which claimed the bank, which it misspelled “Alpha,” had “illicit” ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Shortly thereafter, in the heat of the 2016 campaign, an attorney for the Clinton campaign law firm that commissioned the dossier research, Perkins Coie, passed the rumor about the server to the FBI, as well as to several media outlets.
“Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank,” Hillary Clinton tweeted at the time.
The allegation received wide coverage in the press — until, that is, the New York Times reported that the FBI had checked it out and found it to be false. Alfa-Bank executives are now suing Simpson, who hired Steele, for libel.
Undaunted, Jones hired a larger team of computer scientists after the election to analyze web traffic between the Alfa-Bank and Trump Organization servers. And in a March 2017 meeting, he shared his expert team's findings with his former colleagues at the FBI. That same month, agents visited the offices of the Pennsylvania company that housed the Trump server. But their second investigation proved to be another dead end. It turned out that the sinister communications Jones claimed were flowing between the Trump server and Alfa-Bank were innocuous marketing emails. In other words, spam.

Daniel Jones has been in contact with investigators for Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, above. “Jones has been chumming out his own share of garbage stories,” said a GOP staffer.

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Jones has also communicated with investigators for Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, hoping to spread more Trump-Russia conspiracy theories.
In a series of recently leaked March 2017 texts to a lawyer communicating with Warner, Jones boasted that he had planted several anti-Trump news articles, including a Reuters story about Russians allegedly investing more than $100 million in Trump properties in Florida. He took credit for another article published by McClatchy alleging that the FBI was investigating whether Russians had used social media bots to spread stories by Breitbart News and other conservative outlets.
“Our team helped with this,” Jones wrote in one text that linked to the Reuters piece. He also texted a link to the McClatchy article. Other text messages revealed that Jones was in close contact with Sen. Warner himself and acted as the point of contact for Steele with Warner and his staff.
“Jones has been chumming out his own share of garbage stories,” a senior Republican legislative assistant said.

Ex-Trump campaign official Michael Caputo, left, blames Jones' "smear campaign" for $125,000 in legal bills. At right, his attorney Dennis C. Vacco.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

A former Trump campaign adviser blames Jones’ “smear campaign” for his being targeted for investigation by congressional committees and racking up some $125,000 in lawyer's bills.
“Dan has been raising and spending millions to confirm the unconfirmable — and of course, to keep all his old intel colleagues up-to-speed on what Fusion GPS and British and Russian spies have found," former Trump aide Michael Caputo said. "Got to keep that Russia story in the news.”
Jones did not return phone calls or messages sent to his company’s email address seeking comment. But supporters, including U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and the late John McCain, said they have known him to be thoughtful, careful and detail-oriented. Those views appear to be based on his less political work. His defenders often describe him as a human-rights advocate because of his years-long investigation into claims of post-9/11 CIA “torture” of terrorist detainees, and the 6,700-page report he wrote of his findings (still classified) as a staff analyst for the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report is said to fault both the Bush and Obama administrations for aiding the CIA in covering up human-rights abuses.
Even as it pushes the collusion theories, TDIP partnered with a cybersecurity firm, New Knowledge, funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, which used social media strategies employed by Russians to influence the 2016 campaign to defeat GOP candidates for Congress during last year’s midterm elections.

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, who funded New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm implicated in election meddling. It also worked with The Democracy Integrity Project.

AP Photo/Noah Berger

New Knowledge publicly stated it was tracking Russian social-media disinformation networks during the 2018 campaign. In fact, it was secretly involved in its own disinformation campaign to influence the outcome of the 2017 Alabama Senate special election. New Knowledge operatives created thousands of fake Russian Twitter accounts programmed to follow GOP candidate Roy Moore to make it appear he was backed by Moscow.
The scheme worked: a number of media stories reported Moore was being supported by Russians. Only, it was a high-tech frame-up. Most elections experts have concluded this fake Russian disinformation campaign did not affect the outcome of the race, which Moore lost largely because of allegations of sexual misconduct.
Hoffman maintains he didn’t know what his money was being used for. In 2016, the Silicon Valley billionaire gave the Hillary Victory Fund more than $500,000, FEC records show.
After media reports exposed the false-flag operation several weeks later, a website set up by TDIP and New Knowledge during the 2018 campaign was taken down. Screenshots of the site – www.Disinfo2018.com – clearly show their relationship, however. The top of the “About Us” page stated, “Midterms Disinformation Dashboard: New Knowledge & TDIP.” About halfway down, the page elaborated: "New Knowledge and The Democracy Integrity Project have created a dashboard containing up-to-the-hour summary statistics from these [supposedly Russian Facebook and Twitter] accounts, so that citizens can be aware of the foreign propaganda efforts aimed at American voters as we approach our midterm elections in November.”
Around the same time, a TDIP daily e-bulletin sang the praises of its partner New Knowledge, noting it had prior experience studying Russian influence operations and linking to a flattering piece about one of its founders.

