Why John Brennan hates Donald Trump
The folowing was given to me by former FBI agent John Donovan Sr. It has been edited (graphs and photos have been emitted). I am told the information has nothing classified and I was given permission to re-circulate. For a PDF of the binder Donovan gave me please go to the contact page at: discussionsoftruth
Why does John Brennan hate The Donald so… OR John K. Donovan, Sr. How to Front Run a Counterterrorism Investigation for a Profit DRAFT
Why does John Brennan hate The Donald so?
I
HATE
Donald Trump
Peace be unto him…
OR
How to Front Run
a Counterterrorism Investigation For Profit
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Introduction to John Owen Brennan. Chapter 2 – Brennan’s Career
Chapter 3 – Brennan’s post CIA payouts.
Chapter 4 – The Analysis Corporation
Chapter 5 - The Analysis Corporation Initial Public Offering Chapter 6 – The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Chapter 7 – How to Front-Run Counterterrorism Investigations. Chapter 8 – Anwar Al-Awlaki
Chapter 9 – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Chapter 10 – Anders Breivik
Chapter 11 – Boston Marathon Bombing
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Appendices
Appendix A – White House Visitor Logs
Appendix B – John O. Brennan, Executive Branch Personnel Financial Disclosure Form SF-278 Appendix C – Ethics Waiver for John Brennan re: Post incident review of Abdulmutallab “Underwear” bombing.
Appendix D – XKEYSCORE – NSA TS/SCI PowerPoint Presentation leaked by Edward Snowden; as reported in Guardian Online.
Appendix E – Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents related to Initial Public Offering (IPO) of The Analysis Corporation as it underwent name changes resulting in SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc., NASDAQ symbol GTEC.
Appendix F – FederalPay.Org record related to Teresa Peterson, aka “TP”; Staffer – National Security Counsel, who occasionally scheduled appointments for John O. Brennan. Appendix G – FederalPay.Org records related to Rachel E. Molinaro, aka “REM”, Ethics Advisor, Office of Government Ethics (OGE), who helped John Brennan prepare his onboarding Personnel Financial Disclosure SF-278 in February 2009
(Appendix B).
Appendix H – Media reporting on CIA Officer Ryan C. Fogle, who interfered with the Marathon Bombing Investigation by attempting to recruit a Russian FSB Officer who was knowledgeable about Islamist Terror activities in the Caucasus.
Appendix I - Combined Offices of Inspectors General OIG Post Marathon Bombing review of the Tamerlan Tsarnaev Guardian Assessment. Screen captures from
oig.justice.gov website.
Appendix J – Excerpt from President Obama’s Digest of Other White House Announcements dated December 31, 2013.
Appendix K - Excerpt from President Obama’s Digest of Other White House Announcements dated December 31, 2010
Appendix L - Trial testimony by expert witness Mark Spencer, Computer Forensic Specialist, Who states Al-Awlaki files were downloaded onto Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Samsung Laptop from an online source [a SIGINT marker]
Appendix M - Presentation by John Brennan, President and CEO, The Analysis Corporation, October 18, 2006
Appendix N - Caroline Krency employment history record from federalpay.org. Krency, aka “CK” was a Staffer on the National Security Council (NSC) for John Brennan and frequently scheduled his appointments in the White House Visitor Log.
Appendix O – Anwar Al-Awlaki confirmed as a CIA asset in phone call between CIA Director George Tenet and Yemeni President Saleh; January 2001.
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Chapter 1: Introduction to John Owen Brennan.
THIS is not your typical biography of a public figure.
This book is part biography, part contemporary history, part crime scene investigation, and part criminal indictment. The purpose of this book is for the reader to be awakened to the fact that you, the reader, are a participant in this story, and a victim of the main protagonist. He stole your time, your peace of mind, and your taxes to enrich himself.
The protagonist’s criminal scheme, enacted out over the course of many years, was to identify “useful idiot” terrorists to kill and injure as many of you as necessary to amass as great a fortune as possible for himself and his cronies. As an added bonus for the protagonist and simply out of spite, he helped undermine the most successful, beneficial, and economically uplifting society the world has ever produced – the American Republic. John Owen Brennan not only hates The Donald (President Trump) – he hates you.
Despite all of the above, John Owen Brennan has had a government career “…to die for…”. Brennan travelled the world at taxpayer expense, visiting exotic locales. Brennan participated in, conceived, and directed, the most important foreign intelligence operations in the last 100 years. Brennan rubbed elbows with and influenced the most powerful leaders in the world – from advising the King of Saudi Arabia to conducting Daily Intelligence Briefings for President Bill Clinton.1 Brennan served as the Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),2 was Chief of Staff to CIA Director George Tenet on September 11th, 2001,3 was the founding Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC),4served as the National Security Advisor to President Obama for Counterterrorism (NSA/CT), and completed his storied career with a term as Director of the CIA.5
So… why does John Brennan hate The Donald so?
Perhaps John Brennan’s animosity to The Donald is due to something that happened in his childhood?
John Owen Brennan was born September 22, 1955 to Owen and Dorothy Brennan.6 His father, Owen Brennan, was a Blacksmith who immigrated to the United States from the Republic of Ireland in 1948.7 According to her obituary, Brennan’s mother, Dorothy Brennan (nee Dunn),
1https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
2https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
3Ibid.
4Ibid.
5“An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 6John Brennan, son of Irish immigrants, now Obama's top gun; by Niall O'Dowd, IrishCentral.com; John Brennan, son of Irish immigrants, now Obama's top gun | IrishCentral.com; retrieved 9/17/2023.
7 Schwartz, Mattathias (June 27, 2018). "A Spymaster Steps Out of the Shadows". The New York Times Magazine.
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was a Merchant Marine shipping company employee and an ardent volunteer during the Second World War.8
Owen and Dorothy Brennan raised their three children in North Bergen, NJ – then a peaceful suburb across the Hudson River from New York City. Young John Brennan attended Immaculate Heart of Mary, a Catholic elementary school in West New York, NJ.9 Brennan’s birthdate places him squarely in the “Baby Boom” generation and his age indicates he spent the years 1962 through 1970 as a student at Immaculate Heart of Mary school.
As a “Boomer” himself, the author can attest to some of the childhood influences Brennan may have experienced during his formative years. Nearly all the children in Brennan’s classes would have been children of parents where the father was a World War II veteran and the mom worked in some way supporting the war effort - a “Rosie the Riveter-type.” Brennan’s mother was reportedly heavily involved in helping the Allies win the war by working for a company that sent ships in convoy across the German submarine infested Atlantic Ocean.10
The Battle of the Atlantic, which Brennan’s mother participated in by helping to send thousands of ships across the Atlantic Ocean, lasted from September 3, 1939, to May 8, 1945. For five long years, Brennan’s mother Dorothy participated in sending thousands of persons, many who were no doubt personal friends, into a combat zone where 3,500 Allied merchant ships were
8 DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com); DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com)
9Jackson, Herb (December 5, 2009). "North Bergen man is homeland security assistant for President Obama". The Bergen Record 10 DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com); DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com)
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sunk and 72,000 sailors lost their lives (9,521 American).11 Brennan’s mother Dorothy must have been affected by such prolonged exposure to suffering and loss; and she no doubt expressed those effects subconsciously into the rearing of her three children – including John.12
A Baby Boomer himself, the author experienced how the defining events of his parent’s lives (World War II) impacted his own childhood. There was no escaping the fact all the young families in his middle-class neighborhood had one or more parents who were intimately involved in serving during World War II, like Brennan’s mother. Brennan’s birth date indicates he attended elementary school from about 1962 to 1970. Brennan’s peers were kids from young families, with multiple children (the baby boom), who typically owned a single television set. In the 1960s most families gathered around this single TV set in the living room to watch the evening news and after dinner shows.
11 Battle of the Atlantic (navy.mil); https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and operations/world-war-ii/1942/atlantic.html.
12 DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com); DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com)
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The most popular TV shows from 1962 to 1970 were “COMBAT” (1962-1967) – which depicted the unrelentingly dangerous life of army infantrymen during the war, “TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH” (1964-1967) – which depicted the unrelentingly dangerous life of American bomber crews during the war, and “Victory at Sea” – a 1950s documentary series, re-run frequently in the 1960s, that depicted the unrelentingly dangerous life of sailors and merchant men during the war. Hollywood even provided some comic relief about life during the war for the 1960s viewing audience. One feature film was titled “What Did You Do During the War Daddy?” (1966). On TV the comedy series “HOGAN’S HEROES” (1965-1971) and “McHALE’S NAVY” (1962-1966) were equally popular and would have been watched by John Brennan and his peers. One can count on the fact that Brennan’s classmates spent some of their day in the playground discussing “what-did-your-father-do-during-the-war?”.
Brennan’s mother Dorothy was justly proud of her service during the war.13 John Brennan’s father Owen had a different story. Owen Brennan was a blacksmith who emigrated from the Republic of Ireland to the United States in 1948.14 The Republic of Ireland was neutral during World War II. Ireland arrested and interred any combatant (U.S., British, German) who entered their territory during the war. Owen Brennan did not serve the great cause of Defending Democracy like the other fathers at the school.
Owen Brennan did not arrive in America until after the war was won. Owen Brennan probably felt blessed he didn’t have to fight for the enemy of Ireland - England. Owen may even have communicated to his children how stupid it was for America to fight to save England. Given the centuries of oppression the Irish suffered at the hands of the English this sentiment is very understandable. But it was contrary to the prevailing narrative among American children at the time.
Children can be proud and very cruel. During his formative years, when the Immaculate Heart of Mary students talked about what they saw on TV the night before, or held the schoolyard what-did-your-dad-do-during-the-war talks, John Brennan couldn’t participate. Brennan could not thump his chest with pride at his father’s wartime accomplishments – however imaginary the accomplishments of his peers’ fathers were. Avoiding the topic and avoiding cruel comments by his classmates, who puffed themselves up by putting others down, may have caused John Brennan to develop a bit of shame about his father’s non-participation in the great crusade – World War II. Perhaps some misplaced shame about his ‘Da’ is why John Brennan hates The Donald?
Following graduation from Immaculate Heart of Mary School, Brennan attended St. Joseph of the Palisades High School in West New York, NJ from 1970 to 197315- the absolute height of the Vietnam War. St. Joseph of the Palisades was a small catholic high school with only a few
13 DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com); DOROTHY BRENNAN Obituary (2017) - Hoboken, NJ - The Jersey Journal (legacy.com)
14 John Brennan, son of Irish immigrants, now Obama's top gun; by Niall O'Dowd, IrishCentral.com; John Brennan, son of Irish immigrants, now Obama's top gun | IrishCentral.com; retrieved 9/17/2023.
15 Jackson, Herb (December 5, 2009). "North Bergen man is homeland security assistant for President Obama". The Bergen Record.
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hundred students.16 There are important benefits to attending a small school where each student can receive appropriate attention from his instructors. Brennan’s high school years also coincided with the most turbulent years of the Vietnam war. The years of the greatest loss of American lives in this ultimately futile military adventure. His high school years also saw the greatest popular resistance to the military Draft which was sending Brennan’s peers to fight and die in a faraway land.
The prospect of finishing high school and being sent to fight in Vietnam must have affected Brennan, as it did every other male teenager in America. If nothing else the “teenage wasteland” of the Vietnam War, in the words of a popular anti-war tune, must have influenced our hero’s psyche. Perhaps the growing opposition to the Vietnam War affirmed for the first time the benefits of his father’s non-participation in World War II. It must have been a great relief for Brennan when the military draft ended the same year he graduated high school. Without the draft Brennan would not need to apply for a college deferment as others of his generation had.
Following high school Brennan attended Fordham University in New York City. After his freshman year at Fordham Brennan spent the summer of 1974 in Indonesia staying at the home of a cousin who worked for USAID.17 USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, an adjunct office of the U.S. Department of State, is a well-known CIA front organization. Coincidentally, USAID also employed President Barak Hussein Obama’s mother in Indonesia18 for a time […small world, huh?]. Bob Keane, a classmate [of John Brennan’s] from fourth grade at Immaculate Heart of Mary School through Keane’s second year at Fordham, expressed the possibility that Brennan was recruited by the CIA as early as his visit to Indonesia in 1974.19
Two-years later in 1976, Brennan spent his Junior Year Abroad, studying Arabic at American University in Cairo, Egypt.20 Brennan became a fluent Arabic speaker because of his time in Cairo. Brennan graduated from Fordham University in 1977 with a B.A. in Political Science.21 Brennan’s graduate school studies indicate a continued interest in foreign affairs. John Brennan completed his education at the University of Texas – Austin in 1980 with a Master of Art degree in Government, with a concentration in Middle East Studies.22
I believe the reader needs to recall the situation in the United States in the post-Vietnam War years when Brennen was in college. As those readers of a certain age will recall, from 1973 to 1974, the Saudi Arabia-lead Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), conducted
16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Joseph_of_the_Palisades_High_School; retrieved 9/17/2023
17 Ibid.
18https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham#:~:text=Stanley%20Ann%20Dunham%28November%2029%2C%20 1942%C2%A0%E2%80%93%20November%207%2C%201995%29,Obama%2C%20the%2044th%20president%2 0of%20the%20United%20States; retrieved 9/23/2023. “…To address the problem of poverty in rural villages, [Stanley Ann Dunham] created microcredit programs while working as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development…” (USAID).
19 Ibid.
20 Jackson, Herb (December 5, 2009). "North Bergen man is homeland security assistant for President Obama". The Bergen Record.
21 Jackson, Herb (December 5, 2009). "North Bergen man is homeland security assistant for President Obama". The Bergen Record. 22 Ibid.
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an oil embargo against the United States. The oil embargo caused the price of oil to skyrocket over 300 percent.23 The OPEC Oil Embargo of October 1973 was begun to punish the United States for supporting Israel during Egypt and Syria’s surprise attack on Israel in the Yom Kippur War.24
Egypt and Syria lost the Yom Kippur War, with great loss of life and material, as a direct result of United States’ support for Israel. US support saw the transfer of thousands of US armored vehicles from NATO bases in Europe to Israel. US tanks from bases in Germany were flown by transport aircraft to Israel fully armed and fueled. Israeli soldiers would board the tanks on the runway and drive them directly into battle against overwhelming Egyptian forces. This emergency resupply by the US is the only reason Israel won the Yom Kippur War – and Egypt’s allies vowed to punish the US.
The oil embargoes’ massive increase in oil prices caused the United States to initiate rationing of gasoline for the first time since World War II and enforce significant reductions in the speed limit.25 Gasoline rationing affected every person in America. Every driver in America had to wait on blocks-long-lines every other day for months on end. John Brennan was a freshman at Fordham University at this time and no doubt was personally affected by the oil embargo – as were all Americans. What newly licensed car driver was not? If nothing else, Brennan would have observed firsthand how political action in one country effects the life of a person in another. And it was after this embargo by supporters of Egypt’s surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur that Brennen spent a year abroad in the country that started the war – Egypt.
Brennan spent the years 1978 to 1980 in Austin, Texas at the University of Texas. At UT Brennan obtained his master’s in government with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies. For context, one must recall the Cold War situation between the United States and communist Russia (the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – USSR), when our hero was a student at University of Texas - Austin. It was the Soviets who armed both Egypt and Syria for the Yom Kippur War with Israel. It was Soviet weaponry which was defeated by US weaponry in the war. The Cold War began soon after World War II and consisted of various confrontations between the U.S. and the USSR. Some of the confrontations we won (Berlin Airlift 1948-1949) or ended in a draw (Korean War 1950-1953), but the USSR and the communist movement generally won (East European dominance 1949, China 1949, Cuba 1959, Vietnam 1975). The United States involvement in Afghanistan, beginning in 1980, was when Brennan decided to join the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
23 Arab oil embargo | History, Cause, Impact, & Definition | Britannica
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
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Chapter 2: Brennan’s career.
The USSR invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 while Jimmy Carter was President. President Carter boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 to punish the Soviet Union – preventing thousands of young American athletes from competing. President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski conceived of a plan to punish the Soviet Union for invading Afghanistan – the US would train and arm “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan. The US training of Afghan freedom fighters became the CIA’s new OPERATION CYCLONE.26 It was in this cultural and political milieu of economic repression by foreign governments (OPEC embargo) and invasion of Afghanistan by a generally successful Soviet Union when John Brennen decided to join the CIA.
Carter’s replacement, President Ronald Reagan, was staunchly opposed to communism. The hallmark of Reagan’s two-term administration (1981 – 1989) was a series of efforts to defeat the Soviet Union once and for all. Most notably among President Reagan’s efforts were a significant build-up of the US military and the massive expansion of the covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.27 As noted above, the covert war in Afghanistan was managed by the CIA under the codename OPERATION CYCLONE.28
During OPERATION CYCLONE hundreds of millions of dollars for training and weapons were provided to anti-Soviet fighters recruited from all over the Muslim world - the Mujahedeen.29 The Mujahedeen were primarily trained in Pakistan by US and allied country intelligence agencies (like Britain’s MI-6) and then sent into Afghanistan with CIA supplied weapons. One can easily imagine how large an operation existed in Pakistan to support OPERATION CYCLONE when one remembers that literally tens of thousands of civilian volunteers from scores of Muslim nations had to be trained to be effective soldiers, armed, and then inserted into Afghanistan from Pakistan over a 10-year period. The total number of Mujahedeen trained under CIA funding totaled in the hundreds of thousands.
One such mujahedeen who was recruited, trained, and armed by the CIA was a Saudi national named Osama bin Laden.30 Bin Laden was attending university in 1979 when he was recruited by the CIA to support the massive OPERATION CYCLONE in Pakistan.31 After participating in OPERATION CYCLONE from 1980 to 1988, bin Laden founded Al-Qaeda in 1988.32 It was bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda which launched numerous terror attacks against the United States that led to US forces fighting in Afghanistan for over 20-years, from 2001 to 2022. Coincidentally,
26 Operation Cyclone - Wikipedia; Tobin, Conor (April 2020). "The Myth of the "Afghan Trap": Zbigniew Brzezinski and Afghanistan, 1978–1979". Diplomatic History. Oxford University Press. 27 Soviet–Afghan War - Wikipedia
28 Operation Cyclone - Wikipedia; Coll, Steve (2004). Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Penguin Group. pp. 46, 593. ISBN 9781594200076. cf. Brzezinski, Zbigniew (26 December 1979). "Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan" (PDF).
29 Operation Cyclone - Wikipedia;
30 Osama bin Laden - Wikipedia; Scheuer, Michael (7 February 2008). "Yemen still close to al-Qaeda 's heart". Asia Times Online. Archived from the original on 2 July 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
31 Osama bin Laden - Wikipedia; Fisk, Robert (2005). The Great War for Civilisation. p. 4.
32 Osama bin Laden - Wikipedia; United States v. Usama bin Laden et al., S (7) 98 Cr. 1023, Testimony of Jamal Ahmed Mohamed al-Fadl (SDNY 6 February 2001).
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Brennan ended his tenure as CIA Director just 5-years prior to the ending of US military operations in Afghanistan. Brennan’s entire career in the CIA was paid for by one or more wars the U.S. either supported or fought in. Was it because Donald Trump didn’t start any new wars while he was president that makes John Brennan hate him so?
According to his White House biography, “…Brennan began his career as an intelligence officer in 1980 with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations as a Career Trainee…”. The same biography also reports that Brennan joined the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence in 1981.33 The Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is generally known to be the branch of the agency that employs Intelligence Analysts (IA) as opposed to the Directorate of Operations (DO) which employs operational Intelligence Officers (IO) – spies. However, the intelligence game is famous for using misdirection to confuse their opposition. Brennan might possibly have been a DO officer (a spy) undercover as a DI analyst, masquerading as a State Department employee, to confuse any opposing counterintelligence agency.
Think about it, when Brennan was assigned overseas as a DI “analyst”, the local counterintelligence (CI) forces would perceive him as less of a ‘threat’ to their country because he was just an analyst. As a lesser threat, the local CI forces would focus less resources on determining what Brennan was actually doing in their country. By encouraging the local counterintelligence service to focus their investigative efforts on someone other than Brennan, Brennan would have greater freedom of operation in the field. This may possibly be what happened during Brennan’s first overseas assignment in Saudi Arabia, but we will never know until his CIA records are opened.
Brennan reportedly joined the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Directorate of Intelligence (CIA/DI) as a lowly Intelligence Analyst during the height of the Cold War in 198034 or 1981.35 After a year or so at CIAHQ, Brennan served under Diplomatic Cover in the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 1982-1984.36 For the un-initiated in Spy tradecraft, Diplomatic Cover is where an Intelligence Officer, or Analyst, is listed as a U.S. State Department (USDS) employee with a State Department day job for the public (and the host-country counterintelligence service) to see, when he is in fact working for the CIA. Diplomatic Cover also provides diplomatic immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed by the CIA employee during the overseas posting.
As noted above, within two years of joining the CIA Brennan was assigned to the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia under State Department cover as a Political Officer in 1982.37 Brennan’s White House biography mischaracterized the US offices in Jeddah as the US Embassy.38 There is only one US Embassy per nation and the US Embassy is in Riyadh, S.A.,
33 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
34 https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/04/12/1469347/0/en/Former-CIA-Director-John-O-BRENNAN -Joins-SecureAuth-Core Security-Advisory-Board-to-Fortify-Gaps-in-Cybersecurity-Battle-Lines.html
35 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
36 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
37 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
38 Ibid. “…After joining the Directorate of Intelligence in 1981, he served with the Department of State as a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 1982 to 1984…”
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not Jeddah. This misrepresentation of the truth in Brennan’s White House biography is just one example of a pattern of lying in official documents that is a common theme of John Brennan’s government service. Lying liars lie.
Lying in a White House biography is not a crime, but lying to Congress under oath is. The most famous example of Brennan’s pattern of False Official Statements (violations of 18 U.S. Code Section 1001) was his denial as Director CIA that the CIA illegally spied on U.S. Senate investigators. The Senate investigators were looking into CIA torture of prisoners during the Global War on Terror.39 More substantive examples of Brennan’s pattern of False Official Statements will be described in greater detail later in our narrative. To bring our focus back on his career timeline we note Brennan completed his undercover assignment at U.S. Consulate Jeddah in 1984.40
The reader’s attention is directed to the fact the early 1980s, when our hero joined the CIA, were the beginning of the Reagan Administration. The main adversary of U.S. Foreign Policy during this time was the Soviet Union. President Reagan focused his Administration’s foreign policy on defeating the Soviet Union. President Reagan saw the best opportunity to seriously weaken the Soviet system was via the CIA’s clandestine war in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion.
The Soviets, a communist regime, who were trying to impose their atheistic, materialistic philosophy on a staunchly Muslim population. Beyond the religious aspect of Afghani resistance to the Soviet invasion, the people of Afghanistan pride themselves on defeating every single invader since Alexander the Great, 300-years before the birth of Christ, and 900-years before the founding of Islam. Afghani anti-invader sentiment did not begin with the Soviet invasion – it is a point of cultural pride. The Soviets ignored this defining trait of the Afghan people in 1979 and U.S. leaders ignored this defining Afghani trait from 2002 to 2022.
The CIA clandestine war in Afghanistan, OPERATON CYCLONE, began under the Administration of President James Carter in July 1979; six months prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan itself. The Carter Administration’s initial support of Afghani anti-communist sentiment was in response to the takeover of the Afghani government by a domestic communist regime in 1978. The 1978 regime’s violent oppression of religious opponents of the regime’s changes to Afghani society caused violent unrest to grow throughout the country.
As the new communist government’s oppression accelerated, causing even more popular opposition to communist reforms, more moderate members of the communist government revolted and assassinated their overzealous leader. The replacement dictator was unable to gain effective control over the restive Afghani population (which had begun receiving some limited funding from the CIA by this time). The Soviet Union sent in their own troops to secure complete communist control in December 1979. It was against this backdrop that John Brennan joined the Central Intelligence Agency.
39 Associated Press, “CIA Director Reverses Himself on Senate Spying.”, by Kenneth Dilanianap, Intelligence Writer, August 1, 2014, https://apnews.com/article/5ef40f60ff034239b192f9753ffef212; retrieved 9/23/2023 40 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
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The Carter Administration’s initial contribution to the Pakistan-backed Mujahadeen fighting the Soviet-backed Afghan national government was a modest $695,000 in aid.41 Following the Soviet invasion in December 1979 however, U.S. clandestine aid to the Mujahadeen increased over 4,000-percent in 1980 to $30 million. The amount of aid rose significantly each year thereafter; eventually reaching $630 million per year in 1987.42 43 44 A yearly breakdown of how the clandestine spending increased over those seven years might appear is shown below; with Brennan’s known CIA assignments noted in brackets:
1980 $30 million [Brennan newly hired as a Career Trainee] 1981 $100 million [Assigned to Directorate of Intelligence] 1982 $200 million [Undercover at US Consulate Jeddah] 1983 $300 million [Undercover at US Consulate Jeddah] 1984 $400 million [Undercover at US Consulate Jeddah] 1985 $450 million [Assigned to NE/SA Division at CIAHQ] 1986 $550 million [Assigned to NE/SA Division at CIAHQ] 1987 $630 million [Assigned to NE/SA Division at CIAHQ] 1988 [$600 million-plus] [Assigned to NE/SA Division at CIAHQ] 1989 Soviet Union leaves Afghanistan [Assigned to NE/SA Division at CIAHQ]
Each year showed a dramatic increase in funding for OPERATION CYCLONE. And John Brennan spent his first 10-years in the CIA swimming in this clandestine-funding filled pool. As the old saying goes, “money talks, b***$**t walks.” The effects of such dramatic annual funding increases must have impressed Brennan.
