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Donald Trump, the duly elected president, was already in the midst of a Russia collusion hoax accusing him of high treason, which was orchestrated by defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
Trump's political opponents weaponized the false accusation of Russian collusion using Russian disinformation in the Steele dossier. This had led to 2016 Trump campaign surveillance and the undermining of his first presidential term with the ensuing Mueller investigation. It was the consummate act of "election interference."
This 2017 NSC meeting involved a figure that Americans would come to learn more about during the first impeachment imbroglio, based on hearsay that Donald Trump was attempting to procure "dirt" on future president Joe Biden from the Ukrainian president.
His name? The accused "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella.
A 2020 Real Clear Investigations article sets the scene:
Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella - the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous "whistleblower" who touched off Trump's impeachment - was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues."Just days after he was sworn in they were already talking about trying to get rid of him," said a former White House official who overheard their conversation.
Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump's new "America First" foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama's approach to international affairs.
"They weren't just bent on subverting his agenda," the former official added. "They were plotting to actually have him removed from office."
It is important to note here that both Ciaramella and Misko were implicated in the plot to remove Donald Trump in the first impeachment hearing.
Misko left the White House last summer to join House impeachment manager Adam Schiff's committee, where sources say he offered "guidance" to the whistleblower, who has been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws. Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats. [...]"They didn't like his policies," another former White House official said. "They had a political vendetta against him from Day One."
The coordination between the official believed to be the whistleblower and a key Democratic staffer, details of which are disclosed here for the first time, undercuts the narrative that impeachment developed spontaneously out of what Trump's Democratic antagonists call the "patriotism" of an "apolitical civil servant."
Two former co-workers said they overheard Ciaramella and Misko, close friends and Democrats, discussing how to "take out," or remove, the new president from office within days of Trump's inauguration. These co-workers said the president's controversial Ukraine phone call in July 2019 provided the pretext they and their Democratic allies had been looking for.
Furthermore, the documentation that shows how Rep. Adam Schiff's office was contacted by the "whistleblower" was reported as being "Secret."
The investigators say that details about how the whistleblower consulted with Schiff's staff and perhaps misled Atkinson about those interactions are contained in the transcript of a closed-door briefing Atkinson gave to the House Intelligence Committee last October. However, Schiff has sealed the transcript from public view. It is the only impeachment witness transcript out of 18 that he has not released.But a new Judicial Watch lawsuit seeks to uncover the documentation of the NSC meeting
Schiff has classified the document "Secret," preventing Republicans who attended the Atkinson briefing from quoting from it. Even impeachment investigators cannot view it outside a highly secured room, known as a "SCIF," in the basement of the Capitol. Members must first get permission from Schiff, and they are forbidden from bringing phones into the SCIF or from taking notes from the document.
"Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense for reports submitted by a military officer to his superiors regarding an alleged conversation around January 2017 between CIA analysts Eric Ciaramella and Sean Misko about trying to "get rid" of then-President Trump (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:24-cv-00068))," the legal watchdog announced.
Judicial Watch "sued after the Defense Department failed to respond to a January 14, 2022, FOIA request for":
- Any and all reports submitted by a US military officer assigned to the National Security Council to his superiors relating to a conversation he overheard circa January 2017 at an "all-hands" NSC staff meeting between CIA analysts Eric Ciaramella and Sean Misko regarding trying to "get rid" of then-President Trump, as discussed in a January 22, 2020 Real Clear Investigations article available at this link.
- Any and all records relating to any investigations conducted by the Department of Defense and/or its sub-agencies and departments into the alleged conversation between Misko and Ciaramella referenced above, including but not limited to investigative reports and witness statements.
- All emails and communications sent to and from members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the alleged conversation between Misko and Ciaramella and any related investigations.
"After Flynn briefed [the staff] about what 'America First' foreign policy means, Ciaramella turned to Misko and commented, 'We need to take him out,' " the staffer recalled. "And Misko replied, 'Yeah, we need to do everything we can to take out the president.'"
According to the military detailee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "By 'taking him out,' they meant removing him from office by any means necessary. They were triggered by Trump's and Flynn's vision for the world. This was the first 'all hands' [staff meeting] where they got to see Trump's national security team, and they were huffing and puffing throughout the briefing any time Flynn said something they didn't like about 'America First.'"
He said he also overheard Ciaramella telling Misko, in reference to Trump, "We can't let him enact this foreign policy."
The military worker was alarmed by their chat and promptly reported what he had heard to his superiors.
"It was so shocking that they were so blatant and outspoken about their opinion," he recalled. "They weren't shouting it, but they didn't seem to feel the need to hide it."
"The intelligence community targeted Trump for removal for daring to question Biden family corruption and election interference tied to Ukraine and Burisma," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. "The Biden Defense Department's sitting for over a year on a simple FOIA request on the Deep State targeting of Trump is a cover-up plain and simple."
"Judicial Watch previously sued for information about Ciaramella," the report added. "In November 2019 Judicial Watch reported that among those visiting Ciaramella at the White House were several officers in leftist George Soros organizations."
In December 2019, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the DOJ and the CIA over contacts between Ciaramella and former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI Attorney Lisa Page, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and/or the Special Counsel's Office. In both instances, the government declined to provide records, "refusing to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of responsive records" because "confirming or denying the existence or non-existence of responsive records would reveal information protected by the CIA Act, namely the existence or non-existence of an employment relationship between the Agency and Mr. Ciaramella." And, would constitute an "unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."
The NSC staff meeting, as described, would be evidence of high treason against a sitting President of the United States. It would be a true "insurrection" to topple the Commander-in-Chief, and would typically be prosecuted in a court of law, leading to arrest or court martial. The secret documents are thus critical to exposing a reported CIA and NSC plot to remove Donald Trump as President of the United States "by any means possible."
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Kennedy-style.