Mike Zullo: Sheriff Arpaio Responsible for Public Awareness of Former NSA/CIA Contractor’s Claims of Government Surveillance

“THERE WAS A GREATER GOOD”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jun. 8, 2017) — On Tuesday night‘s “Hannity,” journalists Sara Carter and John Solomon reported that they had interviewed former NSA and CIA contractor Dennis Montgomery about his claim to have in his possession millions of pages of evidence showing that U.S. intelligence agencies conducted unwarranted massive surveillance of Americans of millions of Americans.

In recent weeks, Carter and Solomon have been focusing on the intelligence-gathering of domestic intelligence entities as it relates to both foreigners falling under the FISA law and U.S. citizens whose communications might be captured inadvertently in the data-collection.

Last month, as Solomon and Carter reported, the FISA court released a report strongly rebuking the National Security Agency (NSA) for having conducted searches of certain U.S. persons’ names within intelligence reports in what the court said was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. As NSA chief Adm. Mike Rogers testified on Wednesday to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the agency self-reported the violations last fall to the court, nevertheless earning a sharp admonishment and Rogers’s admission that such searches violated the “spirit of the intent” of the agency’s authority.

On Tuesday, Carter and Solomon reported specifically that Montgomery is suing former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, Barack Obama and Rogers for allegedly having failed to act upon information he provided approximately two years ago during closed-door testimony to two FBI agents regarding the alleged mass surveillance.

Since the new year, Montgomery’s attorney, Larry Klayman, has made appearances on the Fox Business Channel as well as his own “Freedom Watch TV” to speak about what Montgomery claims to have in his possession and claiming that the FBI had not followed through on its pledged investigation of it.

On March 19 and 20, former New Jersey detective Mike Zullo and Infowars’ Washington Bureau manager Dr. Jerome Corsi appeared on the Alex Jones Show to discuss Montgomery’s claims, documentation of which Zullo has reportedly seen.

According to Corsi, documentation from what he termed “Operation Dragnet” shows that “NSA Documents Prove Surveillance of Donald Trump & His Family,” among other unsuspecting individuals between 2004 and 2010, including Alex Jones.

During his part of the interview, Zullo reminded Jones’s audience that Montgomery’s claims were first taken seriously by then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio.  In late 2013, Montgomery approached Arpaio claiming to have evidence that approximately 151,000 Maricopa County residents were victimized by identity theft and bank-account breaches carried out by a government entity.

According to public statements made by Klayman, Montgomery had approached 18 different federal agencies, the ACLU, and Congress to share what he said he knew about unwarranted government surveillance of average Americans and public servants, including federal judges and members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Reportedly, no one would hear him out.

After meeting with Montgomery, Arpaio decided to hire him as a confidential informant with the intention of having Montgomery assemble the data and, if found to be accurate, presenting it to federal authorities. During the year in which Montgomery worked in that capacity, he suffered several medical setbacks which impaired his ability to proceed and were possibly life-threatening.

Intersecting with Montgomery’s claims of identity theft committed against Maricopa County residents another in which Montgomery suggested that the MCSO’s phone lines, including Arpaio’s cellular phone, had been tapped by a government entity during a federal civil-contempt trial in which Arpaio and three current and former deputies were named defendants.

Ultimately, Zullo, who was overseeing Montgomery’s work at the direction of Sheriff Arpaio, was able to convince Montgomery to join forces with Klayman and then, with Klayman’s assistance, afford Montgomery the opportunity to speak directly with a federal judge regarding his claims.

After hearing Montgomery’s report, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth arranged for Montgomery to testify to two FBI agents who Klayman has identified as Walter Giardina and William Bennett under two immunity agreements.

Montgomery had originally been loathe to speak with the FBI because of a raid the agency conducted on his home which was later ruled unconstitutional by a federal magistrate.

In an interview on Wednesday, Zullo told The Post & Email:

“If it weren’t for Sheriff Arpaio initiating an investigation into the possible identity theft of 151,000 Maricopa County residents in 2013, the ability of Montgomery to come forward to federal authorities simply would not have been possible. Montgomery had tried for years to accomplish this but was turned away numerous times.

The Sheriff’s Office endeavor to get Montgomery to a federal judge was predicated upon information received by Montgomery and the requirements of federal statute.  Montgomery was not cooperative about going to the FBI in the beginning, so we had to devise a plan and make the effort to get him there, which also included the strategic decision to reach out to Klayman and have him secure a meeting with a federal judge and take the position as Montgomery’s attorney.

Contact was made with Klayman securing his assistance to arrange a meeting with a federal judge in Washington, DC to bring Montgomery and his information forward.   Klayman became Montgomery’s attorney as a result of the coordination with the Sheriff’s Office.

This was a calculated risk in that we were acutely aware that we would lose control over our informant once Klayman was involved; however, it was a necessary sacrifice.

Over a span of a year’s time, at the direction of Sheriff Arpaio, I continually monitored Montgomery’s progress. Eventually Montgomery decided that he was willing to speak with the FBI in a cooperative manner and Klayman arranged for that to happen.

Prior to Klayman’s involvement Montgomery also supplied Sheriff Arpaio with some of the same information that was turned over to the FBI.  I had personally spoken to Montgomery and he relayed to me that he turned over the information to the FBI indicating illegal wiretap activity conducted by the federal government on Sheriff Arpaio and others years earlier.

Even with Montgomery’s credibility challenges, we still invested the time.  We didn’t invest the time because of Dennis Montgomery; we invested it because of the voluminous amount of personal information he had in his possession regarding Maricopa County residents and millions of citizens and the obvious national security implications.”