Brennan returned to CIA headquarters in 1984 where he was assigned to the DI’s Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis (NE/SA) Division for the next 5-years (1984-1989) in a variety of analytical assignments.45 The NE/SA Division was directly involved in running the CIA’s proxy war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is located in the NE/SA Division’s geographic area of responsibility. Brennan remained in the NE/SA Division until 198946 when the Soviet Union completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan. One can assume that Brennan was justly proud of having participated in helping defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Many commentators believe that the Soviet loss in Afghanistan eventually lead to the complete collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 and the end of the Cold War itself in 1991.
41 Tobin, Conor (April 2020). "The Myth of the "Afghan Trap": Zbigniew Brzezinski and Afghanistan, 1978–1979". Diplomatic History. Oxford University Press.
42 Bergen, Peter, Holy War Inc. Free Press, (2001), p. 68
43 Riedel, Bruce (2014). What We Won: America's Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979–1989. Brookings Institution Press. pp. ix–xi, 21–22, 93, 98–99, 105. ISBN 978-0815725954.
44 Coll, Steve (2004). Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Penguin Group. pp. 46, 593. ISBN 9781594200076. cf. Brzezinski, Zbigniew (26 December 1979). "Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan"
45 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
46 Ibid.
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Significantly, it is documented that during Brennan’s last two years of his first assignment in NE/SA Division a large number of Arab, non-Afghani, Mujahadeen fighters were issued illegal visas by the US Consulate in Jeddah (where Brennan previously served undercover) to enter the US for military training.47 Author, and former State Department employee, J. Michael Springmann was the Chief of the Visa Section, US Consulate Jeddah, from 1987 to 1989.48 Springmann claimed he supervised the issuance of illegal visas to a huge number of people he described as “Islamic mercenaries.”
Springmann wrote about his experiences in his book, Visas for Al-Qaeda .49 Springmann reported the visas were issued to facilitate CIA training of these Islamic mercenaries at CIA locations in the United States.50 Brennan, as an intelligence analyst in the NE/SA Division from 1984 through 1989 (concurrent with Springmann’s tenure in Jeddah), must have been fully aware of the large numbers of Arab Mujahadeen, also known as “Islamic Mercenaries”51 who passed into the U.S. for secret training by the CIA. Afterall, analysts must “analyze” something and the movement of vast numbers of violent, Islamic mercenaries being trained by the CIA to conduct military operations in NE/SA Division’s area of responsibility would produce a great deal of data to analyze.
During Springmann’s 1987-1989 term at the US Consulate Jeddah, “…[he] was required as chief visa officer in Saudi Arabia to issue what [he] regarded as illegal visas to large numbers of U.S.-backed Islamic fundamentalists transiting through Jeddah from multiple Islamic nations so they could visit the United States for secret purposes…” Those purposes, Springmann later concluded, involved covert training at such locales as "The Farm," a CIA training facility in Williamsburg, Virginia. The trainees, [Springmann] alleges, “…were vagabond Islamic mercenaries, revolutionists and jihadists — an "Arab-Afghan Legion" — who could be unleashed on America’s enemies…”52
Issuing a large number of visas for an “Arab-Afghan Legion” of jihadists, must have presented a managerial challenge for the CIA’s NE/SA Division. No bureaucrat at the NE/SA Division would want a few score, newly trained “Islamic mercenaries” going off the reservation and setting up shop in some American inner-city neighborhood. After all, terrorizing the taxpaying public who is picking up the tab for your clandestine war was not considered a viable business model… yet. To prevent personnel problems the NE/SA Division would need to monitor and track these “Islamic mercenaries” to ensure they left the U.S. when their training was through.
47 https://www.justice-integrity.org/798-shocking-new-book-links-illicit-u-s-visas-to-terrorists current-wars; J. Michael Springmann, Visas for Al-Qaeda …CIA Handouts that Rocked the World – An Insider’s View.
48 J. Michael Springmann, www.michaelspringmann.com , Visas for Al-Qaeda : CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider's View;
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 J. Michael Springmann, www.michaelspringmann.com , Visas for Al-Qaeda : CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider's View;
52 Andrew Kreig, Justice Integrity Project, https://www.justice-integrity.org/798-shocking-new-book-links-illicit-u-s-visas-to-terrorists-current wars
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As the reader may recall, the mid-1980s was the infancy of the computer age. Microsoft Corporation only released the first version of its Excell relational database in 1985.53 Databases for tracking various types of inventories were all the rage in organizations large and small. A tracking database would be just the thing to monitor the “inventory” of which CIA-approved “Islamic mercenaries”, oops, I meant to say, “Mujahadeen freedom fighters” had entered the U.S. for training, and which had departed. If only there were a government contractor who would invent the needed database…
With the withdrawal of Soviet forces in late 1989, the Mujahadeen were no longer needed in Afghanistan. Suddenly, tens of thousands of Islamic mercenaries from countries outside Afghanistan became unemployed in Afghanistan. Releasing masses of well-armed mercenaries from the only job they knew, hundreds of miles from their homes, is a recipe for disaster. Where will they go? What will they do with their training and weapons, but no enemy to fight? Someone needed to keep an eye on these Islamic mercenaries because they might cause big problems.
In 1990, some enterprising persons claiming to work for the State Department formed a new company – The Analysis Corporation (TAC). This new company would build and maintain just the sort of database the US Government needed to track the tens of thousands of newly unemployed Islamic mercenaries. The classified nature of the database TAC assembled, bearing the CIA codename TIPOFF,54 precluded public knowledge of the existence of TAC initially. TAC began its life as a classified contractor to the CIA and Department of State.
How fortuitous that just as the “Islamic mercenaries” lost their ‘raison d’etre’ with the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, a new, classified, government contractor provided the new TIPOFF database to track them. And just as fortuitously, Brennan transferred from the NE/SA Division to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) in 1990 – the very year the TIPOFF database went online.55 In a third instance of “fortuitousness” Brennan was promoted to be the head of terrorism analysis in the CTC where they were tracking all these new, freelance Islamic mercenaries using TAC’s TIPOFF database.56
On its face, Brennan’s move to be the head of terrorism analysis in the Counterterrorism Center (CTC) was logical. After all, Brennan had accumulated 5-years’ experience in tracking the comings and goings of “Islamic mercenaries” as an intelligence analyst in the NE/SA Division. Who better than Brennan would know the great benefits of using The Analysis Corporation’s TIPOFF database. As his White House biography notes Brennan was “…was in charge of terrorism analysis in the DCI's Counterterrorist Center between 1990 and 1992, including during Desert Shield and Desert Storm…”57 As the head of terrorism analysis Brennan could
53 Microsoft Excel | Description & History | Britannica; https://www.britannica.com/technology/Microsoft-Excel 54 “[TAC] said it “designed and maintained” the State Department’s TIPOFF list, an early version of the [terrorist watch] list…”; https://engineeringevil.com/2013/02/10/intel-firm-paid-cia-nominee-well-as-he-left-for white-house/
55 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
56 Ibid.
57 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
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show his new playmates at the Counterterrorism Center (CTC) just how indispensable TIPOFF was for tracking “Islamic mercenaries” as they branched out into new terror activities worldwide.
There is an additional point of context I would like the reader to grasp: The Soviets’ ultimately failed invasion of Afghanistan, with their evacuation in 1989, lead directly to the collapse of the entire USSR in 1990 and its dissolution in 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union basically ended the Cold War. The United States’ only near peer enemy was completely defeated – just as we completely defeated Japan in World War II. The former Soviet Union, the successor to the Russian Empire, dissolved into 13 new countries with Russia as the largest. When America breaks an enemy America breaks her for good!
The defeat of the Soviet Union, just as with the defeat of Japan, meant that the enormous military build-up during those respective wars [Cold War & WW II] was no longer needed. The entire infrastructure of the US Military and US Intelligence had lost their ‘raison d’etre’ [reason for being] at just the same time the Mujahadeen had lost theirs. President George H. W. Bush (1990-1994) famously described the end of the Cold War as a chance to recoup a “peace dividend” for the economy of the United States.58
The CIA had also lost its number one adversary when the USSR dissolved. When the Soviet Union fell the CIA lost their claim to billions of dollars of government funding. To justify its continued operation, the CIA had to find another reason to exist – another boogey-man. The
CIA was begun because of the initial US intelligence failure that allowed the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor forced America to enter the Second World War which cost the lives of over 350,000 American servicemen. The American people didn’t want another surprise attack to drag us into a war of annihilation.
To ensure the U.S. never suffered another Pearl Harbor-type sneak attack, Congress passed the National Defense Act of 1947 – authorizing the CIA.59 The CIA was founded to analyze intelligence gathered around the world, in a central location, to prevent America from being surprised again. Without an enemy [the USSR] who could launch a sneak attack on the United States the American people might begin to question why the Central Intelligence Agency should continue to exist? No enemy meant no job for the CIA! In 1991, when Brennan was head of terrorism analysis, the CIA needed a new boogey-man. Maybe the development of a new terrorism boogey-man, uh…I mean existential threat is related to why John Brennan hates The Donald so?
At the very time the continued existence of the CIA as an entity was beginning to be debated (1990), Brennan was assigned to be the head of terrorism analysis of the Counterterrorism Center (CTC) [1990 to 1992].60 As noted earlier, Brennan’s term as head of terrorism analysis in the CTC coincides exactly with CTC’s increased reliance on the services of The Analysis
58 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_dividend; retrieved 9/20/2023
59 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Central_Intelligence_Agency; retrieved 9/20/2023 60 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
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Corporation (TAC). “...TAC has been working on projects in the counterterrorism and national security realm by supporting national watchlisting activities as well as other counterterrorism requirements.61“ “…[TAC] said it “designed and maintained” the State Department’s TIPOFF list, an early version of the [terrorist watch] list…”62 Designing and maintaining a database is how one establishes ownership of that database even if the data in the database is owned by the government. Owning the database makes the owner of the database very valuable to the people who need the contents of said database; you become indispensable.
Ownership of the TIPOFF database made The Analysis Corporation indispensable to U.S. efforts to monitor and track individual terrorists as they moved around the world. There is no debate that Brennan, by virtue of his assignment as the head of terrorism analysis in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC), must have been fully aware of the indispensable value of the company that provided this important database to the CIA – The Analysis Corporation (TAC).
TAC further increased its value to U.S. Intelligence during Brennan’s leadership of CIA terrorism analysis by developing proprietary software programs, such as FUZZY FINDER. FUZZY FINDER “...has been continuously operational within the government [since 1990] and has been a very effective tool for finding the names of suspected or known terrorists in various databases...”63 FUZZY FINDER was an extremely significant tool in tracking terrorists’ movements around the world. More detail on the indispensable nature of The Analysis Corporation and its FUZZY FINDER software is provided in “The Analysis Corporation” chapter below.
Brennan’s time in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center also coincided with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the resultant Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm.64 As the reader will recall, Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm was the war by U.S. and Coalition forces
which expelled Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait in 1991. The U.S. effort employed approximately 500,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in America’s largest single military operation since World War II. The startling success of the 100-hour operation against the fourth largest army in the world showed the complete dominance of the U.S. Air/Land military doctrine. The complete success of US Arms against the forces of Iraq proved to the world America had no reason to fear any nation-state adversary… but what about a non state terror organization?
An unintended consequence of Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm was the development of a new terrorist organization, Al-Qaeda. Operation Desert Shield infuriated Islamic fundamentalists because the Saudi administered Holy-Land-of-the-Two-Mosques, was used to base non-believer soldiers from America. The success of Operation Desert Storm also increased the reliance of Saudi Aradia on America for its defense and economic development. One such
61 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analysis_Corporation; copied on 6/15/2019
62 https://engineeringevil.com/2013/02/10/intel-firm-paid-cia-nominee-well-as-he-left-for-white-house/ 63 https://www.chron.com/news/article/PRN-The-Analysis-Corporation-and-Infoglide-1859462.php 64 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
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Islamic fundamentalist, Osama bin Laden, used the basing of American troops in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm as an excuse to wage Jihad against the United States.65 As the reader is aware, Osama bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi family and an 8-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine war in Afghanistan, founded Al-Qaeda when the Soviets left Afghanistan. The fortuitous development of this new, non-state, terror threat to the United States, oddly enough by a former client of the CIA (bin Laden), occurred while John Brennan was assigned as the head of terrorism analysis in the Counterterrorism Center at CIAHQ. It is anyone’s guess if the fortuitousness of the development of this new international threat to the United States, which needed to be monitored by the CIA, is why John Brennan hates The Donald so.
Shortly after Brennan moved from his CTC position he moved back to NE/SA Division in a management position in 1992,66 bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda launched its first attack in December 1992 against U.S. personnel with the bombing of the Gold Mohur Hotel in Aden, Yemen.67
Brennan’s management tour with NE/SA Division coincided with increasingly violent Islamic terrorism worldwide – “coincidentally” in the NE/SA Division’s area of responsibility. An Al Qaeda-linked terror cell even attempted to knock down New York City’s World Trade Center
with a car bomb just two months later in February 1993.68 In Israel, a Jewish settler murdered 39 and wounded 125 Muslims at the Tomb of the Patriarch in February 1994. Hezbollah retaliated for this attack five months later by bombing a Jewish community center in Argentina in July; killing 85 and wounding hundreds more. Amidst all this turmoil, Brennan completed his management tour in NE/SA Division.69
For the next two years (1994 & 1995), BRENNAN was assigned as the CIA’s Daily Intelligence Briefer to then President Bill Clinton.70 The Daily Intelligence Briefer presents the contents of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) to the most exclusive audience in the world – the President of the United States of America.71 72 The PDB contains the highest level of intelligence on the president’s key national security issues and concerns. The PDB is the primary vehicle for summarizing day-to-day sensitive intelligence and analysis, as well as late breaking reports, for the White House.73 He-who-controls-what-the-audience-thinks-about controls-what-the-audience-members-think.
The number of significant terrorist incidents increased greatly from 1994 (5 incidents) to 1995 (17 incidents) while Brennan held the position of Daily Intelligence Briefer to President
65 https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/osama-bin-laden
66 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
67 Director National Intelligence Terrorist Incident Timeline, Historic Timeline | National Counterterrorism Center (dni.gov), https://www.dni.gov/nctc/timeline.html#1990.
68 Ibid.
69 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
70 Ibid.
71 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
72 “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 73 President's Daily Brief | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov), https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/presidents-daily brief
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Clinton.74 An increased number of terrorist incidents is bad for society; conversely it meant John Brennan would have increased facetime with the sitting President of the United States. “He who-controls-what-the-President-thinks-about-controls-what-the-President-thinks.” Brennan’s increased facetime with the President would enable Brennan to emphasize the importance of the CIA’s continued existence at the very time President Clinton was considering how to spend the “Peace Dividend” from the end of the Cold War. More facetime, more influence. More influence means more money for the Briefer’s agency – the CIA. What is bad for you and me is not necessarily bad for those who, like Brennan, influence the levers of power…
Following the completion of his stint as the Daily Intelligence Briefer to President Clinton in 1995 Brennan was invited to become the Executive Assistant (EA) to then Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (D/DCI) George Tenet.75 Coincidentally, during Brennan’s Executive Assistant tour with Tenet a new intelligence center was established at CIAHQ – the Bin Laden Issue Station, codenamed ALEC Station.76 ALEC Station's mission was "…to track [bin Laden], collect
intelligence on him, run operations against him, disrupt his finances, and warn policymakers about his activities and intentions…".77 ALEC Station certainly treated bin Laden as America’s next existential threat boogey-man – just in time to save the CIA’s budget… how… fortuitous.
As the Executive Assistant to D/DCI Tenet, it is very likely that Brennan had a hand in setting up the initial operation of ALEC Station; especially given Brennan’s experience with the Clandestine War in Afghanistan, his tour as head of terrorism analysis in the CTC, and his management experience in the NE/SA Division. After all, even a Counterterrorism Center with Brennan as head of terrorism analysis couldn’t possibly have missed bin Laden’s Fatwa’s declaring Jihad (holy war) against the United States.
Brennan’s tour as EA to D/DCI Tenet was relatively short at only about one-year’s length and ended in 1996.78 One can assume that Brennan and George Tenet got to know each other well with Brennan working directly with Tenet each day. This close association between the two apparently left a favorable impression on Tenet who assumed duties as the Director CIA in December 1996.79
In 1996, and possibly as a reward from Tenet, Brennan was promoted from his Executive Assistant position to be the CIA Chief of Station (COS) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the next 3- years.80 During Brennan’s time as Chief of Station Riyadh, Osama bin Laden signed and issued his first Fatwa, the "Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two
74 Historic Timeline | National Counterterrorism Center (dni.gov),
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/timeline.html#1990
75 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
76 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Issue_Station, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Issue_Station, retrieved 11/20/2019 77 Director George Tenet, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Issue_Station, retrieved 11/20/2019
78 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
79 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tenet; retrieved 9/23/2023
80 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
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Holy Mosques” on August 23, 199681 Bin Laden’s Fatwa called for Holy War against the United States in Saudi Arabia at the very time Brennan was the senior US Intelligence representative in that county. As the CIA Chief of Station in Saudia Arabia, the threat of a holy war against the host government, and our own country, should have been a cause of concern for Brennan.
During Brennan’s time in the Saudi capital, he developed close relationships with both the Saudi Crown Prince, Al-Waleed bin Talal, and the Head of Saudi Intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Prince Abdulaziz led Saudi Intelligence for over 20-years, from the beginning of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (1979) to just days prior to Al-Qaeda ’s September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.82 Prince Abdulaziz not only directed Saudi Intelligence support of the CIA’s covert war against the USSR in Afghanistan for 10-years, but Prince Abdulaziz was also a Georgetown classmate of President Bill Clinton, and attended Cambridge University in England when President Clinton attended Oxford.83 84 Surely, Brennan’s prior task of briefing President Clinton (and controlling-what-the-President-thought about-by-emphasizing-the-increasing-Islamist-terror-problem) came up in his discussions with President Clinton’s former classmate – Prince Abdulaziz.
According to reliable sources, it was during his 1996-1999 tour as CIA Chief of Station in Riyadh that Brennan converted to Islam.85 Religious conversion is a significant development in anyone’s life. John Brennan’s conversion to Islam while CIA Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia, while conducting numerous meetings with Saudi government officials even more so.86 It goes without saying a religious conversion is a significant event in any person’s life. Religious conversion is not like deciding you prefer Lemon Marange to Boston Cream pie. A religious conversion effects one’s view of every aspect of one’s life – physical, emotional, spiritual, and a religious conversion affects how one views the relative value of each relationship in one’s life. I do not imply that Brennan’s loyalty to his family, employer, or country changed for the worse in any way due to his conversion. I have no way of knowing how his conversion changed Brennan’s views on the relative value of anything; except that it must have done so, or it was not a conversion. It would be naive to believe such a profound development in a person’s life such as a religious conversion should be ignored when considering why John Brennan hates The Donald so…
According to former FBI Special Agent John Guandolo “… When Mr. Brennan was serving as the Chief of Station for the CIA in Saudi Arabia – the U.S. representative to the Saudi government for Intelligence matters – he befriended and was befriended by Saudi government officials [the Crown Prince], including Saudi intelligence officers [the Head of Saudi Intelligence]. This was a recruitment effort on behalf of Saudi intelligence – which is a very aggressive intel service. They go after all U.S. government officials at one point or another in
81 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fataw%C4%81_of_Osama_bin_Laden
82 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turki_bin_Faisal_Al_Saud, retrieved 6/11/20
83 https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/turki-bin-faisal.htm
84 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton#Oxford
85 https://www.acunewsdaily.com/2017/06/29/cia-confirms-john-BRENNAN -converted-to-islam/
86 John Guandolo, ex-FBI Special Agent, https://www.understandingthethreat.com/the-totality-of-the-threat-john brennan-and-the-evidence/
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Saudi. I have been to Saudi Arabia (both as a Marine and FBI agent) and worked cases with and involving Saudi intelligence. Contacts of mine who are still in the active service of the U.S. government were present in Saudi Arabia when Mr. Brennan served there and have direct knowledge of his conversion to Islam. These individuals are well-regarded in their agencies and have impeccable integrity. Please understand they are in a tough spot and will not come forward to speak publicly on this. Additionally, any more specific information about this will risk their anonymity as there are few folks who have direct knowledge of these matters. To highlight the hostile intelligence operations against U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Brennan is only one of several CIA Chiefs of Station who converted to Islam while serving in their official capacity there…” John Guandolo, Understanding the Threat.87
During Brennan’s Chief of Station tour in Riyadh, Al-Qaeda expanded its Jihad – its holy war - against the United States. Al-Qaeda ’s leader, Osama bin Laden, issued his first Fatwa against the U.S. early in Brennan’s Chief of Station tour in August 1996. Later in Brennan’s same Chief of Station tour, Osama bin Laden and 4 other Islamist groups - the “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders” issued a second Fatwa against the United States on February 23, 1998. This second Fatwa complained “…of American military presence in the Arabian Peninsula, the blockade of Iraq, and American support for Israel. [The Fatwa] purports to provide religious authorization for indiscriminate killing of Americans and Jews everywhere….”88 On August 8, 1998, Al-Qaeda put the second Fatwa into devastating effect with simultaneous truck bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.89
The embassy bombings caused a horrific number of casualties among embassy personnel and innocent civilians. Since U.S. embassies are sovereign US territory the lead agency for the investigation was the FBI. The FBI investigation obtained very important results. In August 1998 FBI investigators interrogated Al-Qaeda operatives involved in the attacks and determined the embassy bombers used a single contact phone number for coordination – a landline in Yemen. The FBI found many Al-Qaeda operatives used this single, land-line phone in Yemen to communicate with various other Al-Qaeda operatives around the world. This telephone number came to be called “the Hada phone”.90
A standard investigative technique of law enforcement agencies everywhere is to request the toll records for any phone used for criminal communication. Toll records are what the telephone company uses to calculate the bill a customer must pay for the use of their telephone. Examples of toll records the public usually sees only list calls made from their own telephone to other phones – their phone bill. However, the phone company can also provide a record of the numbers of any phone used to call the target phone as well. In effect, one can obtain a record of the date, time, and duration of every incoming, and outgoing, call for a particular phone. In a massive investigation like the Kenya-Tanzania bombings one can assume the FBI requested a record of all incoming and outgoing calls for the “Hada phone.”
87 https://www.understandingthethreat.com/the-totality-of-the-threat-john-brennan-and-the-evidence/ 88 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fataw%C4%81_of_Osama_bin_Laden#1998_fatw%C4%81
89 http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/osama.timeline/index.html
90 Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker Magazine, “The Agent, Did the CIA stop an FBI detective from preventing 9/11?”, July 3, 2006, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
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The FBI’s toll record request and subsequent data analysis was extremely successful.91 The investigation found that not only did the Kenya-Tanzania Embassy bombers use the Hada phone to coordinate their strike, but Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization also used the Hada phone for international communication and planning with many other Al-Qaeda operatives worldwide.92 The Hada phone was a major communication hub of the entire Al-Qaeda organization! FBI analysis of all [prior] calls to and from this number (i.e. the Hada phone Toll Records) allowed the FBI to establish a worldwide order-of-battle for Al-Qaeda.93 The FBI was able to determine the phone numbers of many Al-Qaeda operatives around the world! Identifying the phones of previously unidentified terrorists worldwide would allow targeting of their phones, all their computer devices, email, social media, their homes and offices, mail correspondence, etc. This could have been a major counterterrorism ‘coup’ for the FBI. Knowing whose phone calls to “tap” would enable the NSA to collect massive amounts of operational intelligence which could be used to thwart numerous future terror attacks. Information like this could be used to completely defeat Al-Qaeda! And all this information was available three years prior to Al-Qaeda ’s biggest attack of all, hijacking airplanes on September 11, 2001. Monitoring the Hada Phone would prevent the death of almost 3,000 Americans on that day!
Oh, wait... the CIA needed a foreign threat to justify its continued existence… If they couldn’t have a state-actor threat (the Soviet Union), the CIA would have to settle for a non-state actor threat - Al-Qaeda. If we wiped out Al-Qaeda, America would no longer need the CIA…
The FBI only has legal jurisdiction within the borders of the United States (embassies being U.S. territory…). The CIA has jurisdiction for intelligence collection and operations outside U.S. territory. The FBI could not direct the NSA to “tap” any overseas phone numbers identified from the Hada phone to stop future Al-Qaeda attacks – that was up to the CIA. The CIA has jurisdiction outside the U.S. Once the importance of the Hada phone was identified by the FBI, the CIA assumed control of the intelligence collection for the Hada phone going forward.94 Any intelligence the NSA developed from the Hada phone toll records had to be sent to the CIA, not the FBI. The FBI was left in the dark about any future intelligence collection gleaned from the Hada phone.
