Who is “E,” and What Does He Know about the CIA…

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jan. 22, 2023) — On Friday, January 13, a Twitter account identifying itself as “The Errant Friend,” or simply “E,” posted what it said is a series of photos of Mary Fanning Kirchhoefer, owner of the website, The American Report. Along with co-writer Alan Jones, Fanning Kirchhoefer, who uses “Mary Fanning” as her pen name, has heavily promoted the uncorroborated claims of former government subcontractor Dennis Montgomery regarding the “stolen” 2020 election, government surveillance, and Montgomery’s alleged invention of a mega-computer system, “The Hammer,” and software, “Scorecard.”

In early January 2021, Fanning was reportedly introduced by Worldview Weekend host Brannon Howse to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, with whom she shared Montgomery’s claim to have collected “PCAPS” (packet captures) from the election demonstrating foreign electronic interference leading to Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.

Apparently convinced of the veracity of Fanning’s assertions, on January 15, 2021, Lindell took the information to the White House in the hope of speaking with Trump about it. At the time, Lindell could not have “validated” the information, which he later claimed took 9-12 months to complete.

In April 2021, Lindell designated Fanning, Jones and Howse producers of his nine-part video series, “Absolute Proof,” purporting to offer explanations, including Fanning’s alleged Chinese “cyberwarfare” attack on thousands of U.S. election locations, for Trump’s reported loss.

The last 36 minutes of the initial video depict Fanning, in a strictly audio presentation, narrating as a multi-page document is scrolled over the screen with Lindell looking on. The data, Fanning said, was the result of Montgomery’s monitoring and recording of the 2020 election allegedly showing the time, date, location, place of origin, and targeted election office of the cyber-attack.

The Post & Email has observed that in the many interviews Fanning has provided to various internet hosts since she first began reporting on Montgomery in 2017, she never shows her face.

On Wednesday, a commenter identifying only as “Frances” responded to our January 12, 2023 article titled, “Ethics Complaint Filed against Attorney Husband of Elusive ‘Mary Fanning.'”

“Someone finally photographed Fanning,” “Frances” wrote on Wednesday. “Not sure when/how, but this is definitely her. Maybe it was someone hired in connection to the lawsuit?”

The “lawsuit” refers to an action filed in Missouri by Yaacov Apelbaum; his intelligence company, XRVision; TGP Communications LLC and its owner, Jim Hoft; and Joseph Hoft claiming defamation against Fanning and Jones. Initially, Howse was named a co-defendant but appears to have been removed; Jones’s whereabouts are reported by the court as unknown, resulting in his not having been served.

Fanning’s Twitter account, representing The American Report, includes in an image series and on the timeline a link to the article which likely catalyzed the lawsuit, “Attacks on Dennis Montgomery, HAMMER and SCORECARD, ‘Absolute Proof,’ Have CIA Connections.”

The link appearing with Frances’s comment leads to the Twitter account of “The Errant Friend,” who posted a multi-part photo montage he claimed were of “Mary Fanning Kirchhoefer.”

“For your viewing pleasure @CIA,” TEF tweeted, followed by the slogan, “Tertia Optio,” the motto of the agency’s Special Operations Center. Emblazoned across the photo block is “CIA ASSET Mary Fanning Kirchhoefer” followed by “Identity revealed by E.”

The English translation of the Latin “Tertia Optio” is “Third Option.” A book review on the CIA’s website states that in combating terrorists (“non-state actors”), “the president of the United States…can use diplomacy as a first option to influence world actors. If that fails, he can use the US military to force enemies and malign actors to comply. Somewhere between the public sphere of diplomacy and the equally public but far more destructive sphere of military operations, the president also has a third option. He can use covert (meaning deniable) means to influence adversaries. Often that third option is designed to prevent war and provide the United States with some breathing space so that the diplomacy can work. Sometimes, the third, covert option is used in advance of military activity to prepare the battlefield for US forces. The third option is almost always associated with violence.”

Last October, “Frances” posted another observation in response to our article, “Lindell Changes His Story Again”:

On Mary Fanning’s Twitter account recently, she tweeted (and it now appears she deleted) a cryptic tweet that suggested the PCAPS were never important. One wonders what this meant, and why she would delete the tweet.
Did Montgomery change his story again?
Did Fanning realize that the PCAPS were never sufficient to prove any type of fraud?
Is this a “CYA” move to absolve them of criticism in the future, when they finally release some data (if they do)?
I wish I had saved the tweet… alas, I didn’t think it would be erased!

On Friday, “The Errant Friend” suggested he is a participant in a lawsuit filed against the CIA last August.

“A group of journalists and lawyers sued the CIA and its former director Mike Pompeo over allegations the intelligence agency spied on them when they visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during his stay in Ecuador’s embassy in London,” Reuters reported on August 15.

In his timeline, TEF has indicated support for the release of Assange, who has been charged with “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” by the U.S. Justice Department for releasing classified military documents in 2010. Assange has been jailed for more than three years in London for allegedly violating the Bail Act in 2012, at which time he sought and was granted asylum in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy.

In 2019, after Assange’s relationship with the Ecuadorians appeared to sour, the Embassy allowed British authorities to arrest him, resulting in his incarceration to the present time. Last March, Assange married his fiancee, Stella, in a ceremony at Belmarsh Prison.

On Wednesday, TEF addressed Stella personally:

Of the lawsuit against the CIA, Axios reported:

A group of journalists and lawyers, including attorneys who’d previously represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, filed a lawsuit against the CIA and former director Mike Pompeo alleging that the agency spied on them when they visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London between January 2017 and Mar. 2018.

