OPINION | Lawrence David| Admiral Mike Rogers was the Director of the NSA during the lead-up to the 2016 election when the Obama administration’s intelligence community was feverishly trying to use its surveillance powers to undermine the candidacy of Donald Trump.
Adm. Rogers realized that large-scale abuse of the NSA’s database search functions had been taking place. In response he ordered that an audit be conducted to determine the extent of the unauthorized 702 searches (searches of U.S. citizens).
In October 2016 the NSA compliance officer completed the review as to the extent of the FISA(17) violations that included email collection and phone surveillance.
On October 20th, 2016, Admiral Rogers was briefed on the audit results by the compliance officer who found that 85% of all searches between November 2015 and April 2016 had not been in compliance.
“Outside” contractors were running amok using the system for all sorts of unauthroized purposes.
Adm. Rogers ordered all “About Query” activity to be disabled, reported the activity to the DOJ, and on October 26, 2016 went to the FISA court to inform the court of the 702 violations.
Unfortunately, by the time the review was completed, and the 702 process was terminated, the DOJ-NSD had gathered enough information to justify being granted a FISA warrant by the unsuspecting court.
Where do you think the “evidence” that Michael Cohen had met with Russians in Prague originated. A search had returned that a Michael Cohen had been to Prague, just not the Michael Cohen who was the president’s attorney.
According to a search of whitepages.com, there are 18,000 Michael Cohen’s in the United States. You’d think that someone looking for the truth would have verified the president’s Michael Cohen travel itinerary with the State Department.
The fraudulent FISA warrant was granted and served to legitimize the prior FBI surveillance that had been going on since at least July ’16 under FBI Director Comey).
After Adm. Rogers stopped the FISA 702(17) process completely, DNI James Clapper and the heads of Obama’s Pentagon demanded Adm. Rogers be fired. Both Clapper and Obama’s Secretary of Defense Ash Carter realized that Adm. Rogers had become a risk to expose their illicit surveillance operation.
Clapper and Ash’s Concerns were realized. Rogers is a hero.
Ten days after the 2016 election, on November 18, 2016, Adm. Rogers traveled to New York to meet with the newly-elected president in Trump Tower to warn him that all of his transition team’s communications were being monitored.
The next day Trump moved his transition team to his golf course in Bedminster.
Then the Mockingbird media went to work.
(November 19th, USA Today) “Top Obama officials want Rogers removed as NSA chief:”
“The nation’s top defense and intelligence officials have asked President Obama to remove the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, according to news reports.
“Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper each are recommending the dismissal of Rogers, who has led the NSA since 2014.”
It’s only in retrospect, now that we know about the obsession the Obama administration had with spying on anyone it perceived might be a political enemy, that we can fully appreciate the significance/importance of Adm. Mike Rogers’ role in exposing the blatant Fourth Amendment violations committed by the previous administration.
A single man stood between Obama’s fundamental transformation of America into a Marxist police state, and providing a fighting chance for the new president to restore integrity to the republic.
Now that man, Admiral Michael Rogers is willingly cooperating with U.S. attorney John Durham. Obama’s former intelligence directors John Brennan (CIA), James Comey (FBI), James Clapper (DNI), and all of their co-conspirator underlings should be very worried.