As an indication of just how jealously the CIA guarded the Hada phone information we need only look at claims made by the FBI and the CIA. We know the FBI used the Hada phone records to describe Al-Qaeda ’s order-of-battle in 1998,95 but the CIA’s anti-bin Laden ALEC Station claimed to have identified Al-Qaeda ’s order-of-battle in 1999.96 Could the CIA’s “copy paste” of the FBI’s order-of-battle discovery and their false claim a year later be the reason why John Brennan hates The Donald so?
91 Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker Magazine, “The Agent, Did the CIA stop an FBI detective from preventing 9/11?”, July 3, 2006, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent.
92 Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker Magazine, “The Agent, Did the CIA stop an FBI detective from preventing 9/11?”, July 3, 2006, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent.
93 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
94 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
95 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
96 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Issue_Station, retrieved 11/20/2019
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Let’s get back to our hero’s career…
Upon completion of his CIA Chief of Station tour in Riyadh, Brennan returned to CIAHQ and served as Chief of Staff to now Director CIA George Tenet from 1999 to 2001.97 Chief of Staff is a big job, and it stands to reason that Brennan would have been privy to exactly the same information as Director Tenet. Awareness that Brennan basically knew everything Director Tenet knew at the CIA is extremely important. Brennan was Director Tenet’s Chief of Staff during two very significant terrorist events – Al-Qaeda ’s October 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (DDG-67) in Yemen, and Al-Qaeda ’s airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001. Various Congressional and Intelligence Community investigations of these two events revealed startling levels of CIA involvement in both attacks. Brennan would have been fully aware of this CIA involvement. In fact, Brennan’s future multi million-dollar payout depended on it.
The USS Cole (DDG-67) attack:
The USS Cole (DDG-67) was refueling at anchor in the harbor of Aden, Yemen on October 12, 2000 when two al-Qaeda terrorists came alongside in an inflatable Zodiac-type speedboat. The speedboat contained an improvised explosive device (IED) weighing about 1,000-lbs. The two Al Qaeda operatives saluted the crew members watching and that blew a 40-foot-wide hole in the Cole’s port side, amidships, killing 17 Sailors.98 The immediate reaction of the United States was to dispatch an FBI team to investigate this attack on U.S. territory – a U.S. warship. The immediate reaction of the Yemeni Government to this attack on an American Destroyer in their waters was to “arrest the usual suspects” in their homeland.99
One of the people scooped up in this Yemeni dragnet went on to “coincidentally” become a key figure in multiple Al Qaeda terrorist attacks against the United States from September 11, 2001, through the Boston Marathon Bombing in April 2013. The public did not learn the identity of the individual scooped up in November 2000, or how important he was to CIA Director George Tenet, until over 20 years later in March of 2021.100 We only learned of this individual’s importance to the CIA because of the Yemeni Civil War. In 2021, when Houthi Rebels raided the Yemeni Security Service’s headquarters, they made off with a recording of a telephone call between Yemen’s President Saleh and Director George Tenet that took place in January 2000.101 The key individual, the subject of the phone call, was Anwar Al-Awlaki; also known as, Anwar Al-Aulaqi, or Anwar Al-Aulaki, a Yemeni-American who was born in Arizona. See Chapter 8 below.
At this juncture in our story, the reader is asked to focus on the minutiae of what takes place in the background of a telephone call between a CIA Director and a foreign Head of State. Calls of
97 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
98 Cole (DDG-67) (navy.mil); https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/ships/modern-ships/uss-cole.html; retrieved 11/20/2023 99 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
100 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 101 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021.
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that importance are not done one-on-one, without an audience. The record of the call itself proves this by documenting some of the people who participated on the Yemeni President’s side of the call – there was at least one interpreter and a Major General from the State Security Service in attendance.102 Without doubt the CIA Director’s Chief of Staff, John Brennan, would participate in the same call as well, if only as a passive observer. Brennan’s language skills with Arabic would also be of great value to the call’s principal participant, call Director Tenet.
The importance of this one phone call would be heightened because the call related to the bombing of a U.S. warship in Yemeni waters, the death and injury of numerous Sailors, and the fact the FBI had a team of investigators in Yemen investigating the blast. Logic alone indicates Brennan would have participated in the call. Therefore, John Brennan must have also been aware that Anwar Al-Awlaki was a recruited CIA asset from sometime prior to the call in January 2000. Anything that Anwar Al-Awlaki was involved in after his recruitment by the CIA would have been known by the CIA. At the very least the CIA would have been trying to monitor their asset, Anwar Al-Awlaki, through physical and electronic surveillance.
The September 11, 2001 attacks.
The second major event to take place while Brennan was Chief of Staff of the CIA was 9/11 – the worst attack on the United States since Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The reader’s attention is recalled to the “Hada phone” identified earlier in the US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. In [December] 1999, NSA eavesdropping on the Hada phone [a SIGINT marker] discovered Al-Qaeda operatives were planning to attend an operational planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur.103 The NSA learned that one of the attendees was Khaled al-Mihdhar, and another had the first name of Nawaf.104 Nawaf was later identified as Nawaf Al-Hazmi who would go on to hijack the plane that hit the Pentagon.
The NSA provided the information to the CIA as the CIA claimed control over all Hada phone intelligence due to the phone’s location in Yemen. The CIA did not pass the information about this planning meeting to the FBI, but the CIA checked on Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi with Saudi Arabian Intelligence. Saudi intelligence confirmed Khaled Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi were Saudi nationals, and both were members of Al-Qaeda.105
The US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was asked about Khaled Al-Mihdhar’s visa status in conjunction with an ongoing urgent terrorist intelligence investigation. The US Consulate Jeddah confirmed Al-Mihdhar had a valid U.S. visa.106 As noted above, the CIA never shared this information with the FBI, nor entered Al-Mihdhar’s name in TIPOFF, the terrorist watchlist
102 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 103 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
104 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
105 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
106 https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing7/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-01-26.htm
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maintained by The Analysis Corporation. One must wonder why the CIA’s ALEC Station neglected to perform these two essential tasks during Brennan’s time as CIA Chief of Staff.
In December 1999, using the travel information identified via the Hada phone, the CIA broke into the hotel room of Khaled Al-Mihdhar in Dubai. Al-Mihdhar was passing through Dubai enroute to the Al-Qaeda planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur.107 During the break-in the CIA
photographed Al-Mihdhar’s passport and his valid U.S. visa. This information was sent to the CIA Alec Station, the CIA bin Laden tracking unit.108 This information was not provided to the FBI or the State Department, as a result, Al-Mihdhar was not placed on the TIPOFF list to prevent him from entering our country.109 Without doubt the CIA intentionally provided aid to Al-Mihdhar to circumvent U.S. terrorist watch list protections – they intentionally “provided aid” to an enemy of the United States. That is the definition of treason under our Constitution.
On Jan 5, 2000 Al-Qaeda held their planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This meeting was attended by Khaled Al-Mihdhar, Nawaf Al-Hazmi, and a jihadi named Khallad, among others. Malaysian Special Branch authorities provided surveillance of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur at the CIA’s request. The Al-Qaeda meeting took place in a condominium owned by a Malaysian businessman with ties to Al-Qaeda .110
Directly in front of the condo in Kuala Lumpur, where Al-Qaeda planned the 9/11 attacks, was a pay phone that Khaled Al-Mihdhar used to contact Fahd Al-Quso. Al-Quso was involved in the USS Cole Bombing in Yemen and interviewed by FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan. Although the
CIA later denied that it knew anything about this pay phone across the street from the meeting site, the number of this phone was recorded in the Malaysian Special Branch’s surveillance log, which was given to the agency.111 This author is not aware of any public information regarding the NSA’s SIGINT collection from the payphone across the street in Malaysia.
FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan sent a Letterhead Memorandum (LHM) from the Director FBI to CIA Director George Tenet in April 2001 requesting any information the CIA had on this very phone number across the street from the Kuala Lumpur meeting. The CIA responded to Agent Soufan’s LHM with an official LHM from Director CIA which stated, falsely, that the CIA had
no information in regard to this telephone number.112 This LHM was a false Official Statement, a violation of 18 USC 1001 – a felony violation.
LHM’s are official requests by the Director of the FBI, then Robert Mueller, to the Director of the CIA, then George Tenet. The response to an LHM is a LHM from the Director of the agency that was asked for information – in this case the CIA. It is an established fact the CIA was provided the number of the pay phone in front of the residence in Kuala Lumpur, where Al Qaeda planned the September 2011 World Trade Center attacks, by Malaysian Special
107 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
108 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
109 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
110 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
111 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
112 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
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Branch.113 The official CIA response was a false official statement114– their LHM response to the FBI said they didn’t have the requested information when they did. Was John Brennan, as the Chief of Staff to the CIA Director, involved in writing or approving the LHM response to the FBI? Is this False Official Statement (18 USC 1001) the reason why John Brennan hates The Donald so?
Following the Kuala Lumpur meeting the various Al-Qaeda terrorists travelled to their appointed places to conduct mayhem. On January 8, 2000 Malay Special Branch notified the CIA that Al Mihdhar, Al-Hazmi, and Khallad were traveling to Bangkok together.115 Shortly thereafter, on January 15, 2000, both Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar arrived in the United States using valid US visas.116 Two FBI Supervisory Special Agents (SSAs), Mark Rossini117 and Doug Miller118 were detailees from the FBI serving in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center when Al-Hazmi and Al Mihdhar arrived in the U.S. Rossini and Miller learned of the arrival of Al-Hazmi and Al Mihdhar due to their attendance in the CIA Counterterrorism Center. FBI/SSAs Rossini and Miller each, separately, requested permission of their CIA Supervisor to notify the FBI that Al Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar had valid US Visas and were in the United States. Both FBI SSAs were prevented from informing the FBI of the entry of these two 9/11 hijackers into the United States by their CIA CTC Supervisor - Ms. Michael Anne Casey. CIA Supervisor Casey forbid Rossini and Miller of informing FBIHQ, either verbally or in writing, of Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar’s entry into the United States. Casey ordered them to not share the information with the FBI.119 120
The CIA facilitated the terrorists’ entry into the US and prevented the FBI from investigating those terrorists while they were in the US. Facilitating entry into the country can also be described as “providing aid” and preventing an investigation can be described as “providing… comfort to the enemy” – the definition of Treason found in the U.S. Constitution. Committing treason might be a reason for John Brennan to hate The Donald so?
When Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar arrived in the country they knew no one and spoke little English. Omar Al-Bayoumi [a suspected Saudi Arabian Intelligence Officer]121 met with Khalid Al-Mindhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi in Los Angeles and provided them substantial assistance.122 Al-Bayoumi met with Al-Mindhar and Al-Hazmi in a restaurant after Al-Bayoumi met with an individual at the Saudi consulate and there are indications…that Al-Bayoumi’s encounter with
113 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
114 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
115 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
116 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent
117 U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, A Review of FBI’s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks (November 2004), pages 233-357.
118 Ibid.
119 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rossini
120https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfreda_Frances_Bikowsky#Blocking_intelligence_sharing_before_September_11,_2001 121 Classified Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001; Report of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence & House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 2002, Page 7. 122 Classified Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001; Report of Senate Select Committer on Intelligence & House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 2002, Page 7.
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Al-Mindhar and Al-Hazmi may not have been accidental.123 The “chance” encounter occurred in January 2000, shortly after Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi arrived in the US.
Here is how the “chance” encounter between the two 9/11 hijackers and Al-Bayoumi was described by a witness under oath. Al-Bayoumi invited an American convert [to Islam] he befriended, Cayson bin Don, to join him on a trip to Los Angeles, CA.124 Al-Bayoumi said he had a series of minor errands to perform there, the details of which seemed to shift with each telling.125 At least one person later told the FBI that Al-Bayoumi had said he was going to Los Angeles to pick up some visitors.
Prior to meeting the two 9/11 terrorists, [Al-Bayoumi and bin Don] dropped by the Saudi consulate and the King Fahd Mosque, both in Los Angeles. Al-Bayoumi knew people at each location. After the busy work was finished, [Al-Bayoumi and bin Don] went to a halal restaurant called the Mediterranean Café, where they sat at a table and ordered food. While they were waiting, Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar walked into the restaurant.126 The two 9/11 hijackers had arrived in town just days earlier.127 According to bin Don, Al-Bayoumi was very friendly to the two hijackers, immediately inviting the men to join them. Al-Bayoumi spoke with the men in Arabic, a language bin Don did not understand. The conversation ended with Al Bayoumi giving his phone number to Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar and telling them they should come to San Diego.128
FBI reporting indicates Al-Bayoumi [a suspected Saudi Arabian Intelligence Officer]129 was receiving a monthly salary from a company named ‘Ercan’, a subsidiary of Dallah/Avco. Dallah/Avco is a Saudi company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. Apparently, this position at Ercan was a “no show” job because Al-Bayoumi only appeared at the company on one occasion. Initially, Al-Bayoumi was paid $465 per month in allowances, but in March 2000, a month after Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi arrived in the U.S., Al-Bayoumi’s allowance was increased to $3700 per month. 130
Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi stayed in Al-Bayoumi’s apartment for several days until Al-Bayoumi found them an “apartment”. Al-Bayoumi co-signed their lease and may have paid for their first
123 Classified Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001; Report of Senate Select Committer on Intelligence & House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 2002, Page 7. 124 National Archives, 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); https://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t 0148-911MFR-00219.pdf; as reported in The Atlantic magazine by J.M. Berger, Sep 9, 2011. 125 National Archives, 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); https://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t 0148-911MFR-00219.pdf; as reported in The Atlantic magazine by J.M. Berger, Sep 9, 2011. 126 National Archives, 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); https://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t 0148-911MFR-00219.pdf as reported in The Atlantic magazine by J.M. Berger, Sep 9, 2011. 127 National Archives, 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); https://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t 0148-911MFR-00219.pdf as reported in The Atlantic magazine by J.M. Berger, Sep 9, 2011. 128 National Archives, 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); https://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t 0148-911MFR-00219.pdf as reported in The Atlantic magazine by J.M. Berger, Sep 9, 2011. 129 Classified Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001; Report of Senate Select Committee on Intelligence & House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 2002, Page 7. 130 Classified Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001; Report of Senate Select Committer on Intelligence & House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 2002, Page 7.
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month’s rent and security deposit.131 The FBI investigation revealed that after Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi’s initial meeting with Al-Bayoumi, four phone calls took place between Al-Bayoumi’s cell phone and Anwar Al-Awlaki’s cell phone during the month Al-Bayoumi provided housing to both 9/11 hijackers in February 2000.132 133
Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, a CIA asset, became the spiritual advisor to Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar at the Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami Mosque in San Diego, CA when the two 9/11 hijackers entered the United States in January 2000.134 135 A year or so later, Anwar Al Awlaki, the CIA asset, moved to Springfield, VA and became Imam of a Mosque in Falls Church, VA. Later that same year, Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar, moved 3,000-miles and began attending the CIA asset’s mosque in Falls Church, VA. Subsequently, Al-Hazmi introduced a third 9-11 hijacker, Hani Hanjour, to CIA asset Al-Awlaki at the same Falls Church, VA Mosque.136
FBI LEGAT Yemen reported that 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar attended Al-Awlaki’s Mosque in San Diego, and 9/11 hijackers Hani Hanjour and Al-Hazmi met with Anwar Al-Awlaki at his Mosque in Falls Church, VA prior to the attacks.137 The reader is asked to consider, what is the likelihood that three 9/11 hijackers would be found to be worshiping at two different Mosques, 3,000 miles apart, under the tutelage of the same recruited CIA asset [Al-Awlaki], in less than one year’s time? The possibility of this interaction between one CIA asset and three 9/11 hijackers being a simple coincidence is very, very slight.
The FBI’s investigation of Anwar Al-Awlaki also found that the recruited CIA asset, Al-Awlaki, was in personal contact with three additional 9/11 hijackers prior to the attacks. The FBI documented CIA asset Al-Awlaki’s credit card was used to pay for airline tickets for 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta on June 28, August 1, and August 13, 2001.138 Al-Awlaki’s credit card was also used to pay for a flight for 9/11 hijacker Al-Sheri on August 1st.139 And Al-Awlaki’s credit card was used to pay for 9/11 hijacker Satam Al-Suqami to fly with Mohamed Atta on August 13, 2001.140 141 142 143
At this point one must ask oneself, what is the probability that one man [Al-Awlaki], now known to have been a recruited agent of the CIA at the time, who was so important to CIA operations that the Director of the CIA himself ordered a foreign Head of State to release this
131 Ibid.
132 https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/22/cia-yemen-al-qaeda-anwar-al-awlaki/
133 National Archives 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); https://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00458.pdf as reported in The Atlantic magazine by J.M. Berger, Sep 9, 2011.
134 Awlaki-202; PENTTBOMB; MC-182; OO:NY – Immediate Electronic Communication (EC) dated 9/17/2001; 135 National Archives 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00455.pdf 136 National Archives 9-11 Commission Memorandum for the Record (MFR); http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00455.pdf. 137 FBI Memo Re: Anwar Nasser Aulaqi, dated Dec 1, 2006; Intelwire-Awlaki-Binder1 (gwu.edu) 138 (Awlaki-26) in Judicial Watch FOIA received Jan 2, 2013; FBI Files | Judicial Watch | Freedom Of Information Act (United States) (scribd.com)
139 Docs Indicate FBI Knew Terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi Purchased Airline Tickets for 9/11 Hijackers | Judicial Watch 140 CIA Pressured Yemen to Release al-Qaeda Leader From Prison (mintpressnews.com)
141 Docs Indicate FBI Knew Terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi Purchased Airline Tickets for 9/11 Hijackers | Judicial Watch 142 (Awlaki-49) in Judicial Watch FOIA received Jan 2, 2013; FBI Files | Judicial Watch | Freedom Of Information Act (United States) (scribd.com)
143 Docs Indicate FBI Knew Terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi Purchased Airline Tickets for 9/11 Hijackers | Judicial Watch
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same man [Al-Awlaki] from jail... This same man [Al-Awlaki] would be in frequent personal contact with six of the 9/11 terrorists, at two locations 3,000 miles apart? Perhaps Brennan’s knowledge that a recruited CIA asset was “providing aid and comfort” to six Al-Qaeda terrorists in the United States prior to their carrying out the worst terrorist attack in our history is why Brennan hates The Donald so?
The reader is encouraged to recall the Director of the CIA’s documented, extreme interest in the well-being of Al-Awlaki in the telephone call to a foreign head of state (Yemeni President Saleh). Recall how the CIA asset Al-Awlaki had documented personal contact with six of the 9/11 hijackers – even buying several of them airline tickets. Consider how two of the 9/11 hijackers were known Al-Qaeda members the CIA tracked to, and from, a terror planning session in Kuala Lumpur, and then actively prevented their investigation by the FBI while those terrorists were in the United States.
Recall how the CIA Director provided a false official statement (the Letterhead Memorandum to the Director FBI) to further hamper FBI investigative efforts in regards to these same 9/11 hijackers. And finally, the reader is requested to consider that all of these proven facts of CIA obstruction happened while our hero John Brennan was the Chief of Staff to CIA Director Tenet. Perhaps Brennan knowingly providing aid and comfort to the 9/11 hijackers is why John Brennan hates The Donald so?
Following his Chief of Staff assignment at CIAHQ, John Brennan was promoted to be the Deputy Executive Director of the CIA in March 2001. Fortuitously for Brennan, this transfer enabled him to place an “executive” position entry on his resume about 7-months prior to the September 11th attacks. The move from CIA Chief of Staff to DED CIA had the effect of removing Brennan from the limelight at just the time the entire country was wondering how the CIA allowed the greatest surprise attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor in 1941. Brennan’s DED CIA position was not one where the media, the US Senate, or the US House of Representatives would call him on the carpet to explain what happened. He was out of sight out of mind. Brennan could just go about his duties in the shadows while Director George Tenet took any heat about this massive intelligence failure. Without any undue public scrutiny Brennan completed his Deputy Executive Director tour on March 13, 2003,144 just as US forces began a new war in NE/SA’s area of responsibility, Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19, 2003.145
On January 28, 2003, two months prior to Brennan completing his tour as Deputy Executive Director of the CIA and our invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush used his annual State of the Union Address to direct the US Intelligence Community to “…develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center [TTIC] to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location...”146 The stated purpose of this new TTIC was to prevent a situation where one entity (the CIA) had
144 “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 145 Congressional Research Service, U.S. Periods of War and Dates of Recent Conflicts; Updated November 29, 2022; page 10. “…9 On March 19, 2003, President Bush announced to the nation that the early stages of military operations against Iraq had begun and designated them Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)…”
146 History (dni.gov); https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history; retrieved 9/26/2023.
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information another entity (the FBI) needed to prevent a terror attack, but neither entity knew the other needed it to prevent the attack. Of course, this rationale was a lie because we have established the CIA knew the FBI needed the information the CIA had, but actively, intentionally, and knowingly, withheld the information needed to prevent 9/11 from the FBI – even using a False Official Statement (the Ali Soufan LHM) to prevent the FBI from stopping the attack.
Based on the evidence described so far, it appears the CIA withheld key information from the FBI to enable the 9/11 attacks to succeed. After all the CIA had the means (asset reporting, SIGINT reporting, etc.), motive (need of a new adversary to justify their multi-billion-dollar budget), and opportunity (asset reporting, SIGINT reporting, dissemination control over key information) to enable the 9/11 attacks to succeed and make Al Qaeda the new existential threat from whom the CIA would be called upon to protect us. Despite George Tenet, et al.’s, failure to protect us from Al Qaeda on 9/11 President George W. Bush decided to use the resulting crisis to establish a new entity – the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC). Brennan as a former head of terrorism analysis in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, with years of experience with NE/SA terrorists, and as former Deputy Executive Director of the agency would seem a logical choice to head this new TTIC.
“… On 1 May 2003, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) opened its doors. Led by its first Director, John Brennan, TTIC filled its ranks with approximately three dozen detailees from across the US Government (USG) and was mandated to integrate CT capabilities and missions across the government…”147 [Brennan had the title “detailee” changed to “assignee”, a small but important detail which becomes apparent when introducing the reader to Michael Jones, a U.S. State Department Intelligence Analyst and later a Diplomatic Security Service Agent].148
“…With the stand up of TTIC, information sharing, watchlisting, and situational awareness were beginning to be addressed as USG-wide activities that continue to be critical today…”149
“…In August 2004, and at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, TTIC was incorporated into the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) by Executive Order (EO) 13354, which became the foundation for codifying NCTC’s authorities in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004. Through EO 13354 and subsequently the IRTPA, NCTC was given the responsibilities for not only integrating analysis and coordinating information sharing and situational awareness, but also for strategic operational planning in direct support to the President…”150
“…In 2005, NCTC’s mission was expanded further as the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Commission called for mission management, and NCTC was established as what is now known
147 History (dni.gov); https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history; retrieved 9/26/2023.
148 “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 149 History (dni.gov); https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history; retrieved 9/26/2023.
150 History (dni.gov); https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history; retrieved 9/26/2023.
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as the National Intelligence Manager for Counterterrorism (NIM-CT). The attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day 2009 led to the most recent addition to NCTC’s roles and responsibilities, prioritizing and thoroughly pursuing the threads of terrorism threats...”151
Wow, a lot of John Brennan’s most important career steps were encapsulated in the preceding five paragraphs found on the Department of Homeland Security website! To recap, the last month of his Deputy Executive Director time (March 2003) Brennan was laying the groundwork for the future Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) housed in CIAHQ. On May 1, 2003, the TTIC opened its doors for business with Brennan its first Director.152 And to top off all this consolidation of counterterrorism authority, the NCTC was made the National Intelligence Manager for Counterterrorism (NIM-CT). As the NIM-CT the NCTC now had legal authority over all other US Intelligence Agencies to direct them how to handle any information or data those agencies had in their possession.
The reader can well imagine that centralizing all counterterrorism intelligence in a single entity would be a daunting task. This entity would need to collate information from 14 separate intelligence agencies, collect and analyze data from 26 separate intelligence community databases,153 and disseminate a cogent assessment of threats to the President as quickly as possible. Just the watchlisting task154 alone would be extremely difficult. How would our hero John Brennan be able to perform such a herculean task? Remember The Analysis Corporation? That’s how.
Brennan as the Director of the TTIC, and TTIC’s successor agency, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)155, used The Analysis Corporation (TAC) as the foundation of both operations [TTIC & NCTC] from 2003 until he was hired as TAC’s CEO in 2005.156 As founding director of TTIC/NCTC Brennan was intimately familiar with the capabilities of TAC due to his past assignment as head of terrorism analysis in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center 10-years earlier. As Director NCTC Brennan surely knew the price TAC could charge for its indispensable services in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).
Brennan’s return to federal employment.
In October 2008 Brennan took a leave of absence from his CEO position at TAC - the indispensable government contractor, to serve as a foreign policy advisor to the presidential campaign of Barak Hussein Obama.157 A review of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
151 History (dni.gov); https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history; retrieved 9/26/2023. 152 What a coincidence that Brennan’s first vote in a presidential election (1976) was for the Communist Party candidate Gus Hall, and Brennan opened the doors of the TTIC on May Day – the annual International Workers Day founded by the Marxist International Socialist Congress in 1889? As all students of history know, the May Day celebrations in communist regimes worldwide are the largest celebrations held in those countries each year. Probably nothing to be concerned about…
153 “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 154 History (dni.gov); https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history; retrieved 9/26/2023. 155 “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 156 https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history
157 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analysis_Corporation; copied on 6/15/2019
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documents show The Analysis Corporation (TAC) was in the midst of a corporate reorganization to prepare for the planned Initial Public Offering (IPO) when Brennan took his leave of absence.