Why it matters: The suit argues the agency violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

The big picture: The four plaintiffs, all U.S. citizens, are comprised of two journalists, Charles Glass and John Goetz, and two lawyers, Margaret Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, who used to represent Assange, according to Reuters.

Further, Axios wrote:

• According to the suit, the plaintiffs were required to surrender their electronic devices to the Spanish private security firm Undercover Global — a third defendant in the lawsuit — ahead of their visits with Assange at the embassy.
• The lawsuit alleges that unbeknownst to the plaintiffs or the Ecuadorian government, Undercover Global then copied information from their devices and provided it to the CIA.
• “These actions were authorized and approved by Defendant Pompeo,” according to the filing.

On January 13, the CIA and Pompeo moved the court to dismiss the suit, which TEF tweeted was “not granted” by “Judge Koetl,” a Clinton nominee, whose last name is actually spelled “Koeltl.” Presiding over federal cases in the Southern District of New York, Koeltl reportedly “previously upheld Wikileaks’ right to publish.”

As reported by The Dissenter on August 16, “four journalists and attorneys, who met with Assange while he was living under political asylum in the Ecuador embassy in London, announced they were suing the CIA and Pompeo. They also sued the Spanish private security company UC Global and the company’s director, David Morales.”

According to the same source, the plaintiffs are “Margaret Ratner Kunstler, a civil rights activist and human rights attorney; Deborah Hrbek, a media lawyer, represented Assange or WikiLeaks; journalist John Goetz, who worked for Der Spiegel when the German media organization first partnered with WikiLeaks; and journalist Charles Glass, who wrote articles on Assange for The Intercept.”

On January 15, TEF indicated he sought some form of direct contact with Pompeo following a “2 pm call on the 20th.” “This is not an optional meeting,” he tweeted. “I will be seeing you then.”

On Friday, TEF tweeted it had been “a highly productive day.” “Smile world,” [sic] he continued, “we are shaping things up nicely.”

The same day he posted the photos alleged to be Fanning, TEF addressed former Overstock.com chairman Patrick Byrne with, “.@PatrickByrne, the staffer who gave you access to the Whitehouse originally. That was little Garrett Ziegler, right? And then you in turn funded his “Marco Polo” project. Correct? What a fascinating and intricately woven web —– December 18, 2020

Last year Ziegler, a former aide to then-White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro, launched Marco Polo with the stated goal of “EXPOSING CORRUPTION AND BLACKMAIL TO DRIVE AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE.” One of the undertakings was to divulge the material found on the Hunter Biden laptop, first reported by The New York Post in October 2020.

“My small research group, Marco Polo, has a copy of the laptop,” Ziegler wrote in an August 27, 2021 statement. “And we want to write a comprehensive report—that’s analogous to the Mueller Report—on real foreign collusion…In this laptop, here, we not only have foreign collusion, but we have money laundering, sex crimes between Hunter Biden and multiple women (including his under-aged niece), and what we want to do is something that every single mainstream outlet is not going to do. And they’re not going to do it and they’ve had the chance now for almost a year because a lot of them have had it since October. What we want to do is for the historical record, so in 500 years when people read about America they know that Joe Biden, who was the Manchurian candidate and who became the installed Manchurian president, exactly how he is compromised. And his son Hunter is one of the most corrupt, disgusting members of any American First Family in the history of the country.”

In late November, Ziegler discussed his findings from a copy of the Hunter Biden laptop with Arizona attorney Robert Gouveia on “Watching the Watchers.”

The Post & Email has learned that Ziegler disputes TEF’s claim that Byrne funded the Marco Polo endeavor.

In July Ziegler reportedly spoke with the “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol” with Byrne in attendance. According to CNN:

A former aide to then-White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, Ziegler may be able to provide the committee with additional information about the circumstances around a heated Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020…

During that 2020 meeting, White House lawyers clashed with outside Trump allies Sidney Powell, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn regarding their extreme proposals for how to overturn the 2020 presidential election. CNN has previously reported that seizing voting machines and appointing a special counsel to investigate baseless claims of widespread election fraud were discussed.

Responding to an apparent reply from Byrne, TEF tweeted back, “…The easy way is to be honest. Not forgetful. Mary Fanning. The CIA asset. You’ve spoken to her more than once I believe. I think it is clear what is being asked. Dodging the question just means I would have to apply pressure. You don’t want that. :)”

Responses to the photos on TEF’s timeline range from questions to enthusiastic support to Bible quotes, with “TrenchCox” tweeting a link to a recent Reuters article titled, “The man behind Trump World’s myth of rigged voting machines.”

Focused on Montgomery’s claims over many years and particularly his 2020 election narrative, the “special report” contains comment to Reuters from Fanning and Lindell, among others.

The following day, TrenchCox tweeted a link to The Post & Email’s coverage of Fanning and Montgomery encompassing more than 60 articles.

On Thursday, former CIA officer Kevin Shipp tweeted simply, “Bull’s eye.”

In August 2019, along with citizen journalist Jason Goodman, Shipp spoke with The Post & Email and former Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo about Montgomery’s “Hammer” claims on “The Intelligence Assessment.”

Others following TEF’s Twitter post referred to “fraud,” “shining the light” and Fanning’s alleged “ties to the acquisition of Dominion Voting Systems,” likely stemming from the involvement of law firm Kirkland & Ellis, where Fanning’s husband, Gregg Kirchhoefer, is a partner, in Staple Street Capital’s acquisition of Dominion in 2018.

The Post & Email contacted Fanning for comment on this story, which she declined.