Taking Back Our Stolen History
Van Grack, Brandon
Van Grack, Brandon

Van Grack, Brandon

Corrupt Chief of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit at the DOJ, an Obama campaign donor, and one of the lawyers on Mueller’s RussiaGate team that headed the Flynn investigation and set-up that has been exposed by Flynn attorney Sidney Powell. Then, promoted to the head of the DOJ’s FARA unit, used to target and ruin Republican officials in 2016 and currently targeting President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani. Prior to working for Mueller, he served as Counsel to the Asst. AG for National Security, where he advised DOJ leadership on national security matters. He also worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, where he prosecuted the DOJ’s first-ever cyberterrorism case.

Van Grack began his career at the Department of Justice as a Trial Attorney in the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, directing investigations and prosecutions involving economic sanctions, export controls, espionage, money laundering, and cyber attacks.

Before joining the Department of Justice, Mr. Van Grack was an associate at Baker Botts LLP, specializing in white collar criminal defense and complex corporate litigation, and clerked for the Honorable Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Duke University.

In one of Attorney General Barr’s less-considered decisions, he placed Van Grack in charge of enforcing the very law that the Justice Department (and later the Mueller team) used as a pretext to spy on and leak against Trump in the 2016 election and his subsequent administration. Yes, the corrupt Van Grack was asked to wield the awesome and highly discretionary power of the unit that investigates and prosecutes violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).

To understand what a colossal mistake it was to put Van Grack in charge of FARA, it is helpful to review the FARA statute and its history. In 1938, Congress passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which was intended to force agents of enemy governments such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union to self-identify so the public could evaluate their speech or propaganda in light of their stated loyalties. Between 1966 and 2015, the Justice Department brought a total of seven cases, only one of which resulted in a conviction.

Beginning in 2016, however, FARA cases became all the rage. The Justice Department created a new unit dedicated to sniffing out potential violators. On its surface, the statute has a politically neutral objective of informing the public of foreign influence. In practice, however, the law has become the go-to tool for partisan federal prosecutors. FARA prosecutions have tended to focus on Republicans even when Democrats commit the mirror image of the same violations.

One obvious recent example was the blatantly political selection of Paul Manafort as a FARA defendant, while politically connected Tony Podesta received an immunity deal for essentially the same behavior involving the same foreign clients.

Fusion GPS, which famously underwrote the Russia collusion hoax dossier, has piled up multiple FARA complaints (including unregistered work for Russia) that the Justice Department continues to ignore.

FARA is vague and subject to unbridled prosecutorial discretion. To demonstrate how vague, travel agents now register as “foreign agents” under the theory that marketing a tourist trip is a legally reportable act. It’s a perfect weapon to invoke secret surveillance pursuant to FISA and can be used against anyone with an international clientele. Nobody really knows what’s illegal until the Justice Department targets you.

Van Grack was involved in several high-profile cyber and counter-terrorism cases, including the prosecution of a Kosovo hacker who gave personal information of US service members to ISIS. The hacker, Ardit Ferizi, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, according to a DOJ press release.

Van Grack also helped prosecute a US government employee who took home classified documents that contained national defense information. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency employee Mohan L. Nirala was found guilty after federal agents made a forced entry into his home and discovered over 500 pages of classified documents in his basement, according to a DOJ press release.

RussiaGate / General Flynn Setup

As a member of Team Mueller, Van Grack was involved in improperly obtaining Trump Transition Team emails/communications from GSA – including privileged materials. He hid the extent of the intrusion from Trump Transition Team lawyers.


Van Grack confirmed that the Special Counsel’s Office had “failed to use an ‘ethical wall’ or ‘taint team’ and instead simply reviewed the privileged communications contained in the [Transition Team] materials.”

He also “failed to correct the record or disclose that” they were in possession of and had accessed “a significant volume of privileged materials.” The failure was intentional; they wanted the privileged communications.

Deceptive edits of Trump lawyer John Dowd’s voicemail, produced to Van Grack, made its way to the Mueller Report. They omitted the section where Dowd asked Flynn’s lawyers not to disclose “confidential information.”

Techno Fog reached out to John Dowd about the Van Grack/Mueller deception. He called it “unfair and despicable.”

Van Grack used a corrupt reading of FARA laws (since rejected by 2 courts) to target Mike Flynn Jr. Not to prosecute Flynn Jr., but to force General Flynn into a plea deal. Flynn Jr. became an official target on 10/20/17. Flynn signed the plea deal on 11/30/17.

United States v. Michael T. Flynn Supplemental Status Report September 30, 2019.