As we all know, President Obama won his election and rewarded John Brennan with an appointment to be President Obama’s National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism (NSA/CT) in January 2009. History also shows that Brennan’s achievements as Obama’s NSA/CT were eventually rewarded with Brennan’s appointment as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2013 to 2017. Brennen’s employment history both in government and without seems to be one of success upon success, but the question remains “Why does John Brennan hate The Donald so?”
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Chapter 3: Brennan’s post CIA payouts.
Brennan’s former boss, CIA Director George Tenet, despite his failure to prevent 9-11, made out like a bandit when he left the helm of the CIA on July 11, 2004.158 Despite his overseeing the greatest intelligence failure since the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941, CIA Director Tenet was rewarded at his retirement by obtaining various consulting gigs and coveted assignments to the Board of Directors of very large multi-national corporations. Director Tenet’s board memberships included: Qinetiq - the British Defense Contractor, Guidance Software, Allen & Company Investment Bank, and L-1 Identity Solutions – a biometric company. These are a few of the many corporations that provide expensive contract services to the U.S. Government – especially during the multi-trillion dollar Global War on Terror (GWOT).
The financial benefit of such Board memberships is often found in the generous stock options provided the Board member for his personal relationships with Government Agency leadership the new Board member developed during his career. George Tenet joined Qinetiq’s Board in October 2006.159 Director Tenet oversaw the initiation of two, multi-trillion-dollar wars – Afghanistan and Iraq, so it is reasonable to believe he developed many personal contacts that would provide lucrative business leads for his multi-national employers to harvest.
Trading on one’s contacts from government service is one of the well-known, but un-official, benefits of a successful bureaucratic career. According to the online magazine SALON, “…Tenet has been earning substantial income by working for corporations that provide the U.S. government with technology, equipment and personnel used for the war in Iraq as well as the broader war on terror…”160 “…When Tenet hit the talk-show circuit last week [circa May 2007] to defend his stewardship of the CIA and his role in the run-up to the war, he did not mention that he is a director and advisor to four corporations that earn millions of dollars in revenue from contracts with U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense. Nor is it ever mentioned in Tenet’s book, At the Center of the Storm. Salon’s review of public records indicate Tenet has received at least $2.3 million from those corporations in stock and other compensation [as of 2007]…”161
Our hero John Brennan, unfortunately, has not attained the same lucrative Board of Directors memberships Director Tenet has, but he has been awarded numerous, lower prestige positions. Some of Brennan’s post government positions include: “…a Distinguished Fellow at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, a Distinguished Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, as a senior intelligence and national security analyst for NBC and MSNBC, and as an advisor to a variety of private sector companies…”162 He is also one of several “Principals” at WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm comprised of numerous retired Admirals, Generals, former
158 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5129314
159 Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, “Former CIA chief joins the board of Qinetiq.”; October 25, 2006. Retrieved from Web.Archive.Org https://web.archive.org/web/20071127103148/http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article1927199.ece, 10/3/2023 160 https://www.salon.com/2007/05/07/tenet_money/
161 https://www.salon.com/2007/05/07/tenet_money/
162 Press Release, Westexec Advisors, April 11, 2022, https://www.citybiz.co/article/244125/john-o-brennan-former director-of-the-central-intelligence-agency-joins-westexec-advisors/
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Intelligence Agency Directors and other former high-ranking officials of U.S. Intelligence Agencies.163 These positions are not on the level of Board of Directors membership at Lockheed Martin, or even Qinteq, but they bring in substantial income for sure.
John Brennan did obtain one key Board of Directors seat after he initially retired from the CIA in November 2005.164 On October 31, 2005, a few days before he retired as the Director of the NCTC, a press release by The Analysis Corporation (TAC) announced that Brennan would become their next CEO upon his retirement from the CIA.165 166 Brennan successfully parlayed his government credentials into becoming the CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC),167 with an annual salary in excess of $250,000 a year.168 If one adds in his CIA pension after 25-years’ service, Brennan was easily pulling in over $350,000 a year in 2005. With the exception of a greedy person, one could consider $350,000 a year an excellent reward for 25-years government service.
Eamon Javers of CNBC claimed that his reading of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) records indicated that “…According to a corporate document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Brennan was given a compensation package at The Analysis Corporation worth more than $750,000 in 2008, one of just over three years he spent at the McLean, Va., based company…”169 The difference between Brennan’s SEC reported annual salary and the compensation identified by CNBC’s Javers above, may partially be explained by the Executive Compensation schedule reported to the SEC during the spin-off of The Analysis Corporation as a separate corporation in preparation for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of stock in the company.170 Based on Eamon Javers reporting, one can conclude that Brennan was handsomely rewarded for his successful career in the U.S. Intelligence Community, both in salary and stock options.
Hmmm…, Brennan’s former boss Tenet makes a bundle with Qinetiq stock and Brennan is specifically hired by another company to set up an IPO… I wonder…? Could this corporate spin-off for an IPO have anything to do with why John Brennan hates The Donald so?
163 https://www.westexec.com/our-team/; retrieved Aug 11, 2023.
164 https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2005/10/31/daily38.html
165 http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2005/10/31/daily38.html Former counterterror chief to lead SFA subsidiary 166 “Intel Firm Paid CIA Nominee Well As He Left for White House”, by Ralph Turchiano, Feb 10, 2013, which included an article by Aram Roston, dated Feb 4, 2013; https://clinicalnews.org/2013/02/10/intel-firm-paid-cia-nominee-well-as-he-left-for-white-house/ 167 https://engineeringevil.com/2013/02/10/intel-firm-paid-cia-nominee-well-as-he-left-for-white-house/ 168 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509224857/ds1a.htm#toc36942_7
169 In Brennan's Private Sector Stint, a Chinese Connection (cnbc.com); dated February 6, 2013.w
170 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312510120468/ds1a.htm
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Chapter 4: The Analysis Corporation
The Analysis Corporation (TAC) was founded in 1990.171 Initially, TAC was a “boutique” government contractor in the intelligence space with a minimal number of employees.172 TAC’s claim to fame was the development and maintenance of the original terrorist tracking database for the CIA and the State Department.173 The first terrorist tracking database was called the TIPOFF List. 174 As time progressed, the TIPOFF List took on greater and greater significance vis-à-vis the CIA. The timing of the creation of the TIPOFF List indicates it was probably begun in response to the need to track tens of thousands newly created Islamic mercenaries/terrorists.
The emerging “Islamic mercenary” terror groups (such as Al Qaeda),who arose when the Soviets abandoned Afghanistan in 1989 were generally made up of individuals who used non-Latin characters, such as Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, etc., to spell their names in their native languages. The members of these non-European peopled terror groups would just ‘transliterate’ their names into Latin characters however they wished for travel or for use in western documents such as driver’s licenses. For example, the name Mohammed in Arabic characters is rendered as but in Latin characters one can render the name as Muhammad, Mohammad, Muhammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Muhamad, Muhamed, Mohamud, Mohummad, Mohummed, Mouhamed, Mohammod, Mouhamad, etc. With so many different but valid spellings in Latin characters, tracking someone with this name through various databases (government, travel, hotel, credit card, utility company, telephone, airline, etc.) would be very time consuming for the overworked intelligence analysts of the CIA. Luckily, that plucky little boutique government contractor, The Analysis Corporation (TAC), came up with computer programs and algorithms to handle all those variations – FUZZY FINDER in 1990,175 Arabic Name Search in 1997,176 and Russian Name Search (i.e. Cyrillic characters) in 2000.177
With FUZZY FINDER, and the other computer algorithm programs TAC developed, any statement to the public that a terrorist’s name was somehow missed or overlooked during an investigation due to a different spelling is a lie. FUZZY FINDER, Arabic Name Search, Russian Name Search, etc. eliminates the possibility of missing the name due to using a different transliterative spelling. If a government spokesman, or an anonymous government official leaking to the press, is using this lie, then the fact they are lying to mislead the public should cause the listener/ news article reader/ TV viewer great concern. The spokesman, anonymous or otherwise, is trying to hide something…
171 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analysis_Corporation; copied on 6/15/2019
172 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analysis_Corporation; copied on 6/15/2019
173 Ibid.
174“[TAC] said it “designed and maintained” the State Department’s TIPOFF list, an early version of the [terrorist watch] list…”; https://engineeringevil.com/2013/02/10/intel-firm-paid-cia-nominee-well-as-he-left-for white-house/
175 https://www.chron.com/news/article/PRN-The-Analysis-Corporation-and-Infoglide-1859462.php 176 Ibid.
177 Ibid.
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By 2005, when Brennan became CEO, TAC became the indispensable government contractor. By that time The Analysis Corporation had 15-year experience in maintaining the Terrorist Tracking Database, formerly known as TIPOFF, for the U.S. Department of State. Of course, the US Government owned the data in the database, but TAC basically owned the patent and the software copyright on the Terrorist Watch List since 1990. As the reader is aware, massive amounts of data are worthless if you cannot sort through the data to find the nuggets of information you need. TAC provided that sorting function and no one else could replace them. TAC owned the database and the algorithms needed to search it. TAC’s expertise made them indispensable to the US Government.
As noted above, TAC developed proprietary software to quickly identify the English transliteration of names that were originally written in Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, etc. or other non Latin characters. TAC’s proprietary technology was used to search various government and corporately owned databases (like immigration records, visa records, Border control records (TECS), airline passenger reservations, flight manifests, customs declarations, taxi and Uber records, hotel reservation, credit card company records, rental car companies, telephone company records, computer company registrations, utility company records, etc.) to identify the travel, movement, location, and online activity of known or suspected bad actors worldwide. By the year 2005, no one in the government could imagine sorting through the mass of data for information on a known or suspected terrorist or tracking their travels (domestic or international) without using a TAC product – and paying TAC a fee.
To indicate how financially valuable The Analysis Corporation (TAC) was as a commercial enterprise, imagine if you will that TAC owned the Intelligence Community version of the “double click” patent. Whenever a website wants to use the “double click” feature to enable an activity on their site, they must pay a royalty to the “double click” patent owner. If 10 million sites use that feature just 10 times each day, then all 10 million websites pay the patent owner a user fee just 10 times a day. At just one-half penny per “double click” the money adds up very quickly. With the cited example, the “double click” patent holder would receive only 5 cents from a particular website, but $500,000 each day in aggregate.
TAC enhanced their value proposition even more by hiring Intelligence Analysts with TS/SCI clearances to perform the searches for the government. Not only did TAC collect a fee for the double-click-like name searches, but they also charged a fee to pay for their individuals who performed the searches for the government. Brennan was well versed in TAC’s indispensability. When President George Bush (Bush43) “…instruct[ed] the leaders of the FBI, Central Intelligence, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center [TTIC] to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location…”178, Brennan was promoted by CIA Director George Tenet to be the initial director of the TTIC on March 13, 2003.179 180 Recall that Brennan had been head of terrorism analysis in the CIA
178 https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history
179 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
180 “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf
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Counterterrorism Center in 1990-1991, at the very time TAC began to provide its indispensable service to the CIA.
It is obvious that the “head of terrorism analysis” in 1990 and 1991 (Brennan) would be one of the first CIA analysts to use TAC’s FUZZY FINDER program as part of his duties. Once the “head of terrorism analysis” was completely familiar with FUZZY FINDER he could then teach his subordinate analysts to do the same. FUZZY FINDER made it impossible for any record related to the travel, communication, banking, purchase, etc. of a person of interest to be overlooked by US intelligence; unless US Intelligence wanted to overlook the record – and Brennan has known this better than anyone since 1991.
The new TTIC Director (Brennan) would be forced by circumstance alone to rely on The Analysis Corporation’s (TAC) 15-year monopoly of all US government terrorist tracking data to support the center’s operation. Brennan himself stated,
“… The idea behind TTIC was that we needed to have someplace in the government where all counterterrorism information would reside. Eventually, information from all 26 classified and unclassified networks [of the U.S. Intelligence Community] flowed into TTIC; [TTIC] wanted
voyeuristic capability. The good news and the bad news: [TTIC] had more access to more information than anywhere in the government…”181 182
With all that data in one central someplace, only a very robust and experienced data management system would be successful – that service was provided by The Analysis Corporation (TAC). As TTIC Director, Brennan would be very familiar with how much his office, TTIC, was paying for each search his analysts performed every day. TAC was not the indispensable government
contractor for nothing.
TAC owning the Terrorist Tracking Database was extremely financially rewarding. Anyone and everyone in CT work, from the CIA, FBI, ATF, DEA, Department of Defense, Homeland Security, State Department, Customs and Border Protection, Joint Terrorism Task Forces, Treasury, etc., who searches the terrorist database must pay TAC a user fee. These multiples of user fees add up very quickly - that is some seriously valuable indispensability right there. The number of searches must have been in the tens of millions – can you say, “show me the money”!
As noted earlier, TAC was a boutique government contractor with huge potential when it was bought by a larger, well-established, defense contractor named SFA, Inc. in 2003.183 When Brennan retired from the government for the first time in 2005, he was hired by SFA, Inc. to be the CEO of The Analysis Corporation specifically to aid in the spin-off of TAC for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Brennan was intimately familiar with the indispensable capabilities and economic value of The Analysis Corporation (TAC) since 1990.184 Brennan’s time in the CTC
181 http://web.mit.edu/SSP/seminars/wed_archives06fall/BRENNAN .htm
182 “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 183 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509187027/ds1.htm
184 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
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directly maps to the time when TAC first organized and ran the TIPOFF list for the CIA and State Department.185
To aid in establishing a share price for TAC’s Initial Public Offering (IPO), Brennan hired his CIA mentor, Director George Tenet, as an advisor to the TAC Board of Directors. Brennan tried to trade on his former boss’s intelligence ‘cachet’ by hiring Tenet to an advisory position at (TAC)186 to help generate sales. One of Brennan’s forays into using George Tenet to generate sales for TAC did not fare very well.187
In Mid 2007 TAC competed with several other established CIA contractors to capture a contract Codenamed HAWKEYE to review over 1 million CIA documents known as cables.188 Cables are text documents that are transmitted electronically and can have one or more classification markings in each document. The HAWKEYE contract was for the review of about 1.3 million CIA cables that were sent and received between the years 1999 and 2005. TAC did not win the contract and filed a grievance with the CIA’s contracting office.189 The CIA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) reviewed the grievance and found that the TAC officers who submitted the grievance, John Brennan and Alexander Drew [remember that name], made material false statements in the grievance which caused the OGC to deny TAC’s claim.190 The CIA OGC sent a letter to the General Accounting Office (GAO) to document the CIA’s concerns.191
Thanks to the WikiLeaks website a blogger named Tim Shorrock was able to review documents related to the HAWKEYE contract dispute. Shorrock wrote,
“…more surprisingly, [the CIA OGC letter] shows that the CIA’s contracting office thought that TAC was technically inept, intellectually dishonest, and heavily reliant on a handful of former officials—such as BRENNAN and his former boss, George Tenet—to get its way in the high stakes world of intelligence contracting...”192 “…Essentially, CIA officials concluded that BRENNAN and other former CIA officials working for TAC and its subcontractors provided “insider information” to their procurement office. That could be a violation of federal contracting rules that, according to legal experts and contracting laws, forbid “unauthorized disclosures” of such information prior to a contract award by individuals who “have worked for, acted on behalf of, or advised the Government...”193
“…The letter further charged that Brennan, as TAC’s CEO, had directly participated in meetings with TAC’s partners, BAE Systems and SRA, over a software program that CIA
185 https://engineeringevil.com/2013/02/10/intel-firm-paid-cia-nominee-well-as-he-left-for-white-house/ 186 https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalmilitarism19.htm#The_Analysis_Corporation_(TAC)_ 187 Letter to David A. Ashen, Esq. Dep. Assist. General Counsel, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Matter of The Analysis Corporation, File B-310924, from Arthur L. Passar, OGC, CIA, dated February 15, 2007; https://wikileaks.org/cia-emails/Analysis-Corporation/page-1.html
188 Ibid.
189 Ibid.
190 Letter to David A. Ashen, Esq. Dep. Assist. General Counsel, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Matter of The Analysis Corporation, File B-310924, from Arthur L. Passar, OGC, CIA, dated February 15, 2007; https://wikileaks.org/cia-emails/Analysis-Corporation/page-1.html
191 Ibid.
192 https://timshorrock.com/2015/10/27/did-BRENNAN -suck-as-a-contractor-the-cia-thinks-so/ 193 https://timshorrock.com/2015/10/27/did-BRENNAN -suck-as-a-contractor-the-cia-thinks-so/
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acquisition executives thought was too risky. This kind of collaboration apparently struck the CIA as unethical.194 [The CIA OGC] lawyers noted that TAC’s documents “show that it possessed what it now calls ‘inside information’ from its subcontractor BAE, from at least one former senior Government official on TAC’s staff who obviously was familiar with the Program, as well as from other Watchlist Program participants.”195 One can infer from the letter that the former official in question was John Brennan. Brennan lies to the public, the Senate, and even his old employer the CIA.
“…Against this background, the Agency is extremely concerned regarding the apparent disingenuousness of TAC’s protest,” the CIA wrote.196 “Additionally, we have clear evidence that…statements made by TAC in its protest documents are directly at odds with TAC’s contemporaneous documents.”197 In other words, TAC representatives (Brennan and Alexander Drew) lied to CIA contracting officials in the protest documents used for an official government proceeding. The CIA, of course, would not come out and say this [making a false statement to mislead a government proceeding - an 18 USC 1001 felony violation] of its former chief of staff [Brennan], but the inference is clear from the letter’s conclusions.
“…An agency should…be able to rely upon offerors doing business with the Government to communicate openly with it during an acquisition…and to communicate with candor both during the acquisition and in any challenges thereafter. In our view, TAC, and TAC alone, has failed to meet these reasonable expectations of a party to this important process [emphasis original – the CIA was very angry at ex- CIA Chief of Staff Brennan]…”198 Attached to the CIA letter is TAC’s original bid for the HAWKEYE contract.199 The letter’s conclusion simply reiterates the most consistent theme throughout John Brennan’s long career in the CIA and in CIA contracting – Brennan is a serial liar in official, legal proceedings, who lies to benefit himself.
Over 250-years ago there was another serial liar who falsified official documents named Benedict Arnold. Benedict Arnold’s lies for selfish reasons led to treason by “…providing aid and comfort to the enemy…” during a time of war. This book will show that Brennan’s lies for selfish reasons also led him to commit treason by “…providing aid and comfort to the enemy…” during a time of war. Benedict Arnold committed treason for money – so did John Owen Brennan.
194 Letter to David A. Ashen, Esq. Dep. Assist. General Counsel, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Matter of The Analysis Corporation, File B-310924, from Arthur L. Passar, OGC, CIA, dated February 15, 2007; https://wikileaks.org/cia-emails/Analysis-Corporation/page-1.html
195 Ibid.
196 Letter to David A. Ashen, Esq. Dep. Assist. General Counsel, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Matter of The Analysis Corporation, File B-310924, from Arthur L. Passar, OGC, CIA, dated February 15, 2007; https://wikileaks.org/cia-emails/Analysis-Corporation/page-1.html.
197 Letter to David A. Ashen, Esq. Dep. Assist. General Counsel, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Matter of The Analysis Corporation, File B-310924, from Arthur L. Passar, OGC, CIA, dated February 15, 2007; https://wikileaks.org/cia-emails/Analysis-Corporation/page-1.html
198 Ibid.
199 https://timshorrock.com/2015/10/27/did-BRENNAN -suck-as-a-contractor-the-cia-thinks-so/
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Chapter 5: The Analysis Corps Path to an Initial Public Offering. At this time in our narrative, some history of The Analysis Corporation’s path to an Initial Public Offering of stock needs to be disclosed. According to Eamon Javers of CNBC, around the time of Brennan’s failed bid for the HAWKEYE contract [2007], Damian Perl of Global Strategies Group, a London based Private Military Contractor (PMC) was looking for “… a foothold in the United States to expand his contracting business with the US government…”200
Javers wrote “…Damian Perl was a former Royal Marine who founded his PMC company to take advantage of the enormous amounts of contracting dollars the US was spending in Iraq for security [this would be some of the trillions of dollars the US was spending on the Global War on Terror]. One former Global Strategies Group employee stated, "the profits on that [Iraq security] business were almost obscenely big, but there were risks associated with that. [Perl] wanted to get out of the 'Guns, Gates and Gurkhas' business."201 “…According to several people who worked there, by 2007, Perl's company Global Strategies Group was flush with cash from its security business in Iraq, where it worked for the Iraqi and US governments to provide specially trained soldiers and guards to secure Baghdad International Airport, protect dignitaries, move cash inside the country, and guard the Green Zone...”202
According to Javer’s article, “…Another former employee says Perl soon set his eyes on Brennan's firm. "The Analysis Corporation was the crown jewel of SFA," said this former employee. "We bought SFA because of The Analysis Corporation."203 SFA, Inc. (including TAC) was purchased by Perl’s Global Strategies Group on February 9, 2007.204 Damian Perl owned Global Strategies Group, but the Board of Directors for Global Strategies Group included CIA alumni who were contemporaries of John Brennen. One Board member was Jack Devine, the CIA Chief of Station London from 1995 to 1998, and another Board member was John Gannon, the CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence from 1995 to 1997.205 206 Another Intelligence Community alumni John Hillen, former Assistant Secretary of State for Political - Military Affairs, was the president of Global Strategies Group (North America), the US-based affiliate of Global Strategies Group which handled the IPO Spin-Off.207
The Wall Street Journal reported Brennan was made Chairman of the Board of Global Strategies Group (North America) in August 2007.208 It is not a stretch to believe that Brennan’s CIA contemporaries on the Global Strategies Group Board of Directors, Devine and Gannon, were instrumental in convincing their boss, Damien Perl, to purchase SFA, Inc. with its TAC property. And Hillen took up a leadership position with The Analysis Corporation to shepherd it through
200 Eamon Javers, CNBC.com, “In Brennan’s Private Sector Stint, a Chinese Connection.” February 13, 2013; https://www.cnbc.com/id/100440555. Michael Tomaso contributed to this article.
201 Ibid.
202 Ibid.
203 Eamon Javers, CNBC.com, “In Brennan’s Private Sector Stint, a Chinese Connection.” February 13, 2013; https://www.cnbc.com/id/100440555. Michael Tomaso contributed to this article.
204 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312510120468/ds1a.htm
205 https://lidblog.com/spygate-BRENNAN -british/
206 https://idraintheswamp.com/home/central-intelligence-agency-cia/john-o-BRENNAN /analysis-corporation/ 207 https://washingtontechnology.com/Articles/2007/06/22/Technology-with-a-human-touch.aspx 208 http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf
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the IPO process after Brennan returned to government employment in the Obama Administration [Jan 2009].
As the CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC), and then Board member of the new parent company Global (USA), Brennan was awarded stock options amounting to 1.5 percent ownership209 of the indispensable government contractor TAC. Under the employee vesting schedule in effect when John Brennan left TAC, he had 25,001 shares of TAC stock in his TAC 401K plan account on February 9, 2008, the anniversary date of Perl’s purchase of SFA, Inc. and TAC, Inc.210 211 The remaining 75,006 shares of Brennan’s 1.5 percent ownership position in the company were stock options scheduled to vest at 25% per year over the next 3-years on the anniversary of Global Strategies Group’s acquisition of TAC.212 These 75,006 shares are best described as “…outstanding stock options…”
When Brennan left TAC to join the Obama Administration in January 2009, an SEC filing indicates all moneys owed to Brennan were paid and Brennan “…forfeited all his outstanding option awards…”213 Brennan did not forfeit his 25,001 shares of realized TAC stock options held in his TAC 401K account. Brennan held onto those 25,001 shares of stock in TAC’s “…Long-Term Incentive Compensation plan that TAC had under its prior owner SFA [which] …consisted of awards of stock options and/or restricted stock under the SFA Plan, adopted by [Global] in 2007 following its acquisition of SFA…”214 These shares of stock were held in the TAC 401K accounts of current and former employees. Brennan held a proprietary ownership interest in TAC when he joined the Obama Administration.215 Can you say, “Conflict of Interest?”
According to Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) records, during the process of spinning off The Analysis Corporation from SFA, Inc. as an independent company in preparation for the IPO, The Analysis Corporation went through several names changes, but no substantive organizational or employee policy changes. While Brennan was still CEO of The Analysis Corporation, and a Board member of GLOBAL (USA), he used his CEO and Board member authority to ensure the Long-Term Incentive Compensation plan protected his ownership interest in the company despite any future name or ownership changes. Brennan ensured his TAC stock was kept in his TAC 401K account. That TAC 401K account reference is very important to proving Brennan’s treason for financial gain.
209 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312510120468/dex1011.htm
210 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312510120468/dex1011.htm 211 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm ; pg. 87 212 Ibid.