New Knowledge research director Renee DiResta testifying last year before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on foreign influence operations. She worked with Daniel Jones on a report positing that “Russian influence networks” have conspired with “domestic right-wing disinformation networks,” including Fox News and others, to suppress Democrat voter turnout.

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Jones had personally promoted New Knowledge on his Twitter account. He also worked with the outfit’s director of research, Renee DiResta -- an active Democrat who gave the maximum individual donation amount to Clinton’s 2016 campaign and whose bio says she advised the Obama administration on “hate speech” and “right-wing extremism” and that she has served as a "technical adviser" to Warner, who helped the Senate’s investigation into the 2016 election. (In spite of her bias, DiResta actively polices social media content and "flags" accounts, as well as followers and messages, she suspects are tied to fake Russian "bots" for Facebook and Twitter, which in turn opt to ban the accounts based on her information, according to testimony she gave last year to Warner's committee.)
Jones previously enlisted DiResta, who did not respond to interview requests, along with other cyber experts to examine the Alfa-Bank/Trump Tower data, a project that was coordinated with Democrats on the Senate intelligence panel. Jones used to work for the Democratic side of the committee.
DiResta and New Knowledge also collaborated with Jones on a report on Russian disinformation that was released by the committee in December. The report claimed that a Russian social-media plot allegedly to help elect Trump in 2016 was worse than thought, and it warned that the political trolling never stopped — and may have even influenced Senate voting on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The report even posited that “Russian influence networks” have conspired with “domestic right-wing disinformation networks,” allegedly including Fox News, Breitbart News, The Hill and the Daily Caller, to suppress Democrat voter turnout to help Trump and the GOP candidates he endorses.

George Soros has donated at least $1 million to The Democracy Integrity Project.

Olivier Hoslet/Pool Photo via AP, File

Upon its release, Warner billed the report as a “bombshell.” It was widely covered by CNN and other major media. A former colleague of Simpson’s said that Jones “brokered the New Knowledge work" with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“Dan Jones does more than just send out these briefs,” said the well-placed source. “He’s working with the FBI and [the] Senate Intelligence [Committee]."
The Democracy Integrity Project can be traced back at least to December 2016, when Simpson and Jones made trips to California to raise money for their joint anti-Trump project. “They started soliciting donors and assembling their team for a post-election operation in December 2016,” said a former Simpson colleague who requested anonymity.
Jones incorporated TDIP just 11 days after Trump took office in January 2017, and registered it as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit several months later. It enjoys that tax-exempt status because the group claimed in its mission statement to the IRS to be “non-partisan” and concerned only with protecting the integrity of elections from interference from foreign adversaries like Russia.
By filing under that tax-exempt status, the organization does not have to publicly disclose its donors. Its latest IRS filing shows reported income of more than $9 million and assets of more than $1.6 million.

Rob Reiner, co-star of 1970s TV sitcom "All in the Family" and director of acclaimed 1984 rock mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap," is now a supporter of The Democracy Integrity Project and calls for President Trump's impeachment.

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

In addition to Soros, who has donated at least $1 million, liberal Hollywood activist Reiner also backs the project, according to the former Simpson colleague with direct knowledge of discussions with Reiner. In 2017, Reiner started the Committee to Investigate Russia with James Clapper and several other former Obama officials. Reiner has called for Trump’s impeachment, arguing repeatedly that the president has committed “treason against the United States.”
Reiner’s office declined a request to discuss the extent of his financial contributions to the project. “Sorry, Rob is not available,” his executive assistant, Tricia Owen, told RCI.
A New York-based nonprofit linked to the family of billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer has donated $2.1 million to TDIP, according to the Daily Caller. Steyer, who has hired Fusion GPS to conduct investigations in the past, has also demanded Trump’s ouster over Russia.
Soros and the Steyer-tied benefactor accounted for roughly a third of TDIP’s total 2017 revenues.
And social media titans including the founders of Facebook, Twitter and Google are indirectly funding the project through donations funneled through a Silicon Valley foundation, the Daily Caller also reported. Advance Democracy Inc., a sister organization founded by Jones sharing the same Northern Virginia address as TDIP, received at least $500,000 from the foundation last year.
In tax filings, Jones lists a McLean, Va., address for TDIP, but a visit to the location reveals the office is occupied by a small independent accounting firm that says it merely handles TDIP’s books. Jones also keeps an office near FBI headquarters in Washington.
The 43-year-old Jones is an enigmatic figure who shies away from TV appearances and plays a largely behind-the-scenes role shaping investigations and influencing Washington politics.
After teaching and recruiting for Clinton’s AmeriCorps program from 1998 to 2001, he worked for the FBI for four years as an analyst providing “strategic guidance and tactical support to complex international investigations,” according to a December 2015 email sent to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta by former Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle.
In 2007, Jones joined the Democratic staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he served as a senior analyst and “led many of the committee’s investigations,” he boasted in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed he wrote with former Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller.
While on the Senate intelligence panel, Jones worked directly for Sen. Feinstein, who chaired the committee at the time and is still a member. Jones and Feinstein apparently developed a close bond over the nine years he worked there. In a rare honor, Feinstein took to the Senate floor to praise her aide the day before he stepped down from the committee in December 2015, citing his “indefatigable work.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley confers with the top Democrat on the panel, Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She clashed with Grassley over her leak of Glenn Simpson's testimony. As a result of that leak, testimony by future witnesses such as Christopher Steele may be forever tainted, GOP staffers say.

