The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower
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President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department regularly surveilled retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s financial records and transactions beginning in December 2015 and well into 2017, before, during and after when he served at the White House as President Donald Trump’s National Security Director, a former senior Treasury Department official, and veteran of the intelligence community, told the Star Newspapers.
“I started seeing things that were not correct, so I did my own little investigation, because I wanted to make sure what I was seeing was correct” she said. “You never want to draw attention to something if there is not anything there.”
The whistleblower said she only saw metadata, that is names and dates when the general’s financial records were accessed. “I never saw what they saw.”
By March 2016, the whistleblower said she and a colleague, who was detailed to Treasury from the intelligence community, became convinced that the surveillance of Flynn was not tied to legitimate criminal or national security concerns, but was straight-up political surveillance among other illegal activity occurring at Treasury.
“When I showed it to her, what she said, ‘Oh, sh%t!’ and I knew right then and there that I was right – this was some shady stuff,” the whistleblower said.
“It wasn’t just him,” the whistleblower said. “They were targeting other U.S. citizens, as well.”
Only two names are listed in the whistleblower’s official paperwork, so the others must remain sealed, she said. The second name is Paul J. Manafort Jr., the one-time chairman of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The other names include: Members of Congress, the most senior staffers on the 2016 Trump campaign and members of Trump’s family, she said.
“Another thing they would do is take targeted names from a certain database – I cannot name, but you can guess – and they were going over to an unclassified database and they were running those names in the unclassified database,” she said.
This ruse was to get around using classified resources to surveil Americans, she said. Once the Treasury personnel had enough information about someone they were targeting from the black box, they would go to the white box for faster and more informed search.
It was routine for these searches that had no criminal nor national security predicate, merely a political predicate, she said.
Complaint filed with Treasury Inspector General
In March 2017, she filed a formal whistleblower complaint with Acting Treasury Inspector General Richard K. Delmar, who continues in that office today, she said. Beyond Delmar acknowledging receipt of the complaint, the inspector general never followed up on the matter.
Hmm...Whistleblower files complaint about potential abuses of power 3 years ago, and it goes nowhere. I've run out of shocked faces.
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@xenon said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
Yet - everyone's fine with Congress being able to nab our internet histories now.
The Patriot Act and all its spawn are.. no bueno.
That's just them spying on little people. It's only a problem when people spy on the important folk.
Also - look at the law - it's called the Patriot Act, FFS. There's absolutely no way that people would use patriotism as an excuse to behave like a scoundrel!
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@Doctor-Phibes said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
@xenon said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
Yet - everyone's fine with Congress being able to nab our internet histories now.
The Patriot Act and all its spawn are.. no bueno.
That's just them spying on little people. It's only a problem when people spy on the important folk.
Also - look at the law - it's called the Patriot Act, FFS. There's absolutely no way that people would use patriotism as an excuse to behave like a scoundrel!
But you love the FISA court?
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I have not followed this all that closely. After nearly 4 years, it's not only impossible to keep up, but the redundancy is getting boring.
It does seem, though, that Obama had a particular dislike of Flynn. I don't understand why Flynn seemed to be in the crosshairs of so many people, undoubtedly based upon Obama's desire to do more than fire him, but to destroy him personally and financially.
I'm probably wrong, like I said I'm not following the timeframe and sequence of events. Could it be that Flynn as a person, was someone that represented everything Obama abhored and was to be an example?
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@Jolly said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
@xenon said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
Yet - everyone's fine with Congress being able to nab our internet histories now.
The Patriot Act and all its spawn are.. no bueno.
That's just them spying on little people. It's only a problem when people spy on the important folk.
Also - look at the law - it's called the Patriot Act, FFS. There's absolutely no way that people would use patriotism as an excuse to behave like a scoundrel!
But you love the FISA court?
I don't love much about any of this, TBH. My lack of comment shouldn't be read in any way other than I haven't commented.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
@Jolly said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
@Doctor-Phibes said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
@xenon said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
Yet - everyone's fine with Congress being able to nab our internet histories now.
The Patriot Act and all its spawn are.. no bueno.
That's just them spying on little people. It's only a problem when people spy on the important folk.
Also - look at the law - it's called the Patriot Act, FFS. There's absolutely no way that people would use patriotism as an excuse to behave like a scoundrel!
But you love the FISA court?
I don't love much about any of this, TBH. My lack of comment shouldn't be read in any way other than I haven't commented.
Just searching for common ground.
I think an easy end result for much of this, is some serious FISA court reform.
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@Rainman said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
I have not followed this all that closely. After nearly 4 years, it's not only impossible to keep up, but the redundancy is getting boring.
It does seem, though, that Obama had a particular dislike of Flynn. I don't understand why Flynn seemed to be in the crosshairs of so many people, undoubtedly based upon Obama's desire to do more than fire him, but to destroy him personally and financially.
I'm probably wrong, like I said I'm not following the timeframe and sequence of events. Could it be that Flynn as a person, was someone that represented everything Obama abhored and was to be an example?
George has already posted much of this, but a timeline:
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@Jolly said in The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower:
The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower
Gowdy claims that there were unmasking requests on the morning of Trump's inauguration:
Link to video