213 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312510120468/ds1a.htm#tx46506_11]
214 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312510120468/ds1a.htm 215 John O. Brennan, Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure (SF-278); dated Feb 17, 2009;
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf
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The number of name changes TAC went through as it moved to the Initial Public Offering appears to be indicative of a desire to confuse anyone looking into the ownership of TAC and its successor companies. The process of spinning off TAC followed a convoluted procession of name changes:216
- SFA, Inc. (with TAC, Inc.) was succeeded by Global Strategies Group (North America), Inc., also known as GNA Holdings,
- TAC was succeeded by Global Technology Strategies, Inc. and SFA, Inc. became a separate company217,
- Global Technology Strategies, Inc. was succeeded by Contego Systems, Inc. with the name Contego NewCo Company, which was
- succeeded by Contego Systems, Inc., which was
- succeeded by Contego Systems, LLC, which was
- succeeded by Global Defense Technology & Systems, Inc. [NASDAQ: GTEC], which was
- succeeded by SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. [NASDAQ: GTEC]218
The final iteration of TAC’s corporate name was SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. with the NASDAQ trading symbol of GTEC. It is very important to note that the final name of the company for the IPO was SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc., also known as SOTERA. The company 401K plan was renamed SOTERA 401K plan from the TAC 401K plan. The contents of the 401K accounts stayed the same – namely, shares of stock in the company. The TAC 401K was identical to the SOTERA 401K in Brennan’s Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure forms. Brennan simply renamed his “TAC 401K” to “SOTERA 401K” on his Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure forms for each of the years 2010 through 2017 to intentionally hide his conflicts of interest violations.219 220 221 222
As noted above, Brennan used his CEO position to ensure that the Long-Term Incentive Compensation plan remained completely unchanged despite any, and all, name and ownership changes of the company as it went through the IPO process. The exact wording of the Long Term Incentive Compensation plan is included below. As one can see, the company awarded employees and executives (Brennan) with stock options and restricted stock. This stock was held in the company 401K. When Brennan worked for the company the 401K plan was called The Analysis Corporation 401k, or TAC 401K for short. After Brennan left the company in 2008 to help Obama win the Presidency, the company’s name changed to SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. with its employee incentive compensation plan called the SOTERA 401K – different account name, but the same account holding the same items – stock in the company.
216 GLOBAL DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY & SYSTEMS, INC., Amendment No. 4 to Form S-1, Page 4:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509224857/ds1a.htm#toc36942_7
217 https://washingtontechnology.com/Articles/2007/06/22/Technology-with-a-human-touch.aspx
218 Global Defense technology & Systems, Inc. Form S-1, dated Sep 3, 2009;
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509187027/ds1.htm
219 John O. Brennan, Executive Branch Personnel PUBLIC FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE REPORT, calendar year 2013, signed 5/15/2014; https://cryptome.org/2015/06/cia-john-brennan-financial.pdf
220 John O. Brennan, Executive Branch Personnel PUBLIC FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE REPORT, calendar year 2014, signed 5/13/2015 221 John O. Brennan, Financial Disclosure Form 278e, calendar year 2015, dated 7/19/2016
222 John O. Brennan, Separation Financial Disclosure Form 278e, calendar year 2016, dated 4/4/2017.
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“…Prior to [the Sotera public stock] offering, our long-term incentive compensation program consisted of awards of stock options and/or restricted stock under the SFA Plan, adopted by [Global] in 2007 following its acquisition of SFA. The SFA Plan was designed to reward executives and other employees for long term growth consistent with Company performance and stockholder return through the award of stock options and restricted stock. The compensation committee reviewed and approved all award grants to the executive officers. Our compensation committee typically made annual grants of equity awards, if any, to our executives in connection with its annual review of our executives’ compensation. Throughout the year, our compensation committee evaluated grants for new hires, promotions or other changes that may warrant additional grants.
The compensation committee did not apply a rigid formula in allocating stock options to executives as a group or to any particular executive. Instead, the compensation committee exercised its judgment and discretion and considered, among other things, the role and responsibility of the executive, competitive factors, the amount of stock-based equity compensation already held by the executive, the non-equity compensation received by the executive and the total number of options to be granted to all participants during the year. When making grants under the SFA Plan, the compensation committee also took into account the potential dilution to which our stockholders are exposed by reviewing our option overhang. Option overhang, which is represented in percentage form, is calculated as stock options granted plus the remaining options that have yet to be granted under the SFA Plan divided by our total shares outstanding.
Outstanding stock options and restricted stock awards made under the SFA Plan vest ratably over a four year period from the date of grant for all employees, except for options granted to James Allen, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, in May 2009, which have a three year vesting period. The exercise price of any option is equal to the fair market value of the shares on the date of grant, which in the past has been determined by the board of directors.
The ultimate value of the long-term incentive compensation awards will be dependent upon the actual performance of our stock over time. After the effective date of this offering, the exercise price of any option will be the closing price of our common stock on The Nasdaq Global Market on the date of grant.223
Whew, that is a lot of legalize that basically means Brennan realized ownership of an amount of stock equal to ¼ of his 1.5 percent ownership of TAC – namely 25,001 shares. Brennan was awarded 25,001 shares out of a possible 100,000 shares on the first anniversary date of the sale of SFA, Inc. (including TAC, Inc.) to Damian Perl. The compensation plan stated he would receive an additional ¼ of the 100,000 shares on each subsequent anniversary date of the sale of SFA, Inc (with subsidiary TAC, Inc.) for years (2009-2011). The remaining “outstanding stock options” of ¾ of 1.5% ownership in the company Brennan were forfeited when he joined the Obama Administration. The 25,001 shares of realized stock, which are a proprietary interest in the company, were maintained in Brennan’s TAC 401K / SOTERA 401K account after Brennan left the company.
But that is not all. In the IPO process TAC filed a request with the SEC to conduct a stock split. Global wanted its new baby to have lots of shares of stock to sell to potential investors. This is a normal process during all IPOs and it is not uncommon to request a 2:1, 4:1 or even a 10:1 stock split to increase the number of shares the owners can sell to other investors. Stock splits are the
way early equity investors in any company can make a fortune if they provide a company that appears to have an excellent income stream. The reader can well imagine that an indispensable
223 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509224857/ds1a.htm#toc36942_7
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government contractor like The Analysis Corporation (or its successor company) would be able to claim to have an excellent income stream; as long as the war on terror continued.
Along with the convoluted name change process described earlier, the TAC IPO also had a bit of a back-and-forth with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about their planned stock split. The convoluted name changes make the various letters and form filings between the SEC and Global’s newly spun-off company, formerly known as TAC, a bit confusing to link together.
However, by October 22, 2009, Global Defense Technology & Systems, Inc., [NASDAQ: GTEC, which will become Sotera Defense Solutions, Inc., NASDAQ: GTEC] filed an Amendment #2 to Form S-1 for an initial public offering of stock.
The Amended S-1 reads in part, “… We believe the following trends and developments will drive continued growth in our target markets:
• Robust Funding for Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism Programs. Counter terrorism efforts both at home and abroad are likely to remain a central focus of the U.S. government and the Obama administration. In the military, intelligence, and homeland security/law enforcement communities, programs that create expertise, systems, and solutions for the ever-evolving threat of terrorism are a top priority….”224
The Amended S-1 also reads in part, “…Our Business Strengths and Competitive Advantages
We believe that we are well-positioned to capitalize on the market opportunities presented by the Obama administration’s defense and intelligence spending priorities and to support the ongoing and new requirements of customers and programs in these mission-critical areas:
• Alignment with Policy Priorities and Military Requirements. Our core capabilities and exemplary past performance are well-aligned with the top priorities of the Obama administration and the national security community. Our capabilities and expertise closely match current and expected future requirements in the defense, intelligence and homeland security communities.
• Highly Skilled Workforce with High-Level Security Clearances. Over 425 of our approximately 675 employees have security clearances and two-thirds of those are at the Top Secret level or above. In the parts of our business that support counter-terrorism programs and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) efforts, over 90% of the employees have clearances. Over 20% of our employees have advanced degrees, principally in technical sciences, and 48 of our employees hold Ph.D.’s.
• Strong Contract Base. Over 80% of our revenue is derived from our work with the U.S. government as a prime contractor. Certain of our contracts provide flexible enough procurement vehicles to allow an array of existing or new customers to engage us quickly and efficiently to meet their mission-critical needs.
224 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
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• Long-Term Customer Relationships Based on Our Mission-Focused Culture. We have worked with many of our customers for long periods of time, decades in some cases. We believe that key factors contributing to the longevity of our customer relationships are our mission-focused culture and the subject matter expertise and level of understanding we have of our customers’ requirements.
• Proprietary Technology, Intellectual Property and Know-How. We create and own intellectual property and know-how relating to technologies, processes, and methods. Our innovations in sensor integration, decision support systems for both the military and intelligence markets, maritime navigation, network and communications management, tactical water purification and reuse, and highly engineered force mobility support solutions have enhanced our reputation in the industry as an innovative mission systems provider…”225
The Amended S-1 also reads in part. “…Our History and Organizational Structure
In 2006, our indirect parent, Global Strategies Group Holding, S.A., which we refer to as GLOBAL, formed Contego Systems Inc., which in turn established Global Technology Strategies, Inc., for the purpose of commencing technology operations in the U.S. and hired Ronald Jones who, immediately prior to the effectiveness of this offering, will become our Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, to lead this effort. On February 9, 2007, Global Technology Strategies, Inc. acquired SFA, Inc., which we refer to as SFA. SFA was originally founded in 1969 as Sachs Freeman Associates, a provider of technology services to the federal government. SFA grew organically for most of the 38 years prior to its acquisition, and also completed two acquisitions. In 1988, SFA acquired Frederick Manufacturing and, in 2003, it acquired TAC.
Subsequent to the SFA acquisition, SFA was renamed Global Strategies Group (North America) Inc., or GNA, and Global Technology Strategies, Inc. was renamed Global Strategies Group Holding (North America) Inc., or GNA Holding. GNA and TAC are our operating subsidiaries. At the end of 2008, as part of a restructuring, we were formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of Contego Systems Inc. under the name Contego NewCo Company, a Delaware corporation, and immediately thereafter Contego Systems Inc. was converted into Contego Systems LLC. Our name was changed to Global Defense Technology & Systems, Inc. in July 2009. Our principal executive offices are located at 1501 Farm Credit Drive, Suite 2300, McLean, Virginia 22102…”226
“…In anticipation of this offering, immediately prior to this offering, [emphasis added] we will implement a series of restructuring transactions. The historical financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus have not been adjusted for the 60,000-for-1 stock split. Otherwise, the information in this prospectus reflects and assumes that the following restructuring transactions have been effected unless otherwise indicated:
225 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
226 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
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• the amendment and restatement of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws to, among other things, increase the number of shares of our authorized stock;
• a 60,000-for-1 stock split of our common stock which will be approved by our Board of Directors prior to the consummation of this offering;
• the merger of GNA Holding with and into GNA, resulting in GNA becoming our direct, wholly owned subsidiary;
• our assumption of all options previously granted pursuant to the SFA, Inc. 2007 Stock Option Plan, or SFA Plan, and appropriate adjustments to the number of shares of common stock underlying such options as well as the exercise price of such options; and
• the redemption by Contego Systems LLC of all of the membership interests owned by Ronald Jones, in exchange for shares of our common stock owned by Contego Systems LLC of equal value.
In addition, unless otherwise indicated, the information in this prospectus reflects and assumes:
• the issuance of 36,432 shares of common stock to James Allen, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, upon the closing of this offering;
• the issuance of options to purchase 32,789 shares of common stock to Kirk Herdman, our Senior Vice President, Business Operations and Development, upon closing of this offering; and
• no exercise of the underwriters’ overallotment option to purchase up to [—] additional shares of our common stock from one of the selling stockholders….”227
The prospectus includes “…2009 Performance Incentive Plan and SFA Inc. 2007 Stock Option Plan…”228
The prospectus reads in part, “…Stock options previously granted by GNA, under the SFA Inc. 2007 Stock Option Plan, which we refer to as the SFA Plan, will, prior to the effectiveness of the registration statement of which this prospectus is a part, be assumed under the Plan. Subject to adjustment of the number of shares and exercise price by reason of this assumption, an optionee will then be permitted to purchase stock of the Company in accordance with the terms of the option grant and the SFA Plan under which the option was originally granted. Except as discussed below, the terms of those assumed options are materially similar to the terms that will be applicable to options granted under the Plan.229
227 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
228 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
229 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
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However, “…Maximum Shares and Award Limits. Under the Plan, the maximum number of shares of common stock that may be subject to awards is 1,000,000, including the 492,127 shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of options granted under the SFA Plan and assumed under the Plan. The number of shares of common stock allocated to the Plan shall automatically increase at the beginning of each fiscal year by a number equal to the lesser of 1.5% of the Company’s shares of outstanding common stock, 125,000 shares of common stock and an amount determined by the Administrator. No one participant may receive awards for more than 200,000 shares of common stock in any one calendar year [emphasis added]….”230 231
The purpose of including these excerpts from the SEC documents regarding the TAC Initial Public Offering (IPO) is to document how they used many company name changes to confuse the reader [and, initially, the author…], and that Brennan’s final number of shares in his TAC/SOTERA 401K account was at least 200,000 shares, despite the 60,000:1 stock split from which the rest of the owners of the company benefitted.
The SEC’s concern with the 60,000:1 split was due to the fact anyone with stock in their TAC/SOTERA 401K would suddenly have 60,000 times more stock than prior to the IPO. That huge change in equity positions would cause the company to have a completely out of whack balance sheet and therefore the SEC could not allow it. To placate the SEC, the company limited to number of shares in any single 401K account to annual awards of no more than 200,000. Brennan held 25,001 shares when he left the company to return to government service with President Obama, so the company could only increase the number of shares in Brennan’s TAC/SOTERA 401K to 200,000 shares.
Why Brennan owning shares in TAC/SOTERA from January 2009 through January 2017 matters?
Brennan had a financial stake in the indispensable government contractor TAC/SOTERA during his tenure as both the President’s National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism and as Director CIA. Both government offices held by Brennan involved decisions that can be reasonably assumed to affect the valuation of the indispensable government contractor for counterterrorism. Brennan owning that stock while so employed is the definition of a financial conflict of interest. The principal conflict of interest statute under federal law is a criminal provision which requires federal executive branch officials to disqualify or “recuse” themselves from working personally and substantially on any particular matter before the government in which that official (or those close enough to the official that their interests may be imputed to the official) has any “financial interest.” (18 U.S.C. § 208), a felony carrying a 5-year prison term for each violation.232 By virtue of his position to advise the President of the United States on any, and all terrorism related issues, Brennan violated Title 18 USC 208, numerous times each day for 8 straight years! Nearly every decision, statement, or action Brennan took was a violation of the conflict-of-interest statute!
230 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
231 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509217559/ds1a.htm
232 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43365.pdf, Jack Maskell, Financial Assets and Conflict of Interest Regulation in the Executive Branch, Congressional Research Service, Jan 17, 2014.
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Brennan knew his continued ownership of TAC/SOTERA stock was a violation of Title 18 USC 208 since February 17, 2009, when he reviewed his onboarding Financial Disclosure form SF 278 [see Appendix B, page 5] with Rachel E. Molinaro, Office of Government Ethics (see Appendix G).233 Brennan signed his onboarding financial disclosure form,234 SF-278, and had it reviewed by Rachel E. Molinaro of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE).235 It was on this form (see Appendix B) that we learned Brennan was on the Board of Directors of Global Strategies Group (North American), the company that became SOTERA Defense Industries, Inc., with a salary of $763,000 (Appendix B).236 Brennan’s SF-278 valued his The Analysis Corporation 401K account as being worth between $50,001 and $100,000. However, OGE Representative Molinaro put a handwritten note on Schedule C of the SF-278 that read “…** per the filer, in the process of rolling over Analysis Corp 401k into IRA. – REM 02.17.09…”.237 238
The filer of course was John Brennan. “REM” on the form is Rachel E. Molinaro, an Office of Government Ethics (OGE) representative who was assigned by the White House to help Brennan file his onboarding SF-278 correctly [Appendix B]. Ms. Molinaro was the subject matter expert (SME) on what privately owned assets constitute a Conflict-of-Interest violation for a new executive branch employee like Brennan. The purpose of executive branch employees (i.e. Brennan) filing Personal Financial Disclosure Forms (SF-278s) is to prevent Conflicts of Interest violations.
Based on Ms. Molinaro’s handwritten note on Brennan’s SF-278 it was clear to her, the SME on Government Ethics, the contents of Brennan’s TAC 401K account constituted a Conflict of Interest for Brennan. Ms. Molinaro (“REM”) made Brennan aware of this Conflict-of-Interest problem based on the content of her note. Obviously, if you are the National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism to the President of the United States, then as noted previously, any decision, recommendation, statement, action, etc. you make can be reasonably expected to affect how much money the US Government provides to the indispensable government contractor TAC and will increase the value of any stock you own in the indispensable government contractor. This is government ethics 101.
Brennan’s response to this Conflict-of-Interest problem is telling – he lied. Brennan, the lying liar, lied to the OGE official helping him avoid Conflicts of Interest. Brennan misled Ms. Molinaro, OGE, by telling her he was “…in the process of rolling over Analysis Corp 401k into IRA…” With this false caveat by Brennan, Ms. Molinaro made her notation and approved the SF-278 for submission to the Obama Administration.
233 John O. Brennan, Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure (SF-278); dated Feb 17, 2009;
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf
234 https://engineeringevil.com/2013/02/10/intel-firm-paid-cia-nominee-well-as-he-left-for-white-house/
235 John O. Brennan, Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure (SF-278); dated Feb 17, 2009;
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf
236 Ibid.
237 Ibid.
238http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/financial_disclosures/Brennan_John_278.PDF?_ga=2.100554270.1012219008.1608131919- 559004040.1608131915
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Here is where we can show Brennan intentionally violated the law. The provisions of rolling over the contents of a 401K account into an IRA require the liquidation of all the assets held in the 401k for cash. The cash is what is transferred into the IRA, not the former contents (stock, bonds, etc.) of the 401K account. Any stocks held in the 401K must be sold for cash and the 401K account holder would no longer own those stocks. Brennan would lose out on the benefit of owning pre-IPO shares of stock in the very company he was hired to organize in preparation for the IPO.
Pre-IPO shares of stocks are the ones where the owner makes a boatload of money in owning the shares; especially if there is a stock split prior to the IPO. In the case of TAC/SOTERA the stock split was 60,000 to one.239 You read that right – for each share of pre-IPO stock a person held, they received 60,000 new shares prior to the IPO.240 We have established that Brennan owned 25,001 shares of TAC stock in his TAC 401K account. The same TAC 401K account he listed on his onboarding SF-278 and the one he apparently told Ms. Molinaro he would rollover into an IRA. With the IPO process underway when Brennan joined the Obama Administration, he stood to gain 60,000 times his 25,001 shares of pre-IPO shares in the stock split. Under the terms of the IPO under consideration by the SEC, Brennan would have held over 1.5 billion shares of TAC stock in his 401K account from the stock split prior to the IPO! If he liquidated his 25,001 shares in the 401K to rollover this 401K into an IRA, as he told Ms. Molinaro he would, Brennan would not own any pre-IPO shares. Working for the President is a great honor and all, but Brennan was not going to give up the chance to be a billionaire to do so.
Brennan, true to his history of dishonest behavior, decided the law does not apply to him and lied to Ms. Molinaro, causing her to make a False Official Statement on Brennan’s SF-278. The False Official Statement law addresses anyone who intentionally makes, or causes to be made, a false statement of a material fact. Brennan caused Ms. Molinaro to make a false statement of a material fact: the filer [Brennan] was in the process of rolling over the TAC 401K into an IRA to eliminate the Conflict-of-Interest problem. Brennan knew he had too much money to lose by selling his TAC stock and so… he lied. With his first Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure form (SF-278) Brennan attained a two-fer: 1 count False Official Statement, and 1 count Conflict of Interest.
Unfortunately for Brennan, he did not become a billionaire due to the pre-IPO stock split. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was shocked by the request for a 60,000 to 1 stock split plan. The SEC informed the company this ridiculous and unheard-of stock split ratio (60,000 to 1) would cause extreme distortion to the company’s balance sheet and the SEC forbid it. The back-and-forth correspondence between the SEC and TAC/Global/SOTERA is actually pretty funny to read. The upshot was the SEC would not approve the IPO if it meant stock held in employee, and former employee, 401K accounts received the same stock split. To assuage the SEC’s concerns the company modified their IPO plan.
“…Maximum Shares and Award Limits. Under the Plan, the maximum number of shares of common stock that may be subject to awards is 1,000,000, including
239 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
240 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509217559/ds1a.htm ; pg. 5
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the 492,127 shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of options granted under the SFA Plan and assumed under the Plan. The number of shares of common stock allocated to the Plan shall automatically increase at the beginning of each fiscal year by a number equal to the lesser of 1.5% of the Company’s shares of outstanding common stock, 125,000 shares of common stock and an amount determined by the Administrator. No one participant may receive awards for more than 200,000 shares of common stock in any one calendar year.….”241 242
To obtain SEC approval, the company decided that no employee, or former employee, no matter how many shares they held in the TAC 401K account prior to the IPO, would receive more than 200,000 shares of common stock during the stock split. Brennan’s 25,001 shares in his 401K only increased to 200,000 shares in his account prior to the November 2009 IPO. Could it be that Brennan missing out on joining the heady ranks of Billionaires like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and (shudder) Donald Trump, plays a role in why John Brennan hates The Donald so?
By the way, the value of the 200,000 shares in Brennan’s TAC 401K account was reliably calculated to be worth $13 per share on November 19, 2009 when the first TAC/SOTERA shares (stock symbol GTEC) were sold on the NADAQ exchange.243 At $13 per share, Brennan’s TAC 401K account was valued at $2.6 million. Brennan held onto the stock, illegally, and its value increased from a self-reported $50,000244 to an unreported $2.6 million! But Brennan now had to hide the $2.6 million from the public on his Personal Financial Disclosure Forms. What do you think a lying liar would do? Yup, he lied.
Brennan’s Personal Financial Disclosure Forms for the years 2010 through 2017 showed a marked change from his 2009 form. Brennan no longer claimed to have a TAC 401K – after all he told the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) he was going to roll that account into an IRA. If anyone saw the TAC 401K listed they would know he didn’t liquidate the account as promised. To hide his duplicity, on the next seven years of Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure Forms (SF-278), Brennan claimed to have a “SOTERA 401K” account instead of a TAC 401K account.
Brennan, apparently not the brightest bulb in the circuit didn’t explain how he had a 401K account from a company he never worked for, SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. One can only obtains a 401K account from an employer and Brennan never worked for a company named SOTERA. Each entry of “SOTERA 401K” on his 2010 through 2017 Personal Financial Disclosure Forms was an admittance he intentionally never liquidated the assets in his TAC 401K - he just changed the name of the account to “SOTERA 401K.”
241 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509211306/ds1a.htm
242 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509217559/ds1a.htm
243 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000119312509239311/d424b4.htm 244 John O. Brennan, Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure (SF-278); dated Feb 17, 2009;
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf
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Each entry he made of SOTERA 401K was both a Conflict-of-Interest violation and a False Official Statement violation (remember he claimed he was going to roll this account into an IRA and he intentionally did not). Not only that, but he misrepresented the value of his SOTERA 401K account. Brennan claimed the SOTERA 401K was only worth $250,000 on each of his 2010 through 2012 Personal Financial Disclosure Forms. However, the value of this account was calculated at the IPO in November 2009 as approximately $2.6 million.
The share price fluctuated near the $13 per share price until April 1, 2011, when a subsidiary of Ares Management, Sentinel Acquisition Holdings, Inc., took SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. private at a price of $24.25 per share.245 Therefore, on April 1, 2011 Brennan’s SOTERA 401K account was valued at a minimum of $4,850,000 (= 200,000 shares x $24.25). However, there
was a caveat by Ares Management that the $24.25 per share price had to be redeemed by the share holder within 30-days of the close of the deal, May 1, 2011.246 If a SOTERA Defense Solutions share holder did not exchange their stock for Ares Management’s $24.25 cash offer (via Sentinel Acquisition Holdings, Inc.) within 30-days the shares became worthless.
This very thing, failure to redeem shares for cash on time, happened to Mr. Russell Richardson. Richardson sold his own little computer company to SOTERA in exchange for cash and $1 million of SOTERA stock.247 Richardson did not redeem his $1 million of SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. [NASDAQ: GTEC] stock within the 30-day window and it became worthless. The reader is requested to think on the issue here – Ares Management offers twice market value for SOTERA [NASDAQ: GTEC] stock but puts a 30-day redemption window on the sale. A lone actor like Russell Richardson above might be too preoccupied with many different issues to remember to redeem his shares before the 30-day window expires248 (in which case Ares Management saved itself a $1 million). However, what is the likelihood that SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc.’s own 401K Administrator, Ms. Jill Waltersdorff-Rich, employed by the company and a SOTERA 401K account holder herself, would neglect to cash out the company accounts before the 30-day window expires?