“…Mr. Van Grack was determined that Mr. Flynn would testify in the Rafiekian case that he had knowingly signed a false FARA registration, even though Mr. Van Grack knew that was not true and Mr. Flynn had not agreed to that in the course of his plea agreement. Mr. Flynn’s refusal to get on the witness stand and lie for the government on that point prompted a heated tirade from Mr. Van Grack with Mr. Flynn’s lead counsel, in which Mr. Van Grack claimed Mr. Flynn had agreed to plead to a knowing and intentional false FARA filing. Dkt. 98-1.

In our endless document review, we now have a draft of the statement of offense that proves the contrary, showing similar language deleted. The absence of that language from the statement of offense or any charge of a false filing did not deter Mr. Van Grack from doubling down.
Enraged that Mr. Flynn reject their demand to lie, the prosecutors in the EDVA (Mr. James Gillis, Mr. Evan Turgeon, and Mr. John Gibbs, with Mr. Van Grack’s oversight) retaliated with an ex parte gag order and sealed filing on July 3. For the first time, the prosecutors claimed that Mr. Flynn was a co-conspirator. They put Michael Flynn Jr. on the witness list for the Rafiekian trial.”

The DOJ initially told the Judge that “Flynn was not a member of the alleged conspiracy,” but then tried to label Flynn a co-conspirator which was wisely rejected by the Judge.

The threat against Flynn – labeling him as a co-conspirator – came after he refused to agree to the false narrative set forth by Van Grack. The Judge in the Rafiekian case disagreed: “Flynn has not disavowed what is in the statement of facts.”

Van Grack’s FARA case (prosecuted by EDVA) against Flynn Intel Group member Rafiekian was a disaster from the start. Just before the trial, the DOJ hadn’t figure out how to instruct the jury on the FARA violation.

As the Rafiekian (Flynn Intel Group) case unraveled, they designated Flynn Jr. as a witness to intimidate Flynn. This was pure tactics – Flynn Jr. was never called as a witness.

The false charges claimed by Van Grack – that “Flynn had agreed to plead to a knowing and intentional false FARA filing” – was actually deleted from a draft of the Flynn Agreement.

This is important because Van Grack was telling Judge Sullivan in December 2018 that Flynn could be charged as a foreign agent under 18 USC 951.

Van Grack’s Section 951 theory was rejected by the Judge in the Rafiekian case. “Such a reading is unwarranted . . . based on the plain language of Section 951.”

FLYNN REPLY IN SUPPORT OF HIS MOTION TO COMPEL PRODUCTION OF BRADY MATERIAL AND TO HOLD THE PROSECUTORS IN CONTEMPT

October 24, 2019.

“3. Mr. Van Grack’s Productions of Flynn 302s Were Incomplete and Misleading. But it gets worse. When Mr. Van Grack made his first official production to former counsel of any actual documents (other than the (final) Flynn 302 produced on Nov. 22, 2017) on March 13, 2018—all of which should have been produced before Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty—Mr. Van Grack made it sound like there was only one 302:

This is false. On May 25, 2018, Mr. Van Grack dribbled out another production—again denying any obligation to do so under Brady or the Court’s Standing Order. This included a draft 302 dated February 10, 2017, as if it were the only other one. That was also misleading. After former counsel called Mr. Van Grack, on June 1, 2018, the government produced two more drafts of the 302—these dated February 11, 2017, and February 14, 2017. Mr. Van Grack did not explain why all these intervening drafts were not produced in March, nor how they suddenly turned up, and there are material differences— especially from February 10 to February 11. Ex. 11. Obviously, there are drafts of the 302, including an original draft in the files or subfiles of the Sentinel System of the FBI dating back to January 24, 2017, or so—the date of the actual interview of Mr. Flynn. Brady requires the production of the original 302, all drafts, notes, recordings, statements, and all testimony of the two agents along with all participants in any of the meetings to plan the ambush of Mr. Flynn “to keep him relaxed.” If they are not there, then they were wrongfully destroyed. Either way, the government must be held to account.”

Michael Flynn’s lawyer claimed in a December 2018 court filing that the FBI tampered with notes from his 2017 interview, during which Flynn pleaded guilty to lying. It appears that none other than former FBI attorney Lisa Page participated in the editing of Flynn’s statement.

In a 37-page motion, attorney Sidney Powell called on the court to “dismiss the entire prosecution for outrageous government misconduct” over allegations that FBI agents manipulated a form summarizing Flynn’s statements to investigators.

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, also found himself the victim of a FARA investigation under Van Grack after exposing the Biden crime family and all of their pay-to-play schemes in Ukraine, China, Iran, and Romania so the Deep State struck back.

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