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Now the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Feinstein last year unilaterally released a 300-page transcript of the closed-door testimony of Jones’ partner, Simpson of Fusion GPS, over the objections of then-chairman Grassley, who accused Feinstein of violating committee precedent and trying to undermine the panel’s investigation of the dossier. Thanks to Feinstein’s leak, which is something Simpson requested, the testimony offered by future witnesses such as Steele may be forever tainted, Republican staffers say.
TDIP sent out a briefing at the time that was quick to note that in his testimony, “Simpson defended the dossier as sound research.”
Feinstein did not notify Grassley before giving the transcript to the media; the chairman was blindsided. In an indication that she coordinated the leak with Simpson, Feinstein redacted the names of all Fusion GPS employees mentioned in the transcript, even though such information is not classified and can be found online. She also did not disclose to her Republican counterparts on the committee that a former top staffer of hers — Jones — was working with Simpson at the time.
Though Jones is reported to have begun his opposition research project after Trump took office, Senate Judiciary Committee investigators suspect he may also have been involved in the Clinton campaign’s 2016 efforts to create the dossier and push its allegations to the FBI and media. The FBI used the unverified political document as a basis for securing secret wiretaps on Trump campaign figures.
Records show Jones founded a private investigative firm, Penn Quarter Group, in April 2016 – the same month the Clinton campaign hired Fusion. Throughout the 2016 campaign, Jones worked for Democratic lobbyist Daschle, who endorsed Clinton and was close to Podesta. The Senate Judiciary Committee has asked Jones for all communications he and his organizations have had with federal officials at the FBI and the departments of Justice and State from March 2016 to January 2017. Jones was also being eyed as a witness by House investigators before Democrats recently took control of the House.

Dafna H. Rand, a former aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama recruited for TDIP's board. 

Screen grab, YouTube/Center for a New American Security

In early 2017, as he launched TDIP to continue investigating Trump, Jones recruited a former Senate Intelligence Committee colleague, Dafna H. Rand, to serve on his board, according to incorporation papers. A Democrat, Rand had also worked as a top aide to former Secretary Clinton at the State Department. Before that, she served in the White House as a national security adviser to President Obama.
Rand is now vice president of Mercy Corps, a humanitarian relief organization that assists Syrian, Yemeni and other Muslim refugees, and lobbies against Trump’s recent restrictions on immigration from those countries. Rand did not respond to requests for an interview.
Another TDIP board member, Adam Kaufmann, is a former New York prosecutor who has worked with Fusion GPS. Also a Democrat, Kaufmann was recently quoted in the New York Times alleging that Trump's financial dealings were criminal.
While Kaufmann did not respond to requests for comment, RealClearInvestigations has learned that he worked on the same FIFA corruption case as dossier author Steele, who in 2010 provided information to the FBI that led to the indictment of officials for the world soccer governing body.
FBI veterans say it is strange for an ex-FBI employee such as Jones to privately run a parallel counterintelligence investigation on any subject, least of all on the president.
“It’s not common that a former FBI analyst and congressional investigator would be doing a private, parallel investigation, but he’s apparently an enterprising guy,” said former FBI agent and lawyer Mark Wauck, who suspects Jones is motivated by partisanship.
Longtime observers of the Washington political scene are curious how Jones has for years been able to escape serious scrutiny while running a political influence operation that works closely with national media, federal law enforcement and congressional investigators. With access to a multimillion-dollar war chest, they say he could continue to push the anti-Trump Russia collusion narrative long past the Mueller report or even the 2020 presidential election.
Caputo, the former Trump aide, wants an investigation of Jones: “I want to know who Dan Jones is talking to across the investigations – from the FBI to the Southern District of New York to the [Special Counsel’s Office] to the Department of Justice, to Congress.”