If Ms. Waltersdorff-Rich ignored the sell-by date, she herself would lose significant value in her own employee 401K account, as well as jeopardize company moral and possibly lose her job. There is no way the SOTERA 401K Administrator herself would allow this to happen. We can
245 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000095012311032487/c15093sv8pos.htm: “…[Sotera Defense Solutions, Inc.] would become a wholly owned subsidiary of [Sentinel Acquisition Holdings, Inc] and all outstanding shares of the common stock of the Company, par value $0.01 per share (the “Shares”), other than Shares held by Parent, Merger Sub or the Company and Shares held by stockholders of the Company who validly exercise appraisal rights under Delaware law, would be converted into the right to receive $24.25 in cash. The Merger became effective on April 4, 2011…”
246 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1471038/000095012311032473/c15071e8vk.htm
247 Ken Dilanian, Associated Press, October 27, 2014; Inside Washington: Profiting From Failure, “… Russell Richardson, an engineer and businessman, made millions as a contractor while serving as an architect of [Army software programs]… Richardson was paid more than $13 million in 2011 after he helped sell a small military intelligence business, Potomac Fusion, to a larger intelligence contractor, according to his financial disclosure statement and information he provided. He also received stock valued at nearly $1 million in the buyer, Sotera Defense Solutions, he said, though he added that the stock later became worthless…”;
https://apnews.com/166157827ca04c39aeb9910596ad24d1/inside-washington-profiting-failure
248 https://apnews.com/166157827ca04c39aeb9910596ad24d1/inside-washington-profiting-failure
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safely assume each and every share Brennan held in his SOTERA 401K (a minimum of 200,000) was redeemed for the full price of at least $4,850,000. Unfortunately, attempts by this author to interview Ms. Jill Waltersdorff-Rich, 401K Administrator for SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc., met with negative results.
By Brennan intentionally hiding his proprietary ownership of at least 200,000 shares of SOTERA stock (NASDAQ: GTEC] in the SOTERA 401K account he listed on his Personal Financial Disclosure Forms from 2010 through 2017,249 250 251 252 253 he could be sure there was no way the SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. 401K Administrator was going to neglect to cash out the employee, and ex-employee, shares in their 401K accounts at $24.25 per share. By hiding his proprietary ownership of the indispensable government contractor in his SOTERA 401K account Brennan could mislead an investigator into thinking Brennan did divest himself of the stock (he didn’t) and Brennan could rely on the 401K Administrator of SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. to ensure he captured the full $4,850,000 he was owed by Ares Management. Brennan hiding his proprietary ownership in this manner is prima facie evidence of criminal intent.
To recap this chapter, Brennan was hired to organize the IPO for TAC. Brennan was initially rewarded for his efforts with over 25,000 shares in the company in his 401K account. Brennan left TAC while the process for the IPO was ongoing and became the NSA for Counterterrorism for the President. Brennan misled an OGE official about maintain ownership of shares of the company – causing a False Official Statement violation to occur. By not disposing of the company shares as promised Brennan was knowingly in a Conflict of Interest vis-à-vis his job in the White House. Some months after Brennan left the company, the number of shares in his 401K account was increased to 200,000. The IPO was held in November 2009 with a price per share around $13, increasing the value of Brennan’s 401K account from $50,000 to $2,600,000. In April 2011 the company Brennan owns stock in, SOTERA Defense Solutions, is taken private at $24.25 per share and Brennan’s SOTERA 401K account is now worth $4,4850,000. During the entire time Brennan worked for the Obama White House, from 2009 through January 2017, he maintained proprietary ownership of an indispensable government contractor, SOTERA Defense Solutions, in clear violation of Conflict-of-Interest laws.
We have established that Brennan was a dishonest government official who lied on some forms and violated conflicts of interest. The above recap of criminal behavior does not rise to the level of “…providing aid and comfort to the enemy…” These are all just some process crimes (False
Official Statements) and Conflicts of Interest, right? Uh… no. Closer scrutiny reveals the increase in stock valuation detailed above is related to the indispensable government contractor (SOTERA) not preventing terror attacks it should have prevented.
249 http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf
250 John O. BRENNAN , 2014 OGE Form 278, signed 5/15/2014
251 John O. BRENNAN , 2015 OGE Form e278; signed 5/12/2015, OGE accepted 6/11/2015
252 John O. BRENNAN , Financial Disclosure Form 278e, dated 7/19/2016; “…BRENNAN financial disclosure Form 278e, Line 1 reveals he still has a 401K account with Sotera Defense Solutions, Inc., and indicated he had between $100,001 and $250,000 in this account and he claims it is an Excepted Investment Fund. Carrie Truehart, OGE, and Emory Rounds, OGE, certified the form is in compliance with the law…” 253http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/financial_disclosures/Brennan_John_278.PDF?_ga=2.100554270.1012219008.1608131919- 559004040.1608131915
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Closer scrutiny reveals that attacks, that should have been prevented, terrorized Americans into clamoring for Congress to allocate more funding to prevent terror attacks; sending more money to the indispensable government contractor; which increased the indispensable government contractor’s share price – making John Brennan a millionaire. Wow, that is some next level strategic planning if this is true. Is there any evidence the indispensable government contractor (SOTERA) did not prevent terror attacks it should have prevented?
Sadly yes, and John Brennan’s fingerprints are all over the evidence.
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Chapter 6: The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
As noted previously, during his annual State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, President George W. Bush directed the US Intelligence Community to
“…develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center [TTIC] to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location...”254
Brennan, as former head of terrorism analysis in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, with years of experience with NE/SA “Islamic mercenaries”, and with two months remaining in his tour as Deputy Executive Director of the CIA, would seem to be a logical choice to head this new TTIC. Consequently, John Brennan was named the new Director of TTIC. According to the
Department of Homeland Security website,
“…On May 1, 2003 the TTIC opened its doors. John O. Brennan, Director TTIC, filled its ranks with approximately three dozen detailees from across the US Government (USG) and was mandated to integrate CT capabilities and missions across the government...”255
For the reader who does not speak ‘Washington-DC-speak,’ a “detailee” is a fulltime employee of one federal agency who has been temporarily assigned to work fulltime at a different government agency. The new agency pays the detailees’ salary and benefits out of the new agency’s budget, etc. while the employee holds onto the job title and pay grade of the agency they are detailed from.
For example, the House of Representatives kay form a “Select Committee” to investigate some issue and the Select Committee needs FBI agents as their investigators. The FBI agents are detailed to Congress for a period and the agents’ salaries and benefits come out of Congress’s budget, not the FBI’s budget – while the FBI Agents retain their badge, guns, and arrest authority. In the TTIC’s case, Brennan took about 3-dozen employees from other agencies and had them assigned to TTIC. One such detailee was Michael Jones, a State Department Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agent. Jones began his career at State as an Intelligence Analyst circa 2002 and was promoted to DSS agent in 2009.256
Brennan himself stated, “… The idea behind TTIC was that we needed to have someplace in the government where all counterterrorism information would reside [emphasis added]. Eventually, information from all 26 classified and unclassified networks flowed into TTIC…[TTIC]
wanted voyeuristic capability [into the activities and records] of the entire Intelligence Community. The good news and the bad news: [TTIC] had more access to
254 History (dni.gov); https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history; retrieved 9/26/2023. 255 https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history
256 https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-jones-88a4b783/ ;retrieved prior to July 1, 2021.
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more information than anywhere in the government [emphasis added]…”257 258 In effect, Brennan used the TTIC to establish a Counterterrorism Intelligence Monopoly (CT Intel Monopoly).
On August 27, 2004, President George W. Bush converted TTIC into the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) via executive order 13354.259 260 President Bush gave the NCTC two core missions:
1. to serve as the primary organization in the U.S. Government for analysis and integration of all terrorism intelligence, and
2. to conduct strategic operational planning (SOP) for counterterrorism activities integrating all elements of U.S. national power.261
Brennan continued as the Director of TTIC as it transitioned into the NCTC, and then Brennan was appointed the interim Director of NCTC on October 27, 2004. 262 263 264 Under Brennan’s leadership the TTIC, and then the NCTC, “… [had] the responsibility to provide integrated assessments of the terrorist threat; for example, when there are Principals Committee meeting (sic) or Deputies Committee meetings or the president needs to be briefed on something about the terrorist threat, TTIC [later the NCTC] represents the view from throughout the community…that is sort of a unique responsibility that we have on behalf of those partner agencies [emphasis added]…”265
Brennan was able to establish the ‘CT Intel monopoly’ from the intake of raw intelligence information all the way up to the Office of the President of the United States. Brennan stated, “… [NCTC] is the mission manager on for [sic] the [entire Intelligence] community as far as the collection requirement system is concerned. We… play a lead role; we work with the other agencies and departments to determine the national intelligence priorities framework [emphasis added]…”266
257“Intelligence Transformation and the Impact on Counterterrorism Programs” Presentation by John Brennan, President and CEO, The Analysis Corporation, Oct 18, 2006, reported by Stephanie Kaplan;
http://web.mit.edu/SSP/seminars/wed_archives06fall/BRENNAN.htm
258 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, published in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 48, No. 4, dated Mar 12, 2003, and declassified on Sep 3, 2014, Document number C05618307,
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf ; see also https://ia600906.us.archive.org/10/items/CIA Studies-In-Intelligence-Declassified/DOC_0005618307.pdf
259 https://www.dni.gov/index.php/nctc-who-we-are/history
260 Intelligence Community OIG Unclassified Report on Boston Marathon Bombings, Page 6;
https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2014/s1404.pdf
261 John Scott Redd, Adm. USN (Ret.) Wikipedia entry retrieved Mar 2, 2021; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scott_Redd 262 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, published in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 48, No. 4, dated Mar 12, 2003, and declassified on Sep 3, 2014, Document number C05618307,
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf ; see also https://ia600906.us.archive.org/10/items/CIA Studies-In-Intelligence-Declassified/DOC_0005618307.pdf
263 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/john-BRENNAN
264 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf
265 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf
266 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf.
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In the above statements, Brennan clearly described how his new agency was the mission manager for collection requirements for the entire intelligence community. The mission manager (NCTC) directs what information is collected by ALL other intelligence agencies (for example, the NSA) for Counterterrorism purposes; and then, the NCTC can determine to whom that collected information is provided. Brennan, by virtue of President Bush’s executive order, obtained the authority for NCTC personnel to compel NSA personnel to comply with NCTC’s “requests” with regards to counterterrorism issues. If an NCTC analyst wanted the NSA to gather all Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) data the NSA collected on a particular person (the target) and place all the target’s data into a TS/SCI Codeword compartment, the NSA had to comply because NCTC was the mission manager.
For example, an NCTC analyst could send a “request” (i.e. an order) to the NSA compelling the NSA to scour its collection of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) for information related to a particular target, and then order the NSA to place all the SIGINT data about the target into a TS/SCI Codeword compartment. The NSA must comply with the directive (request) of the mission manager. Once the data was placed in the TS/SCI Codeword compartment even the NSA itself would not be allowed to view that data ever again without the permission of the analyst who set up the Codeword compartment.
In fact, under TS/SCI security protocols, the NSA is not allowed to even acknowledge such data ever existed at all. The NCTC analyst who established the TS/SCI Compartment is the sole individual who can authorized the NSA to disclose the existence of such data to anyone. Without the analyst’s determination a need-to-know exists, the NSA could not disclose the existence of such data to an authorized Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigator, a criminal investigator, or even a Congressional committee. Unless the analyst determines a need-to-know not even the House or Senate Intelligence Committees can force the NSA to disclose the information in the Codeword compartment.
As reported in the OIG Unclassified Report on Boston Marathon Bombings, the Intelligence Community OIGs formed a task force to investigate how [the] Tsarnaev’s (sic) could carry out attack if they were on the watchlist. “…We focused our review on the entities that were the most likely to have had information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the bombings – the FBI, the CIA, DHS, and NCTC, which maintains the U.S. government’s database of classified identifying and substantive derogatory information on known or suspected terrorists. We also requested other federal agencies to identify relevant information they may have had prior to the bombings. These agencies included the
Department of Defense (including the National Security Agency (NSA)), Department of State, Department of the Treasury, Department of Energy, and the Drug Enforcement Administration…”267 “…The relationships between and among these agencies are governed by memoranda of understanding (MOU). Of particular relevance to this review are the relationships between the FBI, CIA, and DHS, as well as the relationship between the FBI and the NSA, and the NCTC’s relationships throughout the Intelligence Community…”268
267 OIG Unclassified Report on Boston Marathon Bombings; https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2014/s1404.pdf
268 OIG Unclassified Report on Boston Marathon Bombings; https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2014/s1404.pdf
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The reader’s attention is called to the fact the OIG’s report specifically mentions the relationships governed by MOUs between the NCTC and the FBI, CIA DHS, and the NSA. This citation indicates the NCTC relationships throughout the Intelligence Community is one of superior to subordinate organization – as described by Brennan, where the NCTC is the Counterterrorism Mission Manager for the entire intelligence community.269 This is the exact same scenario we found in January 2000 when the CIA knew two 9/11 hijackers (Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi) entered the United States, but then prevented two FBI Supervisory Special Agents Mark Rossini (aka “Malcolm”)270 and SSA Doug Miller (aka “Dwight”),271 both of whom were assigned to the CIA’s bin Laden Station (also known as ALEC Station) at CIAHQ, from alerting the FBI the Al-Qaeda terrorists Al-Midhar and Al-Hazmi entered the United States.272 273 The CIA ‘ran in front of’ the FBI investigation of two 9/11 terrorists, prevented the FBI from investigating the two terrorists, and allowed 9/11 to occur. With the improvements in control over counterterrorism intelligence (the CT Intel Monopoly) enabled by Brennan, the NCTC could front-run both CIA operations and FBI investigations and allow certain terrorist attacks to occur… How… fortuitous for owners of stock in companies that would get a big boost in funding following the terror attacks.
Brennan himself provided the following observations to describe the depth of penetration the NCTC’s “CT Intel monopoly” had into FBI and CIA internal records, communications, and information systems:
Brennan, “…The FBI has the responsibility for working with local law enforcement as far as getting information that is relevant to the terrorist threat…The FBI puts all that information into its databases and information systems, and the [NCTC] has unfettered access to those FBI systems....”274 “…Data does not have to be pushed to us by the FBI or other organizations. That’s the great thing about [NCTC], we don’t have to rely on CIA or FBI or others to package up information and send it to us. We have full real-time visibility into their information systems and databases. So anything that’s committed to an electron in the FBI system or the CIA system, we have real-time access to it [emphasis added]…”275
And
“…we at [NCTC] have full and unfettered access to [CIA Directorate of Operations (DO)] information systems, DO cable traffic and DO databases [emphasis added]…”276
269 “…TTIC is the mission manager on terrorism for the [Intelligence] community as far as the collection requirement system is concerned. We do play a lead role; we work with the other agencies and departments to determine the national intelligence priorities framework…” “An interview with TTIC Director John Brennan”; Studies In Intelligence; Vol 48, No. 4, with Paul Johnson, Editor Studies in Intelligence, interview date July 21, 2004; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf
270 U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General, A Review of FBI’s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks (November 2004), pages 233-357.
271 Ibid.
272 Jeff Stein, Newsweek, “FBI Agent: The CIA Could Have Stopped 9/11”; June19, 2015.
273 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfreda_Frances_Bikowsky#Blocking_intelligence_sharing_before_September_11,_2001 274 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf
275 Ibid.
276 Ibid.
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And
“…DHS analysts [working at NCTC] have visibility into the CIA and FBI databases and information systems, and if [our analysts] see anything that is of relevance to the Department of Homeland Security that has not yet been formally disseminated, we have mechanisms in place that allow that analysts (sic) to go back to CIA or the FBI and say, “you may not realize this, but this information is important…”277
The significance of John Brennan’s statements in the above three paragraphs: 1. Simultaneous Notification: NCTC personnel receive FBI and CIA communications at the exact same moment that FBIHQ or CIAHQ receive the same communication!
2. NCTC analysts can peruse the contents of FBI and CIA databases and electronic communications at will, in real time, without FBI or CIA oversight.
3. The NCTC analysts can monitor the status of FBI/CIA investigations by reviewing any updates to FBI or CIA record systems for new information collected by either agency without either agency’s awareness.
4. The NCTC analyst has HAVE NO OBLIGATION to reveal to either agency what NCTC personnel reviewed in either agency’s files, or what importance the NCTC personnel attached to the information they found!
The NCTC was eventually made the Mission Manager for all Counterterrorism efforts by the US. As Mission Manager the NCTC was given the authority to direct all other intelligence agencies’ counterterrorism activities. ‘Hey FBI, you must do this with your Guardian investigations of a suspected terrorist in the U.S.’ ‘Hey NSA, you must do this with the data you are collecting worldwide.’
Think on this Mission Manager position for few moments… The NCTC can order/demand/direct the CIA, the Department of Defense, the FBI, or the NSA to engage in some Counterterrorism activity and those other agencies must comply. If the NCTC directed the FBI to cease investigating a suspected terrorist (perhaps because the CIA is attempting to recruit that suspect as a human asset), then the FBI must comply.
The authorities Brennan established as Director NCTC allows any NCTC analyst to front-run FBI or CIA CT investigations or operations without either agency’s knowledge! NCTC personnel receive a copy of the first message about a person-of-interest at the same moment the message arrives at FBIHQ or CIAHQ! NCTC personnel can use this unprecedented access to sister agency communication systems to “spot” a person-of-interest in FBI or CIA communications before either FBIHQ or CIAHQ are even able to assign an employee to review the information in their copy of the same message. The term we will use for this duplicate messaging is “simultaneous notification.”
With simultaneous notification of FBI or CIA communications, before either agency can take investigative action, an NCTC analyst can send an order to the NSA to: 1. scour its SIGINT
277 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf.
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databases for all references to the person-of-interest, and 2. have all data thus identified placed in a TS/SCI Codeword compartment. Then, when the assigned FBI or CIA employee attempts to gather information from the NSA about the target, the NSA must tell the FBI/CIA employee the NSA has no information regarding the target - because all the NSA’s data was already hidden away in the Codeword compartment! Under the security protocols of Codeword compartments even the NSA doesn’t know what data it has that might be related to the target! The data didn’t slip into a crack – it was shoved into a locked box known as a Codeword compartment!
Under the security protocols required for TS/SCI Codeword compartments, the NCTC can then restrict access to the information in the Codeword compartment to a strict need-to-know basis. TS/SCI Codeword security protocols prohibit the NSA from informing the inquiring FBI or CIA personnel of the existence of the Codeword compartment, let alone the existence of data they are looking for. If one wishes to front-run counterterrorism investigations, this NCTC TS/SCI Codeword gig is much more efficient (and difficult to detect) than having to order FBI Supervisory Special Agents to keep their mouths shut as happened with the 9/11 attacks.
Even an Agent of an Office of the Inspector General (OIG), conducting a fully authorized investigation which should include the sequestered data, cannot review the contents of the TS/SCI Codeword compartment without the NCTC analyst determining he has a ‘need-to-know.’ In fact, the OIG Agent cannot even be informed of the existence of the Codeword compartment (where the sequestered data is hidden) all unless the NCTC analyst who established the Codeword compartment determines the OIG Agent has a ‘need-to-know.’ The NCTC analyst alone determines if the OIG Agent allowed to know of the existence of compartment where the analyst hid the data. That is some awesome information control power right there. Later chapters in this book will show this TS/SCI process was used to allow three terrorist attacks to succeed against the United States, and its ally, with deadly results.
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Chapter 7: How to Front Run Counterterrorism investigations for Profit.
Front-running counterterrorism investigations by the NCTC can be shown to have occurred in at least three significant international terrorism events:
1. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – the ‘Underwear’ bomber of Northwest Flight 253 in December 2009,
2. Anders Breivik – the Norwegian terrorist who attempted to decapitate the government of our NATO ally Norway on July 22, 2011, while Norway had troops fighting for the United States in Afghanistan under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, and
3. the Boston Marathon Bombing by Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in April 2013.
It can be argued that front-running a CT investigation may possibly be done for justifiable national security reasons. For example, front-running a CT investigation may be done during the recruitment of an agent to penetrate a terrorist organization. In this case, it would not be beneficial for the FBI to actively investigate someone at the same time the CIA is attempting to recruit that same person to penetrate a terror group overseas. The FBI investigation may expose the agent’s contact with the CIA recruiter and jeopardize the operation.
To prevent this problem, when the CIA is operating within the borders of the United States, there are established deconfliction protocols the CIA and FBI have agreed to in such cases. When one party refuses to abide by the deconfliction protocols, that party’s credibility regarding its actual motives becomes suspect. One suspect motive displayed in countless books and movies is a rogue CIA operative using agent recruitment to profit from drug trafficking or gun running. However, there are other, more sophisticated ways for rogue operatives to misuse the legal authority the American people granted them…
Rogue operatives need to hide their ‘rogue’ operation from the FBI, and the American people, if the ‘bad op” is to make them a profit. The ‘bad op’ is a criminal scheme, and it takes criminal investigative techniques to identity the scheme and the rogue operatives who carry it out. One of the tried-and-true methods to identify a criminal scheme is identifying Means, Motive, and Opportunity. Means, Motive and Opportunity are not the only proof needed to convict a rogue operative in a court of law, but identifying these three characteristics points the investigator at the most likely participants in the scheme and can eliminate other suspects. If you don’t have the means to carry out the crime (i.e., you never had the gun used to shoot the victim), then you could not commit the crime. If you have a solid alibi (i.e., you were not in that city when the item was stolen), then you didn’t commit the crime.
The criminal scheme we are trying to uncover is extremely sophisticated – “front-running-a counterterrorism-investigation-for-profit”. Counterterrorism is one of the priorities of U.S. National Security and has literally hundreds of thousands of participants. One must fool all those hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants and overcome all the innumerable laws and regulations put in place to prevent terrorist attacks, to succeed – that is a tall order. Only a small
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number of persons would have the MEANS, MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY to pull it off. By identifying the MEANS, MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY we can focus in on who our villain is.
MEANS: To front-run-a-CT-investigation-for-profit one must obtain a monopoly on all counterterrorism information throughout the U.S. government. We will call this monopoly the “CT Intel Monopoly,” for lack of a better description. The CT Intel Monopoly should extend from the very first moment any US agency learns of a potential terrorist’s identity, through the terrorist’s preparations for the attack, and up to the moment the terrorist strikes.
Brennan himself told us,
“…The FBI puts all that information [from domestic sources] into its databases and information systems, and the [NCTC] has unfettered access to those FBI systems....”278 “…We have full real time visibility into their information systems and databases. So anything that’s committed to an electron in the FBI system or the CIA system, we have real-time access to it…”279 And, “…we at [NCTC] have full and unfettered access to [CIA Directorate of Operations (DO)] information systems, DO cable traffic and DO databases…”280
Brennan himself told us NCTC received simultaneous notification of all terrorism related communications in both the FBI and CIA communication systems. Brennan further stated “…eventually, information from all 26 classified and unclassified networks flowed into [NCTC]…[NCTC] had more access to more information than anywhere in the government…”281 282
A CT Intel Monopoly must also be able to control access to key terrorism related information so that persons or entities that might stop the attack you desire are prevented from interfering with the attack. Intentionally hindering the FBI from stopping a terror attack by withholding key information is the definition of ‘providing aid and comfort’ to the enemy – Treason. Any front running of a CT investigation for profit must prevent the FBI from finding out you intentionally withheld the information from them. Therefore, the information access control must be done in such a manner that it appears to have happened with good motives, and the access control should be of such a nature that the other interested parties are unlikely to determine the key information you withheld existed at all.
The information security protocol used to reduce the number of people aware of any information to the absolute minimum is called Top Secret / Special Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) Codeword. TS/SCI Codeword compartment protocols require anyone who is “read into” the Codeword compartment must have a TS/SCI security clearance and a demonstrated “need to know” the information in the compartment. The kicker is the person who determines who has “a need to know” is the person who established the Codeword compartment.
278 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra) https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 279 Ibid.
280 Ibid.
281“Intelligence Transformation and the Impact on Counterterrorism Programs” Presentation by John Brennan, President and CEO, The Analysis Corporation, Oct 18, 2006, reported by Stephanie Kaplan; http://web.mit.edu/SSP/seminars/wed_archives06fall/BRENNAN.htm 282 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, published in Studies in Intelligence Vol. 48, No. 4, dated Mar 12, 2003, and declassified on Sep 3, 2014, Document number C05618307, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf ; see also https://ia600906.us.archive.org/10/items/CIA-Studies-In-Intelligence-Declassified/DOC_0005618307.pdf
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The exact procedures to establish a Codeword compartment are not known to this author, but it is logical to assume that to limit the number of people who know of the compartments existence the minimum number would be two – the person who established the compartment and a supervisor of some sort. In the case of the front-running-a-CT-investigation-for-profit scenario a clever, but corrupt supervisor might authorize an unwitting accomplice, for example a subordinate NCTC Analyst, to open a Codeword compartment immediately upon learning of a new suspected terrorist; with the caveat of just notifying the (corrupt) supervisor later. In this scenario, an unwitting NCTC Analyst could start sequestering the key information via Codeword compartment protocols even before the corrupt supervisor knew about the target himself. And the Analyst would be unaware he was even participating in a front-running-a-CT-investigation for-profit operation.
Let’s assume we have an unscrupulous supervisor (Brennan) and an unwitting NCTC analyst who is overawed by the fact he was chosen by the former NCTC Director and now Advisor to the President (Brennan) to be this exalted individual’s key intelligence analyst. The NCTC analyst, due to NCTC’s simultaneous notification of FBI communications, receives a copy of a message from the FBI LEGAT Moscow to FBIHQ that Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a suspected terrorist. Due to prior guidance from his unscrupulous supervisor (Brennan) the NCTC Analyst immediately checks all 26 databases of the entire U.S. Intelligence Community for any Tsarnaev references. Within a few minutes the analyst finds a huge number of “hits” on Tsarnaev in those databases.
Using the authority the unscrupulous supervisor previously delegated to him to open TS/SCI compartments, the NCTC Analyst opens a new TS/SCI Codeword compartment on Tsarnaev. Next, using the authority NCTC has as America’s CT Mission Manager, the unwitting analyst directs the NSA to scour their SIGINT databases for all information related to Tsarnaev and to place any references found into the TS/SCI compartment the analyst just opened. This whole process could take as few as 15 minutes if the Analyst is appropriately skilled.
As noted earlier, TS/SCI security protocols prohibit the NSA from informing anyone of the existence of the Codeword compartment or any information in the compartment. By the time the FBI Case Agent assigned to conduct a Guardian assessment on Tsarnaev even completed writing the memo justifying opening Tsarnaev’s Guardian assessment, all NSA SIGINT on Tsarnaev would become unavailable for review by the case agent – it would be in the Codeword compartment the NCTC analyst opened. And the NSA would not be allowed to inform the FBI Case Agent the Codeword compartment even existed due to TS/SCI security protocols. In the chapter entitled Boston Marathon Bombing the existence of Tsarnaev SIGINT, and its sequestration away from the FBI, will be revealed in greater detail.
So far under MEANS we have shown there is a distinct possibility that an NCTC analyst could unwittingly front-run-a-CT-investigation-for-profit for an unscrupulous supervisor (Brennan). However, front-running-a-CT-investigation-for-profit is extremely risky due to the involvement of such large and capable organizations like the FBI or the CIA. Either organization might have independent sources that could provide them sufficient information to foil the terror attack our villain needs to turn a profit.
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How could one control for the independent sources of the FBI or the CIA? As John Brennan told us, the NCTC has completely “unfettered access” to FBI and CIA databases and communication systems. The NCTC Analyst can observe the progress of either entity’s CT investigation or operation, in real-time,283 without their knowledge, by simply monitoring either agency’s information systems remotely. With that “unfettered access” to FBI and CIA information systems, the front-running-a-CT-investigation-for-profit scam can ensure there are no surprises by either agency.284
Bypassing Physical Security Checkpoints
A second attribute of MEANS our villain needs for the success of the front-running-a-CT investigation-for-profit scheme is the ability to manipulate/control information in key security agencies’ databases. After all, for your chosen terrorist to succeed he is going to have to pass through some physical security checkpoints here and there. Those check points were set up to prevent terror attacks. Our villain must have the MEANS to aid the terrorist in avoiding exposure at these physical security check points.
Our villain would need the MEANS to hack into and change key data in federal law enforcement agencies’ computer systems; without the host agency becoming aware. The reader might exclaim – that is impossible! But the reader would be wrong. One of the physical security checkpoints established to prevent terror attacks are the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at airports. These officers use the CBP database system known as TECS when screening travelers entering or leaving our country.285 The TECS system is a federal law enforcement database that is used to place stop notices against terror suspects, like Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber.286 Our villain would need to hack into and manipulate data in the TECS system to succeed.
Penetrating a federal law enforcement agency’s data system is extremely difficult. Each agency employs hundreds of cyber security experts whose job it is to prevent such penetrations. Of course, if the President authorizes placing “back door” computer code into an Executive Branch agency like CBP, it can be done. With Presidential authorization such back door code can exist and the host agency’s own cyber security people would not know it. If we could show such back door code existed in CBP systems, then manipulating the data in those “secure” systems would be much easier.287 One reason the President might authorize “back doors” in a federal law enforcement security checkpoint systems, like the TECS system, without the knowledge of that agency’s cyber security personnel is to provide what is known as “Signature Reduction.”288
283 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra) https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf 284 Ibid. “…So anything that’s committed to an electron in the FBI system or the CIA system, we have real-time access to it…” 285 The Road to Boston, Counterterrorism Challenges and Lessons from the Marathon Bombings, House Homeland Security Committee Report. March 2014. TECS is owned and managed by CBP and is its principal law enforcement and anti-terrorism database. TECS is established as an overarching law enforcement information collection, analysis, and sharing environment TECS contains Department of Homeland Security (OHS) immigration data, as well as information from other government, criminal and terrorism databases, including information from the Terrorist Screening Database (frequently referred to as "the watchlist" or TSDB).
286 Ibid.
287 William M. Arkin, Newsweek, “Exclusive: Inside the Military’s Secret Undercover Army,” May 17, 2021. ”...The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the [Dept of Defense] over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called "signature reduction." The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies…” 288 Ibid.
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Anyone can imagine a scenario where a good-guy is traveling undercover on behalf of America to kill or capture a “bad guy.” No patriotic American wants that good-guy being stopped by CBP when he was returning from his mission. Would you want the guy who just killed Osama bin Laden to be arrested because he is using a false passport that has the same name as a guy on the Terrorist Watch List? Of course not. That is called Signature Reduction. In that case, it makes sense that the President would authorize back-door access to CBP’s TECS system to manipulate/change data.289 This particular back-door is to help the good-guys. In fact, the Pentagon has an office whose job is to hack into the TECS database and enable good-guys to bypass CBP screening at U.S. airports. That office is called the Defense Department’s Special Operations/ Low-Intensity Conflicts and Interdependent Capabilities (SOLIC/IC).290
If our villain, who is front-running-a-CT-investigation-for-profit, was able to use this “Signature Reduction” capability to further his schemes it would be disastrous for our country, but it would enable him to provide aid to an enemy more easily. But, come on, what are the chances our villain would have:
1. the MEANS to guide a NCTC Analyst to sequester key data at the NSA into a TS/SCI Codeword compartment,
AND
2. the MEANS to provide “Signature Reduction” in CBP’s TECS system to facilitate a terrorist avoiding CBP scrutiny at the airport? We would have to prove a connection between Brennan, an NCTC analyst, and a key player in SOLIC/IC to meet this criterion. Can we prove such a connection? Si se peude!
John Brennan set up the NCTC and personally chose the first three dozen intelligence analyst291 detailees; undoubtedly at least one from the State Department. We can prove the MEANS of SIGINT data sequestering by virtue of NCTC’s Mission Manager status. Is there also a provable connection between John Brennan and the “Signature Reduction” personnel at the Department of Defense? Does this connection between Brennan and the “Signature Reduction” person have a proven connection with the NCTC Analyst who we believe set up the TS/SCI Codeword compartment to hide NSA SIGINT on Tsarnaev? What is the probability of Brennan being connected to both persons regarding the Boston Marathon Bombing?
See the Boston Marathon Bombing chapter for more details.
MOTIVE: To front-run-a-CT-investigation-for-profit one must first own an asset that will significantly increase in value because of a terror attack. Getting the asset for free before the attack occurs would ensure the greatest increase in the value of the asset for the asset holder – our villain. Employees of start-up companies received shares of stock and stock options prior to an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the stock to reward them for supporting the company. In the case of an existing company that decides to “go public” with a stock sale there are some
289 Ibid.
290 Ibid.
291 An Interview with TTIC Director John Brennan, Mar 12, 2003 (supra) https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005618307.pdf
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additional regulatory steps to take, but the process is very similar. One means of establishing a motive would be to find a person who obtained shares of stock prior to the terror attacks in question and determine if the person still owned the stock when its price peaked after the attack.
Added support to establish MOTIVE would be if the person – our villain, could be shown to have intentionally sought to hide his stock ownership from prying eyes before and after the attack. Intentionally hiding ownership of the asset by subterfuge (false statements) from lawful authority when that authority explicitly informed you that owning that asset (stock in a particular company) violated conflict of interest regulations is a very clear indication of guilt.
Brennan’s Executive Branch Personal Financial Disclosure form (SF-278) proves he held shares of The Analysis Corporation (TAC) in his TAC 401K account.292 293 See Appendix B. After the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved The Analysis Corporation [NASDAQ: GTEC] corporate name change to SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. [NASDAQ: GTEC] (see Chap. 5 above) Brennan changed the name of the TAC 401K account on his subsequent Disclosure Forms to read “SOTERA 401k”. This was the same account, with the same contents (stock with NASDAQ symbol GTEC], but now with a different account name. The different account name proves Brennan did not roll-over his TAC 401K account into an IRA as he told OGE Official Rachel E. Molinaro, he just changed the name on future forms to mislead any investigators.
As further proof of MOTIVE, it is logical to conclude that if the American public fear terror attacks, they will demand Congress spend more money to prevent future attacks. If a company is an indispensable government contractor, then that increased spending will drive up the value of the stock of that company. Nothing can increase fear of future terror attacks like a few successful terror attacks! Increase fear (i.e. sow terror), increase funding – increase the value of shares of stock in the indispensable government contractor – SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc.
The Underwear Bomber and the Boston Marathon Bombing resulted in massive increases in counterterrorism (CT) funding by the U.S. Government.294 The increased CT funding resulted in The Analysis Corporation (TAC) and its successor company, SOTERA Defense Industries, Inc. (SOTERA), in receiving over $2.2 billion in funding from 2003 through 2017. That increase in funding translated into significant increases in the stock price of TAC and SOTERA (NASDAQ: GTEC) while John Brennan owned that stock. SEC filings presented below will show that Brennan’s stock eventually increased in value from a self-reported $50,000295 296 to $4.85 million while Brennan was a U.S. Government employee.
Title 18 U.S.C. ' 208 provides criminal penalties for “an officer or employee of the executive branch of the United States Government ... [who] participates personally and substantially as a
292 http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf “per the filer, in the process of rolling over Analysis Corp 401k into IRA. – REM 02.17.09…”
293 http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/financial_disclosures/Brennan_John_278.PDF?_ga=2.100554270.1012219008.1608131919- 559004040.1608131915
294 https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a6115/how-the-underwear-bomber-changed-counterterrorism/ 295 http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Brennan.pdf
296 http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/financial_disclosures/Brennan_John_278.PDF?_ga=2.100554270.1012219008.1608131919- 559004040.1608131915
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Government officer or employee, through decision, approval, recommendation, the rendering of advice, investigation, or otherwise, in a judicial or other proceeding, application, request for a ruling or other determination, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest, or other particular matter in which, to his knowledge, he… has a financial interest.... ”297 The evidence presented in this book proves that Brennan filed eight False Official Statements (18 USC 1001) to ensure he maintained proprietary ownership of shares of stock in The Analysis Corporation (TAC), and its successor company, SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. (SOTERA). Brennan intentionally maintained his stock ownership to use his position as “… an officer or employee of the executive branch of the United States Government... personally and substantially as a Government officer or employee, through decision, approval, recommendation, the rendering of advice, investigation, or otherwise, in a … particular matter in which, to his knowledge, he ... has a financial interest…” to increase the value of his portfolio.
Brennan, as the National Security Advisor for Counterterrorism to the President “…through decision, approval, recommendation, the rendering of advice, investigation, or otherwise…” affected the value of the shares of stock he held in his TAC/SOTERA 401K account. Brennan’s MOTIVE was to increase the value of his pre-IPO shares of stock to the highest extent possible. The evidence proves he turned his $50,000 worth of pre-IPO stock, held in his TAC 401K, into $4,850,000 worth of SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. stock in his SOTERA 401K account.
The third component commonly used to identify possible suspects of a crime is OPPORTUNITY.
Who had the OPPORTUNITY to help a terrorist hide from discovery by the FBI through sequestrating all NSA SIGINT data on the terrorist in a TS/SCI Codeword compartment? Who had the OPPORTUNITY to aid a terrorist to pass through CBP physical security checkpoints without detection?
Who had the OPPORTUNITY to aid the terrorist in avoiding discovery of his prior illegal acts (lying to the FBI about accessing Jihadi websites by hiding SIGINT references of him accessing Jihadi websites).
Who had the OPPORTUNITY to aid the terrorist in avoiding discovery of his preparations to attack the United States by preventing escalation of the investigation from a Guardian assessment into a Full Investigation?
Who had the OPPORTUNITY to benefit financially from the resulting calls for increased funding of Counterterrorism efforts that would send billions of dollars to indispensable government contractors like SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc.
Only a very, very small number of individuals would have the OPPORTUNITY described in the five questions above because the scheme stretches over vast segments of the US Intelligence Community. John Brennan is one of those few. Brennan’s lying on nine (9) Executive Branch Personal Financial Statement forms for eight years in a row requires us to focus on him. We have already shown how John Brennan profited financially to the tune of $4,850,000 because of his ownership of shares of stock in The Analysis Corporation and its successor company SOTERA Defense Solutions, Inc. The fact Brennan intentionally concealed his ownership
297 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43365.pdf
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interest in the indispensable government contractor TAC/SOTERA via multiple False Official Statements (violations of 18 USC ‘1001) over an 8-year period supports the conclusion he intentionally attempted to benefit financially from multiple violations of Conflict of Interests laws (18 USC ‘208). In the following chapters we will show what evidence we have collected that verifies Brennan had the MEANS, MOTIVE, and OPPORTUNITY to commit a long running scheme to front-run-CT-investigations-for-profit to the tune of $4,850,000 or more.
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Chapter 8 – Anwar Nassar Al-Awlaki; also known as Anwar Aulaqi, Anwar Al Aulaki, Anwar Awlaki, Anwar Aulaqi
Anwar Nasser Al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric, first came to the attention of the American public following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Al-Awlaki was quoted in several publications, like National Geographic and The Washington Post commenting on Islam and the wrong impressions the 9-11 attacks would cast on it. Al-Awlaki’s perspective on how public opinion vis-à-vis Islam would be effected after Islamic terrorists murdered almost 3,000 people on 9-11 was sought be the news media because he was an Imam, a Muslim religious leader, at the Al-Ribat Mosque in San Diego from approximately 1995 to 2000.298 299
While he only became known to the public following the 9/11 hijackings, Al-Awlaki was known to both the FBI and the CIA prior to that fateful day. As noted previously, Al-Awlaki was a fully recruited human intelligence asset of the CIA prior to the USS Cole bombing in October 2000, and he was the subject of a counterterrorism investigation regarding Hamas by the FBI’s San Diego Division as of June 5, 1999.300 301 One interviewee reported Al-Awlaki was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.302 The FBI’s Hamas-related investigation was reportedly closed due to lack of evidence, but it may have been closed because Al-Awlaki was a recruited asset of the CIA.
As the FBI dug into the background of the 19 Saudi nationals who crashed passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11/2001, they found numerous connections between Al-Awlaki and six of the 9-11 hijackers during the two years leading up to the 9/11 attacks. Starting in January 2000 Al-Awlaki became a religious leader to two 9/11 hijackers in San Diego (Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi) when they arrived in America. Ten months after establishing a relationship with Al Qaeda members Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi, Al-Awlaki was in Yemen during the USS Cole bombing on October 12, 2000. Al-Awlaki was arrested by the Yemeni Security Service due to their belief he was a member of Al Qaeda too.303 Al-Awlaki
298 Awlaki-47; PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial 19167; FBI Record of Interview of Anwar Aulaqi (aka Anwar Al-Awlaki), dated September 17, 2001. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view 299 Alwlaki-90; PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial 56455; FBI Record of Interview of Anwar Aulaqi (aka Anwar Al-Awlaki), dated September 15, 2001. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view 300 Awlaki-368, PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial WF 1544;Response Charlotte Division lead re: Anwar Aulaqi (aka Anwar Al-Awlaki), dated October 8, 2001. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view. 301 Awlaki-424, PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial WF 1544; San Diego Request for Preliminary Inquiry on Anwar Nasser Aulaqi, dated June 15, 1999. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view. 302 Awlaki-137. PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial 25149 page 5; FBI Record of Interview of Redacted Name (Protect Identity), dated September 24, 2001. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view 303 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021
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was held in a Yemeni jail during November and December 2000304 until CIA Director George Tenet ordered Yemeni President Saleh to release him in January 2001.305
After his January 2001 release by Yemeni authorities, Al-Awlaki returned to America and moved from San Diego to Falls Church, VA. In Falls Church, Al-Awlaki became Imam of the Dar Al Hijra Mosque and attended George Washington University as a doctoral candidate.306 By March 2001, the two future 9/11 hijackers, Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi, followed Al-Awlaki and moved to Falls Church, VA and attended Al-Awlaki’s Dar Al Hijra Mosque. And it was in March 2001 when Al-Hazmi introduced his Imam Al-awlaki to a third future 9/11 hijacker, Hani Hanjour at the Dar Al Hijra Mosque in Virginia.307
The reader is requested to reflect on the fact the Director CIA demanded Yemeni Security release a person who the Yemenis believed was a member of Al-Qaeda (after U.S. Sailors are killed). The release of the prisoner enables the suspected Al-Qaeda member (Awlaki) to move to Falls Church, VA where he meets again with two persons (Al-Mihdhar & Al-Hazmi) who were known by CIA to be members of Al-Qaeda. And then the guy the Director CIA demanded be released by Yemeni authorities is introduced to a third Al-Qaeda member. What are the chances of the release of the prisoner at CIA Direction, his 3,000-mile move to Northern Virginia, where he is followed by two future 9-11 hijackers, who introduce him to a third 9-11 hijacker, are simply coincidences?
Following the devastating 9/11 attacks the FBI documented CIA asset Al-Awlaki’s credit card was used to pay for airline tickets for:
- a fourth 9/11 hijacker, Mohamed Atta, on June 28, August 1, and August 13, 2001.308 - for a fifth 9/11 hijacker, Al-Sheri, on August 1st.309 And
- a sixth 9/11 hijacker, Satam Al-Suqami, to fly with Mohamed Atta on August 13, 2001.310 311 312 313
Not only was Al-Awlaki proven to have three Al Qaeda terrorists (two of whom were known to the CIA) attending his Mosque in Falls Church, VA, but it is then proven he bought airline tickets for three additional Al-Qaeda terrorists to conduct familiarity flights in preparation for their 9/11 attacks. But until the year 2021 the American public have no idea the prisoner in
304https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/Report_to_the_Director_of_National_Intelligence_on_the_Fort_Hood_and_Northwest_Flight_25 3_Incidents_U.pdf, page 3 “…Community analysts observed [Al-Awlaki’s] influence increasing among homegrown extremists after his release from a Yemeni prison circa December 2007 and the subsequent launch of his website…”
305 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021. 306 Awlaki-90, PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial 56455; FBI Record of Interview of Anwar Aulaqi (aka Anwar Al-Awlaki), dated September 15, 2001. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view. 307 Awlaki-112, PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial 116682; FBI Record of Interview of Redacted Name of a Jordanian national, dated July 2, 2002. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view
308 (Awlaki-26) in Judicial Watch FOIA received Jan 2, 2013; FBI Files | Judicial Watch | Freedom Of Information Act (United States) (scribd.com)
309 Docs Indicate FBI Knew Terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi Purchased Airline Tickets for 9/11 Hijackers | Judicial Watch 310 CIA Pressured Yemen to Release al-Qaeda Leader From Prison (mintpressnews.com)
311 Docs Indicate FBI Knew Terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi Purchased Airline Tickets for 9/11 Hijackers | Judicial Watch 312 (Awlaki-49) in Judicial Watch FOIA received Jan 2, 2013; FBI Files | Judicial Watch | Freedom Of Information Act (United States) (scribd.com)
313 Docs Indicate FBI Knew Terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi Purchased Airline Tickets for 9/11 Hijackers | Judicial Watch
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question was Anwar Al-Awlaki and he was a recruited asset of the CIA since before October 2000.
Due to the immediate reaction by the Yemeni Security Service to the USS Cole bombing on October 12, 2000, it was revealed years later that Anwar Al-Awlaki was a recruited CIA asset sometime prior to the day of the Cole bombing.314 The recording of the call between Director George Tenet and President Saleh is how we learned of Al-Awlaki’s CIA employment.315 According to the transcript of the Tenet-Saleh phone call from January 2001 Director Tenet was extremely upset Al-Awlaki had been in Yemeni custody for over 50-days (circa October 2000) and Director Tenet demanded President Saleh release him immediately. Brennan as Chief of Staff to the Director of the CIA when the Cole was bombed would have known about Al Awlaki’s status as a CIA asset.
Director Tenet’s statement places Al-Awlaki’s arrest by Yemeni Security sometime in late October 2000, shortly after the Cole bombing. The very time that Al-Awlaki told the FBI he was in Saudi Arabia for Ramadan.316 The CIA recording of this call and the NSA’s recording of this call could prove Al-Awlaki lied to the FBI about his Ramadan story, but the CIA withheld this information from the FBI.
The public only learned of Al-Awlaki’s CIA recruitment from a transcript of a telephone call between Director CIA George Tenet and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in January 2001. The recording was retrieved by Houthi rebel forces from Yemeni Government facilities in the Yemeni Civil War, circa 2021. The recording and a transcript of the call was published in Almasirah [the Houthi news agency publication]. The content of the call was confirmed as true by Major General Abdulqadir Al-Shami, the former Deputy Head of the Yemeni Security and Intelligence Service, who witnessed the call.317
For the reader’s greater understanding of the contents of this recorded call a significant portion of the reported information is provided below:
In early January 2001 then CIA Director George Tenet was recorded on a phone call with the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, demanding President Saleh order the release of Anwar Al Awlaki with Director Tenet stating, “this is my person, this is my problem, this is my issue…The man must be released… I’ve talked to everyone in my government; I told them that I was going to make this call…”318 319 320 As [Yemeni President] Saleh’s interpreter is delivering Tenet’s message to the Yemeni President, the CIA director cuts him off and says the man in question “…must be released within 48 hours… After 50 days, this must stop…”321
314 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 315 Ibid.
316 Awlaki-124; PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial 19639 page 2; FBI Record of Interview of Anwar Aulaqi (aka Anwar Al-Awlaki), dated September 19, 2001. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view “…Aulaqi [aka Al Awlaki] reiterated that he had attended Ramadan in Saudi Arabia during mi-November to mid-December 2000…” 317 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 318 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 319 Alexander Rubinstein, TheGrayZone.com; Did the CIA pressure Yemen to release al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki? - The Grayzone; https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/22/cia-yemen-al-qaeda-anwar-al-awlaki/; retrieved 3/22/2021
320 Ibid.
321 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021
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The 50-days of incarceration corresponds to the months of November and December 2000 – the time Al Awlaki told the FBI he was in Saudia Arabia for Ramadan.322
Despite his being arrested and held in a Yemeni jail for almost two months (November & December 2000),323 Al Awlaki lied to the FBI following the 9-11 attacks by telling the FBI he was in Saudi Arabia for Ramadan during November and December 2000.324 Al Awlaki’s lie and exposure of his recruitment as a CIA asset was not revealed until almost 20-years later.325
Director Tenet did not identify Al-Awlaki by name in the telephone call, but the Deputy Head of the [Yemeni] Security and Intelligence Service, Major General Abdulqadir Al-Shami, confirmed that the call between the director of the "CIA" and Saleh was to release the takfiri "Anwar Al Awlaqi," the Al-Qaeda leader who has dual Yemeni and American nationalities. 326 327 Earlier in the call Yemeni President Saleh asked if he should let the FBI team investigating the USS Cole bombing interview Al-Awlaki.328 329 The vehemence of Director Tenet’s response “…must be released within 48 hours… After 50 days, this must stop…” reveals Tenet did not want the FBI team investigating the Cole bombing to interview Al-Awlaki at all. The agent in charge of the FBI team was Special Agent Ali Soufan. The same Ali Soufan the CIA sent a False Official Statement in the form of a Letterhead Memorandum about Al Qaeda’s Kuala Lumpur planning session.
The reader is cautioned to not miss the significance of the fact that Anwar Al-Awlaki was a recruited Human Intelligence (HUMINT) source of the CIA at least as early as October 2000 when the USS Cole was attacked. The foregoing comments by the CIA Director George Tenet in early January 2001, made while his CIA Chief of Staff, John Brennan, was most likely listening to the call, is of extreme importance when viewed considering what happened just 9- months later on September 11, 2001.
Al-Awlaki was a HUMINT source of the CIA that was so important to Director George Tenet that, while implying he had the backing of the President George W. Bush, Tenet demanded a foreign head of state release Al-Awlaki him from custody! During the same call, Tenet ordered the President of Yemen to release Al-Awlaki before the FBI team investigating the USS Cole bombing, and Ali Soufan, could interview him!
At the time Director Tenet made his January 2001 call to President Saleh, Brennan was Tenet’s Chief of Staff. It is understood CIA Chiefs of Staff typically sit in on calls between the CIA
322 Awlaki-124; PENTTBOMB; Major Case -182; OO:NY, 265A-NY-280350-302 Serial 19639 page 2; FBI Record of Interview of Anwar Aulaqi (aka Anwar Al-Awlaki), dated September 19, 2001. Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 1 of 12, FBI Records: The Vault — Anwar Nasser Aulaqi Part 01 of 12; https://vault.fbi.gov/anwar-nasser-aulaqi/Anwar%20Nasser%20Aulaqi%20Part%2001%20of%2012/view 323 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021. 324 “…Aulaqi [aka Al Awlaki] reiterated that he had attended Ramadan in Saudi Arabia during mi-November to mid-December 2000…” FBI 302, dated 9/19/2001, document marked as Awlaki-124 on the FBI.gov/Vault site, recovered 9/24/2023
325 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 326 english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 327 Alexander Rubinstein, TheGrayZone.com; Did the CIA pressure Yemen to release al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki? - The Grayzone; https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/22/cia-yemen-al-qaeda-anwar-al-awlaki/; retrieved 3/22/2021
328english.almasirah.net:Secret Calls, Document Reveal Relation Between Saleh and USA; retrieved 3/22/2021 329 Alexander Rubinstein, TheGreyZone.com; Did the CIA pressure Yemen to release al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki? - The Grayzone; https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/22/cia-yemen-al-qaeda-anwar-al-awlaki/; retrieved 3/22/2021
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Director and a Head-of-State. Director Tenet mentions briefing everyone in the US government before making this call to President Saleh. Arranging briefings to “everyone” in the US Government, as stated by Tenet, is a Chief of Staff’s job. A recorded call between the CIA Director and a head of state, attested to by a personal witness of high rank, is un-impeachable evidence.
The only logical conclusion is Brennan also knew Anwar Al-Awlaki was a CIA asset. Brennan knew Al-Awlaki was a CIA asset in January 2001.
Brennan knew Al-Awlaki was a CIA asset on September 11, 2001.
Brennan knew Al-Awlaki was a CIA asset in 2005 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab began listening to Anwar Al-Awlaki’s sermons online [a SIGINT marker] and when Abdulmutallab was reading Al-Awlaki’s exhortations to martyrdom online [a SIGINT marker]330– 4-years before he tried to down an airliner on Christmas Eve 2009.
Brennan knew Al-Awlaki was a CIA asset on November 5, 2009, when Al-Awlaki’s email correspondent [a SIGINT marker], Major Hasan Nidal, MD, US Army, murdered 13 soldiers at Fort Hood.331
Brennan knew Al-Awlaki was a recruited CIA asset when Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber, was first listening to Al-Awlaki’s martyrdom sermons online [a SIGINT marker], and
Brennan knew Al-Awlaki was a recruited CIA asset when Tamerlan Tsarnaev sent Al-Awlaki’s martyrdom sermons [a SIGINT marker] to his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from Russia via email [a SIGINT marker].332
Could Brennan’s knowledge about Anwar Al-Awlaki’s CIA recruitment figure into why John Brennan hates The Donald so?
330 New Details About Unrepentant 'Underwear' Bomber Released - ABC News (go.com) 331 McKinley, James C. Jr.; Dao, James (November 8, 2009). "Fort Hood Gunman Gave Signals Before His Rampage". The New York Times.
332 https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-ma/legacy/2013/06/27/Indictment1.pdf
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Chapter 9 – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – The Underwear Bomber of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas 2009.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was the son of a prominent Nigerian banking official. As the son of a well-to-do father, Umar, attended a boarding school in West Africa in 2005 and then moved to attend university in London. In 2005, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab began chatting online [a SIGINT marker] under the screenname “Farouk 1986” – of course, the computer Abdulmutallab used for posting under the screen name “Farouk 1986” had a registered Internet Protocol (IP) address [a SIGINT marker].333 A cursory investigation of “Farouk 1986’s” postings could reveal his true name identity at that IP address, if one were so inclined. On February 20, 2005 “Farouk 1986” posted that he was very lonely, attending a school in West Africa with few other Muslim students, and posted [a SIGINT marker] he was fantasizing about how wonderful Jihad (Holy war against non-believers) would be.334
Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know for a fact that as of February 2008, the NSA’s XKeyscore SIGINT program was operational in Nigeria [see Appendix D, page 6 of 32] and XKeyscore’s algorithms were sifting through billions of online postings for persons who were “lonely, Muslim, males, wishing to engage in Jihad.”335
It was during 2005, while in West Africa, when Abdulmutallab began listening to CIA asset Anwar Al-Awlaki’s lectures online [a SIGINT marker] and reading CIA asset Al-Awlaki’s writings online [a SIGINT marker] - which motivated [Abdulmutallab] to accept Jihad martyrdom.336 During his 2005 postings from West Africa as “Farouk 1986” [a SIGINT marker] Abdulmutallab mused about how wonderful it would be for Muslims to win the Jihad and rule the whole world.337 Abdulmutallab even provided his true name as Umar Farouk when he posted online to his “Farouk 1986” account in 2005 [a SIGINT marker].338 “…For years, Abdulmutallab had been following the fiery radical's online teachings of [CIA asset] Awlaki [a SIGINT marker]…”, according to court documents presented at his sentencing.339
333 Richard Roth, CBS News, “Abdulmutallab’s Jihadist Fantasies Revealed, December 28, 2009,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abdulmutallabs-jihad-fantasies-revealed/; retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/WJZ_20091229_093000_CBS_Morning_News/start/300/end/360 on 11/22/2023
334 Ibid.
335 Glenn Greenwald, THE NSA FILES: XKeyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’, July 31, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data
336 Jason Ryan, ABC News, February 10, 2012 “New Details About Unrepentant 'Underwear' Bomber Released https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/new-details-about-unrepentant-underwear-bomber-released. Retrieved 11/22/2023, with Pierre Thomas and Jack Cloherty.
337 Richard Roth, CBS News, “Abdulmutallab’s Jihadist Fantasies Revealed, December 28, 2009,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abdulmutallabs-jihad-fantasies-revealed/; retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/WJZ_20091229_093000_CBS_Morning_News/start/300/end/360 on 11/22/2023.
338 Ibid.
339 Jason Ryan, ABC News, February 10, 2012 “New Details About Unrepentant 'Underwear' Bomber Released https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/new-details-about-unrepentant-underwear-bomber-released. Retrieved 11/22/2023, with Pierre Thomas and Jack Cloherty.
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When Abdulmutallab began attending University College in London in 2006 he became the president of the Online Islamic Student Union [a SIGINT marker].340 London was one of the hubs of the NSA’s XKeyscore SIGINT program.341 On January 26, 2007 Abdulmutallab posted a list of online seminars related to The War on Terror [a SIGINT marker].342 Abdulmutallab left London to attend graduate school in Dubai and from there he went to Yemen to meet CIA asset Al-Awlaki.343
“…Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was obsessed with radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar Awlaki, and embarked on a pilgrimage to Yemen to seek him out in 2009.344 In August 2009, Abdulmutallab left Dubai, where he had been taking graduate courses, and sought out Awlaki in Yemen. Abdulmutallab was not to be denied. "…[ Abdulmutallab] visited mosques and asked people he met if they knew how he could meet Awlaki. Eventually, defendant made contact with an individual who made contact [with Anwar Al-Awlaki] for him…"345
“…Thereafter, defendant received a text message from Awlaki [a SIGINT marker] telling defendant to call him [a SIGINT marker], which defendant did," the government memo discloses.
During the phone call [a SIGINT marker], Awlaki asked that Abdulmutallab provide in writing the reasons he wanted to participate in violent jihad. After working on his response over the next three days Abdulmutallab was finally granted a meeting with Awlaki…”346
The reader should note the number of SIGINT marker incidents revealed in this cursory, 6- paragraph, background profile of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. What are the chances that the NSA was not actively monitoring every single IP address of someone listening to Al-Awlaki’s “…fiery radical… online teachings…” on whatever Jihadi website hosted those teachings. In the case of Abdulmutallab, his IP address would have shown up in NSA SIGINT records numerous times over the course of the several years he was obsessed with Al-Awlaki’s online teachings. Abdulmutallab’s IP address from West Africa, then in London, and then in Duba would have shown up on the monitoring of the Jihadi website where [CIA asset] Al-Awlaki’s sermons were posted.
Every time a person moves to another country, they must either transfer their prior IP address to their new location or they must register a new IP address in the new location. In either case, the
340 Richard Roth, CBS News, “Abdulmutallab’s Jihadist Fantasies Revealed, December 28, 2009,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abdulmutallabs-jihad-fantasies-revealed/; retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/WJZ_20091229_093000_CBS_Morning_News/start/300/end/360 on 11/22/2023.
341 Glenn Greenwald, THE NSA FILES: XKeyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’, July 31, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data
342 Richard Roth, CBS News, “Abdulmutallab’s Jihadist Fantasies Revealed, December 28, 2009,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abdulmutallabs-jihad-fantasies-revealed/; retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/WJZ_20091229_093000_CBS_Morning_News/start/300/end/360 on 11/22/2023..
343 Jason Ryan, ABC News, February 10, 2012 “New Details About Unrepentant 'Underwear' Bomber Released https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/new-details-about-unrepentant-underwear-bomber-released. Retrieved 11/22/2023, with Pierre Thomas and Jack Cloherty.
344 Ibid.
345 Jason Ryan, ABC News, February 10, 2012 “New Details About Unrepentant 'Underwear' Bomber Released https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/new-details-about-unrepentant-underwear-bomber-released. Retrieved 11/22/2023, with Pierre Thomas and Jack Cloherty.
346 Ibid.
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true identity of the IP address registrant is reported to the Internet Service Provider (ISP). The NSA would have recorded, and reported, the numerous SIGINT markers identified above about the same person in three different countries to the NCTC. In the NCTC, an analyst could identify Abdulmutallab from his IP address and match his identity with “Farouk 1986”, and with “Umar Farouk” as well as his profile as president of the Online Islamic Student Union in London. Who believes the NSA missed recording most if not all the SIGINT reference points listed above while Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was a priority of U.S. Intelligence?
We can assume the NSA didn’t miss these numerous SIGINT references and we can assume they reported them to the NCTC. And what did Brennan tell us the NCTC can do? The NCTC can order the NSA to place all future SIGINT references of the person associated with “Farouk 1986”, “Umar Farouk”, his IP addresses, true name, phone numbers, credit cards, etc. into a TS/SCI Codeword compartment, and… access to the data in the Codeword compartment is controlled by the NCTC analyst who established the Codeword compartment.
Once the Codeword compartment is established, not even the NSA can review the information in the compartment without the permission of the NCTC analyst. Any new information which matches what is already in the Codeword compartment (i.e. new calls of texts on the subject’s phone, new emails, new airline reservations, credit card usage, etc.) would be automatically routed into the Codeword compartment before any NSA employee reviewed the information, or could report it to someone else.
John Brennan already informed us that the NCTC analyst would simultaneously receive any cable sent to CIAHQ from a CIA Station.
At this point in our story we need to return to the process of how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was recruited by the Awlaki to become a suicide bomber. According to court documents “…Thereafter, defendant received a text message from Awlaki [a SIGINT marker] telling defendant to call him [a SIGINT marker], which defendant did," the government memo discloses. “…During the phone call [a SIGINT marker], Awlaki asked that Abdulmutallab provide in writing the reasons he wanted to participate in violent jihad. After working on his response over the next three days Abdulmutallab was finally granted a meeting with Awlaki…”347
"…[Abdulmutallab] was picked up and driven through the Yemeni desert. He eventually arrived at Awlaki's house, (sic) and stayed there for three days. During that time, defendant met with Awlaki and the two men discussed martyrdom and jihad…"348
347 Jason Ryan, ABC News, February 10, 2012 “New Details About Unrepentant 'Underwear' Bomber Released https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/new-details-about-unrepentant-underwear-bomber-released. Retrieved 11/22/2023, with Pierre Thomas and Jack Cloherty.
348 Ibid.
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"…[Abdulmutallab] left Awlaki's house, and was taken to another house, where he met AQAP bomb-maker Ibrahim Al Asiri. Defendant and Al Asiri discussed defendant's desire to commit an act of jihad. Thereafter, Al Asiri discussed a plan for a martyrdom mission with Awlaki, who gave it final approval, and instructed defendant Abdulmutallab on it…"349
“…The government filing also disclose[d] that at an AQAP training camp Abdulmutallab met with Samir Khan a U.S. citizen who fled to Yemen and wrote the online English-language magazine Inspire [SIGINT marker] dedicated to violent jihad and how-to ideas on terrorist attacks…”350
The involvement of Abdulmutallab with Al-Awlaki and other AQAP personnel took place from August 2009 up until Christmas 2009. Reviews of White House Visitor Logs reveals that in early October 2009 NCTC analyst Michael Jones began holding face-to-face, one-on-one meetings with Gregory Sahene Jr., a Physical Fitness Trainer for White House personnel.351 These October 2009, face-to-face, one-on-one meetings occurred on October 9th at 4:00 PM, October 14th at 4:00 PM, and on October 15th at 12:00 PM, and were held in Room 2008 in the New Executive Office Building (NEOB).352 Wait, what? A counterterrorism analyst held face to-face, one-on-one meetings with… a Personal Fitness Instructor in a White House conference room - that makes no sense.
It would be foolish for anyone to believe a counterterrorism analyst named Michael Jones was meeting with a fitness instructor in a conference room in the New Executive Office Building on these dates. Obviously, the official who met with Michael Jones on these three days wanted to hide his involvement with Jones by using the identity of a low-level staffer in the record to conceal his attendance at the meetings with Jones. To further solidify the conclusion that Michael Jones was meeting with a higher-ranking official, versus a fitness instructor, each of the three meetings above was scheduled, and then rescheduled at least once.353 Short notice rescheduling of appointments at the White House official’s request - not Jones’ request, indicates Michael Jones was the lower ranking person of the two individuals at each meeting. It is safe to assume a Personal Fitness Trainer does not out rank a Counterterrorism Analyst in the White House pecking order... Someone worked hard to hide their identity by stealing Greg Sahene’s identity.
This would not be the first-time high-ranking officials at the White House used a low-ranking staffer’s identity in the Visitor Log to conceal the official’s attendance at meetings which might raise suspicions of some sort. In fact, John Brennan used this same tactic by having his scheduler, Caroline Krency354- a GS-07 Miscellaneous Admin. Assistant, use her own name in place of Brennan’s in visitor log records for 13 separate one-on-one, face-to-face meetings with
349 Jason Ryan, ABC News, February 10, 2012 “New Details About Unrepentant 'Underwear' Bomber Released https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/new-details-about-unrepentant-underwear-bomber-released. Retrieved 11/22/2023, with Pierre Thomas and Jack Cloherty.
350 Ibid.
351 Greg Sahene, Jr. biography from Hurricane's Heroes (k9hurricanesheroes.org) website. Retrieved on 11/27/2023 352 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/files/disclosures/visitors/WhiteHouse-WAVES-released-1210; Appointment UIN: U45190, U46407, U47237
353 Ibid. Appointment UIN: U45131, U46406, U46912
354 https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckrency
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Michael Jones from January 3, 2012, through July 30, 2012.355 Coincidentally, this January to July 2012 period was when Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber, was in Russia meeting Islamist terrorists. What a coincidence that one-on-one, face-to-face meetings by Michael Jones with someone in the White House, which are contemporaneous with two significant terror attacks had the other attendees identify masked in the White House Visitor Log. What is the probability? We will discuss those 13 or so masked meetings in the Boston Marathon Bombing Chapter.
Let’s return our focus to 2009 and Abdulmutallab in Yemen with Al-Awlaki, et al. The meeting between Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and AQAP member Samir Khan at the AQAP training camp noted above is important. It was Samir Khan’s recipe for a pressure-cooker-bomb that Tsarnaev copied from Anwar Al-Awlaki’s website [a SIGINT marker] which Tsarnaev and his brother used to carry out the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013.356 The federal indictment of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s brother Dzhokhar stated “…Inspire magazine is an English language online publication [a SIGINT marker] of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Volume One of Inspire magazine, which is dated summer 2010, contains detailed instructions for constructing IEDs using pressure cookers, explosive powder from fireworks, shrapnel, adhesive, and other materials. IEDs constructed in this manner are designed to shred flesh, shatter bone, and cause extreme pain and suffering, as well as death…”357 358
Does anyone believe the NSA was NOT using XKeyscore to record the IP address of everyone who ever downloaded Volume One of Inspire [Online] Magazine to get the Pressure-Cooker Bomb recipe? And to whom would the NSA report those IP addresses? You guessed it – the NCTC. But we will cover that [SIGINT reference] in our Boston Marathon Bombing Chapter. Let’s get back to Abdulmutallab.
Two months after Abdulmutallab met with Al-Awlaki and Samir Khan in Yemen in August 2009, GCHQ, the British Government’s Signals Intelligence Agency, sent a cable to the NSA on November 12, 2009, that someone named “Umar Farouk,” an online name [SIGINT marker] identified with Abdulmutallab since 2005 in West Africa, was in email contact with Anwar Al Awlaki [SIGINT marker]. GCHQ apparently informed the NSA of “Umar Farouk’s” age, education, and travel experience.359 It should have been pretty simple for the NSA to marry up the GCHQ data on “Umar Farouk” with similar data in NSA records, right? We are not talking rocket science here – you just type in “Umar Farouk” in the NSA search box and hit enter, right?
355 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/files/disclosures/visitors/ WhiteHouse-WAVES-2012; Appointment UIN: U70598, U73495, U77743, U78893, U80355, U85540, U86388, U88223, U90918, U97610, U97988, U09788, U28156
356 https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/file/846601/download
357 https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/file/846601/download
358 22) Tsarnaev_Indictment.pdf (gwu.edu)
359https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/Report_to_the_Director_of_National_Intelligence_on_the_Fort_Hood_and_Northwest_Flight_25 3_Incidents_U.pdf, page 14
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The XKeyscore PowerPoint360 [Appendix E] says the system is that easy. All evidence indicates the NSA should have found similar records in their files for “Umar Farouk” going back 4-years. But somehow, the NSA doesn’t have 4-years’ worth of data.
This author has not seen any information that indicates the NSA, using GCHQ’s information, was able to identify any “Umar Farouk” SIGINT information previously collected by the NSA. None was reported by any Congressional Committee, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Intelligence Community Office of Inspector General (IC-OIG) investigations. How is that possible? The NSA must have collected something on “Umar Farouk” - he was the President of the Online Islamic Student Union at University College in London! The Online… Online… did you hear me? Umar Farouk was posting to the ONLINE Islamic Student Union – that is SIGINT paradise! How could the NSA or England’s GCHQ miss that?
It makes no sense the NSA’s vast XKeyscore SIGINT collection records, or GCHQ’s for that matter, did not have “Umar Farouk”, “Farouk 1986,” or IP addresses downloading Al-Awlaki online sermons that matched the data in the GCHQ cable on November 12th. Oh, wait! Sometime prior to November, a NCTC analyst might have directed the NSA to scour its records and place all SIGINT references related to “Umar Farouk,” etc., into a TS/SCI Codeword compartment. Perhaps sequestering the data took place before October 2009 – sometime prior to Michael Jones meeting with the official who hid his identity with Personal-Fitness- Instructor mask on the 9th, 14th or 15th.
If all the NSA’s prior “Umar Farouk,” etc., SIGINT records were already held in a TS/SCI Codeword compartment those prior NSA records would not be searchable by the NSA when they got the GCHQ’s “Umar Farouk” cable on November 12th! All those prior SIGINT references would be marked TS/SCI Codeword and the NCTC Analyst could simply decide the NSA did not have a-need-to-know if the GCHQ data matched what was in the Codeword compartment. The character and timing of these meetings, and the failure of the NSA to match any data in its files with the GCHQ cable, certainly matches the actions of someone front-running-a counterterrorism-investigation-for-profit.
Continuing on with the lead up to the Christmas Underwear bombing, just a week after GCHQ’s November 12, 2009, message to the NSA about the “Umar Farouk” being in email contact [SIGINT marker] with Al-Awlaki, Abdulmutallab’s father entered the US Embassy in ABJUA, Nigeria and met with a CIA officer. Abdulmutallab’s father informed the CIA officer there that his son Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab "…had fallen under the influence of unspecified religious extremists…” while studying in London. The father reported his son was naïve and being influenced to join groups who would be willing to engage in illegal acts in the name of religion.361 The father stated his son was planning on studying in Yemen for the next 7-years
360 XKeyscore presentation from 2008 – read in full | US news | theguardian.com
361https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/Report_to_the_Director_of_National_Intelligence_on_the_Fort_Hood_and_Northwest_Flight_253 _Incidents_U.pdf, page 6
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and his son had not withdrawn any money from his bank account.362 CIAHQ name traces for Abdulmutallab were only run on CIA systems, which met with negative results.363
According to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) panel that reviewed the evidence related to Abdulmutallab boarding the Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the biographic information provided by his father to CIA ABJUA Station was consistent with the biographical data found in the November 12, 2009, GCHQ cable to the NSA about “Umar Farouk” emailing Al-Awlaki. The
DNI Review Panel stated [CIAHQ] was unaware of Abdulmutallab’s email contact with Al Awlaki
[SIGINT marker] when his father reported Abdulmutallab to CIA ABJUA Station on, because CIAHQ did not receive the cable from GCHQ a week earlier.364
CNN’s Jeanne Meserve quoted “a reliable source” as saying on Tuesday (12/29/2009): “The father of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab (sic) talked about his son with someone from the CIA and a [message called a cable] was prepared, but the [cable] was not circulated outside the agency.”365 Remember dear reader, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s father met with the CIA at the US Embassy ABJUA, Nigeria. The only way CIAHQ would have this information about Abdulmutallab was via a message (i.e. cable) from CIA ABJUA Station to CIAHQ.
As the reader is now well aware, John Brennan himself told us that a copy of every CIA cable is received simultaneously in the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). A NCTC
analyst would have an identical copy of the CIA ABJUA Station cable to CIAHQ about Abdulmutalab.
When seen with the understanding that a NCTC analyst also saw the CIA ABJUA Station cable about Abdulmutallab’s father, CNN’s Meserve’s reporting that the “…[cable] was not circulated outside the agency…” is a red herring showing us Meserve’s ‘reliable source’ leaked this classified information to her to influence CNN’s audience into believing the Abdulmutallab cable was only seen by CIA personnel.
Selective leaking of classified information to the media was a media manipulation tactic Routinely practiced by John Brennan.
According to a report by CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian, “…the State Department system designed to keep track of active U.S. visas twice failed to reveal Nigerian terror suspect
362
362https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/Report_to_the_Director_of_National_Intelligence_on_the_Fort_Hood_and_Northwest_Flight_253 _Incidents_U.pdf, page 7
363 Ibid., page 7
364https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/Report_to_the_Director_of_National_Intelligence_on_the_Fort_Hood_and_Northwest_Flight_253 _Incidents_U.pdf, page 6
365 https://www.politico.com/story/2009/12/cia-also-knew-about-suspect-031048
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Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been issued an active visa allowing him multiple entries into the United States...”366
“…According to a law enforcement source, the first failure came on Nov. 19, 2009, the very same
day Abdulmutallab father's, Dr. Umaru Mutallab, a prominent banking official in Nigeria, expressed deep concern to officials at the U.S. Embassy in Abjua, Nigeria…” The second failure of the State Department Visa system was the next day November 20, 2009 was (sic) when CIAHQ sought to verify the information in the cable from CIA Abjua Station...”367
The problem with this intentional leak of classified information to the press is the information was completely false. CBS reporter Keteyian was lied to about the visa being missed by the State Department system. Per Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, the CIA requested the State Department to hide the fact Abdulmutallab had a valid visa.
Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy, Undersecretary of State for Management testifying in
“…Congressional hearings, admitted that Umar [Abdulmutallab] was a known terrorist, was being followed, and the U.S. allowed him into the U.S. so that it could catch Umar [Abdulmutallab]’s accomplices.368 369 I [Kyle Haskill] was once again shocked and saddened when [Director] Michael Leiter of the National Counterterrorism Center [NCTC] admitted during these same hearings that intentionally letting terrorists into the U.S. was a frequent practice of the U.S. Government…”370 371
The involvement of Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy with Abdulmutallab and Kennedy’s testimony about the CIA and Abdulmutallab’s is very, very important to our story.
You see, when NCTC Analyst Michael Jones - the only NCTC analyst with a record of more than two-dozen one-on-one, face-to-face meetings with John Brennan, left federal service four years later on July 31, 2013, Jones was given a very special going away party by the Vice President of the United States (VPOTUS) Joe Biden.372 The Visitor Logs indicate a classified end-of-tour-awards-ceremony for Michael Jones, hosted by VPOTUS Biden, was held in the White House Situation Room and had just five listed participants. Ambassador Patrick F. Kennedy (‘the CIA let Abdulmutallab on the plane’) was one of the five participants in this extremely exclusive event – Jones, VPOTUS Biden, Amb. Kennedy,
366 Armen Keteyian, CBS News Chief Investigative Correspondent, “U.S. failed to Catch Suspect’s Active Visa”, December 28, 2009; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-failed-to-catch-suspects-active-visa/ 367 Ibid.
368https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/%3Cp%3Ehttp://detnews.com/article/20100127/NATION/1270405/ Terror-suspect-kept-visa-to-avoid-tipping-off-larger-investigation%3C/p%3E:
369 https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32467_Page2.html"…Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaeda threats against the United States…” 370 https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/7590-was-underwear-bomber-a-false-flag-a-fellow-passenger-testifies 371 http://haskellfamily.blogspot.com/2012/02/victim-impact-statement.html
372 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/files/disclosures/visitors/ WhiteHouse-WAVES-2013; Appointment UIN: U13058, July 31, 2013
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